Season 8 for Blu-ray next?

 

Some of you may be too young to remember, but once upon a time the BBC were releasing Classic Doctor Who in Blu-ray box-sets... 

It has been an absolute age since Season 14 was released, but now some on-line retailers in the USA are saying that Season 8 is going to be released in February 2021. Which means, if true, that the UK might see it earlier, as all the previous releases have been available in the UK sometimes months in advance of the US. (In the US, these releases are titled differently - Season 18 being called "Tom Baker Season 7", for instance, or Season 23 being "Colin Baker Season 2" - which would make this one "Jon Pertwee Season 2" over there).

It is a very significant set of episodes. The stories are Terror of the Autons, The Mind of Evil, The Claws of Axos, Colony In Space and The Daemons.

(It will be interesting to see what they do with the variable colour quality, especially Mind).

It's the first season that was wholly under the control of producer Barry Letts, and introduced the popular companion Jo Grant, as well as UNIT's Captain Mike Yates. Most importantly, it brought us the greatest Master of them all - Roger Delgado. In fact, he features in every story of this season, something which Letts and Terrance Dicks later admitted was a bit of a mistake.

Only a rumour for now - but here's hoping this proves to be the next box-set. A Pertwee set would make sense, as he had the second highest number of seasons after Tom Baker, who already has three releases to his name, to just the one so far for Pertwee.

The Archive of Islos / DALEKS!

 

The first episode of the new Daleks animated series has debuted on the official Doctor Who YouTube channel. It runs to just over 13 minutes and will comprise five episodes. It is all part of the "Time Lord Victorious" multi-platform series, and as it is free to watch it will be the only thing from TLV that I'll be bothering to look at here.

I haven't read or listened to any of the TLV content, apart from the DWM comic strip, but didn't feel I was missing anything watching this. All you need to know is that this is some point in history when the Daleks are powerful, and some of them have personalities based on their jobs. The main three we see here are the Emperor (as seen above), the Strategist (who looks like one of the original 1963 versions), and the Executioner (a bit of a pointless title for a Dalek). The Emperor sounds like Christopher Lee as Saruman, and the Strategist sounds like Wormtongue. The Executioner just sounds like he enjoys his work. They are all voiced by Nick Briggs, naturally enough as he has the ring modulator and won't let anyone else play with it.

The basic plot is that the Daleks have attacked a planet in order to seize a vast archive, presided over by some robotic creatures. Rather than just invade, they have to make things complicated for themselves by analysing everything - thanks to the Strategist. When they finally do land to take over, they find they have trundled into a trap.

The whole thing basically feels like one of those TV Century 21 comics of the mid 1960's. The Emperor is clearly based on the one from those strips, but doesn't look anywhere near as good.

The animation is... variable. The Daleks themselves look great, as it's helluva difficult not to animate a mechanical object effectively. The robotic Archivists are also okay, for the same reason. Daleks and their spaceships in space also okay. The problems lie with the humanoid figures, seen briefly at the start, and with some of the effects. The fire / explosion effects in particular are pathetic.

To be honest, even though it only runs to less than a quarter of an hour, I grew somewhat bored with this. Giving Daleks a bit of personality just isn't enough to make them, wall to wall, interesting. It needs a human element (which, I believe, it isn't going to get).

All in all, a bit of a vanity project for Briggs. I will continue watching - but mainly because it is free and doesn't last very long.

PS - those Dalek comic strips have just been re-released in a glossy mag from DWM today (£9.99). I love to revisit them (having the older compilation) - something I don't think you could say about this animated series.

Series 13 News

It's been announced via the new edition of DWM that the next series of Doctor Who will consist of just 8 episodes, as opposed to the usual 11 we've had of late. The Coronavirus was always going to have some significant impact on TV production this year, and so we knew something like this would happen. It was either a reduced output, or a longer delay.

With production officially beginning last week, this does mean that Series 13 should be on our screens in the autumn of 2021, instead of having yet another gap year.

No mention if the 8 tally includes the next festive special.

Something else not mentioned is the companion cast. If there is to be a new companion (or companions) in Series 13 then it might be hard to keep that a secret before the broadcast of Revolution of the Daleks, which is rumoured to see the departure of at least one of the TARDIS crew, if not all three of them. A shorter run of episodes would certainly be of benefit to the busy Bradley Walsh, so hopefully we'll see more of Graham, who is by far the best of the trio.

