Tuesday 31 July 2018

The Top Ten Achievements of the DVD Range

With the age of Doctor Who on blu ray imminent, it seems an opportune time to look back on the superlative DVD range. Only Red Dwarf comes close to matching the astonishing curation of Doctor Who on DVD. No other series of Doctor Who’s vintage – hell, few Hollywood blockbusters – boast the restoration standards and quality of special features gifted to our beloved programme. The DVD range is a labour of love, made by fans for fans. Whilst a tiny minority of decisions along the way may have proved contentious, (the Pirate Planet’s infamous flying spanner and the day-for-night grading on Day of the Daleks, for example) every single DVD release has been met with deserved universal praise. The catalogue of Doctor Who on DVD is a tremendous achievement and the restoration team (and other contributors) ought to be rightly proud of their magnificent collection.
But what did the DVD range do that went beyond the call of duty? What were the greatest successes? The best bits? Here’s my Top Ten. Feel free to disagree below or let us know your own highlights. We’d love to hear from you!
10 – A NEW BODY AT LAST


It’s difficult to find a product these days that doesn’t include Tom Baker being honest about his time on Doctor Who. This documentary, however, was the first to reveal the true face of the Fourth Doctor after years of Tom disguising himself under the well-deserved veil of a legend. This was when he first talked frankly. “I became my own worst enemy,” he opines, his face filling the camera. “In other words, I became impossible.” Studio footage of his regeneration illustrates clearly the sporadic, unpredictable nature of his moods. Key contributors include an ever-smug (but equally charming) Christopher H Bidmead and director John Black, an unappreciated figure during this period of the show’s rejuvenation. The documentary provides a true picture of the upheaval the programme was undergoing and is all the better for it.

9 – CGI EFFECTS
Whilst some of the enhancements made to stories by way of CGI have not always been successful (Enlightenment was not a story with effects that needed improving upon!) the vast majority help put the icing on the cake to tales already very well accomplished. The Dalek Invasion of Earth spaceships, Earthshock’s laser beams and Revelation’s flying Dalek stand out amongst the CG crowd. Action sequences in Day of the Daleks feel more dynamic and alive with the added explosions and laser fire. Best of all though is Kinda’s snake. It writhes and bares its teeth frighteningly, whilst somehow keeping in touch with its 1980s roots. It doesn’t feel out of place, its skin tones matching the original studio bouncy castle but adding bucketloads of drama to the story’s climax. It’s nice to see the CG enhancements being employed by the blu ray range too, Nerva Beacon now seeming as robust and believable in Revenge as it does in Ark. Is it really too much to hope for CG dinosaurs when the time comes for Season 11 to get the blu ray treatment?
8 – COME IN NUMBER FIVE
Ed Stradling’s forthright and sometimes brutal dissection of the Fifth Doctor era, presented by none other than Peter Davison’s son-in-law and ex-Doctor Who, David Tennant. Key contributors include Anthony Root, Eric Saward, Janet Fielding and Davison himself, scrutinising the work of 1981-84. The documentary is often critical but also celebrates the achievements of the era, noting Kinda, Earthshock and Androzani as the definite hits that they were. It is probably as comprehensive, interesting and honest as any Doctor Who documentary is ever likely to be.

7 – ENDGAME
Richard Molesworth’s exploration of what Doctor Who might have gone on to do were it not for its 1989 cancellation is captivating. Of the contributors, Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel give the strongest sense of which routes the show might have been about to travel down. There are story ideas and artworks illustrating what might have been which fuel fan curiosity even further, as well as discussions on Ace’s would-be successor. What is most surprising of all though is learning that plans were so vague that no writers had yet been commissioned and Aaronovitch admits, “We’d have probably changed it” because of the BBC’s inability to build spaceship sets. It’s heart-breaking to see Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred still so “miffed” (to use Syl’s terminology) by the cancellation. It’s also quite nice to hear that Peter Cregeen had never intended the cancellation to be quite so permanent. I’m not sure he’d have imagined quite how successful the series would be on its return but we end the documentary with hope that whatever happens to the show in the future, it can always return to rapture.
6 – LIVING WITH LEVENE
John Levene is an infamous name in Doctor Who fandom. His eccentricities and self-infatuation give this Toby Hadoke-fronted programme an agenda of the 70s star’s own making. One might claim the producers are sending Levene up but he does a good enough job of that himself. To be frank, this strange documentary is hilarious. Levene’s phone-call from Rand the Supreme Court Judge leaves him looking bafflingly pleased with himself. His anger vented towards certain types of paper is bewildering. An investigation into Levene’s wardrobe illustrates his odd desire to keep replicas of his costumes. His breakfast of sea-salt and mushrooms proves his incapability in navigating his own dining room table with any amount of grace. Levene claims the 70s dream-team were Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning and himself, inexplicably and thoroughly disregarding the universally adored Nicholas Courtney and Roger Delgado, as well as Richard Franklin. His pestering of old ladies in the park makes him seem outrageously foolish and his foul mouth provides a source of untold amusement: “Damn f**ing right I do!” he barks unnecessarily. Living with Levene is absolute comedy gold.
5 – A MATTER OF TIME
Written by Nicholas Pegg and produced by Ed Stradling, A Matter of Time looks at Graham Williams’s three-year tenure at the helm of Doctor Who. The one-hour documentary details the stewardship of a producer whose time is not quite as celebrated or renowned as his predecessor and stories of the making of these serials are therefore more surprising and unfamiliar. There is a sense of regret from Tom Baker regarding his relationship with Williams and rare behind-the-scenes footage illustrates the difficulties any producer would face working with a star of Tom’s temperament. Perhaps remarkably, it is Lalla Ward who champions Tom in his endeavours to make the show as strong as it could be and there is a feeling that everyone involved was doing their best against insurmountable odds and clashes of taste and personality. The ending of the documentary is unexpectedly moving and overall it makes one appreciate the birth of the stories from The Ribos Operation to Shada far, far more.

