Colin Baker strides through the
season as if this were the part he was born to play. It’s impossible to view
the series without the knowledge that the Sixth Doctor has recently attempted
to strangle Peri and failed to apologise for it though. As Attack of the
Cybermen begins, we’re not quite sure he won’t do so again and the
relationship between Doctor and Companion feels worryingly akin to an abusive
husband and an abused wife. Peri just keeps doing as she’s told and the Doctor
keeps putting her in unforgiveable positions: asking her to shoot Terry
Molloy’s Russell; pushing her off in the direction of David Ashton’s Karfelian “tour”;
dismissing her fears of rabid dogs and relentlessly belittling her dialect. Even
when she asks if she has a say, he responds, “Of course not. Be quiet,” in a tasteless
bit of ha-ha 80s mansplaining. It’s a wonder she stays with him and an even
bigger wonder that Colin Baker manages to make our lead such a charming and
loveable Time Lord. He rails against the lines, finds a nuance that
often isn’t there and smiles through moments which could be needlessly terse.
The lengthy TARDIS scenes which delay our heroes’ arrival become a somewhat
irritating staple. Whilst events unfold on Karfel, for instance, Peri is busy
looking at a curve on a screen, wondering when it might become a line. Whilst
events unfold on Varos, Peri is busy finding a big book for the Doctor to unceremoniously
slap on the floor. Whilst events unfold on Necros, Peri and the Doctor climb
over a small wall. Having two actors of such calibre, such dependable and
cherishable leads who are, without fail, acting their hearts out, finding
depth, unpredictability and surprise in their dialogue, demoted to C-plot
status and given so little to do, is the biggest crime of Season 22 and chiefly
its script editor.
There are glimpses of greatness
though. Peri wonders what her “first trip to London” might look like above
ground, lending a sense of reality to the American botany student in the early
moments of Attack. Her interest in the hedgerows in The Mark of the
Rani and the unusual flora on Necros remind us that Nicola Bryant is
playing a real person with a history. Equally, the Doctor is given some occasionally
terrific scenes to play. Colin Baker feels completely relaxed in the role by
the time he’s locked in the cooler with Flast the Cryon, finding diverting ways
to play some over-verbose speeches. His apparent death at the end of the first
episode of Vengeance on Varos feels real and is harrowing. His dialogue
with Davros is eminently Doctor-ish and Colin plays his first meeting with Timelash’s
Herbert with cool comic timing. He's also a match for the great Patrick
Troughton in The Two Doctors, a show which – perhaps more than any other
multi-Doctor Classic Who tale, feels like a story with equally billed leading
men with equal screen time of equal quality. This should be a show that is
working well, that is firing on all cylinders. The ingredients are all there –
even including JNT’s infamous “shopping list” stories (This is a season with
Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarans, the Master and the Second Doctor, for heaven’s
sake – It should fly!) but nothing quite gels. Because, and it must be laid at
his door again, Eric Saward doesn’t really know what to do with his stars and
he doesn’t quite know how to solve a problem like 45 minutes.
Four of the six stories here have
massive pacing issues. (The other two suffer from minor pacing issues too.) Attack
of the Cybermen feels like a hodgepodge of random ideas cobbled together
with little coherence and certainly doesn’t feel like a story in two acts.
Despite the fact that fans often point to Part One being the more successful
though, I’d argue that Part Two is far surer about the tale it wants to tell.
There remain so many questions in the end: why, for instance, does Lytton
affect a diamond robbery, gathering together some cronies, to then find the
Cybermen who are in the sewers (for what reason?), for them to take him to
Mondas, for him to steal a time-ship for the Cryons, whom he presumably left
there in the first place? Jesus, he even knew about Stratton and Bates. The
diamond job seems like a bloody long-arse way of going about things, Lytton.
Resultantly, in Attack things just happen, one event after the next,
with little regard for cause and effect, ironic for a time travel story. In The
Mark of the Rani, the script starts strongly, with the promise of a meeting
of great scientific minds to be crashed by the Master remaining a dangling
narrative carrot. Unfortunately, when we should be tearing towards a climax
which might leave history devastated in its wake, the Rani (and her companion
the Master) are wondering around an empty forest placing land mines on the
ground which turn people into trees. The story doesn’t even seem to finish. The
Doctor simply fiddles with the Rani’s TARDIS and leaves her and the Master in
limbo. Despite a cracking cliff-hanger at its mid-point, Part Two of The
Mark of the Rani is arguably the weakest episode of the season and feels
constantly as if it’s coming to a grinding halt. The Two Doctors also
starts well – we get a whole twenty minutes of Patrick Troughton and Frazer
Hines having an adventure. It’s a bold way to begin. And when we meet Colin and
Nicola, we’re even happier that we’re getting an extra adventure with them.
