The Daleks' Master Plan

Chapter The 112th, On the twelfth episode of Daleks' Master Plan, my true love (Doctor Who, natch) gave to me...

Plot: 
The Year 4000 on the planet Kembel: the Daleks work with a group of corrupt politicians from different galaxies to gather the necessary resources to build a Time Destructor weapon, with which they want to threaten the universe into submission. Mavic Chen, guardian of the Solar System, provides the rare mineral taranium, which will power it. The Doctor, Steven and Katarina stumble across this plan, and join forces with Space Security agent Bret Vyon from Earth, who is also on the planet investigating. The Doctor disguises himself as one of the alien delegates and steals the taranium. The Daleks and Chen chase him - first through space, and then through time - trying to get it back. Katarina and Bret are both killed, the latter shot by his own sister and fellow agent Sara Kingdom, fooled by Chen into thinking Bret was the traitor. It takes - ooh - minutes for the Doctor and Steven to persuade Sara otherwise, and she joins them to help defeat the conspiracy, and avenge her brother (probably... she never mentions him again, so it's hard to be sure).

In the latter stages of the chase, the meddling Monk joins in too, keen on revenge after his last encounter with the Doctor. With help from the Monk, the Daleks capture Steven and Sara, forcing the Doctor to return the taranium. He exchanges it for his two friends, and gets them away to safety. Using the directional control stolen from the Monk's TARDIS, the Doctor pilots his own ship back to Kembel, where the Daleks have discarded their co-conspirators and are readying the Time Destructor. The Doctor starts it up prematurely, and it rapidly turns Kembel from lush jungle to arid wasteland. It looks like the Doctor will be a goner too, but Sara rescues him at the cost of her own life: she ages to death in front of him. Steven then helps, managing to put the Destructor into reverse, regressing all the Daleks to embryos. Finally, the taranium is all burnt out. Leaving the desolate planet, the Doctor and Steven mourn the allies they have lost.

Context:

More minor cheating with this one. Like The Next Doctor, it did come up randomly, but a few weeks back. This time, it wasn't held back for reasons of topical festiveness; though, as the story contains the first ever Christmas and New Year special episodes, it is fitting to cover it at this time of year. No, it was more to do with the story being twelve episodes long; the only time I was going to have a hope of watching it all and writing it up was during my break for Christmas. This blog - proudly and without regret - considers The Trial of a Timelord to be four stories glued together under one overall title (it also considers Utopia to be part of a three-part Master story and it'll fight anyone who says different, but that fight is for another day). As such, unless Chris Chibnall were to take things in a very unexpected direction in 2020, Master Plan is going to be the longest story with which I will ever wrestle.

In the Summer, my response to the second longest story coming up randomly was to binge watch the whole thing in one go. I considered this for Master Plan, but I don't think it's feasible. The major obstacle is that most of it is missing, and there's very little visual material surviving for the missing parts (though the soundtrack of all twelve episodes remains); but, there's just enough - three whole episodes are intact, and are nicely spaced out, 2, 5, and 10 being the found ones, plus there are clips from earlier parts too - that I'd feel I'd missed out were I not to see it as well as hear it. As such, I ended up going through the whole thing twice - 24 episode's worth. First of all, starting in mid December, I listened to the audio version with Peter Purves' narration while walking to the shops or doing the washing up or whatnot. Then, starting just before Christmas, now and again as I found a quiet half hour, I would watch the episodes from an online 'recon' interspersed with the surviving episodes from the Lost In Time orphaned episodes DVD set. Given their previously voiced opinions on watching "black-and-white slide shows", I did not try to engage any other member of the family to share this experience.

First-time round:

I first saw episodes 5 and 10, the only ones then known to be in existence, on a compendium video called Daleks - The Early Years, which was released in the summer of 1992, between my first and second years at university. It was presented by Peter Davison in a very 90s burgundy jacket; he provided various links between the orphan episodes and clips, many of which were accurate. The audio version, I heard in full late in 2001 when it came out on CD. Finally, a film copy of the second episode, Day of Armageddon, was discovered early in 2004; this was the primary driver for the release of the aforementioned Lost in Time set, which came out towards the end of that year. It was a big deal at the time, being one of only two episodes found in over a decade after the last big find - all four parts of Tomb of the Cybermen, in 1992.

Reaction

On the twelfth episode of Master Plan, Doctor Who gave to me... a slightly restrictive template for a blog post. It's inevitable, I suppose: twelve episodes, twelve days of Christmas; and, as I write, we're still in the middle of those twelve days of Christmas in 2018: I couldn't really avoid doing a Who twist on the "Maids a-milking" structure. It's apt too, as it puts me in mind of poor John Wiles, the producer of this story. He'd recently taken on the role, and was keen to put his own stamp on the show. But he inherited a restrictive structure of his own: the twelve episodes of Master Plan were already a done deal when he arrived; so, rather than being able to do anything new, he was stuck with an enormous and hard to realise serial - which would eventually take up half the episodes of his short tenure - containing the same old baddies (and to a certain extent, the same plot) that the series trotted out regularly.

Eleven episodes with Daleks: aside from its length, the story is probably most noteworthy for containing the first ever Christmas special. The seventh episode, The Feast of Steven, happened to fall on December 25th, and - in common with shows at the time - paused its ongoing plot for a week of throw-away frolics. The Daleks and their universal machinations get barely even a mention. And it is awful. Oh my stars, it's so so bad, you wouldn't believe it. Anyone versed in Who lore knows that writer of the ep, and person who conceived the Master Plan story as a whole, Terry Nation, previously earned his living as a gag writer. So why are there no jokes in his supposedly comic one-off? There's some inoffensive but tedious whimsy in the opening Z-Cars pastiche, but the latter section - a runaround in silent film era Hollywood - is just noisy and unpleasant. It's so disposable that one could skip the episode and barely notice. In fact, that's what they did - when it was sold abroad, it was sold as an 11-parter. The Feast of Steven was therefore probably never copied onto film before its transmission tape was wiped, making it the one most unlikely to ever be found. I suppose if they've got to lose just one forever, better that it's a stinker.

