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Horror, Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 28, 1970] Cinemascope: Just a Poe Boy (An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe, The Moebius Flip, Sole Survivor, and The Dunwich Horror)

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An author's headshot of a white woman with blonde pigtails.  She is wearing black glasses, a pale blue button-down shirt, a dark green vest, and a pendant on a chain necklace.
by Fiona Moore

An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe

An evening of Edgar Allan Poe is written across the top of the poster in yellow capitals on a black background.  The initial A and the word 'Poe' are written in a fancier, medieval-looking font.  The A and the P are superimposed over red squares.  The O in Poe has a drawing of a skull in it. Beneath the title, a color photograph of Vincent Price looking at the camera, cut off at the forehead where it intersects the title . A clock's hands are floating in front of his face.  The Roman numeral XII is projected across his forehead.  In the background there is the ghostly silhouette of what might either be a castle or some pine trees.Theatrical poster for An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe

An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe is an hour-long film in which four Edgar Allan Poe stories are recited by Vincent Price. Originally made as a television play (and in a way which suggests it was based on a theatrical production, albeit with the addition of some new visual effects), it’s reminiscent of the BBC’s A Ghost Story For Christmas segment, and I was recently asked to view it as a possible acquisition as a teaching tool by my university’s English Literature department.

A color film still of Vincent Price, wearing a white bow tie and black tails,and made up to look older with white hair and beard.  He is seated at a high-class dining table with a white tablecloth.  The room is dim and only the table and Price are clearly visible.  In front of Price there are a variety of bowls and dishes stacked up, and past them at the front of the frame is a fruit basket with grapes and bananas visible.  Two candelabra with three candles each sit one on either side of the fruit basket. Price appears to be gesticulating while speaking.
The Cask of Amontillado

The programme is split into four segments, in each of which Price recites a different Poe short story. Fairly predictably, these are “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Sphinx”, “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”. Each segment is performed with Price in character as the narrator of each story, with appropriate costuming and sets. Although Price does show a decent range in playing different characters, they’re all very much within Price’s repertoire as an actor, so, although none of the performances are bad, there are no real surprises to be had here.

A film still of Vincent Price, this time with dark fluffy hair and a van dyke beard. He is wearing a brown sport jacket over a brown plaid waistcoat with matching brown plaid trousers and necktie. He is sitting in a brown leather wingback armchair with his hands gripping the ends of the chair arms, looking at the viewer.  The chair sits in front of a round side table with glassware on it.  In the background is a pair of diamond lattice windows, of which three diamonds have colored glass instead of clear.The Sphinx

I felt the best segment was “The Cask of Amontillado”. Price really seems to relish the role of Montressor and plays him with a wicked twinkle in his eye, surrounded by luxurious draperies and furniture and a banquet-table of food. The weakest for me was “The Sphinx,” which struggled to hold my attention, though it did have an effective use of special effects when we briefly see a skull overlaid over Price’s face at a crucial moment.

A blurry film still of Vincent Price sitting on a bench at the bottom of the pit, looking up at the viewer.  There is a large support column behind him and straw covering the floor. A blurry line that may be the pendulum is to the right of the frame, as though it had just swung past Price's face.The Pit and the Pendulum

By contrast, “The Pit and the Pendulum” was a good enough dramatization of an exciting story, but the problem was that the producer seemed to feel it needed jazzing up with effects shots of Price falling into the pit, Price helpless before the pendulum, Price faced with colour separation overlay ("chroma-key" to yanks) flames, and so forth. The rats were far too cute, with inquisitive little faces and glossy fur, for me to find them horrific.

Finally, “The Tell-Tale Heart” was a good choice as the opening story, told simply with the set a bare garret, with Price steadily ramping up the hysteria as the narrator follows his path into murder and madness.

A color film still of a sparsely furnished 19th century room.  A chair and threadbare carpet are in the foreground, a basin and towel on a stand in front of a window to the left, and a bed or table with rumpled white fabric on it to the right. Vincent Price stands facing the carpet, looking down at it.  He is wearing a white shirt with black waistcoat and black trousers.  His hands are stretched out toward the carpet as if spasming or gesticulating.The Tell-Tale Heart

One great benefit I can see from this production is a chance to show audiences who may just know Poe from the cinematic productions loosely based on his work, just how skilled a horror writer Poe was in real life. The issue with something like “The Pit and the Pendulum” is that one can’t really get an entire 90-minute film out of it without adding a lot of material, which, while it can work as a movie, means you lose the terrifying economy of the original story (although if anyone wants to adapt “The Cask of Amontillado”, I think one could spend at least 90 minutes exploring the buildup of resentment in the two characters’ relationships that led up to the final murder). For this reason, I’m recommending that the English Literature department acquires a copy, and would also say that, if it turns up on TV in your region, it’s worth a watch.

3 out of 5 stars.

A black-and-white headshot of a white woman with dark hair, dramatically arched eyebrows, and dark lipstick. She is looking at the camera with an unreadable expression.
by Victoria Silverwolf

There's A Signpost Up Ahead . . .

Two films I caught recently reminded me of Rod Serling's late, lamented television series Twilight Zone.  Let's take a look.

The Moebius Flip

The title card from the film

Less than half an hour long, this skiing film is the sort of thing that might be shown at a college campus, before the main feature in a movie theater, or to fill up time on television in the wee hours of the morning.  The brief running time isn't the only thing that reminds me of Serling's creation.

We begin with scenes of people skiing, edited in a jumpy way.  Jazz, rock, and folk music fill up the soundtrack.  The skiers also fool around in the snow, eat some fruit, and so forth.

Suddenly, we see a news announcer.  He tells us that scientists have determined that every subatomic particle in the universe has reversed polarity.  I'm not sure what that means, but let's see what happens.

A color film still of a white man with brown hair wearing a plaid suit and red tie sitting in front of a red background with brown acoustic tile on the right side.  He is holding a stack of papers from which he is reading into a black microphone.

Somehow, this is supposed to change the way people perceive things.  That means the film turns into a negative of itself.

A negative image of a color still.  A man in a top hat wearing a cardigan is standing in front of an orange background gesticulating at the screen.  The hat is white instead of black, the man's face green, and the cardigan a bright teal with black +s.

This goes on for a while, then the movie goes back to normal.  Once in a while, it turns back into a negative.  I guess that's a Moebius Flip.  Along with more skiing, we get folks at an amusement park and eating in a restaurant.  This part of the film features some pretty impressive and scary scenes of dangerous winter sports.  People ski over huge crevasses, wind up on top of a tower of snow, and hang from cliffs.

A color still of a person hanging from the underside of a cliff overhang. The person is supported by several ropes and a rope ladder.

Is it worth twenty-odd minutes of your time?  Well, if you like psychedelic images or are a big fan of skiing, it could be.  The science fiction premise is just an excuse to reverse the colors of the film, and there's no real plot at all.  I've never been on a pair of skis, so I can only appreciate the athleticism on display here as an outsider.

Two stars.

Sole Survivor

The title card of the movie SOLE SURVIVOR, written in black capitals with white shadows in a stencil font.  The title is superimposed over a photograph of the silhouette of a wrecked airplane against an orange sky, with the low sun just touching the top of the plane.

This is a made-for-TV movie that aired on CBS stations in the USA earlier this month.  It begins with five men in World War Two uniforms standing around a wrecked American bomber of the time.  They seem to be in pretty good shape, given that they're in a desert wasteland.  Things get weird when we find out they've been waiting to be rescued for seventeen years.

A color film still of five white men in World War II era military bomber jackets. They are standing in front of pieces of wrecked airplane.  The man on the left wears a flight helmet. The man next to him wears a baseball cap.  The third and fourth men are wearing officers' caps. All four look at the fifth man on the far right of the frame, who is facing them and appears to be speaking.
The crew of the Home Run.

It quickly becomes clear that they are ghosts, waiting for their bodies to be found so they can stop haunting the wreck. 

I should note here that the premise is inspired by the case of the Lady Be Good, a bomber that crashed in the Libyan desert in 1943 and was not discovered until 1958.

A color photograph of the wreck of the bomber 'Lady Be Good' as it lays on the sand in the Libyan desert. The back half of the plane lies at right angles to the front half, and there are several small items scattered around the main wreck.
The real wreck.

Fans of Twilight Zone will remember the episode King Nine Will Not Return, which was also inspired by the fate of the Lady Be Good.  That tale goes in a different direction, however.

Two men in an airplane discover the wreck.  (By the way, the fact that the ghosts have been waiting for seventeen years means that the movie takes place in 1960 or so.  There's no other indication that it's set a decade ago.)

Two white men sitting in the tan interior of a small plane.  The passenger wears a tan hat, a white shirt, and dark jacket, and is adjusting a camera. The driver wears sunglasses, a pink shirt, and a brown jacket.
The discoverers, who look more 1970 to me.

This leads to an official investigation by the United States Army.  (Remember that the Air Force was part of the Army, and not a separate branch of the service, until a few years after World War Two.) Two officers are in charge of the mission.

Two white men in black army dress uniforms and hats sitting in the back of a car and having a conversation. They are looking out the front of the car rather than at each other.
William Shatner, fresh from Star Trek, as Lieutenant Colonel Josef Gronke and Vince Edwards, best known as Ben Casey, as Major Michael Devlin.

They pay a visit to the sole survivor of the Home Run.  This fellow parachuted out of the plane and landed in the Mediterranean Sea, managing to make it out alive to continue his military career.  (More details of what happened later.)

A blonde white man in general's dress uniform stands in front of window with a flower-print curtain.  The man looks pensive.  The view outside the window is dark and rainy.
Brigadier General Russell Hamner, as played by Richard Basehart, recently the star of the TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Hamner agrees to accompany the two officers to the North African desert.  He claims that all of the crew of the Home Run bailed out into the ocean, so the plane must have continued without them for several hundred miles before it crashed.  Unlikely, but possible.  Flashbacks tell us the real story.

A white man, the top of his face obscured by his hat, sitting scrunched up in the bomber. He is wearing a communication headset and appears to be speaking urgently.
Hamner as the navigator of the Home Run during the war.

The bomber was damaged in an attack by the enemy.  The captain ordered Hamner to plot a course back to base, but he panicked and bailed out against orders.  Without a navigator, the crew went off course and the plane crashed. 

Tension builds as Devlin casts doubt on Hamner's story, and Gronke tells him not to make waves, lest he ruin his career.  Both officers have their own concerns about their pasts, adding depth of character.  Without giving too much away, let's just say that the truth comes out because of a harmonica, a rubber raft, and Hamner's guilty conscience.  There's a powerful and poignant conclusion.

A white man with brown hair and a bomber jacket (the fifth man from the second photo from this segment) holds a baseball in one hand and a baseball glove in the other.  He is standing in front of the airplane.
The last ghost faces an eternity playing baseball alone.

This is quite a good movie, particularly for one made for TV.  I like the fact that the ghosts appear as ordinary men, rather than being transparent or something.  The actors all do a good job.  You'll never hear the song Take Me Out To The Ball Game again without having an eerie feeling.

Four stars.

A white man with dark short hair and a dark van dyke beard sits on a yellow couch reading a fantasy periodical.  A window in the background shows an empty suburban street.
by Brian Collins

Over the past several years, AIP has adapted stories by H. P. Lovecraft for the big screen—or at least the drive-in. The results have been mixed, but they could certainly be much worse. The first and still the best of these was The Haunted Palace (adapted from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) back in '63, directed by Roger Corman, with a script by the late Charles Beaumont, and starring an especially tormented Vincent Price. It was a very fine picture. Now we have the latest entry in this "series," The Dunwich Horror, taken from the Lovecraft story of the same name, although it's a pretty loose adaptation.

The Dunwich Horror

The title card from 'The Dunwich Horror.' The title is written in white capitals, and includes the quotation marks. behind the title are abstract silhouettes of trees with short, spiky branches stand against a dark blue background.

One warning I want to give about this movie, one which has nothing to do with sex or violence, is that, aside from being generally a pretty strange film, there are several scenes featuring flashing lights, or a color filter changing rapidly to give one the impression of a strobing light. Some people (thankfully not many) are susceptible to epileptic fits if subjected to such stimuli.

Now, as for the film itself, once we get past what I was surprised to find is an animated (as in a cartoon) opening credits sequence, we start with what seems to be a flashback of a woman giving birth, surrounded by two elderly sisters and an old man. We then flash forward to Miskatonic University, that college of the occult and Lovecraft's making, in Arkham. Nancy Wagner (Sandra Dee) is a student who, in the college's library, meets a good-looking but unusual young man named Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell), who is terribly interested in the Necronomicon. I'm sure his interest in the accursed book and his strange deadpan way of talking are perfectly innocuous. A certain professor at Miskatonic, Henry Armitage (Ed Begley), gets a bit of a hunch that Wilbur is up to no good, but for now does nothing about it.

A color film still. A man in a black shirt, his face visible only from the mouth down because of the camera angle.  He reaches into a glass case to gently lift out a large black hardbound book with metal fittings and a lock on the pages. The label at the top of the case reads 'The 'Necronomicon' ' in white capitals. A woman in a white shirt stands behind the man, her hands raised, watching what he is doing.  Her face is visible only from the eyes down.
The Necronomicon, kept in a cozy glass case.

"The Dunwich Horror" is one of Lovecraft's most celebrated stories, but it's also one of his trickiest. As with "the Call of Cthulhu," Lovecraft wrote "The Dunwich Horror" as if it were a report or an essay, a work of journalism or academia, rather than a fiction narrative. There's no protagonist, properly speaking, although Wilbur is certainly the story's nucleus. This remains sort of the case with the film, although Nancy and Armitage now serve as our eyes and ears, or rather as normal people in what becomes an extraordinary situation. However, it's not Sandra Dee or Ed Begley who caught my attention, but Dean Stockwell as Wilbur, who gives almost what could be considered a star-making role (to my knowledge his most high-profile roles up to now were film adaptations of Sons and Lovers and Long Day's Journey into Night), if not for the movie that surrounds him. Unlike his short story counterpart Wilbur here is not physically deformed, but instead talks in a strangely deadened tone, as if human emotions are foreign to him. Stockwell as Wilbur manages to be uncanny simply through how he talks and acts, which is a major point of praise.

