Wednesday 29 August 2012

And the maddest Dalek is...

In honour of the forthcoming Asylum of the Daleks, my nominations for the maddest Daleks yet seen on the show.

DEATH TO THE DALEKS

If you discovered you'd let a prisoner escape, what would you do? This poor soul screams at himself then commits suicide. Without telling anyone about his screwup. That's stress in the workplace.

POWER OF THE DALEKS

Thanks to the Doctor, first three then more Daleks here suffer a personality meltdown and start playing trains. Sample quote: "Dizzy! Dizzy Doctor!"

THE DALEKS

Arguable perhaps, but a Daleks' reaction to Thal anti-radiation drugs is to go all trippy and psychedelic (but in monochrome) while yelling "ahhhhh! Ahhhhhhh!"

REVELATION OF THE DALEKS

If Arthur Stengos is anything to go by, all the Daleks created on Necros are basically barking mad inside.

DALEK

A more profound and distressing form of the personality disintegration seen in Power of the Daleks. Leading to a far more understandable suicide than in Death to the Daleks. It's interesting that when the Dalek is killing everyone it's being sane, but when it's sparing Rose and sunbathing it's going mad.

REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS

The evidence for this one isn't so much in the TV version but in the novelisation, where the Special Weapons Dalek is called "The Abomination" by other Daleks and is a gibbering psychopath even for a Dalek. The fact that he's due to appear in Asylum Of The Daleks suggests Steven Moffat agrees.

JOURNEY'S END

Russell T Davies borrowed the title The Abomination for Dalek Caan in his final appearance (to date!) when he seemed utterly unhinged, not to mention incomplete. The only Dalek to giggle maniacally, he had enough sanity to condemn his race to oblivion, although perhaps this is what sent him mad.

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

And finally to surely the maddest of them all: the Emperor. Convinced he's God; head of an army of deranged Daleks; goes into oblivion screaming about his own invincibility. Also, can anyone explain why Emperor Daleks lose manoeuvrability as a result of importance? Seems a bit silly.

Hope that's whetted your appetite. Bring on the Asylum!

Sunday 26 August 2012

The Exciting Guide to The Keys of Marinus

They can't all be classics. Here's my take on Terry Nation's second Doctor Who story.

Quick reminder:
For previous posts, you can scroll around this site, or go to my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ExcitingGuide) which will link only to those parts of my blog devoted to the Exciting Guide. If you need to understand what I'm doing here, there's a link to my intro here: http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/watching-every-tv-adventure-of-doctor.html



Story Five
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Code
E

Title
The Keys Of Marinus

“Friends” Title
The One With The Men In Wetsuits
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Episode Titles
The Sea Of Death
The Velvet Web
The Screaming Jungle
The Snows Of Terror
Sentence Of Death
The Keys Of Marinus

Current availability
All six episodes exist.

Source
UK Gold omnibus repeat transmission.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date
3100 BC.
Again, there is no point of reference to place this story into an Earth time scale.  So why not date it as above?

Genre
Quest

Plot synopsis
1.         The travellers land on an alien island, and discover a glass beach and a sea of acid.  A number of creatures in wetsuits - the Voords - arrive in glass submersibles.  One by one, the TARDIS crew fall through moving panels in the large building that dominates the island and are imprisoned by a cowled man - his name is Arbitan, and he releases them once Ian has saved his life from a Voord.  He asks the travellers to collect together microcircuit keys from around the planet, so as to re-animate the Conscience Of Marinus.  They refuse, and he imprisons the Ship in a forcefield to leave them with no option.  He hands out travel bracelets programmed to transport them to their destinations.  Barbara vanishes early, and the others soon follow.  Arbitan is killed by a Voord.  The Doctor, Ian and Susan arrive in a corridor to find Barbara’s bracelet with blood on it.
2.         There is a cacophony of light and sound, and Barbara is discovered in luxury, the blood having come from a scratch.  Their “Host”, Altos, claims they are in the city of Morphoton, where everyone is contented - everything is provided for them.  They all sleep, and a girl places discs on their foreheads:  Barbara’s falls off.  In the morning, Barbara sees the reality - rags and dirt - while the others remain deceived.  She runs off, and meets up with Sabetha, the girl who placed the discs.  Altos reports to three Brains in jars, who order Barbara and Sabetha killed.  The other travellers are brought under the Brains’ control, and Ian captures Barbara, taking her to the Brains.  She destroys them, and their control vanishes.  Rioters burn the city.  The travellers meet up with Altos and Sabetha - both past emissaries from Arbitan (Sabetha is his daughter).  The Doctor uses his dial to go ahead to find the fourth key, while the others move to the second.  Susan arrives first, finding herself in a jungle full of horrible screaming noises.
3.         The others arrive and calm Susan.  They search the dense vegetation around a nearby building.  Barbara finds the key on a statue:  as she takes it, the statue swings her through a wall.  Altos and Susan go ahead to the third destination, presuming that Barbara can now use her travel dial, but Sabetha realises the key is a forgery.  She follows Altos and Susan, while Ian goes after Barbara.  They elude a number of traps, laid by an old man guarding the real key.  The jungle’s growth has been stimulated, and the vegetation attacks the building, killing the old man.  Ian and Barbara find the key from his dying clues, and escape to a bitterly cold environment.
4.         They pass out from the cold, and are taken in by a huge, bearded trapper called Vasor.  Ian goes looking for Altos and finds him unconscious, bound by Vasor, who has also filled Ian’s bag with raw meat to attract wolves.  They return to Vasor’s hut in time to save Barbara from his advances, and force him to lead them to the cave where he has left Susan and Sabetha.  They follow the girls along tunnels of ice through a mountain, but Vasor traps them all by detaching a rope bridge across a ravine.  They find the key in a block of ice surrounded by four lifeless soldiers - as the ice melts, the soldiers come to life.  They improvise a bridge and escape with the key.  Vasor is killed by the soldiers.  Ian materialises in a vault with the final key on display and a dead man on the floor.  Someone knocks him out, steals the key and escapes with alarms ringing.
5.         Ian awakes to be interrogated by Tarron, under suspicion of theft and murder.  The Doctor turns up, and agrees to defend him - the murdered man was Eprin, another of Arbitan’s envoys.  The Doctor quickly deduces that the murderer was Aydan, the relief guard on the vault, and gets Sabetha to name him in court - Aydan gives himself away and is about to confess when he is shot down, much to the apparent dismay of his wife Kala.  Ian is taken for execution under suspicion of working with Aydan.  Meanwhile, Barbara receives a phone call from Susan, who is being held captive, and will be killed if the location of the key is revealed.
6.         Barbara, Altos and Sabetha go to see Kala, who accidentally gives her implication in the plot away - she killed Aydan and has Susan tied up in the next room.  Susan is rescued just before Kala is about to kill her:  she is arrested, but names Ian as her accomplice.  This is proved false when the Doctor and some of the local guardians lie in wait for the mastermind as he collects the key - it is the court prosecutor, Eyeson, and the key is hidden inside the murder weapon.  The travellers leave Millennius and return to the island.  The Voords now control the Conscience, and their leader, Yartek tries to gain possession of the final key, first by interrogating Altos and Sabetha, then by impersonating Arbitan in an attempt to trick Ian and Susan.  Ian gives Yartek the false key, and they all escape from the building before Yartek inserts it in the Conscience, setting off a chain reaction that blows the whole lot up.  The Doctor advises Sabetha that Arbitan’s work can go on, but without a machine to control men’s minds.  Altos and Sabetha plan to return to Millennius, and the travellers depart in the TARDIS.

