Alrighty, story two of season five and the short version is - SOOOOOOOOO much better than "The Eleventh Hour". Not perfect (though brilliantly charming in its own way) with only one real criticism and a performance from Mr Smith that could almost have been the Doctor...
Firstly we get a cold opener that's actually relevant to the whole story. As you may have gathered from the previous episode, there was a certain amount of showing off (some of which gets repeated in this one) but this is a classy opener which has relevance later on. It also has, sadly, a continuity error in that in the upwards looking shot just before the floor opens you can clearly see the smiler with its teeth showing and THEN the head rotates to show the teeth. Sadly, on the DVD release, this is then followed by the more traditional rendition of the theme music complete with crappy sounding lightning effects. Oh so tempting to lift one of the versions off YouTube where someone with talent and/or too much time on their hands has put better music to the visuals. Or indeed, put better music to better visuals. Anything other than the candy floss tunnel of fear.
Matt Smith plays the Doctor in an almost Sylvester McCoy like professorial manner with Amy very much as his protege. The relationship between them is quite watchable in this one (because Amy spends most of it in a state of shock and doesn't get irritatingly bossy at any point) and the opening where she's floating around outside the TARDIS really is quite sweet. It's just as well that Starship UK is very much based on the twentieth century model of England otherwise who knows how badly shocked she would have been. The starship idea is a brilliant one, utterly Doctor Who in its ridiculousness but played brilliantly straight by everyone concerned and it's realised superbly on the screen. The smilers are a well realised menace (even if the third face appearing out of nowhere doesn't work in my mind but ho hum, that's just my mind for you) but you do have to wonder just how crap the next few hundred years of living are if the 1950s are seen as the golden age. Amy gets attacked by a tendril (again) and we get closeups of eyes as people have flashbacks (again). At least it's not the Doctor this time but it's weird how we've now had two stories with very similar themes in a row (things being masked by perception). One big question that gets raised though (and I don't recall ever being answered) is about Amy's marital status. Is this supposed to foreshadow Rory's disappearance from time later in the season because surely, if Rory goes, then she either marries someone else or just remains a kissogram for the rest of her life?
It's not the most subtle of stories (with the Doctor's line about voting every five years and forgetting everything you've learned) but that's not my main problem. My main issue is with the ending. The Doctor comes VERY close to making a monumental cockup and Amy is the one who saves the day. Now, if I'm being charitable then I could put this down to the Doctor only having regenerated a day or so previously and thus not being fully functional but it still seems very odd for the Doctor to get it so categorically wrong. If someone wants to tell me other times he's been quite so incorrect I'd love to know because I can't think of many times he's been this close to catastrophe.
So, if I'm being charitable (and I'm having a good day today so I will be) then I'll put the Doctor's error down to post regenerative stress syndrome and say that this is a story that's almost infinitely better than Eleventh Hour. It still has a gross out scene involving food but this time it's relevant to the plot. It's well acted by everyone, it doesn't have quite such cheap looking CGI and it has a cliffhanger ending that makes the next story look really good. See, it's amazing how much crap you can disguise if you really want as, of course, it's Victory of the Daleks next... still, The Beast Below was good whilst it lasted :)
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Friday, 15 April 2011
The Impossible Countdown - The Eleventh Hour
I survived the cybermen so I thought I'd put myself through the wringer once more and try and get through season five (Matt Smith version) before the start of season six part one (or whatever it's being called). People who know me will know that I wasn't the biggest fan of the season when it aired. People who know me will also know that's something of an understatement. I really didn't like it with a capital REALLY. However, so that I give season six a fairer chance it's probably a wise idea if I revisit season 5 and see if my opinion of it has changed (I've changed myself quite a bit since then so it could potentially be interesting). It also might help me get my brain around what allegedly happened at the end of it. So, starting with the Eleventh Hour...
Short version... make it "The Eleventh Forty Five Minutes" and I might like it. The middle of it is an alright episode but there's so much extraneous crud in there that it detracts from anything worthy. Starting with the pre-credits sequence which seems to have little (if anything) to do with the main episode. Basically it's the team wanting to show off at the start and, to me, well it just doesn't quite work. Especially as there's enough time jumping around in the episode itself without an extra time period at the start (we're clearly post 2000 in the pre-credits thanks to the buildings shown). The spike to the balls joke also suggests we're once more aiming at kids rather than adults... First trim I'd make, get rid of the fly over and start with the young Amelia praying (a superb performance through the episode) and end it with the Doctor's appearance out of the TARDIS. "Can I have an apple" being a very unexpected line to start the theme on.