With a reduced episode count it is all the more important that we get a good batch of stories. There simply isn't the space to deliver any of the sorts of clunkers which we've been subjected to over the last couple of series.

It's already known that one of the stories is a "celebrity historical", as Sara Powell's agency website gives the role she has taken.

Story 234 - The Rings of Akhaten

In which the Doctor embarks on an investigation into Clara, prior to seeing if she is going to take a trip with him in the TARDIS. He learns of how her parents first met - when her father, Dave, was distracted by a wind-blown leaf and was almost run over, but saved by her mother, Ellie. He witnesses her growing up, a seemingly normal child, then observes as she and her father bury her mother. Nothing he sees appears to be abnormal, and yet he has now met her, or a version of her, three times.

On returning to the present, the day after he had offered her a trip, she agrees to go with him.

The Doctor decides to take her to the exotic market at the Rings of Akhaten, for the Festival of Offerings. This takes place every thousand years, on a series of asteroids which circle a huge fiery gas giant planet. It is believed by the various races in this galaxy that all life in the universe began here. Clara is initially overwhelmed by the various alien species in attendance, but is more alarmed when the seemingly young Doctor mentions having visited the Festival before with his granddaughter. 

Clara sees a young girl in ornate red robes who is trying to hide from some similarly robed adults. Also searching are a group of sinister looking masked aliens, known as the Vigil. She follows the girl and tries to take her into the TARDIS, but the doors refuse to open for her. She learns that the girl is named Merry and she is to sing a special song at the Festival. She follows in a long line of young choristers known as the Queen of Years. Their task is to placate someone known as the Old God, who sleeps in a pyramid on one of the smaller asteroids, in closer orbit to the gas giant. The song maintains his sleep, but failure can mean his reawakening, and the death of the singer. Clara attempts to reassure the girl she will be okay, as the adult Choristers find her.

The Doctor and Clara then join the crowds for the performance. Unfortunately Merry makes a mistake, which seems to horrify the audience. She is caught in a tractor beam and pulled towards the pyramid. The Doctor and Clara give chase on a hired bike, Clara having to give her mother's ring in payment as the vendor, Dor'een, only accepts items of sentimental rather than monetary value.

They fly over to the pyramid. Merry is inside, confronted by a mummified being encased in glass. One of the adult Choristers joins her and attempts to sing the placating song. He fails, and the mummified being comes to life. When the Doctor attempts to remove Merry to safety, the Vigil materialise and attack them with sonic powers.

The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to beat them back, as the mummy smashes its way out of its glass cage. The Doctor and Clara get Merry outside, and the Doctor realises that the Old God was not the mummified figure after all. It simply acts as a conduit for the real Old God - the fiery gas giant itself. It stirs to life, taking on a the appearance of a malevolent face. Realising that it feeds on stories and memories, the Doctor sends Clara back to the market with Merry. He then offers his great life experience to the planet. This seems to sate it, but it then demands more. Clara takes to the space-bike and returns to the pyramid asteroid to help him. She offers the Old God the preserved leaf from her book. For her this symbolises the life her mother never had - all the potential experiences she could have had. These are infinite. The Old God over-indulges and is destroyed.

The Doctor takes Clara back home, and he recalls having seen him at her mother's grave when she was younger. The Doctor simply tells her that she reminds him of someone he once knew, who died. He still doesn't know what it is that is so impossible about her...

The Rings of Akhaten was written by Neil Cross, and was first broadcast on 6th April 2013.

It marks Clara's first trip in the TARDIS - but also begins to flag up a dislike the ship has for her. It refuses to open the doors when she tries to take Merry inside, and also fails to translate alien languages such as Dor'een's for her.

We are introduced to Clara's father, Dave - her mother having been introduced in the prequel for the previous episode.

Cross was the showrunner on the crime drama Luther, and he had already contributed a story for Series 7 - Hide. That wouldn't be shown until later in the series, but was made first.