4 – THE PERTWEE ERA (IN COLOUR!)
It might seem inconceivable to younger fans but there was a time when the few scant colour clips from The Mind of Evil were all we relics ever imagined we’d get to see of the prison-set thriller in its full rainbow gamut. Even the VHS cover used black and white photographs. To have the full six episodes in colour, thanks to the miracle of chroma-dot recovery and the skill of Babelcolour, (Stuart Humphryes) we can now enjoy the story as originally conceived and it’s more alive and vivid for it. An already tremendous yarn is now much richer a visual experience. Ambassadors of Death, Invasion of the Dinosaurs and the astonishingly good Planet of the Daleks are now bright and vibrant, thanks to their stunning restoration jobs. The Pertwee era can be enjoyed not as the piecemeal, fragmentary patchwork of yesteryear, but in its full colourful life. From Spearhead from Space, there’s now no going back. And it’s bloody beautiful.

3 – ANIMATED EPISODES
When Cosgrove Hall animated The Invasion Episodes One and Four, they were met with such huge acclaim, positivity and love that the prospect of more animation seemed surely to be a certainty. However, what fans didn’t know at the time was that the episodes had been financed by BBCi’s pot of money put aside to fund the Scream of the Shalka sequel (which for obvious reasons wasn’t going to happen). It would be another seven years before The Reign of Terror saw its two missing episodes given the animation treatment and despite them receiving mixed reviews, they do indeed plug the narrative gap and make the story as accessible as it is ever likely to be (and I for one think they’re brilliant!). The same company, Planet 55, having mastered their techniques returned to the DVD fold to complete The Moonbase and The Tenth Planet (to great approval), and animation company Qurious successfully delivered Episodes Two and Three of The Ice Warriors. With The Power of the Daleks landing in its six-episode entirety in 2016 thanks to BBC Worldwide and rumours of an incoming Macra Terror imminent, we could possibly be looking at a potentially “complete” 1960s marathon in years to come. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
2 – TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
Like Come in Number Five, Trials and Tribulations is a frank and open discussion, this time of the Colin Baker era. Due to the tumultuous nature of the period in question, the documentary is more dramatic, conflicting and emotional than any other in the DVD range. Like a microcosm of the era itself, Colin is never less than utterly dignified as those around him bitch and throw muck at one another. At times, the interviewees are dangerously close to the bone, Eric Saward admitting that Colin was “not really what you’d want in a leading man.” The programme is utterly fascinating and by its conclusion, one’s heart goes out to Colin Baker, a man who tried perhaps more than anyone else at the time to make his period on the show fly, only to have it scuppered by the egos he was surrounded by. As Doctor Who documentaries go, this is essential.

1 – ORIGINS
You can take your Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke’s Making of Doctor Who. You can take your first issue of The Complete History. You can take an Andrew Pixley archive feature. Heck, you can even take Mark Gatiss’s An Adventure in Space and Time. The story of how Doctor Who became has never been more clearly explained and fascinatingly told than in Richard Molesworth’s Origins feature on The Edge of Destruction DVD. Cleanly narrated by Terry Molloy, the programme is neat, concise and revelatory, using interviewees, memos and voice-overs to illustrate the birth of a TV legend. What’s great about it is its humility. There is no great drama about the production, no bombast. Its factual and measured, telling its story in a matter-of-fact and therefore very effective manner. Its final few minutes see the Daleks arrive, reminding the viewer that the true greatness of the show wouldn’t hit the audience for a little while after these humble beginnings, which are here shown to be a product of carefully considered professional thought and the eagerness of a youthful production crew to make something good. This is a quietly spectacular documentary.  
JH

