Grab Bag Reviews: "The Web of Fear"

Patrick Troughton's era on Doctor Who introduced a number of new monsters and alien being but only a few ever really caught on well with fans. One of those were, surprisingly, the Yeti... or more precisely the Great Intelligence.

Writers Mervyn Haysman and Henry Lincoln penned the first story featuring the Yeti in 1967's "The Abominable Snowmen". The story pulled heavily from real figures in Tibetan Buddhism and for it's villain featured the formless being known as the Great Intelligence which in turn controlled the minds of certain humans in order to build his robotic Yeti servants.

The story proved popular enough that Haysman and Lincoln were asked to write a sequel -- 1968's "The Web of Fear". For this story the original Yeti costumes would be redesigned to look more fierce and the sound effect of a roar was added as well since one of the complaints about the Yeti were that they were too cuddly looking to be truly scary.

This story would also mark the introduction of a new character -- British Army Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, played by Nicolas Courtney. Courtney had previously appeared on the show in the First Doctor story "The Daleks Master Plan" where he portrayed the ill-fated Brett Vyon. The Lethbridge-Stewart character would eventually prove quite popular and would become a regular supporting cast member during the Third Doctor era.

Reprising a role here was Jack Watling -- actress Deborah Watling's father. Jack Watling had played a reporter named Travers in "The Abominable Snowmen" but here he returns as "Professor" Travers -- a scientist. I guess somewhere in the intervening years he went back to college and got a scientific degree?

What the story is perhaps most memorable for, however, is the fact that director Douglas Camfield wanted to film part of the story in the real London subway system (known as the Underground for those not up on their British terminology). The office in charge of the Underground system wanted too much money though so in retaliation the set designers took pictures and then worked off the pictures to create near-perfect replicas on the studio soundstage. In fact, the replication was so close that the Underground system accused Camfield of sneaking down and actually filming there on the sly without permission!

Like many of the stories from Patrick Troughton's era, "The Web of Fear" is almost entirely lost. Only one episode, the first one, still exists out of the six parts. The entire audio track was preserved by some fans though and was released as an audio drama with descriptive narration provided by Fraser Hines.

And now it's time to get tangled in a web of fear....

The Plot: Something actually stops the TARDIS in space -- a strange, cocooning web. When the web finally lets go the TARDIS lands in (though) roughly contemporary London in the Underground system. The system is strangely deserted though -- no passengers waiting at the station, no trains running, and all the power switched off.

Finding soldiers in the tunnels the time traveling bunch lean the terrifying secret -- the Yeti are back! And this time they are loose in the Underground and have terrifying new weapons -- like a strange fog which, once people enter, they never come out, and gun which fire a web-like substance, and a strange, massive fungus that is growing and sealing off the Underground station by station.

One group of soldiers in a field base have been tasked with stopping the menace but they are slowly being cut off, their position overrun and their men cut down. The Great Intelligence has set a trap like a spider with a web and the Doctor, his companions and allies have stumbled into it. Now the Doctor must match wits with the Great Intelligence and this time if he fails the cost to himself and the Earth may be incalculable.

My Take: Yes, this is yet another "base-under-siege" story but it is a quintessential 'base-under-siege' story and also a literal one since this time there is a base... and it is under siege. Mervyn Haysman and Henry Lincoln really did a cracking job with this story -- getting at what makes a base-under-siege story really click -- the slow, strangling tension as the characters are cut off from help step-by-step. Added to this is the fact that each one of their plans for victory or escape are cruelly crushed. In point of fact, it is telling that the military personnel go from formulating plans to try to defeat the Yeti and the Great Intelligence to merely trying to survive. The audience are dragged along with them and feels the danger mount as the situation grows more and more dire.

There are also elements of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None as it is revealed there is a traitor in their midst. As characters are killed off one-by-one the pool of potential traitors shrinks and the tension grows as those who survive increasingly eye one another with suspicion. For once the story does a truly excellent job at maintaining the mystery. There are multiple red herrings dragged across the trail but we do not know the truth until the end -- one one obvious ever stands out. Of course one of the costs of this is a pretty high body count all things considered.

The sound design for this story should definitely be mentioned. The sound engineers did a tremendous job in making sure that the actors' voices took on an echo-y quality for the scenes taking place in the train tunnels. Even without the visuals to reinforce it, it is easy to believe that the actors really were wandering around in a bunch of cold, tile tunnels.

Also of interest are the changes to the Great Intelligence here. In the first appearance the villain wants to inhabit the Earth -- to take on a corporeal form which, in turn, will eventually leave the human inhabitants with nowhere to go. This time around he has changed his target somewhat and now wants the knowledge in the Doctor's brain. It is really one of the few times that a villain deliberately targets the Doctor for.... um... villainy rather than wanting power, or control, or to kill an enemy.