Music plays a significant part in the story. Events revolve around a young singer and her failure to sing a particular song - the Long Song which is supposed to placate an ancient god. The Vigil use sound as a weapon, and the Doctor uses concentrated sound from the sonic screwdriver to unseal the pyramid and to defend against the Vigil's sonic attacks.

The monster-makers Millennium FX have their work cut out for them in this story. As well as the Vigil and the mummified being, they are called upon to populate the market with a variety of alien creatures, such as Dor'een. One of these creatures has a modified Hoix mask.

Clara's parents are played by Michael Dixon and Nicola Sian. They appear in flashback sequences as the Doctor looks into Clara's past. Merry is Emilia Jones - who is the daughter of singer and TV presenter Aled Jones (famous for We're Walking in the Air, from the Raymond Briggs animation The Snowman).

The adult Chorister is portrayed by Chris Anderson, whilst Dor'een is Karl Greenwood, a monster performer at various Doctor Who musical events. The mummy is Aiden Cook. This will be the first of a number of monster parts for him, including the Crooked Man in Hide, a Cyberman in Nightmare in Silver, and Zygons in The Day of the Doctor and The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion.

Overall, whilst visually stunning, the plot is really rather weak. There's a lot of build-up but all the jeopardy lies in the last fifteen minutes of the episode. How much you like the music makes a huge difference to your opinion on it. Most fans didn't like it, however - the DWM 50th Anniversary poll saw it at 233rd place (out of 241), making it the second worst story of the revived series.

Things you might like to know:

• Ellie Oswald's date of death is given as March 5th 2005. This was the date of the Auton attack in Rose. Was she killed by an Auton?
• The name of the planet was originally going to be Akhat - from the Egyptian hieroglyph akhet - meaning "the place where the sun rises".
• Aliens seen in the market include Hooloovoo, Terraberserkers, Pan-Babylonians, Lucanians, Lugaleracush, a Ultramancer, and a Citizen of the City of Binding Light. The latter featured in The End of the World back in 2005.
• The market scenes were a deliberate homage to the Star Wars cantina sequence, as was the use of a space-bike similar to those seen in Return of the Jedi.
• There are similarities with a DWM comic strip - "Thinktwice" - where the Tenth Doctor destroys a memory-devourer by overloading it with his own many experiences.
• The Vigil masks were based on old fashioned radio facades, in keeping with the musical theme of the story.
• The Doctor is seen reading the 1981 Beano Summer Special - which prompted the comic to issue a reprint.
• As I pointed out in my review of this story, wouldn't the destruction of the Old God have rather a disastrous impact on this whole planetary system?

Geoffrey Palmer (1927 - 2020)

 

There are many actors who have appeared in Doctor Who on two or more occasions. Far fewer are the number who appeared in both the Classic and New iterations of the programme. And I can't think of many at all who were killed in every story they appeared in. And there's certainly only one person who fits all that and had a Doctor Who director for a son and a "companion" actor for a daughter-in-law - Geoffrey Palmer.

Sadly, news comes today that he has passed away, at the age of 93.

His first appearance in the show was in 1970's The Silurians, in which he portrayed the civil servant Masters. This was the type of role he was often given. Masters appears mid-story, and dies midway through the penultimate episode, victim of the Silurian plague virus.

The scene at Marylebone Station of him getting off a train was him actually getting off his real train from his home in Gloucestershire.

He returned later in the Pertwee era as another official - the unnamed Earth Administrator in The Mutants. In this, as well as not even having a name, he is assassinated in the very first episode.

When the programme returned in 2005, his son Charles directed a number of stories during the Tennant and Capaldi eras. Geoffrey himself appeared in the 2007 Christmas Special, Voyage of the Damned, playing the doomed Captain of the Titanic spaceship, who sacrifices his life for the financial benefit of his family. Charles Palmer was the husband of actress Claire Skinner, who was the temporary companion opposite Matt Smith in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, the 2011 Christmas Special.

Palmer, born Geoffrey Dyson Palmer in 1927, came to public prominence in the 1970's in a number of sitcoms - most notably Butterflies, and the Reggie Perrin series (getting his own spin-off series). He also featured in a classic episode of Fawlty Towers - the one about the dead guest and the toxic kipper.

Another big sitcom hit was As Time Goes By, which ran for almost ten years. He starred opposite Judi Dench in this, and the two were to be seen together on screen on many occasions - including the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. All his scenes were with Dench's "M".