Ten different settings: Kembel, Desperus, Mira and Earth (all in the year 4000 time zone), Tigus, Silent Era Hollywood and ancient Egypt are all visited. Plus, there are three contemporary stops - the police station, the cricket match and the New Year celebrations; it's amusing to note that - after the first couple of years of Doctor Who had been predicated on the Doctor's inability to reach present day Earth - he lands there thrice in quick succession by accident. The galaxy-hopping also showcases designer Barry Newbury's great work. Based on the visual evidence still remaining, he handles each locale with aplomb.  Nine sections missing: alas, only a quarter of the story remains, and it's one episode prologue Mission to the Unknown is gone too; very little in the way of off-air pictures exist either. Thanks to the fans that recorded the story's soundtrack at the time, and the fans that more recently wielded every bit of Photoshop and CGI trickery imaginable to create the recon, it can be enjoyed in something approximating its original state.

Eight gnomic titles: typical of many Terry Nation stories, the individual episode names connect only very loosely to the events depicted within the episodes themselves. I'll give 'em The Nightmare Begins, The Traitors and Volcano; Devil's Planet too, at a push (it's how the inhabitants refer to the planet, even if there is no devil evident upon it). But none of The Feast of Steven takes place on the Feast of Stephen; there's no counter plot in Counter Plot, The Abandoned Planet isn't abandoned, etc. etc. Escape Switch?! Coronas of the Sun??!! Answers on a postcard.  Seven aliens a-delegating: another fascinating visual presence in the story is the many alien members of the Daleks' co-conspirator council. When the second part of the story was found, it was the first time anyone ever saw them moving, and there are definitely seven of them on show there, resplendent in the many different costumes that wardrobe have managed to pull together for them. The one that looks a bit like a Christmas tree is conspicuous by his absence in episode 2, though, and there's photographic evidence that he was in it at some point; so, they were chopping and changing them as they went along. Master Plan is unashamed to be inconsistent.

Six parts per writer: Terry Nation roped in Dennis Spooner to help complete the workload on this epic. Nation kicks everything off, then there's a brief period where they alternate (and reportedly, set each other every cliffhanger as a 'now get out of that' challenge), and finally Spooner brings things to a conclusion. Such a long tale was inevitably going to fall into discrete sections anyway, but this dual authorship accentuates it. The beginning section is a taut and exciting action adventure; this segues into a slightly more whimsical scenario including Spooner's Meddling Monk creation, before the final two episodes take us back to the feel of the beginning again. The festive episodes act as a breakwater that separate these sections.  Five bad guys: there's the Dalek Supreme, impassively watching on at key moments as terrible things happen; then, there's the wily Monk, who's very good value twisting and turning and not being entirely trustworthy. The desperate criminal Kirksen gets a special mention, for being responsible for Katarina's early exit. Who's left? Well, the majestic madman himself, Mavic Chen. Kevin Stoney does a remarkable job, sustaining one character's descent into megalomania over 300 minutes of action. But who's the fifth? Well, in episode 5, the character of Karlton acts as something of a Iago to Chen's Othello, manipulating him with guile and cunning. And this is paid off... well... never! At the end of the story, Karlton is presumably still waiting on Earth for word of the plan's success. Master Plan is unashamed to leave loose ends untied.

Four companions: Bret Vyon is as much of a companion as anyone else in this story, isn't he? Maybe it's the familiar Nicholas Courtney playing him (Courtney would later play the Brigadier), or maybe it's just that some moving footage exists of him (from episodes and clips), but he comes over very well. It isn't so massively good a showcase for Steven, but he remains stoic and heroic throughout. The sweetly naif Katarina works nicely too. Sara Kingdom is a pretty one note character, all blind unquestioning loyalty, but Jean Marsh manages to find moments of fun here and there in her interactions with the other regulars. Three companion deaths: if we accept that Bret's a companion, then three get offed during the 12 episodes. Katarina's and Bret's abrupt demises are very shocking, but Sara's long drawn out death - ageing to a skeleton in the final episode - is worst of all. Kudos to director Douglas Camfield for handling these, and all the character moments, sensitively.

Two holidays: not content with introducing the Christmas special, Master Plan has the first ever New Year's episode as well. This one is much more successful than the one the previous week, with only a brief interlude at a cricket match trying one's patience. Even this has one joke (the commentators are much more interested in how it will affect the match than how a Police Box appeared from thin air) but it's executed very poorly.  And a Doctor in a TARDIS: keeping all of this sometimes disparate, sometimes episodic material together is perhaps the finest single turn from William Hartnell as the show's titular hero. This period is often looked on as the time that he lost it, getting ill and thereby giving a lacklustre performance most weeks. But this is clearly belied by all the evidence: he storms through the material, and is nothing less than magnetic on screen whenever he appears. His breaking of the fourth wall at the end is the only good bit of the Christmas episode. Shame he disappears for almost the whole of the 11th episode. Where was the Doctor supposed to be all that time? Who knows! Master Plan is unashamed to leave things unexplained.

Connectivity: 

Both seasonal Doctor Who offerings featuring premiership-level monsters who are building a device that wreaks havoc at the denouement.

Deeper Thoughts:
"None of us wants to go on, but we must. The Quest is the Quest." So says Jackson in the Doctor Who story Underworld. I'm beginning to know he feels. I am now three and a half years into my experiment to blog every episode of Doctor Who in a random order, including the ones they are still making. To be fair, though, they're making it easier on me than they could: 2016, the first full year I was doing this, only saw one new story added to my stack, and 2019 is going to be the same. Even so, the remaining effort is still daunting, despite my clearing of the two longest stories (at 10 and 12 episodes) this year, reducing the average length of the stories remaining. I have crunched the numbers, and overall I am only 38% through (including Resolution, the episode yet to air, planned for 1st January 2019).