The acting across the board should also be praised. Tina Packer as scientist Ann Travers displays an independence and sharp mind which would be lacking in many female characters for some years. She also has a wicked line in sarcasm when called on and the scenes of her working with the Doctor are well done as it comes across as two scientific colleagues working together rather than a scientist and a female assistant. Jack Watling is a delight playing the older, cantankerous Professor Travers. He may not actively be given much to do aside from be crotchety but he does do the crotchety extremely well. Even the character of Evans manages to invoke various emotions. On the one hand, it is easy to dislike him for his craven and cowardly nature. On the other hand, at times his craven and cowardly nature is a source of genuine amusement. And Nicholas Courtney... well, his Lethbridge-Stewart is, like Athena, sprung fourth fully formed. The character is locked in place from the moment we meet him and he will not alter drastically over the next several decades. But this is actually a good thing because it's easy to like the military minded Lethbridge-Stewart -- who also can display a nice talent for snark when needed.

The main cast is also firing on all cylinders... or at least as much as the script allows them too. Patrick Troughton is clearly having a ball as the Doctor as he plays the character like a genius child -- incomprehensibly intelligent but easily amused and easily distracted by the things that catch his interest -- often forgetting the danger and threats that surround him. Fraser Hines as Jamie shows himself to be, as always, the Doctor's stalwart companion... as well as being a fighter. Here Jamie is willing to run risks in the hopes of at least being able to accomplish something to keep his friends safe. It is Deborah Watling's Victoria who suffers the much in this script. She does stupid things, she screams a lot, and worst of all, she becomes 'girl hostage'.

And this brings up the areas where the script falls down on the job. For one thing, it goes on far too long -- it could have and should have been cut down to at least four episodes and possibly less. There is at least one entire episode and parts of others which are nothing but characters wandering around in the tunnels. And I do mean *nothing* but wandering around in tunnels. The plot isn't advanced, we don't learn anything new and nothing really happens. It's all rather boring.

The other area where the script falls down is with some of the characters. As I mentioned, Victoria is basically useless... unless you count getting in trouble, getting captured and having to be rescued as useful. In which case you have a warped idea of being useful. Well, I supposed that's useful in a way as a plot contrivance generator but, really, it's just lazy writing. The reporter, Chorley, is also a very poorly drawn character. He starts flipping out at the least provocation and is reduced to 'annoying, bloody idiot' by episode two. Seriously, episode *two* with another four to go.

Aside from that, though, there is little to complain about here. There really isn't a moral message -- neither an obvious one nor a hidden one -- and this isn't one of those stories where the show was trying to reach for some loftier ideas or philosophical discussions. What it is, however, is a great, nail-biting story that will have you on the edge of your seat with tension to spare, stakes as high as they come, and a great, claustrophobic location. Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly....

Grab Bag Reviews: Tomb of the Cybermen

And I'm back from holiday hiatus. And what better note to come back on than a Second Doctor story?

"Tomb of the Cybermen" was originally considered as the final episode of the 1966-1967 season but the decision was quickly made to push it back to become the opening of the 1967-1968 season. As such "Evil of the Daleks" became the season finale for '66-'67 and "Tomb" would become the first regular episode for the new companion Victoria Waterfield, played by Deborah Watling.

One of the biggest things "Tomb" is notable for is that it is one of the few "lost" stories to be found in whole. Due to the BBC's tape wiping destruction program (which I've mentioned elsewhere) "Tomb" was one of those stories which had been destroyed. In 1991, however, complete film copies were found in storage at a Hong Kong TV station and returned to the BBC. "Tomb" would also be the last complete story to be found. Single episodes of some serials have been located and some surviving clips have cropped up in the years since but "Tomb" was the last serial where all parts of the story were located.

So now shall we venture into the Tomb of the Cybermen?

The Plot: An archaeological team on the planet Telos uncovers the remains of a Cyberman civilization. The Doctor arrives with his companions Jamie and Victoria and insists on joining the expedition -- afraid that the Cybermen may not be as long gone as thought.

It soon becomes apparent that there is a saboteur among the team -- someone with an ulterior motive. When that motive is finally revealed the Doctor finds himself the last line of defense against the Cybermen and a madman. Will even the Doctor's intelligence allow him to save all the lives in his hands?

My Take: Okay. Elephant in the room. Let's get this out of the way first. Toberman. Toberman is a black, nearly mute, servant to Kaftan, one of the members of the archaeological expedition. To American audiences in particular Toberman checks off the boxes on a number of uncomfortable stereotypes. I am not, however, familiar with race relations in Great Britain so I am going to reserve judgement. Also, reportedly, the character of Toberman was supposed to be seen wearing a hearing aid -- indicating that he might have had some other physical disabilities. We'll just leave it that Toberman is likely to make most viewers cringe. Including me.

Now that we're past that....

The story itself is nothing particularly new but script writers Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler give viewers a story packed with wit and one liners and the Doctor getting to really do what he does best -- be the smartest guy in the room effortlessly. They also showcased something new from the Cybermen -- a new leader known as the Cybercontroller. Bigger, stranger, and harder to stop, the Cybercontroller became like the villain in a horror movie -- no matter what you throw at him he keeps getting back up.

Davis and Pedler also didn't forget the heart of the story either. There is a scene between the Doctor and Victoria that is rightfully heralded as one of the best bits of Classic Doctor Who. The Doctor comforts his companion who has recently lost pretty much everything she has ever known and at the same time offers one of those rare revelations about himself. The scene is not only perfectly pitched to tug on the heartstrings, it does so without becoming overly sentimental or schmaltzy. It is also played with a light touch by both Troughton and Watling.

