The Chase

Chapter The 233rd, where the Daleks and the TARDIS team have a ticket to ride, and they very much do care. 

Plot:

The Daleks have built or obtained a time machine so that they can find and kill the Doctor and his friends, Ian, Barbara and Vicki; picking up a broadcast of this intention on the Doctor's new gadget, the Time Space Visualiser, the time travellers embark on an extended chase. The TARDIS lands in a succession of times and places, pursued by the Daleks, and the TARDIS team face a variety of (quite minor) threats in each locale before they can escape. First is the planet Aridius, then the Empire State building in 1966, then the Marie Celeste in 1872, then an abandoned festival exhibit with anamatronic Frankenstein and Dracula in Ghana in 1996. Each stop, the Daleks close the gap with them a little more, but during the journeys the Doctor is able to build a Dalek-exploding device. In Ghana, Vicki gets separated from her friends, and stows away on the Dalek time vessel. There, she sees that the Daleks have built a robot copy of the Doctor indistinguishable from the real thing (except in medium and long shots). Both time craft land on the planet Mechanus, which the Doctor, Ian and Barbara decide will be the site of confrontation, their plan being to capture the Dalek's craft and use it to go back and rescue Vicki. Quickly, though, they find her and she tells them of the robot; there are a few altercations with it before everyone works out who is Who, and the robot is deactivated.

Dodging the hostile plant life of the planet, the four time travellers end up trapped in a cave surrounded by Daleks, but escape in a concealed lift with a Mechanoid - one of many such robots that have been preparing Mechanus for colonists that never arrived. They travel up to a city that has been built on stilts high above the surface of the planet, and meet Steven Taylor. He crash-landed on the planet two years earlier, and has been kept alive and studied in captivity by the Mechanoids, as he doesn't know the codes to demonstrate to the machines that he's friendly. The TARDIS team prepare to climb down from the high and unguarded viewing platform accessed from Steven's room using unfurled electrical cable. The Doctor sets off his device which explodes a Dalek and sets the city on fire. Steven, still dealing with shock and trauma, rushes back in to the burning prison room to fetch his stuffed toy mascot (his equivalent of a Wilson volleyball); the others climb down. The Daleks and Mechanoids battle on. Steven escapes the city (somehow) and finds his way to the TARDIS (somehow). The others discover the Dalek time-ship, now empty, and Ian and Barbara use it to travel home to London, a couple of years after they left. The Doctor and Vicki watch them return on the Time Space Visualiser.

Context:

Full disclosure: this story came up as a random selection before the last couple of stories blogged, but I held it back to tie in with the write-up of the two Cushing films at the BFI (see Deeper Thoughts below). There's obviously only a fairly loose connection between those spin-offs and The Chase, but I have already blogged the two stories that were used as the basis of those movies (The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth). As mentioned at the event and noted below, there was an option for a third Cushing Dalek film that was never taken up. The assumption has always tended to be that the filmmakers would have taken the obvious next step, and its script would have been an adaptation of this third William Hartnell ding-dong with the Skaro mutants. The last but one Doctor Who Magazine (at time of writing), which like the BFI event tied in to the Cushing Dalek films in honour of their new restorations, contained a fun comic strip Dr. Who & The Mechanoids written by Jacqueline Rayner and drawn by Russ Leach that suggested what such a story might be like in miniature. It's good that it exists in comic form, as an actual movie of The Chase might have been difficult to produce (more on that in a moment). Anyway, I watched The Chase, which ultimately was the inspiration for no movie screenplay at all, from the DVD an episode a night over the course of a week in June 2022.

First Time Round:

I first watched this story when it came out on VHS in September 1993, Doctor Who's 30th anniversary year. I waxed lyrical about shenanigans surrounding that anniversary in a recent blog post for The Green Death; a couple of things I didn't have space to mention there - which are both apt to provide me with a nostalgia rush whenever I see them - are the special anniversary Who logo that adorned merchandise, and a brief video intro showing each of the seven Doctors faces morphing into one another (google "doctor who 30th anniversary video intro" and you'll find it) that preceded the episodes on the Doctor Who VHS tapes released to buy in that year. The Dalek tin, and The Chase tape within it, feature these embellishments. Oh, I forgot to mention that too: a couple of VHS releases that year came in presentation tins for the first time, grouping together multiple episodes, either because that made sense (all the different sections of the Trial of a Time Lord that don't fully stand alone) or just to randomly pair together two wildly unconnected stories as in the case of the Dalek tin, which as well as The Chase contained Remembrance of the Daleks. I guess the celebratory concept was the start and end of Who's long heritage, the two stories being the oldest and most recent Dalek stories respectively that had yet to be released on video at that point. For the die hard collectors, there were four variants of the tin available, so you could blow a hideous amount of money collecting them all. The only difference was that a different photo appeared on the base of the tin, which I didn't even spot until a friend pointed it out to me. I still have the now rusty tin, and just got it out of a cupboard to check: my variant has a picture of a Dalek! The TARDIS-shaped tin containing Trial of a Time Lord had a whopping seven different variants, a portrait of a different one of the first seven Doctors on each copy. I did not have the money to collect all of these, so - a month later when that tin came out - I went to buy a tin with Colin Baker on its base, only to find they didn't have one in the shop, so I got a Tom Baker one instead (any Baker was better than no Baker to my twisted logic).

Reaction:

As can be seen when they're not bound by the needs of weekly episodic television scheduling and are tightened up to make 90-minute movie scripts, writer Terry Nation's first two Dalek tales are solid, exciting adventure stories. He had done the Doctor and his Earth friends visiting the Daleks, and he'd done the Daleks visiting the Earth. Where would he look for inspiration for his third Dalek story, a difficult second sequel? As he would many times in his future work for Doctor Who, he looked for inspiration in his own back catalogue, specifically reusing the structure of his non-Dalek story from Doctor Who's first season, The Keys of Marinus. Like Keys, The Chase is a peripatetic rush through many different locales that each provide the background to a Doctor Who scenario in miniature (in The Chase, the drama of these micro-narratives rarely rises above a minor squabble), the episodic parts held together as a whole by a straightforward - some might say sketchy - umbrella concept (a quest, a chase). As such, it's hard to imagine what Milton Subotsky (as writer and producer) and Gordon Flemyng (as director) could have made of this plot structure as a 90-minute film. If they'd cut out the bits that don't move the dramatic plot forward, then they'd have a film set almost 100% on Mechanus, which wouldn't give across the spirit of the original, but if they instead featured all scheduled stops of the TV chase in less running time, the resultant film would have been very bitty and the costs of all those different sets prohibitive. It's probably for the best that the second Dalek film didn't do as well as expected at the box office, so nobody had to wrestle with an adaptation of The Chase: it is mostly powered only by the charm of the regular cast's interactions, and the only major drama comes from changes to that regular cast; none of that would have been relevant to a film version.

