Grab Bag Reviews: "Real Time"

And now for something.... a little different.

As I've mentioned before, in 'the Wilderness Years' when Doctor Who was off the air, the BBC licensed out the rights to the show. Book publishing went to billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin media empire and the audio rights went to a company called Big Finish.

Big Finish began doing audio dramas featuring four of the five surviving Doctors -- the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann -- who otherwise only got one poorly received TV movie to his name). They also rounded up many of the actors and actresses who played companions in the past to reprise those roles alongside the Doctors.

The idea was that the audios were stories which happened in-between the television serials. Since, by the modern era, the show rarely had serials which were obviously linked this was reasonably plausible. Big Finish, however, also began branching out to introduce new companions which also fell in-between the televised stories. So the Fifth Doctor and companion Peri (Nicola Bryant) picked up an ancient Egyptian princess named Erimem as a traveling companion for a while, the Seventh Doctor picked up a young nurse named Hector, "Hex" Schofield, and the Sixth Doctor picked up, among others, a fifty-five year-old history professor named Evelyn Smythe (played by actress Maggie Stables).

In 2002, the BBC, interested in taking more advantage of the opportunities offered by the web, approached Big Finish with a proposition -- to create an original Doctor Who story which featured a complete audio cast along with limited flash-based animations. Big Finish agreed and a story was created featuring the Sixth Doctor -- Colin Baker. At that time, in the Big Finish audios, Evelyn Smythe was the Sixth Doctor's companion and so she became the Doctor's companion for "Real Time" -- making it the first time a non-canon companion has appeared on a BBC sponsored story. It would also mark a costume change for the Doctor as the animators found the Sixth Doctor's clashing coat impossible to translate to the simplified animations. As such a new, blue coat was designed. This outfit would prove quite popular with fans (gee, I can't imagine why) to the point where it has even been featured as a variant in a Sixth Doctor action figure.

Due to the Internet limitations of the time the story was decided to run in 12 minute parts for a total of 60 minutes. The story was also supposed to take place as near as possible in "real time" -- so a five minute conversation between characters would take up five minutes in the story as well.

"Real Time" can still be found and listened to on the BBC's Classic Doctor Who website HERE. The flash animations no longer seem to work (or at least I can't get them to work) but the audio plays perfectly well and the story doesn't really need the animations to be followed. Fair warning though -- the story has to be played using Real Player. If you don't have Real Player loaded on your computer you might have some problems listening.

And now, on to the review!

The Plot: In the 33rd century two archaeological teams go missing from a strange planet. The last communication from them mentions a temporal wave... and Cybermen. A third team is dispatched to solve the mystery and the Doctor is asked along as an expert in both the Cybermen and time.

The team soon discovers a temporal gateway inside and temple and the expedition leader is pulled through only to be returned mere moments later converted into a Cyberman! The other missing archaeologists have been similarly converted and they converge on the rescue team threatening to kill everyone unless the Doctor gives them the secrets to his TARDIS!

The Doctor knows that with the TARDIS at their control nowhere and nowhen would be safe from the Cybermen. But the stakes are even higher than he realized as he learns that in this time and this place the timeline is in flux and there is a horrible potential past and future for the Earth which could become a reality as well. The Doctor must step very carefully now because the whole of time -- past and future -- rests on his decisions...

My Take: I love audio dramas. I have loved them since I listened to my first Flash Gordon at the age of 16. Modern audio stories get to benefit from bigger and better casts, better recording technology, better sound effects and original music... all of which this story has.

Doing Doctor Who in what basically amounts to an audio format also has the added benefit of not being bound by the limits of technology or budget for special effects. The only limitation to the visuals here is the power of the listener's imagination. Which is actually a mixed blessing... as I'll get into later.

The performances range from good to mediocre -- as does the script really. Colin Baker gets to show off a more tempered version of the Doctor than the one which appeared in the television episodes. To be honest, I used to hate Baker's version of the Doctor until I listened to a few of the audios. The Big Finish writers managed to strike a perfect balance -- still keeping the haughtiness, the arrogance, and the smug superiority but dialing them all back down from '11' and then cutting them with a greater sense of empathy and a deep warmth for his companion. In point of fact, at one point in the story the Doctor remarks upon the "love I hold for Evelyn" -- something that never would have happened in the TV stories where he was too busy insulting the intelligence of his companion there.

Maggie Stables is also quite fine as Evelyn. An older, more measured and feisty companion -- someone who is willing to take the Doctor to task and take him down a peg or two when his arrogance threatens to fly to high. Stables and Baker play off of one another well and comfortably -- which is a sign of the established working relationship the two had by this point in time.