The script also rather favors Victoria. Too bad it would be the last time viewers would ever see her so spunky. True, she does some boneheaded things but that is balanced by a determination to prove that just because she's a girl doesn't mean she can't handle herself, a little bit of snark, and even the ability to handle a gun (although it is strange that this sheltered Victorian girl could shoot so well right out of the gate). After this story, though, the character of Victoria would start a long, slow, slide into being mostly a screaming damsel in distress. Here, though, Watling manages to convey a young woman who is an odd mix of innocence and spirit. She also makes the viewers believe that, despite a wardrobe change, Victoria is and remains a Victorian lady.

And speaking of performances... Troughton, after a year on the job, is completely comfortable as the Doctor -- as is Fraser Hines as Jamie. The two actors present some of the best of their comedy double-team here with puns and jovial insults flying fast and furious. The rest of the guest cast has some problems, however. Actor George Pastell as Eric Klieg is delightfully smug and superior but Shirley Cooklin as Kaftan is a bit too much. She seems more like a femme fatale character who wandered onto the set of the wrong TV show. Plus the character is basically named after a loose, flowing article of clothing. It's impossible to be dignified and taken seriously when your character is named after an outfit. Most of the rest of the actors are serviceable and not particularly outstanding. A special place of ire, however, is reserved for George Roubicek who plays Captain Hopper. Roubicek's American accent isn't horrible in and of itself but he definitely is trying too hard at it and that makes it rather wince inducing.

The set design and special effects for "Tomb" were also pretty well done. Sure, the Cybermats are a bit more cute than frightening (seriously, I think I want a remote controlled Cybermat toy) but the Cybermen base and the tombs below have an alien look to them and the bas reliefs and other art decorations on the wall lend an air of looming menace. The tombs themselves are strange and intimidating but it has to be said that the Cybermen emerging through saran wrap is somewhat less than stellar. But who cares? Overall, the set design team really went above and beyond for this story.

Even with the uncomfortable stereotype of Toberman, "Tomb of the Cybermen" is still a fun romp and one of the Second Doctor's best stories. There is action and adventure, intrigue, madness, and high stakes all around. Who could ask for anything more?

Doctor Who Grab Bag Reviews: "The Two Doctors"

It's an open secret that my favorite Doctor is the Second one and my favorite companion is Jamie McCrimmon (what?! Dude went into action wearing a kilt AND he had the legs for it too -- you don't get better than that) so, of course, a story that reunites by favorite Doctor-Companion duo should be at the top of my list right?

Wrong.

"The Two Doctors" is one of my least favorites... a train wreck of a story in which nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong...

It all began two years earlier with 1983's "The Five Doctors". Jonathan Nathan-Turner, seeing the boon that a multi-Doctor story could be to the ratings was almost immediately interested in producing another one. In addition to that he had been impressed with both how well the Patrick Troughton had slipped back into his character of the Second Doctor and the easy working relationship and genuine camaraderie between Troughton and Fraser Hines who played Jamie McCrimmon. At the time of "The Five Doctors" Hines had only had time for a small cameo but J N-T hoped to lure him back to do a full episode alongside Troughton.

By the mid-1980's the Doctor Who veterans had discovered the American fan base and vice-versa. The show had become a minor cult-hit in the U.S. thanks to a combination of syndication and showings on American PBS stations (which is where I discovered the show way back when). Doctor Who conventions were starting to spring up in the States and many of the people who had been or were currently involved with the show had begun traveling "across the pond" for the conventions. J N-T began to see this as the perfect time to propose a joint effort between the BBC and the American company which was syndicating the show.

In 1985 J N-T managed to secure an assurance from the American company that they would be able to cover expenses for Doctor Who to fly to the United States and film an episode set in New Orleans, Louisiana. As such, J N-T hired long-time Doctor Who writer Robert Holmes to write a script to match. In point of fact, J N-T gave Holmes a laundry list of things to squeeze into the script -- the current Sixth Doctor and his companion, Peri, the Second Doctor and his companion, Jamie, a new alien race that had some connection to New Orleans, and Holmes was also to throw long-time villains the Sontarans in for good measure... just because. Needless to say, Holmes was not really pleased at being hampered by all of the elements he had to add.

Meanwhile, J N-T got both Patrick Troughton and Fraser Hines on board. Troughton had reportedly had a wonderful time filming "The Five Doctors" and was eager to do it again and he and Hines were old friends and co-workers and both were also looking forward to working together again.

Holmes, being a vegetarian, decided to focus the story around food and carnivorism and apparently planned to die this into the cuisine of New Orleans. As such his new alien race, the Androgums, was an anagram for gourmand.

At the last minute, however, it turned out that the American money would not be there after all and the BBC could not foot the bill for a New Orleans filming. Having filmed in Amsterdam for the Fifth Doctor story "Arc of Infinity" and in Lanzarote for "Planet of Fire" also for the Fifth Doctor, J N-T was reluctant to let go of the idea of filming somewhere other than Great Britain. After several ideas fell through Seville, Spain was settled on.