If a movie budget would have struggled to create the many and varied settings of The Chase, how was the even more cash-strapped television production to fare? With difficulty. There are various B-team monsters - the Mire Beast, the Fungoids - that are barely mobile, and any goodie character has to manoeuvre themselves into trouble (Maureen o' Brien as Vicki basically wraps a Mire beast tentacle around herself in an early scene). I can understand why the Mechanoids are so enormous - they can't look too much like a Dalek, but someone's got to have room inside the props to propel them - but it's still very silly when one is in the lift with the four regulars, who are pressed back against the walls because of the lack of room. Like the Quarks in The Dominators, the voices have been pitched to be in sharp relief to the Daleks, but this unfortunately means one can't work out a word they're saying.  When Barbara asks to be released from the prison towards the end, I've always thought the machine replied "Rot" to her, which seemed a bit harsh. Apparently, it's saying "Threat". Also outsized is the Time Space Visualiser, which is ultimately only used to deliver two pieces of exposition, and some fun bits of business, before never being seen in the series again; it is so big, however, that it would dominate anyone's front room; perhaps this is where a lot of the budget went. As usual, Doctor Who's reach exceeded its grasp, but the design of what's on screen, though a bit cheap, is nonetheless mostly effective. The film work is good, with the early sandy scenes of Aridius shot in a quarry location adorned with weird twisted tree things a stand out, as is the studio-shot film of the Dalek Mechanoid battle at the end. The director Richard Martin seems to be having a few off days when in the TV studio, though; nothing is framed very well, and the actors' blocking doesn't appear to have been sufficiently worked out in rehearsal.

This somewhat clumsy look, plus the episodic nature (the script doesn't dwell in any place or on any threat for more than 15 minutes max), and the lack of urgency (in the middle of this breakneck do-or-die chase, the regulars stop for meals, changes of clothes, and sleep) combine to make The Chase seem a bit shambolic. The humour level is higher than usual too, and it all adds up to an overall unseriousness. There are so many changes of setting in The Chase that some jar when treated in a light-hearted, knockabout way. One example is the Marie Celeste section, which is presented as slapstick, but involves a crew of real historical people, including a mother and child, jumping to their inevitable death by drowning. Similarly, when the time travellers meet up with Steven Taylor in the final episode, he's been in solitary confinement for two years, and has clearly been traumatised by this (Peter Purves plays this very well, and is pretty good in the comic role of Morton Dill earlier in the story too); reacting to this broken man with jokes and giggling, the TARDIS team come over as uncaring. Mostly, though, the light-hearted moments are the best bits of The Chase. It's a shame that the beginning sequence where the quartet just hang out in the TARDIS has to end for something so dull as a Dalek plot to take over; Vicki wandering around aimlessly, bored, the Doctor tinkering with his time TV, Barbara making Vicki a dress, and Ian reading a book on Monsters from Outer Space ("A bit far-fetched"). Each choosing a historical scene to view on the Time Space Visualiser is nice too, allowing for a clip of the Beatles to be included, and for everyone to have a bit of a dance. There lots of nice lines; not laugh out loud funny but charming, like the exchanges about using Barbara's cardigan as part of a Dalek trap (Ian: "It's for the Dalek, not for me", Vicki: "I hope it suits him", then the Doctor's "My dear boy, we're trying to beat the Daleks, not start a jumble sale."

The chase structure means that most of the Dalek scenes show them on their own; this leads to more variety in the voices used to allow differentiation between the different Daleks speaking; that makes sense. It doesn't really make sense to make one a basso profundo but hesitant Dalek who starts every sentence with "Er... er...", but it must have been a deliberate choice, mustn't it? The same sort of choice as having another one cough and splutter as it emerges from the sand for the episode one cliffhanger. I thought it was funny, anyway, whether it was meant to be or not. The unevenness of presentation created questions in my mind related to the fourth episode 'Journey Into Terror'. The Doctor thinks he's entered the realm of nightmares, an environment of the collective unconscious, but he's really in a disused funfair house of horrors. As with any Doctor Who story of this vintage, a certain suspension of disbelief is required. But how much? Is the fake plastic bat that swings into view above our heroes the fake plastic bat of Doctor Who, or the Festival of Ghana? Are the Doctor and Ian supposed to see the string it's suspended on, or are we? Or should neither party acknowledge it? I got cognitive overload trying to work out whether I'm watching the designer's brave stab at a funfair haunted house or an actual haunted house, and came down in the end on the side of it being intended to be an artificial-looking space. As such, the Doctor is being a bit dim imagining his fanciful theories when the prosaic truth is obvious. The Doctor and Ian's next plan is to capture the Dalek time-ship to go back to this haunted house and rescue Vicki, who they think is stranded there. How exactly did they think they could pilot it into the world of the mind?! This, like the Time Space Visualiser, and other details such as the futuristic Vicki living near a castle with a drawbridge, is forgotten as quickly as it was introduced.

The story goes beyond overambitious and becomes operatic in its silliness. Why, for example, did anyone think they could attempt a robot doppelganger plot without access to split-screen, and where they were rationed for how many shooting breaks they could take in studio to move actors into different positions? The resultant solution - the robot is Hartnell in close-up, and a not-look-very-much-a-like in every other shot - is so wrong, it almost becomes right. Just at the point where one thinks the lightweight story might float away completely in a bubble of ridiculousness, it comes down to Earth, literally, with the departure of Ian and Barbara. The final remaining original members of the companion cast, there from day one, their departure was always going to be emotional for those invested watching at home (as well as for the Doctor - Hartnell's delivery of "I shall miss them, silly old fuss-pots" melts the heart), and it's handled magnificently. William Russell and Jacqueline Hill play the scenes with such joy, Russell's hearty and heartfelt exclamation that they have made it back to "London 1965" has such impact that it became a social media meme back when Doctor Who marathons were being shown on Twitch. The interesting touch of showing them having fun as a series of still photographs works well. Ian and Barbara are suddenly back in a world where they have to worry about road tax, bus fares and explaining where they've been hiding all this time. It's testament to the characters that one wants to see them spin off into their own show at precisely this moment; those scenes pile up in the plus column of The Chase, tipping things over to outweigh the minuses.