The rest of the cast is where things get a little tricky. Most of the supporting cast are steady but not exceptional with a few missteps where they are obviously overplaying their roles with the misguided thinking that they need to "sell" the part more because the audience cannot see their faces. Probably the weakest link is Yee Jee Soo playing the character of Reece Goddard. Soo already had a history with Doctor Who having appeared in the 1996 made-for-TV movie featuring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. Here Soo's tone is almost universally off. He comes across as awfully bright and cheerful most of the time which is just wrong considering most of what is happening in the script.

And then there's the script. It, too, is uneven. Many scenes come off forced -- for example the "banter" between members of the rescue team which is supposed to indicate a warm camaraderie and a long-standing friendship between the characters. Instead it feels false -- an imperfect imitation of real banter. There are also many scenes which go into "info-dump mode" (as I like to call it) where one of the characters suddenly turns into Captain Exposition (insert heroic trumpet fanfare here) imparts a tremendous amount of information -- usually in the form of backstory -- in one huge splat. And the audience's eyes glaze over in response. Of course, some of this might be forgiven due to the time limitations the story was operating under. But really, if the time limitations were hurting that much perhaps a simpler story should have been told.

Where script writer Gary Russell really excels here, though, is in playing around with that central idea of the show: Time. There is non-TARDIS time travel involved, potential alternate timelines which might become the real timeline, and threats to the stability of the past and the future -- all with the Doctor at the heart of it. And isn't that what Doctor Who is supposed to be about?

The sound effects used are also good -- helping to tell the story without overwhelming it. In point of fact they might be too good. And here's where having an active imagination is a curse... as well as being another problem with the script. There is death here. And it's gruesome and horrible even without any visuals. At several points the website warns that there are scenes which might be inappropriate for younger audiences. And that's a problem... on multiple levels.

For one, it shows one of the problems which hit the show in later years as well as one of the problems with a lot of the spin-off media... Doctor Who for an adult audience. Over the course of decades the show had slowly been pushing the envelope. It didn't want to be considered a "kids' show" and it pushed with more sophisticated stories, more stories with themes which resonated with an older audience, etc. By the time the show went off the air it's target audience was far more 'teens and up' than 'whole family viewing'. When it came to the books, many of them also told darker stories with death, destruction, blood, torture, and the like. The BBC may have put "Real Time" on their website but it's audience was definitely not younger computer users.

For another thing... well, it's very off-putting. I'm not a fan of horror movies; they're not my bag of goods and several scenes here skate pretty close to horror movie levels. For example, one of the expedition team members has his head crushed by a Cyberman. He screams in pain and fear for several seconds before the inevitable 'crunch-squish'. Likewise, we listen as another team member is converted into a Cyberman. We hear whirring machinery and his screams going on and on and on until they start taking on an electronic tone and then finally stop. Ugh. Seriously, I sat and shuddered. It was really uncalled for and also, if this had been something shown on TV they never would have gone that far. But somehow not having the visuals is supposed to make it more okay to write something so horrific. Ick. No thank you.

If you're someone like me who hated the Sixth Doctor then this is actually a pretty good place to start to see what kind of Doctor Colin Baker really could have been if only he had been given better scripts. It's also a fascinatingly complex time travel story. Fair warning though -- the story ends on something of a cliffhanger which was never resolved. After this the BBC decided to do all of their web-based stuff in-house and so did not collaborate with Big Finish again and Big Finish decided not to do a sequel of their own. As such this story has officially been labeled as "non-canon" by both the BBC and Big Finish. It also has some scenes not for the faint of heart. If you're curious, though, it's free and a fairly decent waste of an hour's time if for no other reason than a look at what might have been for Colin Baker.

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.

Doctor Who: After "Survival"

So Doctor Who was cancelled and you might think that would be the end of it... but it wasn't. After all, what do Time Lords do when they die? Regenerate into another form of course! In this case the good Doctor went to print.

Virgin Publishing -- that's the publication arm of Richard Branson's insanely sprawling multi-media empire -- got the licensing rights to Doctor Who from the BBC and in 1991 they began publishing all-new adventures of the Seventh Doctor and his companion, Ace. Over the years they would add new, original companions as well -- one of the most popular being Bernice "Benny" Summerfield, an archaeologist and adventurer. In point of fact, Benny became so popular she spun off into her own series of books and audio adventures from Big Finish (more on them later).

Rather smartly, Virgin accepted stories from a number of former Doctor Who writers such as Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt. Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to what fans refer to as "The Cartmel Master Plan".

When Andrew Cartmel was brought on board as Doctor Who's script editor he was determined to shake things up. He believed that one of the problems with the series was that the Doctor had become too well-known to fans. In the beginning he was a mysterious figure -- we didn't know where he came from or why he ran away, we didn't know anything about his people or his home. Over the years that changed until it got to the point that the Doctor could pop back to Gallifrey any old time (a rather grave change from the Time Lords who cruelly exiled the Second Doctor for his "meddling") and the Time Lords were as familiar, and as interesting, as a group of 70 year-old career politicians. Cartmel wanted to re-inject some mystery back into the Doctor.