Sunday 29 July 2018

Jenny - The Doctor's Daughter


The Doctor’s Daughter is one of my very least favourite Doctor Who stories. It’s full of risible dialogue, drab set design, ridiculous monsters and its central conceit – that the Doctor has a daughter – is so underworked and blandly explored that the episode fails on almost every level. “Make the foundation of this society a man who never would” is far more embarrassing than any farting Slitheen or burping bin. So when Big Finish announced their spin-off series, I was underwhelmed to say the least. It’s surely due to the sheer impossible ingenuity of the writing talent at Big Finish that this series is hugely enjoyable and succeeds where other spin-off series fail in revealing a picture of the vast breadth of the universe.
We travel from a galactic garage to English suburbia to an alien planet (complete with fully-developed culture) and finally outside of space-time altogether. River Song, Charley, even Bernice – none of their box sets have quite managed to capture the expansiveness of the universe in quite the same way as The Doctor’s Daughter.
It helps that our universal tour guides, Jenny and Noah are so hugely charming. Georgia Tennant and Sean Biggerstaff make for youthful, energetic sparring partners, coming across almost like sister and brother. Noah’s origins are shrouded in mystery and answers do not seem to be forthcoming any time soon. Jenny has the same qualities as her fictional father, a great brain and lust for adventure, but a larger dose of naiveite and recklessness. The unlikely partners are enormous fun to travel with (although it is never quite clear how long Jenny has been on the block or precisely how much she does know about life, the universe and everything).
Matt Fitton’s opener, Stolen Goods, is a terrific caper of an adventure. Stuart Milligan returns as the dastardly Urodelian Garundel (of Starlight Robbery and Black and White) and gives a typically camp, scenery-chewing turn. Fitton ably demonstrates Jenny’s speed of thought as she turns the tables on her would-be conman and his associates in a Sherlock-style see-what-I-just-noticed-there set-piece moment, perfectly illustrating the cleverness of the part-Time Lord early on and promising more of the same later. With great economy, Fitton provides all we need to know about our series lead and the general tone of the stories to come. It’s a terrific introduction.
In Prisoner of the Ood, John Dorney wrong-foots the listener immediately, plunging Jenny sans Noah into Arabella Weir’s porch with a request for plasma lasers. The narrative is all the better for being told out of order and surprises come thick and fast in the second half of the story, after a rip-roaring and very funny first half. Dorney’s own character John Macguire enjoys an hilarious exchange on his doorstep regarding working from home which is worth the entry price alone. As is now only to be expected from the writer, this is a funny, inventive and very bright script, superbly performed by a tremendous cast.
Christian Brassington’s Neon Reign has a strong sense of atmosphere. It boasts superb sound design from Joe Kraemer & Josh Arakelian and there is a definite sense of otherworldliness about this production. It’s only a small thing but the incessant rain gives the place an edge, a dangerous quality, a lived-in feel. Brassington sketches in cultural details with skill to make the planet feel real. What doesn’t quite work, however, are the playground gender politics which have more in common with Galaxy 4 than Germaine Greer. Even a last-minute switch-aroo can’t disguise how simplistic the whole business feels, especially considering how in-vogue and complex the issues of gender identity have become. It’s a shame that such a richly developed planet boils down to the weak foundation of a leader who doesn’t much like women.
Zero Space by Adrian Poynton brings the series to a pacey conclusion, again, pulling lots of surprises out of the bag. This story of Schrodinger’s clones is a focused and efficient tale, with a great sci-fi concept at its heart, typifying the sort of generally brassy and bold ideas which have fuelled all four adventures. We’re left with a strong sense of fun, with two leads we’d love to spend more time with, and the promise of a second series more than just an appealing notion, more an urgent necessity. 
Special mention must also be given to Sian Phillips as the Colt 5000, an android assassin who recurs throughout the boxset. The role is frankly below her considerable talents but she plays it with such aplomb, she becomes just as memorable as Jenny and Noah.
All in all, Jenny – The Doctor’s Daughter is an unexpected triumph, truly spanning the variety of the universe and even a little outside of it. Hopefully, we can look forward to hearing more adventures with our odd couple, and the – surely obligatory – team-up with Jenny’s Pop. Now there’s a scene ripe for the writing! And with the standard of penmanship on display here, I’m sure it will be a wholly unexpected, wildly imaginative and definitely spectacular reunion.
8/10
Just a quick note to talk about Barnaby Edwards's comment on the Big Finish news page which I really cannot let pass. He always, always casts his stories superbly and this series proves no exception. However, I do take exception to his statement on The Doctor’s Daughter: “It is not a coincidence that the main protagonist (aside from Jenny) in each story is female. I purposely cast it that way, in order to pit our heroine against villains of her own gender.” Frankly, why? What bloody difference does it make? The series doesn’t feel particularly feminine. It’s written by four self-proclaimed geeky males for, I imagine (although I can’t prove it!), a self-proclaimed and geeky male fandom. Certainly, the folks I see talking about the Big Finish releases online are predominantly men. The letters in Vortex magazine are predominantly written by men. And above all else, the gender of the protagonist in a series doesn’t seem to be in any way an issue for any of these men. Christ, we started at Bernice Summerfield! Graham Williams gave tonnes of roles to women in late 1970s Doctor Who but he wasn’t as patronising or classless to even mention it. Surely, that’s how casting should work. Whilst Edwards directs splendidly and not one of his casting decisions can be classed as tokenistic so talented are the actors he employs, it’s a pretty feeble statement to make about a series, let alone a selling point. It just comes across as needlessly worthy and at worst positively discriminatory. There have been strong roles for women in Doctor Who for decades. It’s about time we stopped pretending that this is anything new.

