The talons of Weng-Chiang (1977)
Review
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Review
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:
To me, the parts simply don't add up to an enjoyable whole.
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Original version of this review:
06/08/20
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