A color film still of a young white man with brown curly hair and a mustache and a young white woman with blonde hair.  They are staring to the left of the viewer with apprehensive looks on their faces.  The man wears a blue shirt, dark tie, and brown jacket.  The woman wears a black blouse and tan jacket.  Some dark wooden furniture is behind them, along with teal wallpaper.
Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley and Sandra Dee as Nancy Wagner.

Director Daniel Haller and his team of screenwriters have opted to streamline Lovecraft's story while giving it a sort of romance plot, as well as a dose of sex and violence. Sex and Lovecraft have always been uneasy bedfellows, even in something like "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" which explicitly involves sex in its plot. Wilbur is one of two twins, the other having supposedly died in childbirth, with the father being unknown, and his mother having been kept in an asylum for the past two decades. Wilbur lives with his grandfather, Old Man Whateley (Sam Jaffe, who some may recognize as that one scientist in the now-classic The Day the Earth Stood Still), who seems convinced his grandson is also up to no good, but arbitrarily (the film does nothing to explain this) does nothing about Wilbur being a scoundrel. For his part, Wilbur sees Nancy as a pretty fine girl—for a dark ritual, that is. The idea is that if he can steal the Necronomicon and impregnate Nancy (the implication, via a mind-bending scene, is that he rapes her), he can bring one of "the Old Ones" into the human world.

Two older white men stand in front of a house with dark wooden siding and a four-paned window.  The man on the left has curly hair and a beard and wears a white shirt with blue stripes and a bugundy smoking jacket.  The man on the right wears a fedora, a black suit, and a dark gray overcoat.  They both look to the right offscreen with disturbed expressions.
Sam Jaffe as Old Man Whateley and Ed Begley as Professor Henry Armitage.

As this point the plot splits in two, with one half focusing on Wilbur and Nancy's "romance" while the other sees Armitage tracking down the mystery of Wilbur's birth, since it becomes apparent the young man and the Necronomicon are somehow connected. One of the strangest (sorry, "far-out") scenes in the whole movie is when Armitage goes to see Wilbur's mother (Joanne Moore Jordan), who apparently had lost her mind many years ago upon giving birth to Wilbur and his dead twin. When it comes to this movie, there are two types of strange: that of the unnerving sort, and that of the cheesy sort. There are parts (sometimes moments within a single scene) of this movie that do a good job of spooking the audience, and others where it's rather silly. With that said, the nightmarish effect of Jordan's performance combined with the changing color tints in this scene make it one of the most effective. This is a movie that generally shines brightest when it focuses on Stockwell's performance and/or the Gothic cliches (including a creepy old house) that clearly also influenced Lovecraft's writing. Maybe it's because they didn't have the budget for it, but the lack of an on-screen monster for the vast majority of the film's runtime also works in its favor.

An old woman with unkempt white hair and a blue one-piece hospital gown huddles in the corner of a padded cell looking upward with a frightened expression.  The buttons of the padding - like on a mattress - are visible on the walls and floor. The metal frame and springs of a bed are in the foreground.
Joanne Moore Jordan as Wilbur's mother, who's spent the past two decades as a mental patient.

When Old Man Whateley finally decides to take action, Wilbur kills him for his troubles, along with imprisoning one of Nancy's friends and turning her into some kind of abomination. Meanwhile Wilbur gives his grandfather a heathen burial and in so doing provokes the wrath of the Dunwich townspeople, who never liked the Whateleys anyway. It's revealed, or rather speculated, that Wilbur's twin may not have died after all, but instead gone to the realm of the Old Ones while Wilbur got stuck on Earth as a human. Armitage and the townsfolk succeed in stopping Wilbur from completing his ritual with the unconscious Nancy, Armitage being well-versed enough in the Necronomicon to use the book against Wilbur, killing him with a blast of lightning. So the last of the Whateley men is dead. Unfortunately, the final shot, eerily showing a fetus growing inside Nancy (which is odd, because she's probably only been pregnant a day or two), implying an Old One may be born after all.

A white man with brown curly hair - the same one from the earlier photo - stands among trees at night.  He looks off to the left, seemingly in concentration.  He is wearing a black cultist robe and rests his hand on top of a metal wine goblet which is standing on a wooden board.  A hand, presumably attached to a body lying on the board, is visible at the bottom of the screen.
Dean Stockwell at his most devilish.

Lovecraft purists will surely be much disappointed with this movie, and even as someone who is not exactly a Lovecraft fan, I have to admit it's by no means perfect. Even at 90 minutes it feels a bit overlong, and it tries desperately to contort one of Lovecraft's more unconventional stories into having a three-act structure. I also get the impression that the addition of blood and breasts was to appease those (people my age and younger) who are suckers for AIP schlock. Not too long ago we had Roger Corman's so-called Poe cycle, which for the most part did Edgar Allan Poe's (and in one case Lovecraft's) fiction justice on modest budgets. I would say The Dunwich Horror is on par with one of the lesser of Corman's Poe movies.

A high three stars.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 26, 1970] Over The Rainbow (Doctor Who: Spearhead From Space)

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By Jessica Holmes

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s all change in the new season of Doctor Who: new Doctor, new companion, new visuals. And it's now in colour!

But is it worth the increased rent on my new television set? Let’s catch up on “Spearhead From Space”.

Doctor Who title card—new font on a swirly, coloured background

In Case You Missed It

The last season of Doctor Who ended with Second Doctor Patrick Troughton being separated from his longtime companions Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) and sentenced to exile on Earth in the 20th century. “Spearhead From Space” picks up where “The War Games” left off, with the new Doctor, Jon Pertwee, tumbling out of the TARDIS in the middle of a field in England. And he’s not the only extraterrestrial arrival to Earth. Remember UNIT from “The Invasion”? They’re back again, this time investigating an unusual spearhead-shaped shower of unidentified flying objects that landed in the local area. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) remains in charge, and his curiosity is piqued when he learns of the arrival of a mysterious patient to a nearby hospital: a man found next to a peculiarly-situated police box.

The Brigadier gets a bit of a shock when he sees that this is not the Doctor he knows—and yet this Doctor knows him, greeting him like an old friend. Which of course, he is. Unfortunately for the Brig, for the moment the Doctor isn’t feeling up to doing much more than drifting in and out of consciousness and raving about his shoes, so he needs an alternative scientific consultant. Enter Liz Shaw (Caroline John), an acid-tongued skeptic who is less than impressed with the Brigadier for pulling her away from her research to go chasing after UFO nonsense.

Liz Shaw (left) and the Brigadier (Right). The Brigadier is frowning at the TARDIS key in his hand, and Liz stands behind him with a slightly mocking look on her face.

When word gets out about the Doctor’s alien biology, it attracts the attention of local alien ne’er-do-wells, the Nestenes. There’s an advance party of Nestenes already on Earth, being controlled remotely by a sort of shared mind. They’re planning to take over the world by replacing powerful individuals with living plastic duplicates. And also shop window dummies that shoot people. The plan is nearing fruition, but there’s a snag: they’ve quite literally lost their mind. Rather than transport the mind to Earth in a spacecraft like any self-respecting alien conqueror, they put it into a bunch of plastic shells (perhaps they couldn’t find one big enough for the whole thing), flung it in the direction of England and hoped for the best. That was the meteor shower seen earlier. And now some of those shells are missing.

Hoping he can help lead them to the missing shells, the Nestenes attempt to abduct the Doctor from UNIT. The attempt fails, and if anything, puts UNIT and the newly-recovered (and marvellously dressed) Doctor on their trail. A race ensues to recover the shells, and discover what makes them tick. Though the Nestenes manage to recover the shells, even sending in an impostor to steal one from HQ, it’s not long before UNIT track the Nestenes down to a local plastic doll factory.

A shop window with 5 dressed dummies behind the glass.
You don't really get the effect in a still image, but trust me, it's really scary in motion.

Just in the nick of time too, as the Nestenes’ blank-faced Auton servants are wreaking havoc across the country. The Doctor pulls an all-nighter to create a device capable of blocking the Nestenes’ telepathic signal to the Autons, and accompanies UNIT to an assault on the factory. Though the assault fails (plastic dummies don’t really care about bullets), it creates enough of a distraction for the Doctor to infiltrate the factory and confront the big blobby tentacle thing controlling them. According to the Nestenes that’s the ideal vessel for their consciousness: a big blobby tentacle thing in a tank. The Big Blobby Tentacle Thing has a good go of throttling the Doctor as he tries to cut it off from the main Nestene mind off in outer space, but Liz manages to save the day with some last-second adjustments. The Earth is safe… for now. They’ve stopped the Nestenes this time, but all Nestenes share a mind, and the rest of it is still out there somewhere. All the Doctor did was essentially cut off a limb. Who knows if or when they’ll be back? And if not them, who else might be plotting against humanity? We know by now that the Nestenes aren’t the only extraterrestrial threat out there, not by a long shot. With our advancing technology, Earth’s getting noisier every day, and the rest of the universe is taking notice.

Fortunately for UNIT (but not for the Doctor) the TARDIS isn’t going anywhere. It looks like the Doctor will be sticking around on Earth for a bit—and rest assured UNIT will find plenty to keep him busy.

Left-Right: Liz, the Brigadier and the Doctor. They're looking at a glowing orb-shaped object which is connected to various scientific equipment.

All Change? Not Quite!

It’s a new decade, a new format, a new Doctor, even a new title sequence, but long-time viewers will be glad to know that Doctor Who isn’t shedding the past entirely. With more Earth-bound stories to come in the coming series, and with a new Doctor without companions from his past life, I did have worries that it would feel more like a revival than a continuation of the past 7 years. However, we have UNIT and returning character Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart to bridge the gap between past and present. Indeed, in terms of tone this serial is reminiscent of last year’s ‘The Invasion’. If we’ve got more of that sort of thing on the way, I say ‘Brig’ it on.

I am so sorry.

Yes, I was glad to see the Brigadier again, though I hope that the increased focus on UNIT’s activities won’t send the programme in an overtly militaristic direction. That said, it wasn’t going in guns blazing that won the day. It was military intelligence and technological expertise. It’s all rather James Bond.

The Brigadier and the Doctor in front of the TARDIS. The Brigadier has his back to the camera and is talking to the Doctor, who has a sardonic expression.
The name's Smith. Doctor… John Smith.

Though Doctor Who remains connected to its past, this serial is an excellent starting point for anyone wanting to start watching for the first time. With all the exposition flying around, you’ll easily get the gist of what the show is all about. If you’re an occasional viewer, a bit of a refresher is also probably welcome by now. But you're still never going to learn his name.  Not his real name, anyway.

We were all sad to say goodbye to Jamie and Zoe at the end of the last season, but it looks like the Doctor won’t be too lonely on Earth. Not only is the Brigadier going to be around for the foreseeable future, but he has a new companion in the form of no-nonsense scientist Liz Shaw. She’s less than impressed to have been dragged off her research at Cambridge to go chasing after UFOs, and it shows. Especially when the men around her start commenting on her looks rather than her brains. I’m immediately rather fond of her, and so too is the Doctor.

Speaking of whom, let’s properly introduce you to the Third Doctor, shall we?

The Doctor falling forwards out of the TARDIS, which is in the middle of a wooded area.
Gracefully flopping his way into the world.

Doctor Who?

So. Doctor number three. If Troughton had the hardest job that any actor has ever had on Doctor Who, proving that the show can survive recasting the main character, then Pertwee has the second hardest. He has to prove that it can work more than once.

But who is Jon Pertwee, anyway? Well, he’s certainly got chops as a comedic actor, with a great many appearances on radio, television, film, and stage, including the original West End production of Sondheim’s musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and later its film adaptation. And of course there’s his appearances in the Carry On… series of films, which starred Bill Hartnell (Doctor No. 1) in its first outing. So he’s in good company there. Does he have the range to make his Doctor more than a clown, however? From what I’ve seen so far… Yes!

The Brigadier leans over the Doctor's hospital bed, as the Doctor frowns up at him.

Right out the gate, he seems to have taken a leaf out of Troughton’s book, which is to not base his Doctor too heavily on his predecessor. There’s a delicate balance required to find a unique take on the Doctor’s character while keeping him still the same man at heart. Well, hearts. Apparently he’s got two.

Pertwee’s Doctor is a much more confident and authoritative figure than Troughton’s, that much is clear right away. He’s very charming when he wants to be, and abrasive when he doesn’t. And cool. He is undeniably cooler. He’s like James Bond from space. Of course, like both Doctors before him, there’s an element of childishness that he can’t quite suppress. Every now and then, traces of the old Doctor creep in, a sort of Troughton-esque haplessness when things go wrong. I like it.

The Doctor surveys his outfit in the mirror with satisfaction. His fedora is at a jaunty angle.

Of course, the Doctor wouldn’t be the Doctor without a streak of mischief (plus a total disregard for authority), and this Doctor’s more than qualified in that regard. He starts off by nicking himself a new set of clothes. Whereas his predecessor was all for the shabby-chic (emphasis on shabby), this Doctor has rather more refined—if ostentatious—taste. Rather than settle for the first basic shirt and trousers he can dig out of the lost-and-found, he pilfers a frilly shirt, trousers, smart velvet jacket, fedora and, of all things, an opera cape from the (doctors-only, naturally) changing room. But—and this is important—it is a smashing look for him. So morally I’m pretty sure it’s fine.

I also didn’t expect Doctor Who, of all programmes, to have a shirtless scene. Much less getting to see the Doctor with his top off. If you’ve an eye for a silver-haired gent, you’re in luck—there’s a shower scene, too. I wasn’t looking or anything, but I did notice that the Doctor now has a forearm tattoo. Maybe he dropped by an outer space tattoo parlour on the way to Earth.

The Doctor fresh out of the shower with a towel around his waist and a shower cap on. There's a serpent tattoo vaguely resembling a question mark on his right forearm.
Sorry to barge in on you, Doctor!