JH

Wednesday 25 July 2018

Hour of the Cybermen

The elephant in the room needs mentioning without further ado: David Banks is back as the Cyber Leader! It’s difficult to imagine now, after Nick Briggs’s voice work on the new TV series but David Banks re-invented the Cybermen for the 1980s and became ubiquitous with the role of Cyber Head Honcho. It was a tremendous performance. And now in 2018, he’s back and it’s like he’s never been away. Thinking of other Big Finish 80s Cyber stories now (The Reaping, The Gathering, Sword of Orion, Kingdom of Silver) Banks seems conspicuous by his absence. Despite the Moonbase/Tomb voice incarnation being a personal favourite, there has been something missing for a long time from the Big Finish Cyber outings and Hour of the Cybermen proves all along that it was the artistry of David Banks.
If we were back in the years 2000-2003, arguably when Big Finish were in command of the Doctor Who landscape, David Banks’s return to the Who fold would have been front page news in DWM. He might have even garnered a cover feature. In short, it would have been BIG NEWS. It’s a sign of the times that his arrival at Big Finish has not met with the fanfare it might deserve. Over in TV corner, the San Diego Comic Can is generating all the press inches this month with exclusives on the eleventh television series (Still unbelievable!). Hour of the Cybermen, however, is diminished ever further by the other Big Finish content this month: The Time War 2, The First Doctor Adventures Volume 2, even Torchwood One.  It’s a shame because as traditional, back to the 80s tales go, this is a huge success.
It’s easy to imagine Hour of the Cybermen on television. There are scenes reminiscent of Attack, featuring part-converted humans. There are scenes on empty London streets reminiscent of Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Resurrection of the Daleks. There are Cybernised agents like those seen in Silver Nemesis. It feels quite tangibly like an 80s contemporary thriller. And so it probably should with Andrew Smith on writing duties, the youngest of the TV show at the time. Smith is one of Big Finish’s most underrated authors. He almost always delivers. The Star Men, Mistfall, The First Sontarans and Domain of the Voord are corking good stories and are as strong examples of Big Finish’s output as any Robert Shearman, Jacqueline Rayner or John Dorney story. Smith writes incredibly strong action-oriented tales and displays a natural instinct for when to throw the next curveball at the listener. His plays are extremely well paced and Hour of the Cybermen is no exception. Its secrets and mysteries are wheedled out one at a time, sending the play off in unexpected directions. What a shame he only managed to deliver Full Circle for the TV series. I’d much rather have seen another Smith script than a Terence Dudley effort.
Smith’s verisimilitude extends to the not-so unemotional 80s Cybermen. Lieutenant Price cannily observes the paradox of our favourite tin men: “Cybermen might have no emotions. But have you noticed? They still scream when they die.” The metal meanies are gifted emotionless lines such as “Indeed he has,” “They will tear you limb from limb” and “Humour. Ah yes. A pointless indulgence.” David Banks imbues them with menace though and the threat of the Cybermen is felt sharply throughout. The Leader threatening the world through a tannoy system (a la the Master in Logopolis) should feel silly but it absolutely doesn’t; the danger of the Cybermen here is real.
Colin Baker’s Doctor is pushed to the front and centre of every scene he’s in and his dialogue shines. “No knock knock jokes for you then,” he replies to the above reflection on humour. This is a Doctor believed in by the show’s writers, rather than one to be side-lined. And Colin Baker proves his worth every step of the way. Hour displays the sparring between Doctor and Cyber Leader that Attack should have enjoyed but shied away from. It’s an historic meeting.
It must be noted, however, that the new UNIT team hasn’t really landed this year. Blake Harrison and Russ Bain do not a UNIT family make. Although Daniel Hopkins’s story is the more affecting of the two, and very well explored by Andrew Smith by way of its relation the Cyber threat, we didn’t really gain a strong enough idea of who he might actually be in The Helliax Rift and so it’s difficult to truly care about his fate here. Lieutenant Price was similarly ill-served previously and his exit from proceedings here is similarly unworthy of note. Perhaps if the actors had been a little more charismatic, the fellows might have felt more alive? As it stands, they’re more akin to the Colonels Faraday and Mace than the Bamberas and Osgoods of the Who world. 
However, we end with a promise of more to come from one of our UNIT boys and hopefully, this particular story will meet its conclusion in Warlock’s Cross come November. Despite the slightly fumbled character work, there’s an intriguing hook for a very different type of story on the horizon…

On the sound design front, Steve Foxon's is suitably emblematic of the period, his score mirroring Dominic Glyn's Trial of a Time Lord synthy successes. There are bleeps and clicks from Earthshock machinery adding to the sense of place. If there's a complaint, it's that occasionally the sound design gives way to the occasional longueur, notably at the end of Part Two. What a punch-the-air cliff-hanger that would have been were it not for the strange overlong musical stab that precedes the last line. Overall though, it's lovely hearing a score that so faithfully captures the period in the same way that the script does. 
All told, Hour of the Cybermen is a superbly well-structured, very faithful 1980s Cyberman story. We get full-bloodied set-tos between Colin Baker’s Doctor and David Banks’s Cyber Leader. There is a world-spanning plot and a genuine sense of peril. We even get a brilliantly memorable death scene for the Cyber Leader. Hour is a story with a very particular agenda which it tackles head-on and can be counted as nothing less than triumphant in meeting its aims. This is the Cyberman story Colin Baker should have had.
8/10
JH

Wednesday 18 July 2018

“He’s dangling on the edge of oblivion.” Into the Unknown with Chris Chibnall

We are about to venture outside normal space time. 