Pitch
Six stories for the price of one.

The Money Shot
The opening model shot of Arbitan’s island. (Episode 1)

The TARDIS log
• The Ship is not heard to make its usual groaning sound on arrival and departure from the island.  Is this because we see both from a distance?  Or is that sound only heard inside the TARDIS?
• The Ship’s colour television is on the blink.

Alien Worlds
• We see many different areas of Marinus, suggesting it is as varied and natural a planet as our own.  Which is nice.
• Two thousand years ago, the technology of Marinus reached a peak with the development of the Conscience of Marinus, a machine that acted as an infallible judge and jury, which was eventually improved until it controlled the minds of everyone on the planet, eliminating evil.  The planet prospered for seven centuries.  A man called Yartek overcame it, with his followers, the Voords.  Arbitan, the keeper of the Conscience, removed the five vital microcircuit keys, keeping one and spreading the rest around the planet, thus keeping control of the machine from the Voords but allowing the possibility of reviving the Conscience one day.
• The Conscience is kept in an enormous labyrinthine building on a well-defended island, blessed with a glass beach and surrounded by a sea of acid.  It’s covered in large spiky bits, and there is a complete absence of life (birds etc.)
• One city on Marinus is called Morphoton, and at the time of the travellers’ visit, is ruled over by three Brains who outgrew their bodies, and use hypnotism - via their subtly-named “mesmeron” and “somno-discs” - to make the humanoid population serve them.  True to form, this regime had been overturned by the time the TARDIS crew left.
• Another city, Millennius, is described as “a highly advanced society”, despite the topsy-turvy laws - here, a person is guilty until proved innocent, and sentence comes at the start of the trial.
• The rarity of murder in Millennius, and their inability to forge an adequate legal system, suggests the effects of the Conscience’s withdrawal - on the plus side, crime has remained at a low, but on the other hand the citizens are unprepared to deal with what crime there is.
• However advanced Millennius is, they still use telephones.
• There is a freezing cold, possibly polar region of Marinus, with miles between villages.  Volcanic springs are to be found deep beneath the ground.
• In another region, the dense jungle has had its “tempo of destruction” increased so that hundreds of years’ erosion on a building is done in a matter of days.  How did this happen?  Ian and Barbara read about it in the old man’s diary.  He was a biologist - did he somehow cause this?
• We are told that Yartek and the Voords overcame the Conscience.  Then we discover they look nothing like anyone else on Marinus - they have enormous handles on the backs of their heads, for starters.  Were there always two distinct races on the planet? - Yartek claims “there are many races of men on Marinus.”  Was the Conscience always ineffective on the Voords?  Why do some of them have spikes on their “noses”, but Yartek doesn’t?  How much of what we see is Voord, and how much is wetsuit?  I think we should be told, as it’s a curious omission from the script.

Script Heaven
• The Doctor “Sensuous and decadent...but rather pleasant.  I say, is that a pomegranate?”

Script Hell
• Barbara “I believe you’re under some deep form of deep hypnosis.”

Catchphrase
• Tarron “Who is he?” Ian “Who?  He’s a doctor.”

Name-dropping
• The Doctor claims to have met Pyrrho.

The Doctor’s Achievement
• The TARDIS crew have prevented the Voords from controlling the minds of the population of Marinus - and, while they were at it, have freed the oppressed population of Morphoton and uncovered a conspiracy in Millennius.

Body Count
Three Voords in episode one, one more in episode six (plus all those destroyed in the climactic explosion).  Other casualties include Arbitan, Eprin, Aydan, Vasor, the old man in the jungle, one ice soldier and the three Brains of Morphoton.  So the total is, at the very least:
13.

Don’t move!  Or the girl gets it!
• Vasor grabs Susan as the ice soldiers attack his hut.  “You’ll stay!” he demands, “or I’ll kill her!”

Hypnotised left, right and centre (and friends)
• The entire population of the city of Morphoton, as well as on the TARDIS crew.
Hypnotism:  2 instances.

Chekhov’s Plot Device
Chekhov’s Fake Key Of Marinus.  At last!  A true Chekhov’s Gun moment!