 

Connectivity: 

In both The Chase and The Haunting of Villa Diodati, the Doctor is accompanied by a three companion team; in each story there is an appearance by historical wordsmiths, references to Frankenstein's monster, and a trip to the 1800s. The force of antagonism comes from monsters encased in metal in both. Both stories see the TARDIS team leaving a location believing some kind of uncanny phenomena has just been witnessed; they're definitely mistaken about the creatures that they witnessed at the festival of Ghana in 1996, and may be mistaken about the ghosts Graham saw in the Villa Diodati.

Deeper Thoughts:

Dr. and Susie Who's Experimental Journal Entries: BFI Southbank Peter Cushing Dalek films double bill, 19th June 2022. It was a sunny London Sunday, and I made my way to the BFI on the South Bank of the Thames to meet a selection of the usual crowd with whom I attend these sessions, who have been mentioned many times before on the blog, David, Trevor and Scott (and later we caught up with Chris, Dave and Tim too). The event was a little different to the usual BFI Doctor Who screenings, as what was being shown wasn't a BBC product, but instead was Studio Canal property. Bought up amidst lots of archive library holdings over the years, the two 1960s Aaru Productions movies starring Peter Cushing and the Daleks have been given 4K restorations by Studio Canal, and were being given their first public outing in the largest BFI screen NFT1 that day. This meant that hosts Justin Johnson and Dick Fiddy did not do the usual quiz (as there were no freebies to give away), and the programme was split into two sessions with a short gap in between, each separately ticketed: the first film Dr. Who and the Daleks with accompanying panel discussion, and later Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD. Johnson and Fiddy also squeezed in a brief Q&A at the start of each session, to give us our money's worth. I settled down in to my seat in the full, sold-out theatre and realised that sat in front of me were Doctor Who writers Robert Shearman and Joy Wilkinson, which was nice.

Fiddy (L) and Johnson (R)

As one of the young viewers that saw the films on first release, Fiddy talked about the wonder of seeing the stories on the big screen, particularly with echoing sound better than he could get through the tinny speaker on his telly at home. He also was not bothered about the differences between the films and their TV inspirations (the Doctor being a human inventor, Susan being much younger, Barbara being related to the Doctor, Ian being a physical comedian instead of a teacher, etc.) as such not quite liberties were routinely taken with adaptations at the time, including those of folk tales like Robin Hood and King Arthur. The preliminary Q&A before the first film then took place; onto the stage came two of the people who had worked on the restoration, Anthony Badger (pictures) and Mark Ayres (audio). Badger told the audience that previous versions of the films on disc had not gone back to use the original negatives. A lot of detective work was required to locate these; the sequel's negatives were easier to find, and when the first film's were located, it was discovered they were heavily scratched. A wetgate process was used to repair them, so the restored versions of both films that we were about to see were therefore based on the best possible foundation of first generation pictures. Ayres explained how he had become custodian of the de facto masters of the films' audio elements. In the 1990s, he had worked on a VHS documentary about the Cushing films with director Kevin Jon Davies called Dalekmania, and was given at that point DATs of music reels and sound effects tracks. After becoming involved in audio soundtrack and Blu-ray releases for the films over the years since then, he had discovered that all other audio sources were of inferior quality to the DATs in his possession.

(L to R) Badger, Fiddy, Ayres

After the Q&A, the first film was shown. Because in the last few years I have only seen 4:3 TV Doctor Who episodes at the BFI, and I had never seen these two Peter Cushing Dalek movies on anything bigger than a TV screen before, it was doubly exciting when the NFT1's screen slowly extended out to its fullest widescreen size and Dr. Who & The Daleks started. The first thing to state is that the restoration is faultless; every frame looked perfect, even blown up to those unforgiving proportions. The two films are going to be shown in Picturehouse chain cinemas across the country in July 2022; if you're reading this in time, and you haven't seen the films on the big screen before, I recommend giving them a try. Apart from the changes to the main characters mentioned by Fiddy, there are a few other changes to the plot of note. The Daleks taking the TARDIS fluid link, a vital plot point, is foregrounded better in the film than in the TV version; unfortunately, the later realisation when our heroes have escaped that they don't have the fluid link and therefore have to go back into the danger of the Dalek city again is undercut by the contraction of the running time - it's not plausible that they would have forgotten so quickly, unlike in the TV version where lots more time has been shown to elapse by that point. The character Antodus, who in the original I thought was an obvious audience identification figure (see the blog post on the Daleks, linked to above in the Context section, for more details), gets a happy ending here. In general, the film adjusts scenes to be less bleak than in the TV version; the scene where the Doctor and Ian goad the Thals by threatening to abduct Dyoni and take her to the Daleks to exchange for the fluid link is played with much more humour.

Watching something with a large audience always highlights more laughs than one ever realised were there watching at home. Something I didn't find quite as funny as the rest of the audience was the Dalek voice rhythms; they are, I suppose, inherently a bit silly, but where they may have tickled me a tad, they led to guffaws from many others. Particularly (unintentionally) funny to the crowd was the poor Dalek at the denouement that doggedly keeps going with his long countdown to the irradiation of the planet, no matter what's going on around him. I did laugh out loud at the exchange where a character shouts "Dalek!, and a Dalek wheels around and says "Yes?" enquiringly. Mainly, though, the Daleks work dramatically, and this was the best they would be framed and shot for many a year, perhaps ever. A lot of the remaining humour, believe it or not, is intentional. Peter Cushing is adept at the 'absent-minded scientist' comedy. Most of Roy Castle's physical clowning lands; it's only at the end that it comes apart a bit, and that's not his fault. The script doesn't really have an ending: leaving Skaro, the TARDIS lands in ancient Rome, and Ian opens the door to see unconvincing stock footage of soldiers advancing. Ian slams the door and then Castle has to essentially busk, pulling lots of levers and so on, as there is a slow fade, but it's too slow and he looks to be getting a bit desperate before the credits roll. Once they had rolled, and the lights had come up, the main panel took place; onto the stage came Anthony Waye (First Assistant Director of both films), Jill Curzon (Louise, in the second film), and Roberta Tovey (Susan, in both films).