The change in setting required some adjustments to the script and caused several things to not come off as well as they might have otherwise. Also, the shoot ended up with limited locations to choose from and many of the crew ended up on-camera acting as extras in several of the scenes.

And in the end... it really wasn't worth it and now we get to delve in and see why...

The Plot: The Second Doctor and his companion, Jamie, are sent by the Time Lords to the science research space station Camera in order to discuss the worrying experiments of two scientists who are studying time travel. The Doctor argues with his old friend, Camera's head of research, Dastari over the potential dangers of the time travel experiments. While there the Doctor encounters the station chef -- a member of a race known as Androgums, who tend to be nasty, brutish, violent, omnivores -- and another Androgum named Chessene, whom Dastari has genetically altered and augmented to become a genius -- something else that worries the Doctor. He has a right to be worried because Chessene has made a deal with the warring Sontarans to turn over the space station to them....

Elsewhere, the Sixth Doctor and Peri are trying to enjoy a little peace and quiet for a change when suddenly the Doctor has some kind of seizure. Feeling strange, the Doctor decides to visit Dastari to see if the scientist can detect anything wrong.

The Doctor and Peri arrive on Camera only to find it a charnel house -- all of the personnel have been slaughtered. The computer indicates the Time Lords were responsible but the Doctor cannot believe this and is determined to discover the truth. As he and Peri search the station for clues they find the sole survivor of the carnage... Jamie.

The Doctor soon realizes that his previous self has been kidnapped and he knows that it can be for no good purpose. Fearing that someone is planning on using his earlier incarnation to unlock the secret of time travel, the Sixth Doctor, Peri, and Jamie follow the trail to Seville, Spain and set out to rescue the Doctor. Little do they realize they are up against the brilliant mind of Chessene which has been wedded to an insane ambition. Chessene wants to rule the universe and she will use and discard anyone along the way -- Sontarans, Dastari and even Time Lords...

My Take: And that right above is just one reason why this episode doesn't stand up. Four paragraphs just to explain the plot and that's with me actually leaving out a lot of the subplots! At this time Doctor Who had shed the tradition of four half-hour episodes in favor of two 45 minute episodes per story but "The Two Doctors", being a 'special' episode, runs to three 45 minute episodes. Even with the extra time there's more plot here than is strictly necessary.

Then there are the Androgums. I have friends who are vegetarians and I myself often cook and eat vegetarian fare (although don't you dare try to take cheese from me -- I will stab you with a fork) but Holmes' script, with it's depictions and descriptions of meat eating and cooking are really just bad. If he intended it to be an advertisement for vegetarian eating he failed grandly because it is so blatant and over-the-top in it's indictment of meat eating it has the opposite effect. I almost want to sit and eat a raw steak just to spite the memory of Robert Holmes when I watch this story. Doctor Who has taken on vegetarianism in the past -- "The Green Death" for example is about not only environmentalism but healthier eating as well -- but without being this... derogatory about it.

On top of all of that Holmes seems to have caught the 'bickering bug'. Not only do the Sixth Doctor and Peri do their usual round of whining and picking on one another but there's quite a bit of it between the Second Doctor and Jamie -- something that really did not happen very often in the original run. There is probably more bickering between the Doctor and Jamie in the first 20 minutes of this story than there was in the whole three year run of the duo in the 1960's.
The tone of the story is also so far off the mark it could cause an earache. The Sixth Doctor's tenure often was criticized for excessive violence. To be fair, many of the criticisms laid were unfounded or uncalled for but here the story veers wildly from comedy to violence without warning and it just isn't handled well. There is also at least one death which serves no earthly purpose except to just be a death and there is also quite a bit of blood which is really uncalled for. Also, many criticize the Doctor's callous killing of the Androgum Shockeye but that is actually reasonably within character... the problem is the Doctor's casual, James Bond-like witticism about the killing. That's just not the Doctor -- he'll take a life if he has to but he shouldn't seem to enjoy it or crack jokes about it.

Perhaps the worst sin of all is the fact that, after J N-T went though all the trouble to get Hines and Troughton back together for this story, the duo spend the bulk of it separated. Hines's Jamie spends most of the story running around with Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor and there just isn't that much chemistry between the two actors. Not necessarily their fault -- after all chemistry is often something that is either there or it isn't and nothing can make it appear if it isn't there but to bypass Hines and Troughton's proven chemistry for this is bad plotting.

The plot aside, the story is also hit and miss on the special effects. The work for the space station Camera is actually pretty good overall. A lot of times the more futuristic sets don't age well but the work done for the sets here still looks fairly futuristic twenty-five years on. Many of the locations in Seville also look pretty good and do allow the show to get out of it's British focus for a while. The costumes for the Sontarans, though are just awful. For one thing the Sontarans are too tall and slender -- they were established a long time ago and rather short and squat -- powerfully built warriors -- here they just look like lanky, potato heads. As if that were not bad enough, the masks were ill-fitting and therefore muffle the actors' voices so they sound like they're talking through dish towels and on close-ups it is clearly visible that the mouths do not move on the masks and you can see the actors' lips moving behind the masks. Even by Doctor Who standards this is poor. Also, pity Nicola Bryant who is stuffed into more revealing clothes than usual, not to mention the fact that they are VERY 1980's and not in a good way, and has to run around on uneven ground in high heels... again. In the commentary Bryant also explains that the shimmery top she was wearing initially had no lining in it and under the hot Spanish sun it conducted heat like aluminum foil and burned her skin. And the less said about Dastari's Elton john-influenced glasses the better.