Breaking it down, I'm 43% though the episodes from 1963 to 1996, but only 34% complete for the new series stories. This is probably because the most popular length for those second phase stories is one part, which means there's many more of them. I made a decision early on that the only sane way to cover Doctor Who was story by story; you can't review only a subsection of something (except Trial of a Time Lord, of course). It's a bit tough on The Daleks' Master Plan that its twelve episodes get the same coverage as its one episode prologue, Mission to the Unknown, but that's showbiz. Looking at things Doctor by Doctor, it seems that random selection, and the occasional override to watch something deliberately, spread things out evenly, with no particular era favoured. Apart from a couple of outliers (100% of Paul McGann is done, and only one story has so far been covered of Jodie Whittaker's tenure, as those stories have only just been broadcast), every Doctor's era falls within a rough 35 to 45% completion rate. By a narrow margin, Jon Pertwee's stories are the most completed - again, this is because of average duration: all his are quite long, so there's less of them.

This year, the most popular Doctors by stories covered were William Hartnell and the two pretty boy Doctors, Matt Smith and David Tennant - each had five stories apiece. Everyone else was at a similar level, between two and four stories each, with only those outliers previous mentioned bringing up the rear. Unless Chris Chibnall were to take things in a very unexpected direction, I can't see me covering another Paul McGann story any time soon, but I will undoubtedly do more of Jodie Whittaker's stories in 2019 and 2020. A good thing, too: I enjoyed all of Jodie's run this year, with only minor reservations, and it will be good to revisit them after some time has passed. (I think my top three of the year would be the one that was basically an episode of Quantum Leap, the people versus Amazon, and the Solaris homage with the mad frog bit at the end). I'm very excited to see tomorrow's New Year's special too, particularly as - if the teaser trailer from Christmas day is anything to go by - Chris Chibnall seems to have given up on his resolution from 2018, and we may well be seeing a big ol' invasion of gun-totin' traditional monsters!

In Summary:

The moral of the middle episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan is that no matter how your Christmas might have gone, the following week can see things get better. Happy New Year all!

The Next Doctor

Chapter The 111th, a pleasant confection for Christmas time.

Plot: 
Christmas Eve, 1851. The Doctor materialises in London in the middle of a Christmas Card picture of Victorians in the snow. The peace and goodwill doesn't last long, though: hearing a scream, he runs off to help, but is presented with another Doctor, accompanied by companion Rosita, already on the scene. They have been investigating some Cybermen, who are engaged in a diabolical plot involving Mercy Hartigan, matron of the local workhouse, and her young charges. The Cybermen have also converted animals into Cybershades, crude versions who look like Cybermen in cheap gorilla costumes and are best forgotten about. Our Doctor assumes this other to be a future version of himself, but it turns out he's merely an ordinary schmoe, Jackson Lake, whose accidental encounter with Cyberman data-stamp technology uploaded the history of the Doctor into his brain.

Together, the Doctor, Lake and Rosita uncover the Cyber-plan; the metal meanies are using child labour to fire up a steam-punk Iron Giant called the Cyber-King, with Hartigan installed as its controller. They rescue Lake's son, and get him and the rest of the children to safety. The Cyber-King goes on the rampage in London, but the Doctor hijacks a hot air balloon which Lake had appropriated as his TARDIS ("Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style") and zaps the Cyber-King into the void. Jackson Lake persuades the lonely Doctor to stay in London and attend a Christmas feast, and there is much rejoicing.

Context:

I'll admit to a bit of cheating here. This title did come up randomly, but a little while ago. Once it was confirmed beyond any doubt that Jodie Whittaker's eleventh episode was not going to be broadcast until 2019, I held it back. It is has proved nice to have a Christmas story to blog towards the end of each year. It hasn't really been planned that way, though; the Xmas episodes in the last couple of years just happened to have extra significance. I decided to blog the superhero one as it was the only story broadcast that year (a quality it will share with 'Resolution', Jodie's New Year's story, so I'll likely be blogging that one immediately too). And Twice Upon a Time was the final story for Capaldi's Doctor. Had Whittaker been given her own December 25th story, I'd have had to write it up swiftly too as it would have been her first festive outing. As that wasn't to be (still miffed, but never mind), revisiting this festive smash from a decade ago was the next best thing. Ten years on, I watched this with my kids (boys of 12 and 9, girl of 6) on a Saturday in December from the upscaled version on the post series 4 specials Blu-ray box-set. Middle child said at about 10 minutes in "He's not really the Doctor is he?" but I stayed quiet. Eldest child said that the effect of Hartigan's eyes going inky black when she is plugged into the Cyber-King was "creepy", which is high praise indeed from him. After watching, their one word summary of how they found the story was (in decreasing order of age): "good", "good" and "scary".

First-time round:

This story was broadcast for the first time on December 25th 2008, in the middle of probably the most popular stretch of Doctor Who stories of the 21st century, possibly of all time. Tennant's preceding series with Catherine Tate earlier in 2008 had got consistently high ratings, culminating in the finale episode Journey's End reaching number 1 in the ratings charts for the week, the first time Doctor Who had ever achieved such a feat. The Next Doctor had to settle for number 2 (Wallace and Gromit pipped it to pole position), but still had an impressive 13.1 million viewers, putting it in the top ten of all time largest Doctor Who audiences, and top three if you discount the episodes in the late 1970s where its main competition was off air due to a strike. The title of the story must have helped bring in the curious too; it was only a few days after The Next Doctor was broadcast that the real next Doctor's identity, Matt Smith, was announced to the world. I remember the hoop-la seeming par for the course at the time; that was just what Tennant era Who was like. If anything, it was a bit of a step down from having Kylie guest starring, as had happened the previous Christmas. The Better Half and I would have watched this episode timeshifted slightly, with our then only child tucked up in bed, sometime during the evening.

Reaction

During Russell T Davies' time as Doctor Who showrunner, he came in for lots of criticism - and probably still does in some uncharted dark corners online - that his plot structures, particularly at story endings, sacrificed too much real world logic to be credible. Almost every time I saw this in a review or a message board exchange, I didn't agree, and felt that the point had been missed. Davies deliberately and consistently wrote a heightened and slightly stylised version of reality, but anchored it within credibility by using pin-point accuracy regarding character and emotion. As long as the value change of a character - from cowardice to bravery, from duty to greed, from selfishness to self sacrifice (and so on) - worked correctly then it didn't matter so much whether real life details like how a missile happened to already be aimed at 10 Downing Street, or why exactly a telepathic network was functioning like that, or how sonar was supposed to work in space (and so on) were explained. People might think I'm letting him off a little, but I contend that at the level at which his scripts were operating (and were intended to operate) they were correct, and were very successful with audiences. Why shouldn't he be able to carry on as he was, if it was working?