So, yes. I think the new Doctor is working. He charmed Liz in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, and it’s safe to say he’s charmed me too. It’s early days, but I think Jon Pertwee is off to a good start.

Final Thoughts

Plot-wise, this is a pretty fun serial, with a slow but satisfying first half and some exciting action in the second. Come to think of it, the first half reminds me of a film from a few years ago, 1966’s Invasion, directed by Alan Bridges, written by Roger Marshall… and based on a story by Robert Holmes. And guess who wrote this serial?

If an idea’s good, you might as well re-use it.

There’s quite a lot of moving parts which I simplified in the summary, but it’s not hard to follow, just pleasantly complex, with vivid side characters and an air of intrigue to the whole thing.

That said… the ending is a bit weak. Not weak enough to bring down the whole thing, but not as good or smart as all the build-up had been.

The Doctor being strangled by green tentacles, with a comic expression of distress on his face.

I’d better discuss the Big-Blobby-Tentacle-Thing in the room. Yes, the final confrontation between the Doctor and the Nestenes is a bit naff. Yes, the rubber tentacles are silly, and yes, Pertwee pulls a very, very funny face when being ‘strangled’ by them.

The Autons, on the other hand, are a much more impactful villain. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a shop window dummy the same way again—and neither will the nation’s children. The moment in the last episode where the dummies in the window suddenly come to life with a start is truly chilling. Even when they’re not attacking people, they just look wrong. They sit perfectly in the uncomfortable area between human and not-human. The more human-like Nestene duplicates with their waxy faces are pretty creepy, but the Autons are a standout for me.One of the best monsters we’ve had in a while, I reckon.

If we’re starting as we mean to go on, I think we’re in for a cracking season.

An Auton with blank eyes looking at the camera.




 

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Horror, Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 10, 1969] Night Gallery: A Frightening Tableau

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by Amber Dubin

As we close in on the end of the final year of the 60s, it seems the lengthening nights are seeping into my psyche more than usual. I find myself wishing I were more hopeful for the coming of a new decade, and maybe if I paid less attention to politics or the state of the world I could retain more resistance to the gloomy morale of our divided and unrested country. Thankfully, a timely distraction arose: just think how pleasantly surprised I was to discover that there was to be a diverting new work from Rod Sterling to grace our airwaves November 8, 1969!

I was a step beyond devastated when Twilight Zone left the air, as it remains one of my all-time favorite science fiction pieces to date. To know that Rod Sterling would once again be on my television just before the dawn of a new decade sparked a hope in me that’s just enough to disrupt the gloom I’m feeling at the end of this one.

Title card for the TV series Night Gallery. It shows the words Night Gallery in cursive script over a stylized drawing of cathedral in pale pink.
Rod Serling's "Night Gallery", shown on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies

Given the climate of our cultural atmosphere, however, I am not surprised that although the work that Rod Sterling chose to create is star-studded in cast, it is otherwise physically and emotionally dark. The macabre tone sets in right away as an eerie opening theme tinnily whines from the upper register of a harpsichord. The audience is led down a black and white drawing of a hallway, interrupted regularly by the chalky outlines of featured actors, not unlike how it would feel if one were to walk through a series of taped off crime scenes with final resting places similarly marked in each. This tense opening sequence maintains stress on the audience as the illustration gives way to the darkly enshrouded silhouette of the show’s host and final name featured in the credit sequence, Rod Serling.

Serling returns to the small screen, six years after he left it, in the resolute and deliberate fashion we’ve come to expect from him. Ever our guide through the mysterious and strange, he acts as curator of the mysterious in a black void of a presentation room featuring nothing but three portraits, their faces glamorously shrouded in red velvet curtains. He describes each of these covered works of art as suspended “in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.”

Entering the scene associated with the first painting, "The Cemetery," this description is immediately validated as we are confronted with a room occupied by a once wealthy patriarch, bound both by a wheelchair and the living death that is the cognitive and physical decline of age. The elderly man, Mr. Hendrix, is waited on with care by famed film and TV veteran Ossie Davis (Mr. Ruby Dee), playing the sharply dressed and precise butler Osmond Portifoy. In a heartbreakingly relatable way, the rich and ailing painter is depicted as incapable of speaking, walking, or even holding a paint brush as he barely clings to life in his old-monied estate home. By contrast, we are confronted by his shiftless rapscallion of a nephew downstairs, who we are made to immediately dislike as he twitters about the house, disrespectfully upsetting its previous order and chirping our patient butler’s name in mockery as he puts his cigarettes out on the tray of discarded food he is carrying away from Mr. Hendrix’s room.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows actor Ossie Davis playing the character Portifoy. He's a Black man with a moustache, wearing a suit and tie.
Portifoy is not amused

The obnoxious youth wastes no time in murdering his uncle once he has confirmed his inheritance of his estate, brazenly directing his uncle’s view to the window overlooking the family cemetery so the poor man can ‘view his future residence’ as he is slowly poisoned by the cold air from the purposely opened window that his frail body is unable to withstand. The greedy nephew makes no attempt to hide his disrespectful glee when the man dies, and he rudely directs the responding home-doctor and estate manager to hastily clear away as many traces as possible of the deceased man’s control over his wealthy home. Condescendingly, he allows Butler Portifoy to stay on staff, despite their obvious and open distaste for one another. However, Portifoy finds it almost more curse than blessing that he is allowed to continue to serve the Hendrix Estate under new management.

Just when it appears nothing could stop the young man’s wonton disrespect for all things dignified, his drunken carrying on hitches on a disturbing detail he notices in one of his uncle’s paintings hanging over the hallway stairs. When his uncle is interred in the family cemetery, it appears that the estate painting changes to depict an open grave in the corresponding area of the portrait. At first, he tries to brush off this change as a trick of the light, or his faulty memory, but the more time he spends in the home, the more fixated he becomes on the painting. When his paranoia grows to the point of inducing sleeplessness, he lashes out, ripping it off the wall and throwing it into the fireplace, only to find it back on the wall where it was before. He responds with violence to Portifoy’s insistence that there is nothing wrong with the painting and burns the man, finally breaking the man’s tolerance for his behavior. Portifoy quits on the spot, leaving the younger man to continue swiftly losing his mind alone in this apparently haunted house.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows the character Portifoy talking to a white man in a red smoking jacket.
A rather satisfyingly contentious dynamic

In predictable fashion, the man fares poorly on his own, and he eventually succumbs to the battle with the paranormal forces at play, launching himself off the staircase entangled in the canvas of his dead uncle’s likeness. To my surprise, however, this is not where the story ends, and it appears that the doomed youth was not the only man in the house compelled by greed and willing to play with paranormal forces he did not understand. It's a twist too good to spoil here.

The second story, “Eyes,” features the fascinating combination of a winning performance by storied actress Joan Crawford and the professional debut of a young director named Steven Spielberg. Although it was rumored that this segment’s veteran star was originally reluctant to take a chance working with the inexperienced director, it appears her fears were unfounded. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the direction of this segment was Rod Serling’s best choice of the featured three. From the elevator door closing on Joan’s character’s disgruntled employee as we open the scene, to the acrobatic shots we get from the ceiling looking through chandelier crystals, the cinematography and dynamic story telling are movie-quality.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows a close-up of a hanging glass ornament. In it we can see an upside-down reflection of a man walking down a hallway.
An ambitious shot that inverts the surgeon as he has inverted his moral code.

The story in question revolves around the aging debutant Miss Claudia Menlo, played by Joan Crawford, whose nightmare appears to be the life-long curse of blindness. It seems as if the finery she surrounds herself with and the technology with which she’s been able to make her life self-sufficient has steadily transformed into bars of a gilded cage. She has become so obsessed with the idea of the sight that she has been robbed of, that she interprets it as a cruelty that she must turn into a weapon to settle the score. It is from this space that she discovers an opportunity to right the universal wrong, and she stops at nothing to seize it.

Through the perspective of the conscripted surgeon, we discover that Miss Menlo has bribed, extorted and blackmailed enough professionals and poor slobs to direct a procedure to take place where one man will lose his vision forever to give her but twelve hours of precious sight. It’s clear we are meant to condemn Joan Crawford's character’s actions, and to be sure her victim is pathetic enough to deserve all of one’s compassion, but I cannot help but understand her desperation. Yes, her vanity, decadence and aggressive way of tearing through everything that gets in her way is indefensible, but it’s hard to say if given the same circumstances I wouldn’t make similar choices. As a senescent ice queen of an empty decaying palace, the woman that life has made of her is twisted into an unlovable shape now, but I cannot help but imagine what torture it must have been to live a whole life of such beauty without the ability to see any of it.

No matter how thoroughly we are meant to have shut her out, I cannot help but feel a pang of ache when she screams about color, while decorated in such fine examples of the same. I understand the bad intentions she paved to her own destruction, but when the irony she earned comes to call, I cannot fully say it would have been a doom I could have avoided myself.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows a close-up of a white, red-haired, middle-aged Joan Crawford wearing elegant jewels and screaming in anger.
I am always hesitant to call a woman a nightmare, but when the shoe fits…

The last story for me is the weakest of the three. “Escape Route” features an ex Nazi officer from a concentration camp hiding out in Buenos Aires after the end of World War II. As many men with this description did (do?) in real life, he is haunted by paranoia of being found and held responsible for his cruelty and past actions as he lives a life of poverty and insignificance in a foreign country he does not seem to enjoy any aspect of. I felt like this had the least compelling premise because even if he wasn’t a war criminal, the protagonist seems to be a completely irredeemable, unlikable nightmare. While he is haunted, he appears remorseless and even defensive of his past behavior. It also seems to have turned him into a miserable, belligerent drunk who verbally abuses the only person in his life that knows his secret: his consistently drunk, lady-of-the-night neighbor. Even though she is the only one who seems to tolerate him, she still uses his secret to twist the knife of insults she slings right back at him.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows a man standing outdoors at night, looking in anxiety at whatever could be on the other side of a wire mesh fence.
A well-deserved haunting

One day, in hiding from the detectives attempting to get him to answer for his crimes, he seeks refuge inside a closing museum and is unexpectedly moved by a painting of a fisherman who he hallucinates as having his face. It is here that his personal moment is interrupted by an elderly Jewish man emotionally connecting with another painting that expresses the agony of a holocaust victim. Based on how often he is drunk and/or hallucinating, I am not entirely convinced that the other man, Herr Bleum, isn’t a physical manifestation of the ex-Nazi’s guilty conscience.

In fighting against the web of his own weaving, he predictably hangs himself, using the thread of magic he has discovered in his story to yoke himself to a punishment far worse than any he could have received at the hands of real-life avengers.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows Rod Serling in a suit and tie, talking to the camera. There is a red curtain behind him.
Rod Serling, in all his glory

Whatever unevenness exists in this trio of stories is overwhelmed by the sheer quality of production, and also the joy at having an old master back at the game. The gilded tapestry Rod Serling has woven with The Night Gallery is a welcome masterpiece capable of warming my heart in these cold and dark winter months. The papers say that Serling is uninterested in serialized television work after Twilight Zone, and that these three episodes were a one-off set. However, after turning out such well-crafted, well-acted and well-directed gems as these, I cannot imagine this vignette not inspiring a sequel or two in the coming decade, either penned by Serling or a successor he designates. That hope alone gives me something to look forward to as the curtain draws this year to a close.

5 stars

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 22, 1969] Game Over (Doctor Who: The War Games [Parts 8-10])

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By Jessica Holmes

"The War Games" draws to a close, bringing us a thrilling conclusion, revelations of the Doctor’s origins, and some heartbreaking farewells.

The Doctor (right, foreground) meets with the War Chief (left, background.)
"If I join you, do I also have to grow the silly moustache?"

In Case You Missed It

You really missed out if you didn’t happen to catch it, because I really think "The War Games" is one of my favourite Doctor Who serials. And I’ve been thinking about the ending ever since.

But, first things first. A small clarification: I misinterpreted the dialogue last time, it turns out the War Lord is NOT a “Time Lord” (despite the name) but the War Chief is.

And so is the Doctor.

Up to now, I had mostly dismissed the War Chief as little more than a high-ranking lackey with a temper, but a new dimension within him emerges in the latter episodes of the serial. Sure, he still has a temper, but he’s no lackey. Unlike the Doctor, who left their homeworld in order to see the galaxy, the War Chief desires to rule it. And the Doctor can join him, if he wishes. He's not such a bad chap after all, so he claims. When the galaxy is conquered, there will finally be peace. Yes, War Chief, you’re a real humanitarian.

Jamie, Carstairs, Zoe, and Arturo Villa stand around a table in the chateau discussing strategy.

With no clear way to rescue the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe throw their efforts into carrying out his plan and recruiting the other Resistance groups. The leaders agree to assemble their armies in the American Civil War Zone. The forests will be a good place to hide, and then when a SIDRAT next turns up, they can take it over.

In preparation, they start taking out the control units in each zone, taking out their communications one by one, and drawing out the War Lord’s guards. By the time they’re done, there won’t be anyone left to defend central control.

With only one control unit left, the Security Chief has a pretty good idea of where the Resistance must be gathered, and wishes to wipe them all out with a neutron bomb. The War Lord however has a more subtle idea…

At the barn, Jamie, Zoe and the Resistance leaders are surprised to receive a call from the Doctor, who tells them that he has a plan to take over central control, and that he’s sending a SIDRAT to bring them to him. They meet the Doctor at the landing bay, where the War Lord’s guards promptly arrest them. It seems that the Doctor has betrayed them all.

The Doctor, centre, stands glaring at something offscreen, with the Security Chief and War Chief flanking him.

And if you believed that for a second, I have a bridge to sell you.

As the prisoners are taken away, the War Chief pulls the Doctor aside to discuss plans for the future with his new ally. The Doctor infers that it’s not really him the War Chief needs for his plans to work, but his TARDIS. The SIDRATs have more bells and whistles than the old TARDIS, but it comes at a cost: longevity. The SIDRATs are at the end of their lifespan, and before long the War Chief will have nothing more than a load of surprisingly spacious cupboards, and he'll be of no further use to the War Lord.