(L to R) Johnson, Waye, Curzon, Tovey

Sending apologies for a last minute change that meant he could not attend was Jason Flemyng, the actor son of Dalek films director Gordon, and probably still best known for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels though he's got an extensive body of work. It was a great shame as his familial connection would have meant some strong and interesting recollections. It's fair to say that the remaining panel wasn't the most engaged or engaging, as for everybody on it the Dalek films were just a job or couple of jobs a long, long time ago. Jill Curzon did a few weeks of filming for Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD during a busy 1960s where she was in demand for films and TV, and she's 86 years old now. Anthony Waye is only a couple of years younger and he's worked on over 80 films in a stellar career, and - let's face it - many of those films are more important than two children's films based on a TV show in the mid-1960s (Star Wars, Bond films, The Elephant Man, etc. etc.). It fell mainly to Roberta Tovey to give more extensive answers to questions, but she was 10 years old during filming and so took some of the more bewildering things she was experiencing in her stride, as children often do. As such, there wasn't much depth of feeling expressed, but all three nonetheless gave it their best. Waye explained the role of a 1st AD is to keep everything on schedule and budget and keep everyone - from the shooting crew to the director - in line. He remembered there being tremendous budget and time pressure, but everyone handling it well. He couldn't remember specifics of the budget, but could remember that he was on 60 old pounds a week (he still had his old contract of employment).

Tovey was aware of the TV show and had watched a few episodes, but wasn't guided by anything she had seen, and wanted to make the part her own. She had to audition for Gordon Flemyng by reading from a book of Spike Milligan poems, and thought she'd messed it up, but the call telling her she'd got it came in before she'd even managed to get back from Shepperton. On set, the Daleks provoked more interest than fear for Tovey, who was curious as to how they worked (they were propelled by dancers inside the shells for the films). Everyone recalled the technical challenges of working with the colourful pepperpots, with Curzon recalling the scene where one fell down a ramp, went onto its side and caught fire, and the challenge of getting the operator out once the shot was finished. Johnson prompted Tovey about a particular method Gordon Flemyng had of keeping her focussed for the first film: he offered her a shilling for every scene of hers that didn't require a retake. At the end of the shoot, he presented her with a suede pouch containing 21 shillings with a note "To One-Take Tovey, love Gordon", which she has kept to this day. Everyone had nothing but praise for Peter Cushing, who from this session and everything else you can hear or read about him, was one of the business's true gentlemen, kind, patient and generous. Curzon recalled going to a museum in his honour in his old home town, and being given an enormous picture of the actor which was then auctioned for charity; Tovey told a sweet story of how she was asked to speak to him in his trailer on the first film, and he told her that he'd been asked to film a sequel, but he wasn't going to do it unless she did too. She agreed and he said "Okay, I'll tell them that we'll do it". This is probably why Tovey preferred the first film as she was together with Cushing and the cast throughout, unlike the second film where everyone was mostly split up.

(L to R) Johnson, Sergei then Dmitri Subotsky, Fiddy

The final audience question was about the song Who's Who that Tovey recorded contemporaneously with the films, and again she described it as being a professional interaction: into the recording studio to sing the song accompanied by an orchestra on day one, then the next day in again to record the B-side. Johnson joked that we would finish with a rendition from Tovey, but she demurred. The final word went to her, as she said "Hope you enjoyed it" to the departing crowd; and we did. After a brief break, everyone trooped back into NFT1 for the second film. Well, almost everyone; Chris, Tim and Dave had apparently screwed up getting tickets, so stayed in the BFI Riverfront bar while it played. The big thing they missed was an unadvertised Q&A with the Dalek films' producer and screenwriter Milton Subotsky's sons, Dmitri and Sergei. They had as talking points several documents related to the Dalek films that were left behind in their father's effects when he passed on. There was a Dalek blueprint for the first film, which is being held up in the photo, but alas I was too far away to capture any detail (it looked like a movie Dalek, unsurprisingly). There was an exchange of memos about the publicity stunt getting the Daleks to appear at the Cannes film festival. This allowed Fiddy to come in with a nice dad joke "You can see why Daleks would be wary of a Cannes opener". The biggest exclusive was the presence of a script for a third Doctor Who related film. This wasn't from the mid-1960s and based on The Chase, though (another document the Subotskys brought confirmed there was agreement for the third film at that time, but it was never made). Instead, this was from about 15 years later, showing that Doctor Who hadn't left Subotsky Senior's mind. It was an adaptation of a property that had gone by the unfortunate previous titles "King Crab" and "Night of the Crabs" that he'd adapted to feature the Doctor. Coming to Big Finish very soon, maybe?

2nd film's title card (note typo bringing the invasion forward 100 years)

The second film then followed, and it was clear that it was so much better than the first. It has a more serious intent, though still a nice balance of light and shade, with Bernard Cribbins in the comic sidekick role doing some dramatic work as well as clowning. The Thals in the first film, love them as I do, aren't roles with much scope to shine, unlike the various hotheads, misguided rebels, profiteers and quislings of the second film's script. This means we get superior turns from a cool Ray Brooks, and a gruff Andrew Keir. Best of all is Philip Madoc in one of his many Doctor Who roles on big and small screen, as the spivvy and smarmy black-marketeer Brockley. There are some great stunts throughout, and some very good explosions and model work. The Dalek Saucer (a model that left a bit to be desired on TV) is fabulous, though on the big screen restoration I was able to see the strings for the first time. Watching these cultural artefacts back to back, one can hear the development of a catchphrase: unless I missed it, the word "Exterminate" is not said once by any Dalek in the first film; by the time of the sequel, it's almost all they say! The film's not perfect, of course: there's some obvious product placement with prominent posters for Sugar Puffs seemingly everywhere early on; and there are some unintentional laughs - a big one was also early on, when the Doctor opens up a roboman helmet and says "Highly advanced" over a close-up of some very 1960s transistors. Overall though, it's fun and enjoyable. It even has an ending, with Cribbins' policeman Tom returned a little early so he can catch the villains that he let escape first time round - this breaks every rule of the time travel narrative, but who cares?! The film over, our entertainment was complete. We went back to the bar and enjoyed a few hours of food, drink and chat. Leaving, we all mused on what would be the next one of these BFI events. There's no word on the next Blu-ray box set, so it might be the animation of The Abominable Snowmen that is coming out sometime later this year. 

In Summary:

Lightweight but fun, just like the 1960s Dalek movies. 

The Haunting of Villa Diodati

Chapter The 232nd, presents Mary Shelly's Cyberman.