There's a 'but' coming, of course. The one story above all others for me where Davies fails on his own terms is The Next Doctor. It was still massively successful, which demonstrates that plotting is not the be all and end all - great performances and mostly great visuals get it over the line. The stand out is the funeral scene, with Hartigan arriving with her shocking red dress and umbrella, followed shortly by the majestic scenes of the Cybermen marching through the snowstorm and creating havoc. Dervla Kirwan and David Morrissey are exceedingly good; they're never less than perfect in anything they're ever in, so it was safe casting, but Morrissey will break your heart, and Kirwan's complex damaged villain is a joy to watch. Tennant, in the pomp of his imperial phase, matches them too.

But, but but: Jackson's story isn't emotionally concluded because Jackson doesn't rescue his own son. So what, you may say? The Doctor's the hero, and he does the rescuing. But Jackson's not only - sort of - the Doctor too, he's also the boy's Dad. His hesitation at going to rescue his son means that his inner bravery, brought out by the accident of becoming the Doctor temporarily, fails him at the point of crisis of his subplot. At this crucial moment, he lets someone else take control. It's a massive misstep to my mind. Think of how the plot has been shaped: Jackson as the Doctor dreams of flying away in his 'TARDIS', but he can't - there's something keeping him in London, something missing that he can't quite remember. The action of Christmas Eve when he bumps into the real Doctor brings back his memory. So what happens next? He should use the bravery he's gained and rescue his son and make himself whole again (maybe the Doctor is blocked or incapacitated, putting the pressure on him to be the only one who can step up).

Please note: I come not to bury the Next Doctor; I like this story very much. But I don't love it, and it's frustrating that it's so close to being perfect. Once Jackson has his son, the Doctor can - I'd go as far as to say he should - offer that Jackson rides alongside him in the hot-air balloon to help stop the Cyber-King, and Jackson can - I'd go as far as to say he should - refuse. He needs to be with his son, and the dreams he had of being the Doctor flying off in the TARDIS are no longer important. Then, the rest of the action plays out as it already does - the real Doctor, the lonely God with no family to anchor him - has to save the day. It would be about four lines of script to fix it. Bah! Davies himself was never happy with a different aspect of the end: the big magic wand device that the Doctor finds that blasts the Cyber-King. He was desperately trying to find a way to avoid the history-bending conclusion of a massive machine smashing up the better part of London. It only came to him later that it should be a look or comment exchanged between the Doctor and Hartigan at the climax, which inspires her to make good, and pilot the Cyber-King into the void, saving London and partially redeeming herself. No script is ever perfect, but by golly the version of The Next Doctor in my imagination, with those two amendments made, is as close as can be.

Connectivity: 

Both Four to Doomsday and The Next Doctor feature humans under a kind of mechanised control, and at least one human from Earth's history controlling a spacecraft. The big bad in both has a regal name (Cyber-King, Monarch).

Deeper Thoughts:
In the New Old Fashioned Way. Would the Doctor Who Christmas special exist without Charles Dickens? Some people call him the man who invented Christmas as a whole, let alone just the Christmas special, and he certainly did popularise - and in some cases possibly invent - some of what we now think of as the traditional essence of Yuletide. As well as this, he popularised the serialisation of long texts in regular instalments (an ancestor of serial TV) with the double number to finish off a story (and therefore the season finale as we know it) with everything subsequently gathered up and published as one long book (or box set, in new money). Plus, his Christmas books published from 1843 to 1848, in particular the first, A Christmas Carol, were certainly innovative and forever associated him with this festive time of year. No wonder he had a starring role in the first Christmas themed story of the 21st Century, and inspired the very Dickensian Christmas Doctor Who story that is The Next Doctor.

Dickens looms large in my imagination at Christmas. His novels go with Yuletide like sage goes with onion, and I always try to have one of his books on the go at this time of year. This blog is not the only long-standing crazy completionist endeavour which which I am challenging myself. In December 2003, after reading The Pickwick Papers and loving it, I decided I would read all the novels of Charles Dickens. I wasn't in any particular hurry, but did snap up all the books pretty early on, just in case Penguin changed the design of their Classics range (I am a Doctor Who fan, I can't have inconsistent spines facing out at me from a shelf). Slowly, over the years and to date, at Christmas and sometimes at other times in the year, I have read them one by one. Obviously, I read a lot of things in between, but every Dickens novel is a piece of rare treasure, and it's a comfort to be reading one rather than not.

I didn't tackle them in chronological order, but instead dotted around randomly (natch); but, I always planned that Our Mutual Friend would be the last one I read, completing the challenge. Partly, this was inspired by the character of Desmond in Lost, who intended it to be the last book he ever read. Partly, it was because it was Dickens' last completed novel. Partly, it was because I knew it would end the challenge on a high, based on having enjoyed the Paul McGann-starring BBC adaptation in the 1990s (which also featured a stand-out performance from David Morrissey as Bradley Headstone). Having finished all the others, with the latest being Dombey and Son a couple of years ago and a reread of Pickwick after that, I am now a dozen chapters into Our Mutual Friend. It's as good as I expected so far. If anyone is thinking about starting their own challenge, I'd recommend Great Expectations, Bleak House or David Copperfield (which will soon have a new big screen version starring one Peter Capaldi) as likely starters, but they're all good.

Once I've finished this 15 year mission, I won't need another necessarily. I have at least 180 Doctor Who stories more to cover for this blog for a start (crikey, they've made a lot). But I do like a challenge, and a ritual. Another thing I've started doing in the last couple of years is a reverse advent calendar, which you could think is an inarguable good, a little bit of Christmas charity. But it makes me uneasy. This has been exacerbated by my seeing recent awful photo-ops popping up on social media of Conservative politicians at the openings of new food banks. This smacks to me rather of arsonists holding grand openings for their fires. Dickens' characters of Ignorance and Want, two emaciated children, often dropped from adaptations of A Christmas Carol, represent two Victorian values that we should have eradicated by now. I feel sure, it being a consistent theme in all his works, that Dickens would feel the same shame as I do that we have not. I will of course continue to do my tiny bit, while also hoping that the day will come when none of us need to do so anymore; meanwhile, we can keep up the pressure on those politicians to amend the cruel policies that create this situation. Everyone has the right to food security, no matter what the time of year. I hope that's something to which we can all toast.