EffectsWatch
• The effects in episode one veer from a great model shot of the island to the iffy illusion used to make Arbitan’s building seem huge to the Thunderbirds-style arrival of the submersibles to the appalling effect of a Voord falling down a shaft.
• The hands grabbing Barbara in episode 3, supposedly those of a statue, are clearly human.

Whoops
• If you look closely, I’m sure there’s an unexpected foot in the bottom right hand corner of the screen just as the Doctor falls into Arbitan’s building.
• An awful lot seems to have happened between episodes one and two - Barbara has changed her clothes and been introduced to Altos - yet only seconds have passed.
• The Doctor inexplicably knows Altos’ name.  To be fair, maybe this is a by-product of the mind control (but we’re really stretching things here).
• When Aydan knocks Ian out at the end of episode four, he blatantly hasn’t touched him.

Notes
• Ian is still dressed as he was in Marco Polo, suggesting - but not proving - that this story carries on directly from the last.
• The Doctor is absent from episodes three and four, as the actor took a holiday.  Maybe this is why he gets some great stuff to do when he returns - notably his Poirot act at the scene of the crime, and his barrister act in court.
• Catch Susan and Barbara’s excuses for Ian’s sexism/chivalry in The Screaming Jungle.  Wow, revolutionary feminist stuff.  Girl power.
• There is some surprisingly adult content in this story, from attempted rape (Vasor and Barbara) to wife-beating (Aydan and Kala).
• The Doctor claims he has never encountered a sea of acid before in all his travels.  Odd, you wouldn’t think such things were that rare.  Plus, he and the others instantly assume that it and the glass beach are a defence mechanism deliberately engineered.  It never seems to cross their minds that such things could be natural.
• Yartek’s people are referred to both as the Voords and the Voord.
• After Marco Polo’s omni-electrometer, this story gives us a mesmeron and somno-discs.  The galaxy seems to have a distinct lack of imagination, as well as prevalent Latin and Greek roots.
• The Brains are supposed to be very intelligent, yet are not above intoning “kill them” over and over again for no very good reason.
• Ian observes that Altos doesn’t blink.  Why is this?  They aren’t hypnotised through the eyes.
• The Doctor describes a cyclotron as a “simple toy.”
• There are many great sights in this story, and one of the best is the Doctor admiring a dirty mug, speculating about what he might be able to achieve with “instruments like these.”
• Was Arbitan supposed to warn his emissaries about the old man’s traps?  Why didn’t he?
• Ian claims the ravine in the mountain is too wide to jump, but it looks no wider than the one in The Daleks.
• The scene in episode 5 where Eyeson answers the phone completely destroys any suspense about who the villain might be.  Why is this scene there?
• The Doctor gets Sabetha to deliberately perjure herself (under our law, at any rate).
• Try watching the scene in episode 6 where the Doctor unmasks Eyeson without screaming “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t of been for you meddling kids!”
• Check out that disguise Yartek tries on Ian and Susan!  Oh come on!  No-one’s going to fall for that!
• Ian says he will give the surviving Key of Marinus to the Doctor as a keepsake.

Queries
• What is DE3O2?
• Are the glass beach and the acidic sea natural?  Or did Arbitan create them?
• How do the Brains of Morphoton speak?
• It seems very easy to defeat the Brains.  What exactly did Barbara smash?  Wouldn’t you have gone for the Brains themselves?
• Why do Ian, Barbara and Altos leave the dials and keys in Vasor’s hut when they go to the mountain?  It would have made things much easier if they’d taken them along.
• What’s the deal with those ice soldiers?  Who froze them?  How?  Are they alive?  Dead?  Undead?  Are they, as Vasor claims, demons?  No-one even stops to wonder about this, and it seems a massive plot contrivance.
• So what does cause that encroaching jungle, then?
• If the Doctor can just claim to be from Arbitan and have the key in Millennius handed over by the judges, why didn’t Eprin do this when he first arrived?  Why did he and the Doctor plan to steal it?
• If it’s impossible for the mesmeron to work on anyone who’s seen the truth, how did they ever get it started in the first place?
• Why does Susan always have to act like such a pathetic little child?
• We really can’t ignore the language thing any longer.  Somehow, the TARDIS crew are able to understand everything said to them by cavemen, Daleks, Thals, Voords, and people all over Marinus (the amount of hopping around they do, on Earth they’d have run into at least three language barriers).  How is this possible?  Come to that, it’s unlikely enough that the Doctor and Susan speak fluent English.  And while we’re on the subject, what language exactly were the Mongols, Venetians and other races in Marco Polo speaking?  Unless some kind of explanation is given, this is a big cop-out.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On-screen Credits
Taken from The Television Companion.
CAST
Dr. Who - William Hartnell, Ian Chesterton - William Russell, Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill, Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford, Arbitan - George Colouris (1), Voords - Martin Cort (1,6); Peter Stenson (1,6); Gordon Wales (1), Altos - Robin Phillips (2-6), Sabetha - Katharine Schofield (2-6), Voice of Morpho - Heron Carvic (2), Warrior - Martin Cort (3), Darrius - Edmund Warwick (3), Vasor - Francis de Wolff (4), Ice Soldiers - Michael Allaby; Alan James; Peter Stenson; Anthony Verner (4), Tarron - Henley Thomas (5-6), Larn - Michael Allaby (5-6), Senior Judge - Raf de la Torre (5), First Judge - Alan James (5), Second Judge - Peter Stenson (5), Kala - Fiona Walker (5-6), Aydan - Martin Cort (5), Eyesen - Donald Pickering (5-6), Guard - Alan James (6), Yartek - Stephen Dartnell (6).
CREW
Written by Terry Nation.  Title Music by Ron Grainer with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  Incidental Music by Norman Kay.  Costumes - Daphne Dare.  Make-Up - Jill Summers.  Studio Lighting - Peter Murray.  Studio Sound - Jack Brummitt; Tony Milton.  Production Assistant - David Conroy; Penny Joy.  Assistant Floor manager - Timothy Combe.  Story Editor - David Whitaker.  Designer - Raymond P. Cusick.  Associate Producer - Mervyn Pinfield.  Producer - Verity Lambert.  Directed by John Gorrie.