Oh dear goddess, the theme. Thankfully I watched this one from the DVD which doesn't have the lightning effects all over it, thus making it marginally less painful to listen to. I remember sitting in horror at this disco fanfared version and it's still not really grown on me. It's just a damn good job the effects aren't on top of it on the DVD. And the visuals... let's just say that I'm sure I've seen it before on a colonoscopy. Anyway, back to the plot and one of the most abhorrent scenes I can remember in a long time. The "spitting out the food sequence". I hated it. I still hate it. I think it's an abominable scene that I wouldn't just take a cutting blade to, I'd take blades, flame throwers and acid to it just to get rid of it. First impressions are important and this set the eleventh Doctor up as a rude, vulgar and unpleasant person to panders to racial stereotypes. An abomination that I deeply wish had never made the final show.
The crack then appears properly. Here it's presented as a join between two bits of the universe that shouldn't ever be pushed together. Yes, it then also appears on the TARDIS scanner (more of which later), but it seems to be closed up when the Doctor does his usual wafting of the sonic screwdriver. A very Tennanty wafting. Which is the main problem with a lot of this episode. Smith is playing a second rate Tennant. The dialogue mostly sounds Tennant, there's Tennant in the mannerisms and, although I'm sure it's not the case, there's the air of "we wrote it for Tennant and changed it at the last minute" about things. Except the production values, they're sub Tennant. When the snake Prisoner Zero observes Amy the green screen work looks exceptionally cheap and I just sat there thinking "What is this, the rough cut?".
Sad geek that I am, I made a mental note of when the Doctor first said twenty minutes to death. Give the production team their credit, when the Doctor saves things and says there were two minutes to spare, there really were two minutes to spare. However, the preceding shots don't feel as though they flow uninterrupted. It feels very much like a condensed set of shots and my brain just can't see them as having taken eighteen minutes to complete in real time. Some of the shots also feel as though they're trying to build up to something that we never see. A big thing is made of the duck-less duck pond. Jeff feels as though he's going to become important. Annette Crosby feels as though she should come back in a future episode... but none of this ever gets brought back. Thankfully something else that doesn't come back is the "Doctor's Point of View" sequence. That's another huge no no when it comes to Who. The Doctor's the mysterious one, I don't want to see things from his side, I want to be amazed by him. The almost stop motion sequence did nothing for me and I'm glad that it never came back.
Next issue is the whole virus thing. Yes, it's a neat way of doing it BUT it's one of those things where you've got to think "What were the consequences?" You've re-set all the counters in the world to zero (except for the ones needed to artistically animate big 0s on every handy display screen) which must have done some damage somewhere in the world. Plus there's no indication that the Doctor gives out the cure to it as well.
In the monster clip show, we get a whole load of aliens who have invaded the Earth along with the Ood and it looked like the fishy people thingies from "The Doctor's Daughter". Setting the scene for something ahead?
Two more things that I still don't like about this episode. Firstly, Prisoner Zero clearly has knowledge of both the Pandorica and the Silence. Now, I know at this stage we're not supposed to know what they are (though when it was first shown I really didn't like the sledgehammer subtlety with which the season's arc was introduced!) and when I finally make it to Pandorica/Big Bang then I'll be revisiting this to work out just how Prisoner Zero could have known, if it should have known at all. And finally... the TARDIS console room. Bleugh. Just bleugh. When the TARDIS was supposed to have been the Doctor's home and rebuilt using whatever came to hand I could accept all the weirdness and cobbled nature of the console but here we're supposed to be seeing a console that the TARDIS itself rebuilt. The hot and cold taps, I think, were more than a step too far. My overall feeling of it was that they changed it because they knew they were going to be in HD but wanted to make it bigger than the previous one just because they could and with no real need to.
Overall, it wasn't as bad as I remembered it being. There are some good bits to it. But it feels as though it's a script that was originally going somewhere but got diverted without the original drafts being neatened up. And it needs a serious editing to get rid of some of the pointless and vulgar bits. An hour might be offered but if you've not got enough to fill it then you should decline for the sake of the programme and keep it much tighter. Still, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Then it'll get worse again and again and again...
Short version... make it "The Eleventh Forty Five Minutes" and I might like it. The middle of it is an alright episode but there's so much extraneous crud in there that it detracts from anything worthy. Starting with the pre-credits sequence which seems to have little (if anything) to do with the main episode. Basically it's the team wanting to show off at the start and, to me, well it just doesn't quite work. Especially as there's enough time jumping around in the episode itself without an extra time period at the start (we're clearly post 2000 in the pre-credits thanks to the buildings shown). The spike to the balls joke also suggests we're once more aiming at kids rather than adults... First trim I'd make, get rid of the fly over and start with the young Amelia praying (a superb performance through the episode) and end it with the Doctor's appearance out of the TARDIS. "Can I have an apple" being a very unexpected line to start the theme on.
Oh dear goddess, the theme. Thankfully I watched this one from the DVD which doesn't have the lightning effects all over it, thus making it marginally less painful to listen to. I remember sitting in horror at this disco fanfared version and it's still not really grown on me. It's just a damn good job the effects aren't on top of it on the DVD. And the visuals... let's just say that I'm sure I've seen it before on a colonoscopy. Anyway, back to the plot and one of the most abhorrent scenes I can remember in a long time. The "spitting out the food sequence". I hated it. I still hate it. I think it's an abominable scene that I wouldn't just take a cutting blade to, I'd take blades, flame throwers and acid to it just to get rid of it. First impressions are important and this set the eleventh Doctor up as a rude, vulgar and unpleasant person to panders to racial stereotypes. An abomination that I deeply wish had never made the final show.
