Serial 111: Full Circle - The E-Space Trilogy Part I

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Romana II, K-9, Adric

Written by: Andrew Smith
Directed by: Peter Grimwade 

Background & Significance: Season 18 of Doctor Who is something of a strange beast if for no other reason than because it marks a period of transition for the show. Most transitory periods only last a few or so episodes (the transition from Pertwee to Tom Baker is a good example, where "Robot" is a weird UNIT story and not really the Hinchcliffe/Holmes vision of the show), but this season marks a big paradigm shift as the show prepares to move away from Tom Baker and towards the stewardship of Producer John Nathan-Turner.

This is the one where you really start to feel its effects.

As Philip Sandifer is talking about all this week, the hand off from Tom Baker to Nathan-Turner happened in stages. Certain things were immediately apparent, the change in costume being the one that really stands out. Nathan-Turner really helped to codify the Tom Baker costume, which is... well... it's a good thing, I think. I mean, I'm personally a huge fan of the first three years of Tom Baker's look: Huge coat, colorful waistcoat, tie, button down shirt, slacks, perfect-length scarf... hat optional. It gave the Doctor a sense of ordered chaos and manner of appearance. As time went on though, Tom Baker started to take more liberty with his costume. No tie. Waistcoat optional and unbuttoned (which makes me ask why he even bothered keeping it around). Scarf that looks like a two-story tall curtain rather than an actual scarf. (Compare the two and you'll see the difference).

If nothing else, the burgundy scheme really points towards Baker's imminent departure. It feels very restrained, very somber, very foreboding. Funeral clothes, if you will... but for his own funeral. It's an ominous touch that just feels so good and so right, especially in retrospect.

But then you turn around and talk about script editor Christopher H. Bidmead, who brought in an almost over-saturation of "science" into a show that had been so defined by the "world of dreams and fantasy" under Graham Williams. It's not that I don't like his ideas (I mean, I love "Castrovalva", and "Logopolis" was totally watchable), but the focus on that is a bit silly, especially when it gets into Bidmead's own perspective on "science" which is much more based on conceptual interests (entropy) than actual data, facts, and real physics or whatever.

Which brings us to our week-long discussion of E-Space, which will see the arrival of Adric and the departure of Romana and K-9. E-Space is a big sci-fi concept that really pushes the Bidmead conception of Doctor Who more than "The Leisure Hive" or "Meglos" ever could. Those two stories were conceived and commissioned by the previous production team (re: Graham Williams) and don't make for "Nathan-Turner" stories. The next story ("State of Decay") was a product of long time Doctor Who stalwart Terrance Dicks. Fortunately/unfortunately Nathan-Turner didn't want to be undermined by any experienced Doctor Who crew who could undermine his authority, so Dicks is an old holdover. Almost in response, Nathan-Turner went in the completely opposite direction and commissioned "Full Circle" from Andrew Smith, who was only a teenager at the time.

Talk about fresh blood. Youngest writer on Doctor Who ever. I'm curious to see how it works out.

So let's get to it!

Serial 9: Planet of Giants

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companions: Susan, Ian, and Barbara


Written by: Louis Marks
Directed by: Mervyn Pinfield & Douglas Camfield

Background & Significance: One of the things that strikes me about watching Doctor Who out of order like this is the show's approach to season openers and finales. It's most interesting early on in the show's history, when Doctor Who was broadcast weekly like clockwork and there was very little delineation between seasons. (Really, it was just a sixish week gap, which is barely anything when you're broadcasting over forty weeks a year).

So this is the kickoff to Doctor Who's second season, and what a kick off it is.

The most interesting thing about "Planet of Giants" is the core conceit/concept, which, for those who don't know (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST HALF OF EPISODE ONE) is that the TARDIS and her crew are all shrunk down to miniature and it basically becomes "Honey I Shrunk the TARDIS" for three parts. This was, interestingly enough, one of the major ideas the production team wanted to do right from the very beginning. It was planned to be one of the first things they ever did on the show (going so far as to be one of the first four stories to be transmitted), but it was pushed back and back and season one became season one (scifi, historical, scifi, historical, etc), and then here we get this new story that is something totally different.

It's written by Louis Marks who would later go on to write "The Planet of Evil" and directed by Mervyn Pinfield with additional work by Douglas Camfield (specifically the "abridged" final episode).

