Inspirations: The Time of the Doctor

 

The Time of the Doctor is a regeneration story, bringing the TARDIS tenure of the Eleventh Doctor to a close. It also brings to a conclusion the entire Moffat era up to this point, in that it draws together elements which first appeared back in The Eleventh Hour and which have run throughout Series 5, 6 and 7.

In some ways you could argue that the story really begins with Rose, as it includes a postscript to the Last Great Time War.

That is potentially going to be reignited if the Time Lords return to the Universe - last seen being saved by being deposited in a pocket time zone by the multiple Doctors in the 50th Anniversary story.

The mechanism by which the Time Lords seek to find out if it's safe to return just happens to be the crack in Space / Time which the Doctor first spotted in Moffat's first story in charge, the one in Amelia Pond's bedroom and through which people and things disappeared - the story arc for Series 5.

The thing which will let them know that is safe is a certain code - the Doctor's real name, which has been the arc for Series 7.

Along the way we meet old foes, as well as yet another of those long-term friends of the Doctor whom we have never actually met - something which Moffat has been introducing ever since gathering his Demons Run gang.

The main location for the story is Trenzalore once more, which has been referred to since The Wedding of River Song and was finally seen in The Name of the Doctor.

Then, we saw the planet devastated after the events of this story, but in an alternate timeline in which the Doctor failed.

As well as a regeneration story, this is also a Christmas Special, so the village setting is a town called Christmas, and it's permanently snowy and festive looking.

If we go back to Dorium's words in the Series 6 finale, there's reference to no living soul speaking falsely - and that's covered by the crack emitting a truth field. This is because the Time Lords want to make sure that it really is the Doctor giving his name.

The new / old friend is Tasha Lem, who is basically a surrogate River Song - old friend who is flirty with the Doctor, that kind of thing.

She is in charge of the Papal Mainframe - the militaristic Clerics having been introduced in Time of the Angels / Flesh and Stone. She provides a hefty info-dump which explains a lot of leftover bits of Series 5 and 6. 

We learn that the Silents are the way they are because they are confessors - you'll happily tell them your sins because you'll forget about reliving them once you're done. 

Kovarian (Series 6 arc) was head of a schismatic breakaway faction who wanted to prevent the Doctor giving his name on Trenzalore, because it was claimed that silence would fall if he did (i.e. the Time War would start up again as there are Cybermen, Daleks etc waiting to either prevent this or recommence hostilities). One of her schemes was the destruction of the TARDIS (Series 5 arc).

As well as them, we also see Sontarans and Weeping Angels (despite the Sontarans never having been involved in the War, as clearly stated in The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky). Other aliens get name-checked and we recognise some of the spaceships such as Judoon and Silurian.

These enemies are all there basically to provide cameos for Smith's finale.

Nods to the classic era include the Doctor using the Seal of Rassilon (confiscated from the Master by his third incarnation in The Five Doctors) to translate a message emanating from the crack.

The whole fixed regeneration idea introduced by Robert Holmes in The Deadly Assassin is addressed her. Pre-Timeless Child, there is a 13 lives limit, and thanks to the War Doctor and a controlled regeneration by Ten, the Eleventh is actually the Thirteenth.

It turns out at the conclusion that Time Lords can issue a new regeneration cycle (as offered to the Master in The Five Doctors), but Moffat wisely declines to let us know how many new lives the Doctor has. We assume at this point that it's another 13, which should keep the series going for another 50 years (or 39, if actors keep quitting after 3 series).

One of the entertainments which the Doctor lays on for the children of Christmas is a puppet show, and one of these is modelled on a Monoid, from The Ark. He has obviously recounted many of his adventures as the kids have made lots of drawings, and we see creatures from both era of the series.

All of the aliens get beaten until only the Daleks are left. They employ converted human drones as introduced in Asylum of the Daleks.

When he first goes aboard their spaceship, the Doctor is dressed in a cloak - a reference to the Harry Potter franchise.

Karen Gillan makes a cameo appearance just before the regeneration. Interestingly, both she and Smith are wearing wigs thanks to filming on movie projects (Gillan shaved her head for her role as Nebula in a Guardians of the Galaxy outing). We don't get to see Caitlin Blackwood as Amelia, as the actress had grown too old and no longer resembled her younger self.