What was his plan if a fellow Time Lord hadn’t happened to land in the middle of his games?

To prove his newfound loyalty to the War Lord, the Doctor offers to improve the processing machines, using the prisoners as test subjects. It’s all Jamie can do to prevent the others from killing the Doctor on sight, but the Doctor eventually manages to persuade them that he’s really on their side, and to play along with his ruse.

The Security Chief looks on as a pair of guards manhandle the War Chief.

Unfortunately, things have all gone a bit pear-shaped. The Security Chief, suspicious of the Doctor and the War Chief, has been spying on their conversations. Having arrested the War Chief, the guards are now on their way to grab the Doctor.

The Resistance manage to overpower the guards, and the War Chief has another proposition for the Doctor. He can help them, and save his own skin into the bargain. The guards at the landing bay don’t know he’s been arrested. He could escort the Doctor and his allies there and steal them a SIDRAT. The Doctor accepts, on one condition: that they first go to the War Room and put an end to the games.

The Security Chief’s depleted forces quickly fall to the small band of Resistance fighters, with the Security Chief himself falling at the War Chief’s own spiteful hand. Unfortunately, he didn’t kill him fast enough to prevent him sounding the alarm. They can call an end to the games, but there’s not time for the Doctor to send everyone back to their proper time and place. Not without help, at least.

It’s time to call the Time Lords.

The War Lord stands in the foreground with his back to the War Chief, who is shouting at him as a pair of guards train their weapons on him.
There's only room for ONE ruler of the Galaxy with weird facial hair, and it ain't gonna be you, War Chief.

The War Chief tries to leave the others behind and make a break for it, but the War Lord catches up to him as he attempts to steal a SIDRAT. The War Lord has his would-be betrayer executed on the spot. The Resistance arrive at the landing bay and quickly overpower the War Lord’s guards, but leave the man himself for the Time Lords to deal with. Not the Doctor though, who plans on being far, far away by the time they arrive. See, Time Lords aren't meant to meddle in the affairs of other worlds, and the Doctor does little else. And they’re probably going to want their stolen TARDIS back. To tell the truth, I’m not even surprised that the TARDIS is stolen. Have you seen how he pilots that thing?

Doctor, you naughty boy.

With Jamie, Zoe, and Carstairs (who is just tagging along to look for Lady Jennifer), the Doctor hurries off back to the 1917 Zone. But not fast enough. The coming of the Time Lords is heralded by an eerie drone on the air. Ominously, the War Lord tells the Doctor’s allies that soon the Doctor will wish they’d killed him when they had the chance.

The Doctor, Zoe and Jamie sprint across the battlefield.
Can we please appreciate Troughton's funny little run?

As the group get in sight of the TARDIS, Carstairs suddenly vanishes, no doubt whisked away to his proper time. The closer the Doctor gets to the TARDIS, the slower time itself seems to become. With an immense struggle, he and his friends manage to get inside and leave the battlefield. But they aren’t free yet.

The Time Lords find them wherever they go, whether it be the depths of the ocean or the depths of space. There’s no resisting the nigh-omnipotence of the Time Lords.

After all his travels, the Doctor must finally come home.

The Time Lords bring the Doctor and his friends to their homeworld, where the War Lord’s trial is already underway. It’s a rare thing for the Time Lords to put anyone on trial, let alone someone from another planet.

The War Chief stands before three Time Lord judges.

Forget everything I said about the War Lord being impressively powerful in my last review. Before the Time Lords, he’s nothing more than a scared little man, though he tries not to show it. A handful of his surviving guards turn up in an attempt to rescue him, taking the Doctor hostage in the process, but they don’t get far.

The Doctor helps the Time Lords to recapture the War Lord, and the justice of the Time Lords proves to be swift and uncompromising. They quarantine the War Lord’s planet away from the rest of the universe, and erase the War Lord himself from reality. It will be as if he never existed.

Despite the Doctor aiding them in bringing justice to the War Lord, the Time Lords aren’t going to give him a pass on his own supposed misdeeds. There's a funny sort of symmetry to this serial; the Doctor's tribulations begin and end with a trial.

The Doctor alone
"In my defence, Your Honour… it seemed a good idea at the time."

At least unlike last time, the Doctor has actually committed the “crime” of which he’s being accused. The Time Lords have one rule about interfering with the wider universe: don’t. And the Doctor not only admits to flouting that rule, he’s proud of it. Time and again he’s helped to defeat the evils of the universe, all while the Time Lords have failed to lift a finger to prevent the injustices happening before their eyes.

It’s not him who should be guilty, it’s them.

Agreeing to at least consider his point, the Time Lord jury goes into recess to think it over, and Jamie and Zoe are allowed to make their farewells to the Doctor.

Not that they don’t try to escape, but it’s futile trying to evade the Time Lords. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Doctor so completely and utterly defeated. He’s beyond begging, beyond tears, just… tired. Resigned.

The Doctor and Jamie shake hands goodbye as a Time Lord watches them in the background.
To the Time Lords: I hope you're pleased with yourselves.

The goodbyes are brief, too brief really for all the three have been through together. Especially the Doctor and Jamie. Three series of instinctively reaching out to one another and clinging together in times of stress, and they part with a simple handshake.

Promising never to forget him, Jamie and Zoe turn their backs on the Doctor for the last time. But they don’t get a choice. Determined to erase every trace of the Doctor’s illegal travels from the universe, the Time Lords wipe Jamie and Zoe’s memories of their travels.

They’re allowed to keep their first meeting with the Doctor, but nothing more. To Zoe, he’s just that funny little bloke who turned up on the Wheel when the Cybermen invaded. And to Jamie, he’s just a man with a penchant for disguises, who helped his Jacobite comrades escape the English, and nothing more.

That’s… tragic. More than tragic, it’s cruel.

The Doctor and Zoe in front of the TARDIS. The Doctor gives Zoe a sad smile.

They’ve not just stolen memories, they’ve stolen something even more precious: friendship. Poor Zoe, lonely Zoe, whose colleagues thought of her as an inhuman machine because she saw the world differently to them. In the Doctor she finally had a true friend, a kindred spirit even, someone who understood the way she thinks and didn’t think less of her for it. And she’ll never know.

And dear Jamie. Oh, my poor, sweet Jamie. What’s he meant to do with himself now, alone in the Highlands, with everyone he knew dead or in exile? His relationship with the Doctor was closer than any other companion we’ve seen so far, except for Susan I suppose, but the dynamic feels different. I definitely wouldn’t call it paternal, at any rate.

At least they don’t know what they’ve lost, for what little comfort that is. The Doctor gets to live with the knowledge that he’ll never see his friends again. And his punishment has only just begun.

The Doctor, his back to the camera, stands before a pair of Time Lord judges.

Seeing as he’s put so much effort into keeping it safe, he will be exiled to the planet Earth. He can keep the TARDIS, but in a disabled state, with even his knowledge of how to work it purged from his mind. Until such a time the Time Lords deem fit, he’ll be confined to one time, one planet, that isn’t even his own. And he won’t even be allowed to keep his face.

Such is the power and the judgement of the Time Lords.

The Doctor appearing distressed as reflections of his own face surround him.

The Peerage System: Even In Space, It Stinks

If the Time Lords are all such sticks in the mud, I’m not surprised the Doctor left home.  Who died and made them "Lords" of Time? How terribly pompous.

It’s quite striking really, how much the Doctor has changed from when we first met him. In the early days, the Hartnell Doctor wasn’t such a far cry from the Time Lords, only really getting involved in local goings-on when he didn’t have any other choice. Look at him now, putting them in their place. I may or may not have cheered at the television set in support of the wee chappie.

That said, I don’t think he was ever as cold and detached as the rest of the Time Lords seem to be. His wanderlust and sense of curiosity was there from the start—something sorely lacking in the rest of his people.

The three Time Lord judges, in white robes with black mantles.

It’s unsettling, this dispassionate power. One gets the sense that the Time Lords are to us as we are to insects. And we would have just as much luck arguing with them as an ant does to a boot. Perhaps the wider universe is lucky that they don't want to get involved.

The Doctor may have returned to his planet of origin, but it wasn't much of a homecoming. That would require warmth. It didn’t even occur to the Time Lords at first that his human friends would want to say goodbye to the Doctor. What sort of society is that, where affection and attachment are strange concepts? I don’t think they went out of their way to be cruel, but I don’t think it occurred to them that they weren’t being kind.

Speaking of unkind: The War Lord’s people. It seems a bit extreme to essentially imprison an entire planet for the actions of a few of its leaders. Even if they were abhorrent. I still have questions about them. We didn’t even get a name for the species as a whole. That said, I do have a theory. It’s ironclad, trust me. I think they could be "Dals", at a point in their history before they turned into screaming pepperpots. I have two compelling pieces of evidence:

  • The Security Chief’s oddly Dalek-like cadence to his speech.
  • I enjoy the idea, and I am always right. Except when I'm not.

So, there.

The Doctor angrily addresses the War Chief, with Jamie and Zoe looking on behind him.

Final Thoughts

Wow. The end of a marathon serial, and the end of an era.

I’ll get my final thoughts on "The War Games" out of the way first. It was great! Genuinely one of my favourites in all of “Doctor Who”. It’s a creative romp through time, with the stakes for the Doctor and his friends higher than ever before. What’s not to like?

Well. If I must… I was a tad disappointed that the War Lord didn’t turn out to be quite as big a deal as I thought he was going to be. He makes such an impression upon first arriving, but then he’s barely involved in the goings-on thereafter.

However, the revelation of the War Chief’s ulterior motives almost makes up for the letdown. They have interesting chemistry, him and the Doctor. It’s ambiguous how well they knew one another prior to meeting here, but they definitely knew of one another. Both being runaway Time Lords, there’s a degree of understanding between the two, much as the Doctor would hate to admit it. Pity the War Chief had to die. He could have made quite the nemesis.

The ending for the captured humans is also a bit abrupt. They do at least get to have a climactic battle (well, more of a skirmish) for control of the War Room, but once the Time Lords get involved, poof! They all vanish. It does serve to establish the immense power the Time Lords possess, but it’s not entirely satisfying.

But this is me deliberately looking for fault. These quibbles are there, but to me they’re not a significant hamper on my enjoyment of the story. I just enjoy the good bits too much to let the less-good bits bother me.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe on an outing together.

And now, it’s time to close out an entire era of Doctor Who. I’m more than a little heart-broken; I adored the current iteration of the TARDIS crew. They’re like a proper little family.

I’ve especially enjoyed the relationship between the Doctor and Jamie. They’re just so comfortable with each other, and the chemistry between Troughton and Hines has always been wonderful. I’ve always found it endearing how affectionate they are with each other, the banter, the absolute undying loyalty. It’s so sweet, and so sad to have their travels together brought to such an abrupt end.

The Doctor and Jamie clinging to one another.
They're adorable. Even if the Doctor did forget what Jamie looks like that one time.

And as for saying goodbye to the Second Doctor, well. It hurts. But I cannot stress enough how much I have loved Patrick Troughton’s take on the Doctor.

Really, it’s extraordinary. It’s an unenviable task, having to take over a beloved character from a great performer like William Hartnell. And yet..! He rose to the challenge, and performed admirably. Troughton's Doctor is very much his own, distinct from the first incarnation, yet still having the same soul. The curiosity is still there, the mischief, the sense of justice. He's a continuation, not an imitation. Just as it should be.

I loved that little man, his wit, his endearing clownishness, and the incredible warmth. How could I not? And then the flip side, the cunning, the moments where the clown mask slipped to reveal glimpses of the much more serious, contemplative, sometimes even melancholic man underneath it all. That’s where the magic is. That’s what makes the Troughton Doctor so compelling.

The Doctor, in his tall hat, leaning against a tree stump with a sad sort of smile.
Thank goodness he ditched that hat, though.

And what comes next? Or rather, “Who”? Well, I had been getting a little nervous at the lack of announcement thus far, but have no fear, because a few days ago the BBC finally made the announcement. Next time we see the Doctor, he’ll be played by Jon Pertwee.

There’s a pretty decent chance you’ve seen Pertwee in one thing or another. He’s been doing plenty of work for the BBC for the last couple of decades, and his film career is certainly nothing to sniff at. If you’ve seen the 1953 film “Will Any Gentlemen…?”, you’ve even seen him perform alongside William Hartnell. I choose to take that as an encouraging sign.

I’m sad to see Troughton go, but I have faith. If Doctor Who can pull off a change of Doctor once, it can do it again.

Thank you for being a wonderful Doctor, Patrick Troughton… and good luck, Jon Pertwee.

5 stars out of 5 for “The War Games”.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 8th, 1969] Dissension In The Ranks (Doctor Who: The War Games [Parts 5-7])

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By Jessica Holmes

When I said this serial was long, I wasn’t exaggerating. We’re getting closer to the end—but we’re not there yet.

Let’s check up on how the Doctor and company are getting on in “The War Games.”

ID: The Doctor (right, dark haired middle-aged white male, baggy suit), talking to the Science Chief (middle-aged white male, balding, wearing lab coat and visor with cross shaped eye holes). Seated in front of them with his head in a metal vise is Carstairs (30s-ish white make in WW1-era British sergeant's uniform)

In Case You Missed It

We last left the TARDIS team scattered, the Doctor on his own in the sprawling futuristic central command, Jamie with the Resistance in the 1860s, and Zoe about to be shot as a spy for the Kaiser. Suffice to say, I’m having a lot more fun than they are.

Fortunately for Zoe, she’s more valuable alive than dead, so while the Security Chief hauls her in for questioning, the Science Chief takes Carstairs for more thorough reprogramming. And he has an eager audience of one: the Doctor, who the Science Chief hasn’t yet realised isn’t meant to be here.

As for Jamie, he manages to persuade the Resistance not to kill their prisoner Von Weich, and also reveals to them their puppet-masters’ true means of communicating with central command and moving troops from zone to zone; not tunnels, as they had assumed, but the big green (or so he says) travelling box that's bigger on the inside. It turns out later that it's called a SIDRAT (pronounced 'side-rat'). Funny acronyms on a postcard, please.