In Summary:

And so, as William Hartnell observed, a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!

Four to Doomsday

Chapter The 110th, wherein there is cultural appropriation on a grand scale.

Plot: 
The Doctor and his too many companions, Tegan, Adric and Nyssa, land on a spaceship four days' flight away from contemporary Earth. This vessel's commander is a green tyrant called Monarch with delusions of grandeur, who has been kidnapping humans (mostly international dance troupes) for thousands of years throughout Earth's history and turning them into androids because... erm... well, for some good reason, I'm sure. As well as his human hostages, he has three billion of his own kind too, stored on silicon chips, whom he wants to resettle on Earth. Except, he's more interested in mining Earth for its silicon and carbon, having exhausted his own planet Urbanka's resources. So, he'll get more silicon and carbon to convert more people into androids because... of the reason; a good reason, definitely. He has a religious fervour (useful in scripts as it can negate the need for proper explanations) about everyone abandoning what he calls the "flesh time".

His grand plan is to work out how to travel faster than light to go back in time to the big bang, where he believes he'll meet himself and turn out to be the universe's creator. He doesn't seem to need any more androids or the resettlement of the Urbankans to achieve this aim, but he's carrying on with that anyway despite it distracting somewhat (file under 'religious fervour'). He'd also likely achieve his aim quicker if he didn't stop every half hour to watch some dancing, but everyone on the ship is mad keen on dancing. It's also not clear what exactly he's going to do once he's met himself at the beginning of everything. Where does one go from there? Anyway, the Doctor can't let him plunder Earth for a plan that's so muddled and patently silly, so - with help from the android humans aboard - he defeats Monarch. He invokes a fail safe so the different android dancers form a 60-person dance crew, creating havoc in the ship, and uses Monarch's own deadly virus against him - it turns out he was the only one of the Urbankans and kidnapped humans to not have fully left the flesh time. What a hypocrite!

Context:

They got me. After an initial scepticism about the merits of Blu-Ray re-releases of original series Doctor Who, the first box set (Tom Baker's debut season) earlier this year at least partially persuaded me, and then the choice of Peter Davison's introductory year as the follow up - my first ever episodes watching upon broadcast as a fan - sealed the deal. I am going to have to collect them all (cue many deep sighs, and comments of "But you've already got them!" from the Better Half). I preordered this set what seems like an age ago, and after a couple of delays, it's finally arrived in the post.

There are seven stories on the set, two of which I've blogged already (Earthshock in the early days of the blog, and The Visitation at the beginning of this year). So, I needed only a standard six-sided die roll; the numbers 1-5 being the unwatched stories in transmission order, and if a 6 came up, I wouldn't blog any of the stories. I rolled a 2, so Four to Doomsday it was. A pity it wasn't one of the stories with film, which would scrub up nicely. Still, the episodes from the Blu-Ray still looked pretty good. Watched an episode a day over a few evenings, with members of the family occasionally dropping in and watching with me. During the - much maligned by many fans - spacewalk sequence, where the Doctor is adrift from the ship and trying to reach the floating TARDIS a little way off, when Davison's Doctor uses his cricket ball skills to propel him through space, middle child (boy of 9) exclaimed "Genius!". Take that, haters!

First-time round:

As I've mentioned many times before here, I became a fan during the build up to Peter Davison taking over as the Doctor, including a series of vintage Doctor Who repeats shown just before his first series aired in 1982. Just when I wanted to enjoy every single new episode as it went out, though, I was faced with an obstacle: cub scout sessions on a Monday evening coincided with every other episode. I feigned headaches so many times to allow me to catch another 25 minutes of 80s Who goodness that my mother probably worried I had a brain tumour by the end. I don't think I had started this subterfuge as early as Four to Doomsday, the second story of the season, but I was definitely addicted to Who already, and ready to do anything to get my fix. I missed episodes 1 and 3, but at least I got to enjoy the creepy "this is me" episode 2 cliffhanger, where Bigon reveals his consciousness is on a silicon chip. By the time of Kinda, the story after this, I'd found enough excuses to watch a whole serial. TV had won over my soul at that point, and outward-bound activities were destined not to figure large in my lifetime. Never mind.

Four to Doomsday was never repeated on BBC1, and I never caught it on any cable or satellite channel, so the first time I saw the two episodes I had missed in 1982 would have been almost twenty years later, when the VHS release finally came out in the tail end of the range's life in September 2001. I was living in Brighton at that point, and would have no doubt watched it in my flat on the evening after first buying it (probably that would have been from MVC, or some other establishment that doesn't exist anymore), and likely it would have been accompanied by a glass of red. I have no memories of any strong reaction to finally seeing those gaps plugged; whether this was to do with the wine or the quality of the story, I shall leave up to you to ponder.

Reaction

This story is in the middle of another of many transitional times for Doctor Who. After the previous run which moved from larger-than-life fun through to reasonably hard science fiction, this year moved from that hard science fiction to a more pacey action adventure approach, while also reintroducing stories set in Earth history. It may have been the impact of moving between three different script editors in quick succession: Christopher H. Bidmead, who commissioned some of the scripts of this year, handed over first to Anthony Root, who was only in place for a temporary period, then Eric Saward took over. The result is an interestingly diverse set of stories, without things becoming formulaic (yet). Kicking off the season are three stories in a row that all explore ideas through a science fiction structure, but in a softer, more lyrical manner than the stories of the previous year. The third of these, Kinda, though it was less popular at the time, has since become accepted as one of the stronger stories of the period; the first, Castrovalva, is very well liked too, and as the introductory story for a Doctor will always have a place in Who history. Coming between them, Four to Doomsday often gets overlooked.