Familiar Faces
George Colouris can otherwise be seen in Orson Welles’ chart-topping film Citizen Kane, as Kane’s banker guardian.  “I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!?!”

Review
The extended plot explanations above, as well as the unusual number of queries, give the correct impression.  Terry Nation has taken a handful of passably good ideas, and sandwiched them all together into six episodes, which gives the story a disjointed feel.  The events in Morphoton, for instance, could surely have supported a story by themselves, while those in Millennius certainly could - the Doctor’s scenes defending Ian are amongst the most enjoyable in the story.  This resembles nothing more than a collection of short stories, and suffers as a result - the casual viewer has nothing to grab hold of to make one care what happens next episode, and those of us looking deeper into it find glaring plot holes.  Frankly, with about 20-30 minutes per section there is nowhere near enough time to explain any given situation, so we are left completely perplexed as to what happened to that jungle, for instance, or where those ice soldiers came from.  The only linking thread is the regular cast, and unfortunately they are largely becoming rather annoying.  Susan is forever squealing and crying, while Barbara and Ian spend all their time not believing each other.  To be fair, it’s more an aberrance in this story than a universal trait of the series, but they do all appear slightly thick.  The exception is William Hartnell as the Doctor, but this is attributable in part to his complete absence from the most irritating episodes.  Even the framing Conscience plot is not wholly thought out, and by the end everything seems very unsatisfactory.  Although there are many things to like here - there are strong guest performances from Fiona Walker and Katharine Schofield, and the direction is occasionally inspired, especially in the “point-of-view” sequences in Morphoton - it has, in the end, to be marked down as Doctor Who’s first real failure.

Rating
3 / 10 

Friday 17 August 2012

The Exciting Guide presents MARCO POLO

The fourth Doctor Who story begins a big problem with the 1960s - namely, the absence of entire stories or individual episodes from the BBC archives. So I am obliged to cover stories like "Marco Polo" without seeing them.

A reminder - I began this in 1998. I didn't even have a permanent internet connection and even if I had had one, there would not have been the vast array of resources and reconstructions that exist today. So I had to rely on Target novelisations, The Television Companion and past issues of Doctor Who Magazine.

With that in mind, let's see what I had to say about "Marco Polo" in early 1999.

Quick reminder of the links:
For previous posts, you can scroll around this site, or go to my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ExcitingGuide) which will link only to those parts of my blog devoted to the Exciting Guide. Quick link to the intro here: http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/watching-every-tv-adventure-of-doctor.html



Story Four
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Code
D

Title
Marco Polo
Anyone claiming this should be called Journey To Cathay is just being picky now.

“Friends” Title
The One With The Mongols
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Episode Titles
The Roof Of The World
The Singing Sands
Five Hundred Eyes
The Wall Of Lies
Rider From Shang-Tu
Mighty Kublai Khan
Assassin At Peking

Current availability
Not even slightly available.  The first casualty.

Sources
Doctor Who Magazine Archive, Issue 240.  Certain elements have also been taken from John Lucarotti’s novelisation, Marco Polo.  I have noted these elements wherever used, as it is difficult to ascertain which bits come from the series as shown on TV, and which bits were made up on the spot.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date
1289 A.D.
As specified.  DWM suggests it takes place between mid-April and September 1st.

Genre
Historical

Plot synopsis
1.         The Doctor discovers that a burnt-out circuit has disabled the TARDIS’ heating, lighting and water supply, and repairs will take days.  The travellers promptly run into Mongol warriors, and are saved from summary execution by a European man called Marco Polo:  they have clearly landed on Earth in the past.  Polo’s companions include Mongol warlord Tegana, on a peace mission from Noghai to the court of Kublai Khan, and Ping-Cho, a young girl on her way to marry a 75-year-old man.  The travellers join the caravan in his journey across the Gobi desert, but Polo confiscates the key to the Doctor’s “flying caravan”, intending it as a present to Khan in exchange for freedom from service.  Meanwhile, Tegana collects poison for the water supplies from an associate, and they plot to steal “the thing of magic that will bring the mighty Kublai Khan to his knees.”
2.         Days later, Susan and Ping-Cho follow Tegana out of suspicion, but there is a sandstorm, and they eventually have to be escorted back to camp by Tegana himself.  The next night, the warlord cuts open the water gourds, which Polo blames on bandits.  En route to an oasis six days away, the remaining water runs out.  The Doctor collapses, and is allowed into the TARDIS with Susan.  Tegana rides on to the oasis, but has no intention of returning.
3.         The party is saved by condensation forming inside the TARDIS.  They reach the oasis, where Tegana claims to have been hiding from bandits.  They continue to Tun-Huang.  Polo reclaims the TARDIS key, but the Doctor is completing a copy.  As Ping-Cho tells a story, Tegana slips away to meet his Mongol cohorts, Acomat and Malik - their forces are waiting at Karakorum.  Barbara follows him, and is captured.  During the ensuing search, the Doctor, Susan and Ping-Cho visit the Cave of Five Hundred Eyes, and Susan screams as she sees one pair of eyes move.
4.         Others arrive, and a secret room is revealed, containing Barbara and her Mongol captor, who is swiftly dealt with by Polo.  Tegana denies his own part in the affair.  The journey continues along the Great Wall of Cathay.  Tegana arranges an ambush with Acomat, and helps Polo catch the Doctor working in the TARDIS:  the second key is taken.  Ian tries to steal it back, but finds the man guarding them has been stabbed.
5.         Ian warns Polo, and the ambush is a failure - Tegana kills Acomat himself to prevent betrayal.  The caravan continues, and a courier, Ling-Tau, summons Polo to the Khan without delay.  Preparations are made at Cheng-Ting to leave on horseback, but Ping-Cho steals the TARDIS keys, and the travellers try to make good their escape.  Unfortunately, Tegana has been planning to steal the Ship, and he grabs Susan as she approaches it.
6.         Polo once again arrives and confiscates the keys.  The horseback ride begins.  The following night, Ping-Cho runs away to escape her marriage, and Ian goes after her, discovering along the way that the TARDIS has been stolen (by one of Tegana’s associates).  Polo sends Tegana after Ian and Ping-Cho, and himself reaches the Khan’s palace with the remaining travellers in tow, and the elderly Khan befriends the Doctor.  Tegana catches up with Ian and Ping-Cho, and advances with his sword drawn.
7.         Ling-Tau arrives, and Tegana causes his intended victims to be arrested for stealing the TARDIS.  They all travel to the palace, where Tegana turns the Khan against Polo.  Ping-Cho hears that her intended husband has died after drinking a youth elixir, and the Doctor gambles with the Khan, and loses the TARDIS in a game of backgammon.  The time-travellers uncover Tegana’s plan to assassinate the Khan and allow Noghai’s forces to attack.  Polo protects his ruler, and defeats Tegana in a swordfight.  The warlord commits suicide, and the travellers are allowed to leave in the TARDIS.

