"It feels different this time..." - The new Doctor Who Thread

[Kazin]

I blame @Johnny Unusual for this. (shop is located here if you're interested where I got these shirts)

(also they just came in the mail today so they're wrinkled and need to be washed lol)

 

[Johnny Unusual]

The Moonbase

"There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought!"

In this serial, the Doctor's attempt to land on Mars to impress his companions instead has him on the moon in 2070. Jamie is injured while playing on the moon and the Doctor and his friends take him to a nearby Moonbase that controls the Gravitron, a device designed to manage the weather for the Earth. The moonbase is experiencing an outbreak of a mysterious disease knocking them unconscious. One man rants about a silver hand before going down and Jamie, in sickbay, claims to have seen a phantom piper from an old family legend. Polly discovers the true perpetrator; a Cyberman, capturing the sick and taking them away. The staff is not ready to believe so the Doctor does some investigating and finds that the moonbase's coffee supply has been the source of the infections and the Cybermen have been hiding in sickbay as unconscious bodies. When the Doctor discovers them, the Cybermen begin to take over the moonbase with the infected, now converted to zombie-like slaves.

It turns out the Cybermen are after the Gravitron, deciding to wipe out the human race, seeing them as a danger to their existence. Ben, Polly and Jamie come up with a plan that helps take back the base, destroying their plastic casings and exposing them to radiation and killing them. However, a cybership with a much larger army unleashes it's forces. As more Cybermen arrive, they reactivate their slaves but a nearly lethal attack from the Cybermen that the Doctor and friends are able to deal with deactivate the zombies. The Doctor and the staff of the moonbase manage to repurpose the Gravitron and use it's anti-gravity power to shoot the Cybermen forces into space. As the Moonbase celebrates, the Doctor and friends decide to leave. On board, the Doctor shows his friends a little toy that can show the future, only to see the image of a claw.

This one was... a bit of a mixed bag. I think it fell more on the side of my not being a big fan. I feel like Chapter One was kind of a snooze and it picked up as Chapter Two came to a close. Chapter Three is fun, even if Ben and Polly's plan feels like a bit of an asspull. Then chapter 4 lands on servicable. Not super great but watchable. I also like that the big defeat of the enemy is kind of silly, which is very Doctor Who to me. The idea that an unstoppable horror's defeat is "woopsie" and flying into the air is the right kind of whimsy, the idea that hope and cleverness overcomes the evil.

Interestingly, I was a bit bored so I was curious if my opinion was similar and on wikipedia it feels like emotions are all over the map. And it does feel like three phases have different tones. The first two chapters seem like they are biding time, then things happen in Chapter three, then Chapter Four is a siege story. I haven't seen a ton of Troughton except I know siege stories become a big part of his era so this does set a tone, to be sure. Overall, this one I simply didn't have strong feelings about. It's kind of Saturday morningish again but not outlandishly so. The vein element is creepy so I like that but overall, this one didn't make much of an impression. New Cybermen look is OK. Something weird about the balaclava's but this makes more sense as an iconic look.

Best Cliffhanger: The Doctor learns the Cybermen are hiding in sick bay

Next Time:

 

[Kazin]

I find the Cyberman standing quietly behind Polly just out of frame pretty creepy, though yeah, the Moonbase is any many ways the template for huge chunks of the Troughton era. If you find bases under siege boring generally, you'll have a rough time (they do execute the formula better several times).

 

[Kazin]

I finished the David Whitaker book. I enjoyed it - it's well written, and as well researched and comprehensive as I think we're ever going to get regarding his life. I can't really recommend it if you live outside the UK - the cost of shipping is absolutely ridiculous - but £17+shipping if you live there isn't too bad.

