That Was The Week That Was 5.5.13

The Crimson Horror debuted last night with a disappointing 4.61 million viewers. Additionally, it was knocked off third place for the day by Casualty. The BBC really ought to sort out the scheduling for the programme - avoiding things like BGT - and fulfilling the promise made last year to move it to the autumn / winter months. I don't see why the second half of series 7 was held back to an Easter opening.

Filming has continued on the 50th Anniversary story - taking in two locations from the very first story. Coal Hill School and I.M. Foreman's scrap yard have both been sighted. We're not returning to 1963, however, as the school sign states Ian Chesterton is Chairman of Governors. Here's hoping this might mean a cameo appearance for William Russell.
The secret of Clara's identity might have been revealed as well. She's really a drag artist...

Her motorbike-riding double of course. By the way, Billie Piper seems to be keeping a very low profile. Tennant has been seen on location twice that I'm aware of - but no sign of Piper.

The DVD schedule for the remainder of the year was revealed by the new DWM. October and November are going to see the releases of the Cybermen stories The Moonbase and The Tenth Planet. Why The Underwater Menace episode 2 is not being added to the Troughton story, I have no idea.
US fans are going to get a standalone release of The Snowmen. Don't know why, either.
And where on Earth is the Complete Series 7 box set? It is common practice to release the complete set at the same time as the Volume 2 one.

Earlier this week I posted about the new play sets which have appeared on the Forbidden Planet website - especially the rather intricately detailed (for a couple of bits of cardboard) synopsis for the Dalek invasion set. I also came across a Claws of Axos set - with another Jo and another Brigadier accompanying the golden humanoid Axon.

Lastly, a new comedy series started on ITV this week which boasts Doctor Who connections. Vicious is co-written by Mark Ravenhill, who wanted to write for the series during RTD's tenure. It stars Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi (neither a stranger to the programme). McKellen's character, Freddie, is an actor who claims to have been in an episode of Doctor Who.

The connection continues with tomorrow night's instalment, as Freddie wants to buy a new coat in order to attend a Doctor Who fan club event. Don't just watch it for the Who links - it's actually very funny.

Initial Musings - The Crimson 'Orror

Enough to give you a case of the oopizootics that was. I thoroughly enjoyed last night's episode, sharing much of Mr. Gatiss' love of horror films, Victorian Gothic and his sense of humour.
Influences included the 1931 Universal Frankenstein (the Doctor / Monster), Gatiss' Lucifer Box novels (particularly The Vesuvius Club), The Blood Beast Terror (I'm thinking of Roy Hudd's mortuary attendant) and the episode of The X-Files titled "Humbug" (the symbiont).
A visual reference was the opening of the film Moulin Rouge (the Ewan McGregor one rather than the Jose Ferrer one) in the flashback section.
Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling were both superb. Of the Paternoster Gang, it was very much Catrin Stewart's Jenny who got to shine - though there were some nice Strax moments. I love the way that every situation can be resolved by three bizarre sounding weapons, as far as he is concerned.
There seems to be some experimentation with story structure this season - the ending of Hide basically saying you know what happens next, so we don't really have to show you.
This week, we had the rather shocking first appearance from the Doctor, around 15 minutes in, and the resulting prolonged flashback sequence.
The story will be remembered for the amount of dark and twisted humour (this could easily have been made by The League of Gentlemen).
I particularly loved the Tom Tom joke, but you also had the sonic gag and the ever fainting Mr Thursday.
Not the sort of story you could do too often, but once in a while such episodes are fine with me.
The whole episode was bizarre and fantastical - but the only really unbelievable moment for me was how the kids happened to get the photographs of Clara (two versions). Did they hack into some police facial recognition software?
Talking of smart alec kids, I'm naturally ill at ease with their inclusion in next week's tale.

