The science is pure baloney.
It has a plot that's rather obviously hacked to pieces and stitched back together.
It's internally inconsistent.
But oh how I do love thee..... "Planet of Giants".
For some reason this story always fascinated me. From the first snatches I read about it in the pages of Doctor Who Monthly (as it was back then) through to the Target novelisation I always absolutely adored this one. Then came that day that every fan faces, the opportunity to see it on bootleg video. The picture wobbled, the sound distorted and there was hiss in every silent moment yet it still lived up to my expectations. I can't think of a single other Who that managed to do that. The VHS came out, almost crystal clear picture quality and superb sound and I still adored the story. 2|Entertain have announced they've got the DVD well underway and I'm sure that when I get it I will love it even more. It's just one of those stories that delights me every time I see it.
I can't quite put my finger on it. It could be the sets, superbly re-created miniatures that almost match the regular size ones. It could be the deadly seriousness that the regulars give the dialogue, doubly important as they're almost single handedly carrying the three episodes. It could be the fantastically English sub plot about insecticide and murder. It could be all of the above and more rolled into one glorious 75 minute package. Whatever it is, when I'm feeling down then this is one of the stories I turn to. By my own criteria I really shouldn't like it but I do. I love it, I adore it, I want to see modern Who try and do a story this simple but with this much charm because I don't think they could do it.
Right, the science is complete nonsense and inconsistent but they do try so hard. They try and make the sounds deep enough to be from giants BUT they do it by slowing the tapes down so that a single gunshot lasts for several seconds. With digital audio it would be so much easier to redo it and get it spot on but I don't care. There's the mystery of just exactly how they've been shrunk down (have they lost mass? if not then how does the plug chain support them? if they have then where has their missing mass gone?) and there's the few major cockups between the worlds (the matchbox is in the crazy paving in the small world but on the grass in the large one) but I really don't care. I sit there watching and I'm completely drawn in to the danger and the plotting. Yes, at the end my brain re-engages and I think "but that's not how it would be!"... then my spirit of fun kicks in and tells my brain to be quiet. I know that if the seed shrinks down in the final scenes then so should the mud on their faces and they should be left spotless. I know that Ian shouldn't need to worry about climbing 30 feet down a plug chain he should be able to just jump down into the sink with no ill effects and I know that all the evidence suggests that they should be doing serious damage to every surface they walk across but it just doesn't seem to matter. It's "Planet of Giants", it's fine, it's allowed.
Episode three does come across as rather hacked around, with good reason of course. I would kill for the DVD of this to magically find the footage to make it a 4 parter again. I'd love more of the telephone exchange sluthery. I want more plugs that jump from sink to work surface. I want more "I'm going to conveniently tell you how to dispose of my body" moments but I know I won't get them. I know I'll get even better picture quality and even better sound. I know it means that the giant cat will more obviously be on film, I know I'll see the grass painted on canvas blow around even more. I know I'll see the joins in the set with crystal clarity but it really won't matter. I'll still be in awe of the giant fly that menaces Barbara. I know I'll still love puzzling over the physics of the plug scene. I know I'll adore the magic self repairing scanner at the end.
"Planet of Giants" is one of those stories that really can't do any wrong in my mind. If anyone really wants I'll happily go into detail of how the science is bad and some of the many possible ways to correct it. I'll happily sit here wishing I had diet breaking quantities of popcorn to treat this like a Sunday morning romp in the style of Flash Gordon and watch as the TARDIS doors swing open in flight, something they've never done before (not since Edge of Destruction anyway). I will sit there wishing I had a giant model ant in my flat being menaced by a creepy looking giant fly. When this story comes out on DVD I will love it to pieces more than I have done my VHS. "Planet of Giants" I salute you, 75 minutes of pure cobblers that I'm so happy survived the purge. Long may you reign as the height of small scale Who.