Drawings in the TARDIS are of creatures from Amy specific stories, like Saturnynes.

Clara sees the TARDIS phone dangling  - which we'll learn about next time.

That will be when we take a deep breath and launch into the adventures of the Twelfth Doctor and the second half of the Moffat era...

Capitol Cutaway This Weekend

 

Just a quick reminder that I am away again this weekend, attending the DWAS Capitol Cutaway event at Hammersmith in London. It takes place on Sunday, but I'm making a holiday of it and travelling down Thursday and not returning until Tuesday 8th. I'll have one further quick post this week - either a What's Wrong With... or an Inspirations - on Wednesday night, then it will be a case of reviewing the event after my return.

I don't have anything else planned for the next month or two, so things will finally settle down after the house move and hols. I do plan to visit the big new Doctor Who exhibition at Peterborough Museum in the not too distant future, but unlikely before June.

The Savages - an animated review

With the house move last week I have only just gotten round this weekend to watching the latest of the animated missing stories - The Savages.

With no memorable monsters or surviving material beyond some very brief off-air 8mm clips, it is one of the series' most obscure stories, so it was a surprise that they opted to animate this in front of some other better known adventures.

However, the plan is to animate all the missing episodes - so that they can be included in future Season Collection boxsets - so they would have gotten round to it eventually, and Season 3 is the one with the least material available.

I've already reviewed the story both as a whole and as individual episodes, so I'll concentrate purely on the animation and extras here.

One of the things we do have from the original broadcast is the telesnaps, and these show some very atmospheric filming from director Christopher Barry for the cave-bound scenes. Unfortunately, despite achieving great things with darkness and light on The Macra Terror, this story comes across as the equivalent of one of those over-lit studio productions of the 1980's. The cave sequences come over as very flat and totally lacking in atmosphere.

Some likenesses such as Jano are good, though Steven often looks nothing like Peter Purves. They continue to have problems getting Hartnell right, though the model being used here is an improvement on Galaxy 4.

Neither Tor nor Chal resemble the original actors who played the roles. I'd say landscapes are a little too basic, though indoor settings are great, and they can obviously show more aspects of the Elder city.

Onto the extras, and these are of very high quality for such an obscure little story. In fact, I'd say these were the sort of things you might expect from the Blu-ray boxsets. 

There are three items of particular note - a documentary about The Savages itself, which runs to 90 minutes; a  biography of producer Innes Lloyd; and an interesting BBC training film which, though with only a tentative link with the story itself through their director, illustrates how a half hour TV drama was produced back in the day.

Taking this last item first, we get to see the production of an episode of police drama Z-Cars. The director is Christopher Barry and his PA is future Doctor Who director David Maloney. The piece is presented by Shaun Sutton, who was Innes Lloyd's superior and one of the key people responsible for casting figures such as Tom Baker and Frazer Hines in the series.

We get to see the whole process from start to finish, and well worth watching for anyone interested in the behind the scenes aspects of any BBC TV series of the '60's / '70's.

The Innes Lloyd doc I found of particular interest as it looks at the entire canon of his work, including his early outside broadcast work covering big state occasions such as the funeral of Winston Churchill, through Doctor Who, to his highly acclaimed drama series of the 1980's such as his collaborations with Alan Bennett and Michael Palin. Of the latter, who would have thought that they would ever hear certain intimate body parts being mentioned on a Doctor Who DVD extra...? 

Lloyd himself only features in one small clip from a Barry Norman Film 91 episode, as he rarely gave interviews on camera, but his personal archive of notes plus fanzine interviews are used throughout, so we get to hear his voice through them. It's all fascinating stuff and well worth watching. This also runs to a good hour and a half.

As for the actual story documentary? If you are wondering how they could fill 90 minutes it's because Toby Hadoke takes us on a few detours along the way, looking at writer Ian Stuart Black's other works as well as the general state of the series and its socio-political context in 1966. The most interesting stuff for me involved Patrick Godfrey, who played Tor, who is seen at home with his wife (who just happened to play the elderly Ruby in 73 Yards) and Peter Purves' recollections of the time. Kay Patrick (Flower) is interviewed, as is Robert Sidaway (Avon), not long before he passed away, and there's archive material from Christopher Barry.