Pitch
A trek across the world with all the epic qualities of The English Patient and lots of escape attempts.

The Money Shot
Obviously, this is extremely difficult to name, having not seen a single shot.  From reading the summary, though, Tegana’s betrayal at the oasis stands out.  “Here’s water, Marco Polo.  Come for it!”  (Episode 2)

The Doctor and his kind
• The Doctor is adept at backgammon.
• Susan claims that she and the Doctor have had “many homes in many places” and have been travelling for “a long time.”
• She also claims to be sixteen years old, like Ping-Cho.  Surely this cannot be accurate?  How long can they have been travelling?  Was she a child when they left their home planet?  Are we talking sixteen Earth years or not?

The TARDIS log
• A single circuit appears to control (or at least influence) heating, lighting and water in the TARDIS.  A bit of an eggs and basket situation, surely?
• The novel unsubtly refers to the above circuit as an “omni-electrometer.”  One can only presume that the Big Red Self-Destruct Button is working fine.
• Whatever the answer to the mystery of the Ship’s dimensions, they do not prevent the formation of condensation inside it.
• The Doctor is able to make a copy of the TARDIS key.  Susan’s comments in The Daleks about its complexity are, however, held up by his possibly over-dramatic warning to Polo that if he puts the key in the lock he will destroy the Ship.
• Condensation forms in the TARDIS when the hot air cools during the night.  So why aren’t the walls dripping with water when the Ship’s hanging around in mid-space?  It’s rather cold there as well.  Maybe the TARDIS forcefield, or whatever, is one of today's faulty items.

Past Journeys
• Susan’s claim to have had “many homes in many places” presumably suggests that she and her grandfather were travelling for a long time before holing up in 1963.

The history of Earth
• The journeys of Venetian explorer Marco Polo, and his links to the court of Kublai Khan are a well-established historical event:  my Junior Pears Encyclopaedia claims he journeyed through China (or Cathay), India and other parts of Asia from 1271-94, and Barbara (a history teacher, remember) is familiar with his story.
• The history books fail to note that one of Polo’s journeys was infiltrated by a Mongol warlord called Tegana, whose plan to kill Kublai Khan was foiled by a group of time-travellers who owned a flying caravan.

Alien Worlds
• According to the novelisation, Susan alludes to “the metal seas of Venus.”

Script Heaven
• Susan “One day, we’ll know all the secrets of the skies, and we’ll stop our wanderings.”
• Polo “On my travels to Cathay, Ian, I have come to believe many things I’d previously doubted.  For instance, when I was a boy in Venice they told me that in Cathay there was a stone that burned.  I did not believe, but there is such a stone - I have seen it...And if stone burns, why not a caravan that flies?  Birds fly;  I have even seen fish that fly.  You are asking me to believe that your caravan can defy the passage of the sun?  Move not merely from one place to another, but from today into tomorrow, today to yesterday?  No Ian, that I cannot believe.”

The Doctor’s Achievement
• If it were not for the Doctor and his crew, it is arguable that Kublai Khan would have died at the hands of Tegana, Noghai would have become Emperor of Cathay, and the history of the East might have been quite different to how we now know it.

Things I learned from Doctor Who
• The origin of the word “assassin”
• The facts about condensation
• Rarefied air causes water to boil at a lower temperature

Body Count
Difficult to tell without being able to watch the episodes.  From the plot summary and the novelisation, we know of the Mongol in the Cave of Five Hundred Eyes, two sentries, the Khan’s personal secretary and Acomat (all slain by Tegana), Tegana himself and, I suppose, Ping-Cho’s fiancé.  But there are also presumably numerous Mongols in the ambush, and maybe some more in the final episode.  At a rough guess:
8.

Screams / Twists Ankle
Oh, I’ve Been Captured Tally:  1.  There’s a perfect one of these in episode three, with Barbara as the hapless victim.

Don’t move!  Or the girl gets it!
Barbara and Susan are both grabbed by Mongols during this story, but I have no evidence to suggest that any variation of the above immortal line was uttered.

Checkov’s Plot Device
Not at all.  The baddy is killed with a sword.  Very simple.

Irrelevant Escape Attempts
The travellers attempt to sneak into the TARDIS, but thanks to Tegana’s intervention, Polo catches them and confiscates the key. (Episode 4)
The travellers attempt to sneak into the TARDIS, but thanks to Tegana’s intervention, Polo catches them and confiscates the key. (Episode 5/6)

Whoops
• Marco Polo was almost certainly not in this geographical location in 1289, meaning that writer John Lucarotti and Barbara are both wrong.  Charitably, of course, Lucarotti has just chosen to present a “fictionalised” account in a historical setting.  Nothing wrong with that.