The crack then appears properly. Here it's presented as a join between two bits of the universe that shouldn't ever be pushed together. Yes, it then also appears on the TARDIS scanner (more of which later), but it seems to be closed up when the Doctor does his usual wafting of the sonic screwdriver. A very Tennanty wafting. Which is the main problem with a lot of this episode. Smith is playing a second rate Tennant. The dialogue mostly sounds Tennant, there's Tennant in the mannerisms and, although I'm sure it's not the case, there's the air of "we wrote it for Tennant and changed it at the last minute" about things. Except the production values, they're sub Tennant. When the snake Prisoner Zero observes Amy the green screen work looks exceptionally cheap and I just sat there thinking "What is this, the rough cut?".
Sad geek that I am, I made a mental note of when the Doctor first said twenty minutes to death. Give the production team their credit, when the Doctor saves things and says there were two minutes to spare, there really were two minutes to spare. However, the preceding shots don't feel as though they flow uninterrupted. It feels very much like a condensed set of shots and my brain just can't see them as having taken eighteen minutes to complete in real time. Some of the shots also feel as though they're trying to build up to something that we never see. A big thing is made of the duck-less duck pond. Jeff feels as though he's going to become important. Annette Crosby feels as though she should come back in a future episode... but none of this ever gets brought back. Thankfully something else that doesn't come back is the "Doctor's Point of View" sequence. That's another huge no no when it comes to Who. The Doctor's the mysterious one, I don't want to see things from his side, I want to be amazed by him. The almost stop motion sequence did nothing for me and I'm glad that it never came back.
Next issue is the whole virus thing. Yes, it's a neat way of doing it BUT it's one of those things where you've got to think "What were the consequences?" You've re-set all the counters in the world to zero (except for the ones needed to artistically animate big 0s on every handy display screen) which must have done some damage somewhere in the world. Plus there's no indication that the Doctor gives out the cure to it as well.
In the monster clip show, we get a whole load of aliens who have invaded the Earth along with the Ood and it looked like the fishy people thingies from "The Doctor's Daughter". Setting the scene for something ahead?
Two more things that I still don't like about this episode. Firstly, Prisoner Zero clearly has knowledge of both the Pandorica and the Silence. Now, I know at this stage we're not supposed to know what they are (though when it was first shown I really didn't like the sledgehammer subtlety with which the season's arc was introduced!) and when I finally make it to Pandorica/Big Bang then I'll be revisiting this to work out just how Prisoner Zero could have known, if it should have known at all. And finally... the TARDIS console room. Bleugh. Just bleugh. When the TARDIS was supposed to have been the Doctor's home and rebuilt using whatever came to hand I could accept all the weirdness and cobbled nature of the console but here we're supposed to be seeing a console that the TARDIS itself rebuilt. The hot and cold taps, I think, were more than a step too far. My overall feeling of it was that they changed it because they knew they were going to be in HD but wanted to make it bigger than the previous one just because they could and with no real need to.
Overall, it wasn't as bad as I remembered it being. There are some good bits to it. But it feels as though it's a script that was originally going somewhere but got diverted without the original drafts being neatened up. And it needs a serious editing to get rid of some of the pointless and vulgar bits. An hour might be offered but if you've not got enough to fill it then you should decline for the sake of the programme and keep it much tighter. Still, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Then it'll get worse again and again and again...
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Good Who - Exhibit E
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.
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.
More non-Who silliness
I'm a huge fan of musical comedy. Two Ronnies, Tom Lehrer, Flanders and Swann and the Captiol Steps have all filled my life with fantastic hours of wit set to music. For the last two months as well I've been addicted to the Mitch Benn Music Podcast (if you don't know who Mitch Benn is then he's probably best known for his work on Radio 4's The Now Show*). http://www.mitchbenn.com/podcasts/ if you want a listen and believe me it's VERY worth a listen. In the latest one (number 8) there's a truly touching love song to Batman (look, just go listen to the podcast and it'll all become clear) and it gave me an idea for my own love song, to a love very close to my heart. There will be a lot more of this over the coming months, you've been warned.
*In the unlikely event that Mitch reads this and would rather he's better known for something else then let me know and I'll hit the edit button pronto!
I love it when I wake up
You’re there right next to me
Before I fell in love with you
I was blind, now I can see
It’s you that keeps me going
When the world gets in my face
You make me smile when I see you there
In my heart you have your place
My friends want me to leave you though
They say my love I must give up
They say they only do it to be kind
They’ve switched you for decaf in my cup.
What would I do without my caffeine?
How would I get through all my days?
It gives my strength it gives me joy
With its carbonated ways.