The general consensus from those interviewed is that The Savages is a neglected gem, and one in need of series re-evaluation. A shame we have to wait until 2033 for the next story poll to find out...

Considering that there is no written archive material for the story - junked like the episodes themselves - it's a credit to Hadoke and his researchers that they found enough to fill this piece without it going too off topic.

Overall, I'd say that this is one of the better efforts from the animation and VAM teams. 

Episode 156: The Macra Terror (4)

Synopsis:

As Officia pumps more and more gas into the old mineshaft, Jamie is trapped between two Macra...

The Doctor and Polly are in the gas pumping control room where he rapidly tries to work out the complex layout of pipelines. He tricks Officia into revealing the correct sequence which will allow him to reverse the process - flooding the old shaft with oxygen instead of the toxic gas. He locks the doors so that the guards cannot enter.

In the old mine workings, the Macra have seized Jamie but begin to move sluggishly as the oxygen does its work.

Ola succeeds in breaking into the control centre but the Doctor and Polly escape through a side door into a corridor, which they lock behind them.

They see pipes running along the wall and decide to follow them.

Jamie finds an ancient door and forces it open. It leads to a lift shaft, and he can hear sounds of music and voices drifting down from above. It must lead up into the Colony.

A cheerleader squad is rehearsing, in preparation for a dance competition. Jamie emerges from the lift shaft and finds himself amongst them. He is mistaken for one of the competitors and demonstrates the Highland Fling - telling them that it gets its name as you fling yourself out of the nearest door at the conclusion.

He reels out the door - only to fall into the hands of Ola. Ben is with him, and identifies him as one of the runaway strangers. However, the young sailor is having doubts about his actions and tries to apologise to his friend.

The Doctor and Polly, meanwhile, find a sealed off control area at the end of the corridor in which one of the Macra is issuing orders. This is the voice behind Control.

They decide that they must get the Pilot here to see this for himself.

In his office, the Pilot is questioning Jamie in the presence of Ola and Ben when the Doctor and Polly walk in. Ola tries to arrest them, but the Doctor points out that they have given themselves up.

Ola and the Pilot begin arguing, with the security chief questioning the recent running of the Colony.

The Pilot agrees to see what the Doctor and Polly have found, and Ben slips out after them.

Ola and Officia decide that the Pilot is no longer to be trusted as he has gone with the strangers into a forbidden area.

The Pilot has now seen the Macra and can no longer deny their existence - and he agrees that they must be fought.

He tries and fails to convince Ola, who has assumed command and is now taking orders directly from Control, which seeks to destroy all those who fail to obey its instructions. Officia begins pumping the gas into the corridor where the Doctor and his friends are gathered.

Ben is in the control room but is unable to unlock the door to free them. Instead, the Doctor gives him a set of instructions on how to alter the pumping systems.

There is a rapid build up of pressure in the sealed-off area and an explosion results - destroying the Macra.

A short while later, the Doctor is enjoying the hospitality of the Colony at a celebration in their honour. When he learns from Ben that the colonists plan to make him their new Pilot, he decides that it is time for them to slip away back to the TARDIS...

Next time: The Faceless Ones

Data:

Written by Ian Stuart Black

Recorded: Saturday 25th March, 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 1st April 1967

Ratings: 8.4 million / AI 49

Designer: Kenneth Sharp

Director: John Davies

Additional cast: Karol Keyes (Chicki)

Critique:

The final episode of The Macra Terror treads a fine line between jeopardy and humour. The Doctor once again bamboozles figures of authority - running rings round both Ola and Officia by using their own rules against them ("You can't arrest us now we've given ourselves up. That's against the rules"), or tricking them into doing exactly what he wants. The Doctor also asks Ola and the Pilot to apologise to each other at one point.

Jamie, meanwhile, gets his Highland Fling routine, which ends on a joke ("Why do you call it the Highland Fling?". "Because we finish the dance by flinging ourselves out the door...").