Notes
• The events of An Unearthly Child took place over two days, those of The Daleks over three or four, and those of The Edge Of Destruction a matter of hours.  Marco Polo takes an estimated four to five months, marking a considerable change of pace for the programme.
• Another departure for the series is the use of linking narration (by Mark Eden in character as Marco Polo) over film of a parchment map showing the journey as it progresses.
• It’s worth reprinting the following claim from DWM:
“The Ping-Cho sub-plot was based on Marco Polo’s escorting of the seventeen year-old Princess Kokachin to wed Arghan, the Ilkhan of Persia.  Arghan was the grand-nephew of the Khan, and it had been his wife’s dying request that a girl from her own Mongol tribe should take her place - the message reaching the Khan in 1288.  The bridal party had left for Persia in 1289, only to be turned back by war amongst the Tartars.  After Polo’s return from the Indies, he and his family were allowed to leave the Khan’s service and escort Kokachin’s party, departing in 1292.  On arrival in Persia, Kokachin was to find her elderly fiancé had died - as did Ping-Cho in the serial.”  Other elements of the serial were apparently based on Marco Polo’s memoirs, The Description Of The World.
• The Doctor hardly appears in The Singing Sands.  This is largely due to ill health on William Hartnell’s part.
• Since An Unearthly Child, the issue of leadership seems to have been resolved.  Marco and Tegana, according to the novelisation, both accept without question that the Doctor “commands” his party.
• Susan’s comments suggest they have visited Venus before.  The Doctor’s comments about tailors in Han-Chow and coffins in Lu-Chow show more than a passing familiarity with ancient Cathay:  can they have been here before?  (These snippets of dialogue are taken from the novelisation)
• According to the novelisation, the Doctor leaves Kublai Khan with “the key to the world” - a duplicate TARDIS key.

Queries
• Just how old is Susan?  Come to that, how old is the Doctor?
• The TARDIS crew know exactly where and when they have just been - Peking, 1289.  Does this mean the Doctor can now steer the Ship correctly, as he stated many episodes ago, and take Barbara and Ian back home?  Does he even want to?

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On-screen Credits
Taken from DWM.
CAST
Dr. Who - William Hartnell, Ian Chesterton - William Russell, Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill, Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford, Marco Polo - Mark Eden, Tegana - Derren Nesbitt, Ping-Cho - Zienia Merton, Man At Lop - Leslie Bates (1), Chenchu - Jimmy Gardner (3-4), Malik - Charles Wade (3), Acomat - Philip Voss (3-4), Mongol Bandit - Michael Guest (5), Ling-Tau - Paul Carson (5,7), Wang-Lo - Gabor Baraker (5-6), Kuiju - Tutte Lemkow (5-7), Vizier - Peter Lawrence (6-7), Kublai Khan - Martin Miller (6-7), Office Foreman - Basil Tang (6), Empress - Claire Davenport (7).
CREW
Written by John Lucarotti.  Title Music by Ron Grainer with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  Incidental Music by Tristram Cary.  Sword Fight arranged by Derek Ware (7).  Costume Supervised by Daphne Dare (7).  Make-up Supervised by Ann Ferriggi (7).  Story Editor - David Whitaker.  Designer - Barry Newbury.  Associate Producer - Mervyn Pinfield.  Producer - Verity Lambert.  Directed by Waris Hussein (1-3,5-7); John Crockett (4).

Familiar Faces
Mark Eden was later to become a regular in Coronation Street.
You may also recognise Zienia Merton from Space: 1999.

Review
The plot summary makes this seven-episode epic look like a real drag:  a whole story full of people travelling from one bit of desert to another, Tegana snarling and plotting every other minute, and endless attempts to get the TARDIS key back.  Its reputation, however, leaves the mouth watering, because everyone seems to think this is, to quote John Peel, “one of the true classics of television” (taken from The Television Companion).  I suspect the story’s saving graces are in production values, dialogue and direction, exactly the aspects robbed from us by the loss of the episodes.  So, I shall reserve judgement.

Rating
6 / 10 

Sunday 12 August 2012

The Arthur Dent Paradox

Writing a show about time travel can mess with your head. It can also, if you're not careful, rob your stories of any sense of real jeopardy. If people are paying enough attention.

Let's begin with The Visitation, in which the Fifth Doctor accidentally starts the Great Fire of London. No reason why not. But consider the fact that the Fourth Doctor has heard of the Fire in Pyramids of Mars; St Paul's Dome is visible in The Invasion; and Monument Tube Station appears in The Web of Fear. So, the Great Fire had already happened, before the time traveller made it happen.

It's even more explicit in new season 3. The Master regenerates in Utopia. He speaks his first words and Martha, overhearing them, recognises his voice. He then goes back in time and becomes Harold Saxon and runs for office: which Martha and Jack knew all about before Professor Yana is woken up.

This does rather suggest a form of predestination. The Family of Blood couldn't kill the Doctor in episode 9 of season 3 because the effects of his actions in episode 11 had already been shown in episode 6. Indeed, once the 2nd Doctor knows about the Monument, he's presumably safe until The Visitation. Farewell jeopardy.

I don't know if this has a name, but I'm going to call it the Arthur Dent paradox. In Life, The Universe and Everything (book 3 of Hitch Hiker's), Arthur learns that one day, he will visit Stavromula Beta and accidentally cause the death of a man called Agrajag. Throughout the next two books, he is calmly convinced that he can't die until he has visited Stavromula Beta. It's only logical and, what's more, true: when he does (apparently) die at the end of Mostly Harmless, it's shortly after the Stavromula Beta experience, which is not quite what he'd imagined.