Plot:

The Doctor, Graham, Yaz and Ryan visit Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva on the stormy night in 1816 that Percy and Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and others told ghost stories that led to the creation of Mary Shelley's ground-breaking novel Frankenstein. The fam are under strict instructions not to drop any hints or otherwise influence her and just to soak up the atmosphere, but - who would have thought it - events are in play that involve a half-converted Cyberman who's a bit like Frankenstein's monster. Percy Shelley, who's missing, hiding in the cellar, accidentally absorbed a Cyber computer / superweapon / globby blob thing, which the Cyberman has been pursuing through time. The auto-defences built in to the device, coupled with Shelley's mind, create various horror movie tropes in the house, which the fam and the other poets, writers and entourage get frightened by until they can find Percy. Graham also experiences some actual ghosts, nothing to do with the Cyberman plot, who make him a sandwich (this is not explained). Despite having been given a warning not to give the lone Cyberman what it wants, the Doctor extracts its prize to save Percy, and hands it over. The Cyberman disappears. The TARDIS team leave to track it down using coordinates that Percy wrote down during his time under the influence.

Context:

I watched the story on my own one summery evening on the BBC iplayer, through the interface of an Amazon firestick plugged into our old but luckily still reliable TV. I'm waiting for the right story to come along to tempt the children back to watching with me; they're not too fussed about Doctor Who at the moment. Frankly, the right story might be the one (or one of the ones?) being filmed at the moment for broadcast in 2023 as part of the new Russell T Davies showrunner era, or probably Jodie Whittaker's big finale later this year. It might not be an old one - the next story lined up for the blog is a black and white 1960s six-parter, so whenever it may be that they rekindle their enthusiasm for the good Doctor, it probably isn't going to be soon.

First Time Round:

I watched with the whole family on the Sunday night of this story's debut BBC1 transmission on 16th February 2020, at the beginning - if I remember rightly - of a week off for the kids' half-term. I can remember no details of that watch, but I remember that all through February there were rumblings in the wider world about a coronavirus that everyone was more and more worried about. Within a month, the UK would be in full lockdown, and in the interim circumstances dictated that I went to the most populous city within commuting distance (London), and used the associated overcrowded transport systems, about 40 times more frequently than I would have normally in any given month; a couple of weeks after The Haunting of Villa Diodati I was at the BFI for the screening of a Doctor animation (see here for more details) but there were also trips for a training course for the day job, other work events, going to shows with friends, and day trips with the family. I was lucky not to catch Covid (or at least, if I did, to get it asymptomatically - there was no test to check at that point). 

Reaction:

Obviously, contentious views are good for clicks, but that comes at a cost of coarsening our collective dialogue. As such, I always try to be kind, rigorous and thorough in my reactions to Doctor Who stories here. It might be more fun, and certainly would take up less time and energy, to just say of something "it was shit", but it's not very useful. I've probably come close occasionally to saying a particular disliked Doctor Who story is shit, but I hope I've fully expounded on my reasons for thinking so. I don't often disagree with the critical consensus just for the sake of it, either, and always try to explain my reasoning (as I did last time when admitting that, yes really, I think Time and the Rani is good). The Haunting of Villa Diodati is generally well thought of by fans as accurately as can be gauged from online commentary; writer Maxine Alderton is lauded (and was the only writer aside from showrunner Chris Chibnall to contribute to the following series when it was shortened as an impact of the Covid-19 pandemic); like that contribution to Flux, Village of the Angels, her series 12 story is big on horror, which tends to make a story popular with fans. In the Doctor Who Magazine series poll, it was mid-table - fourth out of eight, but it was beaten only by the big two-parter series opener and finale, plus mid-season twist episode Fugitive of the Judoon, which won the poll, and featured massive revelations and returns. I think it's fair to say that most fans like it; I am out of step with this feeling. I found the story utterly and totally unengaging, to such an extent that I can barely think of anything to say. Don't all cheer at once (!) as I will force myself over this mental block and put something into words.

It's a solid concept, the Doctor meeting Byron and the Shelleys on this famous night of horror stories, and them then getting caught up in a horror story of their own; the use of a Cyberman who's not as complete or finished as normal, so looks more like the reanimated creature of Mary's Modern Prometheus, is also good. Like any such narrative, the risk is that it robs the historical figure of agency, suggesting that their imagination needed a big prompt. The classic series did this in the story Timelash, giving a character only revealed at the end to be H. G. Wells the idea for a handful of his novels. At least here, the historical personages are depicted pretty accurately; in the classic series Doctor Who story, Wells was the bumbling comic relief. Bryon's not so bumbling but still is mostly there for the lighter moments, including lots of flirting with the Doctor. It raises a smile, and the guest performances are perfectly good throughout, as are the designs to evoke the period. It's most definitely competent, and directed well. I think the problem is focus. Perhaps because of the worries about a plot that suggests that a woman in the 1800s wouldn't be able to come up with Frankenstein on her own, the story doesn't lean in enough into the concept, to my mind. If one is going to do it, better to do it full-bloodedly. The lone Cyberman does not appear until halfway through the episode's running time. He should instead arrive right at the beginning, perhaps exhausted and needing to galvanise himself with electricity; the rest of the story should be the Doctor and Co with the Cyberman, trapped in the house, and in passing working through every Frankenstein's monster cliché before the reversal (which is there in story as it aired) that this is no figure of pathos but a vicious killer.

Instead of this, the script throws every haunted house trope imaginable into the mix for the first 25 minutes, excusing it with some technobabble about defence mechanisms that is within an skeleton's hair's breadth away from "it was all a dream". The animated skull and bony fingers turn out to be a collective hallucination, just like the nightmare scenario of the building folding in on itself, so one could walk and walk and never escape (it made me, as a long-term fan, think of the Peter Davison story Castrovalva, of course). Throughout all that, I just wanted the script to pick one horror scenario for the characters to be in, rather than bombard me with several. There wasn't any particular moment that worked as an effective scare either - it's atmospheric, but never frightening or even surprising. One of the scenarios thrown against the hallucinatory wall to see if it'll stick is Graham's mini-subplot where he sees dead people; in some ways this is the most effective part of the story: it's fun to watch Bradley Walsh giving a down-to-Earth performance amidst the strangeness, trying to find the toilet and moaning about being hungry. The script seems to be jokingly suggesting the ghosts he sees were real, but the defence mechanism explanation is so confused and confusing there's no reason they can't be hallucination too, and this undermines the humour. Toisin Cole as Ryan is having an off-day and his humorous dialogue falls a bit flat too. Once the Cyberman finally arrives, it doesn't really do anything of note; almost all the guest characters cannot die as history notes that they survived the night, so only a couple of servants get bumped off; the ante can't get upped. The end sees the protagonists and antagonist leaving to continue the story elsewhere, which leaves The Haunting of Villa Diodati seeming like so much set-up, but not much more.

Connectivity: 

Both The Haunting of Villa Diodati and Time and the Rani feature famous historical Earth figures whose brains are collectively affected because of a returning classic series baddie.