The Doctor takes the opportunity to rescue Carstairs when the Science Chief de-programs him in preparation for proper reprogramming, and the pair of them strap him into his own machine before running off to find Zoe. Zoe’s a little the worse-for-wear following her interrogation at the hands of the Security Chief and his truth-seeking visor/bizarre binoculars. On the one hand, the Security Chief now knows about the Doctor and the TARDIS. On the other, he made the mistake of showing Zoe images of all the Resistance leaders—along with their names and their respective time-zones. Thanks to Zoe’s perfect memory, they now have the information they need to start finding these separate pockets of resistance and bringing them together.

ID: The Security Chief (back to camera, smart suit, wearing an elongated visor) interrogating Zoe (seated, white brunette girl approx. late teens). There is a stripey background.

They’d better get a move on, because the War Chief is already dispatching guards via SIDRAT to the American Civil War Zone to investigate the disturbance there— and they’ve already killed Harper, the soldier who came to Jamie and Lady Jennifer's rescue earlier. Pity. I hoped he was going to stick around for at least a little while longer. Survival rates of Doctor Who side characters are already pretty low. Looks like they drop to zero if you’re not white.

The other members of the Resistance manage to overpower the guards, however, and Jamie takes a ride back to the base in the SIDRAT, accompanied by his Resistance allies (save one who gets held back from the adventure to keep Von Weich company. That one happens to be played by David Troughton.  The surname is not a coincidence. What's the opposite of favouritism?)

Fortunately for the Science Chief, the Security Chief finds him before he gets his brains too badly scrambled, but the Security Chief is too suspicious of the War Chief’s true motives to report the incident to him. It turns out that the War Chief and War Lord are not from this world; unlike him and his cohorts, their people have the secret of time-and-space travel. If the Doctor has this secret too, thinks the Security Chief, perhaps his overlords are bringing in more of their own people to sabotage the experiment.

Well, their technology does seem similar. Same function, familiar design, and SIDRAT is literally just TARDIS backwards. But the Security Chief called them 'Time Lords', and I don’t know about you but the Doctor does not strike me as terribly lordly.

ID: The Doctor and Zoe, both in stolen British WW1 army uniforms.

Jamie and the Resistance get a rather frosty reception when the SIDRAT arrives at central command, stunned by a barrage of ray-gun fire. The guards drag him and his allies off to the reprocessing room for examination, and the Doctor heads to the neighbouring room to attempt a rescue from the other side.

Finding that Jamie has never been through the reconditioning process, the Science Chief sends him to the Security Chief for interrogation. Taking advantage of the distraction, the Doctor and Carstairs break into the reconditioning room through a wall panel, quickly overpowering the Science Chief and his guard.

It’s not long before they’ve also rescued Jamie (while the Security and War Chiefs are running round like headless chickens searching for them), and with some handy disguises they all pile into the SIDRAT, the Doctor managing to make it work with surprising ease. Sending Zoe on ahead with the Resistance, he hangs back with Jamie and Carstairs to steal the reprocessing machine.

The SIDRAT arrives back at the barn not a moment too soon, because Von Weich is trying to hypnotise his way out of captivity. His guard manages to fight off his control, however, and shoots him dead.

ID: The Doctor tapping at a control panel while Jamie (20s white male, wearing British military cap) looks on apprehensively.

Meanwhile, the Doctor nicks the processing machine, and it looks like he’s about to make a clean getaway when his stolen SIDRAT grinds to a halt. The pod is impregnable, just like the TARDIS, but what happens if the dimensions inside suddenly match the dimensions outside? It becomes rather snug, that’s what. And with the War Chief outside pushing the dimensional control dial down even further, it won’t be long before the trio are pressed to a pulp.

With no choice but to surrender, the Doctor emerges from the SIDRAT, only to drop a gas grenade from his stolen WWI gear a moment later. While the security guards are reeling, he rushes to the control panel, stealing the navigation circuit rods and restoring the inner dimensions of the vehicle. Just to be safe, he snaps off the lever for good measure, and absconds with the SIDRAT.

Unable to track him while the SIDRAT is still moving, the War Chief prepares for the arrival of the War Lord (Philip Madoc). This man is rather a different beast to the War Chief. He’s quieter, surprisingly soft spoken until he gets angry, and there’s no doubt that this is the most dangerous man on the planet right now. And he is very, very tired of the War and Security Chiefs’ bickering.

The War Lord (left, middle-aged white male, receding hairline, glasses, dark turtleneck) standing around a large map built into a table, with the War Chief (middle, middle-aged white male, dark hair) and the Security Chief (right, middle aged white male, glasses, balding). There are security guards in the background.

On board the SIDRAT, they’re no clearer on where they’re heading, least of all the Doctor. No matter the specific model of Space-Time machine, one thing is guaranteed: the Doctor is a lousy driver.

Landing in the Roman zone, the Doctor, Jamie and Carstairs have to make a hasty break for the time zone barrier, lest they end up on the wrong end of a centurion’s spear.

They aren’t really any better off for stepping into 1917, with General Smythe immediately ordering his gunners to fire on them. Fortunately, they aren’t pinned down for long before Zoe arrives with a small band of Resistance troops. However, more troops arrive to arrest the Doctor, bringing him and his friends back to the chateau, where Smythe sentences him to death…again.

Once again they get about as far as tying him to the post when a surprise attack scuppers the execution, this time coming from the Resistance. Smythe gets himself killed while attempting to escape, and the Resistance secure the chateau.

Wishing to avoid spoiling his little experiment by using his elite security forces, or destroying the valuable equipment at the chateau by simply bombing it off the map, the War Lord orders the local forces (British and Prussians and Frenchmen, oh my!) to assault the chateau on all sides.

The Doctor using the reprogramming device on a French soldier with Jamie's assistance.

With the attackers closing in, the Doctor has an idea. Finding a control device for the local time zone barrier in Smythe’s quarters, with Zoe’s help he’s able to create a new barrier encircling the chateau. The Resistance can come and go as they please, but the programmed soldiers outside will find themselves unable to approach. A single soldier managed to get into the chateau before the barrier went up, and the Doctor is quickly able to deprogram him with the processing machine. It's encouraging to see that it works, but deprogramming every single one of the untold thousands of soldiers throughout the zones will take until doomsday. Until the Doctor gets his hands on some more equipment, this will have to do.

Unfortunately it’s not certain that he’s going to get that chance. Now isolated from the zone outside, there’s nothing stopping the War Lord sending a SIDRAT of his own security forces. And so the Doctor falls into the hands of the War Lord.

The War Lord, looking thoughtful.

A WHAT Lord?

Well, well, well. Things are really getting interesting. This War Lord seems to be an entirely new kind of enemy, with a power level beyond any we’ve yet seen, save for perhaps the Great Intelligence or the Toymaker. The strong implication that he and the Doctor may be of the same world is a tantalising one.

Time Lords: quite a grandiose name for an alien race, don’t you think? Are they just too pompous for their own good or is that a title with actual meaning? It’s hard to imagine this Doctor as any kind of lord—though I think I could see it with his previous incarnation. It’s an interesting notion, but I hope we’re not going to spoil all sense of mystery about the Doctor. That’s part of the fun.

I’m happy to report that astonishingly for a serial of such length, the pacing still works. It’s a really fun ride with no signs of slowing down. We’ve not seen much of the War Lord yet, but he’s very promising so far. Philip Madoc’s presence on-screen is magnetic. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when he comes face to face with the Doctor.

Final Thoughts

It’s a funny thing, simultaneously being eager for the conclusion of a story, yet at the same time wishing it didn’t have to end. I’ve grown very fond of this incarnation of the Doctor, and it’s strange to think that the next time I sit down at the typewriter to hammer out my thoughts on his escapades, it will be the last. Of course, the Doctor himself will keep on going (for however long the BBC sees fit), but not as the funny little chap with the recorder. I could wax lyrical about him— but I will save that for next time.

Still, no point grousing about it. The wheel of history keeps on turning, and so does Doctor Who.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[May 18, 1969] Whirr Hum Bang Bang (Doctor Who: The War Games [Parts 1-4])

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[Join us for ongoing LIVE coverage of the Apollo 10 flight—going on right now!]


By Jessica Holmes

I’m a bad-news-first type of person, so I’ll get this out of the way: this is the last serial of the current series of Doctor Who. And, per the Radio Times, that makes this serial Patrick Troughton’s last as the titular Doctor. But here’s the good news:

We’ve got a good while to go yet, because this is a very long serial.

And better still, “The War Games” is brilliant.

ID: Zoe, the Doctor and Jamie stand on a a battlefield. There is debris in the foreground. The Doctor is holding a WWI-era helmet.

In Case You Missed It

From the moment the TARDIS lands in the middle of a sodden battlefield, the crew within are in terrible danger. Emerging to find themselves caught in the midst of the First World War, it’s not long before the team are captured under suspicion of being German spies.

However, it soon starts to become apparent that there’s something rather wrong here. Other than, you know, the total war and unimaginable horrors and all that. No, it’s a bit weirder than that. It certainly looks like we’re in France in 1917, and everyone is talking as if that’s the case, but the personnel have no backstories. Not in the ‘these people are badly written’ sense, but in the sense that when they ask one another about where they’ve been or what they’ve been doing, they have absolutely no idea.

General Smythe (60s ish, white, sideburns and British General's WWI uniform) looking stern.

It’s all to do with General Smythe (Noel Coleman) at the local British base, and the decidedly anachronistic communication device in his office. It soon becomes apparent that he’s collaborating with forces far beyond British high command, using mind control to manipulate the men and women under his command towards his own ends.

The new arrivals threaten to upset his control, and he wastes little time in court-marshalling the travellers. They don’t get a chance to defend themselves, and Smythe pronounces all three guilty. Jamie’s sent to a military prison to await trial on further charges of desertion from the highland regiment, Zoe is placed in the custody of a WVR until she can be sent to a civilian prison, and as for the ringleader of their little ‘spy ring’? The Doctor is sentenced to death.

This is treated with more gravity than we’ve usually come to expect from Doctor Who. Sure, everyone’s been in mortal peril plenty of times, but we get the feeling that the characters believe they’ll get out of it in one piece. That’s not the case here. If it were, the Doctor would have told his friends ‘see you soon’ rather than ‘goodbye’. And it’s played by all involved with real sincerity.

The Doctor tied to a post with his back against a stone wall. The shoulders of soldiers can be seen in the foreground. The Doctor looks panicked.

After a damp squib of an escape attempt that only succeeds in delivering the Doctor into the hands of his executioners, a surprise German attack grants Zoe and the Doctor an opportunity to flee.

Elsewhere languishing in military prison, Jamie’s very surprised when a Redcoat is thrown into the cell with him. Yes, a Redcoat. This chap seems to think that the year is 1745—and just like the WWI soldiers, he can’t remember how he got here.

We now arrive at a delightful sequence: the Doctor’s method of breaking into a prison. Does he go for brute force? Of course not. The stealthy approach? You’d think, but no. What he goes for is pure cheek. He flags a car down, berates the driver, and demands to be driven through the front gates.

Upon arriving, he pretends to be an examiner from the War Office, and goes on the opposite of the charm offensive. The offence offensive, you could say. He is very, very cross and hell-bent on making it everyone else’s problem. It’s adorable. And funny. Like being yelled at by the world’s angriest penguin.

Warden's office interior. Warden is facing away from the camera. The Doctor, who is shorter than him, is angrily yelling at him as Zoe watches from over his shoulder.
You see it too, right?

And it works! Not only does the warden buy the ruse, he shows the Doctor layouts of the prison, the logbook, and is about to approve of a visit to a particular Scottish prisoner when a phonecall comes in. Unfortunately, said Scottish prisoner has just tried to escape, aided by his unlikely Redcoat accomplice, who ended up shot in the attempt.

Thinking fast, the Doctor demands that the guards bring him the escaped prisoner. However, his bluster is starting to wear thin, and the warden grows suspicious of the pair of them. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, let alone off-the-cuff schemes that run on pure chutzpah.

Recaptured, it looks like the three are back where they started. However, two of the General’s subordinates, Lt. Carstairs (David Savile) and WVR Lady Jennifer Buckingham (Jane Sherwin), have started to become suspicious of the General’s conduct. Realising that they both have a sense of missing time, they’re a little more willing to listen to the ‘spies’ side of the story.

The General's Office. There is a round glass screen set into a wall panel. Lady Jennifer, her back to the camera, reaches up to touch it. Lt. Carstairs, seen from the back, is at the edge of the frame.

Having discovered it earlier in the unsuccessful escape attempt, Zoe shows the group the communication device in Smythe’s quarters. Smythe for his part isn’t around. He departed some time ago for a conference, travelling via a strange transportation pod that fades in and out of existence with a somewhat familiar sound.

Convinced by the evidence presented (which they couldn’t even see until they concentrated), Carstairs and Lady Jennifer agree to help. The group escape together in an ambulance moments before the General’s return, soon disappearing into a sea of fog… and reappearing on a Roman battlefield.

This is the moment where I fell in love with the serial.

Three Roman soldiers bearing an eagle standard standing on the crest of a hill.

Reversing away from the oncoming onslaught, they find themselves back (ostensibly) in 1917. The Doctor surmises that they crossed the boundary into another time zone. Two thousand years is quite a long way to wind your watch, to say nothing of the jet lag.

It turns out that what seemed to be northern France in 1917 is nothing more than a small part of a greater patchwork of historical periods and places. In one zone, it’s the 1640s in England. The next, 1860s America. The one thing all have in common is that in each zone, there’s a war on.

In the middle of all these warzones is an empty space. Logically, that must be the domain of whoever is orchestrating all this.

Their attempt to reach this central zone gets off to an inauspicious start with the group being captured by the Germans before very long (if I did have to complain about anything in this serial, it would be how often everyone gets captured), though they do escape quite quickly through some quick talking, the assistance of the sonic screwdriver, and perhaps most importantly, a gun.