Anyway. There's so much missing from his life - basically once you hit the 1970s, you have some encounters with people he taught in Australia where he lived most of that decade, but documentation and his work at the time are gone. He wrote a bunch, apparently, but almost none of it was commissioned, and because Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin treated Whitaker like crap during production of The Ambassadors of Death, he never wrote for Doctor Who proper again (though happily, it appears Terrance Dicks reached out a few times to try to coax him back, though sadly unsuccessfully). We don't know when he got cancer, we assume he had tuberculosis as a kid but we're unsure, his second wife died in 1990 in her 40s, and he had no kids. Even his nephew Steve died young in 2008, and he worked with Neil Gaiman and Gaiman had no idea he was related to David Whitaker before Steve died. It sucks. My apologies for the forced, clumsy metaphor, but so much of his life is missing, just like so much of 1960s Doctor Who.

 

[Vaeran]

My apologies for the forced, clumsy metaphor, but so much of his life is missing, just like so much of 1960s Doctor Who.

Not at all, I think this is very apt.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the book! I don't think I'll be picking up a copy of my own, as I'm mostly satisfied with the featurette on Whitaker on the S2 blu-ray set. But I did follow one of your earlier recommendations and order a copy of WIPED! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes that I'm excited to get into. It also occurs to me that I never cracked open the copy of Matthew Waterhouse's book about his time on the program (Blue Box Boy -- had to grab a copy on eBay.) Looks like I've got some summer reading to do!

 

[Kazin]

Ooh, let me know how Blue Box Boy is! I've not read it. Apparently he refers to himself in the third person the whole time, if I remember correctly.

 

[Vaeran]

Will do!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

The Macra Terror

"Doctor, that was it: that thing in the picture! That was the claw! They're in control."

In this serial, the Doctor and his companions arrive on an Earth colony in the future that boasts of their utopia of play and mining for gases. The first man they meet is a half-crazed man named Medok who claims to see monsters, only to be disbelieved by the public. Talk of monsters is made illegal by Controller, the colony's rulemaker, given to Pilot, the leader of the colony. Controller is only seen as a still image. The Doctor believes him and starts to get close to him after he's arrested for disturbing the peace, even sneaking out with him from prison to discover the crab-like monsters. Meanwhile, Pilot is given orders to hypnotize the Doctor's companions and though Jamie and Polly are spared, Ben falls under control and is brainwashed into serving the colony. The Doctor confronts Pilot and Controller and Controller is told to show his true face. A disheveled, confused version of "controller" appears on camera and seems to be killed by a forced offscreen but the brainwashed inhabitants ignore a clear sign that the monsters are in control.

The Doctor and his friends (except Ben) are forced to serve in the mines. Jamie escapes while the Doctor uses a supervisory position to investigate. Meanwhile, Ben struggles to shake off his brainwashing, feeling divided in his loyalties. The Doctor begins to realize the poisonous gas being mined feeds the monsters, the Macra, and in taking control of the colony have turned humans into their slaves to do so. Eventually the Doctor discovers their control center and manages to convince Pilot to see the truth. But Chief of Security Ola is unyielding and captures them, trapping them in a room of poisonous gas set to explode. Ben frees himself from the brainwashing to save them and sends the exploding gas into the Macra's command center, killing them. The Doctor and friends are celebrated as heroes, though the Doctor is quick to leave once he learns he's about to be given a leadership position.

All I knew about the Macra Terror going in was "crab monsters" and I wasn't super excited. But in many ways, the Macra Terror feels in line with later Doctor Who stories of bad utopias. Yes, the Doctor has saved the world from dystopias before but I think it helps here that the colony is... kind of ridiculous. With it's obnoxious jingles and cheerleaders. It feels very much in line tonally with serials like the Seventh Doctor stories that would take a setting that's silly on the face (the apartment complex in Paradise Towers, the colony in the Happiness Patrol) and still have it ooze a nasty menace. I'm overselling it a bit but that element of ridiculous actually makes it creepier to me, to have this threat that also seems like a bad joke.