At first you were a casual fling
You were my red bull on the side.
Then I grew so close to you
Your energy filled me up with pride.
You introduced me to your partner
And vodka was her name
So I crave our every threesome
Because cola now just seems too tame.
I became a chocoholic
So my love for you could grow
To avoid the down once you were gone
I’d neck a double cappuccino.
What would I do without my caffeine?
How would I get through all my days?
It gives my strength it gives me joy
With its carbonated ways.
QI tells me that you’re my best friend
As you help fight off suicide
I’m a total caffeine addict
I couldn’t leave you if I tried
My friends want me to hit rehab
They’re making me go cold turkey
But I have to see you one last time
Get you right inside of me
So I’m standing at the station
I know how hard you’ve hit my health
But I now know you’re out of my league
You’ve priced yourself right off my shelf.
How will I live without my caffeine?
How will I get through all my days?
But close on two pounds per can of pure evil
With its carbonated ways.
Yes how will I live without my caffeine?
How will I get through all my days?
I can’t afford you in my life…
Let’s see if prostitution pays.
Monday, 11 April 2011
Attack on the Cybermen 09 - Silver Nemesis
And so it comes to this... the final, original run cybermen story. Eight tales behind them to learn mistakes from, three episodes in which to have a tightly paced, intricately plotted adventure that restores the cybermen to the status of classic that fandom thinks they deserve. Well I can dream can't I? Silver Nemesis is, as transmitted, one of the worst stories of the original run. In its extended, VHS form, it's one of the worst stories of the original run only slightly longer. Which is a shame as, at its heart, there's a simple and elegant narrative trying to get out.
The first half of the first episode is fairly respectable. Jumping around between time zones (something the TV series never really seemed to try and do) it's quite fun trying to work out just how all the strands are going to come together. Lady Peinforte comes across as nicely ruthless, the Nazis come across as Nazis and the Doctor's enjoying jazz in shirt sleeves in November (oh for a heatwave like that, maybe we've just joined them after an adventure where an experimental weather control device warmed everything up and... nah, can't let myself get too imaginative :) ). Ace's new tape deck is certainly an "interesting" idea and in no way is it an obvious way to avoid having to use the interior of the TARDIS. Not at all. There's a fez (mercifully briefly) and time travel with magic, maths and disco lights. To be honest, had they kept it as this then the story might have been salvageable, even with the weird stuff involving the royal guards (that makes no sense because the punchline bits were edited out of transmission). But no, they had to bring the cybermen in as the cliffhanger to episode one. Bright, glistening, silver effect cybermen. Hello cybermen, goodbye continuity.
It's 1988, two years after the events of Tenth Planet and an unspecified but slightly longer amount of time since Invasion. The futuristic cybermen are from the errrr future. There's no real indication of where these cybermen are from, where the massive cyberfleet has appeared from (is it supposed to be some sort of evacuation fleet from Mondas, in which case why aren't we getting the original cybermen design) or if these are cybermen who have somehow come back from the future to warn the Attack cybermen that their plan isn't going to work and thus erase the events of Attack from the timeline rather than the events of Tenth Planet. They're NOT defeated by bullets (so they're not the same design as Attack who didn't do so well up against pistols and lead piping) but they're the most reactive cybermen to gold we've ever seen. The Revenge cybermen and the Earthshock cybermen groaned, vomited a bit and then collapsed to the ground whereas these cybermen explode in showers of sparks. Weirdly the gold seems to penetrate them even when it's just a coin from a catapult yet bullets bounce off them which suggests that it's no longer a "it's clogging up my breathing apparatus and I'm suffocating" thing, more a... nope, can't actually think what it is! Anyway, the cybermen are seriously susceptible to gold and, at the end, jets of flame.
Episode two is also the start of the very obvious padding bits. In this one it's the skinheads, in part three it's an American tourist. Edit those two chunks out and you might go some way to making this a vaguely watchable 50 minute story. Did no one sit down and look at this and go "this really doesn't need to be in there, why don't we put some actual plot in instead"? Clearly not. Did anyone look at the actions of the cybermen and think "is this how cybermen behave normally?", again seemingly not. We have cybermen speaking out of turn, being told off by the cyberleader (who's clearly a bit fed up about it which would suggest emotion) and, more importantly, there's the distinct impression that the cybermen are now, once more, individuals. They out logic each other, they don't all seem to have the same programming. Gone are the ideas of cyberplanners and carefully thought out schemes with backup plans. Here it feels as though the cybermen are flying by the seat of their flight suit pants. Episode three also has them completely reduced to being so incompetent they can't shoot Ace when she's standing still (yet she can get them with a catapult first go!) and it's a sorry end for the cyber army. Conned by the same trick that Davros fell for just a month or two previously.
