Serial 95: The Sun Makers

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companions: Leela

Written by: Robert Holmes
Directed by: Pennant Roberts

Editor's Note: Hallo hallo! Dropping in to point out that this is Cassandra's last entry! Lordie lord we are racing towards an ending and quickly, aren't we? By golly we are. But yes. Here's Cassandra with some discussion on "The Sun Makers".

Background & Significance: So the name of this game is 'satire'.

When I watched this story for the first time, the point flew right over my head and so I ended up disliking it.  "Robert Holmes?" I thought.  "Oh, surely this shall be another heavy masterpiece."  And it's not, so, I was confused and felt a bit betrayed and let down, since this was the last Robert Holmes story we did on our initial watch-through.

But just because this is much lighter fair than what I've come to expect from Holmes, doesn't make it bad.  On the contrary, it really shows off his range as a writer, as good comedy is one of the hardest things to master.

And this is a comedy.  It's a very biting satire on Imperialism and Colonialism as well as the British equivalent of the IRS, which I think is hilarious.  Granted, there are some dark elements/moments that we'll talk about in a bit, but at its heart this is a comedy, which makes it fit in splendidly with the Williams era aesthetic.

This is also one of the last stories featuring Leela as a companion, which makes me really sad because I love Leela and I think she's really great here, which may or may not have something to do with the return of Pennant Roberts, who also directed Leela's debut story "The Face of Evil".

But enough of all that, let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 89: The Face of Evil

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)

Companion: Leela

Written By: Chris Boucher

Directed By: Pennant Roberts

Background & Significance: After the departure of Sarah Jane and the experiment of not giving The Doctor a companion for one story, producer Phillip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes (who had found writing a companion-less Doctor Who story immensely difficult) set about looking for a new companion to fill the void.

As luck would have it, Hinchcliffe and Holmes had commissioned a story from one Chris Boucher, who had submitted several ideas to the program and had finally gotten his first bite at the apple with this story.

Interestingly enough, one of the most engaging aspects of the serial was The Doctor's de facto companion for the story: a member of the main tribe in the story, a young woman named Leela. Originally, Leela was not supposed to be a companion, but she really fit into the ideas that Hinchcliffe and Holmes wanted to incorporate into Doctor Who moving forward. The fact that she was a savage and nothing like any companion The Doctor had had before (or would ever have since) helped convinced Hinchcliffe of her long term viability. For Holmes, it was his desire to bring in a Victorian street urchinish character later in the season that the following one might have a season-long arc of educating her Eliza Doolittle style.

This story is also the first appearance of the previously mentioned Chris Boucher (who would go on to write such gems as the subsequent "Robots of Death" and the following season's "Image of the Fendahl." He would go on later to be the script editor for Blake's 7. So that's something.

It's also the first introduction to Pennant Roberts who... let's just say he has one of the poorest track records in Doctor Who, having helmed such directorial turkeys as "The Pirate Planet", "Warriors of the Deep", and "Timelash". So that's something. I guess we'll have to talk about him a bit because... well... he actually does rather good here, doesn't he? I mean, he makes great use of the fact that this whole story was shot on a soundstage with no location filming. That's impressive, if you ask me.

This story, though... it also has the unfortunate "honor" of being in one of the greatest Doctor Who seasons of all time. It's wedged between Robert Holmes's Time Lord magnum opus and Boucher's own legendary tale about Robophobia and a murder mystery on a sandcrawler. Throw in the fact that we lost Sarah Jane just two stories ago and we end off the season with "Talons" and it's no wonder this story gets lost in the shuffle. Well... Not any more!

So let's get to it!

Serial 92: Horror of Fang Rock

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Leela

Written by: Terrance Dicks
Directed by: Paddy Russell

Background & Significance: "Horror of Fang Rock" slipped through the cracks.

Even though this is the first serial produced by Graham Williams after he took over producership from Phillip Hinchcliffe, but it certainly doesn't feel like it. More than anything, it feels like a big last hurrah commissioned in the waning hours of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, approved before Williams took over, and stamped with all of the Holmesian trademarks of his run with Hinchcliffe. Williams, as nascent producer, didn't do much to change it to match his vision.

Really, that's the thing about "Horror of Fang Rock" that I find so terribly interesting. It doesn't feel like a Williams story at all. No. It really feels like the last great Hinchcliffe hurrah and even deals with the tropes and stylings and tones of his era to the letter.