Landmarks No.2

The Daleks.
Or The Mutants if you prefer.
Doctor Who's second story is a landmark for two obvious reasons - it is the first of the purely futuristic, sci-fi stories which would come to predominate, and it introduces the Daleks.
It was always intended that Doctor Who would be a science fiction programme first and foremost, with educational elements thrown into the mix mainly through the historical adventures and the planned "sideways" stories - where the ordinary and everyday would be given some sort of a twist. Sidney Newman famously ordered that there be no BEM's in the show (Bug-Eyed Monsters), and he thought that was exactly what he was getting with the Daleks. Not only were they far more complex than that, but they were also very, very popular.
The significance of the Daleks can never be under-estimated.
Their arrival so early in the series' history helped to cement its popularity and increase interest. Viewing figures leapt up as word got round about the bizarre machine creatures (An Unearthly Child had 4.4 million viewing, and the final part of this story had more than 10 million).
Would any other monster have made the same impact? I don't think so. I can't see the Zarbi or the Voord becoming a mainstay of the programme had they been the first monster to appear in the programme (though the honour of being the first monster seen on screen actually falls to the Magnedon).
The Daleks owe their success to the combination of design, voice and their back-story. These are not B-Movie robots, but armoured life support machines containing the mutated relics of a neutronic war. They are xenophobes, who want to destroy anyone who is not like them.
The voice could be imitated by school children up and down the land (with or without your hands stuck out rigidly in front of you and a cardboard box over your head).
Today, the Daleks are synonymous with the programme - being used to launch new series on several occasions (or season finales). JNT used them sparingly, having only one full adventure with each of the last three classic series Doctors.
They have cameo'd in many stories, and have a life outside the programme - making numerous TV appearances in everything from game shows through comedies to adverts.
The vast majority of Doctor Who merchandise is Dalek based (or so it certainly feels).
The period 1967 - 1971 proved that Doctor Who could survive without the Daleks (but the Daleks certainly could not survive without Doctor Who).
Watching The Daleks back today - in one sitting - you see the obvious padding of the later episodes, but at the time the splitting up of the time-travelers and the prolonged quest through jungle and caverns would have actually sustained interest.
Many elements from this adventure will be reused by writer Terry Nation in future stories.
This story also forms the basis for the first of the cinematic Dr Who adventures, starring Peter Cushing.

The Crimson Round-up of Horror

Not a lot to say about this one actually.
Diana Rigg plays Mrs. Winifrid Gillyflower - who helps run the Sweetville mill in Yorkshire, 1893.
There is a Mr. Sweet - strangely absent from the cast list...
Rachael Stirling plays her blind daughter, who provides the emotional core of the tale.
Mrs. Gillyflower wants everyone and everything to be perfect - and hates imperfection, both physical and moral.
People entering the mill are never seen again - or turn up dead in the river with their skin covered in a red, glowing, waxy substance.
From the next time trailer we know that there is a vat of this red stuff, which people are immersed in.
We also see some kind of steam-punk rocket, so must assume some alien involvement. (Up until it was announced he would be back in the finale, I had the Great Intelligence in mind for this story).
There are Frankenstein references.
Vastra, Jenny and Strax have the first half of the story pretty much to themselves.
One sequence is shot in a way never seen before in the programme.
There's a lengthy flashback sequence.
The Doctor attempts a Northern accent.
He uses the Fifth Doctor's Tegan phrase "Braveheart" for Clara.
He also uses a Larry Grayson catchphrase (and it's not "Shut that door"). I'm going to guess at "Look at the muck in here...".
This is the 100th episode since the series returned in 2005.
This was filmed at the same time as The Snowmen, and Dan Starkey says he actually got this script first.

(Spoilery) DWM 460 news

DWM 460 is in the shops tomorrow, but subscribers have already got their copies. Some news and preview items of note are contained within.
It transpires that there are no other earlier Doctors in the 50th Anniversary story. It's just Tennant and Smith.
(This doesn't mean that other Doctors aren't referenced, of course. There is an intriguing bit of speculation doing the rounds that there is another Doctor involved - but it's just too spoilerific if true for me to go there).

Series 8 hasn't actually been formally commissioned yet.