It's not without flaws. The finale was a little lacking. I think Ben's return to the good side worked fine and happened gradually but I wasn't sold on Pilot's suddenly being disobedient. It feels like more seeds needed to be planted to make it work satisfactorily for me. A lot of reviews say the Macra themselves are the weakest part and that's kind of true. But the Macra as Controller works well for me, a transparent and sweaty threat that keeps getting away with it because no one has the will power to question it. It does get a little weird that the Macra decide to make it sound like Controller is freaking the fuck out. I'm assuming it's not a Macra speaking, it's an electronic voice or something but it's funny they'd do that. But it works for the cliffhanger where they are plainly in control and no one cares, which is a creepy idea and one that still resonates, especially when you see a politician do something awful and know if we are lucky, they might get a slap on the wrist.

But overall, I think this one works very well. There's also some stuff that feels like it's there to eat up a little time but it is also some of the best stuff. Particularly the Doctor working on some math and then awarding himself a 10/10 for being awesome. Then reappraising with an 11/10. This is the kind of fluff that really sells the character. Not as good but I think using Jamie in front of the cheerleaders wasn't bad, mostly because after the tenseness of the last half of the story, bringing in the silly stuff is kind of welcome and a reminder of how this place functions. I do kind of wish the last scene played a little more... Idunno, cynical. Society seems sort of the same. Will they suck just as much without the Macra. I was kind of hoping the pan out at the end of the animated version would have Macra corpses in the street while people celebrate with their stupid jingles.

A really solid outing. It's possible a lot his helped because I watched the animated version but overall, a good time.

The best cliffhanger: The Macra are in control and no one cares.

Next Time:

 

[Kazin]

I do think the animation of Macra is excellent, yeah - especially if you watch it in colour, weirdly enough. They took some liberties with the source material, as you can imagine - most of the sets are smaller in the real thing (we have telesnaps for this serial), they cut a scene (the rough and tumble machine) that admittedly probably wouldn't work well in animation, though I'd like to see the real thing. Still, I really like the animation a lot, and wish every missing story was animated as well as Macra (even if The Invasion's character models look better, overall).

The thing about that colony, though - it's a holiday camp. It's a place British working and middle class families went while on vacation in the 50s and 60s, and they did a bunch of activities like singing and dancing, stuff they wouldn't normally do in their day to day lives, then they'd go home. Ben is working class, so that's why he's more susceptible to the programming than the Doctor, Polly, or Jamie. The Macra Terror's "colony" takes place at one of these. So to me, it's kinda like if the Macra invaded Disneyworld, and a Disney adult got possessed. Sorta. See, as always, El Sandifer's entry for the story for far more detail.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

The thing about that colony, though - it's a holiday camp. It's a place British working and middle class families went while on vacation in the 50s and 60s, and they did a bunch of activities like singing and dancing, stuff they wouldn't normally do in their day to day lives, then they'd go home. Ben is working class, so that's why he's more susceptible to the programming than the Doctor, Polly, or Jamie. The Macra Terror's "colony" takes place at one of these. So to me, it's kinda like if the Macra invaded Disneyworld, and a Disney adult got possessed. Sorta. See, as always, El Sandifer's entry for the story for far more detail.

Checks out.

The songs definitely brought this to mind, though.

Learning Day: Songs of the IBM 🌭 - 1-900-HOTDOG

Cursed artifacts from the wrong dimension every weekday.

1900hotdog.com

 

[Kazin]

Posted on Gallifrey Base today, regarding the semi-recent passing of a huge classic TV collector/hoarder in Australia:

Fuck me, I kind of wish I hadn't logged on to Gallifrey Base for the first time in months today. This could be big. Please give us some of Power, somehow, some way. Please

The original Facebook post, for those curious. I have not perused it or the replies since I no longer have a FB account, and won't be creating one, even for missing Doctor Who.

EDIT: Take a deep breath, Kazin.