But the thing that strikes me most about this story is the way it just sets up things that are coming down the line. Susan's departure, for one, seems nothing but inevitable, and the whole shrinking thing just pushes The TARDIS into weirder "let's do whatever we want" territory that's... extremely welcome, if you ask me. Watching the Hartnell stories later in the watching of Doctor Who (and helped by reading the thoughts of people who've watched the show differently than I did, that is to say: in order), it's rather brilliant to see just how far the production team is really pushing itself in these first two seasons, where they're only Doctor Who stories in retrospect, not in any sort of "this is a Doctor Who story" sorta way.

"Planet of the Giants" itself was considered by the BBC unfeasible and boring as a four part story and was, unfortunately, edited for time. This resulted in episodes three and four being mashed together and sliced down into one. Honestly, I doubt you'd be able to notice (that said, I'm looking for it this time), but it's a point to note. There's rumours that it'll be around in some capacity for the forthcoming DVD release, but that's another point for another time.

So let's get to it!

Serial 58: The Colony in Space

Doctor: Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor)
Companion: Jo Grant

Written by: Malcolm Hulke
Directed by: Michael E. Briant

Background & Significance: After "The War Games", the Doctor Who production team very famously (and wisely) decided to confine The Doctor to Earth. Teaming him up with the international military force UNIT, the goal was to limit the cost and scope of Doctor Who in order to save money. In a way, you could think of it as them putting Doctor Who on something of a diet, with them being responsible about their boundaries and such.

But like every good diet, the production team would occasionally raid the fridge in the dead of night for some chocolate cake and take The Doctor away from UNIT and out into the cosmos for something a bit more gallivanty.

Let's call this their first chocolate cake.

Written by Doctor Who stalwart Malcolm Hulke (the only writer to contribute at least one story to each Pertwee season) and directed by Michael E. Briant (famous for such high points as "The Sea Devils" and "Robots of Death" and such low points as "Death to the Daleks" and "Revenge of the Cybermen"), "The Colony in Space" has something of a mixed reputation. Sure, it's notable because The 3rd Doctor FINALLY leaves Earth (although I'd hardly call that a problem), but beyond that...

I dunno. I think this first "cheat day" really gave them something of a bit of a stomach ache.

What I find most interesting is how long it took them to get us to this point. The 3rd Doctor is really only confined to Earth for about a season and a half before he's given permission to leave. Sure, he's on a leash by the Time Lords (how else would he get off the planet?), but it doesn't change the fact that this is the start of the end for the UNIT era in a lot of ways. Sure, there's plenty more great UNIT stories to go after this, but allowing The Doctor to go off and have adventures on his own is something of a betrayal of the core concept of his era if you ask me. And... well.. we should probably talk about how well it fares because... well... is it just a minor cramp or a full on flu virus thing?

Ugh. Enough with the metaphors.

So let's get to it!

Serial 118: Kinda

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companion: Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka, Adric


Written by: Christopher Bailey
Directed by: Peter Grimwade

Background & Significance: "Kinda" is one of those stories that gets a lot of talk in Doctor Who circles. Those who see it either hate it or love it with little to no in between. To a lot of people, it's "The one with that silly-looking snake" or "the one that has the forest that looks like a television studio". But my god. That's like saying "City of Death" is the one with that green dude with the tentacle face. Or "The Deadly Assassin" is the one with the dermatologically-challenged Master.

"Kinda", as with many others, is a rare story that is an excellent sum of its excellent parts and more.

It helps that the story is written by Christopher Bailey, who came to Doctor Who with a background in play writing, Buddhism, and academia. As such, the dialogue sparkles and the story is layered with peel-backable meanings that make it ripe for analysis.

The best part about all that is, of course, that you can just watch it and not have to give a damn about what any of the crazy thematics and allegory Bailey's working with actually means. You can take it as a straight story and be none the wiser as to the significance of certain elements or why certain things play out as they do. Sure, it's a little bizarre and (I'll warrant) a mite confusing as to the dynamics of the piece if you don't actively engage the text on some level, but it does at least make sense on its own insane internal logic. But it's rare for a Doctor Who story to work on so many levels at once, or to have a story that can so clearly convey the message while bringing up and discussing so much more. And yet, despite the layers of subtext and metaphor, the story is remarkably simple and easy enough to get at one go. It's just that the more you watch it, the more you think about it, the more you discuss it, the more you'll get out of it.

