06/08

06/08/30 Doctor Who: The visitation
06/08/27 Doctor Who: The leisure hive
06/08/23 Doctor Who: City of death
06/08/22 Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock
06/08/21 Links
06/08/20 Doctor Who: The talons of Weng-Chiang
06/08/17 Doctor Who: The robots of death
06/08/15 Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks
06/08/13 Links
06/08/09 Doctor Who: The claws of Axos
06/08/08 Doctor Who: Inferno
06/08/07 Tarot progress #12
06/08/06 Links
06/08/01 Doctor Who: The seeds of death

06/08/30

I'm still taking a break from my usual subject matter to review the 'classic' Doctor Who serials that I have on DVD. Today: The visitation.

Doctor Who: The visitation

This is a four-part serial, first broadcast between 15th - 23rd February 1982. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: when the Doctor tries to drop off Tegan so she can get on with her job as an air hostess, the Tardis arrives at the right place, Heathrow, at the wrong time, 1666. The Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric find themselves caught between aliens who intend to wipe them out along with everyone else on earth, and local yokels who simply want to kill them for reasons of their own. They do manage to save the planet, even if they start the Great Fire of London and the sonic screwdriver goes up in flames.

Out with the old, in with the new… When Eric Saward wrote 'The visitation' he knew that Peter Davison would take over as the Doctor, but he'd never seen him in the part. He had also received conflicting information regarding the number of companions he would be writing for, and he hadn't watched the series in recent years. Nevertheless, he would go on to become script editor for Doctor Who and to write several other serials for the Davison era.

The good news:

'The visitation' shows some of Eric Saward's qualities that would also be apparent in serials like 'Earthshock' and 'Resurrection of the Daleks'. The tone for the story is set in an excellent, intriguing opening scene. When the Tardis arrives on the scene the story starts to unfold at a steady pace, and even if not everything that happens in the story actually makes sense, there's rarely a dull moment
the serial is a period piece, something that (forgive me for repeating myself once more) Doctor Who always does well, and the sets and the costumes look great
in thespian and highwayman Richard Mace the serial has a highly entertaining supporting character who almost ends up - ahem - stealing the show
the story makes an effort to give the bad guys a background and valid reasons for their actions
there's a good incidental score, once again composed by a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
the bad guys' android looks cool

The somewhat good news:

the bad guys are clearly guys in lizard-suits. Then again, they're considerably better lizard-suits than the ones in 'The leisure hive'

The not so good news:

the interaction between the regulars has a tendency to devolve into bad soap-opera. Unfortunately, this too would be a recurring feature in stories by Eric Saward
Davison is clearly working hard here, but he seems still busy finding his feet in the part. Other performances seem to be somewhat one-note. Of the regulars, Adric whines a lot, Tegan emotes a lot, and Nyssa appears to be under the influence of strong tranquillisers. Richard Mace is a great character, but the actor delivers almost every line in exactly the same way which starts to grate after a while
the companions aren't used well in this story, doing little more than bickering, wandering through the woods and getting captured. The exception is Nyssa, who builds a sonic booster and uses this to destroy the alien invaders' near-indestructible android

The puzzling bits:

Nyssa, the android and the sonic booster. First, we see Nyssa serenely moving about in the Tardis, taking the time to rearrange her bedroom furniture before starting to tinker without any apparent sense of purpose or urgency. And then, at the exact moment when Nyssa has built the sonic booster and has just completed a successful test run, the android enters her bedroom and is duly blown up
the miraculous escape. When, in part four, the Doctor, Tegan and Mace are locked up in a cellar, the Doctor decides to use Mace's gun to shoot out the lock of the cellar door. Although he clearly misses the lock, as is pointed out by Mace, the door opens anyway

My verdict:

Quite good, actually.

Not a must-see serial, but pretty entertaining.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

The latest version of this review:
The visitation (1982)

06/08/27

Continuing my Doctor Who reviews with 'The leisure hive', for the time being my last review of a serial from the Tom Baker era.