 

[Vaeran]

As it's been over 10 years since the last set of missing episodes were recovered, this is probably one of the last few remaining chances of finding anything ever again.

Please, universe. I don't ask for much.

 

[Kazin]

It could be fucking anything, Vaeran (well, except The Feast of Steven, which was not broadcast outside the UK, if I recall WIPED! correctly). The 50s and 60s bit in particular has me speculating wildly, sitting here at work lol

EDIT: I mean, shit. The 50s?! I don't know what was broadcast from that decade in Australia, but we could possibly get stuff broadcast live once, like the original Quatermass or Patrick Troughton's version of Robin Hood (of which only bits were recorded). DOUBLE EDIT: Wait maybe not. How the fuck would they have broadcast live to Australia from the UK at the time lmao

 

[Vaeran]

The only thing right now that's tempering my excitement is the fact that so much of it is damaged or otherwise in poor condition. It would be extremely 2024 to find out that this motherfucker was sitting on the entirety of Marco Polo only to have it rot away to nothing.

 

[Kazin]

Doctor Who fans are a talented, nerdy bunch - they could work a lot of magic even with an extremely poor print, assuming they could get their hands on it (heck, the BBC has an economic incentive to try to salvage what they can, as well). Assuming any missing prints have any image left on them at all, I'm sure we'll see it - and for episodes like Marco Polo that have no moving footage whatsoever currently existing, that could be a big deal. Though, yes, not getting a full episode would be disappointing, I'll take what we can get, especially for the stuff that is incredibly unlikely like basically anything from Troughton's two Dalek stories.

 

[Kazin]

And we get a trailer for the Christmas special today:

 

[Vaeran]

Doctor Who fans are a talented, nerdy bunch - they could work a lot of magic even with an extremely poor print, assuming they could get their hands on it

"Good news, we've restored the deteriorated footage with the power of AI! The Doctor now has nine fingers on each hand."

And we get a trailer for the Christmas special today:

Weird trailer! Gives me the strangest craving, though...

While Series 14 didn't quite stick the landing, I'm overall quite positive on it and am excited to see what RTD's got for us next.

 

[Kazin]

And we're getting a spinoff called "The War Between the Land and the Sea" about, presumably, the Sea Devils, I imagine.

Whew, what a day!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

And we're getting a spinoff called "The War Between the Land and the Sea" about, presumably, the Sea Devils, I imagine.

Sea Devil/Silurian war? I guess that would be Sea and Earth rather than Land.

 

[Kazin]

Finally suffered through The Ice Warriors. Outside the musical sting that occurs when something bad happens, it is dull nonsense. The Ice Warriors may be my least favorite classic Who recurring monster (because the Quarks only appear once, thank heavens lol).

 

[Kazin]

Meanwhile, The Enemy of the World flies by. I just finished the third episode and it's so much fun. Shame Colin Douglas as Bruce the security leader is so out of his depth compared to literally everyone around him. His flat, rushed delivery of his lines really deflates the tension of scenes his character is involved in. It's really the only bum note in the story though - the escalation, the acting, even the stupid corridor they keep Denes in works perfectly (okay, maybe not the corridor). I'm baffled director Barry Letts thought so poorly of this serial - corridor and Douglas's casting aside, I think this moves along at a wonderful pace and is miles better than many of the serials he'd end up producing in the 70s.

It helps that this is David Whitaker's best script, I suppose (in my opinion, anyway - Power of the Daleks is probably his most important and is also excellent, but this serial just sings). Gah, I wish Whitaker wrote or said more about his own writing before he died...

 

[Kazin]

I know double and triple posting is an old forum faux-pas, but I do not have social media anymore and have nowhere else to drop my thoughts.