At the same time we have the Macra menacing the young Scot in the mines, and the travellers and their new friend, the Pilot, threatened by Ola as well as the titular monsters.

We can see elements of the original scripts, in which the Macra were supposed to be insects or spiders. Indeed, there's some sort of confusion as the Pilot asks if they are bacteria or insects after seeing Control.

The sequences in the old shaft at the beginning of the episode had been pre-recorded, partly to minimise the amount of dry ice in studio but primarily because the solitary Macra prop was to get a coat of white paint to feature in this episode, as Control.

There was also a change made to the cast list, as Sandra Bryant was no longer available to play Chicki. She had been offered another job and had asked to be released following the recording of the opening instalment. Replacing her was Karol Keyes. The character had appeared only briefly so it's unlikely many viewers would have noticed this replacement casting.

Recording took place on Patrick Troughton's 47th birthday, between 8:30 - 10pm.

What dry ice was used in studio, for scenes of Jamie fleeing to the lift shaft, were rapidly dispersed with a wind machine.

There were no recording breaks planned - only brief pauses in recording to allow cast members to move between sets or to move the Macra prop.

The main hall of the Colony was seen once again, with its back projection screen showing the still image of the Controller.

For the climax, the explosion was achieved through sound and camera effects only. The image was defocussed and a white-out employed - the camera being over-exposed.

The story ended as it had begun, with the closing credits rolling over the majorettes. Just before the "Next Week" caption, a 60 second trailer was shown for The Faceless Ones, comprising footage from the location filming for that story.

The story ends on a troubling note, as we haven't heard a great deal about the origins of the Macra. They are undoubtedly acting against the welfare of the colonists - enslaving them both physically and mentally, and we heard from Medok that those in the Danger Gang often perish. However, the Doctor does appear to potentially be committing genocide here. (We'll find out that he isn't, but not for another 40 years). Was this their homeworld, has invaded by colonists? Were they forced underground, perhaps by terraforming which destroyed their natural habitat? We simply aren't told anything about them, so they are presented as evil monsters that have to be defeated. It's implied, however, that they are all destroyed, not just beaten at the conclusion. This would have been handled differently in another era, where the Doctor would have sought to make peace between the races so that they could help each other on a more equal footing. Or, with Control destroyed, the Macra might have been rendered safe, as we saw with the Gravis and Tractators in Frontios. One is reminded here of the Troughton comic strip panel in which he blasts a giant spider with a ray-gun crying "Die, hideous creature! Die!".

We already know that this incarnation is a manipulative one, but here we are seeing the darkness in his character.

This would be Ian Stuart Black's final contribution to the series. It is noticeable that once Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis moved on from the series, he wasn't invited back - but then he had known them before writing for the series so there was probably some sort of personal aspect to his commissions. He would go on to author all three novelisations of his television stories for the Target book range.

The BBC had destroyed the original 405-line videotapes by 1977.

Six countries are known to have taken The Macra Terror - Australia, Uganda, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Zambia. This doesn't necessarily mean that there were six sets of prints in existence, as copies were often forwarded on to another country once a broadcaster thought they were of no further interest. The prints sent to NZ are known to have been destroyed in 1974 - the same year in which the BBC informed the Australian broadcaster that they could do the same. The zealousness of that country's censor has resulted in us having what few clips we do possess today, and the same territory provided some off-air 8mm footage from Episode 3 - including the opening titles.

 

Trivia:

• The ratings end on a reasonably healthy note. Both viewing figures and appreciation index have remained fairly stable across the four episodes.
• An audience research report from TAM found that Doctor Who had been the third most popular children's programme for Marc, behind Disney Time and Pinky & Perky.
• This was the longest of the four episodes, at 24' 41", thanks to that trailer. Even without it, it's still the longest instalment.
• This proved to be John Davies' only work on Doctor Who. He would go on to direct the BBC's highly acclaimed 1972 adaptation of War and Peace, starring Anthony Hopkins.
• The story was animated for releases on DVD / Blu-ray in 2019. With only a handful of clips remaining from the series, the animators took the opportunity to visually reimagine the story. Character likenesses remain faithful from the broadcast version, but the Macra are now seen in greater numbers (and different sizes) and the sets can be expanded. The Refreshing Department scene was omitted - necessitating a change of costumes for the regulars (only Ben gets a uniform), and a new TARDIS-set opening fails to match up with the existing sequence from the end of The Moonbase (4) which still exists (Polly starts the animated story with hair already short). Look out for a reuse of Romana II from the animated Shada in a crowd scene.