Palmer was awarded an OBE in 2004.

RIP.

What's Wrong With... The Highlanders

 

The Highlanders is the last of the purely historic stories, in that there are no aliens or monsters - just common or garden human villainy. Some try to argue that Black Orchid is the last historical, but that story just couldn't help but have a monster (and we'll have a great deal to say about what is wrong with it when we get to it).

The main reason given for the abandonment of the historicals was that viewers didn't like them and switched off. Poor ratings for The Gunfighters, which producer Innes Lloyd and Davis inherited, is the excuse often cited. This isn't the whole picture, however. Some episodes of the OK Corral story did better than The Tenth Planet - which helped launch the more favoured "base under siege" monster stories. What was really bad for The Gunfighters was not so much the viewing figures as the audience appreciation ones. Feedback from viewers was often negative about historical stories, with the audience claiming they preferred the outer space / monster stories.

Like the second to last historical, The Smugglers, The Highlanders goes more for literary historical than celebrity historical, though this time it does at least dwell on a particular famous historical event.

Budget conscious, it decides to dwell on the aftermath to the Battle of Culloden, 1746, rather than the build up or the battle itself.

There are two authors credited, but it was only one of them who actually wrote any of it - story editor Gerry Davis. Elwyn Jones had to withdraw at a very early stage, leaving Davis to write it himself.

As with some other depictions of the Jacobite Rebellions, this story tends to make it a more simplistic English versus Scots affair. English Catholics supported the Jacobite cause, and many Scottish Protestants supported the English crown. The rebellions were more of an addendum to the European Wars of Religion, rather than a foretaste of future England v. Scotland football matches at Wembley or Hampden.

With The Highlanders, the English characters are generally baddies, and the Scots ones the good guys. The only nice Englishman - Lt Algernon ffinch - is only helpful because Polly and her new friend Kirsty blackmail him. He's also presented as a bit of an upper class twit.

The story introduces Jamie McCrimmon (played by Frazer Hines). Believing he was only going to be appearing in four episodes, he adopted a lilting Highland accent. Once offered a regular role, during the studio recordings, he realised that this accent would be unsustainable and went for what he himself termed more of a "TV Scottish accent". Hines is actually from Yorkshire, but had a Scottish mother. He played a Scots boy in the 1956 Hammer sci-fi film X - The Unknown, and in the 1957 BBC TV adaptation of Huntingtower, so had experience of using a Scots accent.

The McCrimmons are a real family. However, at the time of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion they were allied with the McLeod clan - who were pro-government, so Jamie should technically be on the side of the Redcoats. They really were noted pipers (though we never actually see Jamie show any interest in playing the pipes throughout his long tenure in the TARDIS - despite the Doctor having a set in the TARDIS trunk).

This is Patrick Troughton's second story as the Doctor, so the character has not properly developed yet. He does a lot of dressing up and pretending to be other people (a German doctor, an old washerwoman and a Redcoat soldier) but this aspect of the character won't last beyond this story (apart from an obsession with hats, but even that will fade rather quickly). He is also rather aggressive and ill-tempered. There's a slightly malicious side to his anti-authoritarianism. 

On finding a Scottish bonnet with the Jacobite cockade on it, he snorts "romantic piffle", which isn't very open minded of him. He should be more accepting of both sides of an argument. 

Later, he'll gleefully smash someone's head against a table - repeatedly. The Second Doctor is still cooking.

Plot wise, there isn't much to be said - until we get to the end. The main villain of the piece plans to make a fortune selling Jacobite prisoners into slavery, and he gets arrested at the conclusion for this. Trouble is, Jacobite prisoners were sold into slavery - officially. Solicitor Grey is only doing what others were doing, so it's hard to see how he will be punished for it.

Jamie has shown nothing but loyalty to his laird, and yet when he has the chance to go abroad with him to safety he abandons him and decides to accompany the Doctor and companions back to the TARDIS. What does he intend to do once he has bidden them farewell in this now hostile land where he is going to be a hunted fugitive? Why does he agree to get inside a small wooden box with three people he hardly knows? For a poorly educated 18th Century country boy he seems to grasp rather quickly that this box can travel by itself.