Cartmel himself never referred to his ideas as a "Master Plan" and, in fact, did not know that fans did so until many years later. As it was his ideas were just that... ideas and suggestions that he tossed around with some of the writers for the show. What emerged was this idea that the Doctor was more than just another Time Lord -- that he was actually this reincarnation of a very powerful figure in Time Lord history -- an early Gallifreyan who had helped to found and start the Time Lord society and that this being, known as "the Other", was actually something of a demi-god to the Time Lords. Tied to this was a further idea that, being the Other, the Doctor had more powers than an ordinary Time Lord -- powers that he did not use. One idea was that the Doctor would end up encountering the cosmic personification of Time herself and he would be pushed into becoming "Time's Champion" and in this role would end up having to use more of his powers and abilities.

Cartmel quickly realized, however, that if he explained everything then it would put him right back where he was before with the Doctor no longer being a source of mystery and enigma. Therefore Cartmel and the other writers decided to content themselves with merely hinting at things and stringing the story out. Of course, the series was cancelled before all but the smallest little hints had been dropped.

Another story aspect which the writers had intended to work towards was the eventual departure of Ace as a companion. Had there been a season 27 then they would have continued laying the groundwork they had begun at the end of season 26 of showing Ace maturing and growing up and becoming a more stable person. Even though Sophie Aldred had not indicated a desire to depart the show yet Cartmel and the others felt that, after three seasons, they should make some changes to the cast and halfway through season 27 was felt to be a good departure point for Ace so that they could then introduce Ace's replacement and get her settled in the part before the season closed.

The plan was for it to be revealed that the Doctor had been grooming Ace all this time to go to Gallifrey, enter the Academy and become a Time Lord -- the first human to become a Time Lord. The tone of it was going to indicate that the Doctor felt that Time Lord society had become too hidebound and it was time for some new blood to shake things up.

When the series was cancelled obviously all these plans went for naught... until Virgin Publishing showed up. Seizing their chance, the writers used the books to introduce a number of their unused ideas from their scripts. Marc Platt, for instance, got to reveal much of the Doctor's past and his family in the book Lungbarrow. The writers found that at least one benefit of writing for books instead of TV was that the sky was the limit since they were not hampered by the limitations of budget or special effects.

The Seventh Doctor published adventures became known by fans as "The Virgin New Adventures" series but in 1994 Virgin Publishing branched out and began publishing books featuring the previous six Doctors in all-new adventures which were taking place in-between the TV stories. This range became known as the "Virgin Missing Adventures" series.

Then there was the blip on the radar in 1993... Every year there is a huge charity drive called "Children in Need" which raises funds to benefit a children's hospital and children's health care. It is a big deal in Great Britain and the telethon attached to it has long been known for special events and stunts. In point of fact, the anniversary episode "The Five Doctors" (which I've already reviewed) first aired as part of Children in Need. As 1993 was the 30th anniversary of the show (even though it was no longer on the air) Jonathan Nathan-Turner managed a herculean feat in that he gathered all of then then surviving Doctors and many of the companions to appear in two short episodes over two days of the telethon. The plot (what there was of it) involved the various Doctors and companions mixing and matching and jumping from time point to time point while the villainous Time Lady known as the Rani tried to destroy them. As William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton had passed away at this time computer generated images of them were shown already captured. Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy all appeared as the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors respectively and Carole Ann Ford appeared as Susan, Deborah Watling as Victoria, Caroline John as Liz Shaw, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates, Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Louise Jameson as Leela, Lalla Ward as Romana, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, Nicola Bryant as Peri, Bonnie Langford as Mel, Sophie Aldred as Ace and John Leeson provided the voice of K-9. The short, called "Dimensions in Time", can be found floating around the Internet (usually in a rather poor copy which was taped off of someone's TV on a VCR back in the day) but it has not, to the best of my knowledge, ever been released as an extra on any of the Doctor Who DVD's so far.

All of this went on until 1996 when the BBC teamed up with Fox television and Universal to produce an all-new Doctor Who made-for-TV movie which was to air in the American market. The hope was that the TV movie would act as a pilot for a TV series which would be a joint BBC - American collaboration but which would feature primarily American companions and American locations.

It failed.

Up until recently there was a conflict between Fox and Universal over the rights to the TV movie and because of this it was never released on either VHS or DVD in America. One could purchase it in Great Britain but not here in the U.S. (although there were some shall we say less than strictly legal ways of getting access to the movie). That has changed, however, and as I understand it a special edition DVD of the movie is going to be released here in the States. As such I'm not going to discuss much about the movie here and will wait until it shows up in a future Grab Bag Review to go into details about the tangled web of the TV movie.