Doctor Who: The leisure hive

This is a four-part serial, first broadcast between 30th August - 20th September 1980. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: the Doctor and Romana decide to visit the Leisure Hive on Argolis for a few days to see the sights and meet new people. Among the people they meet are the Argolin, a dying race who are locked in the Leisure Hive since they can't survive outside, and the Foamasi, who are busy making the Argolin an offer they can't refuse.

The good news:

new producer, new script editor, new title sequence, new version of the title music, all-electronic incidental music by a new composer, new costume for the Doctor, new technology having become available so the makers could use computer-enhanced images for the first time. Even if not all of these changes were equally successful, it's nice to see the series trying to take a new direction
the serial is visually interesting, with bold shapes and colours and some unusual shots (like the ones where the use of colour suggests that we move through a wall from the exterior to the inside of the Hive)
we see several characters age rapidly in this story. This is difficult to do believably, but both the actors and the make-up artists succeed here
there's good acting, both from the regulars and the supporting cast, and there are some nice, well-rounded supporting characters
in the Argolin and the Foamasi, the serial tries to give us two alien races with their own history and culture. Even where it doesn't quite succeed, the level of ambition is admirable

The not so good news:

the model work and the computer generated images are hit-or-miss. Some effects, like the squash game and the fake rejuvenation process in part one, work well. Others, like the Doctor appearing to fall apart and anything that involves shuttles arriving at or leaving the Hive, don't

The even less good news:

after the long, intriguing opening scene the sight of K9 blowing itself up while attempting to fetch a ball from the sea is disappointing, even if its demise was probably a good thing
the Foamasi look like guys in lizard-suits. Even in the first few episodes, when all we see of them are some very brief extreme close-ups, their eyes look like beads set inside rolls of green fabric and their claws and feet seem to belong to some child's toy. Since much of the tension in these episodes is supposed to come from the glimpses that we get of the Foamasi creeping up on the Argolin, this is bad
the story has some gaping plot holes. For instance - and beware, spoilers ahead here - why does Romana decide that the Foamasi who creeps up on her in the laboratory is a good guy, even if she can't understand a word he says? Why does the dead guy have the Doctor's scarf tied around his neck, and how did the scarf get there? Why do Romana and the Argolin chief scientist rush out of the laboratory when their attempt to reverse time appears to be succeeding, without waiting to check whether it actually is? Why does the failed attempt to rejuvenate the Doctor, that apparently nobody is able to stop, leave him old rather than either regenerated or dead of old age? How do you mend a high-tech device by throwing an ancient helmet at it?
speaking of the high-tech device, throughout the serial there seems to be no consistency to the function or the behaviour of the Tachyon Recreation Generator (TRG). The TRG is used to create a "child of the generator", to enable people to play zero-gravity squash, to make it appear that people are torn apart limb by limb, to actually tear somebody apart limb by limb, to cause extreme ageing, to create an endless number of copies of one individual (though we never see this work), to create an endless number of copies of another individual while simultaneously rejuvenating them, and to rejuvenate without creating copies. In short, the techno-babble spouted about it notwithstanding, the TRG is nothing more than a "machina" with the sole function of creating any "deus" that the story requires

My verdict:

Quite good, actually.

Enjoy the trip, don't think too much about the story.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

The latest version of this review:
The leisure hive (1980)

06/08/23

Continuing my Doctor Who reviews with my seventh review of a serial from the Tom Baker era.

Doctor Who: City of death

This is a four-part serial, first broadcast between 29th September - 20th October 1979. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: on holiday in Paris the Doctor and Romana can't keep a gang of criminals from stealing the Mona Lisa, or an over-eager detective from breaking things and whacking people, but in the end they do manage to save the universe.

It's a Douglas Adams story, even if based on an existing script by another writer and written together with the producer. That covers it, really.

If you like 'The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy', and especially 'Dirk Gentry's holistic detective agency', you're in for a treat. Adams is in top form here and the serial gets it right in every way. (Except for the various copies of the Mona Lisa that are kicking around in this story, all of which look like caricatures of the real thing.)