On the acting front... well, despite the poor script, Troughton and Hines do a bang-up job with what they have. The bickering aside, J N-T was right in that the rapport and real-life friendship between the two actors just comes through the characters beautifully and one might be fooled into thinking that virtually no time at all had passed since they last worked together.

The actor playing Shockeye is a bit too over-the-top to ever really take seriously. He's supposed to be menacing and creepy but instead he seems laughable and silly. Chessene, played by Jacqueline Pierce, is far better. She projects a perfectly haughty character and she pitches Chessene's ambitions well also. Pierce's casting, however, was something of a "stunt", however, as Pierce was well known to British sci-fi fans for playing the villainous Servalan in the series Blake's 7. Many cannot help but compare the two roles and so her Chessene often comes across as lacking to those who have seen both. Dastari is little more than a cypher and the actor emotes about as much as cricket and does little to try to add anything to the character.

As for Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant as the Doctor and Peri... eh... They're very 'meh' here. Baker and Bryant have turned in worse performances but the script doesn't do them any favors and the bickering has, by this point, gotten rather old.

"The Two Doctors" is interesting in that it is one of only a handful of stories where the Doctor met up with other incarnations of himself, it would also be the last multi-Doctor story to air on TV and it was also, sadly, the last Doctor Who Patrick Troughton did. Troughton had wanted to come back and do another story -- only this time he wanted to do the story secretly -- appearing under mask or heavy make-up as an alien but he passed away of a fatal heart attack in 1987 before he had the chance to return.

There is little here to recommend the story but it stands up to at least one viewing out of either curiosity's sake or nostalgia for the Troughton - Hines era. There are a few scenes which work well and showcase all of the talents involved and once you figure those out you can pretty much just view "The Two Doctors" for the "greatest hits" portion of the story. If, however, you choose to skip it you won't be missing much.

Trivia: WARNING: Curse word used in the following trivia note. Turn away if it bothers you...


In the second episode a little over 18 minutes into the episode after the Doctor insults Peri you can clearly see Nicola Bryant mouth the word "asshole" at the Doctor.

Grab Bag Reviews: "The Ice Warriors"

And now we have yet another audio story. Unlike "The Daleks Master Plan" where most of the story is missing, "The Ice Warriors" is only missing two episodes out of six. In the 1990's the story was released on VHS with shortened reconstructions in place of the missing episodes. In the 2000's though the BBC chose to release the story to audio rather than DVD... so far (there have been rumors that the BBC may be going to try replacing the missing the installments with animation but only time will tell). Also as with "Master Plan" "The Ice Warriors" uses descriptive narration to fill in the action which is not visible. In this case, though, the narration is provided by actor Fraser Hines, who played companion Jamie McCrimmon.

There was never much trouble or controversy with this story. By and large the time of Patrick Troughton's run as the Doctor went fairly smoothly. The casts and crews meshed well and in interviews most usually speak highly of Troughton's professionalism which was tempered with a sense of humor and a genuine liking for his co-workers. "The Ice Warriors" fell pretty much bang in the middle of Troughton's second season with the show and so everyone was settled and working together like a well-oiled machine.

The Martian Ice Warriors themselves were, as with the Cybermen, introduced in hopes of creating alien baddies with as much popularity as the Daleks. The producer at that time was eager to get past using the Daleks since creator Terry Nation had been guarded of their use as he was trying to convince American TV and/or film to pick up the rights for a Dalek based TV show or movie. The Warriors actually did become minor fan favorites. They would be used in one other Second Doctor story and would appear in a Third Doctor story before being retired. They got a bit of a mention in the Tenth Doctor special "The Waters of Mars" but so far they have not reappeared although fans of the older series continually hold out hope...

The Plot: In the distant future the Earth has fallen prey to a new ice age. The world's governments have come up with a plan to destroy the advancing glaciers by hitting them with a device, powerful enough to melt rock, called an ionizer. The Doctor and his companions Jamie and Victoria arrive at the Brittanicus Base in time for the Doctor to prevent an accident with the ionizer. They are also in time to witness the arrival of a strange, prehistoric figure found in the ice.

When the ice melts, however, the figure proves to be an alien who crashed on Earth millenia ago. Now reawakened he intends to thaw out his shipmates and conquer the planet!

The humans of the base are caught in a squeeze between the implacable Ice Warriors and the crushing, advancing glacier. The Doctor will need to use all of his cunning and cleverness to prevent wholesale destruction.

My Take: Yet another variation on the 'base under siege' motif. And while the writer ended up going the wrong way on the results of environmental catastrophe (global warming instead of the global cooling here) it is yet another sign of the topicality which had been creeping into the show for years. There is also elements of that good, old, stalwart Doctor Who theme of humanity vs. computers.

