City of Death - Episode 4

So this is the most watched episode of Doctor Who ever. Over 16 million people watched this episode and sadly it wasn’t because it was the most talked about TV event ever. Due to a strike at ITV (which I have already mentioned) meant that despite the ratings for this story this wasn’t the greatest story of Doctor Who ever made. Certainly it’s a good one and far better than Douglas Adams’ previous offerings but to be fair it has worked quite well during this story. As I write this I am on holiday with a friend so for the next several episodes I may have input from my friend. This is my equivalent of padding but it will hopefully be more enjoyable than some of the padding that there has been in Doctor Who so far.

After the death of Kerensky, the only weak link in this story is the Countess. The problem with the Countess as far as I am concerned is that she is naïve to the point where it is frustrating. Narratively it does serve a purpose so I suppose its more due my expectations that flaws with the story. When she does come the realisation about the truth it does make for a very good scene where the Count rips off and like the first episode cliffhanger the green mask does come off as the face mask comes off which does slightly ruin the effect.

The Count only has two minutes to stop his previous self from pressing a switch that causes the explosion seen in the first episode but the way that he is stopped is simply by talking to the Doctor and Duggan punching which leads to a wonderful line from the Doctor says that it might be the most important punch in history. The character of Duggan has been one of change because at the start he was annoying but overtime he has been a great part of the cast and I think that Tom Chadbon did well with the character.

This episode features the cameo of Jon Cleese who makes a cameo in the art gallery where the TARDIS is located. I just love the idea that one of the Pythons has featured in Doctor Who.  There is a slight continuity error in this episode because in the previous episode, he wrote THIS IS A FAKE yet when he tells Romana and Duggan about it he says “THESE ARE FAKES”. I hate to be pedantic but I feel the need to point it out and they even go to the trouble of pointing it out on the DVD information text. Julian Glover is the best thing in this story and my friend says that we didn’t need to see the alien face but just has Glover’s Count as the villain. I think that the casting of Glover was great and I don’t know what more I can add to it I’m afraid.

The final shot is of the Doctor and Romana walking away after apparently flying and shouting “Goodbye Duggan” which my friend says is impossible. It’s a nice shot though because the camera pulls back and gives us one last look at Paris. It’s been a good end to a good story and I think that after being disappointed with ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ it was good that this story restored my faith in the show. The story was good, the performances were also good and the directing was sound and when all these things come together then the story has a good chance of doing well. Sadly I know what the next story is and so my recently restored faith might be test in the next story. In fact the next two stories are going to be a test but I suppose my opinions can change.

As I mentioned, Tom Baker is now just one episode behind William Hartnell. My friend reminded me that in Baker’s last season he looks a lot more tired than he did in this season. As this is his penultimate season its fair to say that his humour is becoming more impactful on the story and on this occasion he got away with it but I think when the story doesn’t require it then his humour just looks misplaced. On a totally random note, the bodyguard/stooge that the Count has looks an awful lot like one of the maintanence guys that works at the caravan park that I am staying at. Means nothing to you but it does make me and my friend chuckle.

City of Death - Episode 3

It seems that humour is the order of the day as there is more humour in this episode than in the previous two. It takes less than three minutes for Duggan’s comedy to show itself. It’s not the only bit of comedy as Peter Haliday’s comedic role is ended when the Doctor uses a Polaroid to blind him. The stuff in 1505 does seem to be a little odd because its moving quite slowly. Once the action returns to 1979 it seems to be moving along a lot better. I like how Duggan and Romana have developed a different kind of relationship. It’s one of those things to try and think about how the show would have been had Duggan stayed on the show. It’s one of those things that Big Finish could do.

There is a moment where the 1979 Scarlioni is talking to 1505’s Scarlioni where one question starts in 1979 and ends in 1505. That must have looked very impressive on the script page and it’s edited very well and its simple things like this that show the vast idea of what David Agnew/Douglas Adams was trying to achieve. The THIS IS A FAKE moment happens in this episode and this is why I cant look at the Mona Lisa without thinking that this might be in the background. The montage of the different Scarlioni’s is quite a good one and does a good job of showing us that there are more than just the two versions. I haven’t commented on Michael Hayes’ directing so far in this story which is a shame because he has did quite well in his two stories during the Key to Time season and he has managed to do wonders in this story.
There has been only aspect of this story that hasn’t worked so well and that is the role of Kerensky. Apart from being there to do work for the Count, he hasn’t really contributed to the story and I think that the role is a bit too silly for the story so his death was perhaps overdue but it was a good death as he aged to the end of his existence. This marks the cliffhanger with the final shot being of the Count. It’s not the strongest cliffhanger of this story but I suppose after two really good cliffhangers it was inevitable that there would be a bit of a dud ending. The episode was another good one which continued the story and for once the humour was quite enjoyable and I think that the whole story is working very well. I am glad that they have got some location footage in this episode because it makes up for the lack of it in the previous episode. Looking forward to the final episode and hope that it ends just as I hope it does.