If you prefer your science-fiction straight, you may want to give 'City of death' a miss. Or maybe not, since it is both great comedy and fine science-fiction.

My verdict:

Brilliant!

I love Douglas Adams. What more can I say?

More Doctor Who reviews:
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The latest version of this review:
City of death (1979)

06/08/22

Today: Horror of Fang Rock, yet another Doctor Who review.

Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock

This is a four-part serial, first broadcast between 3rd September - 24th September 1977. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: the Doctor and Leela plan to visit Brighton but find themselves at Fang Rock instead, where their visit means a nice change for the three men working at the local lighthouse who usually only have the seals for company. But then people start dying, as foretold in ancient legend…

In stead of this serial, the makers of Doctor Who initially had planned to do a vampire story. Writer Terrance Dicks had already written two episodes (the completed serial would later be broadcast as 'State of decay') when the BBC decided that, since they had planned a television version of 'Dracula', they didn't want Doctor Who to do a story with a similar subject matter. Under even more time pressure than was usual for Doctor Who, Dicks came up with 'Horror of Fang Rock'.

In a number of ways, the serial relies on what had become 'proven technology' for Doctor Who. Like several 1970's serials, it's a Victorian period piece. Like 'Pyramids of Mars' and 'The talons of Weng-Chiang' it's a genre piece - this time a nautical horror story - with a science-fiction twist and, like 'Robots of death', it uses the Agatha Christie plot device of getting characters together in a confined space and then killing them off one by one.

On the whole, the serial is solid and entertaining. There's not a great deal of action, but what there is of it is pretty effective. The entire serial was shot inside the studio and it does have that 'studio' look and feel, but the CSO that was used to show the sea and the sky is hardly noticeable, and it's clear that by 1977 the technology had come a long way. There's also a shipwreck that involves some quite convincing model work. The monster, on the other hand, isn't among Doctor Who's more successful creations. The concept - a gelatinous green blob with tentacles - isn't too bad, but having it convincingly swim, climb the outer wall of the lighthouse and negotiate a flight of stairs proved too much of a challenge. The shots from the monster's point of view are nice, though.

My verdict:

Quite good, actually.

Tough call. It's a solid, entertaining serial, but to me there's nothing that makes it stand out among the other average-to-good Doctor Who serials.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

The latest version of this review:
Horror of Fang Rock (1977)

06/08/21

Phishing, blogging medicine and blogging foreign policy.

Unrelated linkage

How phishing works.
Securityfocus: Phishing with Rachna Dhamija (part 1), (part 2)
(via Hiveminds)

Blogging medicine.
Healthcare renewal
Over!My!Med!Body!
Polite dissent
Random acts of reality
Fat doctor
Push fluids
Q Daily news
(via MeFi)

Blogging foreign policy.
Foreign policy: Passport
(via MeFi)

06/08/20

Today: continuing my reviews of 'classic' Doctor Who with 'The talons of Weng-Chiang'.

Doctor Who: The talons of Weng-Chiang

This is a six-part serial, first broadcast between 26th February - 2nd April 1977. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: the Doctor takes Leela to the theatre in Victorian London, and they find themselves in the middle of a tale where Fu Manchu meets the phantom of the opera. When another young girl goes missing and her husband turns up dead, our heroes decide to help the police with their inquiries.

The good news:

the serial is a period piece, something that Doctor Who always does well
Leela comes off well in this serial. Her actions are as important to the story as the Doctor's, and she generally kicks arse
in Litefoot and Jago the serial gives us two well-rounded, entertaining supporting characters, who make significant contributions to the resolution of the plot and end up almost stealing the show
the action keeps rolling along without sagging for the entire six episodes
in the Chinese master magician Li H'sen Chang, the serial gives us one of the more interesting Doctor Who villains. While on the surface he's the stereotypical Chinese villain of the Fu Manchu stories, the serial does make an effort to show him as a real, if fatally flawed, human being