In point of fact, there's actually quite a lot going on here; the Ice Warriors are villainous villains not least because they are repeatedly offered peaceful solution but their stubborn mistrust and devotion to conquest ultimately doom them. Then there are the issues of naivete.

The scavenger, Storr, believes the enemies of his enemies will be his friends. He learns to his detriment that this is not the case. His naive view of the situation is a lesson to always consider all the facts instead of just one.

Of course Storr also fills a role in one of two extreme viewpoints presented throughout the story. Storr represents the "natural man" -- a hunter-gatherer with no use for science. Opposite him on the scale is Clent and the members of the the base -- men and women who have given up their own free thinking to computers. People who believe is science above their own ability to reason. Standing in the middle is Penley, who represents the blending of the two -- a man who knows how to use science as a tool without turning it into a god. The Doctor, as agent of change, tries to help Penley's model become the dominant one but at the same time he does not tell the people what to do -- the ultimate decision must be their own.

All of these themes and ideas are fun to explore, even now, over 40 years later. The problem is that they're presented in such a heavy-handed way it is a little hard not to giggle at the obviousness of it all. Of course, it must be remembered that at this time Doctor Who still thought of itself as "children's programming". And despite the diversity of themes running throughout they all manage to fit together well and nothing feels necessarily packed in or tacked on at the edges.

The Ice Warriors are, as I mentioned before, lovely villains. More than just their attitude, the decision to give them hissing, whispery voices adds to their menace and makes them work well in the audio format when you cannot see their lumbering, reptilian bulk. That reptilian nature, though, was wonderfully realized by the special effects team considering the limitations of the time. Their obvious intelligence and cunning teamed with their intimidating appearance and sinister voices make for truly impressive alien villains.

The guest cast does a nice job as well with the arrogant and superior Clent being one of those kind of "annoying allies" which tend to show up in Doctor Who while Penley comes off as actually good-natured at heart and there is just a tiny little hint of romance between himself and base technician Miss Garrett which humanizes both of them and keeps them from being such stock characters.

The real star here, though, is Patrick Troughton's Doctor. There are a wealth of great lines of dialogue all delivered with Troughton's usual panache. His insults ring with humor and a dash of snark, his moments of determination come across strongly and of course, as always, there are those moments where he walks right into the enemy's teeth without fear and gives them a chance to surrender. Once they ignore that offer all bets are off the table.

Fraser Hines's Jamie is also full of humor but his character lacks some of the good lines and good moments he has in other stories. There are a few moments, though, where he gets in a few digs at the Doctor and one endearing bit where he flirts shamelessly with Victoria.

And that brings us to Victoria. Ugh. This is NOT her shining hour. Deborah Watling would eventually leave the series feeling that she had done all that she would be allowed to do with the character and, like many women before her, tired of scripts where all she was allowed to do was scream and be helpless. While there is some small justification for the characterization considering that Victoria was supposed to be just that -- a sheltered, wealthy girl from the Victorian era -- she is at her worst here. Victoria does little except get captured, escape and get recaptured and to scream annoyingly. The. Entire. Time. It reaches the point where you would like to slap the character and tell her to knock it off she's being an embarrassment to women. It gets so bothersome that it actually ruins some scenes.

Victoria aside, the story as a whole is wonderfully entertaining and, as with "The Daleks Master Plan" one finds that visuals are not necessarily needed as imagination paints the scenes. The story really works even in it's audio format and there are still some lessons to be taken away from the whole affair. And even if all of that were not true this is Patrick Troughton at some of the top of his came -- whimsical, mercurial, and magical.

Grab Bag Reviews: "The Moonbase"

It is fair to say that "The Moonbase" is 'not all there'. In fact, there are a number of Doctor Who stories which are not all there.

Back in the late 1960's and continuing through much of the 1970's the tapes and film containing many programs were seen as having limited usefulness. Once shows had been sold to other countries for overseas broadcast they were largely considered "done". As a result the tapes and films were either wiped or destroyed to make way for more programs.

In the late 1970's this practice changed at the BBC and not long after the home video market and syndication changed the face of recordings forever. Unfortunately many Doctor Who stories had been partially or completely lost... after a fashion.

Doctor Who fans were a passionate bunch and many would place tape recorders near the TV set and record the audio off the episodes. A few fans went the extra mile and kept those audio tapes for decades.

In more recent years the BBC reached out to those fans and collected those audio resources; remastering them to create audio adventures and even using them to reconstruct old episodes.

"The Moonbase" was missing the first and third installments. For the Patrick Troughton volume of the Lost in Time DVD the audio for the missing episodes is included along with the film for the remaining two episodes. This audio, combined with a slide show using still pictures on the BBC's Doctor Who Classic website, allows one to sort-of recreate the missing installments.

"The Moonbase" is notable for being the second story to feature the Cybermen. The baddies were introduced in William Hartnell's final story, "The Tenth Planet", and were well received by fans. As it was thought the Daleks were becoming old hat it was decided to push the Cybermen as replacements. Their look and voices were redesigned, going from this:















To this:















Their look would continue to be changed and tweaked over the next several years.

The Second Doctor would also face the Cybermen four times -- more than any other Doctor (and as a bit of trivia, the Third Doctor NEVER faced the Cybermen, making him the only Doctor to do so).