Showing posts with label firstdoctor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firstdoctor. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Attack on the Cybermen - 01 - Tenth Planet
My brain is repeatedly telling itself that the reason I've watched Tenth Planet is not because of the story but because I want to understand the popularity of the cybermen. When I had the idea of doing these articles I also told myself that I was to concentrate on the cyber aspects of the story but that's gone out the window with the viewing of the story. So I've revised my plan already and I'm going to allow myself to vent about the stories as well. Just see it as web based therapy. When it comes to Tenth Planet, oh man do I need to vent. There's going to be a tag on these posts that crops up on a regular basis, badscience, and it's fairly likely that the entries on the cybermen will have quite a high percentage of the tags. This story REALLY doesn't make sense on the science front. Planets that move (and either really REALLY quickly or have cloaking devices), planets that suck energy and cybermen that melt when their planet explodes.
All this, and more, from a story written by a scientist.
Okay, in no particular order, here are the things to consider:
Kinetic energy (the energy associated with something due to its motion) is given by multiplying the mass of the object by the square of its velocity (oh yes, then dividing by two but, on the scale of planetary motion that doesn't really seem too vital). The mass of the earth is 6 times ten to the power 24*. For those of you not too acquainted with standard form, that's 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000kg. I'm not typing that out again. Ever. But basically it's a large number. The planet's arrival seems to take everyone by surprise so it can't have been headed towards us very slowly. So we're talking about a large mass multiplied by a pretty big speed squared. (Yes, for future ones I'll type it out in equation form). Basically, it's a LOT of kinetic energy. One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that energy isn't ever destroyed, it's just converted to other forms. So the planet has a LOT of kinetic energy and then parks itself in orbit near us. So that energy had to go somewhere. Mondas is lacking energy (otherwise why would it need to pinch it from us) so it can't be internalised.... so major problem number one is that Mondas seems to magically make energy disappear.
Next up, gravity. If an object has mass (and yes, science thinks there are massless particles out there but, do you know what, I'm not even going there yet) then it creates a gravitational pull. So put two planets near each other, even separated by a few tens of thousands of kilometers, should exert quite a tug on each other. Put it this way, the moon is much smaller than Mondas and it's responsible for the tides. A planet that close to us would probably do more damage to the earth than just cause a few extra news broadcasts. Still, not like it's Gallifrey appearing in the Earth's atmosphere or anything.
Back to energy. Mondas is drawing energy from us, to the extent that it eventually goes bang (an event that doesn't do the earth any harm apparently). This means that there must be quite a drain of energy. Except there don't appear to be any effects on the Earth other than the Doctor collapsing and eventually regenerating. Perhaps he's the only source of energy they raid, in which case it's just as well it was Hartnell that turned up rather than the hyper Tennant. The reality, in my mind, is that there should be a lot of very tired and cold people on the planet.
I'm going to hold back, you'll be pleased to hear, on the radiation in this story. I'm saving that for a whole other article.
So the planet should have boiled itself when it parked in orbit, it should have pulled away the oceans in doing so and then deep frozen the leftovers. On the science front, this story... well, it's really not very good in the slightest. See, I can keep it polite. If I want.
Thinking of my blood pressure and how much damage I do by gritting my teeth, I'll mention a few other things about the story that I really don't like and THEN I'll get onto the cybermen, I promise. Firstly, the Doctor and friends do very little. They pretty much turn up, watch things happen, get captured a bit and then leave. The scientists are concerned about launching the Z bomb as it might turn Mondas supernova, yet it's a weapon the earth never ever mentions again, perhaps they decided it was too risky as it clearly would do more than just wipe out the enemy. The accents are pure pantomime and Cutler's clearly a nutjob who wouldn't have passed the psychoanalysis to get the job. It's amazing how a short rapid vent can get so much out of the system.