The not so good news:

the credibility of Li H'sen Chang is undermined by having the character played by an English actor in "yellow-face" make-up, who speaks English with a rather bad Chinese accent. This may have worked in the 1970s but modern audiences have grown used to see "serious" Asian characters being portrayed by Asian actors, and to associate European actors in "yellow-face" with racial stereotypes that are usually played for laughs
Weng-Chiang, or Magnus Greel, is an unexceptional ranting monster in a mask, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. How his followers have come to venerate him as a god, and why they have continued to do so over the years, is anyone's guess
the Doctor retains a manic good cheer throughout the serial, always in control of the situation and rarely seeming genuinely afraid of, or disturbed by, any of the evil he encounters. Though Tom Baker does manic good cheer superbly, this made it harder for me to take the villains seriously or to even care about anything that happened on screen. The moment the Doctor does show an emotional response - his anger and indignation during his confrontation with Magnus Greel - I found the whole thing becoming more interesting to watch
it's hard to understand why the other characters find Mr. Sin, the killer ventriloquist's dummy, so frightening. Generic scariness of living dummies aside, even if he is coming at the other characters with a large knife he doesn't seem to be either very fast or extraordinarily strong, and the attacked could easily outrun him or defend themselves by picking him up and throwing him. Also - beware, spoiler ahead - his conveniently timed killing spree in part six, that resolves most of the plot by eliminating Weng-Chiang and his remaining followers, is never explained
the giant rat might have worked if we had seen less of it

My verdict:

Interesting.

To me, the parts simply don't add up to an enjoyable whole.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

The latest version of this review:
The talons of Weng-Chiang (1977)

06/08/17

Continuing my reviews of 'classic' Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: The robots of death

This is a four-part serial, first broadcast between 29th January -19th February 1977. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: among a crew of well-to-do miners and art-deco robots the Doctor and Leela find themselves suspected of murder, and in order to prevent more deaths and to prove their innocence they will have to unmask the real killer.

'The robots of death' is simply a good, solid serial. The story is a well-written cross between an Agatha Christie whodunnit and an Isaac Asimov robot story, the acting is good all-around, the visual effects have held up well, and the art-deco design may not be to everyone's taste (I felt the costumes and the make-up were a bit over the top) but it's certainly an interesting change from the customary stark, high-tech science-fiction look and feel.

It's interesting to see how the series had changed since 1975, when 'The ark in space' and 'Genesis of the Daleks' came out. In 1977 the moral ambiguity has gone, and we no longer see the Doctor agonising over the choices that he has to make. In stead, we get a Doctor who is confident, capable and continually one step ahead of everyone else.

My verdict:

Nice!

Agatha Christie meets Isaac Asimov in a good, solid serial.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

06/08/15

Today: Genesis of the Daleks, yet another Doctor Who review.

Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks

This is a six-part serial, first broadcast between 8th March - 12th April 1975. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: the Doctor's mission, should he choose to accept it, is to return to the birthplace of the Daleks and to change their history, in order to keep them from exterminating every non-Dalek in the universe.

There are a couple of things about this serial that keep bothering me each time I watch it. Since it's difficult to discuss these without spoilers, you may want to stop reading here.

in part one the Doctor and Harry get separated from Sarah Jane, who is left behind lying unconscious in a trench that is filling up with poisoned gas. For all her friends know she is either dead or in grave danger, and yet neither shows any concern, or even remarks on her absence, until well into part three
at the beginning of part one the Doctor is given a device, a time ring, which enables him to leave the planet once his mission is completed. The ring's only function seems to be to create obstacles for the Doctor by going missing or being inaccessible, and to distract him from his mission
the same goes for the tape recording that is made of the Doctor's revelations about the Daleks' weak spots. There's also the question - ignored in the script - whether destroying the tape will actually keep Davros and Nyder - the two bad guys who have heard the Doctor make these revelations - from using what they've learned from him to start building better Daleks
right at the start of episode one we see another Time Lord giving the Doctor the assignment to change history. Although this makes for a nice Bergmanesque moment I'm not sure this was the best possible choice, since it means that two plot points with the potential to create tension and to leave both the Doctor and the audience guessing - 'the Doctor has a chance to keep the Daleks from doing any harm by changing history' and 'the Time Lords have set it up' - are being revealed right away. This choice also undermines the otherwise powerful "…Do I have the right?…" scene to some extent, since one can't help wondering why the Doctor didn't realise from the start that successful completion of his mission might involve killing the Daleks
and, though they can't be blamed on the script, there's that giant clam clutching Harry's foot and that baby Dalek clutching the Doctor's throat. Both of these effects are weak enough to seem out of place in an otherwise well-made and well-acted serial