Someone should have taken this script to one side and simply crossed out the word cybermen, substituting it with some generic villain. The sontarans could have been good, admittedly Ace would have had to have been a VERY good shot with the coins to get their probic vents but I'm sure something could have been concocted. At least they'd have a vague way of knowing about the Time Lord weapon having actually been on Gallifrey at one point. Or take out the aliens altogether, leave it as a triangle of Doctor, Nazi and mad woman. Instead, everything that we've learned about the cybermen is pretty much thrown out of the window and their presence is explained simply as "It's the silver anniversary story, the cybermen are silver..." 22 years of mythos down the pan. Still, credit where credit is due, the story DOES try and relaunch some of the mystery about the Doctor. Given how much everyone in the universe seems to know about him and his people (as witnessed in Attack of the Cybermen) it's a much needed hint of things to come. As is the ongoing chessgame in the story. Silver Nemesis could have been the best thing to happen to Doctor Who in a very long time. Instead we got an ill conceived mess which, if I had my way, would meet the same fate as such a large proportion of cyber episodes. Someone pass me a match, there might still be time.
The first half of the first episode is fairly respectable. Jumping around between time zones (something the TV series never really seemed to try and do) it's quite fun trying to work out just how all the strands are going to come together. Lady Peinforte comes across as nicely ruthless, the Nazis come across as Nazis and the Doctor's enjoying jazz in shirt sleeves in November (oh for a heatwave like that, maybe we've just joined them after an adventure where an experimental weather control device warmed everything up and... nah, can't let myself get too imaginative :) ). Ace's new tape deck is certainly an "interesting" idea and in no way is it an obvious way to avoid having to use the interior of the TARDIS. Not at all. There's a fez (mercifully briefly) and time travel with magic, maths and disco lights. To be honest, had they kept it as this then the story might have been salvageable, even with the weird stuff involving the royal guards (that makes no sense because the punchline bits were edited out of transmission). But no, they had to bring the cybermen in as the cliffhanger to episode one. Bright, glistening, silver effect cybermen. Hello cybermen, goodbye continuity.
It's 1988, two years after the events of Tenth Planet and an unspecified but slightly longer amount of time since Invasion. The futuristic cybermen are from the errrr future. There's no real indication of where these cybermen are from, where the massive cyberfleet has appeared from (is it supposed to be some sort of evacuation fleet from Mondas, in which case why aren't we getting the original cybermen design) or if these are cybermen who have somehow come back from the future to warn the Attack cybermen that their plan isn't going to work and thus erase the events of Attack from the timeline rather than the events of Tenth Planet. They're NOT defeated by bullets (so they're not the same design as Attack who didn't do so well up against pistols and lead piping) but they're the most reactive cybermen to gold we've ever seen. The Revenge cybermen and the Earthshock cybermen groaned, vomited a bit and then collapsed to the ground whereas these cybermen explode in showers of sparks. Weirdly the gold seems to penetrate them even when it's just a coin from a catapult yet bullets bounce off them which suggests that it's no longer a "it's clogging up my breathing apparatus and I'm suffocating" thing, more a... nope, can't actually think what it is! Anyway, the cybermen are seriously susceptible to gold and, at the end, jets of flame.
Episode two is also the start of the very obvious padding bits. In this one it's the skinheads, in part three it's an American tourist. Edit those two chunks out and you might go some way to making this a vaguely watchable 50 minute story. Did no one sit down and look at this and go "this really doesn't need to be in there, why don't we put some actual plot in instead"? Clearly not. Did anyone look at the actions of the cybermen and think "is this how cybermen behave normally?", again seemingly not. We have cybermen speaking out of turn, being told off by the cyberleader (who's clearly a bit fed up about it which would suggest emotion) and, more importantly, there's the distinct impression that the cybermen are now, once more, individuals. They out logic each other, they don't all seem to have the same programming. Gone are the ideas of cyberplanners and carefully thought out schemes with backup plans. Here it feels as though the cybermen are flying by the seat of their flight suit pants. Episode three also has them completely reduced to being so incompetent they can't shoot Ace when she's standing still (yet she can get them with a catapult first go!) and it's a sorry end for the cyber army. Conned by the same trick that Davros fell for just a month or two previously.
Someone should have taken this script to one side and simply crossed out the word cybermen, substituting it with some generic villain. The sontarans could have been good, admittedly Ace would have had to have been a VERY good shot with the coins to get their probic vents but I'm sure something could have been concocted. At least they'd have a vague way of knowing about the Time Lord weapon having actually been on Gallifrey at one point. Or take out the aliens altogether, leave it as a triangle of Doctor, Nazi and mad woman. Instead, everything that we've learned about the cybermen is pretty much thrown out of the window and their presence is explained simply as "It's the silver anniversary story, the cybermen are silver..." 22 years of mythos down the pan. Still, credit where credit is due, the story DOES try and relaunch some of the mystery about the Doctor. Given how much everyone in the universe seems to know about him and his people (as witnessed in Attack of the Cybermen) it's a much needed hint of things to come. As is the ongoing chessgame in the story. Silver Nemesis could have been the best thing to happen to Doctor Who in a very long time. Instead we got an ill conceived mess which, if I had my way, would meet the same fate as such a large proportion of cyber episodes. Someone pass me a match, there might still be time.