Chris Chibnall has authored five radically different episodes of Doctor Who: 42, The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The Power of Three. All the stories were the results of specific briefs from showrunners Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat and none really gives any indication as to what a Chris Chibnall-run Doctor Who might conceivably be like. 
We do know that several of the stories started life with very different intentions. The Hungry Earth was due to have dinosaurs arising from the holes in the ground in balls which uncurled to reveal the lizards themselves. Cold Blood was written in a much more (sorry) timey-wimey fashion, the show ending with Rory’s demise and then folding back to reveal how it all happened. Budget cuts and editorial choices saw to these quite radical changes. The Power of Three had a re-written ending as Steven Berkoff rather fruitily wouldn’t play ball. But even if the scripts had represented Chibnall Unbound, I’m not sure they would have revealed his house style in the same way that The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink and Silence in the Library are noticeably Moffat. There’s really not much way of knowing what the future holds for our programme given Chibnall’s Who output so far.
Looking to his other shows, it’s even more difficult to see a possible through-line. He was responsible for some of the very best and some of the very worst Torchwood. For every End of Days or Adrift, there’s a Day One or a Cyberwoman. His dialogue can be incredibly well observed or so unrealistic and sledgehammer, there’s no way of removing it from the throats in which it sticks. His greatest success in Torchwood terms is his character work, ensuring they grow and surprise and live across both those initial series. His finales were adept when it came to needling out the intricacies of those relationships and crescendo-ing the characters’ bitternesses and antagonisms. Ending the unrequited love story of Owen and Tosh from different disaster rooms over a mobile phone was deeply inspired. 
Broadchurch is Chibnall’s biggest success and there’s no doubt it had an outstanding impact on the television landscape. It is also the most characteristically Chibnall show we’ve got. Series One was a tremendous thriller, cliff-hangering episodes leaving the viewers desperate to follow the new twists and turns in the character-driven narrative. Series 2 and 3 didn’t quite shine as brightly, their tales a little over-complicated and in the case of Series 3 predictable. But if Broadchurch proves anything, it’s that Chibnall can write edge-of-the-seat, pulpy stuff which draws the viewer back time and again. The shows were, however, about child murder, rape and all things Doctor Who can never ultimately be so it might be unwise to look here for answers. 
The remainder of Chibnall’s career is a real mixed bag, refusing to pin him down to particular styles or genres. United was the true story of the Manchester team whose lives were lost to a plane crash. Due to the nature of the drama, the narrative wrote itself, and it was difficult to hear Chibnall’s voice coming through. He’s written television as diverse as Law and Order UK, Life on Mars and Camelot all of which refuse to offer up a strong idea of what Chibnall’s writing is like or about. There’s only Broadchurch we could look to for a true picture of what a Chibnall-led show might seem. And Broadchurch is nothing like Doctor Who. The only thing we can learn from these dramas is that Chris Chibnall is at his best when writing relationship drama.
His play Kiss Me Like You Mean It perhaps exemplifies this trend more than anything. An old couple consider ending their lives as a young couple hope to start one together. It’s a little downbeat towards the end, but full of jokes and very funny, imaginative swearing. What’s interesting though is that stripped from the panorama of television with its opportunities to tell lengthy stories across multiple locations, Chibnall chooses to tell an intricate tale of four people, thinking about what life is like and what it means to one another. Perhaps this is where Chibnall might go with Doctor Who?
The new trailer broadcast during the World Cup final, includes snippets of match punditry, Alan Shearer announcing that they’re starting to make “a great team” just as we meet the new TARDIS travellers. To be frank, the trailer was rubbish. It didn’t have a distinct message, it failed to promote anything about what the show may be like and it was terribly, terribly directed. Honestly, if you have to watch a 30-second clip five times before you realise someone else is dipping the toast in the egg, there’s something very wrong with the visuals. My cousin, who was looking forward to seeing the trailer, walked out of the room as soon as it started, thinking it was an advert for Eastenders. But its merits are by the by and debated elsewhere online. What is clear above all though, is that Chibnall is promoting his characters, throwing the limelight on that team of four. Hopefully, whatever else the new series does, it will put the Doctor and his “friends” at the very heart of the drama. We can only hope for a show that’s as nail-biting as Broadchurch, as funny as Kiss Me Like You Mean It, as tragic as Torchwood and as grittily realistic as Law and Order UK, and as hokily unrealistic as Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Marry those elements together with Chibnall’s passionate character work and you’ve surely got a recipe for success? 
JH

Monday 16 July 2018

The Collection - Season 12 Blu Ray

For years and years, a sub-section of fandom has clamoured for “Season Boxsets.” Now, it seems, they are - as Steven Moffat would put it - a thing. There can be no doubt that July’s Season 12 Blu-Ray release is one of the very finest, most lovingly-crafted pieces of merchandise the show has EVER had. That may sound like quite a claim given the enormity of Doctor Who’s extra-curricular output. But alongside my vinyl edition of Spare Parts, the beautiful Season 12 box is quite a favourite thing.

Let’s talk first about the design. Online, it looked good. When it’s in your hand, it’s positively alive. It’s weighty and robust, and feels of genuine quality. This is a high-end, collectors’ edition, make no mistake. Lee Binding’s artwork within is even more impressive than the exterior. The booklet boasts an ethereal image of Tom, Ian and Elisabeth, surrounded in their swirl of vortex matter by Daleks, Wirrn and Cybermen. The booklet itself features retro montages of each story with brief synopses and development histories. The discs themselves, individually artworked, are piled up in an easy-to-access digi-book. What’s more, the form this boxset takes can be replicated by other seasons and hopefully, they’ll eventually form a unified complete history to sit alongside the books of the same name. It’ll be all the Doctor Who one could ever need.
The discs themselves open with an animated 2018 logo, blistering its way across the screen, a reminder that the programme is still being made and we don’t need to resign ourselves to Season 12 alone (though given the content of these discs, why wouldn’t we?). Then we’ve got Tom Baker’s “To Select Audio Navigation” idents followed by glorious CG menus of the TARDIS interior, ironically a set missing from this season! The menus are easy to navigate and the fonts are classy and neat.