It's directed by Paddy Russell (who had previously done "The Massacre", "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", and "Pyramids of Mars") and would be her last contribution to the show. It's also written by Terrance Dicks, who would disappear for a few years only to come back and write about some vampires and then a big multi-Doctor mashup, so in a lot of ways it really does feel like a changing of the guard. It's after this that Holmes's work on Doctor Who undergoes a noticeable shift away from his carefully cultivated tone and style towards the more playful work of the Williams era, and you can really feel his fingerprints all over this story as they make the transition from here into something... less good.

And perhaps most interesting of all is that this kicks off a season that is... middling in my opinion. It's good that the Williams run starts off so strong, but also sad because it means he can only go downhill from here.

So let's get to it!

Serial 91: The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Leela

Written by: Robert Holmes
Directed by: David Maloney

Background & Significance: In 1976, as producer Phillip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes were going to wrap their third season as a team, it became obvious to the two of them that Hinchcliffe was being moved away to a new show and that Robert Holmes would most likely be going with him. Holmes, of course, did end up leaving four stories later (subsequent producer Graham Williams asked him to stay on), but in terms of the geniusness that was Hinchcliffe's oversight, this was it, and when it comes to Holmes, this (in a lot of ways) was it for him for a while.

All of this is adds up to the fact that "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" is a wonderfully important and meaningful story. And if it's not that way to anyone else (how many times do we have to talk about the racism again? Fine, fine. I will too) it certainly is to me.

In a lot of ways, "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" is the thesis project for both Hinchcliffe and Holmes and carries all of the trademarks they picked up over the course of their three years running the show. Indeed, Hinchcliffe's first instruction to Holmes was "write anything you want, just don't include The Master" (which Holmes, at one point, wanted to do), giving Robert Holmes free reign to write anything he wanted. This, of course, led to Holmes dialing into the Gothic horror he'd been injecting into the show, only he dialed it up by eleven. He grabbed books and books off the shelf, injecting everything from Phantom of the Opera to Sherlock Holmes to Fu Manchu. He brought in his classic double act, making, perhaps, the most famous double act he ever did (who, by the way, Hinchcliffe seriously considered spinning off into their own series, which would actually happen eventually and to much acclaim), set it in Victorian times (which was the only thing his era was lacking when you really look at it), homaged Jack the Ripper, created a VERY Robert Holmesian villain, and made The Doctor Sherlock Holmes.

Hinchcliffe, of course, didn't care anymore. Well, I mean he did care. He was still producer and he'd had a very good run, but he wanted to go out on a bang (and did in a way very few others have), by making the very best Doctor Who story he could. So when I say he didn't care, I mean he didn't care about silly things like "budget" anymore. His vision for Doctor Who had always run up against budgetary concerns, but this time he threw it all out the window and made it lavish and gorgeous and the best it could possibly be. He brought in David Maloney (of "Mind Robber", "War Games", "Genesis of the Daleks", and "Deadly Assassin" fame) for his final ever work on Doctor Who, authorized night shoots, and told everyone to go crazy and make the best show they possibly could.

As it turns out, when you're running what's probably the best Doctor Who era ever and you tell everyone to make the best story and give them the freedom to do so, it'd be pretty hard to mess that up. And they really don't. It's astounding how much this really ends up being the perfect ending for their era, a climax and zenith that Doctor Who had very rarely reached or would reach again. And for most everyone to agree that this story is easily the best of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes when quality of the era is as high as it is (and in case you've forgotten, go back and see all of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes stories there's been and look at how high a bar they set), that's really saying something. Really truly.

Also, as a heads up this is probably going to be a love fest. I can already feel it coming, but hey. It's the hundredth story we're reviewing on the blog. I say we do it right.

So let's get to it!

Serial 96: Underworld

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)

Companion: Leela

Written by: Bob Baker & Dave Martin

Directed by: Norman Stewart

Background & Significance: "Underworld" is not exactly a well-regarded story. In that famous Doctor Who Magazine ranking of all the stories of Doctor Who from "An Unearthly Child" to "Planet of the Dead", "Underworld" was the lowest ranking Tom Baker story. And not just low ranking for Tom Baker standards (his stories get a "Tom Baker bump" because everyone loves him so frakking much), but low as in bottom five Doctor Who story. Of all time.

Now, I should qualify that by saying I don't agree with a fair bit of some of the rankings on that list, but when you get so much concentration on positive (the top ten is fairly solid, if misguided) and the negative, it turns out that the masses are really not that wrong.

I hate Underworld. I'll just say that in the background and significance. It comes in one of my least favourite eras (The Graham Williams era) and suffers from being the first 4th Doctor story not overseen in at least some respect by Robert Holmes. And I think it REALLY shows you how much you need a good writer to bring something to the table to really make a story... you know.... good.