Unfortunately, the plot meanders around the block a few times, with Part Three
enjoying at least three unrelated endings: the Sontaran ship exploding, Oscar
Botcherby’s horrible death and then (the least effective) Chessene falling out
of a plastic DIY time machine with a half-arsed yelp. Part Two opens with a
huge scene wherein the Doctor deduces that the universe is collapsing,
ruminates on the effect that will have on the butterfly, then changes his mind
and realises that he’s wrong. It gives the show a questionable air of seeming
partly pointless and most definitely playing for runtime. Timelash, too
is an oddly formed beast, the greatest of which (Paul Darrow) is offed too
early into Part Two. As Darrow himself asserts on the show’s Making Of: “When
I’m dead, stop watching. It’s boring.” There are exceptionally tedious TARDIS
scenes in the programme’s later stages leading to yet another story that
doesn’t know how to fill its allotted minutes successfully. Revelation of
the Daleks is surprising in how so assuredly and successfully it breezes
across the screen in all its violent glory, its narrative threads working beautifully
in parallel with one another, the one story written with only Eric Saward at
the helm. (Perhaps he just couldn’t fix other writers’ scripts?) Vengeance on
Varos – the outlier – shows how to structure things more traditionally,
Part One’s cliff-hanger perhaps the best moment of the season, so satisfyingly
meta is it in its timing. Its only fault is that the big finish doesn’t quite
work in studio, the poisoned tendrils seeming rather feeble and trifling when
compared to the hangings, the acid baths and the giant flies of earlier threat.
So if the unusual structures of
these episodes don’t quite work, what is so great about Season 22? Most
obviously, the production values are absolutely worthy of note. The Mark of the
Rani looks the most sumptuous, every aspect of the serial convincing in its
historic detail and the Rani’s TARDIS interior is shockingly grand and original;
Attack of the Cybermen has a contemporaneous feeling of urban grit in in
its filmed sequences; considering it’s all shot in studio, there is a feeling of
dread and hostility running throughout Vengeance on Varos; and the fortuitous
snowy sequences of Revelation end the season with a peculiar touch of
class. There is some fantastic design work, especially in Attack of the Cybermen. The tomb sequences, although not quite
evoking the Tombs of the 60s, boast a robustness and realism often
lacking in “futuristic” sets. Varos has a holistic feeling to its world’s
design, domestic home dwellings looking almost identical to the prison cells from
which they have evolved. Revelation too boasts a world we can
thematically believe in, the creams and pastels of the DJ booth and Kara’s offices
belying the dark underbelly of Necrosian society.
There’s also a real feeling of
diversity to the stories on offer which is deeply pleasing. Attack’s
large-scale planet-hopping gives way to the oppressive darkness of a series of claustrophobic
tunnels on Varos which in turn opens up to the expansive location shooting
on The Mark of the Rani and the foreign shoot of The Two Doctors.
Each story feels visually different and arresting and there’s a sense of scale
and variety across the season. As a body of work, the series is allowing each story
a chance to pop, to show off what makes it individual. There’s a sense that the
series, despite what Michael Grade asserts elsewhere on this Blu Ray release,
can feasibly and believably create alien worlds and a wealth of varied vistas.
Directorially, there are some
excellent decisions made across the season, with Matthew Robinson and Graeme
Harper staggering the viewers with their often viscerally thrilling choices,
whilst Ron Jones – now a director of considerable Who experience – proves his reason
for being on the rota in his best work for the show. Newcomer Sarah Hellings
puts some lovely classical work to camera, but also presents some markedly poor
fight sequences, whilst staple directors Peter Moffatt and Pennant Roberts ultimately
disappoint. Moffatt at times seems to be in battle with the script, the
notorious reveal of a Sontaran in long shot only the tip of the iceberg. Look
at the TARDIS’s first materialisation. Where is the establishing shot of the
kitchen? He’s not even obeying the ordinary go-to rules of a director. We
simply cut to Shockeye as if we ought to know who he is. This is a director who
doesn’t really understand how to tell the story he has been handed because as I
am sure he would have admitted, he didn’t really understand it at all. At best,
he succeeds in putting a show on camera. Pennant Roberts, on the other hand,
tries his best but struggles with a studio-bound tale without a budget. Viewed
in the context of the season, Timelash is easily spottable as the cheapie.
Roberts does manage some striking reveals – the Borad himself is shot sparingly
and his eventual realisation is a masterclass in make-up and camerawork. Unfortunately,
the Borad is the best thing in a show which does unfortunately fail quite
catastrophically. The eponymous punishment is a dangerous pit you have to be
thrown up into, made even more bizarre by being thrown up into it by an android
who lightly taps its victims skyward. The Doctor’s escape from the android via
mirror and electronic soundtrack is so awkwardly staged as to be embarrassing
and the less said about the Bandrils, the better. For much of its screentime,
however, Timelash is mostly tedious and slow. Even the new CGI which
works wonders can’t save a story without a shape.