Next stop: the American Civil War.

A futuristic control room. Lots of blinking lights and gleaming metal. Smythe stands across a table from the War Chief, who has a medallion around his neck. There are armed men dressed all in black in the background.

Their escape garners the attention of Smythe’s superior, the War Chief, a man of bad character and worse facial hair choices. Soon, all the armies of all the zones are under instructions to capture the time travellers.

The ambulance has a narrow escape from an ambush, with Lt. Carstairs staying behind to aid the others’ escape. The War Chief notes his loyalty with approval, and arranges to have him brought back to the central hub for re-processing. The War Chief (and the as-yet-unseen War Lord who commands him) have a great interest in the warriors of Earth, but to what end? It’d be funny if they were in some sort of futuristic unethical historical reenactment society.

Soon running out of petrol, the group take shelter for the night in a barn. The familiar electronic sound comes back, a travel pod fading into existence before their eyes. A band of soldiers emerge, but how did they all fit? Well, the pod must be bigger on the inside.

Once the soldiers have departed, the Doctor can’t help but take a look inside. As the sound of gunfire approaches, Zoe follows him in, the door suddenly shutting behind her. The pod de-materialises, separating Zoe and the Doctor from Jamie and Lady Jennifer.

A large group of WWI-era German soldiers in spiked helmets standing together.

The pod is indeed bigger on the inside—much bigger. There are multiple rooms filled with hypnotised soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder (try saying that five times when you’re drunk), all waiting to disembark at their appropriate time zones.

A gang of Union soldiers meanwhile arrest Jamie and Lady Jennifer, accusing them (much to Jamie’s frustration) of spying. It seems they’re to be granted a reprieve when a bunch of Confederates assault the Union troops, freeing them in the process. They’re even quite friendly. However, their leader, who we previously saw as the German commander in the 1917 zone, hypnotises them into believing that Jamie and Lady Jennifer are spies.

To their surprise, a man in the uniform of a Union soldier comes to their rescue. However, Harper (Rudolph Walker) is no Union solider: he’s one of a growing number of soldiers who have learned to resist the War Chief’s brainwashing. Together, they’re mounting a resistance. Recognising them as being from another time zone, he tries to help. It’s a noble effort, but doesn’t pan out, all three ending up in the Confederates’ clutches. Harper tries to win the Confederates over and break their brainwashing, but being a Black Union soldier, historical context is not on his side.

Fortunately for them, the rest of the Resistance aren’t far behind, but to Jamie’s distress they don’t plan on taking any prisoners.

Jamie and Lady Jennifer (left and right) talking with Harper (centre).

The Doctor and Zoe eventually end up at the travel pod’s origin point, and emerge to explore the sprawling facility. There are dozens of people working to keep this whole system going, and the pair disguise themselves as part of their number to sit in on a lecture given by the chief scientist.

Keeping thousands of people fighting perpetual fake wars takes quite a bit of brainwashing to accomplish, and it’s no good if people keep resisting the process. As such, he’s been working on improving the mental conditioning device. Lt. Carstairs is the guinea pig, and once the process is complete, he’s entirely willing to accept the reality presented to him. The year is 1917, he’s among his fellow officers, and the two strangers sitting in the front row are German spies.

You could make a drinking game out of this. Take a shot every time the Doctor and company get accused of being spies. Finish your glass if someone gets sentenced to death. You might need to get your stomach pumped afterwards.

Thinking he’s just got a bit carried away in the fantasy, the lecturer doesn’t believe Carstairs and has him wheeled away for further examination. The Doctor takes the opportunity to critique the mental conditioning device, and thereby learn how it works and how it might be used to de-condition a subject.

As he’s about to leave, the War Chief turns up, immediately realising that the Doctor and Zoe don’t belong. They have to run for it, getting separated in the chase. In all the chaos, Carstairs gets loose, and so does what he thinks he’s right: he goes after the ‘spies’. He soon catches Zoe, and there’s only one way to deal with a spy in the field. He’s going to have to shoot her.

The Doctor and Zoe standing in a futuristic corridor with metal wall panels. They are wearing white visors with cross-shaped eye holes.
It's called fashion, darling.

The Mystery Box

This is an adventure that is yet to fully unfold, but the slivers we’ve uncovered thus far are a delight. “The War Games” invites curiosity, and rewards us for it with even more to be curious about.

The TARDIS team getting caught in a wartime spy drama was already rather exciting, but throw in all these different time periods clashing with each other and we’re really cooking on gas. It’s imaginative, it’s thrilling, it’s exactly what Doctor Who should be.

Who are the War Chief and War Master? I get the sense that what we’ve seen so far is part of a grander and more sinister scheme. Whatever it is, it’s far from benign. Looking at how many untold thousands (likely more) of people they’ve abducted and fed into these endless wars and the level of technology they possess, one gets the sense that these people, whoever they are, are far more formidable than your average foe.

A man in a visor uses a vice-like device on the head of Lt. Carstairs, who looks afraid. Carstairs is tied to his chair.
Special offer: brainwash and mental conditioning now offered free with your cut and blow-dry!

Final Thoughts

“The War Games” is off to a terrific start.

It’s got a good pace to it, lingering a moment to let the emotional beats resonate, keeping up a steady rhythm when the action gets going. As such, despite the recurring plot point of the group getting captured, it doesn’t feel padded out. I like the characters, particularly the smart and self-assured Lady Jennifer. With all the different time periods, this feels like a properly big and sprawling adventure—an adventure I’m excited to see more of.




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[May 8, 1969] Cooked in the Chrysalis (The Monkees TV special: 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee)

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by Lorelei Marcus

I recently watched and reviewed the new Monkees movie, Head—a depressing and existential capper to both the TV show and The Monkees band itself.  I ended the article questioning whether the members of The Monkees would be able to weather the deliberate self-sabotage of their band, or be doomed to obscurity by disappointed fans.  While I appreciated Head for what it was, reception has been mixed and, in the main, less than positive.  It seemed the end of The Monkees would be a quiet, tragic one.

Until April 14 of this year.  Scheduled opposite the Oscars, NBC broadcast a TV special entitled 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee.  While half the country was dazzled by movie stars and award ceremonies, I watched the last hurrah of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.  It was an unusual finale, and not far removed from Head stylistically and, perhaps, in intent.  But in contrast to the grim movie, I thought I saw a glimmer of hope.

The special starts strong with the surreal introduction of a pair of musical brainwashers: ebullient Brian Auger (he introduced "Drimble Wedge and the Vegetation" in the movie Bedazzled) and the enigmatic Julie Driscoll—the front-folk for the popular British band, The Trinity.  The Monkees are summoned in on Star Trek-ish transporters and then trapped in giant tubes, hypnotized by a strange machine until they have lost all identity and free will, rejecting their own names for "Monkees No. 1-4".  This and their subsequent (though not immediately following) musical number, "Tinman", wherein they play wind-up versions of themselves, make clear their still strong feelings of being manufactured and forced into the band-idol role.

But unlike Head, the TV special offered glimpses of what The Monkees could be if given their freedom.

Even trapped with the tubes, The Monkees are given license to dream their most desired fantasy (essentially, what songs each might sing if they had complete license), and we view these dreams in the first four vignettes of the special.  Micky sings a soulful duet of "I'm a Believer" with Julie Driscoll.  He is at home on the stage, comfortable with being a vocal performer.

Peter sings a soft, mystical ballad with plenty of Indian influence.  The artistry of both the lyrics and the music emphasize his skill as a storyteller and musician.  They also echo his role in the pivotal Eye of the Storm scene in Head.

Mike's act involves a warring duet…with himself.  There is both humor and commentary as the stereotypical Texas country boy Mike and the slick, suit-wearing, city boy version of Mike compete for dominance in the song.

Finally, Davy stars in the most fantastical and theater-like number where he sings and dances in an oversized room with several female partners dressed like fairy-tale-inspired dolls.  He also demonstrates his prowess as a performer, and he seems the most entwined and comfortable with his (manufactured?) Monkees persona.

These acts are perhaps the best part of the special, with each Monkee getting to express his own personality and talents.  However, it does not last, and from there, the show begins to lose its way.

First, we get a random and slightly out of place modern dance piece performed against a volcanic/lava-lampy/biological matte background, that seems to be a depiction of evolution and creation.  This is in service to a motif introduced by Auger as Charles Darwin, describing the evolution of music. 

Then, we get a musical skit where the Monkees are dressed as actual monkees.  It might also be an homage to the first act of the movie 2001, the music is only passable, and a bit too similar to the next skit.

Here, the Monkees reach their ultimate form as a manufactured rock band in a full blown '50s nostalgia concert, poking fun at the success of idols like Elvis and The Beatles.  There are some impressive guest stars, including Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard, but as with the prior two segments, the scene goes on for much too long, losing meaning with every new dancer and musical guest brought on. 

As the concert reaches its climax, the film literally burns apart, and we are left with Auger and Driscoll declaring (in their native accents, as opposed to the weird German of Auger and the…alien harpy of Driscoll) that they're tired of their brainwashing role.  All they want is total freedom.  They warn, however, that such freedom could result in total chaos.

At first, their caution seems unfounded as we cut to Davy singing a normal and pleasant song atop a set of scaffolding.  Then, in the ensuing silence after he finishes, the camera pans to the cluttered ground floor, reminiscent of a theater storage room.  Peter arrives, and without a word, sits and plays a masterful Baroque fugue on an electric piano.  His performance is a poignant moment, and it feels like a long-deserved recognition of his immense musical talent…also a kind of goodbye, for the papers have since announced that Tork left the band after this special.

Then, just as casually and quietly, Micky sits at his drumset and Mike picks up his guitar.  They take a moment to tune, and then they begin to play a new song: "Listen to the Band."  For a little while, everything feels right again.  The band is together, the music is good.  They appear to be where they want to be.

The mood elevates as suddenly a whole orchestra joins in, and a new singer takes over for Mike. There is excitement in the dancing and flashing colors and swelling music—it's all a bit reminiscent of the final recording of The Beatles "All You Need is Love" as seen on year-before-last's satellite broadcast of Our World.  But then confusion sets in as the Monkees disappear from view in the massive crowd, and the music itself devolves into a cacophony of blended, formless sounds.  This also goes on for far longer than is comfortable, until the iconic Monkee's gorilla himself closes the book on the special, its cover titled, "The Beginning of the End."

Overall, I didn't enjoy this special as much as Head.  It felt much less thought-out and clever, lacking a cohesive narrative.  To a degree, I think this was intentional.  Time and again, both The Monkees and their music gets lost, drowned out by other musicians and strange editing.  In a specific sense, it is a direct metaphor for what happened to The Monkees.  In a general sense, it symbolizes the fear of being lost in the tide of change and innovation.  Or perhaps it represents simply being overwhelmed by the pressures of modern sociery.  Either way, it didn't make for the best viewing experience.

Still, I see a future where The Monkees do pull through.  Each of them has immense talent and an ambition to succeed in some aspect of show business.  In the beginning of the special, we see what they can do, and even if it's drowned out by the end, that doesn't mean they can't resurface.  In fact, as their band crumbles apart, disappearing may be the best path for a while, until they've thoroughly shaken off their former legacy and started fresh.

It's bittersweet having to say goodbye, and I wish it could have been done more elegantly, but I doubt this is the last we'll see of Micky, Peter, Davy or Mike.  It'll just be when they do come back, they'll have created something completely new.


"Listen to the band…"

33 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee was a paving stone in the path toward that innovation, and while it wasn't fully successful, I can see the potential within it for future success.

Three stars.




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[May 4, 1969] Navigating the Wasteland #3 (1966-69 in (good) television)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Well, I've waited too long to do one of these!

In 1961, I got myself a television.  Not just any television—I went straight to a color set (an RCA), even as hardly anyone in the nation owned one.  Heck, we still had stations that weren't broadcasting in color yet.  I think NBC is the only one I can remember that touted its weekly day of color programming.

Anyway, I made up for lost time, watching a lot of (too much) television.  I quickly came to agree with then-FCC commissioner Newton Minow's assessment of visual broadcast.  He described it as "a vast wasteland."

Still, I found some worthy shows, and back in 1962, I put out a guide to the good shows on television at the time.  In 1965, I came out with a sequel.

Why haven't I published a TV guide since?  Well part of it is because we've given focus to individual shows.  For instance, our Star Trek coverage has been very thorough.  Janice wrote about The Green Hornet in 1967.  Last year, our UK friends watched The Prisoner, which made a big splash when it hit American shores last summer.  Also, Victoria Silverwolf covered the spy craze back in 1966, and that included a lot of TV shows, some of which are still on. 

Nevertheless, as we head into the rerun season this year, it's a good time to look back on what's sprouted in the wasteland since our last update.  After all, while some of the shows have since gone off the air, or are about to, you'll still get to catch them (often at more convenient times) in syndication.

Star Trek (1966-1969)

Obviously, this is the biggie.  Star Trek was (well, there's one more episode to be aired, so technically "is") the first real science fiction series on television.  Sure, there was kiddie fare before that, like Space Patrol (both the Corn Flakes-sponsored one and the puppet import from the UK) and Man in Space, not to mention (please don't mention) the profusion of Irwin Allen shows starting with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea through Lost in Space to Time Tunnel and still going with Land of the Giants.

And yes, The Twilight Zone had SFnal episodes, and The Outer Limits was more explicitly sci-fi, but both shows were mostly inspired by the pulp era, the science fiction content primitive in the extreme.

Star Trek, for all its faults, derived from the science fiction of the '40s and '50s while spotlighting some of the social issues of today.  The Enterprise essentially flew out of the pages of classic Astounding—which makes sense; Gene Roddenberry said as much to one of our friends at the 1966 Worldcon.  We even had bonafide SF authors like Norman Spinrad, Robert Bloch, Jerome Bixby, Harlan Ellison, and Ted Sturgeon writing episodes…though the practice of soliciting pros quickly stopped when they began demanding too much money.  Luckily, many of Trek's best episodes were written by newcomers.  Indeed, one of the more gratifying things about the show has been that is has helped launch the careers of a number of women writers, Jean Lisette Aroeste and D.C. (Dorothy) Fontana being the names that immediately come to mind.