And then one takes the plunge: ROBOT – PART ONE. And bloody hell, does it look gorgeous! There seems to be absolutely no picture noise at all. The sound is crisper, deeper. It’s the best we’ve ever had. And instantly the mind boggles: what would 60s Who look like spruced up in this way? Would the McCoys with all their problems look the same? What about the RSC Pertwees? Hopefully, we’ll soon find out!
The story itself is breezy one. What’s most striking about it is the pace. We think of Classic Who as slower, more naval-gazing, but the new Doctor’s first scene lasts less than a minute before we’re inside a robot looking out as it infiltrates a base and kills a dog. We journey from UNIT to Think Tank, to a vault – not a safe, Doctor, a vault - to the SRS theatre, to a nuclear bunker to a CSO rooftop via Terrance Dicks’s taut, perfectly-driven script. Character are clear-cut, instantly recognisable but somehow don’t feel cliched. The relationship between Kettlewell and his K1, although aping King Kong, feels real and at the heart of the tale. In fact, Kettlewell finally comes across as a very sorry, easily-manipulated sad act. 
But what of this new Doctor? Fans must now be so familiar with the big scene between Tom Baker and Ian Marter that all its surprises have vanished. Watching with my 14-year-old step-daughter though, I noticed again how extremely funny Tom is in it. She burst into laughter when he hit the brick and ran furiously on the spot, his face a picture of seriousness, his hair bouncing. Then when he grabs the skipping rope, it looks to Harry as if he’s about to use them as a weapon. The scene ends with the two doctors skipping and in-between scenes, the Doctor does indeed use the ropes as a weapon. There is something immediately more unpredictable about this man. He is funnier than Pertwee and far less grand. But interestingly, this is not the Doctor Tom Baker would shortly become. His delivery is a little more clipped and rigid, elements of his dialogue still shouting Jon Devon Roland. Tom seems concerned to emphasise the clarity of his lines. It is almost, almost a nervous performance. In scattered cases, one can see Tom trying to act. “How can I prove my point?” he sighs overly-wistfully. By 1976, Tom wouldn’t need to act.
It is costume designer James Acheson who feels like the star of the show when it comes to Robot. Not only does he produce that defining look for Tom Baker but masterminds the series’ best ever physical robot. It is cleverness unbound: the V-shaped collar masks any “join” between costume and mask. The top-heavy, trapezoid-shaped body makes the creature threatening and also disguises the shape of the human (much like Acheson’s earlier Mutts with their tiny waists and bulbous chests). It’s just a shame one or two re-takes, or even edits, couldn’t have been made to omit its stumbling over its own feet at the start of Part Three or Jellico clearly guiding it to the escape van a little later. As Doctor Who monsters go though, K1 and its story is an unassailable victory.
Next, we’re off to The Ark in Space, much lauded by superfans Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat as the template for modern Doctor Who. It’s easy to see why: an isolated base, a creeping menace but at its heart, this is the story of humanity trying to break free not just from the burnt earth but also the parasites trying to infiltrate their stability. It is in its moments of distant human memory that The Ark in Space sings, punctuated by a glittering electronic fanfare from composer Dudley Simpson, who, it has to be said, brings his absolute A-game to this season, as if to prove his worth to new-boy Philip Hinchcliffe.
Design plays perhaps the most important element in the story, Roger Murray-Leach’s curved ark corridor rightly lauded as a brilliantly inventive piece of engineering. The chamber of bodies is also quite grand for its day and the bubblewrap grubs are surprisingly effective and creepy. What perhaps isn’t so effective is the lighting. The sets are all white, the costumes are white and the lighting for the most part is a blanket of white. Although this adds to the sterile, hospital-like feel of the beacon, its robs the story of its atmosphere. It’s only in the solar stack or later on when the Wirrn sever the power that the story begins to feel as frightening as it should.
Whilst The Ark in Space is an undoubted stand-out of the classic series, it’s never been a personal favourite. The opening episode is inspired, putting its new TARDIS crew slap-bang at the centre of things and establishing their credentials as the perfect travelling trio. However, Part Two – within a matter of minutes – sags dreadfully. It is as if the guest cast, none of whom particularly stands out, have deflated the entire thing and it takes a long time to get the narrative back on track. By the end of Part Three, the action is beginning to work, Bob Holmes having the Doctor enter the Wirrn mind as his friends are attacked by the grub on the other side of the room. Holmes would do even better in the next few years but here, we see the start of things to come.
The Sontaran Experiment is a brief but terrific interlude, too often overlooked when it comes to this season due to its length and the totems standing either side of it. But this is a sinister work, a lone “alien in the rocks” carrying out its sordid experiments on a few rather paltry humans. It hits home when Harry finds the man who has been left to thirst to death and this is one of those moments you can imagine Mary Whitehouse not being particularly chuffed by. The atmosphere on display here is rich and haunting but there’s also time to make the Galsec guest cast interesting and give their relationships a rough sort of politics. Kevin Lindsay excels in his second and last turn as a Sontaran and every version we have seen since, right up to Dan Starkey’s Strax owes him a huge amount of debt, so slithery and driven is his performance. 