The Plot: The Doctor tries to take his companions Ben, Polly, and Jamie to Mars but instead winds up on the Moon in 2070. When Jamie is injured on a Moonwalk the time travelers find themselves guests at a base which uses a machine to control the weather on Earth.

Tensions are running high, though, as members of the base crew are falling victim to a mysterious illness. The Doctor battles suspicion to try to find the real cause. When the enemy finally stands revealed things go from bad to worse because the base is being targeted by the cold, emotionless, implacable Cybermen!

My Take: The fact that I love Patrick Troughton's Doctor does not blind me to the fact that "The Moonbase" is sadly a flawed story. It isn't a bad story - not by a long shot - but it's something almost worse than that... it's a bit boring.

I suppose, to be fair, the biggest issue is that it hasn't aged well. Although supposedly set in 2070 the base's computers use tape drives and the characters mention radio telephones (RT). There are also problems with the characters. The crew is 'international' in that old-fashioned way that was meant to be 'inclusive' but does so by making everyone a stereotype. The Frenchman, Benoit, lapses into French when not speaking with a ridiculous accent that would make Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau blush and the character of Nils is referred to as the base's "Mad Dane". The pseudo-science is laughable and the medical information is equally worthy of ridicule (since when does getting a mild concussion lead to a fever all in the space of less than half and hour?!).

The story also, through no fault of its own, suffers from what would come after it. You see Doctor Who had a habit of using and reusing certain plot devices. One of those devices was to gather a group of characters together, isolate them, and then have them come under attack from their enemies. These types of plots commonly became known as "Base Under Siege" stories since most of them tended to feature military bases or encampments of some type. Troughton's tenure as the Doctor tended to overuse this plot convention leading to a LOT of Base Under Siege stories. "The Moonbase" kind of gets lost in the crowd. Plus, you know what they say about familiarity breeding contempt?

On top of all of that there are issues with the script -- for example, the audience learns the Cybermen are behind everything by the end of the first episode but it takes the characters until into the second episode before THEY learn the Cybermen are behind it all. This leaves the audience knowing more than the other characters -- rarely a good idea for maintaining dramatic tension. There is a lot of padding as well as things take entirely too long to get going and there are constant false starts and reverses which are overused.

The regular cast also got squeezed here. Actor Frazer Hines, who played companion Jamie, had been a spur-of-the-moment addition to the cast. As a result scripts which had already been written and approved had to be re-written to include Jamie. One of the reasons why his character spends so much of the story "sick" is because they simply didn't have lines for him. They also had to shuffle and reparcel lines to fit the character of Jamie in.

All is not lost for the story though. Troughton turns in his usual brilliant performance as the Doctor -- his innocuous, occasional con-man turn hiding the Doctor's intelligence and determination to see evil repulsed. In point of fact, one of the show's most famous lines is uttered here: "There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which go against everything we believe in. They must be fought." There is also a really interesting internal monologue the Doctor has with himself -- the only instance of it's kind as viewers get a little sneak peek into how the Doctor's brain works. We wouldn't get quite as intimate a view again until this year's "The Eleventh Hour".

There are also some hints of conflict between companions Ben and Jamie which are quite intriguing here but sadly disappear by the next story. It would have been interesting to see the show deal with companions who maybe didn't always get along so well at this early stage in its development.

"The Moonbase" is entertaining enough but it definitely isn't one of the show's 'edge-of-your-seat' adventures. It can be amusing at times... but not enough to keep you awake so definitely don't put this one in your DVD player if you're sleepy.

Grab Bag Reviews: "The Mind Robber"

Okay, a couple of things right out of the gate.

First, yes, there was a time when Doctor Who was rather unabashedly geared towards kids. Over time this changed and the show became much more 'family viewing' but there was a time when it was very obviously playing towards kids. This doesn't mean that the stories were not good, just that they were a bit different than the fare viewers get today... or in the 1970's and later as well.

Second, I love Patrick Troughton, the 2nd Doctor. Even the stories he did that were crap were great simply because he was playing the Doctor. Troughton. Is. Awesome. That is all that needs to be said. So there's my bias on the table.

Now for one of my FAVORITE Doctor Who stories.... "The Mind Robber".

The Plot: While trying to escape the lava flow from an erupting volcano (picking up from the previous story, "The Dominators") the TARDIS malfunctions and the Doctor is forced to take drastic measures -- moving the TARDIS out of space and time entirely! While trying to make repairs the entire crew comes under the influence of a powerful mind. Companions Jamie and Zoe are lured out of the TARDIS and the Doctor comes under psychic attack. The Doctor manages to get his companions back but when he tries to return the TARDIS to normal space-time mysterious forces pull it apart!

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe awaken separated in a strange wood. Jamie and Zoe fall into traps and the Doctor soon begins meeting with some of the strange denizens of this world. Wherever they are the usual laws of physics seems not to apply and the Doctor soon discovers that imagination and words seem to hold all the power here.

After rescuing his companions, the little group sets out and begins encountering strange, wind-up, toy soldier robots and characters from myth and story come to life. The Doctor soon realizes that they are trapped in a land of fiction and their only sure defense to to keep telling themselves that the things they encounter are not real.

