When Elisabeth Sladen passed away in April 2011, I was shocked and upset than at the death of any other of my childhood fiction stalwarts. She consistent, intriguing and still on TV, but her death shook me up more so than even that of her co-star (and my then-hero) Jon Pertwee in 1996, despite that occurring in the midst of my cry-at-the-drop-of-a-hat phase.
Her most notable role by far was as Doctor Who's best ever companion, Sarah Jane Smith, a role she played, on-and-off for nearly forty years. Her autobiography, released posthumously, is an interesting work which speaks volumes - in hushed tones - about the woman who would have preferred to be known as Elisabeth Miller. Of course due to the vagaries of Equity, the UK actor's guild, that wasn't ever a possibility but contributes to the defining theme of her memoir, of someone utterly at home in family settings.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Original series audio: The Massacre
Chaplet(te) Vocal Stylings: Unfortunately, neither Jackie Lane - who'll become renowned during her stay on the show for this - nor Annette Robinson (Anne Chaplette) really know which accent they're supposed to be using at which time. There's a dearth of consistency in their accents, but they very well may be related, so at least we can call it a genetic disposition. We can (kind of) forgive Jackie Lane as her character started off planned as a cockney but was forced to change when Beeb management decided the only possible accent for a consistent character was the Received Pronunciation. That notwithstanding, it's some pretty terrible Cockney/Nor'n/Mummerset going on between ostensible relatives.
Similarity to New Series themes: Many Whovians will be familiar with the haunting soliloquy Hartnell delivers when Steven leaves the TARDIS on Wimbledon Common at the conclusion of the story. However, it's not the standard, feisty, confident Hartnell we've come to expect, nor even the same decisive Doctor of the past four episodes. It's the first ever appearance of the Lonely God, a mere forty-two (Oh boy, there's a draw for you!) years before Russell T. Davies coined the phrase. I don't care what anyone says, I defy you to tell me Hartnell has ever been better.
If Sophia Myles' wonderful Madame du Pompadour was the first offical Moffat "Girl who Waited", then Anne Chaplet was her prototype. She does little else but spend four episodes afraid for her life where layer upon layer of threat is piled upon her. Not counting Mission to the Unknown, this is the first ever Doctor-Lite story as well and also perhaps the first pure "companion character study". There are also harkens to the Tennant story "Fires of Pompeii", where the Doctor refuses to get involved in a great tragedy.
It's incredible upon first listening (true, the first time I've ever listened to this story despite reading the Target novelisation in 1993) how similar many of these methods are reiterated in the New Series. Next up for Moffat et al: a return for the pure historical?
Intensity: It's got Steven in it, so it's likely going to be rather erm, focused... Most of the dialogue is delivered with almost Shatner-like intensity, spat/spoken/shouted/whispered as if the lines are lethal projectiles. This only adds to the serial, making you appreciate simply how much is at stake in a historical episode about which not many people are aware. In order to make this sink in to the audience, Lucarotti and Tosh had to make identifiable characters to stop us from saying "Yeah, but so what"? Remember too, that this has so much gravitas because of its context, transposed between two historicals penned by Donald Cotton.
Rating: 4
In a word: Prescient.
Similarity to New Series themes: Many Whovians will be familiar with the haunting soliloquy Hartnell delivers when Steven leaves the TARDIS on Wimbledon Common at the conclusion of the story. However, it's not the standard, feisty, confident Hartnell we've come to expect, nor even the same decisive Doctor of the past four episodes. It's the first ever appearance of the Lonely God, a mere forty-two (Oh boy, there's a draw for you!) years before Russell T. Davies coined the phrase. I don't care what anyone says, I defy you to tell me Hartnell has ever been better.
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| Courtesy: doctorwhoreviews.co.uk |
It's incredible upon first listening (true, the first time I've ever listened to this story despite reading the Target novelisation in 1993) how similar many of these methods are reiterated in the New Series. Next up for Moffat et al: a return for the pure historical?
Intensity: It's got Steven in it, so it's likely going to be rather erm, focused... Most of the dialogue is delivered with almost Shatner-like intensity, spat/spoken/shouted/whispered as if the lines are lethal projectiles. This only adds to the serial, making you appreciate simply how much is at stake in a historical episode about which not many people are aware. In order to make this sink in to the audience, Lucarotti and Tosh had to make identifiable characters to stop us from saying "Yeah, but so what"? Remember too, that this has so much gravitas because of its context, transposed between two historicals penned by Donald Cotton.