Before I watched it this time, my total retained knowledge of the story would have been something like: "Davison's first filmed story, so he hasn't quite found his feet yet, bit dull - beware: dancing", and if you'd pushed me further, I'd have struggled to come up with more than "Terence Dudley wrote it, and his reputation isn't that great". That's not entirely fair; Dudley always manages to produce something distinctive; it's just that his plots usually don't stand up to scrutiny. He penned four stories in total for Who and its spin-offs, and one could write volumes about the ludicrous elements in some of them (Black Orchid and K9 and Company - I'm looking at you both in particular). By comparison, Four to Doomsday is sensible, but it is twice as long as all three other stories, and Dudley struggles to come up with enough incident to fill the narrative time. Nothing really happens until near the end. It nearly gets away with it by building up intrigue (and stopping for the occasional national dance display, as if the story has morphed into Blue Peter for a few minutes), but doesn't quite pull it off.

The production values are high: sets and models are great, chunky and industrial, the performances of the guest characters are all good, with particular kudos to Philip Locke as Bigon and Stratford Johns as Monarch. The key issues are with the script. He could be a very interesting baddie, Monarch: a lot of thought's been given to his philosophy, politics and how he charms people into submission (it's all a bit crazed, firing off in all directions, but it's there). But all that just feeds the backstory without driving forward any action. After two whole episodes of lots of tell but very little show, it is very unclear what's at stake. After a further episode of drip-fed exposition, things lurch into life as Monarch tries to cut the Doctor's head off. Then, he doesn't cut the Doctor's head off, and there's a bit of dancing and a space walk and then it ends abruptly. It's a shame, as there's some lovely dialogue in there, with Davison's first take on the Doctor grumpy and a bit sarcastic. It feels a little bigoted of the Doctor to keep referring to the aliens as 'frogs', though; that oversteps the mark a bit.

In this story, more than many others of a similar vintage, the three companions are used quite well: each has a very different reaction to the situation, and their actions work to complicate at least subplots if not the main plot. Tegan's very extreme behaviour irritates: not trusting the Doctor, and trying to nick off in the TARDIS to warn the people of Earth; but, I suppose, she's not really seen much heroism from him as yet: in his last two stories, he's died falling from a great height, then lolled around recovering for four episodes. She has no reason to trust him, I guess; but, she should have been given one by now. Three stories in, and six or seven episodes from his regeneration into a new man, someone should have thought to put in a scene where he proves himself to her, and she accepts him. Mind you, here he puts himself at risk to save her from the hash she's made of things, and in the next couple of stories after she is still moaning all the time, so maybe that's just Tegan.

Connectivity: 

Both The Ark and Four to Doomsday are primarily set on spaceships, and both spaceships contain humans and a non-human race stored in an artificial 'offline' state. In both stories, there is conflict between humans and the the non-humans on the ship, and humans are made into slaves.

Deeper Thoughts:
Freighter's Log: BFI screening of Earthshock and other Season 19 Blu-Ray Material, 17th November 2018. As the release of the box set was slightly delayed, this launch event at the BFI Southbank seems quite a long time ago now. This time, it was just myself and long term fan friend David, mentioned many times before on this blog, attending. I'm not sure this one was as well-publicised as previous Who events at the BFI; I saw a few on twitter commenting that they had no idea it was happening and were disappointed to find out too late. It still managed to sell out, mind. The presentation started with the 'Jovanka Airlines' trailer for the set, which you can find online if you haven't caught it; this nicely set the scene for a few hours of fun. We had great seats near the front, not far from main guests, Eric Saward, the writer of Earthshock and script editor for part of Season 19, and Matthew Waterhouse, who played Adric. Our hosts - as ever, the double-act of the BFI's Justin Johnson and Missing Believed Wiped's Dick Fiddy - mentioned on bringing them out that this is the first time the two had met since the one had 'killed off' the other. When they shook hands in the green room, it was reportedly just like a Reagan and Gorbachev summit.

After that, Justin got the Dick in early, starting the usual quiz. For the uninitiated, Justin always has some DVD and Blu-ray goodies to give away to whoever can answer an obscure Doctor Who question first, and he always makes merry with the double entendres about Dick's name, including getting the lucky hopefuls in the crowd to shout for "Dick" at the top of their voice, so he can walk the roaming microphone over to them. I was hoping (in vain, as it turned out) that a copy of Twice Upon a Time would be among the giveaways - it doesn't seem likely it will be on the box set of Jodie Whittaker's first year, and I can't bring myself to buy something I hated just for completeness (though I'll likely crack and do just that sometime soon). Plus, I never usually get to play: even if I know the answer, I've normally bought the prize already. There was only one question that stumped me this time, which was "Who played the three Dalek operators in the Five-Ish Doctors reboot?". I knew it was Frank Skinner and Nick Briggs, but couldn't remember the third person (it was David Troughton, fact fans). The person who won that particular item was - almost inevitably - Frank Skinner himself, who was in the audience. He struggled for a moment to name the third person too, but only because he "didn't want to say the wrong Troughton"!

(L to R) Fiddy, Vanezis, Ayres

Next up was the first two episodes of the restored Earthshock on the big screen. They looked very fine, particularly the film sequences at the start, and the surround mix was impressive too. Watching with an audience is always illuminating: there were quite a few (intended) laughs rippling through the auditorium. It hasn't occurred to me before that Earthshock has any witty dialogue, but it turns out it has, and it landed very well with the audience. Following these two episodes, there was a mini-panel discussion with Mark Ayres, maestro of sound, and Paul Vanezis, producer of various Value Added Material on the discs. It was interesting to hear the challenges they'd faced, but they were tight-lipped when it came to questions about what they're working on for subsequent release. This section was also significant for me, as I got to contribute! Mister Ayres had a momentary lapse on stage, failing to remember the only classic story from The Leisure Hive onwards which has no isolated score in existence. A very handsome, thin and clever-looking gentlemen came to his rescue, shouting "Mindwarp" from a few rows back from the front. Reader, it was I, and I've never been so proud.