This story's also significant for being early early Davison and (by proxy) early early JNT. Having spent his previous year concerned with "science" and cleaning the slate of Tom Baker, it was with Davison's run that you really started to get Nathan-Turner's vision for the show, and "Kinda" is one of the benefits of that. It was commissioned by outgoing script editor Christopher H. Bidmead, overseen for a time by Antony Root, and then completed by Eric Saward. Because of such turmoil behind the scenes in the writing phase, the thing ended up not feeling like anything else, even a traditional Doctor Who story. But it's here that you can see just how versatile Nathan-Turner was (or perhaps could have been), and it's astounding how it does fall into line with what I consider the "high adventure" of the Nathan-Turner era (which is why I tend to love The Davison era so) while still being something more, something truly truly special and impossibly unique amongst all the Doctor Who stories that have ever been told.

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 42: Fury From The Deep

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)

Companions: Jamie, Victoria

Written by: Victor Pemberton
Directed by: Hugh David

Background & Significance: When you look at season five of Doctor Who, the famous, so called "Monster" season (so named because the season featured two Cybermen stories, two Yeti stories, an Ice Warrior story, and Troughton "blacking himself up" to look like a dark-skinned Spaniard) stands out for a number of reasons, most notably, perhaps, because the season itself largely doesn't exist. Of the 40 episodes in season five only 13 are still around, there's only one complete story, and only one other of the seven for which half of the story exists. Most of the stories have at least one episode to hint at what the story must have looked/felt like.

Except for this one. This one is missing in its entirety.

It's written by Victor Pemberton and directed by Hugh David. Pemberton briefly stepped in as script editor for "Tomb of the Cybermen" when they decided to try that little experiment and Hugh David was last and first seen in the previous season to help introduce Jamie in "The Highlanders", so it is something of a mystery as to how exactly it would have been done. There's very little that would hint at the way that these two people affected Doctor Who for this one installment of theirs, and that (like with all the missing episodes) is a shame, especially considering they never really returned after this. At least with someone like Douglas Camfield we can extrapolate based on his later work as to how well he might have directed something, but here.... we don't really have that luxury. Not exactly.

It's also the last story featuring Victoria Waterfield, bringing to a close the scares and dares of the season in a very palpable way and ending one of the most conceptually interesting companions in the history of the programme (in my honest opinion). But I'll talk about that in a bit.

All these things give "Fury From the Deep" something of a fetishized reputation. It's extremely well-regarded and considered a highlight of what is also considered an extremely strong and highlight-worthy season. Known for its scares and B-movie horror, the story actually happens to be seaweed and foam, of all things, inserting that as "its monster" while maintaining your typical "base under siege" story that is the formula for every story this season.

So let's get to it!

Serial 158: Survival

Doctor: Sylvester McCoy (7th Doctor)
Companion: Ace

Written by: Rona Munro
Directed by: Alan Wareing 

Background & Significance: I'd like to say I've had many a conversation about "Survival". I'd like to say that I've debated endlessly about whether or not this is a good place to end the show after a twenty six season run (which is no mean feat. I mean, look at most shows in today's market place). Hell, I'd like to say that I've had long, drawn out, in depth conversations about whether or not this is even a good story.

Unfortunately, that's simply not the case.

In case you missed the memo, "Survival" is the unofficial series finale to Doctor Who, the end of which kicked off the sixteen year long "Wilderness Years" in which no Doctor Who stories were produced (barring The Movie, but that hardly constitutes getting a regular Doctor Who fix the fans had been getting for over a quarter of a century). Because Doctor Who was canceled, it doesn't really serve as an ending so much, instead getting the ending typical of other television shows that were similarly canceled before the crew could make a suitable ending. This is, of course, to "Survival's" detriment, especially because it feels like it's helping propel The Doctor and Ace into some new and interesting territory and the people in charge are hardly done with whatever it is they've got planned.

It also hurts that "Survival" comes at the tail end of what is a very strong season of Doctor Who stories. The season kicked off with "Battlefield" and went on to do both "Curse of Fenric" and "Ghost Light" before doing this, which, to be honest, is not of the quality of the others.

It's written by Rona Munro (her only Doctor Who story) and directed by Alan Wareing (who did "Greatest Show in the Galaxy" and "Ghost Light") and sees the return of The Master for the however many-eth time this is. (In defense of both Nathan-Turner and Cartmel, though, he hadn't appeared in years so it was high time to bring him back?) and sees more exploration of Ace as she and The Doctor return to her childhood stomping grounds of Perivale. So that's something. And it has Cheetah People. So that's something else, I suppose. Bur it is telling that not much is ever discussed about "Survival" (not much as I've heard anyways) with people instead focusing on the other McCoy greats (from this season or the last).