It also suffers from being written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, more jovially referred to as "The Brighton Boys" when they were a duo or whatever.

I'll also repeat something that I've said previously: Baker/Martin are not good. Or at least, the stories that they make are traditionally stories I REALLY don't like. The only time I've actually relished in a story that they wrote, it took Patrick Troughton to frakking save the day and completely steal the show. And of the only other times I found two other of their stories enjoyable, one had the benefit of being completely re-written by Robert Holmes and based on a half-decent concept AND the departure of one of the finest companions ever, while the other was handicapped to being just two parts.

Also, two of my all time least favourite Doctor Who stories OF ALL TIME are written by these two guys. Three if you count this one. So ummmmmm..... Not a huge fan, no.

But enough blather and mea culpa whatevering.

"Underworld" comes towards the end of Tom Baker's fourth season and is still in the early years of Graham Williams's producership and it's everything I associate with the era. It's poorly written and constructed, it looks awful, it makes no sense, it's cheap, and it's schlocky in all the worst of ways. Gone is the good writing and it shows you how much Baker/Martin can't stand on their own. Known for high concept ideas, studying Baker/Martin stories is a clinic in how to not do certain things. Which I'll elaborate on.

Honestly, this story is a mess even before the really awful CSO (green screen) kicks in. It's an awful travesty, and my god do I loathe this story.

Ugh.

So let's get to it!

Serial 90: The Robots of Death

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Leela

Written by: Chris Boucher
Directed by: Michael Briant


Background & Significance: Gothic horror.

That's right, ladies and gents, we've returned once again to the famed Season Fourteen of Doctor Who with a little story called "The Robots of Death". And there's really no other way to describe this story other than one of Gothic-style horror.

Like the other serials that make up this season in particular (though many of the other stories produced in the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era also share this distinction), this story has a definite horror-bent to it. I think this story in particular, however, neatly and perfectly encapsulates the entire aesthetic of this season. It's intense and kind of scary and yes, it's violent, but it's also fun and top-notch, quality Doctor Who. Everything from the production design to the direction, to the guest cast, to Tom Baker and Louise Jameson; everything fits together in such a seamless way that it's practically perfect. Watching this is a lot of fun and you can just get a sense of the harmony and perfect team that Hinchcliffe and Holmes really were.

This story is significant for a couple of reasons, the most important of which is the establishment of Leela as full-time companion. This being Leela's first official adventure since the Doctor picked her up in "The Face of Evil", the writer of that story, Chris Boucher, was asked to return to help flesh out her character more, especially since it was decided by Hinchcliffe and Holmes that she would only be a short-term companion (though Graham Williams did decide to keep her on as companion til the end of the next season).

Being the companion after Sarah Jane Smith is a tall order and a tough spot to fill, but I think this is probably the best Leela we've seen so far, and Louise Jameson does a great job with the part, as we'll soon see.

Also, this is the last story in which the oh-so-pretty Gothic TARDIS console set appears, as it was warped beyond salvagability in the off-season in storage and had to be replaced. Such a shame, because I love that thing. So pretty.

Enough of all that, though. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 97: The Invasion of Time

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Leela, K-9

Written by: David Agnew (a.k.a. Graham Williams and Anthony Read)
Directed by: Gerald Blake

Author's Note: Hey guys! Before we get into this week's review, I just wanted to say that I'm one of the new co-hosts of this sw33t Doctor Who podcast called "The Doctor's Companion" where my co-host Scott and I discuss Classic Who stories in recap form not so unlike this blog (but also much unlike it too because it comes in "sound-word" form). The first episode is available for download here and I encourage everyone to subscribe in iTunes (or whatever tickles your fancy) cuz it's tons of fun and I promise a super great ride. And now on with the show!

Background & Significance: "The Invasion of Time" is, to me, something of a case study in the Graham Williams era. If nothing else, it really just reminds me that sometimes it's really hard to be hard on Tom Baker's second producer.

We've talked about it before, but it's definitely worth repeating here. The Williams era is, in my mind, a much maligned era, and how could it not be? He's coming right after three seasons of ridiculous high quality under producer Phillip Hinchcliffe, who had a much firmer grasp on his vision of what he wanted the show to be and was thusly able to execute it that much more effectively than Williams. In addition to that, the show's budget was slashed as hard times fell on England (or something. THIS ISN'T A HISTORY SHOW. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT DOCTOR WHO), Tom Baker (best-Doctor-ever-no-contests) was growing increasingly more and more heady and drunk when it came to his influence on the show, and the BBC came forward to tell Williams to cut back on the violence and horror of the previous era, focusing instead on something much more "important": Humour.