Deeper Thoughts:

The Netflix of Analogies. I've tried to be a little less political in these sections of the blog recently, more for the sake of my blood pressure than anything else, but long term readers of the blog (Hi Mum!) will know that I very much dislike and disagree with the current Conservative government of the UK, the people that form that government, and their policies - if the drunken lurching from one half-baked reactionary slogan to another regressive tabloid headline can be called policy. At the time of writing, they are shaming my country by simultaneously granting themselves a flimsy legal cover for breaking international treaties while also recreating transportation, this time to Rwanda rather than Australia, and this time as punishment for the "crime" of seeking asylum at a time when the ruling party is unpopular and wants to feed red meat racism to the worst of its followers. It somehow makes it worse that they are as incompetent as they are vicious. By the time you read this, they will likely have stumbled on to something even worse. Compared to all that mess, and to every person impacted by the current cost of living crisis that their rabid posturing does nothing to alleviate, it probably seems churlish to concentrate on the vandalism they are doing in the area of broadcasting, but this is a blog about a TV show and I have to keep things vaguely on topic; plus, I think there's a sobering cautionary lesson to be learnt there.

Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, from various pronouncements she has made in her time in post so far, has made two things very clear; first, that she - on behalf of her party - wants to do away with public service broadcasting; what other impact can there be from privatising Channel 4 and getting rid of the licence fee that funds the BBC, two things she has explicitly stated were going to happen on her watch? Second, she has made it clear that she is not qualified for the position of Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I'm trying to be kind, but it's hard to do so when watching Dorries's slow motion vandalism play out: she is cultured only in the same way sour milk is. Channel 4 is doing very well at the moment, and the recent consultation on Channel 4's future had over 50,000 responses from members of the public and more than 96% of respondents did not want the channel to be privatised; Dorries reversed this in a recent select committee appearance, claiming that 96% were in favour; this was either deliberate misinformation or bumbling - neither option reflects well on her. The government's own summary of that consultation, which is available online here, uses many weasel words to explain why it isn't going to take any notice of the responses and is going to privatise anyway. It would have been more concise to write "We can do what we bloody well like, and we don't give a toss for the public good", but corrupt administrations are never known for their directness. I wonder why they went to the bother of having the consultation at all.

The summary admits that Channel 4 ain't broke but is still going to be fixed, thus "The government recognises Channel 4’s success in delivering on its remit and its current financial performance. However, we cannot be short-termist in our thinking and must consider the longer-term outlook for Channel 4." This long-term outlook bullshit means that imaginary risks and opportunities that might come along in the future can be conjured up to justify anything. Any populist government will have trumped up (pun intended) threats and enemies they inflate in rhetoric that they can say they are protecting "the people" from; it feels like another step towards the abyss, though, to go from exaggerating current known situations to imagining and not even specifying hypothetical future risks, and burning down anything with that justification. What is particularly galling is the comparisons that are often made, including by Dorries herself in a tweet, to Netflix. The thrust is that Channel 4 and the BBC have to be able to compete with Netflix and similar subscription-funded streaming services. Watching the Villa Diodati story on the BBC iplayer is a similar experience to watching, say, Stranger Things on Netflix, and that similarity allows this con of false equivalence. Netflix does not provide news for a start, let alone radio stations and local broadcast journalism, and online services and all the many other things that the BBC provides. Even more galling about the comparison related to Channel 4 is that while the latter - as even the government concedes - is in rude financial health, the same cannot be said of Netflix.

The current and future existential threats to Netflix are far from imaginary. It lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, and its own forecasts predict it will lose millions more in the next few months. When this news was public, the share price took a dive. Yet, it is still the UK governments analogy of choice. Months after those bad results, the government Health Secretary chillingly said "We Have A Blockbuster Health System In A Netflix Age". No matter that in a subsequent press briefing, a spokesperson - possibly too young to remember Blockbuster video - seemed to think he'd meant 'blockbuster' as a positive, and no matter that Netflix is currently not an exemplar of an institution to which anyone should necessarily aspire, the meaning was clear. The NHS, another UK public service, is at risk of being replaced by a subscription service. As Russell T Davies said on this topic, on the BAFTA red carpet accompanied by Ncuti Gatwa on the day of the announcement that Gatwa was taking over as the Doctor, if you don't want the sell off of Channel 4, or the removal of the licence fee, "Go and vote differently". Such an action has to be good for the NHS's chances too. The trouble is, how much damage is this government going to do before we get the opportunity to vote them out?

In Summary:

Not good enough to be this century's Castrovalva, maybe this century's Timelash?

Time and the Rani

Chapter The 231st, when Doctor Who reaches the Emulator orchestra hit sample era.

Plot:

The Rani has allied herself with some giant and not that quiet bat people, the Tetraps, and with them has enslaved the locals on the planet Lakertya, set up a laboratory there and installed a giant brain. This may already sound like a bizarre plan, but you ain't heard nothing yet! She plans to blow up an asteroid orbiting the planet that is composed of strange matter; this will turn the planet and brain into a time manipulator apparently. She has abducted various geniuses from across time and space, and linked them up to the brain to work on the chemical formula for a detonator for the asteroid. One of the geniuses she has left a space for is the Doctor. She causes his TARDIS to crash land on Lakertya, which brings about the Doctor's regeneration. She and a Tetrap bundle the new Doctor out of the TARDIS, leaving Mel unconscious lying on the control room floor. Before the Rani links the Doctor into the brain circuit, she drugs him to induce temporary amnesia, and pretends to be Mel (wearing a wig and dressing in the same costume); this is so he will unwittingly help fix her broken lab equipment. Mel befriends a Lakertyan rebel Ikona, avoids the Tetraps and the Rani's explosive bubble traps, and breaks into the lab while the Rani is elsewhere. At first, neither she nor the Doctor trust that the other is who they say they are. Persuaded at last, the Doctor plays along with the returning Rani for a while to try to get information on her plans, but she sees through this and connects him to the brain circuit.