But the movie ended up having an impact on Virgin Publishing. When the license ran out in 1997 the BBC refused Virgin's offer to renew it and the BBC's own publishing wing now began to put out all new novels featuring the new Eighth Doctor as introduced in the TV movie. Along with that, BBC publishing also began doing a series of "missing adventures" for the past seven incarnations of the Doctor.

Then in stepped Big Finish. Here in America radio dramas died out in the 1950's as television took over but in Great Britain they never really did and in point of fact one of the BBC's radio stations is devoted to little but audio dramas as they are called. As such there is a market over there for original audio dramas done straight to CD or MP3. Big Finish started business in 1998 and quickly made a name for themselves by acquiring the licenses to do audio dramas based on a number of British cult sci-fi series like Judge Dredd (and no, don't think of the Sylvester Stallone movie -- most Brits will kill you if you bring that up) and Sapphire and Steel (one of these days I'm going to do a series of posts about that show). Another license they soon acquired was Doctor Who. In 1999 they began creating all-new audio adventures featuring the surviving past Doctors -- Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, and Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. They also managed to often get many of the companions actors and actresses to reprise their roles for the audios. Sarah Sutton and Mark Strickson reprised their roles as Nyssa and Turlough -- companions of the Fifth Doctor, Nicola Bryant reprised her role as Peri and appeared in audios alongside both the Fifth Doctor and the Sixth Doctor, Bonnie Langford, who played Melanie Bush, reprised her role beside both the Sixth and Seventh Doctors and Sophie Aldred gave voice to Ace again with the Seventh Doctor.

Big Finish also soon expanded and began doing all-new adventures of the Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann. As the stories grew more and more popular Big Finish even began adding new original companions to the past Doctors -- actress Maggie Stables gave voice to the new companion, middle-aged history professor Evelyn Smythe, who traveled with the Sixth Doctor. The Seventh Doctor picked up a young, male nurse named Hector "Hex" Schofield voiced by Paul Oliver, and many more. As of this writing Big Finish continues the line of audios.

Another one-off came in 1999... although not strictly Doctor Who... Another charity which is big in Great Britain is "Red Nose Day" -- a telethon that is part of Comic Relief -- in which comedians raise money to help end world hunger. The public is encourage to help raise money by doing something funny -- particularly involving comedy red clown noses. As part of the telethon there are stand-up comedians and comedy sketches and sometimes skits. In 1999 Stephen Moffat (current show runner for Doctor Who) was commissioned to write a comedy skit to air on Red Nose Day. What he produced was "Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death". The plot of the story revolves around the Doctor in his Ninth incarnation (played by comedy actor Rowan Atkinson -- best known for Mr. Bean and Blackadder) deciding that he wants to retire and settle down with his current companion, Emma, with whom he has fallen in love. He is forced, however, to confront his old enemy, the Master, as well as the Daleks in a series of traps, crosses, and double crosses. In the course of trying to save the universe (yet again) the Doctor keeps getting killed and regenerating -- going from Atkinson to actor Richard E. Grant to stand-up comedian Jim Broadbent to actor Hugh Grant and finally to actress Joanna Lumley. Like "Dimensions in Time" "Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death" was never made available to U.S. audiences although it had been made available in various formats to British audiences. It is floating out there on the Internet and if you want to you can probably find a copy of it. It has not been offered as an extra on any of the Doctor Who DVD's however and there is no word of it being so in the near future.

Time proceeded apace, though, and in the early 2000's the BBC began playing with webcasting -- producing audio stories with limited web animation accompanying them. The BBC chose to use Doctor Who for many of these experiments.

One of the earliest ones was a 2002 webcast featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace called "Death Comes to Time". The story has not been extremely well-regarded by fans since it ignores a lot of established continuity for both the Doctor and the Time Lords within the story and also because the end seems to indicate that the Seventh Doctor dies permanently -- which would end the series and also contradicts the Seventh Doctor regenerating into the Eighth Doctor in the TV movie.

"Death Comes to Time" was followed up also in 2002 by "Real Time" -- a Sixth Doctor story and featuring the companion Evelyn Smythe from the Big Finish stories -- so far the only time a Big Finish companion has been used in a BBC Doctor Who production. "Real Time" can still be found to listen to (free and legal) on the BBC's Classic Doctor Who website so sooner or later you'll probably see a Grab Bag Review of it. The same holds true of the next two webcasts the BBC created -- "Shada" in 2003 and "Scream of the Shalka" also in 2003.

And then, of course, the new series launched in 2005 and Doctor Who was reborn.