That it's not discussed, is perhaps the best foreshadowing I can give you before we start discussing it.

So let's get to it!

Serial 20: The Myth-Makers

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)

Companions: Vicki, Steven, Katarina

Written by: Donald Cotton

Directed by: Michael Leeston-Smith

Editor's Note: Hey, kids! Matt here stepping in to tell you that Cassandra's here to talk about some Donald Cotton! Wooooo! Yay Trojans! (Ruh roh that came out wrong...) Any who, I'll be back next week to talk about THE LAST DOCTOR WHO STORY EVER but for now here's Cassandra.

Background & Significance: “The Myth Makers” is an interesting story for quite a few reasons, not because of the actual story, but because of what it represents in the history of the show. 

For one thing, it was the first serial to be produced by someone other than Verity Lambert, which is a big deal.  While “Mission to the Unknown,” the previous story, served as a quiet, fascinating denouement to Lambert’s time with the show, “The Myth Makers” is a ramping up for John Wiles, steering Doctor Who into the very strange and quirky territory it would remain in until the end of the Hartnell era.  While it is a “historical” for the most part, it gets away from that original concept in that it’s also intended to be a high comedy, in the vein of “The Romans” or “The Gunfighters.”

This story is also the last story we see Vicki appear in.  Companion departures are pretty much always a sad affair for me (unless I hate their guts, but that’s another story altogether), and I genuinely enjoy Vicki as a character, and I like what Maureen O’Brien did with the part.  While she is intended to be a substitute Susan, as it were, I think she does a good job coming into her own as the series progresses.  But apparently the fact that she was trying to stick up for the integrity of the character she was portraying was too much for the new producer, who decided after the filming of “Galaxy 4” that O’Brien was complaining too much about her lines, so she should be written out in “The Myth Makers” when her contract was set to expire.  Which hardly seems fair to me.  But that’s showbiz, I suppose.

This also marks the introduction of Katarina, the one-off Trojan handmaiden Companion who (spoilers) ends up dying in the next story, so whatever.  Vicki’s cooler.

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

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 117: Four to Doomsday

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companion: Adric, Nyssa, Tegan

Written by: Terence Dudley
Directed by: John Black

Background & Significance: A few months back we talked about "Castrovalva" and sure we had a right old laugh celebrating Peter Davison's first story, but what I failed to mention was that it wasn't ACTUALLY Peter Davison's first story. "Four to Doomsday" was the first serial Peter Davison filmed, and it's in this story that we get to see him having his first few steps as The Doctor. And boy howdy, man. Boy howdy. That guy is on from minute one.

Written by previous Doctor Who director Terence Dudley (he of "Meglos"-directing fame) who would go on to do "Black Orchid" and "The King's Demons", "Four to Doomsday" is a fairly typical Doctor Who story. It's a bit slow in places, a lot of it is about characters and mystery and seeing how annoying Tegan can be and watching Adric do whatever it is that Adric does. (Also dancing. Lots of dancing.) It's the first real Fifth Doctor adventure in the sense that "Castrovalva" is a lot about dealing with the aftermath of "Logopolis" and The Doctor's recovery as he transitions into this new chap we're going to be following for the next three years. This is a lot more about The Doctor going out and having a great adventure, saving the day, and really taking the car out for its test drive.

It's also here that we really start to see what Nathan-Turner's influence really kick in. The previous year was just about cleaning house and preparing the way for his vision to start, but here... Man. All the things he brought to the table are here: new markets, Star Wars, fun adventuring, the works.

Interestingly enough, "Four to Doomsday" was supposed to be a point for the show to get rid of Nyssa. Producer Jonathan Nathan-Turner (obsessed with Tegan and feeling Adric was a good touchstone for the young viewers) thought getting rid of Nyssa was a good idea to trim back the oversized TARDIS crew, but after intense lobbying from Peter Davison (who felt Nyssa was the most Fifth Doctorish Companion (and she was)) decided against it. It really is a classic case of actor knowing more than producer if you ask me, especially because Nyssa is TOTALLY Davison's strongest companion (at least for his Doctor) and losing her would have been a huge mistake, especially if you consider that the alternative means that Adric wouldn't have died and Waterhouse woulda been around for at least another season beyond this one.

So let's get to it!