On the plus side, there is a great deal to enjoy here. The serial is well-paced with excellent performances from both the regulars and the supporting cast, there's plenty of tension and the lighting is gorgeous. In this serial we also see the series trying to take a new direction after the rather cosy Pertwee era, by introducing moral choice and ambiguity.

My verdict:

Nice!

A must-see serial, in spite of its flaws.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

06/08/13

Weblog ethics and other found footage.

Unrelated linkage

I've rarely felt the need to edit weblog entries. Occasionally I do it to correct a typo, and I've once done it to remove a link to a domain that had been sold to a hard-core porn outfit. The question of editing did come up with some of the Doctor Who reviews that, with hindsight, I should have done some more work on before publishing them. Ethical concerns never crossed my mind but doing rewrites on weblog entries did seem a bit daft - like copyediting yesterday's newspaper.
Having been thinking about this stuff it was interesting to come across a discussion of, among other things, editing in the wider context of weblog ethics.
Plastic bag: On ethical weblogging (part two)
Plastic bag: Ethical weblogging part one
Rebecca's pocket: Weblog ethics

Learning from experience.
Blogging blog: If I had to start my blog again...

A weblogger reads the good book.
Slate: Blogging the Bible
(via MeFi)

Myth and magic in the contemporary arts.
The Endicott Studio: Journal of Mythic arts
(via MeFi)

Talent or training, which matters most?
AskMe: Talent vs. training

06/08/09

Concluding my reviews of Doctor Who's Pertwee era.

Doctor Who: The claws of Axos

This is a four-part serial, first broadcast between 13th March - 3rd April 1971. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: strangers arrive bearing gifts that promise to provide the world with an endless supply of food but, as is often the case, it turns out that there's no such thing as a free lunch. In the end, the Doctor gets together with an old enemy to save the day.

The good news:

The Axons and their... ship... look gorgeous, and they're conceptually interesting.
As usual, Pertwee is excellent.
We see the Master - another Time Lord and the Doctor's archenemy - being held prisoner by Axos. This is an effective way to show us that Axos is the kind of top-of-the-food-chain predator that other predators will want to steer clear of.

Which brings us to the not so good news:

We, the audience, know from the start that Axos is bad. This is a waste of a good story that could have been more intriguing by leaving us guessing for a couple of episodes.
A great deal of the story is being 'told' rather than 'shown'. The Axons helpfully tell the Doctor and Jo that they intend to 'suck the earth dry'. In the end we don't see Axos stuck in a time-loop, we're being told about it by the Doctor (and even he seems at a loss for words, there). There's plenty of action, it's well-executed, but it does little to move the story forward.
The regulars aren't used well here. Jo does little more than getting into trouble, being saved by the Doctor, being crushed when the Doctor appears willing to leave earth in the claws of Axos, retaining her almost childlike faith in him and seeing that faith rewarded in the end. The UNIT crew do little more than getting arrested or being expelled from the premises by the British armed forces, shooting at things that their bullets have no effect on, and generally doing things that have little or no impact on the plot.
Of the supporting characters Chinn is a stereotypical stupid bureaucrat, and the minister is a stereotypical Machiavellian bureaucrat. American agent Filer fares a little better - having a fight with his clone that has little relevance to the plot but looks cool, and helping the plot along by freeing the Master - but we see too little of him.

My verdict:

Quite good, actually.