The TARDIS team eventually makes their way to the "master" of this land and discover the sinister plot behind it all -- a computer brain creates the world but it needs imagination to give it the shapes of things to create! Having taken a writer from Earth decades ago the man is growing tired and now wants the Doctor to take his place since the Doctor is much longer lived. The Doctor refuses to become a slave to the machine but there are consequences as Jamie and Zoe are absorbed and become nothing more than fictional characters! Can the Doctor find a way out of this and save his companions or are they all destined to become a writer's toys?

My Take: It has long been argued among fans that Doctor Who is more Science-Fantasy than Science Fiction and this is pretty true -- certainly some eras more so than others -- but "The Mind Robber" is very, VERY firmly in the Sci-Fa rather than Sci-Fi camp. Despite this (or maybe because of it) what viewers get is a delightful, creative, imaginative and unique adventure story. It also created a story that was able to be delightfully stretched when the production ran into trouble.

You see, quite a bit of Patrick Troughton's era was rife with problems. Scripts were continually late and this, in turn, caused rushed productions and sudden shifting of story order. As a result, "The Mind Robber" had very little wiggle room -- it had to be filmed quickly and there were no other scripts ready which could be put in it's place if something went wrong. And something went wrong.... 23 year old Fraser Hines, who played Jamie, and one of his brothers, were renting a house together in London and decided to play host to their nephews over a weekend. What no one knew was that the nephews were contagious with Chicken Pox. Hines showed up on Monday for filming and soon broke out and was ordered home to quarantine. Since Jamie was in too many scenes to film around Hines's absence the only solution was to temporarily recast Jamie. A young, Scottish actor was found for the part and a clever bit of writing created a scene in the script in which the Doctor has to reconstruct Jamie's face and gets it wrong and then later has to reconstruct it again and gets it right as Hines was well enough to rejoin the production.

While all of this was a 'work around' for an ill cast member it ends up adding a delightful bit of fun to the overall story. It highlights and brings home the idea that this is a world where anything can and will possibly happen.

The cleverness of the script is also shown in much of the imaginativeness of the writing. For example, the character of Gulliver from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels speaks only lines from that story. Rapunzel turns out to be quite used to people using her hair as a rope all the time and we are even introduced to a comic strip superhero from the future. A 'forest' turns out to be made of giant letters instead of trees and the letters all spell out common sayings, wind-up toy soldiers chase our heroes throughout the story, and Jamie and Zoe are pressed inside a giant book like flowers and become "fictional" characters. This is another part of the charm of the story; watching as an adult you become aware of the irony of the fact that the Doctor and his companions are already fictional characters.

For the most part all the performances are also just delightful. Of the supporting cast the "Master" writer is a bit too plummy at at times and his attempts to use a different voice when speaking as the computer brain don't always come off well but the script does a good job at keeping his true nature hidden until the very end. Also, throughout the story the viewer is led to think of him as the villain of the piece only for it to be revealed that he is not the bad guy we have thought him.

Bernard Horsefall would go on to guest star several times in Doctor Who but he makes a lovely Gulliver here. His voice and delivery of the lines made me wish there was an audio book of him reading Gulliver's Travels. He delivers the old-fashioned language without flourish or embellishment -- making it seem downright conversational.

Of the main cast, there are a few moments where Fraser Hines overacts a bit and Wendy Padbury's screams are sometimes over the top and are also done for no good reason at times. Aside from that, though, Hines makes Jamie charming, brave, and exasperated by turns and Padbury's Zoe presents viewers with the prototype of the modern, female companion -- intelligent, quick-witted and actually a bit tough. It must be said, though, that Zoe's fight with the superhero Karkus looks a bit bad on-screen. In the cast commentary Padbury explains that there was very little time to rehearse the fight, she had never done a fight scene before and there was no time to re-shoot the scene to cover some of the worse gaffes.

Troughton is also his usual, solid self here. His Doctor is a mercurial sort -- going from defiant to befuddled, to fearful in split seconds. There is also a slightly chilling moment as the Doctor refuses to take the writer's place -- not even to save his companions. We see, in a later scene, that the knowledge that his companions are lost to him pains him deeply but he refuses to give in even for them. The battle of imagination between the Doctor and the writer is also fun as famous characters from myth and legend appear and disappear to battle at the very thoughts of these two determined people. There are also some great lines of dialog as the Doctor baits and insults his opponent.

With an extremely inventive script, witty dialogue, nice acting performances all around, "The Mind Robber" is Doctor Who at it's best. The story shows just how malleable the format could be -- stretching the bounds of the series to date. Sure, some of the story seems a bit simplified and appealing to kids and some of the special effects don't hold up as well but the sequence of the TARDIS breaking up is still shocking today and provides one hell of a cliffhanger for the first episode and there are moments taken very seriously -- like where we see the Doctor seemingly defeated and out of options. Overall, while I wouldn't necessarily want a steady diet of stories like "The Mind Robber" as it stands it is a breath of fresh air, a view askew of the Doctor's world, and a look at what the show could potentially pull off.

Fans of Steven Moffat's current run on the show should definitely check this one out -- I think they'll find a lot in common.