When it came to the novelisation, Gerry Davis took the opportunity to amend a line of dialogue. ffinch threatens someone with 300 lashes, which would have undoubtedly proven fatal, so he changes it to a more survivable 6 in the book.

Dallas Cavell, as Captain Trask, seems to think he's understudying Robert Newton as Long John Silver, with far too may "Ooh Arrs!" and "ye scurvy dogs!".

One unfortunate line of dialogue: "Take a man round the rear, sergeant".

Inspirations - Dragonfire

 

Ian Briggs, the writer of Dragonfire, clearly has an interest in cinema and film theory. The plot contains references to a number of movies, and many of the characters have names relating to cinema.

Briggs also has the task of writing out the current companion, Mel, and introducing the new one, Ace.

Producer John Nathan Turner asked for the inclusion of Sabalom Glitz, who is returning from Trial of a Time Lord.

The dragon of the title is the Biomechanoid. Its design is inspired by the Xenomorph from Alien / Aliens. This is most noticeable in the body, with large projections on the back. Aliens is referenced further in the "ANT hunt" in the third episode. Two of the Iceworld staff search for the dragon using motion detectors, and the sequence is clearly supposed to mirror scenes from the Alien sequel - where the creatures close in but can't be seen, their presence only known from the detector sounding.

The new companion, Ace, has the real name Dorothy, and she arrived on Iceworld after being caught up in a time storm. This is a reference to The Wizard of Oz, in which a girl named Dorothy is transported to a fantastical land by a tornado. The Wizard of Oz is best known through the 1939 MGM film version, which starred Judy Garland. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written by Frank L Baum, and was first published in 1900. Three silent versions of the story were filmed before the 1939 version, one of which featured Oliver Hardy.

The main part of the plot for the first two episodes is a treasure hunt, or Quest type story. We've only ever had a couple of those in the series before - e.g. The Keys of Marinus, "The Key to Time" season.

Characters on a quest, trying to steal a crystal from a dragon might well be a reference to The Hobbit.

The villain of the piece is a man named Kane, the name deriving from Citizen Kane - Orson Welles' 1941 film which many regard as the greatest movie ever made. His criminal background seems to reference Bonnie and Clyde, whose story was filmed in 1967 with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the title roles, one of the most iconic of gangster movies.

Kane's demise, melting in the heat of the sun, is inspired by the deaths of archaeologist Belloq and his Nazi allies at the climax of the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Ronald Lacey, who played the Gestapo man in the film, was considered for the role of Kane).

The cafeteria sequence where the Doctor and Mel meet Glitz, and first encounter Ace, is meant to reference the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in the first Star Wars movie.

Kane's assistants are named Belazs and Kracauer. Belazs gets her name from Bela Balazs (1884 - 1949), the Hungarian film theorist. Kracauer comes from Siegfried Kracauer (1889 - 1966), another film theorist, this time from Germany.

Other characters are named McLuhan - from Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian media studies expert; Bazin - named for the French film critic Andre Bazin; and Podovkin - named for the Russian film director Vsevolod Pudovkin, a contemporary of Sergei Eisenstein. One other character is named Arnheim, from film theorist Rudolph Arnheim.

More film theorist names were intended for other characters, but were dropped.

Glitz's spaceship is called the "Nosferatu", which gets its name from the 1922 filmed version of the Dracula story, directed by F W Murnau.

Some of the dialogue is lifted from the pages of the academic tome Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, by John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado. Script Editor Andrew Cartmel had encouraged his new writers to read this, and Briggs quoted from it directly (the "assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes" dialogue).

Moving away from film theory and media studies, the Doctor is seen reading the book The Doctor's Dilemma, a play by George Bernard Shaw first performed in 1906.

In Asian mythology, dragons are supposed to have a crystal in their heads which enables them to fly. This inspired the dragon having the power crystal hidden in its cranium.

The setting of Iceworld is a combination of a frozen foods store (Bejams, which was renamed Iceland) and a motorway services station.

The Doctor's speech to Mel when she announces she is leaving comes from Sylvester McCoy's audition piece.

Next time: the return of the Daleks for the series' 25th Anniversary year, but not in the 25th Anniversary story...