So even though the show is cruising toward a premature end of its five year mission, it is a must see when it inevitably gets rerun after this summer.

Mod Squad (1968-)

“One black, one white, one blonde”

If any show has heralded a sea change on the boob tube, it's Mod Squad.  Cop shows have been a dime a dozen for a long time.  Highway Patrol, 87th Precinct, Dragnet, Felony Squad, The F.B.I., Ironside, N.Y.P.D.—even Car 54, Where Are You? (admittedly, that one was a comedy).  Indeed, shows about the police are starting to rival Westerns in terms of airtime dominance.  Just this year, we got three of them: Hawaii Five-O, Adam 12, and the subject of this section.

But whereas the only distinguishing characteristic of the first one is its location (beautiful Hawai'i), and the second one is as bad as a patrol cop show from the makers of Dragnet and starring that program's worst guest actor could be, Mod Squad is Something Else.

Mod Squad is the story of three young adults, all with minor criminal rap sheets, all who decide to become undercover cops rather than do time.  They quickly form a bond with each other and with their Captain, Adam Greer.  Over the course of the season, they have busted narcotics rings, carjackers, helped nab corrupt cops, and otherwise proven their value to the force.

The difference?  Heart.  Mod Squad is oozing heart, with genuine chemistry amongst all the four leads.  The cops in the other shows tend to be portrayed as benevolent(?) automatons.  Pete, Julie, and Linc (and Adam) are human beings—compelling, vulnerable, admirable.

Beyond that, there's been a quantum leap in production.  Everything in Mod Squad is on location, with mobile cameras and lots of action.  Car chases, foot races, you name it.  The show bursts with energy.  Its lineage traces from the hip globetrotting of I, Spy and the philosophical earthiness and camaraderie of Route 66, and oft times, it surpasses both shows.

Watch it.  Dig it.  This one's going to be around a while, I predict.

The Monkees (1966-1968)

Debuting at the same time as Star Trek and on the same network, The Monkees flamed out more quickly.  No surprise—comedy is hard to maintain, especially the kind of frenetic, innovative stuff you saw on that show.  Beyond that, when you make a show about four charismatic musicians, you run the risk of said musicians actually having talent and wanting to do their own thing.  No matter what the papers or the sneering cognoscenti say, The Monkees are all pretty talented people.  After all, Peter Tork is an accomplished guitarist and folk singer, Mike Nesmith has penned a dozen hit songs (and not just for himself), and Micky and Davy are both decent performers as well as skilled actors.

It's no surprise that the show went off the rails, and then The Monkees demolished it entirely with their deconstructive movie, Head (not to mention their freak-out of a TV special: 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee).

But if you get a chance to catch the show in rerun, it's worth it.  It's genuinely funny, the musical interludes feature complete songs (get your tape deck ready!), the songs are excellent, and the foursome has magical chemistry.  When they are a foursome—for some reason, Mike was on vacation for about a fifth of the episodes…

Laugh-In (1968-)

Speaking of successful comedy, it's hard to miss NBC's smashiest of smashes, the psychedelic, wild ride that is Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.  We've covered the show previously, so I won't go into too much detail.  I will note that the program has evolved in the two years it's been on the air.  This year, we got several new performers: Dave Madden, whose shtick is tossing confetti to signify he's having dirty thoughts; Chelsea Brown…The Black One (I hope they broaden her role next year); Alan Souse…The Homosexual (I hope they broaden his role next year).

It is impossible to understate the influence the show has had on pop culture.  From "Here Come the Judge" to "Sock it To Me" to "Very Interesting", Laugh-In-isms are everywhere.  On the last Bob Hope special, we counted three or four clear references to the show.  Arte Johnson is doing Mustang commercials—in his Nazi persona (at least he's not shilling for Volkswagen).  Half the cast guest starred (as themselves) on I Dream of Jeannie.  Every week, you can see at least one of the team on some variety/talk show or another. 

It is a very funny show, and hosts Dick and Dan have a natural rapport.  Beyond that, the cast manage to come up with unique musical numbers every week, which is amazing.  The women performers, in particular, are amazingly talented.

There are some warning signs: since Nixon got elected, perhaps with Laugh-In's help—Tricky Dick had a cameo earlier this year: "Sock it to me?" he exclaimed stiltedly—the show has tacked rightward in its commentary.  In the last episode, the Reverend Billy Graham was the special guest, making rather unfunny jokes, and ending the show with a straightfaced endorsement of John 3:16.  I'm not sure if Arte Johnson (in full Wehrmacht regalia) agreeing with the sentiment was intended to be ironic or not.

On the other hand, at least the show isn't as sexist as it used to be.  The worst of that last season was when they had Cher Bono as a guest, and the musical number was about grasping wives.  If anyone's the grasping wife in the Bono clan, it's Sonny.

Anyway, I don't need to tell you to watch it.  You probably already are.  Let's hope next season is even better.

Hollywood Palace (1964-)

When I was a very young, Vaudeville was king.  Live song and dance—forget this radio and television jazz.  Well, ABC's Hollywood Palace, put on in the building of the same name owned by none other than Bing Crosby, is the closest you'll get to the old Vaudeville days.  Comedy, acrobatics, singing, magic…the works.  All live (but taped).

Every week, there's a different host (Bing always claims the first and last nights for himself).  Sometimes they're terrific, like the times Sammy Davis Jr. gets the job; sometimes we get Burl Ives.  I'd say the show is pitched mainly at folks of my generation, maybe a touch older.  The jokes, the guests, most were big a decade or two ago.  That said, the Palace keeps things hip with acts like the Supremes and Gladys Knight.  It's definitely not Lawrence Welk (for my parents), nor is it American Bandstand (for my kids).

Lorelei and I have been regular watchers of the show ever since we heard Tony Randall hosted it once.  We're grateful it's had such longevity.

The Carol Burnett Show (1968-)

If you took Laugh-In and Hollywood Palace and shmushed them together, you'd get The Carol Burnett Show.  Less frenetic than Laugh-In, but hipper than the Palace, it's a bit like if the latter show had just one host the whole time.  Carol starts out each show with a question an answer segment that feels genuine and unrehearsed.  The musical acts are a mix of looped and live performances.  The skits range from domestic comedy to fractured fairy tales, utilizing the supporting cast of the prissy Harvey Korman, the hunky Lyle Waggoner, the adorable Vicki Lawrence (who usually plays Carol's sister; I'm amazed they aren't related), and whomever is guest this week.

It's a terrific show, and Carol is an excellent host.  If I have any complaint, it's that the family skits play a little too hard into the marital discord bit.  Also, as much as I love Ms. Burnett, eventually you can get too much of a good thing—week after week, skit after skit.

Still, definitely in the upper tiers of television!

That's Life (1968-1969)

Remember how I marveled that Laugh-In manages to produce a new musical number or two each week?  Well That's Life tried to make a romantic sitcom that was a complete, hour-long musical on the same schedule!

Robert E. Morse (How to Succeed at Business Without Really Trying) and E.J. Peaker starred in a whirlwind tour of courtship, marriage, and family as they sang and danced through their lives.  Each episode had a coterie of special guests (of course, our favorite was Tony Randall), and the whole thing was funny and fast-paced.

Well, you knew it couldn't last.  After one season, it's gone.  And having only gone on one season, it's likely we'll never see it in syndication.  ¡Qué lastima!

Wild Kingdom (1963-)

One show that shows no sign of quitting is Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.  Hosted by the Director Emeritus of the St. Louis Zoo, Marlin Perkins, this is quite simply the coolest nature program to be found.  We get a new half-season at the beginning of every year.  Marlin opens up each episode with a bit of in-studio discussion, often partnering with one of his fellow rangers (usually Jim, but occasionally Stan Brock, the South African mountain) and W.K., the chimpanzee.

Then it's off to the field: either a prerecorded feature narrated by someone else, or footage from a real safari that Marlin has gone on.  Usually the latter involves tracking an endangered animal or rescuing some creature for scientific study.  Marlin is no joke—at age 60+, you can still find him netting lions or sleep-darting elephants.  Of course, Marlin doesn't hold a candle to Stan wrestling hippopotami or saving drowned calves.

I'm sure some of the editing is artfully done for drama, but it's still a great show, emphasizing the importance of preserving the natural abundance to be found in the Wild Kingdom.

Since this article is running long, I shan't bother listing the shows not worth watching.  I won't even mention the C+ and B- television that I won't flip the idiot box off for, but which aren't worth seeking out.  With just the shows I've recommended, you'll have plenty to watch out for!

Until next time… stay tuned in.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[April 14, 1969] My Least Favourite Kind Of Cereal (Doctor Who: The Space Pirates [Parts 4-6])

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By Jessica Holmes

The last we left the Doctor and company, they were at the mercy of a gang of not-particularly-swashbuckling space pirates. The first half of this serial was a rather bland affair—let’s see if the second half improves things.

ID: The Doctor (middle-aged white male, dark hair) and Jamie (young adult male, dark hair) kneel in a darkened room.

In Case You Missed It

Having just been chased down a hole, the Doctor and his friends are dismayed to discover that they have not in fact found a cunning escape route from the pirates, but the entrance to a prison cell. A prison cell they’re now trapped within. And they’re not alone. The sole survivor from the beacon attack, Sorba, is in there with them. One might think that he’s going to become pivotal to the plot and their survival, but—well, you’ll see soon enough.

Meanwhile, the leader of the pirates, Caven, is beset by dissension in his crew. His subordinate, Dervish, is hesitant to travel to collect the beacon segments, fearing the Space Corps, who are also en-route. However, he’s more afraid of Caven, who has placed a remote control on his ship, and could kill him with the push of a button.

Dervish arrives at the beacon debris to find that one of the sections is missing, and remembering that Sorba had said something about intruders, Caven sends a couple of men to collect Sorba for interrogation.

These men arrive at the prison cell just in time to find the Doctor and his friends escaping with the assistance of Milo Clancey. He shoots one of them, but the other escapes, and soon the whole base is searching for the missing captives as they flee through the tunnels.

ID: Madeleine (late 30s-ish white female, polished makeup, shiny hat) with an expression of shock on her face.

The Doctor and company make it to Madeleine Issigri’s office, where they beg for her to call the General—only to realise too late that not only is she aware of the pirates living right under her, she’s in league with them. Caven arrives to collect his captives, and Sorba attacks him. It doesn’t go well for Sorba.

Madeleine intervenes before Caven can kill the others, as she’s only in this for a little space theft, not outright murder.

Caven throws the prisoners into Madeleine’s father’s old office, and who should they find there but…Madeleine’s father, Dom Issigri. It turns out that Caven has been holding him captive all this time to use as leverage against his daughter. Who doesn’t know he’s down there. But was helping him anyway. I have to wonder if Caven fully understands the point of taking a hostage.

Having had enough of Caven’s cruelty, Madeleine appeals to Dervish, who turns out to be too much of a coward to turn against Caven and help her. She instead attempts to contact Hermack to ask for help, but Caven catches her in the act. It’s only then that he reveals to her that her father is alive and at his mercy.

And he’s escaping, with the Doctor’s help. And a little arson. There are many ways to trick a guard into entering one’s cell so you can tackle him and escape, but setting a small fire is probably the most dramatic.

Little do they realise that this time the pirates aren’t going to chase them. Caven has laid a trap, a scheme that will deal with his enemies and shake the Space Corps off his tail. The pirates have planted a remote control device on Milo’s ship, so that they can pilot him towards the stolen beacon, allowing the Space Corps to catch him ‘red-handed’. And he won’t be able to tell the Space Corps that he isn’t in control of the ship, because by the time they’re close enough to see him, he’ll be already dead, because they can remotely cut off the oxygen supply.

ID: Milo (60s-ish, grey hair, white male) looking down at something with an expression of consternation.

That’s the plan, anyway. But Jamie and Zoe lag behind, and when the Doctor doubles back for them, the ship takes off without him, almost burning him to a crisp in the exhaust. Jamie and Zoe catch up to find him lightly toasted and talking like he just gargled a tub of gravel.

Realising that his trap has failed to snare all the intended victims, Caven takes off to search the tunnels, leaving Madeleine alone with Dervish. She tries to convince him to turn against Caven as she has, but he’s in too deep and he’s too much of a coward to try.

The Doctor and company find their way to Madeleine, Jamie successfully subduing Dervish— but not without a little accident. In the scuffle, Dervish’s gun goes off, fusing the wires on the remote control unit. The Doctor manages to repair it enough to get the ship’s oxygen supply back online, but as for disabling the auto-pilot, that’s down to Clancey. Thankfully he’s good at following the Doctor’s instructions, and is soon on his way back to Tar to rescue the Doctor and company.

Drawing near, Hermack radios Clancey’s ship, and Milo gets the chance to tell him what’s really going on, that Dom Issigri is alive, and that the real villain is Caven. Hermack assures him and Madeleine that he’s coming to help.

ID: Hermack (middle-aged, neat grey hair, white male) sits at a control panel, holding a microphone to his mouth.

But they’re not safe yet. If Caven can’t have access to Madeleine’s mines, nobody can. He’s setting charges on the atomic fuel stores. The moment he’s clear of the planet, he’s going to blow Madeleine’s base sky-high—and Milo’s ship won’t be fast enough to get them to safety in time.

Hermack tries to intervene to stop Caven before he can get far enough away to detonate the device, but Caven, seeing the approach of Hermack’s attack ships, threatens to detonate the bomb early and take them with him.

For the people stuck down on the planet, their only hope is for the Doctor to defuse the bomb. All they can do is watch from outside the radiation room as the Doctor slowly, methodically, sets about his work. Hitchcock, it is not.

The Doctor succeeds just as Caven pulls the trigger on the detonator, and then the serial is very abruptly over. Hermack’s ships blow up Caven, Madeleine reunites with her father off-screen, and Milo offers the Doctor and company a ride back to the TARDIS. Considering his driving, Jamie would rather walk.