Regarding Nightmare In Silver, Gaiman had a hand in the redesign of the Cybermen - especially the face.
A Closing Time version appears at Webley's World of Wonders as a chess player. (I assume this means a damaged one, and seems to hint at shades of The Silver Turk). Cybermen have been extinct for centuries, and are about to be reborn. The Doctor and Clara visit the Moon.

Most significant news is the return of Richard E Grant as Dr Simeon / The Great Intelligence in The Name of the Doctor (and here was me thinking he was the obvious big bad for The Crimson Horror...).
Seems Trenzalore isn't simply a place. The Doctor's entire life has been leading him there - and it is the kidnapping of his friends which forces him to go. He says it is dangerous for him to be there because of the many paradoxes... (so my Clara Conundrum theory might not be that wide of the mark).
Moffat says that there hasn't been a truly "funereal" episode for a while - the key word for this story. (I would beg to differ - The Angels Take Manhattan, in this same series, having a doom-laden feel throughout).
Apparently, someone doesn't make it to the end of the episode (four of the principal characters in this story have "died" before, so this might be yet another meaningless threat. This is a hand that Moffat has simply over-played).
It is claimed that Doctor Who will never be the same again...

Elsewhere in the issue, the Time Team observe as the Daleks try to take Manhattan, Ray Cusick is remembered, and the Fact of Fiction feature examines The Horror of Fang Rock.

362h 53m 54s

That's how long it would take you to watch every episode of Doctor Who (up to The Snowmen).
Just one of thousands of facts and figures in the new BBC book "Who-ology", a copy of which I received today.
There's a certain type of fan who finds this kind of thing utterly fascinating. They know exactly how may times the Doctor has been seen eating, and could no doubt list every mouthful. It's an obsession I have flirted with myself.
Previous posts on this blog have looked at the connections between Who and Bond, and Who and the Carry On... series. Both of these are covered in this volume, along with connections to Star Wars, Star Trek and various UK soap operas.
There are lots of lists, pertaining to the Doctor, the companions and the TARDIS. Some of the principal monsters get sections of their own as well.
There are 14 facts about the Time War, the three food items the Doctor has claimed to have invented, a look at every historical figure the Doctor has met (or just name-dropped), all the untelevised adventures that have been mentioned, and so, so much more.
Even if you're not as mad about the minutiae as I am, I would strongly recommend you pick up a copy of this marvellous Miscellany.

Landmarks No.1

An Unearthly Child.
The first in a regular series - of 50 landmark stories - as promised / threatened last week.
A bit of a no-brainer for the start of these milestones, but it is significant for being more than simply the first ever adventure.
The Doctor and the TARDIS are introduced - elements which still form the core of the programme five decades later. We know a little more about him, and a little more about her - but not that much considering the time-span.
With a lot of pilots / series openers, the principle character is introduced and we generally get a lot of information about them and the people they live / work with.
With the Doctor, we learn that he is an alien, rather than someone from Earth's future or an eccentric inventor. He has a grand-daughter named Susan, has been on Earth for a few months, and can't return home. And that's your lot. We don't even have a name.
As events unfold in prehistoric times, we don't even know if he's a good guy or not - seeing as how he seems on the point of killing Za in order to make an escape.
Other items of significance include the fact that Ian and Barbara are clearly the first ever companions to travel in the TARDIS, other than Susan.
It is in this story that the TARDIS chameleon circuit first breaks down and the ship becomes fixed as a Police Call Box.
TARDIS design elements such as the roundels and the hexagonal control console are established.
We are informed that TARDIS is an acronym - and are told what it stands for.
It's the only story in which the Doctor is seen to smoke.
An Unearthly Child also marks the beginning of the first ever story arc in the programme - something which is all but compulsory today but was rare in the early days. The arc in question is the attempt by the Doctor to get Ian and Barbara back home again, and it runs through to The Chase 18 months later.
Episodes 2 - 4 represent the first of the purely historical stories, which will be a mainstay of the programme for the next three years, alternating with the futuristic / sci-fi stories (more of which next time...)..