There are shows in Season 22 which
should be fantastic. The Two Doctors is full of craftsmanship; look
at the cast: John Stratton, Jacqueline Pearce and James Saxon giving
performances of supreme skill and personality with dialogue which soars, but the
scenes feel disjointed and without consequence. The music from Peter Howell is
one of the best of the classic series and the Spanish film work is spectacular.
But the uneven structuring and the lack of narrative momentum often brings
things to a stuttering pause. What’s missing from this and other tales elsewhere
on this boxset is a real sense of purpose. There are no narrative bombs, at
least not bombs which are exploded. Why isn’t The Mark of the Rani racing
to the finish as its successor, the less-celebrated Time and the Rani most
definitely is? Why does the otherwise superb Revelation rely on a few
Daleks from a previous story to come to the rescue at the end? Why aren’t the
Cybermen’s converting of workers in the sewers the real heart of their particular
story? Season 22 is full of ideas which don’t coalesce. Perhaps that’s because they’re
ideas thrust upon Eric Saward by John Nathan-Turner rather than ideas which have
come into their own fruition via the story writers? For instance, the only bit of
the otherwise brilliant Revelation (apart from the slightly fudged
ending) that abjectly doesn’t work is the statue of the Doctor which JNT
insisted be inserted into the narrative. It’s quite clear that Robert Holmes favours
the Androgums to the Sontarans and that Pip and Jane Baker prefer their own
Rani to the Master. So JNT’s menu – whilst exciting the fan genes superficially
– in the end comes off poorer than the delights found elsewhere in these stories.
It’s striking that perhaps the most memorable character in all of Season 22 is
Philip Martin’s Sil, the most original creation, embodying an actual socio-political
idea.
Season 22 may still fall some way
short of greatness, but this boxset does illustrate it at its best. We’re now a
healthy distance away from its airing which was poisoned by the announcement of
cancellation, and so instead of despairing at Peter Moffatt’s Sontaran in longshot
for instance, we can instead thrill at the spaceship explosion behind the
villa. We can appreciate and balk at what was great and be a little more
relaxed about aspects of the show which didn’t work quite so well. I can’t
spend enough words praising Revelation either which I feel I’ve given
short shrift here: it’s fantastic. William Gaunt, Alexei Sayle, Terry Molloy,
Clive Swift, Eleanor Bron and indeed our regulars shine in a script which is
rich in detailed, lyrical dialogue, is blisteringly funny, melodramatic,
violent and savage. This Grade A story alone is worth the entry price.
As ever, the team led by Russell
Minton have produced a most staggering presentation of a hefty chunk of our favourite
show. Whilst the DVD range chose often, rightly, to analyse and digest the shows,
the Blu Ray range chooses to celebrate the whole lot, whatever fan opinion might
be. Whereas Timelash, for example, was chosen as a “vanilla” DVD release
given its reputation, here it’s adorned with new CGI which affects to make the inside
of the timelash itself feel joyously dangerous. Attack is gifted a terrific
new 5.1 mix and Varos boasts a newly edited full-length rough-cut which
proves intriguing and worthwhile.
New documentaries Location, Location,
Location and The Making of The Two Doctors are celebratory and
touching. As we witness Colin Baker in the twilight of his career reminiscing
of happy days, it’s so much easier to feel fondly about these stories. For our
stars, these were crowning achievements. Their interaction is full of love and joyful
memories. Despite an interview with Nicola Bryant which discloses a worrying
and awkward relationship with JNT, Bryant is still clearly so fond of her days
with the Doctor. Michael Grade comes across as crass and uninformed which makes
his decision to cancel the show seem even more miscalculated. I was loathe to watch
the interview given my opinion of Grade but the tyrant exposed himself as the
narrow-minded conservative that he undoubtedly is. Colin Baker, on the other
hand, is utterly charming and here, more than ever, proves why he was such a
fantastic choice to play our leading man. His interview with the fantastically
skilled Matthew Sweet allows us a chance to explore a more personal and tragic
side to Colin’s tale and viewed through this sadness, his achievements throughout
this boxset are even more miraculous. What a talent.
In the end, Season 22 has the
last laugh. Here we are, over thirty years later, enjoying the season anew, through
the often-reviving lens of the Blu Ray range, brightening the show’s memory and
doing justice to these less appreciated eras. I feel better about Season 22.
Whilst it has its faults, there is so clearly much to enjoy and here, perhaps
finally, it is allowed to shine once more in its inherent brilliance. Thank
goodness for this indomitable Blu Ray range.
JH
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