While it is fair to say that the good Doctor disappeared from TV screens in 1989 he never disappeared forever. The episodes were often seen in repeats and the books, audios, and little specials all show that the characters had gained a kind of death-grip on the British psyche and it was one that was not likely to go away soon. While those in charge at the BBC may have taken some convincing to bring the show back the people who had grown up on Doctor Who knew all along that there was something special here and they weren't going to ever let it completely disappear.

Grab Bag Reviews: "Timelash"

The episode that everybody loves to hate. If there were ever a contest for the 'Worst Doctor Who Story' it would probably come down to this one or "The Twin Dilemma"... another Sixth Doctor story.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, Colin Baker's tenure as the Doctor was part of a very turbulent time in the show's history. There were conflicts and controversies and much of the time the scripts were often running later due to last-minute re-writes. "Timelash" was no exception.

The story underwent numerous re-writes before the final product went before the cameras. Sadly, the story suffers greatly and is not helped by the attempts to make it a 'budget saving' episode.

The Plot: On the planet Karfel some of the population have grown increasingly disturbed by the actions of their leader, known as the Borad. The Borad seems to be heading them down the path of a police state -- with the population constantly under surveillance. He is also pushing them closer to war with their planetary neighbor, home of the Bandrils.

One young council member, Vena, acts to try to stop the Borad and for her troubles is sent down an unstable time corridor called the Timelash. Along the way she passes the TARDIS, which has gotten caught up in the Timelash's path and thrown to Karfel.

The Sixth Doctor and his companion, Peri, arrive and the Doctor startlingly reveals that he's been to Karfel once before in his Third incarnation. He finds the planet much changed and does not like what he sees. The Borad, however, is delighted since Vena took with her an important amulet and now he intends to use the Doctor to go after Vena and get the amulet back. In order to force the Doctor's hand the Borad orders Peri captured.

With no choice, the Doctor tracks Vena to Earth in the 19th century and also ends up picking up a stowaway -- the young dreamer, Herbert. The Doctor intends to return to Karfel and put things right but little does he realize the true nature of the Borad... and just what the Borad's twisted aims are for Karfel...

My Take: *Takes a deep breath* Okay, here goes... This story isn't all as bad as it's painted. *Waits for someone to start throwing rotten fruit*

As someone who often doesn't like the characterization of the arrogant, argumentative Sixth Doctor the script here actually manages to favor Colin Baker -- shaving off some of the worst of the sharp edges and actually allowing him to show a bit of charm and genuine humor. There are also several sequences where (gasp) the Doctor actually is allowed to show some genuine concern and liking for Peri instead of the usual constant bickering.

Unfortunately, Baker is the one who gets off the best here and the rest of the cast suffers. Well, okay, maybe not completely suffers but it ranges from mediocre to bad. Companion Peri screams a lot gets captured, gets rescued, gets captured, gets rescued, etc., etc., etc. and generally doesn't actually have anything to DO in the plot except be a Damsel in Distress. Ugh. Vena is simply yet another stock character. She acts as an exposition unit at times and provides the 'noble stance in the face of overwhelming odds' schtick which really turns her into more of an object than a character. Herbert is written as an eager puppy dog and the actor playing him pushes it a little too far... to the point where it would be fair to compare him to one of those small, hyperactive puppies which quickly go from being "cute" to "annoying". Most of the rest of the cast follows suit with rebel forces who are suitably... rebellious... again, without ever becoming actual characters rather than archetypes, and craven cowards who are simply craven. It's all very predictable... and therefore dull.

And then there is actor Paul Darrow. The thing which gets mentioned the most about this story. Darrow was and remains famous in cult science fiction circles for playing the duplicitous character Avon on the heralded British sci-fi series Blake's 7. Although I will admit to you all that I've never actually gotten around to watching the series myself. They're probably going to take away my cult sci-fi geek membership card for that admission.

Many viewers at the time would have likely recognized and known Darrow from his previous role when this story aired but surprisingly Darrow is not the true villain here. He is an over-the-top, slimy, bootlicker to the main villain instead. I'll give Darrow this -- he's obviously having a good time playing the role of Tekker since he gives each one of his lines a dramatic delivery -- but the result is a character that is actually amusing rather than threatening. Darrow nails the slimy tone perfectly. Too bad the slime trail is all that one remembers of the character on screen.
Then there is the Borad... There is a pretty good hook here -- the idea of a scientist mutated by his experimentations and gone mad. It's the stuff of comic book supervillains but here it just never quite works. It's hard for me to put my finger on... perhaps it is because the ending to the episode makes the whole thing fall apart and turns the Borad into something boring. The make-up designs for the character are really not that bad for the time period ,and considering that everything else in this story got scrimped on, but the character never quite reaches the heights (or depths as the case may be) for memorable villainy. He isn't crazy enough, he isn't rant-y enough, he isn't evil enough, he isn't sinister enough, he just never makes you... intimidated by himself. He never even really makes the Doctor intimidated by him... and that's a kiss of death. Viewers often take their cues from the Doctor and/or his companion and when the Doctor isn't afraid of a situation the audience isn't afraid either.