(L to R) Johnson, Cyberman, Barton Hill

There followed the final two episodes; these caused some unintended hilarity. The couple of scenes of Cybermen guard extras gossipping with very non-emotionless hand gestures caused a few titters in the audience. The emotion of the ending hit harder as well, though, being watched in a group. Following this, a surprise guest star was brought on stage - the Cyberman that doomed Adric by shooting the console he's using at the end. The costume display was presented to the crowd by Mark Barton Hill, who acquired it at Bonhams in 2010. He talked briefly about the painstaking and geeky analysis that went into confirming that this was indeed the right costume. It was great value this event, the treats kept coming: more quiz bits, and further clips from the box set - a taster of Matthew Sweet's interview with Peter Davison, and some very funny clips of Beryl Reid in the studio being a diva.

Finally, it was time for Saward and Waterhouse. Despite not having met for more than 30 years, they made a pretty good double-act themselves, with amusingly contrasting personalities: Matthew was theatrical and very loud, projecting every answer to the other side of the Thames and back; Eric was curmudgeonly but with an acid wit. There were some great moments where the same question was asked of both of them: "Did you take any souvenirs of your time home with you?", for example, to which Matthew went on for five minutes, waving his arms around; then, Eric was asked and just drily said "no", making the audience explode with appreciative laughter. Twice, Eric had to tell Matthew off for starting into an answer so loudly he was making Eric jump out of his skin - "Matthew, you're terrifying me!".

(L to R) Saward, Waterhouse, Johnson

There wasn't too much that was new from either man, but it was still a very interesting Q&A. Saward was the one that wanted to bring back the Cybermen, and he took the idea to producer John Nathan-Turner. Early on in their time together on the show, Matthew Waterhouse told Peter Davison "You'll never be remotely as good as Tom Baker" (this, though, was probably just part of the workplace joshing which he explained was a lot more affectionate than people think). Beryl Reid's casting was "a surprise" when Eric first found it out, but the performance is growing on him (he put this down to his getting old). Matthew has very much enjoyed recreating the role of Adric for Big Finish, but will never wear the costume again! I was very intrigued by both men's answer to a question about whether the TARDIS was overcrowded with three companions. Matthew doesn't agree, and said that although none of the companion characters was exactly Hamlet, they did bring colour and a variety of interactions. Eric does agree, and thinks having to give them all stuff to do "got in the way of the story" which backs up a theory I have that he's a writer that thinks that stories happen despite not because of the characters. He's forgiven, though, for coming up with the best quote of the session, about the graft that had to be put in by all to shoot such a fast moving script, with so many scenes: "When Saward works, nobody sleeps".

In Summary:
A very intriguing premise stretched a bit too thin to fill four episodes; nice dancing though.

The Ark

Chapter The 109th, where there's an elephant in the room, and nobody's addressing it.

Plot: 
The Doctor, Steven and Dodo materialise on a vast spacecraft in the far future - an Ark in space, if you will (but not that one). It contains the last refugees of the human race escaping the planet before the sun burns it up. The humans in charge, the Guardians of the Human Race, are travelling with various flora and fauna (including at least one elephant), plus mute monocular alien creatures called Monoids who act both as servants and heavy-handed metaphors. Dodo has a cold, and alas because the humans no longer have any resistance to the virus, it nearly wipes them out. The Doctor and his friends manage to find a cure, and leave the craft to its long journey to a new home, Refusis 2. But wait, it's not a two-parter - the TARDIS's massive coincidence circuits kick in and the TARDIS materialises in the same area of the spacecraft, but it's 700 years and many light years later. The Monoids are in charge, the humans are slaves, and the ship is close to its destination.

The Monoid leader 'One' plans to blow up the ship and all the humans once he and the others of his kind have left the ship; but he doesn't trust that Refusis 2 is safe, and so sends the Doctor and Dodo there in a shuttle craft with a Monoid called 'Two'. Two gets killed, which must be a drag, as they'll presumably have to promote someone and renumber every other Monoid. It turns out that the Refusians are invisible and really want everyone to live together in peace and harmony, but the Monoids are too busy killing each other and occasionally any human that gets in the way. Back on the ship, Steven uses a clever ruse to escape from captivity (he says 'look over there' and someone sneaks out of the door - genius!), and he and the other humans find One's bomb (which makes it sound like it's the Queen's bomb - why didn't the Monoids invent themselves names!). A friendly Refusian puts the bomb out of the ship. The remaining humans and Monoids promise that they'll live together nicely in their new home.

Context:

Panto season has arrived! The Ark is one of those stories that's stuck in the imagination of me and the Better Half, for mostly the wrong reasons. We are often to be heard exchanging the Monoid's choicer dialogue for giggles: "Take them to the security kitchen" for example, or saying "It may not take as long as you think" in an exaggerated League of Gentleman character voice with extravagant hand gestures. That whole exchange is some of the funniest (unintentionally) of the series; Dodo responds with "What do you mean? Are you up to something?" and the poor Monoid says "Errrrrrr... no". This is not how top drawer baddies interact with their foes. Anyway, me, the Better Half and all the kids (boys of 12 and 9, girl of 6) watched the episodes one an evening from the DVD, over four days. I tried to fool the kids that the show was only two parts long and was coming to an end in the middle, but they saw through my deception.

More things caused interest and amusement this watch. For example, why do the humans of this space Ark all dress in togas made of those colourful ribbons that my gran had in her doorway to keep out flies in the Summer? This is a fashion that stubbornly refuses to change even in 700 years. Additionally, why do the Monoids need so many staff in their kitchen, when all the cooking is done by dropping a magic pill in a bowl of water? Why do they need any kitchen staff or food at all? They don't have mouths! Middle child had two theories - either they take the eye out of their mouth to eat, or they stuff the food in around it somehow. I also found another line reading that I particularly like imitating, and have been saying - to gradually increasing family irritation - since: "Do you seek to challenge me, Four?!" You don't get dialogue like that in run-of-the-mill shows (there may be a reason for this).