This has caused problems. When writing The End of Time, Russell T Davies realised that, thanks to a gag at the end of The Shakespeare Code, the Tenth Doctor had to meet and offend Elizabeth I before he could regenerate. Hence a few lined crowbarred in and unfortunately referenced more than once since.

More seriously, the plot of The Impossible Astronaut required the audience to believe that Amy, Rory and River believed the Doctor was dead. But we know River has a diary of all her encounters with him, so she'd know this can't be the end. Which meant Moffat had to write a scene making it clear that they've done everything now, including Jim the Fish.

But in that case, clearly River's entire relationship with the Doctor is with the Matt Smith version. And she seems to have only met another incarnation once: on the day she died. Strange how she didn't remark on this.

Yeah, it messes with your head. But, like Arthur Dent, it also makes the Doctor invincible. He was perfectly safe from acid rain at Christmas because he hasn't visited the fields of Trenzalore! Thanks to Dorium's future knowledge, his safety is assured.

But then he was already safe. He hasn't been Merlin yet!

Friday 10 August 2012

The Exciting Guide presents THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION!

So it's time for Doctor Who's third story. For previous posts, you can scroll around this site, or go to my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ExcitingGuide) which will link only to those parts of my blog devoted to the Exciting Guide. Quick link to the intro here: http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/watching-every-tv-adventure-of-doctor.html


Story Three
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Story Code
C

Title
The Edge Of Destruction
There is no entirely satisfactory title for this story.  The one I have used is quite clearly the title of the first episode alone, while the allegedly more accurate Inside The Spaceship is just crap and sounds like a documentary.

“Friends” Title
The One Inside The Spaceship
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Episode Titles
The Edge Of Destruction
The Brink Of Disaster

Current availability
Both episodes exist.

Source
UK Gold omnibus repeat transmission.
The UK Gold template for these repeats tends to be a complete omnibus edition, with the only omissions being those necessary for the format - the closing and opening titles between episodes, and often the reprises.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date
This takes place entirely inside the TARDIS, which is not really in any time at all.

Genre
Psychological Thriller

Plot synopsis
1.         The crew recover one by one from the explosion with temporary lapses of memory.  Odd things start to happen - the TARDIS doors open by themselves, the food machine claims to be out of water but isn’t, Susan is electrocuted by the console and faints.  The Doctor rebuffs speculation that something may be inside the TARDIS with them, maybe even inside one of them, as “absurd theories.”  Everyone seems to be acting oddly, however - Susan attacks Ian with a pair of scissors.  The Fault Locator claims nothing is wrong, and the scanner shows a sequence of images while the doors open and close.  The Doctor throws suspicion on Ian and Barbara, but the confrontation is brought to a halt by the clocks in the Ship suddenly all melting.  The Doctor changes his tune and hands out drinks:  thanks to a “mild sleeping draught” they are all soon asleep in bed.  The Doctor approaches the console, but is attacked from behind.
2.         Ian is apparently trying to strangle the Doctor, but faints.  The Doctor determines to throw the humans off the Ship, despite Barbara’s protestations that something is affecting everyone.  The Doctor is forced to admit to misjudging them when a loud alarm sounds - this is the “danger signal”.  The Fault Locator now registers failure on every single instrument, and the Doctor announces they have ten minutes to live, though admits to Ian it is really only five:  the Ship is on the verge of disintegration.  They manage to piece the clues together - the images on the scanner represent their journey, halted by the TARDIS defence mechanism to protect the Ship from an enormous explosion.  The Doctor realises they are on course for the birth of a new solar system.  The Fast Return switch is stuck down - the Doctor fixes it and the Ship returns to normal.  After apologies have been exchanged, the TARDIS lands on a planet where the air is good but it is very cold.

Pitch
Like The Haunting in space, without being crap.  More like Event Horizon, really, but with a less OTT ending.

The Money Shot
Susan stabs her bed over and over again - a surprisingly brutal and effective scene, bringing to mind scenes from two classic horror movies (namely Psycho and The Exorcist.)  (Episode 1)

The Doctor and his kind
• Ian notes that the Doctor’s “heart seems all right, and his breathing’s quite regular.”  This suggests that the physiology of the Doctor and Susan’s race is similar to that of Humanity.
• The Doctor’s ambiguous moral stance is underlined when Ian asks him if he is working for good or evil, and gets no direct answer.

The TARDIS log
• The TARDIS has a built-in defence mechanism.
• It can withstand tremendous forces - even, for a certain period of time, those present at the creation of a solar system.
• Susan claims it is impossible for the Ship to crash.
• The “heart” of the Ship - its source of power - is directly beneath the central column.  If the column were to come out, the power would be free to escape.
• The TARDIS has a memory bank which records their journeys.
• When an instrument in the Ship goes wrong, a valve lights up in the Fault Locator to indicate the problem.  If the whole thing were to light up, it would mean the Ship was on the point of disintegration.
• The Food Machine has an entire section set aside on its panel for water, which is dispensed in plastic bags.
• The TARDIS’ inhabitants are expected to sleep on odd couch/beds that come out from the wall.
• The TARDIS isn’t much for privacy:  you can stroll right through the bedrooms, which are directly adjacent to the console room.
• Barbara suggests that the Ship can think for itself.  The Doctor refutes this.
• The Fast Return Switch (which is positioned near the scanner switch) will send the TARDIS back through time until released.  It is unclear whether there is also a Fast Forward switch.

Past Journies
• A few journeys back, the Doctor and Susan nearly lost the TARDIS on the planet Quinias.

Alien Worlds
• The planet Quinias (which appears on the scanner) is a dangerous jungle planet that is apparently in “the fourth Universe.”  You mean there’s more than one of them?