I think The Enemy of the World manages a feat I don't think any other Doctor Who classic story does - I think it's middle episode, 4 of 6, is the best episode of the serial. Not necessarily because any of the others are bad, but because it completely wrongfoots you. Salamander getting in a tube and shooting what appears to be dozens of stories underground is weird enough, but then what's down there, and the scale of his plan for world domination, is just not what you expect at all. The story hints that Salamander is somehow causing volcanoes to explode worldwide, but surely, that's ludicrous, right? He couldn't do that without evidence and witnesses, right? Well, all his witnesses cut off completely from the rest of the world, lied to about radiation to keep them down there, works a treat. Salamander kicking back with a newspaper and a cigar while his dupes putter around putting their groceries away is the cherry on top haha

And then when it all comes crashing down, after he is defeated... Salamander tries to steal the TARDIS. Sure, he can't possibly have any idea what it is, but he damn near gets away with it. The final reveal that Salamander impersonates the Doctor right at the end is such a lovely twist in a story packed to the gills with them. I love it so much.

There's still plenty to look forward to in Troughton's era, but I'm sadly past the halfway point. I really, really hope some of his episodes are returned - I'll take anything, at this point. Even The friggin Ice Warriors (please be anything else besides the Ice Warriors).

 

[Johnny Unusual]

The Faceless Ones

"Ben can catch his ship and become an admiral, and you, Polly... you can look after Ben."

In this serial, the TARDIS ends up on the tarmac of the Gatwick Airport and after they leave, the TARDIS is removed. The Doctor and friends are chased by airport security and Polly sees one man kill another in the hangar of Chameleon Tours. Polly shows the Doctor the body who suspects the weapon used isn't a conventional Earth weapon of the era and decides to heave to security to investigate. Polly is kidnapped without the Doctor's knowledge and as the Doctor and Jamie try to impress on the Commandant that something is wrong, Polly seems to arrive calling herself by another name and says she doesn't know them. Meanwhile, a woman named Samantha Briggs is investigating the disappearance of her brother (a Chameleon Tours customer) and the detective investigating it (the man killed in the hangar). She teams with the Doctor and friends to investigate, as well as the dead man's superior Crossland, who is a bit more amenable to the Doctor's far out ideas.

The Doctor and his friends begin to learn the truth; Chameleon Tours is using the flights as a pretense to kidnap young people and are capable of taking the form of the captured. They are run by strange faceless aliens who need human bodies to give them form, which was lost on a catastrophe on their world. Eventually the Commandant is convinced and taking a Chameleon prisoner learns if a Chameleon is cut off from his host suddenly, they die. The Doctor pretends to be his own double and infiltrates the Chameleon Tours plane but is found out but bluffs that he's found their bodies and is willing to have them reverted one-by-one. They call his bluff but Crossland and the Commandant manage to find them and revert one of the enemy bodies, killing it, to begin negotiations. The Chameleons are convinced to call off their plans and the Doctor even promises to give them some advice that doesn't involve abduction. After reuniting, Ben and Polly realize they've arrived on the day they left and take it as a sign to stay and leave the Doctor. The Doctor and Jamie walk off, with the Doctor confiding that TARDIS has been lost... or stolen.

The Faceless Ones is a good two or three part episode stretched to 6 parts. That's not the only problem but it's clear the last act is when things finally cook while the other acts there's a bit too much puttering around the airport. Shapeshifting aliens is old hat and calling it the Faceless Ones hints at it early on enough that a lot of stuff is the Doctor and Company slowly figuring things out that the audience can assume. So it's a bit of a slow one. Plus while I think an airport can be an interesting setting for intrigue, 6 episodes of white walls is a bit tiring.

If anything, it takes surprisingly little advantage of the shell game of not only aliens pretending to be people and using that to run circles around their enemies, including the Doctor, but also not enough of the Doctor trying to use that confusion to his advantage. It only happens in episode 5 and it's quick to be undone. Even worse, while I'm far from the biggest Ben and Polly fan, this episode REALLY does a disservice as a farewell. It's not nearly as bad as poor Dodo (who disappeared one episode into a 4 parter and never came back) but they don't get to do anything really. I didn't even clock when Ben got kidnapped, and not even in a clever "oh, this character has been replaced". It's very clear it was vacay time and while a kidnapping is a good way to get them out of the way, it's a very unfortunate goodbye. They don't even get to spring into the action in part 6.