First-time round:

I first saw these episodes in October 1998, so I must have been in the old studio flat in Rowlands Road in Worthing, the first place that the Better Half and I moved in to together. I have no memories of watching it. I was probably impressed by the elephant being in the studio rather than on intercut stock footage, but nothing stuck in my mind particularly. I remember more clearly reading the novelisation in the late 1980s. A lot more scale was introduced in the book, and on the page - without the Zippy voices and extravagant hand gestures - the Monoids come over much better.

Reaction

No one seems to know if it's deliberate or just one of those cute observations after the fact that The Ark's episodes go in two by two. The first half concentrates on the fight to save the Ark's crew from succumbing to the cold virus; the second half involves the Monoids becoming antagonists. Both the two-part halves have serious flaws, but this structure does give it an extra something that partly makes up for that. The change of focus midway allows this story to do what so few have the scope to do: to show something of the developments after the Doctor has interfered in a situation. Normally, the TARDIS team nick off and leave any consequences behind. Oddly, it reminds me a bit of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsey's show which added an innovation to the factual troubleshooter format. A previously failing restaurant has been turned around by Gordon's tips, and things reach a climactic triumph (usually a grand re-opening); but, then there's another act. He goes back a few months later and finds they are returned to their bad old ways, and have lost all their new customers. It was refreshing when he did it first, which must have been over a decade ago now, but it does shine a bit too much light on the falseness of the format. If you're not going to be of any lasting help, Gordon, why are you bothering at all? And the same could be true of the Doctor, if the series played this trick too often. It's okay in The Ark as it had never been done before.

The novelty of the device, though, doesn't quite mask that the story is incoherent. Is The Ark's message that the humans deserved their overthrow and enslavement, because they behaved that way towards the Monoids? If so, well, they didn't. They are far more intolerant of the Doctor and his friends in the first two episodes. The Monoids are treated with a bit of condescension, but there's no signs of cruelty or segregation. There's no parity. Well, maybe that's the point - years of servitude and second-class citizenship leads to an explosion of disproportionate violence. But, if so, why make the Monoids so unsympathetic in the second half as to undermine that? And why throw in the explanation of the reversal of fortune being down to a mutation of the cold virus that Dodo brought to The Ark. That sets us up for a tale of the Doctor's awakening to the consequences of his actions, but the story doesn't go that way (the old fellah barely gives a toss that his indirect actions have warped this society); anyway, that would make it his fault rather than the humans. So, they didn't bring it upon themselves after all?

Whatever the message of the script was supposed to be, it would have been undermined anyway by the Monoids being so rubbish. The poor things are hidebound by constricting costumes with flippers that they occasionally trip over, and odd pot bellies; they have to touch their voice-box necklaces every time they talk (though to be fair, they often forget to do this), and to top it off, their heads are an admixture of Ringo wigs and ping pong balls. They never had a chance. This doesn't excuse giving them the most awful moustache-twirling villainy dialogue ever heard. Here's a tip lads - stop telling each other every five minutes where you've hidden your bomb, that way it might stay a secret. This is not to say that the humans are any better. The performances of most of the guest cast playing the Guardians range from lacklustre to painful. I hesitate to say it, because it's the sort of hackneyed observation that idiots say about anything made in the sixties, but was Eric Elliott (playing the Commander in episodes 1 and 2) on drugs? Like, really powerful drugs?

It's not a complete write-off. The trial sequence is good, and the hunt for a cure kept my little viewers in 2018 much more rapt than the latter episodes did. Michael Sheard is good too, in a tiny role (they should get him back on Doctor Who again, I think).

Connectivity: 

Last time, there were many connections between The Ribos Operation and The Masque of Mandragora; but between Ribos and The Ark it's a lot harder to see anything. Both feature the first journey of a new female companion, and both feature a lizard or two (assuming the Shrivenzale is a lizard - it looks pretty reptilian). Does Sholakh have an eye-patch, making him somewhat Monoid-like? No, he's just got a duelling scar beside one eye. Damn. Aside from them both being four parts long and containing a police box, I'm pretty much stumped for anything more than that.

Deeper Thoughts:
Monsters and Motivations. Whatever one thinks of the Monoids, they definitely had a slightly more interesting raison d'être than your average Doctor Who aliens. Those that were servants have become oppressors - it's the sort of topic you can imagine the current showrunner, Chris Chibnall, and his writing team trying. The current series is almost finished now, and it's clear that a lot of effort has been put in to doing things differently. Aside from one fez and the phrase "reverse the polarity", there's been no returning elements from the series' past (although I should note that, at the time or writing, the finale has yet to be broadcast). I worry that it might be depriving the show of some oomph; they can't pull off the old trick of creating a mid-series event, or an end of series spectacle, by wheeling out the Daleks or the Cybermen or both.

It's more than just a lack of recycling, though. It's clear, and to their credit, that the production team have worked hard to make each villainous scenario more original than any alien invasion or mad scientist tropes. This year we've seen the following (jumbling them up and not being too specific to avoid spoilering): it's a warrior doing an initiation ceremony, they're a fascist, they're an anti-fascist, they're escaped convicts seeking revenge, they're just hungry, they're just lonely, they's all in a chase, they're misunderstood and messed up by humans, they're not nasty at all and just volunteering to perform a public duty. It's an impressively diverse set of antagonist motivations. But the result is that there's no monsters. Once you abandon any characters being Evil with a capital E, you can't talk about monsters anymore. Even though, as I've noted before (see here for example) it's never been so clear cut as this, a lot of people do feel that Doctor Who is a monster of the week show. Or it was, at least. This might be a reason that some old school fans are griping online about this new run.

I'm pretty old school myself, and only a few sentences ago I was complaining about the latest series lacking oomph. I've enjoyed the new approach, but I do think it might be nice once in a while to have an all guns blazing Earth invasion story that doesn't give a hoot for political subtext. As stated above, the finale is yet to be broadcast; it might surprise me and deliver just that. I doubt it, though. And is anyone else worried about the title? "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos"? I don't care much for story titles with made-up words in them and this would be the second this year. Is it an anagram? If it is, it's a cleverer one than I'm able to unscramble. No matter how many times I try, I can't make the letters spell out "Big Ol' Invasion of the Gun-totin' Daleks"!

In Summary:

A game of two halves and one elephant.