Rating: 4
In a word: Prescient.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Original: The Three Doctors
Bob 'n' Dave. Written by the boys from Bristol, The Three Doctors remains somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's padded, is perhaps Sergeant Benton's greatest moment and features many of the era's most redoubtable guest stars in Roy Purcell, Clyde Pollitt, Rex Robinson and Stephen Thorne. It's also interesting to note that it's in this serial that the Doctor finally breaks the Brigadier's mind when the series' other character known by title only decides that Pertwee has somehow regressed to Troughton.
This is, in a way, a bit unfair. The Brigadier's seen enough crazy stuff to make him believe anything is possible so why shouldn't Pertwee change back into Troughton - it's hardly like the Doctor to explain, in-depth, the Time Lord penal code. It's the pigheaded refusal to listen to Benton which makes the Brigadier seem so chump-ish here. Well, this, and it's made worse by prior scenes (eg. from The Mutants where they emerge from the TARDIS and say "Don't tell the Brigadier, he'll never believe you"). By this stage of the series' evolution, The Brig (capital T, capital B) had become a parent figure that children - the most anti-establishment figures of them all - poke fun at for having no imagination. That Pertwee's Doctor was the archetypal Mother Hen, swooping in to protect her children makes this all the more arch, seventies bliss.
Back to Bob 'n' Dave. Bob 'n' Dave (Baker & Martin, if you insist) are symptomatic - along with each seasons' attempt at climactic maturation - of Who's transition from the hard-hitting alien invasion drama that Derrick Sherwin wanted (and Douglas Camfield would have been perfect to direct) to Barry Letts' and Terrance Dicks' family-time stories*. Some suggest this process was less transition and more decay - personally I think Season 7 is the most consistently brilliant Who until 2005 - but this isn't entirely true. No matter how excellent in retrospect, it wasn't Season 7 I first fell in love with. As a toddler, I became infatuated with the UNIT family (Brig, Jo, Benton, Yates, several Jimmys and Corporal Bell), the Master, Daleks - and most definitely, the Pertwee Doctor. He was my absolute, unassailable favourite until I really got to grips with Troughton in my early-to-mid twenties.
That said, Baker/Martin's scripts were rife with pun-sational or schmaltzy dialogue and they evidenced an ever-increasing desire to create marketable catchphrases ("Contact has been made") so that The Kids could tell what the bad guys were up to. They, more than any other writers, were responsible for most of the "Don't tell the grown-ups" moments; unsurprising considering their background in childrens' television.
Stephen Thorne. I love Stephen Thorne as Omega in this, I always have. While you can slag off Bob 'n' Dave all you like for occasional cringeworthy lines ("I got the feeling they were more deadly enemies"), the idea of a man kept alive by will alone - coupled with the imagery of Omega removing his helmet to display nothing beneath - is absolutely brilliant television. Thorne does absolute justice to the character, moving between inarticulate rage and boasting arrogance with finesse Bruce Purchase could only splutter at. Thorne's rich, deep vocal portrayal makes Omega what he is despite a physically imposing frame. Favourite line: "If I exist only by my will, then my will is to destroy!" - delivered with such unhinged insanity that you actually end up feeling for him.
Troughton. While there were elements of Troughton's Doctor which emerged throughout the serial, he was actually written quite differently from his time as the lead. He's impish, but without the occasional gravitas which typified many of his best lines. It's nice to see him - and painful to see Hartnell, who was only 65 but looks every day of his character's 400 years - but you feel his Doctor is very much thought of as "the funny one".
In two words: Childhood relived.
Rating: 4.
* 51-word sentence. Personal best!
This is, in a way, a bit unfair. The Brigadier's seen enough crazy stuff to make him believe anything is possible so why shouldn't Pertwee change back into Troughton - it's hardly like the Doctor to explain, in-depth, the Time Lord penal code. It's the pigheaded refusal to listen to Benton which makes the Brigadier seem so chump-ish here. Well, this, and it's made worse by prior scenes (eg. from The Mutants where they emerge from the TARDIS and say "Don't tell the Brigadier, he'll never believe you"). By this stage of the series' evolution, The Brig (capital T, capital B) had become a parent figure that children - the most anti-establishment figures of them all - poke fun at for having no imagination. That Pertwee's Doctor was the archetypal Mother Hen, swooping in to protect her children makes this all the more arch, seventies bliss.
That said, Baker/Martin's scripts were rife with pun-sational or schmaltzy dialogue and they evidenced an ever-increasing desire to create marketable catchphrases ("Contact has been made") so that The Kids could tell what the bad guys were up to. They, more than any other writers, were responsible for most of the "Don't tell the grown-ups" moments; unsurprising considering their background in childrens' television.