But I think it does course correct by the end. There's a lot of vagaries and handwaving of the exact nature of the Faceless Ones' plight (they lost their form. Is this radioactive scarring? Does being in their regular form make them hurt? What are the consequences aside from looking really gross). But I think the last couple of episodes, things finally start to come together in a compelling way. Weirdly, Samantha didn't quite work for me (I was a bit relieved she didn't come on as a companion) but I kind of liked that the Doctor, meeting Crossland, only gets very understandable friction and that when the Commandant comes around, it feels a bit natural and he doesn't spend the last act like the first complaining not to believe this guy (which has happened a lot in the series). Overall, this should have been a much shorter serial and I think it would have been a brisk exciting little adventure but as is, it doesn't take enough advantage of the ideas it puts forth.

Best cliffhanger: None of them worked that well for me. I guess the old classic "the Doctor is surrounded by monsters."

Next Time:

 

[Kazin]

Yeah, and the main problem with Faceless Ones is each episode has some decent bits, but an equal amount of padding. Ben and Polly leaving and the Doctor telling Ben to rejoin the royal navy and Polly to... look after Ben is pretty terrible, too.

Meanwhile I cannot fucking believe I'm watching this PS1 assed FMV of episode 3 of Web of Fear again. Screw you, whoever stole this episode down in Nigeria. I will say I love Anne Travers and her old dad in this serial, at least. When I'm an old man, I want to potter around, mutter, and bitch myself.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

. Ben and Polly leaving and the Doctor telling Ben to rejoin the royal navy and Polly to... look after Ben is pretty terrible, too.

I actually put the quote in with the intent to address it and I forgot. But yeah, it's... bad. It's sexist but also really implies she doesn't have her own shit going on. And it's a reminder how underwritten both of them have been. But it really is a final insult to these two actors and characters.

 

[Teaspoon]

Trailer!!!!

I am excite, although I imagine we aren't using *all* those locations

 

[Kazin]

Finished The Web of Fear. I like it, mainly because of the set design and direction (the London Underground is a great setting for a base under siege, too). That said... I'm quite fatigued with this story type repeating serial after serial (as good as Enemy of the World was, it was just a brief respite from what is essentially the same story over and over again). I've never been able to appreciate Fury From the Deep because of this - it's the final in a very long run of similar stories, and even if it's visuals existed, I don't think it'd be better than The Web of Fear, for example (though even as a recon, it's more entertaining than The Ice Warriors, at least). Combine that with one of the more poor animation jobs - nowhere near as bad as Web 3, of course - and it's a story I've always found underwhelming. I may skip right to The Wheel in Space and come back to Fury once the Pertwee era bores me (usually in season 8)...

 

[Vaeran]

The 60th anniversary specials are finally up for preorder on Amazon. Releasing February 2025(!)

 

[Kazin]

I started Fury From the Deep against my better judgement. I will give it this - the seaweed not being able to talk makes it a much creepier villain than the annoying Ice Warriors. This animation, though... Wild Blue Yonder has got to be a joke referencing the longggg arms in this release, right? Lmao

Anyway, I look forward to the days when nuWho gets substantial special features like the classic series has. Not necessarily because I want Dirt on people who made the show (with only a few exceptions, the exceptions being the assholes, you know who I'm talking about, I'm sure), but because as much as a Let's Be Positive All The Time! type of feeling can be fun to watch, I want something a bit more serious. I bring this up because I doubt that set has much in the way of interesting behind the scenes material...

 

[Kazin]

Dammit.

This is why I tend to not post here about missing episodes, everything seemed so promising a few days back. Hopefully something shows up in those last 100 items, but we may be out of luck here.