"Timelash" also suffers from it's mediocre to bad script. The story itself would not have been too bad if it had had the good grace to end with the defeat of the main villain. But no, it adds a second ending and then it adds a THIRD ending on. And by that third ending things are getting really, really silly and pushing credulity past the breaking point. I mean, one word here: clones. Seriously, ANY time clones are involved it's a bad sign. There have been a few shows and movies to pull off clone stories well but by and large it's bad and here, where it's all thrown into a mash in the last five minutes of the story?! No.

Then there are the budgetary constraints. Trying to save money on "Timelash" ultimately hurt the story greatly. Many of the costumes are simply ugly, some are laughable -- like the Guardoliers whose uniforms seem to consist of canvas coveralls and a beekeeper's hat with netting.

Making the whole story studio bound shows badly since the overlit sets look fakey and there are long scenes which just take place in rooms to keep the sets down. There is also a bit of corridor running and it was amusing and perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek when Peri tells one of officials touring her around that "All these corridors look the same to me."

And then there is the Christmas tinsel. It's everywhere. It's used in everything. Most noticeably the "entrance" to the Timelash is basically a curtain of silver Christmas tinsel with some strobe lights flashing on it. It's ridiculous and it ruins the story. Wobbly sets are one thing but THIS is a whole other level... down.

And we wont even mention the fact that the one Bandril which appears is so obviously a hand puppet it isn't even funny and the one Morlox monster we see is equally puppety.

In the end, eehhhh... I can't really say I can recommend "Timelash" but I don't like NOT recommending it because there are some really good bits here. Colin Baker gets some nice lines, such as when he tells Vena "I show little mercy to tyrants" (What, you thought it started with the Tenth Doctor and his "No second chances"?), and the script has the Doctor REALLY acting like the Doctor for a change.

In the end I would say that if you can be tolerant of some crap it's worth seeing "Timelash" at least once to hit some of the high points.

Grab Bag Reviews: "Vengeance on Varos"

You know, this one's a bit misnamed since it really doesn't end up involving much "vengeance" but... hey, yay for alliteration!

It should also be noted that when the twenty-first season started the decision was made to move away from the traditional serial format of four half-hour episodes and instead to go to two forty-five minute episodes. This story was only the second in the new format and it met quite a bit of resistance from viewers.

The Plot: The TARDIS gets stranded in space and the Sixth Doctor discovers the only way to fix the problem is to acquire a rare mineral called Zeiton 7. And Zeiton 7 is primarily found on a planet called Varos so, using the last of the TARDIS's power, the Doctor and his companion Peri arrive on Varos.

Unfortunately for them they arrive early in Varos's development and they find a brutal planet where there are only the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. Corruption is rampant, the planet is under the economic thumb of an alien mining company, the lower classes are slowly starving and Governor must ask the people for a vote on all of his decisions and if the people do not approve he is exposed to a beam which painfully damages his cellular structure. Too many times under the beam will prove fatal and the current Governor is nearing the end of his strength.

In order to keep the people in line and pacified the government has turned brutality into entertainment. Criminals and dissidents are executed or tortured on camera and the images transmitted into every home. There is even a game where those who speak out against the government are placed in a labyrinth of deadly traps and forced to run the gauntlet in hopes of reaching freedom on the other side. None make it and the people of Varos are encouraged to eagerly watch every step of the way.

When the Doctor and Peri interrupt the execution of one of the rebels -- Jondar -- they soon find themselves embroiled in Varos's problems... and running the maze of death for their own survival. The Doctor must change Varos itself against high stakes for if he fails his companion's life is forfeit as well as the lives of his new found rebel friends and an entire planet will continue on crushed under a corporate heel and living in darkness.

My Take: While the writer's original concern with this episode had been the phenomenon of "snuff films" (something that actually still crops up in mentions today) and it has quite a bit in common with the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Running Man the story resonates even more powerfully today with the continuing concept of the "reality TV show". Sure, modern reality TV doesn't kill people but shows like American Idol deliberately show people trying out for the competition who cannot sing a lick just so that they can be ridiculed when you get right down to it. And there have been those who watched the show primarily for judge Simon Cowell and took great delight when he would critically rip a singer apart. So there is still that undercurrent of delighting in the tearing down of others.

The episode also touches on the old, Roman idea of "bread and circuses" -- politicians would give away cheap bread and provide low class amusements to the populace in an attempt to both pacify them and win votes. Those circuses often consisted of things like chariot races, which in ancient times were without rules or pity -- fast races in which there were often crashes and bloody, fatal crashes at that. Here the idea of the "circuses" has been transformed into television programs in which people die violently for entertainment.