Dudley Simpson must be mentioned again here. His score for Experiment is weird and mellifluous. Watch as Sarah hazards the cliff edge with the twisted branch or the crescendo as Terry Walsh is chased from a ravine by the robot. Part One’s cliff-hanger is a masterclass in how to do “cliff-hanger music.” Dudley really comes into his own when Tom steps aboard the TARDIS.
Genesis of the Daleks, the ultimate fan-favourite, forms the centrepiece of the season. Its first episode oozes menace and foreboding, the scenes in the wasteland some of the most unsettling on display in this most insidious and nihilistic of tales. Tom Baker is more affirmative and confident 11 episodes into his tenure. “Did I hurt your fingers?” he smiles after whipping a gun from Raven’s hands. This is a definitive take on the character. This is Baker giving his Hamlet. By the episode’s conclusion, we have met the lizard-like Nyder, stood on landmines, been chased at gunpoint and ultimately sighted Davros, a whispery, frightening performance from Michael Wisher, who stands – or rather sits – as one of the finest villains the show has ever had.
Part Two is similarly relentless in its action and culminates in the climb up the rocket scaffolding: one of the tensest action set-pieces since perhaps, The Ambassadors of Death five years earlier. Elisabeth Sladen gives her performance of the season, clearly terrified by the loathsome Thal soldiers but determined and brave. We also witness the stand-out scene of Davros’s first Dalek demonstration here, which, no matter how many times one sees it, feels like history in the making. David Maloney directs with absolute aplomb, so confident and assured, one almost doesn’t notice it.
Unfortunately, the rest of the story drags. By Part Six, we’re looking around corridors for a dropped time ring in the same way that by Part Six of Weng-Chiang, we’re hiding behind a table. Davros’s presentation to the scientific elite takes an age to deliver. The tale has run out of steam. Interestingly, it’s the only Hijnchcliffe 6-parter without a “dog leg,” the others being split up distinctly into 2 episodes of one story and 4 of another. I have a theory that Genesis is so lauded chiefly because of the cut-down LP version, much tauter and lacking the capture-escape filler we see later on. Terrance Dick’s Target novel is also sharper, cleaner, as is the omnibus viewable elsewhere in the boxset. It feels disingenuous to criticise a story so cherished by fandom but really, as a kid, I wanted more Dalek action and less talk. As an adult, I find I want the same. It’s relentlessly grey, a little bit samey and by its conclusion I feel I’ve seen far too much of it.
The first thing to notice about Revenge of the Cybermen is that the good music’s gone. This may seem cruel (Carey Blyton pipes his way earnestly through events) but that magical soundtrack the season has so far enjoyed is starkly missing. We’re back on those wonderful Nerva Beacon sets though which now feel almost as familiar as the UNIT family a year before. I can’t help but feel the story would have been more successful had it remained here. The Vogans of Voga are a plastic-half-masked bunch, paling in comparison to their immediately prior contemporaries, Davros and Styre. Their planet looks incredible on film and wretched in studio. The character work is paper thin and their politics forgettable. There’s early talk of a rise to the surface but it’s without pay-off. With Gerry Mills a foot in the past and Robert Holmes a foot in the future, Revenge falls between two stools and ends up being about nothing. The most successful scenes are those of the silently approaching Cyber-ship, and their climactic entrance at the end of Part Two. In fact, Revenge of the Cybermen is at its best when it’s being The Wheel in Space
It’s a shame the season ends with its weakest link. Had Terror of the Zygons managed to get made, it would have given 1975 two pleasing, Earthbound bookends. As it stands though, the show splutters its way to the final titles of Revenge Part Four after flying over a spinning toilet roll. Nevertheless, we are left with a sense of wonder yet to come, of the promise of continuing adventures with Sarah and Harry (Oh, if only…) and a new Doctor a million miles away from his predecessor and vitally, urgently present. Things feel bright and hopeful and alive. Season 13 would prove this to be true.
Overall then, there are several stand-out contributors to Season 12: Terrance Dicks (that Robot script), Robert Holmes (whose voice springs out of the The Ark in Space instantly), Jim Acheson (Tom’s costume), Roger Murray-Leech (the art of space), Dudley Simpson (the sound of death), Philip Hinchcliffe (in his complete spring clean and renovation of Doctor Who), Ian Marter (dependable and assured) and Tom Baker in his surprisingly tentative, hard-earned fledgling outings. Elisabeth Sladen perhaps comes off poorly. She isn’t playing the same character she was in Season 11 after Robot and the actress seems a little at sea (particularly during The Ark in Space). Gone are the journalistic, all-power-to-the-woman tendencies, to be replaced by a more child-like ignorance and charming bravery. She would be different again in Season 13, but 12 was Tom’s year. The new Doctor had entered the building and if Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans couldn’t get him to leave, it’d take someone like JNT. But that’s another story for another day. Season 12 is – all niggles considered – a huge triumph, a monolith.
Special Features review to follow.
JH