The Doctor's eccentricities impact the collective genius brain, so the Rani disconnects him, and Mel traps her. It's too late, though, as the formula for detonating the asteroid has been found. The Rani escapes, sets the countdown to missile launch, and goes off towards her TARDIS to escape the planet. The Doctor and Mel remove the explosive anklets that the Rani has put on the Lakertyans to keep them in line, and place them round the giant brain. The Doctor sabotages equipment in the laboratory to jam the countdown. He confronts the Rani before she escapes and bluffs that the Lakertyans are waiting to attack. She activates the anklets, destroying the brain and causing the countdown to resume. Unfortunately, this kills Beyus the leader of the Lakertyans, who stayed to guard the brain. As there was a delay, the missile sails past the asteroid and the planet is safe. The Rani escapes in her TARDIS but the Tetraps, having learned that she was going to abandon them on the planet as it was destroyed, have broken in, and capture her to take her back to their home planet. The Doctor assures Mel that his new persona will grow on her; they say goodbye to the Lakertyans and resume their travels in space and time.

Context:

I didn't make an attempt to interest any of the family in a story with such a poor reputation (see First Time Round for more details of the regard in which Time and the Rani is generally held), so watched an episode every couple of nights on my own over a week in May 2022 from the Blu-ray disc in the Collection box-set. I watched the standard versions as transmitted* rather than the alternative extended episodes on another disc in the set. I then spent a couple of weeks not writing up my notes into a blog post; no particular reason for this, just a lot going on in the house at the moment. I have, for example, had to watch all seven episodes of Stranger Things 4 volume 1 twice over with my ST-enamoured middle child (boy of 12), and that takes up a lot of time, believe me. 

* The beginning credits of part 4 as transmitted had an early version of the title sequence where the Doctor's face is less visible, half faded into the starfield background; it is not reproduced on the Blu-ray. At the time, as a teenager overthinking it, I believed this was deliberate to tie in with the narrative, showing the Doctor is under threat in the story (as he's plugged into the Rani's brain drain circuit). It was, of course, just a mistake. 

First Time Round:

Time and the Rani is a very unpopular story. In the few whole series polls run by Doctor Who Magazine over the years, and in various other polls online that one could find with a google, it's consistently in the bottom 10, usually the bottom three. At the time it first went out, though, it didn't feel that way to me. This is very different to the other classic series story that regularly languishes at or near the bottom of polls, also coincidentally an introductory story for a new Doctor, The Twin Dilemma. The reaction of people I came into contact with first time round to Colin Baker's debut was in keeping with its reputation now (see the blog post here for the full gory details); Time and the Rani at the time felt like an exciting new start. I remember watching the first episode and enjoying a lot of it - it's always fun seeing a new Doctor in action (unless the script has him strangling his friend). A clear memory of the broadcast of the second episode is that I - having just started my final GCSE year at high school in September 1987 - was at a careers and education fair, in the masonic hall in Worthing - during the day, and made my own way home, excited to press record on the video to tape the next episode and see how they resolved the cliffhanger. I didn't think it was perfect by any means, and as the season progressed I thought later stories improved on Time and the Rani; but, I can honestly say that first time round I liked it, over-the-top camp in technicolour, risible dialogue and all.

Reaction:

I said above that this story felt like a brand new start, but it is talked about more as the last gasp of the previous era. The writers Pip and Jane Baker had previously written only for Colin Baker, and in the previous year had become the go-to team for putting together scripts for the production team when circumstances meant they were in a last minute rush. The story, so popular wisdom has it, was a hastily rewritten version of what was going to be Colin Baker's swansong, as he'd been offered one more go at the start of the next season to pass the baton on to the next Doctor. Coincidentally, in the gap between watching these episodes and writing up the blog post, I've finished reading Richard Molesworth's excellent recent work of Doctor Who research The John Nathan Turner Production Diary 1979-1990, which puts the commissioning of this story into context and casts some doubt on the popular wisdom. The book is the result of Molesworth's extensive analysis of a mountain of archived paperwork to create an approximation of the production diary of the final decade of Classic Who, and so gives the best illustration of what day-to-day working was like. From this, it's clear that when the scripts for Time and the Rani were commissioned on 22nd December 1986, Colin was already confirmed not to be coming back to do one story (he'd made that very clear several weeks earlier at the start of November). Undoubtedly, story discussions had happened prior to that date, and maybe Nathan-Turner was still hoping that he could tempt his previous leading man back. There were, though, still several months to go before production on the story started, during which time the new script editor Andrew Cartmel arrived to make his mark by encouraging rewrites.

On the whole, I think collectively he and the writers succeeded in making it more of a celebration of the new rather than the old. Apart from the presence of the Rani (who'd only appeared once before) and Sylvester McCoy's predecessor's outfit, which is dispensed with early on, there's no links back to the Baker era. The tone is very different, as one would expect when the script editor of all of Colin's tenure Eric Saward was no longer involved. There's a moment at the end where Donald Pickering's Beyus sacrifices himself a bit pointlessly, staying in the brain chamber until it's safely blown up, so he gets obliterated with it. A common theory is that this would instead have been the Doctor if Colin had come back for these four episodes, and that's what would have caused him to regenerate. I'm not massively convinced of this, though: Beyus dies on his own in a not particularly heroic way, while the main action - including the confrontation with the villain - is happening elsewhere. I think it's more likely that it's just a less effective bit of writing left in the final product. It's not made very clear why Beyus remains at the end to get blown up, as he doesn't actually do anything, then later dialogue seems to suggest he was being overcautious; "He must have been convinced that it was the only way to be certain of saving the rest of us" isn't exactly an endorsement of his actions. It's not the only less effective bit of writing. As in all their stories, Pip and Jane cannot do dialogue that sounds anything like anyone would actually ever say. There's enough to and fro, escape and recapture of characters that if you removed it and tightened up the script you could lose the entire third episode, but this isn't unique to this story by any means: there are very many classic Who four-parters where part three is just marking time. Weighed up against these negatives, though, is a lot of good stuff.

Things that are good about Time and the Rani: the new theme arrangement and title sequence, which uses CG elements for the first time in Who's history; the effects work throughout, particularly the combination of techniques used to create the bubble traps; Keff McCulloch's score, which - even more than Dominic Glynn's work the previous year - embraces the synth pop music of the time and brings a lot of energy, taking the series into its final musical era of the 20th century; the extensive location footage, and the use of models and set dressing elements at the location to create a unique alien world (it's not really correct for the world as outlined in the script, alas, but it is visually interesting); the colourful set design; the Lakertyans look great in terms of both make-up and costume, and the Tetrap design is great too - their long poisonous tongues are yuck, and the visualisation of their four-directional eyesight is also interesting and well done. There's one scene that is particularly strong, a stand-out of the era that never gets much attention: the Doctor and Mel dance around one another, each thinking the other is an imposter, then take each others pulse (the double heartbeat or lack thereof proving that they are or are not a Time Lord). It's lovely, and the relationship between them shown in this short section is so warm compared to the more antagonistic Doctor / companion dynamic of recent years. A lot of the reason for this greater warmth and tactility is new leading man Sylvester McCoy. He delivers a great performance here despite reportedly receiving little to no direction on how to attack the role. Already there is some clowning and some brooding (the proportions of each in the mix would be continually adjusted for the better in his future stories). The clowning should not be dismissed, as it is a vital ingredient to the character, and there are many great moments of physicality, like his Chaplin-esque haring around a corner to a halt bouncing on one foot.