• The Macra made a surprise return in Series 3's Gridlock. Russell T Davies wanted an aquatic monster to feature in this 2007 story, reasoning that the sea would have broken into the lowermost level of the New New York motorway. The area would also be heavily polluted with toxic gases. Instead of creating a new monster, he realised he had a ready-made one within the series history. It is explained that the Macra have devolved this far into the future, and are now simply savage carnivorous beasts.

Classic v Nu Who...

 

Presumably to tie in with the anniversary of the relaunch, there's a YouGov poll released which highlights preferences betwixt classic and "Nu" Who. Older folk prefer the older stuff, and younger folk the newer stuff, so predictable responses. Worth pointing out is that more people who expressed a preference went for the classic era overall, and more than half of those polled had either never seen the programme or didn't like either iterations.

Cybermen: Ultimate Guide

Coming on 22nd May is the next DWM bookazine, this one covering the Cybermen. 

Also forthcoming, on 3rd April, is the new DWM Special Edition, covering the 20th anniversary of the revived series - as is the subject of a new bookazine from Radio Times, downloadable as of 28th March.

What's Wrong With... Frontios

It was always thought that the TARDIS was infinite in size within, but then Christopher Hamilton Bidmead came along and said that a certain percentage of it could be deleted. You can't have a percentage of infinity, so the TARDIS had to be finite in internal dimensions. Bidmead then had the ship lose a full 25%  of its internal mass, so possibly not even of vast size internally.

It should still be of such a scale, however, that a single representative of an alien species shouldn't be able to tear the entire fabric apart and then put it all back together again - and certainly not by simply waving drunkenly to and fro.

More than a bit lucky that most bits of TARDIS are embedded in rock, yet the console and its room are seemingly intact and at least partially operational.

If the Gravis knows about Time Lords and their time machines, why split up the ship in the first place? Why not simply pull it underground, open the doors and get access. If he's so smart, the Gravis ought to be able to work out its operation eventually.

The Doctor tricks the Gravis into reconstituting the TARDIS, as it will cut off its mental link with the rest of its kind. But since when did the TARDIS ever keep any sort of signal out. Psychic projections and even radio waves have penetrated it in the past.

Turlough knows of the Tractators from his own planet. They're going to turn Frontios into a giant spaceship to get them about - but how did they manage to visit other planets in the past? They don't appear to be a very technologically advanced species. They have only very crude mining machines, reliant on human beings (or bits of them), and only the Gravis seems to have any special powers. The rest are pretty useless without him.

Is his nose the seat of his powers - as he's the only one that has one?

Just why is the Doctor so afraid to be so far in the future? He has never bothered too much about what the Time Lords would do, and has visited Earth colonies at crucial moments in their history in the past.

Something everyone notices is the metal bar, which Tegan places across the middle of the door handles to delay a pursuer, magically moving to the top of the door handles all by itself.

The run up to this scene shows that Tegan needn't have bothered as her pursuer takes ages to reach the door anyway - long enough for her to run out, look round, grab the bar, then put it in place. He was only a few feet away from her in a relatively small room.

The spaceship crashed decades ago, and yet no-one has gotten round to putting a proper floor in the infirmary. It is basically a dirt floor, which is hardly hygienic for a hospital setting. Why are sick people not being treated in the spaceship? Surely it would afford more protection than a shelter built out in the open.

There's no electricity, but Mr Range uses an electronic keypad to open filing cabinets.

A number of cuts were made - one of which leads to a continuity error as Tegan is aware of the Doctor's plans when he hasn't told her them.

There's a lot of 20th Century language on display, despite this being in the very far future, yet no-one knows what a coat / hat stand is - despite people still wearing hats and coats.