Stephen Thorne. I love Stephen Thorne as Omega in this, I always have. While you can slag off Bob 'n' Dave all you like for occasional cringeworthy lines ("I got the feeling they were more deadly enemies"), the idea of a man kept alive by will alone - coupled with the imagery of Omega removing his helmet to display nothing beneath - is absolutely brilliant television. Thorne does absolute justice to the character, moving between inarticulate rage and boasting arrogance with finesse Bruce Purchase could only splutter at. Thorne's rich, deep vocal portrayal makes Omega what he is despite a physically imposing frame. Favourite line: "If I exist only by my will, then my will is to destroy!" - delivered with such unhinged insanity that you actually end up feeling for him.
Troughton. While there were elements of Troughton's Doctor which emerged throughout the serial, he was actually written quite differently from his time as the lead. He's impish, but without the occasional gravitas which typified many of his best lines. It's nice to see him - and painful to see Hartnell, who was only 65 but looks every day of his character's 400 years - but you feel his Doctor is very much thought of as "the funny one".
In two words: Childhood relived.
Rating: 4.
* 51-word sentence. Personal best!
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Liveblog: The Leisure Hive, episode 4
Titles: So where were we? Ah yes, we'd just left the aged Doctor, the French-dressed Romana and a chirruping insect to rip the face off another insect wearing a skin-suit. Tell me, in which series could you fully expect to write an introductory sentence like that? I love Doctor Who!
No matter what, though, I'm much more comfortable with Drs. Davison and Colin Baker in the "starfield" credits. With Tom Baker, they just don't seem to feel right - too clean. Tom Baker's best years were when the series had a real gritty feel to it.
Reprise: I don't get it - can the Doctor understand the Foamasi language? And where did they find the second Foamasi?
No matter what, though, I'm much more comfortable with Drs. Davison and Colin Baker in the "starfield" credits. With Tom Baker, they just don't seem to feel right - too clean. Tom Baker's best years were when the series had a real gritty feel to it.
Reprise: I don't get it - can the Doctor understand the Foamasi language? And where did they find the second Foamasi?
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Liveblog: The Leisure Hive, episode 3
Opening titles: Let's talk (briefly) about music. A friend of mine who's a classically trained composer once said he liked this version of the theme music better than any other Who music simply because it offered the right balance of melody and rhythm. You've gotta hand it to him, he's right. It really is a nice, iconic theme - probably the most well-remembered of them all, especially starting and finishing with the "sting".
Reprise: Well, it's obvious that the Argoin don't belong to anything like the Galactic Geneva Convention - this sort of thing would be highly frowned upon, using a prisoner as a guinea-pig for arcane experimentry.
Reprise: Well, it's obvious that the Argoin don't belong to anything like the Galactic Geneva Convention - this sort of thing would be highly frowned upon, using a prisoner as a guinea-pig for arcane experimentry.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Liveblog: The Leisure Hive, episode 2
Credits: Watching them again, they seem much cleaner, brighter - a credits sequence for the video tape era. It was the source of an interesting, but friendly, disagreement between Jacqueline Hill (initial companion Barbara Wright, and Lexa in the following serial Meglos) and First Doctor William Hartnell - he wanted the series modernised, shot in colour and made much more visually impressive while she felt the series was much better suited to dark angles and mystery. I can completely accept both points of view - with the romantic in me probably siding with Miss Wright.
Post-reprise: I'm going to go on about, I can tell, but the music really is very intrusive as Pangol goes to the control panel.
Post-reprise: I'm going to go on about, I can tell, but the music really is very intrusive as Pangol goes to the control panel.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Liveblog: The Leisure Hive episode 1
By: David Fisher, an underappreciated Doctor Who scriptwriter. He doesn't rank in the top 5 (for mine, Holmes, Houghton, Hulke, Whitaker and *squints a bit* oh, let's go for John Lucarotti), but his work during a difficult era for Who is still under-regarded. He had to write for an arrogant, narcissistic leading man who thought himself better at comedy that he was, a producer on a shoestring and three separate script editors who each wanted him completely different script styles from him. That he did so well with stories like The Androids of Tara and the Stones of Blood is commendable ... if you thought the Hinchcliffe/Williams transition was jarring, try going from for-better-or-worse comic (Adams) to science-at-all-costs (Bidmead).
(Come to think of it, Fisher probably doesn't make the top 10 - I haven't mentioned Dicks, Sherwin, Haisman/Lincoln, Wyatt, Spooner or Cotton, yet).
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