Now, for something rare, there are things about Tenth Planet that I really appreciate. So much so, that I wish there hadn't been another cyber story to ruin the legacy. Cybermen are our first contact and deeply significant in Earth's history. Thinking back to other stories there have been so far, the Doctor didn't know about the dalek invasion in the 22nd century which, you would think, would be a fairly major historical note. But before the cybermen even turn up, he knows exactly what's going to happen. I'm betting he even knows that Mondas goes pop. They land all over the world, they're on the International Television News and we're told that there are reports from all over the world. There's no escaping it (unless you're a fan author of the 90s onwards), this is first contact. It's almost confirmed in future stories. The cybermen are also quite "realistic" in that they're clothed in bandages and still have a few humanoid style traits such as opening their mouths to speak. They've had emotions removed for some reason though and I think this is where my lack of understanding comes in. I don't see this as a big advantage. Not entirely sure why, I think it's because I see the need to survive as a vaguely emotional thing. If the cybermen are controlled by "logic" (and I don't actually remember the cybermen being described as beings of pure logic in this one) then I don't really see any logic in the need to keep going. That, to me, is a definite emotional need. Their massive susceptibility to radiation really should have been sorted (and yes, that's definitely in a future post).
From this story, and this story alone, I can see why the cybermen were memorable. But then again I can see why Zarbi were and they never came back (outside of the printed page). My main issue with Tenth Planet is simply that it's a bloody awful story with some utterly abysmal science in it and very little Doctor Who. It's possibly the first Doctor-lite plot. I wonder if it's where a certain RTD got the idea. Anyway, I'll concede that the cybermen ARE impressive in this one. Just a shame they're about the only memorable thing in the story. Well, apart from the obvious of course.
All this, and more, from a story written by a scientist.
Okay, in no particular order, here are the things to consider:
Kinetic energy (the energy associated with something due to its motion) is given by multiplying the mass of the object by the square of its velocity (oh yes, then dividing by two but, on the scale of planetary motion that doesn't really seem too vital). The mass of the earth is 6 times ten to the power 24*. For those of you not too acquainted with standard form, that's 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000kg. I'm not typing that out again. Ever. But basically it's a large number. The planet's arrival seems to take everyone by surprise so it can't have been headed towards us very slowly. So we're talking about a large mass multiplied by a pretty big speed squared. (Yes, for future ones I'll type it out in equation form). Basically, it's a LOT of kinetic energy. One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that energy isn't ever destroyed, it's just converted to other forms. So the planet has a LOT of kinetic energy and then parks itself in orbit near us. So that energy had to go somewhere. Mondas is lacking energy (otherwise why would it need to pinch it from us) so it can't be internalised.... so major problem number one is that Mondas seems to magically make energy disappear.
Next up, gravity. If an object has mass (and yes, science thinks there are massless particles out there but, do you know what, I'm not even going there yet) then it creates a gravitational pull. So put two planets near each other, even separated by a few tens of thousands of kilometers, should exert quite a tug on each other. Put it this way, the moon is much smaller than Mondas and it's responsible for the tides. A planet that close to us would probably do more damage to the earth than just cause a few extra news broadcasts. Still, not like it's Gallifrey appearing in the Earth's atmosphere or anything.
Back to energy. Mondas is drawing energy from us, to the extent that it eventually goes bang (an event that doesn't do the earth any harm apparently). This means that there must be quite a drain of energy. Except there don't appear to be any effects on the Earth other than the Doctor collapsing and eventually regenerating. Perhaps he's the only source of energy they raid, in which case it's just as well it was Hartnell that turned up rather than the hyper Tennant. The reality, in my mind, is that there should be a lot of very tired and cold people on the planet.
I'm going to hold back, you'll be pleased to hear, on the radiation in this story. I'm saving that for a whole other article.
So the planet should have boiled itself when it parked in orbit, it should have pulled away the oceans in doing so and then deep frozen the leftovers. On the science front, this story... well, it's really not very good in the slightest. See, I can keep it polite. If I want.
Thinking of my blood pressure and how much damage I do by gritting my teeth, I'll mention a few other things about the story that I really don't like and THEN I'll get onto the cybermen, I promise. Firstly, the Doctor and friends do very little. They pretty much turn up, watch things happen, get captured a bit and then leave. The scientists are concerned about launching the Z bomb as it might turn Mondas supernova, yet it's a weapon the earth never ever mentions again, perhaps they decided it was too risky as it clearly would do more than just wipe out the enemy. The accents are pure pantomime and Cutler's clearly a nutjob who wouldn't have passed the psychoanalysis to get the job. It's amazing how a short rapid vent can get so much out of the system.