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Attack on the Cybermen 08 - Attack of the Cybermen
I really thought that, by this story, we'd had more cybermen tales in the series. However, given that this one lifts and borrows from most of the others it just makes it feel as though we've had twice as many. With so many things pinched and reworked from other stories, it's no wonder that this one feels a right mess.
Okay, the cyber plan is "simple". Go back in time (using stolen time technology) and stop Mondas being destroyed by making Haley's comet slam into the Earth. The Doctor recognises this as catastrophic. Peri sees this as a pretty bad move. The cryons (oh so tempting to add an extra "a" into that word) aren't too sure it's a wise move... yet the cybermen don't seem to have a problem with a paradoxical change to the web of time on a cataclysmic scale. However as they also seem to know a great deal about the time lords, piloting the TARDIS and other odds and ends about which they were previously clueless, the first question has to be "where did they get their knowledge?" The precise dating of this story (well, the Telos sections anyway) are a little hard to place. They seem to be the same design as the Earthshock cybermen (even though the controller should be the Tomb design) but not quite the Revenge design. I'm wondering if there are off camera adventures involving the cybermen in which they pick up all their 80s knowledge of all things "time". Speaking of off camera knowledge, given the Doctor barely met Lytton in "Resurrection of the Daleks", just how is he so familiar with him here? So yes, the plan's a bit of a suicidal one that only the cybermen think is a good one. We won't be chalking it up to a mastery of logic and lacking in emotions (check out the two cybermen who run from the explosion at the very end by the way, they're DEFINITELY showing emotion... and campness).
Right then, which bits have we had pinched wholesale?
Tenth Planet - the Mondas "plot"
Moonbase - actually nothing specific seems to have been stolen from this one
Tomb - well it's set in Cyber tombs BUT they're clearly not the same ones from Tomb of the Cybermen and they seem to be serving a different purpose. However, they're clearly referred to as the tombs so we have to assume that the production team intended it to be a reference (hence the controller)
Wheel - the stupidly insane plot's a tribute to Wheel in Space's masterpiece of bad science
Invasion - the sewers and the ship on the dark side of the moon
Revenge - the double dealing traitor and the race that's supposed to have died out
Earthshock - well most of this story was pinched from earlier ones anyway...
The main problem is I spent most of episode one waiting for things to start. It felt as though it was the plot of a 25 minute opening episode stretched out to 45 with the aid of running around corridors (sorry, streets this time and sewers), gratuitous shots of cybermen being destroyed (this story presents them at their weakest with a new method of killing them turning up nearly every ten minutes in episode one!) and Peri jiggling. There were a few nice lines ("You said you came from Fulham") and one of my favourite pieces of music being used as the incidental music (no, not the Steptoe theme) but all in all the first 45 minutes just left me thinking "this is an utter mess of continuity errors". The errors are right through the first episode up to the closing seconds where the console room doors magically close themselves instantly (Peri goes to close them, the lever explodes, the cybermen march in and then suddenly they're closed). With the Mondas plot kicking in in part two things just get worse and worse... By the end of the second episode I'd reached the point of wanting it to be over just to stop the assault on my mind. Too many things coming from the screen that didn't make sense (along with the disappointment of seeing how badly dated all the circuitry behind the roundels in the TARDIS looks) and too many heart sinking moments as the cybermen get dispatched with so many conventional weapons. Yes, they've never been indestructible but when it gets reduced to a solid thwack with a piece of pipe you know things have gone too far.
Attack of the Cybermen highlights the problems that the series was having in the 80s. Thankfully most of Colin's other stories rise massively above this one but as a season opener, as a cyber story and as an attempt at a continuity fest it fails on almost every level. As a needlessly violent way to put flashes and bangs on the screen though....
Okay, the cyber plan is "simple". Go back in time (using stolen time technology) and stop Mondas being destroyed by making Haley's comet slam into the Earth. The Doctor recognises this as catastrophic. Peri sees this as a pretty bad move. The cryons (oh so tempting to add an extra "a" into that word) aren't too sure it's a wise move... yet the cybermen don't seem to have a problem with a paradoxical change to the web of time on a cataclysmic scale. However as they also seem to know a great deal about the time lords, piloting the TARDIS and other odds and ends about which they were previously clueless, the first question has to be "where did they get their knowledge?" The precise dating of this story (well, the Telos sections anyway) are a little hard to place. They seem to be the same design as the Earthshock cybermen (even though the controller should be the Tomb design) but not quite the Revenge design. I'm wondering if there are off camera adventures involving the cybermen in which they pick up all their 80s knowledge of all things "time". Speaking of off camera knowledge, given the Doctor barely met Lytton in "Resurrection of the Daleks", just how is he so familiar with him here? So yes, the plan's a bit of a suicidal one that only the cybermen think is a good one. We won't be chalking it up to a mastery of logic and lacking in emotions (check out the two cybermen who run from the explosion at the very end by the way, they're DEFINITELY showing emotion... and campness).