ID: The Doctor peers at a tangle of wires.

A Lack Of Flavour

There are two fundamentals missing from this story, two things which should have reinforced one another and the story itself: tension and an emotional core. The ingredients for both are all there, but feel like an afterthought.

Madeleine’s separation from her father should be a lot more emotionally impactful than it actually is. I feel like we do feel the pain of the separation from his perspective, but not from hers. Perhaps because the first time we learn of the separation, it’s part of a dispassionate information dump between Madeleine and Hermack. As far as she’s concerned, he’s dead and has been for years. There’s a lot more emotional distance for her. Yet for Dom, the trauma is ongoing. This mismatch could be played for tragedy, but the narrative doesn’t do anything with it. Worst of all, we don’t even get to see their reunion, for what little catharsis they might have been able to wring out of it. And if the serial doesn’t care enough to show them being reunited, why should I care that they were?

ID: Madeleine looking bewildered.

As for the lack of tension, it’s harder to put my finger on. I think this might be more of a directorial issue than a writing issue. Or perhaps a bit of both. There’s something dispassionate about the entire story, possibly caused by the heavy, characterless exposition in the first half. I just don’t feel what the serial wants me to feel.

A prime example is the climactic scene where the Doctor has to defuse the bomb. Sure, we know they’re not actually going to blow up the entire main cast, but other stories have managed to deliver ample tension despite that. I’m told that time is running out but I don’t feel it, that’s the difference. It’s all about the feeling. Bomb disposal scenes should be positively nail-biting but this one just…isn’t. It’s dry.

That’s it. That’s why I don’t like this serial: it’s the television equivalent of bran flakes.

ID: One of the 'minnow' ships leaving the larger carrier. The ship is small with a long, needle-like nosecone.

Final Thoughts

How can something with a title as promising as "THE SPACE PIRATES" (Pirates! In SPACE!!!) be such a dull affair? The most it has going for it are a few cute moments between the Doctor and Jamie. They’re basically an old married couple at this point. At least, they certainly bicker like one.

I do hope that the next serial is better. It’s not just the last in the current series. It’s Mr. Troughton’s last spin in the TARDIS as the current Doctor.

And I’m not ready for him to go.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[April 2, 1969] A New Beginning? (Out of the Unknown: Season Three)

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By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory may have discovered clues to the origins of life in space. Looking at interstellar clouds, believed to be where planets and stars are formed, traces of formaldehyde have been detected.

140’ Radio Telescope at Green Bank
140’ Radio Telescope at Green Bank, responsible for this discovery

The reason this is important is that it is a sign of the presence of methane, formaldehyde occurring in the oxidation process. From the Miller-Urey experiments, it is widely believed that for primitive life to occur, you need a reducing atmosphere to allow complex molecules to form. Along with already detected ammonia and water, these appear to show the elements needed for a reducing atmosphere are already present in these clouds.

If this is found to hold up, we may be a step closer to understanding the birth of life on Earth.

On British television, we are also seeing a kind of rebirth. Of Out of the Unknown without the driving force of Irene Shubik.

Out of the Unknown

Out of the Unknown logo with the words in orange against a green background

With Shubik’s departure for The Wednesday Play, following the commissioning of scripts, it has been up to new producer Alan Bromly to make them a reality.

In many ways Bromly is the opposite of Shubik, an old hand at directing and TV production back to the early 50s, but with little experience in Science Fiction. Rather he has made a name for himself across a range of different productions, most notably the anthology slot BBC Sunday Night Theatre, soap opera Compact and films such as The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp.

So how did it turn out?

(I would like to take a brief moment to thank my colleague Fiona for using her contacts at the BBC to provide us with colour publicity photos. I am still using a Black & White set at home).

Big Prophets, Short Returns

Picture from Immortality Inc. where Charles Hull (Peter Copley) briefs Blaine (Charles Tingwall) and the other hunters on the hunt in a ruined monastry.
The hunt for good science fiction begins.

This series of plays opens with a well-known novel, Robert Sheckley’s Immortality Inc. Even though this does a reasonable job of condensing the story into a 50-minute slot, and it bounces along quite nicely, I find both versions a bit soulless. I just find I am not really invested in who gets the body, which is a big problem for the central conflict.

Whilst it has some notable fans, our editor gave the original story three stars and I think that is about right for this production.

Shot from The Naked Sun, where Baley (Paul Maxwell), sitting and see from behind, is remotely communicating with a Solarian whilst two people in cloaks work the machines.
“Why, yes I do look a lot younger than Cushing did, let’s not go on about it…”

Different issues plague the other novel adaptation of the season, Asimov’s The Naked Sun.

The script makes an effort to place this as a sequel to the 1964 production of The Caves of Steel, with Bailey opening the story talking about “Caves of Steel”, his delight at being partnered again with Daneel, and Secretary Minim referencing the previous case in Brooklyn. Even if Paul Maxwell (Fireball XL-5’s Steve Zodiac) is no Peter Cushing, he still does well paired-off against relative newcomer David Collings.

As people know of the original novel, the case is pretty interesting and, even if at times it feels a bit overwrought with all the yelling, the twists and turns of the story kept me engaged. The problem stems from the conversations largely being communicated through viewscreens. Unfortunately, whilst Rudolph Cartier is an experienced director (and did a great job on Level Seven), he fails to give it flair Saville did in The Machine Stops.

Image from Liar! showing Herbie (Ian Ogilvy) sitting up just after assembly
Herbie awakes to find himself in yet another Asimov adaptation

Of course, Shubik could never choose just one Asimov script, so our second is Liar! Robot romantic comedies seem to have become a regular feature of Out of the Unknown (see also Andover and the Android, Satisfaction Guaranteed) but this one missed the mark for me somewhat.

This has never been my favourite of Asimov’s Robot stories and the teleplay has similar issues. I find the psychic robot too contrived and I really don’t enjoy how much of it is built around Calvin’s attraction to her colleague.

It is well-made and Gifford gives a great performance as the robot psychologist (now her third on-screen depiction), so it will probably appeal more to others. But it is not entirely to my tastes.

An image from Beach Head where Cassandra Jackson (Helen Dowling) talks to Commander Tom Decker (Ed Bishop) on the spaceship.
“I am no longer just Captain Blue, I am now also Captains Lilac, Pink, Fuschia, Green and Khaki”

The third big name writer to be adapted in this run is Clifford Simak and his stories are the ones that tread into the most traditionally SFnal territory, starting with the first contact tale of Beach Head.

I will concede that it looks excellent, with the unusual design of the robots and the aliens being particularly noteworthy. However, this was the weakest installment for me, with three different problems.

Firstly, not all of the performances are pitched right, particularly Ed Bishop playing the lead role very broadly. This is more important in this story where neither the robots nor the aliens speak or emote. As such we rely on the human actors to carry the weight.

Secondly, the action in the first half is divided between robots outside and humans inside, making the pacing glacial until the aliens arrive.

Finally and most significantly, as Victoria said in her review of the original tale, this is not a particularly good example of a puzzle story and it doesn’t add up to much. So, however much it is nice to look at, you spend your time going through a lot of dull content for a rather empty ending.

An image from Target Generation where Jon Hoff (David Buck) and Joshua (Owen Berry) examine the ship's controls.
Set course for planetfall…again!

The other Simak marks another first for Out of the Unknown, Shubik electing to remake a script already done for Out of this World, Target Generation.

Even those SF fans who did not catch its first use will find the tale a familiar one. It is not that it is not a good exploration of the standard themes about blind faith and static thinking leading to our doom, just not one with many surprises. Possibly one for the casual viewer not so aware of science fiction cliches.

Medical Marvels

Image from The Yellow Pill where John Frame (Francis Matthews) tries to convince Wilfred Connor (Stephen Barclay) to take the yellow pills whilst two detectives watch on in the background.
Channeling his inner Timothy Leary to find the truth in a pill

The Yellow Pill is also a script reused from Out of This World, actually being the first episode of that series, yet I felt its restaging works better than the Simak. This is because it is somewhat more unusual in its content.

Whilst its staging could feel a bit old fashioned, largely only utilising a single set, this play-like feeling adds to the sense of unreality we are meant to experience. Add into this a strong script, great performances and the questioning of what is real, and it still feels fresh.

Image from The Little Black Bag where Dr. RogerFull (Emrys James) and Angie (Geraldine Moffat) operate on a Mrs. Coleman with equipment from the bag
The most important use of futuristic medical devices, removing bags under the eyes

The Yellow Pill is only one of several scripts that concentrate on the medical aspects of technological progress. Kornbluth’s The Little Black Bag looks at what might happen if future medical equipment ends up in the past.

Even though I feel this has a solid idea at its core, the episode could have done with a bit of a reworking. It does have some great moments (particularly in the last ten minutes), however the pacing goes back and forth too much for my tastes. I also found that parts are over-explained, whilst other vital questions are left hanging.

Image from The Fosters where the titular couple (Richard Pearson and Freda Bamford) along with Harry Gerwyn (Bernard Hepton) discuss the fate of Geoff (Anton Darby as he lies on a operating table surrounded by medical equipment as Mrs. Foster holds up a strange headpiece.
The generation gap on show

Michael Ashe’s The Fosters (an original for OOTU) seems at first like it might be a piece of domestic drama about the conflict between respectable middle-class families and rebellious youth. But it unfolds nicely in little moments, with the titular couple’s unusual knowledge and strange eating habits bringing with it unease and tension. Even though the end reveal is a bit of a letdown, the journey is a strong one.

Image from 1+1=1.5 as Mary Beldon (Julia Lockwood) is prepared by a medical assistant for her pregnancy test by having electrodes attached to her brain from a computer bank and a human shaped outline is put by her side
Pregnancy screening has come a long way from HIT

Even though the UK’s fertility rate has been steadily declining for the last few years, overpopulation is still a major topic among SF writers. Brian Hayles (of Ice Warrior fame) continues that discussion in 1+1=1.5, an original where the wife of a population control officer becomes pregnant for the second time.

The result is a bit of a mixed bag. It has interesting elements with the catchy jingles on population control, reminiscent of The Year of the Sex Olympics, and it has in its lead roles the great pairing of Bernard Horsfall and Julia Lockwood.

However, I found the mystery of how Mary got pregnant was overemphasized, resulting in a rather dull conclusion, when I would have preferred a focus on the more interesting human side.

The Human Element

Image from Something in the Cellar, with Monty Lefcado (Milo O'Shea) watching an Oscilloscope surround by a hodgepodge of other computer equipment
“I wonder if I can get the cricket on this?”

This human element can be seen in the final of the original productions, Donald Bull’s Something in the Cellar. This is a Nigel Kneale-esque production, putting a science fictional twist on the gothic haunted house story.

I will concede it does stretch out a bit, but it is still spooky and character driven, with the voice of the “mum” being particularly unsettling.

An image from Random Quest showing Colin Trafford (Keith Barron) and Mrs. Gale (Beryl Cooke) in a greenhouse surrounded by plants.
Two Worlds, how to choose between them?

This kind of character-driven storytelling is also present in John Wyndham’s Random Quest, a story of dual time-scales.

Whilst I was never as much of a fan of this Wyndham as some of his other works, and found the script a bit drawn out, I cannot fault the production overall. The design of the parallel universe England is well realized, with the Edwardian touches being very clever. It would also be easy to find the whole conceit rather confusing, but the crew did a great job of helping the audience understand the split in the narrative.

Apparently, this has gone down extremely well and there has even been interest floated in adapting it for the big screen.

Image from The Last Lonely Man as James Hale (George Cole) undergoes the contact treatment for Patrick Wilson (Peter Halliday) who looks on in the background
An inebriated Hale doesn’t realise the trouble coming to him

After the great production of Some Lapse of Time back in the programme’s first run, I was pleased to see another Brunner for this series with The Last Lonely Man.

Even though the original story, as Mark noted, is nothing special, this is a largely straight adaptation raised up by a number good choices:
• The casting of George Cole and Peter Halliday as Hale and Wilson respectively.
• Jeremy Paul expands the wider implications of the tale, making mentions of problems of inflation, sexuality and psychological breakdown.
• Making the death of Wilson the mid-point of the story, rather than the ending.
• Douglas Camfield’s direction making it a creepy tale of paranoia instead of a farce.
I do find it curious Shubik chose it for the same season as the conceptually similar Immortality Inc., but this one shines rather than dulls in comparison.

Image from Get Off of My Cloud as Pete (Donal Donnelly) dressed in an ordinary suit, tries to reason with Craswell (Peter Jeffrey), dressed in a pulpy science fiction outfit, as they stand in a temple with a cobra motif.
“It is all quite simple. You are actually a science fiction writer, in a dream, that is drawing from SF cliches, that is part of a teleplay on BBC2, which is adapted from a novelette, originally published in Astounding Magazine.”

The series is finished with one of its finest ever productions, Get Off Of My Cloud.

Adapted from the excellent story Dreams are Sacred by Peter Phillips (well known to British readers due to its inclusion in the highly regarded Spectrum III anthology) it is a comical take on the cliches of pulp science fiction whilst also asking questions about the nature of fantasy versus reality.

As well as transferring the setting to the UK and adding in some wonderful Britishisms (Raymond Cusick did the design work for this episode and his incorporation of Daleks and the TARDIS are marvelous) it also builds on the idea of our childhood fears and looks at how we conquer them.

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the King

The covers of three anthologies: Tomorrow's Worlds ed. Robert Silverberg; The Best SF Stories from New Worlds #2 ed. Michael Moorcock; The Years Best Science Fiction No. 2 ed. Harry Harrison & Brian Aldiss
Just a few of the excellent SF anthologies currently available at your local bookshop

Whilst there have been teething troubles in a few of the stories, overall, I have enjoyed this season. It continues to show the value of the science fiction anthology series which, just like its paperback equivalent, offers a great way to explore a multitude of themes and ideas.

Whatever mysteries are unlocked by scientists, I have no doubt that SF writers will continue to find interesting questions to explore and there will be a place for this kind of television.

Long may it continue.

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