Now, for something rare, there are things about Tenth Planet that I really appreciate. So much so, that I wish there hadn't been another cyber story to ruin the legacy. Cybermen are our first contact and deeply significant in Earth's history. Thinking back to other stories there have been so far, the Doctor didn't know about the dalek invasion in the 22nd century which, you would think, would be a fairly major historical note. But before the cybermen even turn up, he knows exactly what's going to happen. I'm betting he even knows that Mondas goes pop. They land all over the world, they're on the International Television News and we're told that there are reports from all over the world. There's no escaping it (unless you're a fan author of the 90s onwards), this is first contact. It's almost confirmed in future stories. The cybermen are also quite "realistic" in that they're clothed in bandages and still have a few humanoid style traits such as opening their mouths to speak. They've had emotions removed for some reason though and I think this is where my lack of understanding comes in. I don't see this as a big advantage. Not entirely sure why, I think it's because I see the need to survive as a vaguely emotional thing. If the cybermen are controlled by "logic" (and I don't actually remember the cybermen being described as beings of pure logic in this one) then I don't really see any logic in the need to keep going. That, to me, is a definite emotional need. Their massive susceptibility to radiation really should have been sorted (and yes, that's definitely in a future post).
From this story, and this story alone, I can see why the cybermen were memorable. But then again I can see why Zarbi were and they never came back (outside of the printed page). My main issue with Tenth Planet is simply that it's a bloody awful story with some utterly abysmal science in it and very little Doctor Who. It's possibly the first Doctor-lite plot. I wonder if it's where a certain RTD got the idea. Anyway, I'll concede that the cybermen ARE impressive in this one. Just a shame they're about the only memorable thing in the story. Well, apart from the obvious of course.
Attack on the Cybermen - Intro
I have a weirdly wired brain. You’ll notice that a lot. One of the many things I really don’t like (along with chavs, a lot of politicians and reality TV) is not understanding something. Actually, looking back over the list of things I don’t like then there’s definitely a theme of not understanding in there. Except dentists. I hate dentists and understand them perfectly. They’re sadists who get paid for a living.
I’m waffling, get used to it.
Anyway, something that’s always baffled me is the popularity of the cybermen. Everyone always gets really excited when they return and everyone constantly raves about them and people always seem to hold them in high regard as monsters. Yet the thought of them coming back time and time again really isn’t one that gets me going. I really don’t like this and so I’m going to try and change it. To do this I’m going to force myself to watch all the cyberman stories (in order) and yes, I’ll be doing recons or soundtracks of the missing ones. I won’t try and do it as though it’s the first time I’ve seen them, I’ll let my mind wander forward as and when it needs to or wants to, though I don’t pretend that when it wanders forward it’ll do so accurately. I won’t be referring to the audios or the novels just yet, but I will probably end up looking at the new series episodes. Even though that would mean watching them again, which is something I’m looking forward to less than sitting through The Wheel in Space.
So, that’s the plan. And if you know me, you’ll know what I’m like with plans.
That gulp of horror you just heard was me realising what the first story I’d have to watch was…
Thursday, 24 February 2011
The Ark
Sorry, you weren't expecting me to post about Who in any sort of order were you?
This also isn't a review of the DVD, more some random comments on the story. Mostly along the lines of "Well that got written out of continuity pretty damn thoroughly didn't it?"
Oh yes, I'm also not going to claim that these postings are particularly well researched or entirely accurate...