Right then, which bits have we had pinched wholesale?
Tenth Planet - the Mondas "plot"
Moonbase - actually nothing specific seems to have been stolen from this one
Tomb - well it's set in Cyber tombs BUT they're clearly not the same ones from Tomb of the Cybermen and they seem to be serving a different purpose. However, they're clearly referred to as the tombs so we have to assume that the production team intended it to be a reference (hence the controller)
Wheel - the stupidly insane plot's a tribute to Wheel in Space's masterpiece of bad science
Invasion - the sewers and the ship on the dark side of the moon
Revenge - the double dealing traitor and the race that's supposed to have died out
Earthshock - well most of this story was pinched from earlier ones anyway...
The main problem is I spent most of episode one waiting for things to start. It felt as though it was the plot of a 25 minute opening episode stretched out to 45 with the aid of running around corridors (sorry, streets this time and sewers), gratuitous shots of cybermen being destroyed (this story presents them at their weakest with a new method of killing them turning up nearly every ten minutes in episode one!) and Peri jiggling. There were a few nice lines ("You said you came from Fulham") and one of my favourite pieces of music being used as the incidental music (no, not the Steptoe theme) but all in all the first 45 minutes just left me thinking "this is an utter mess of continuity errors". The errors are right through the first episode up to the closing seconds where the console room doors magically close themselves instantly (Peri goes to close them, the lever explodes, the cybermen march in and then suddenly they're closed). With the Mondas plot kicking in in part two things just get worse and worse... By the end of the second episode I'd reached the point of wanting it to be over just to stop the assault on my mind. Too many things coming from the screen that didn't make sense (along with the disappointment of seeing how badly dated all the circuitry behind the roundels in the TARDIS looks) and too many heart sinking moments as the cybermen get dispatched with so many conventional weapons. Yes, they've never been indestructible but when it gets reduced to a solid thwack with a piece of pipe you know things have gone too far.
Attack of the Cybermen highlights the problems that the series was having in the 80s. Thankfully most of Colin's other stories rise massively above this one but as a season opener, as a cyber story and as an attempt at a continuity fest it fails on almost every level. As a needlessly violent way to put flashes and bangs on the screen though....
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Good Who - Exhibit D
Can you tell I'm putting off watching Attack of the Cybermen? :)
Anyway, after a rough few days (short version, I've been ill, long version, I've been ILL) I thought I'd make a start on Revisitations 2 as an excuse to head back to another wonderfully daffy story from the stables of Who. You may, in time, notice a theme about the stories I like, there's an element of silliness to them and this one combines frothiness with potentially a very bleak ending (more of which in time). Yup, it's spring and in need of a colourful boost I started with "Carnival of Monsters".
In the extras, Terrance Dicks describes Robert Holmes as the best writer Doctor Who had. To be honest, I can't think of any way to dispute this (even if you include The Space Pirates) and Carnival really highlights everything that is good about "great" Who. There's the great plot based mystery set up in the opening episode (how does 1926 tie in with an alien world) along with unexpected dinosaur attacks (do you know, I don't even object to the special effects!), some absolutely toppingly spiffing 1920s acting (Ian Marter essentially using this as an audition piece for the role of Harry a season or two later) and a Doctor who is as baffled as we are, even with the extra clues he spots for himself. On the alien world you've got Vorg and Shirna (more faultless performances) along with the grey-but-scheming officials (slightly dodgy bald wigs but otherwise superb). Anyone watching episode one must have marvelled at the combination only for episode two to throw in marshland, a circuit board runaround and the most fearsome glove puppets the show would ever see. Yes, I do actually think the Drashigs look good. There, I've said it. Quite frankly there aren't many other things this story could throw into the mix though, with budget, I'm sure there would be things they'd find. Oh yes, we get a cyberman as well.
I'm not saying the story is faultless. The production subtitles do point out a few problems with scale in this story (namely how everything fits in the scope given the information we've got about various sizes) but, with this being such a charming story, my brain simply rationalises it as "Well everything's got a different compression depending on where it is in the scope". Drashigs get quite a bit of compression because they're thick, humans get virtually lossless compression and Vorg's hand just changes its size depending on which part of the system its in. Relative dimensions and all that waffle. Yes, the puppet work isn't seamless but it is damn fine given the era and the budget (by the end of episode two most other shows would have given up by now and gone "let's just go back to the earth based stories again, shall we?") and the masks on the functionaries are ummmmm a little cheap looking but who cares? This is Carnival of Monsters and you get what the name suggests. It's a side show full of diversion to keep you away from looking at the mechanics too much. Slightly dodgy shot of the drashig? Never mind, it's followed by slick dialogue and nifty plot twists so you forget you saw it. Until you get to the ending...