Script Heaven
• Barbara “How dare you?  Don’t you realise, you stupid old man, that you’d have died in the Cave of Skulls if Ian hadn’t made fire for you?  And what about what we went through against the Daleks, not just for us, but for you and Susan too, and all because you tricked us into going down to the city.  Accuse us!  You ought to go down on your knees and thank us!  Gratitude’s the last thing you’ll ever have...or any sort of common sense either!”
• Ian “I wish I could understand you, Doctor.  One moment you’re abusing us, and the next you’re playing the perfect butler.”
• The Doctor “One man’s law is another man’s crime.”
• This is a good line, but marred by William Hartnell’s uncharacteristic fit of ham-acting.  The director clearly wants it to be good, as well:  note the lighting.
“I know.  I know.  I said it would take the force of a total solar system to attract the power away from my Ship.  We are at the very beginning.  The new start of a solar system.  Outside, the atoms are rushing towards each other, fusing, coagulating, until minute little collections of matter are created.  And so the process goes on and on until dust is formed.  Dust then becomes solid entity:  a new birth of a sun and its planets!”
• The Doctor “You know, my dear child, I think your old grandfather is going a tiny little bit around the bend.”

Script Hell
• The Doctor [to Susan] “Well, I think you were very brave, and I was proud of you.”  She hasn’t been to the dentist!
• The Doctor “Susan has left you some wearing apparel for outside.”  You mean clothes?
• This seems an unrepresentative sample, but in fact the dialogue in this story is nowhere near as bad as it seems to be - it is the off-day performances from the regulars that lower its tone.

Name-dropping
• The Doctor claims to have met Gilbert and Sullivan, and obtained Ian’s startling item of winter protection from them.

Body Count
Zero.

Screams / Twists Ankle
• Susan shows a knack for eavesdropping in this story (although, to be fair, it’s not as if anyone is acting like themselves.)

Hypnotised left, right and centre (and friends)
• Susan and Ian’s behaviour under TARDIS influence counts as the first time the series uses some form of hypnotism.
Hypnotism:  1 instance.

The TARDIS wardrobe
• The Doctor mentions that the Ship has an extensive wardrobe.  The examples of this pulled out here include some winter woollies, an enormous all-encompassing poncho thing Ian wears and several natty sets of pyjamas, dressing-gowns and flip-flop slippers.

Dudley!
• The scene where Susan attacks the bed with the knife is accompanied by screeching music reminiscent of the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho, released four years earlier.  (The composer is uncredited)

Notes
• There is some truly horrendous acting throughout this story, notably from Carole Ann Ford.
• Ian’s opening words to Barbara (“You’re working late tonight, Miss Wright.”) recall his opening words to her in An Unearthly Child (“Not gone yet?”)
• Dialogue in this story suggests that controls on the console are in specific places, and not variable as previously suggested in this Guide.  If we are to continue being charitable, perhaps it is only certain items such as the Fast Return and Scanner switches that are fixed.  Certainly it is still possible that the Doctor needs to activate the Ship a different way each time to take off - the Fast Return Switch itself is an example of a control that would not be needed every time.
• During the Doctor’s semi-conscious ramblings, he says “I can’t take you back, Susan.”  Is this a conversation he has had with Susan?  Does he mean to 1963, or to their home planet?  If the latter, does this suggest he spirited her away from home much as he did from London?
• The Doctor spends the whole story with a bandage wrapped around his head.  There is ointment in its coloured segment:  when the colour has gone, the wound is healed.
• Note how the TARDIS booms every time they guess correctly.
• Why does the Doctor have to give such an over-simplified explanation to Susan?  She’s not stupid.
• Gilbert and Sullivan clearly didn’t teach the Doctor anything about acting:  with his “Yes, we must solve this problem, you know, we must” he again proves his inability in this field.
• Why doesn’t the Doctor wrap up like everyone else on the cold planet?  Surely he’d feel the cold more than most.
• The Doctor’s discomfort when called upon to apologise is beautiful.
• The Doctor has come to believe he has underestimated Barbara in the past (or, at least, that’s what he says.)
• Following up what is clearly a running joke from the previous story, the Doctor refers to Ian Chesterton as “Charterhouse.”
• The experience seems to bring the TARDIS crew closer together.
• The sequence repeated by the TARDIS is as follows:  a picture of England - doors open;  a picture of Quinias - doors close;  pictures of a planet drawing back to see the entire solar system;  an enormous explosion.

Queries
• It seems believable that the Ship’s defence mechanism can use the instruments to warn the crew of danger, but how does it manage to melt the clocks and Ian and Barbara’s wrist watches?  And how does it affect the passengers’ behaviour?
• What exactly is all this business about making them aware of time?  It all seems a somewhat obscure way to go about getting the message across.
• Is the Ship alive?
• Exactly how many Universes are there?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On-screen Credits
Taken from The Television Companion.
CAST
Dr. Who - William Hartnell, Ian Chesterton - William Russell, Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill, Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford.
CREW
By David Whitaker.  Title Music by Ron Grainer, BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  Designer - Raymond Cusick.  Associate Producer - Mervyn Pinfield.  Producer - Verity Lambert.  Directed by Frank Cox.

Review
For all its failings, this is an atmospheric story.  It’s hardly noticeable that the cast and settings are reduced to the bare minimum, and the action certainly doesn’t get boring, possibly thanks to the unusually short running length.  Granted, it doesn’t always make sense - the melting clocks, for starters - but the revelation of what has been going on all this time is a supreme moment of bathos.  Whereas The Daleks was possibly traditional SF story-telling (discovery of threat, lengthy expedition to neutralise it, big battle at end), this story warns the viewer not to expect the obvious, and at times to expect the downright obscure.  The relations between the crew are antagonistic and deliberately confusing for the audience, so it’s a shame that all the performances are unforgivably stilted, with Jacqueline Hill perhaps coming in for least criticism.  It’s a nice diversion from our expectations, and makes an effective coda to what has, in some ways, been a thirteen-part introductory story.  It’s tantalising to think, though, how much better it might have been with a little more time and money.


Rating
7 / 10