Best of all is Kate O'Mara. Getting her back after a couple of years to play the Rani was a huge coup, as in the interim she'd become mega-famous in a recurring role in US soap Dynasty. It's hard to reconcile what the Pip and Jane Rani scripts tell about who the character is (amoral scientist who does not care about the repercussions of her experiments) and what's actually shown (glam panto villain with an epic lip curl), so my advice is not to try and just go with it. Overshadowed in her first story by having to share the antagonism with Anthony Ainley's Master, this story gives O'Mara space to shine, and I'm glad that the story exists just for that reason. I'm certain that many people think that the central idea of the first couple of episodes to have the Rani impersonate Mel is 100% cringe, but I think it's some kind of twisted genius. Bonnie Langford seemed game to have herself sent up, O'Mara attacks the task with brio, and the script gives her some great moments of switching being panto evil and Mel's ridiculously bouncy positivity within the same scene. Every moment that the Doctor's eccentricity annoys the Rani and she has to suppress it is a joy to watch (at least for me). None of this, or anything else in the story, is deep or dark, but that was all to come; also to come was a better thought-out companion character that wasn't just the one-note sketch of bouncy positivity with which poor Langford was saddled. It's sad that Colin was robbed of his regeneration story, but Sylv got a proper post-regeneration story, complete with all the beats (early confusion, picking a new costume, proving himself to his sceptical companion, defeating a returning villain to show he's still the same Time Lord), and it was just the start of a new phase of Doctor Who that would have its missteps for sure, but overall would get better and better.

Connectivity: 

Both Time and the Rani and The Dominators see at least one member of an invading race accompanied by some monstrous assistants arriving on a peaceful planet (that looks like a quarry) and using some of the populace as a workforce. In both instances, they don't intend to take over the planet long term, but instead are planning to blow something up to use for another purpose, which in both cases will mean the planet is destroyed but only as a means to an end. Dialogue in both stories mentions quarks (though it's referring to the actual sub-atomic particles in Time and the Rani, not some robots that happen to named after them).

Deeper Thoughts:

Joining in / plugging in. My memory has been jogged by the "back to school" associations of Time and the Rani, which like all of Sylvester McCoy's season openers kicked off early in a new academic year, and also by watching Stranger Things and working out that the young cast of high schoolers in the 1980s-set show are fictionally around the same age as me  (Dustin, Mike, Will and Lucas would all now have turned 50 in our present day, assuming none of them get killed by a Demogorgon in series 5); finally and most significantly, my eldest child has started his own GCSE exams (he's halfway through at the time of writing). This has made me reflect on when I was finishing high school and doing my GCSEs (I was part of the first year to do these exams after O-levels were phased out the previous year in the UK). What's markedly different between me and him is how much of a joiner I was in those days. He doesn't dabble in anything extra-curricular, but by the time I was his age I had been part of Worthing Hospital radio for a couple of years, presenting on Saturday afternoons as one of a posse (ugh! - I later briefly had my own show doing 50s and 60s rock and roll on Friday nights) plus doing many ward visits to take dedications, and fund raising, and even weekly committee meetings (I remember they were a bit dull for teenage me, even though I wasn't exactly a raver). I had also recently done public speaking competitions representing the school, and for the whole of my final year I was one a handful of pupils running a young enterprise company, Sox n' Box, that sold socks and boxer shorts with spray-painted slogans and logos on them. I was part of a group who regularly met to play role playing games, like the Stranger Things kids, and I was even writing a novel on the side (it wasn't very good, a sub par Douglas Adams thing). I don't know how I managed to get any schoolwork done, let alone how I managed to pass those exams.

What's interesting is that, despite being a massive Doctor Who fan in those days, I never joined anything related to the programme. The Doctor Who Appreciation Society was affiliated to a network of local groups, and many fans of my age have nostalgic stories of the first time they attended such a group, nervous at meeting fellow fans (who can be a bit scary en masse). I was never brave enough even to investigate if such a group existed nearby (there most likely was one in Brighton, if not Worthing). This also probably explains why I had joined some of those other things; I was essentially dragged along by my schoolfriend Andrew Dancey to hospital radio and to the young enterprise thing. He was presumably worried about turning up alone first time out. He certainly took to the radio thing afterwards, and made it his profession (as did another friend from that time who was also part of Worthing Hospital radio, Duncan Barkes). I was always better as a wingman than a squadron leader, though, so would never have tried to reverse the roles with Andrew or anyone else accompanying me to a Doctor Who group. Most people didn't share quite my level of enthusiasm for the show anyway, though Andrew and others had occasionally watched with me one on the seven whole VHS tapes that constituted my Doctor Who collection at the time. This paucity of entertainment probably explains why I stuck with things like hospital radio rather than duck out once Andrew had got his feet under the table: there wasn't a whole lot else to do in those days of four TV channels, and no world wide web.

This probably explains my eldest's lack of joining. If he wants to interact with his friends, entertain himself by watching a TV series or film, express his own creativity, or play a computer game, he can do all this without leaving his bedroom (if he has his tablet on charge within reach, he doesn't even need to leave the bed). Even for the middle-aged me, TCP/IP and HTML have helped me be more part of Doctor Who fandom than I otherwise would have been, even though I still keep a lot of it at arm's length because of shyness. This makes me less concerned about my son; his generation doesn't need to join in, as they are constantly plugged in. This can definitely be a positive. After a recent Maths paper, he came home still dwelling on one of the final questions, which seemed impossible to solve. In my day, if I was lucky, I might have had a brief chance as we left the exam hall and trooped off home to canvass a friend or two about what they thought about that difficult question about the intersecting circles. My eldest was able to just use his phone and search social media for "Edexcel Maths GCSE paper 1 circles" and find that everyone had hated that question, and some people were already making up memes about it. Like the geniuses wired up to the Rani's giant brain, we're all connected and it's very often a negative experience with a Babel of voices bickering; sometimes, though, the connected masses are greater than the sum of the individuals, and we get something that's an overall good. Loyhargil!

In Summary:

It's not cool, it's not deep, it's not dark, but I like it. So there!