Thursday 5 July 2018

The Rise and Rise of Steven Moffat: Exhibit #4

Concluding the wondrous catalogue of the varying achievements of Steven Moffat.

Chapter Four: The Christmas Specials
Having broken Steven Moffat’s time on Doctor Who down into three distinct “eras” – his time with Russell T Davies, the Matt Smith and the Peter Capaldi years - there is one other area of the programme in which he has no doubt completely excelled: his stories for Christmas.  
Perhaps surprisingly, Moffat has written a mammoth eight episodes broadcast on Christmas Day. To his eternal credit, each one is quite vividly different. For reference, they are listed below.
A Christmas Carol
The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe
The Snowmen
The Time of the Doctor
Last Christmas
The Husbands of River Song
The Return of Doctor Mysterio
Twice Upon a Time
His first, A Christmas Carol, is a work of profound beauty. It exudes an atmosphere, not unlike Logopolis, Earthshock or Midnight. There is a Tim Burton-esque darkness and gloom, spattered with occasional moments of brief, melancholic happiness. Even the final shot of Kazran and Abigail joyfully riding over the camera in their flying shark is tinged by the fact that this is their last day together. Michael Gambon puts in a bravura performance, his fragility and sadness almost always threatening to puncture his fierce temper. Matt Smith has also reached the moment in his time as the Doctor when he is just starting to feel confident – he whizzes through scenes breezily but still has the clarity of his first fluttering (and best) year at the TARDIS helm. Most superb of all though is the time travel plot from Steven Moffat, used like his best work, to break our hearts. A Christmas Carol is a beautiful, beautiful thing and deserves to be up there in the list of Greatest Doctor Who Stories of All Time.
The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe has an abominable reputation, loitering in the bottom of fan polls like an unwelcome smell. Divorced from its context however, viewed in complete isolation, it’s a rather lovely little story. We’d just had the mind-bending, perhaps over-complicated Series 6 and by comparison this Christmas Special seemed simplistic and arguably a little saccharine. It does contain much darkness though, the Doctor’s “because they’re going to be sad later” moment always sends a chill up my spine. It’s got an audacious and terrifically well-directed pre-titles sequence and the whole business with the Doctor’s jazzing up the house is extremely funny. Yes, the plot is linear and on occasions a little slow but for the most part, if the wind’s in the right direction and you’re feeling a little bit joyous, Widow is tremendous entertainment.
The Snowmen is another sure-fire hit. The Great Intelligence returns to plague the Doctor with its snowmen-creatures at Christmas; even a brief description like this marks it out as a classic. It looks sumptuous, the design and costumes rich and elaborate. The sequences with the invisible ladder leading up to a TARDIS nestled in a cloud are the stuff of sheer poetry, my boy.  Jenna Coleman hits it off immediately with Matt Smith and the new, sparkly titles are the icing on the cake. For the first time since 1989, the Doctor’s face flies at us through the vortex! If only the title were just a little less meh…
The Time of the Doctor attempts the impossible: In one hour, Moffat ties up all the dangling threads from the Matt Smith era, details the story of the war on Trenzalore and delivers a snowy, Christmassy joi-de-vivre to boot, as well as saying goodbye to Matt Smith and including Daleks, Sontarans, wooden Cybermen and weeping angels. It doesn’t quite pack the same punch as the Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant farewells, but it never feels like it’s in competition. Time tells its own tale. It is brim-full of spectacle and incident and as the apotheosis to the story of the crack in time, feels epic. For a moment, 50 minutes in, there is the sudden realisation that we may not see the Doctor as he once was ever again, that perhaps we’ve missed the moment he stopped being a “young” Matt Smith. If Moffat had followed through with that and had an older version of the Doctor regenerate at the story’s conclusion, the story might harbour a better reputation. If those boots which step up the TARDIS stairwell had belonged to Peter Capaldi, the ending may have knocked everyone for six.
Last Christmas is another delight. It’s atmospheric, frightening and intense, as well as frothy and joyous. For the most part though, it’s a deeply sad tale of lives not lived. The ghost of Danny Pink looms over proceedings and even the staff of the polar base are leading lives far less interesting - and in some cases more tragic - than those they have dreamt about in the Arctic Circle. Even Santa is sinister, oppressive and unreal. This is the darkest of Christmas specials but still finds time for a punch-the-air sleigh ride. In the end, it is a story about reconciliation: Clara with the Doctor, Shona with Dave, the viewer with Santa Claus. It represents the very idea of Christmas. 
The Husbands of River Song is never talked about. But it’s brilliant. A majestic screwball comedy for three quarters of its runtime, followed by an ancient sense of sadness at its conclusion. This is one of Peter Capaldi’s greatest performances – just watch him throughout. There’s the cheeky scene where he throws River’s words back at her, teasing her like a good ol’ flirt. There’s the tragic stillness with which he plays the final scene: as River gawps at the singing towers, he watches her quietly, lizard-like in the background. There’s the sudden admission that “None of that is worth you!” and his first giggling scene after two years - at the hands of an angry bag. There is so much to love about Husbands. There’s a spaceship crashing. There’s a stupid robot that tells people to “Chill.” There’s the line, “Well you were being annoying.” It’s so much fun and if it had been Steven Moffat’s last script, it would have been a perfect ending for him, the Doctor and Professor River Song.
The Return of Doctor Mysterio is a lightweight knockabout episode in the style of Christopher Reeves’s Superman. The Doctor makes a traditionally chaotic entrance, accidentally creating a superhero who will eventually save the day. It’s light and fluffy with not all that much going on. In fact, it’s perhaps Moffat’s least inspired script full stop. One more Christmas special? Oh go on then, we’ve not done the superhero film yet. Unfortunately, Doctor Who cannot strive to be a superhero film for 2016 given its budget, so it instead settles on one from the 1970s. I’m not sure anyone was asking for the show to do this. However, characteristically, there remain moments of laugh out loud comedy, inspired plotting, scares and a brilliant monster. There are also some neat lines: when Lucy asks Grant to put his costume back on, it’s a real moment of joy.
Lastly, Twice Upon a Time swings by. It’s an odd, indulgent beast. One last hurrah. The First Doctor, Lethbridge-Stewart and Rusty: it’s made up of the things Steven Moffat clearly loves. And although it might be occasionally plodding and seriously lacking in peril, that love does seem to permeate the production. There’s a real sense of finality and reverence from everyone involved. Mark Gatiss is so keen to deliver his finest performance. Peter Capaldi is awe-inspiring. Directorially, it’s got a strange and rich atmosphere. But that last speech, after a journey across eight Christmases, says it all. The Doctor and Steven’s final message to the world and fandom: Be Kind. What a lovely way to end it all.
Steven Moffat’s record with Christmas specials is dazzling. Even The Royle Family can’t manage a decent one. Lovejoy always ran off to Prague and Only Fools and Horses had fun in Amsterdam and Margate. But Moffat’s writing seems to be the perfect fit for a tale to snuggle up to at home, warm the heart and remember those we’ve lost. There is a charm to his Christmas scripts, a warmth and cosiness that was sometimes lacking in RTD’s specials, and a sting in the tale too, whether that be a regeneration or a death or in some cases, like those of Kazran Sardick and The Twelfth Doctor, a profound sadness. Moffat encapsulates the ambivalence of Christmas but above all else its joy. Even with the Twelfth Doctor dying, there’s time for a World War One Armistice Day. If there are any scripts to sum up just what Steven Moffat has done for our beloved show, it’s his Christmas Specials. They and he sing.
The End
JH