Eye-candy with a great deal of unrealised potential.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

06/08/08

Continuing my reviews of the Pertwee era of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: Inferno

This is a seven-part serial, first broadcast between 9th May - 20th June 1970. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: the Doctor and Liz Shaw find themselves at the site of a scientific experiment, which aims at releasing a new source of energy by penetrating the earth's crust. What does get released, however, is a green goo that brings out the beast in everyone it touches. When the Doctor does some experiments of his own, resulting in his sideways shift into a parallel reality, he finds that things will only get much, much worse…

First of all, this is the 'parallel universe' story that every science-fiction series is bound to do sooner or later. It's well done, it's entertaining, and it also serves the plot by - spoiler ahead - showing us what will happen if the experiment isn't stopped.

It's interesting to compare this serial to 'The green death', which was broadcast three years after 'Inferno'. Of the two, 'The green death' seems to take the more naturalistic approach to the ecological concerns it's dealing with: the green goo that kills people and causes maggots to grow to giant proportions is a waste product produced by a chemicals company. In comparison, the approach taken by 'Inferno' is more magical: man's transgressions against the earth unleash powers that rob mankind of its humanity and eventually destroy the world. Exactly how this works - or what the regression-to-Neanderthal-inducing green goo is that is being brought up from beneath the earth's crust - is never explained.

My verdict, nevertheless:

Nice!

It is well-made and well-acted, and I honestly feel I ought to like it more than I do. By all means, go see it.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

06/08/07

Today: still working on my Tarot cards. And I know it's been a while.

Tarot progress #12

First version of IX The Hermit.
06/08/07 (IX The Hermit)
Archive

06/08/06

Catching up on the links thing.

Unrelated linkage

One answer to this Metafilter question was what worked for me: when you lose interest in weblogging, try writing about something new.
AskMe: Is it possible to recover one's blogging mojo?

Some good writing advice.
AskMe: How can I make my writing more accessible to readers?

Google security issues.
CSO: 5 ways Google is shaking the security world

Old publicity pics of computers. Those were the days.
Lileks: Compu-promo

The downside of interactive weblogging.
Plastic bag: Trackback is dead. Are comments dead too?

06/08/01

Today: The seeds of death, yet another Doctor Who review.

Doctor Who: The seeds of death

This is a six-part serial, first broadcast between 25th January - 1st March 1969. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: in this story our heroes visit a museum, fly to the moon in a rocket and, back on earth, use solar power and plain old H2O to defeat the abominable Ice Warriors and their abominable killer fungus.

In short, this is 1960s science fiction in all its - occasionally deeply silly - glory. To start with some of the sillier bits:

one plot point in this story is that all existing modes of transportation have been rendered obsolete by something called T-Mat, which transports people and cargo by dematerialising them in one place and materialising them in another. And yet, a couple of small control centres appear to be able to handle the entire world's T-Mat traffic, and only one person fully understands how the process works;
on the various control panels that we see in the control centre and inside the moon base, buttons and switches that are relevant to the story are labelled in large, friendly letters that can easily be read from across the room. While this helps the audience to understand their function without much need for exposition, it still looks a bit silly;
faulty high-tech devices helpfully announce their faultiness by emitting large quantities of smoke;
the costumes that are worn by most of the male cast are quite unflattering, and particularly the older actors seem embarrassed to be seen in them;
and - warning, spoiler ahead - the Ice Warriors' idea to smother the earth in a fungus that can be dissolved in water seems insufficiently thought out since, even if they can keep it from raining, there's still plenty of water present on the planet.

If you're able to look beyond all that, there's a great deal to enjoy here. The serial is well-paced, and there is some real tension. The music is excellent, the sets are well-designed and much of the story is 'shown' rather than 'told', most interestingly by showing us the invasion of the moon base from the invading Ice Warrior's point of view. Zoe and Jamie are used well here, as are several well-rounded and memorable supporting characters. The acting is very good, both from the regulars and the rest of the cast.

My verdict:

Nice!

Solid 1960s science-fiction.

More Doctor Who reviews:
Doctor Who reviews

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