And then you remember that Hinchcliffe's vision was supported by the insane quality of having Robert Holmes in charge of the stories they were telling and you just realize that Williams... Williams didn't stand a chance.

But he gets props for trying.

"The Invasion of Time" is probably the thing I think of most when I think about Williams trying incredibly hard to make something that's awesome and matters and really cool. If you go and look at what Williams was trying to do, he was just trying to make the best Doctor Who stories he could make. The level of the fantastical was increased as Williams scoured the Earth for the best stories that he could find.

Building off the success of an extremely high water mark from the previous season's already extremely high quality, Williams thought Robert Holmes's fantastic Time Lord opus "The Deadly Assassin" a mythology rife with potential to expand and build upon. It had proved to be incredibly popular, so why not build on it by telling another story set on Gallifrey but with a different focus? He even asked Robert Holmes to come in and write it as a companion piece/sequel to "The Deadly Assassin". When Holmes refused and other possibilities proved fruitless, Williams and new script editor Anthony Read opted to write it together under a psuedonym in order to cut back on costs.

What we're left with is... this. And... Oh boy does it merit some discussion.

Before going into it, I'd almost recommend coming at it from a place of leniency. It needed to be made on the cheap, and what they're dealing with was... I understand why they did it and they get super props for at least trying it, because really... Why shouldn't you? Revisiting Gallifrey and Time Lord society was bound to happen at some point and choosing to revisit it wasn't a bad choice.

But... let's be honest... Neither Williams nor Read are Robert Holmes. And he's the only one who's proved himself capable of writing a quality Time Lord story. Ah well. They couldn't have known. Ce'st la.

So let's get to it!

Serial 93: The Invisible Enemy

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Leela, K-9

Written by: Bob Baker and Dave Martin
Directed by: Derrick Goodwin

Background & Significance: So once again we have a team up by writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who have been mostly underwhelming in my eyes with a view gems of greatness sprinkled in here and there.

"The Invisible Enemy" is firmly rooted in mediocre Doctor Who, perhaps elevated again by the script editing of Robert Holmes (as we'll see as well in the next few weeks) but also lowered by the newly arrived takeover by Graham Williams as producer.

More than anything, it's here that you can see the first influx of Williams's influence. It's rather silly and much more focused on the fantasy and silly elements of Doctor Who than it is with the hard scifi or horror of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. That said, the continued presence of Robert Holmes helps the proceedings, and certain elements of the horror of the monster or even the scientific elements are much more Holmesian than Williams. But more than anything, this just reinforces the idea that the next story, "Image of the Fendahl" was an anomalous hurrah than it was final last hurrah. That goes to another story we'll be talking about in a couple of months.

That's not to say it doesn't have good ideas. We get some interesting conceptual story ideas (that ultimately don't really matter) and the introduction of K-9. So that's.... that's good. I guess. Go that.

We also start to see the influx of what we'll start to call "Drunk Tom Baker", but I'll go into that more as we start to see it. Again, I blame Graham Williams.

So let's get to it!

Serial 94: Image of the Fendahl

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Leela


Written by: Chris Boucher
Directed by: George Spenton-Foster

Background & Significance: After the Gothic period, the BBC removed Phillip Hinchcliffe as producer of Doctor Who and replaced him with Graham Williams, whom they told to "lighten the tone" of the overall series and to make it less violent.

Graham Williams' era ran for three years, including this season, the Key to Time season, and then the "Douglas Adams year", which we'll get to eventually. The time saw the rise in popularity and input from Tom Baker and a decline in viewership after the rampantly popular Hinchcliffe era. So... I'll cut him some slack.

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"Image of the Fendahl" comes right at the start of this change, after the departure of Hinchcliffe but just before the departure of Robert Holmes as script editor. As such, this story is noticeably lighter than the very dark, grizzly content of "The Deadly Assassin", but it does have a noticeably horror-like tone to it, especially in the last episode.

As a story, I was a bit worried about this one, as I'm not sure I'll like the widely-accepted-as-lesser-quality post-Gothic Tom Baker, but it actually delivered in the end. Also of concern was the introduction of Companion Leela, whom I didn't know what to make of going into this, and coming out of it...

Well... I'm still not sure.

That said? A story that's both a haunted house horror story with roots based on a Time Lord Ghost Story? And with an unprecedented amount of sexual tension? Awesome.

So let's get to it!