So anyway, having watched the DVD (great restoration) and actually watched it whilst in a vaguely concentrating mood, I've come to the conclusion that at some point this must have been pretty effectively written out of time. It's supposed to be set far into the future (yet not quite so far as Frontios which is at the limits of how far forward the TARDIS is allowed to allegedly go) yet the implication is that humans haven't ever really settled on other planets as they've not found suitable ones. The Earth is about to be destroyed by the Sun going bang (though it's not clear whether this is the change from main sequence to red giant* or some other solar activity) and so humanity has hopped into a spaceship (along with their ever so loveable Monoid chums, on which I'll comment in a bit) and is heading off for Refusis Two. Now, up to this point we hadn't seen loads of other human colonies. The Sensorites had humans trying to land on other planets but that was only the 28th Century and the planets were already inhabited and The Keys of Marinus had shown us planets that could, quite clearly, support human life but we hadn't had an indication of mankind only settling on one other planet. However, in future stories we've got things like the Daleks' Master Plan (where we even have penal colonies), Power of the Daleks (near future colonies on other planets) and Colony in Space where we have colonies. Out in space.
As fond as I am of The Ark, it's only really re-watching it this evening that I've realised it doesn't sit particularly well with the rest of the series in terms of what we know about Earth's future. Then again, very little of the series sits particularly well with the rest of it. Then along came Eccleston and all continuity went out of the window anyway.
Oh yes, the Monoids. I knew I was going to mention something else. One-eyed creatures with a wibbly walk and bad hair. One day I hope there's a Who story set in some distant space lab where mad scientists are trying to make the ultimate life form. All their trial runs get discarded and chucked into the time vortex where they get dropped on random planets, that's pretty much the only way something like the Monoid could have come into existance. You try living and working as a servant with no depth perception. Not to mention a low enough IQ to come up with the concept of a security kitchen.
So there, The Ark, a story that I am genuinely quite fond of but only when viewed outside of the context of the rest of Doctor Who. Sometimes I wish I could switch my brain off for the rest of Doctor Who as well. I'm sure, in coming months, you'll realise that all my brain ever seems to want to do is rip every story to shreds.
This also isn't a review of the DVD, more some random comments on the story. Mostly along the lines of "Well that got written out of continuity pretty damn thoroughly didn't it?"
Oh yes, I'm also not going to claim that these postings are particularly well researched or entirely accurate...
So anyway, having watched the DVD (great restoration) and actually watched it whilst in a vaguely concentrating mood, I've come to the conclusion that at some point this must have been pretty effectively written out of time. It's supposed to be set far into the future (yet not quite so far as Frontios which is at the limits of how far forward the TARDIS is allowed to allegedly go) yet the implication is that humans haven't ever really settled on other planets as they've not found suitable ones. The Earth is about to be destroyed by the Sun going bang (though it's not clear whether this is the change from main sequence to red giant* or some other solar activity) and so humanity has hopped into a spaceship (along with their ever so loveable Monoid chums, on which I'll comment in a bit) and is heading off for Refusis Two. Now, up to this point we hadn't seen loads of other human colonies. The Sensorites had humans trying to land on other planets but that was only the 28th Century and the planets were already inhabited and The Keys of Marinus had shown us planets that could, quite clearly, support human life but we hadn't had an indication of mankind only settling on one other planet. However, in future stories we've got things like the Daleks' Master Plan (where we even have penal colonies), Power of the Daleks (near future colonies on other planets) and Colony in Space where we have colonies. Out in space.
As fond as I am of The Ark, it's only really re-watching it this evening that I've realised it doesn't sit particularly well with the rest of the series in terms of what we know about Earth's future. Then again, very little of the series sits particularly well with the rest of it. Then along came Eccleston and all continuity went out of the window anyway.
Oh yes, the Monoids. I knew I was going to mention something else. One-eyed creatures with a wibbly walk and bad hair. One day I hope there's a Who story set in some distant space lab where mad scientists are trying to make the ultimate life form. All their trial runs get discarded and chucked into the time vortex where they get dropped on random planets, that's pretty much the only way something like the Monoid could have come into existance. You try living and working as a servant with no depth perception. Not to mention a low enough IQ to come up with the concept of a security kitchen.
So there, The Ark, a story that I am genuinely quite fond of but only when viewed outside of the context of the rest of Doctor Who. Sometimes I wish I could switch my brain off for the rest of Doctor Who as well. I'm sure, in coming months, you'll realise that all my brain ever seems to want to do is rip every story to shreds.
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