I'm in two minds about the ending and even on a day when my spirits are high I still have nagging doubts. You see this could be (and I do say could, not definitely is) the bleakest ending to any Doctor Who story. The SS Bernice went missing on April 4th 1926 according to the Doctor, an incident that made it as famous as the Marie Celeste. Only at the end of the story the ship's returned to the Earth as though it had never been away. So you've got two choices, an upbeat happy one or a heartbreaking one. Option one is the upbeat one. The ship really has been returned to the Earth and the Doctor has, essentially, completely changed time. Large numbers of people are alive that now shouldn't be and who knows what effect it will have on things (perhaps this is one of the reasons that the Who universe is so different to our own?). Option two... the ship got returned and the crew settle down for the night having finished their books and had one last gin. But the ship shouldn't be back on the earth and the web of time needs preserving. Somewhere between nightfall and Singapore something must happen to the ship to ensure that time isn't changed. Tidal wave? Lone dinosaur? Who knows but, if you believe that time can't be changed then "Carnival of Monsters" has to have the more tragic ending where even though the Doctor got the ship back to the earth, something else lay in wait for it.
Carnival of Monsters is an upbeat, highly colourful and extremely flamboyant example of Who at its showmanlike best. I've loved this story since I saw it on the Five Faces re-run and dread the day I don't enjoy watching it.
Anyway, after a rough few days (short version, I've been ill, long version, I've been ILL) I thought I'd make a start on Revisitations 2 as an excuse to head back to another wonderfully daffy story from the stables of Who. You may, in time, notice a theme about the stories I like, there's an element of silliness to them and this one combines frothiness with potentially a very bleak ending (more of which in time). Yup, it's spring and in need of a colourful boost I started with "Carnival of Monsters".
In the extras, Terrance Dicks describes Robert Holmes as the best writer Doctor Who had. To be honest, I can't think of any way to dispute this (even if you include The Space Pirates) and Carnival really highlights everything that is good about "great" Who. There's the great plot based mystery set up in the opening episode (how does 1926 tie in with an alien world) along with unexpected dinosaur attacks (do you know, I don't even object to the special effects!), some absolutely toppingly spiffing 1920s acting (Ian Marter essentially using this as an audition piece for the role of Harry a season or two later) and a Doctor who is as baffled as we are, even with the extra clues he spots for himself. On the alien world you've got Vorg and Shirna (more faultless performances) along with the grey-but-scheming officials (slightly dodgy bald wigs but otherwise superb). Anyone watching episode one must have marvelled at the combination only for episode two to throw in marshland, a circuit board runaround and the most fearsome glove puppets the show would ever see. Yes, I do actually think the Drashigs look good. There, I've said it. Quite frankly there aren't many other things this story could throw into the mix though, with budget, I'm sure there would be things they'd find. Oh yes, we get a cyberman as well.
I'm not saying the story is faultless. The production subtitles do point out a few problems with scale in this story (namely how everything fits in the scope given the information we've got about various sizes) but, with this being such a charming story, my brain simply rationalises it as "Well everything's got a different compression depending on where it is in the scope". Drashigs get quite a bit of compression because they're thick, humans get virtually lossless compression and Vorg's hand just changes its size depending on which part of the system its in. Relative dimensions and all that waffle. Yes, the puppet work isn't seamless but it is damn fine given the era and the budget (by the end of episode two most other shows would have given up by now and gone "let's just go back to the earth based stories again, shall we?") and the masks on the functionaries are ummmmm a little cheap looking but who cares? This is Carnival of Monsters and you get what the name suggests. It's a side show full of diversion to keep you away from looking at the mechanics too much. Slightly dodgy shot of the drashig? Never mind, it's followed by slick dialogue and nifty plot twists so you forget you saw it. Until you get to the ending...
I'm in two minds about the ending and even on a day when my spirits are high I still have nagging doubts. You see this could be (and I do say could, not definitely is) the bleakest ending to any Doctor Who story. The SS Bernice went missing on April 4th 1926 according to the Doctor, an incident that made it as famous as the Marie Celeste. Only at the end of the story the ship's returned to the Earth as though it had never been away. So you've got two choices, an upbeat happy one or a heartbreaking one. Option one is the upbeat one. The ship really has been returned to the Earth and the Doctor has, essentially, completely changed time. Large numbers of people are alive that now shouldn't be and who knows what effect it will have on things (perhaps this is one of the reasons that the Who universe is so different to our own?). Option two... the ship got returned and the crew settle down for the night having finished their books and had one last gin. But the ship shouldn't be back on the earth and the web of time needs preserving. Somewhere between nightfall and Singapore something must happen to the ship to ensure that time isn't changed. Tidal wave? Lone dinosaur? Who knows but, if you believe that time can't be changed then "Carnival of Monsters" has to have the more tragic ending where even though the Doctor got the ship back to the earth, something else lay in wait for it.
Carnival of Monsters is an upbeat, highly colourful and extremely flamboyant example of Who at its showmanlike best. I've loved this story since I saw it on the Five Faces re-run and dread the day I don't enjoy watching it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)