The episode was not without it's controversy. Even though the purpose was to show the terribleness of violence and the harm of desensitizing people to violence the story was criticized for the amount of violence it had. There were accusations that, in a certain scene, the Doctor pushed a guard into an acid bath. It is clear, upon viewing, however, that this is not the case and the guard is actually pulled in by a compatriot who fell in previously but the Doctor's rather callous and cold reaction to the carnage (topped off with a bon mot no less) is somewhat in bad taste for the character.

The script for this one is also stronger in that it keeps the usual bickering between the Doctor and his companion Peri to a minimum. In point of fact, this is probably the most caring and concerned we've seen the Doctor toward Peri since Baker's tenure began.

Baker's performance is solid but one can see that Bryant is still learning and isn't quite as strong in the role. Also, as an American, I can safely attest that Bryant's so-called American accent is really quite wobbly -- which isn't fun to listen to. Trivia buffs will also be pleased to note that Jason Connery -- son of Sean Connery -- is here in one of his first TV roles as Jondar. Like Baker he's solid but he is hampered by not being given much to do in the second installment. Still, he's easy on the eyes and spends a chunk of the first episode shirtless so I'm not going to complain (hey, I'm a chick, I'm entitled to occasionally objectify men).

On the villain side, Martin Jarvis as the Governor turns in a lovely performance. Even when he begins as the seeming villain he infuses the part with an underlying nobility and as the story progresses more and more of that nobility comes shining through. It is strange and a bit of a shame that his character is never given a name, merely credited as "the Governor".

Also on the brilliant villain side is Nabil Shaban who plays the alien, corporate mining representative, Sil. Shaban suffers from a condition which left his legs underdeveloped but this has not stopped him from making a career as an actor and writer. Here he crafts a character that is so larger-than-life, slimy-evil he fairly walks away with the whole story. He does a great job at taking the idea of the callous, corporate raider type prevalent in the 1980's and transferring it into an alien form.

The bad thing is that there are even MORE villains in this story! There is the Chief Officer (yet another character never given a proper name, only a title) who schemes with Sil to see the Governor fall with plans to take his place, and the mad scientist Quillam who delights in suffering. In point of fact, Quillam seems the most like a traditional Doctor Who villain but he only comes into all his villainous glory towards the end -- too late to really do anything with him. The actor playing the Chief Officer turns in a steady but unremarkable performance but the actor playing Quillam really sinks his teeth into the part when he is actually given something to do. Which makes it sad that he was not given more to do.

The villains are one area where the story falls down -- so many of them make things a bit unfocused -- we're never sure exactly who we're supposed to be boo-ing for, when and why. It also means that we never get a really strong, central figure to hate or fear. Sil, while entertaining, is never really threatening and his evil is the kind of evil of white collar criminals -- the evil of Bernie Madoff, the evil of the corporate raider who is only interested in how much he can get out of something, how far down he can drive the price for HIS company and damn the consequences for everyone else just so long as HE makes the biggest profit he can. Summed up, I guess it's the "Evil of Selfishness". And that kind of evil... well, it makes you angry but it doesn't make you SCARED. The best candidate for the 'scary villain' role was Quillam but, as I mentioned before, his character is largely wasted.

The story also falls down on special effects. This entire episode was filmed in the studio and as such there is a lot of corridor running (something that is often a sign of poor budget or padding out a short episode) and it gets a bit boring. Peri gets captured... a couple of times. Yawn. There is a little electric go-cart thing the guards ride around in that is laughable -- mostly because a snail could beat it in a race, and there is an overabundance of what I call "stupid guard syndrome". You know, guards who walk right past the people they are chasing and yet never seem to see them, the inability to hit a target that is five feet in front of them, etc.

Despite the faults and flaws, "Vengeance on Varos" is actually extremely watchable. There are some really good performances turned in, there are some great lines of dialog and the story itself holds up well to the passage of some 25 years. In many ways it has found a new way to resonate with the modern idea of reality TV.

Also, I don't always mention the DVD extras but here they are MORE than worth the listen. Baker and Bryant banter well together and are very comfortable with one another after the passage of years. It offers a little glimpse into how good these two could have been on-screen together if the scripts had been less focused on argumentativeness and Baker and Bryant had been allowed more control over shaping their characters. Both actors also dish some dirt about what was going on behind the cameras at the time which give some new insight into their time on the series.

If you watch no other Sixth Doctor story then at least watch this one, it's worth the time spent.

Grab Bag Review: Preview

So when I dove into the Doctor Who grab bag for my next review what should show up but "Vengeance on Varos" -- a Sixth Doctor story.

Crap.

The Sixth Doctor is quite possibly the most often disliked to outright hated of all the Doctors... and considering there has been eleven of them that's saying something. Here's the thing, though. Over the years things have come about about Colin Baker's tenure as the Doctor which sheds a lot of light on the situation and somewhat mitigates things. So before going into "Vengeance on Varos" I felt it was important that the background was fully explored.

Peter Davison, as the Fifth Doctor had followed the immensely popular Tom Baker. Unlike Tom Baker, who had been a relative unknown, Davison had already had quite a popular career in television despite his young age at taking the reigns as the Doctor. In point of fact, up until the casting of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor Davison had been the youngest Doctor ever.

Davison, however, had been somewhat dissatisfied with the quality of many of the scripts during his tenure and he also feared being typecast in the role so he decided to limit his time on the show to three seasons. Looking around for a replacement, producer Jonathan Nathan-Turner (J N-T hereafter because it takes too long to type the full name) latched onto actor Colin Baker.

Like Davison, Colin Baker already had a career in TV, and in point of fact he had appeared in Doctor Who rather recently as a rather nasty Gallifreian Commander named Maxil. In point of fact, Baker had rather a history of playing nasty and/or creepy and/or craven characters. The thing about Baker was that he was and remains to this day a fan of science fiction in general and Doctor Who in specific. J N-T felt that Baker would be a perfect fit since he had in mind that the show needed a little bit of a shake-up.

J N-T worried that, after Davison's rather soulful portrayal of the Doctor and Tom Baker's rather madcap one, viewers had gotten too comfortable with the Doctor. The producer wanted to make the Doctor seem dangerous, unbalanced, and much more alien in thinking. The idea was to introduce the Doctor as an unstable, unlikable personality and then have him gradually warm up. Colin Baker indeed liked this idea and added that he thought his Doctor should wear an all black suit to start with and then slowly add more elements of color to the wardrobe as the character lightened up. J N-T, however, shot this idea down claiming it might confuse viewers with the villainous character of the Master who was known for dressing all in black. Instead, J N-T ordered the costume department to design the most hideously, clashing outfit they possibly could in order to emphasize the Doctor's loud and brash personality. Baker hated the outfit but felt compelled to not air his opinions.

On the companion side -- actress Nicola Bryant was hired to help transition between Davison's Doctor and Baker's. Doctor Who had been slowly bleeding viewers and bleeding support at the BBC head office as well. J N-T had long been hoped to entice foreign investors in the show. He came up with the idea of making the new companion American in hopes that this might entice an American production company to partner with the show. Unfortunately, Nicola Bryant was British and a relatively new actress and these facts added up to her struggling with an American accent which was foisted upon her.

Additionally, J N-T had an idea of increasing the sex appeal of the series. Bryant thought, logically, since her character was supposed to be an American college student she should dress like an American college student -- sweatshirt or t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. J N-T's chase after more "sex appeal" instead left Bryant wearing tight-fitting leotards or half-shirts, shorts, and dress shoes most of the time.

On top of all of this, the script writers decided that the Doctor's new unstable personality should be displayed in the form of nearly constant bickering between himself and his companion, Perpurgillium "Peri" Brown. Neither Baker nor Bryant were extremely pleased with the scripts and when Baker wanted to move faster on warming up the Doctor's personality he was overruled and, as such, the nasty Doctor continued on far too long.

As a result of all of this the show went from bleeding viewers to hemorrhaging them. The show was put on hiatus with three stories left in the season and it was questionable on whether or not it would return. Despite his issues with the direction, Baker did not want to see the show cancelled outright and so he joined in the campaign to have it restored. It did, indeed, return and some things were certainly better. The Doctor's personality was softened a bit and his relationship with Peri was warmed up considerably. It was all still a bit too little too late, however, and Colin Baker was, sadly, made the scapegoat for the whole debacle and was released from the role of the Doctor to make way for the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy. Understandably upset over his treatment, Baker refused to return to film a regeneration scene to hand the baton over to McCoy.

To be fair, some blame does have to be laid at the feet of the actors. Colin Baker played the role of arrogant entirely too well and he was already known for having a tendency to go over the top and an inability to tone down his performances. These things combines to make his Doctor more of a parody than anything else. Bryant, in her youth an inexperience, often came off as interesting as Elmer's glue.

In more recent years an audio company in Great Britain, Big Finish, has been producing audio dramas featuring several of the surviving Doctors. Baker and Bryant have been paired in stories repeatedly and have shown that their Doctor-Companion combo would have been quite good with some scripts that didn't rely so much on bickering and some seasoning on their performances.

Also, as more of the details of what went on behind the scenes during that era have come out Baker has been exonerated by fans. It doesn't hurt that he is, by all accounts, quite a funny, warm, personable man in person and one who delights in meeting fans.

So that's what was behind the scenes. Next up, "Vengeance on Varos"!