City of Death - Episode 2

This story got the highest ratings for any Doctor Who story during the classic era. This episode got 14.1 million viewers any that was a record but it would only last seven days with 15.4 million and then that record lasted for seven days when the final episode got 16.1 million. This was due to strike action at ITV. Whilst the previous episode was memorable because of the French location filming but todays episode doesn’t have any of that.

First thing that stands out in this episode is the comedy is back and I think that this is down to the fact the story is starting to stagger a bit because it doesn’t seem to flow as well as it did in the previous episode. There is a bit in terms of what the Count and Countess are doing and that is they are trying to steal the Mona Lisa. The Doctor decides to go and visit Leonardo Da Vinci and encounters Peter Halliday (aka Packer). Halliday’s character is quite a comedy character which seems to be odd considering moments later he meets an older version of the Count. The cliffhanger is just as good as the previous episodes and its just the way that Julian Glover walks into the room. Julian Glover is a fine piece of casting and its largely down to his performance in the two episodes so far that has stood out aside from the location filming.

The idea of their being several Mona Lisa’s is something that could only have come from the mind of Douglas Adams (sorry David Agnew). I cant think or look at the Mona Lisa on the TV without thinking of the moment that’s about to come up where the Doctor writes THIS IS A FAKE. It’s quite an big moment and even gets mentioned in a Big Finish story.

I know that the comedy might seem a little bit unwelcoming but I think that it works a lot better than the humour that appeared during Adams’ last story ‘The Pirate Planet’. The performances from Tom Baker and Lalla Ward have been quite fun to watch and also I have found the running gag about Duggan hitting everyone and anyone to be quite fun and I think that this has slightly made up for the lack of filming in Paris. I think that this story is still fun but I am worried that the lack of location filming is going to sap any positivity out of this story.  

City of Death - Episode 1

Today is Tom Baker’s 129^th episode as the Doctor which puts him in second place behind William Hartnell who is on 133 so by the end of this story he will be just one episode behind him. I know that I enjoyed the Key to Time (most of it anyway) buts it nice that the show has returned to just randomly going to different places. This story is credited to David Agnew who previously wrote ‘Invasion of Time’ but this is a Douglas Adams script and after being left a bit disappointed with ‘The Pirate Planet’, I wonder just what to expect over the next four episodes. There is something quite special about this story and its that this is the first story to have been filmed abroad. That’s the real Eifel Tower and those are real French people walking around a real Paris. It’s weird that its taken nearly 16 years for the show to go out of the United Kingdom and whilst its not uncommon for the show to venture away from our green and pleasant lands with the most recent episode (Kill the Moon) being filmed in Lanzarote but back in 1979 this must have felt like a holiday for the viewers.

The first shot is a very impressive model which sees the camera pan across a rather grim and baron landscape before focusing on a spider like ship. Scaroth’s mask is probably a bit silly compared to todays standards but in context it looks fine. Count Scarlioni is played by Julian Glover and is someone that throws money around like its funny money so is instantly unlikeable. He is messing around with time so there is a nice mystery as to how he is linked with Scaroth. As well as having money is a slave driver because Kerensky is doing all the donkey work and doesn’t get to go out and have a life.

The opening shot in Paris is beautiful. Very rarely would I describe something in Doctor Who as beautiful but I cant help it. When the Doctor and Romana end up on the train it looks weird to think of a couple that could fly through time and space end up on public transport. The whole sequence of them travelling through Paris is fascinating because I am one of those people who like to watch old programs and see how the transportation or something similar looked when filmed in the ‘modern’ day. Even when the action moves to a studio, it still feels like we are still in Paris even though it’s a BBC studio in wet London.

The episode ends with Scarlioni removing his mask to show that he is in fact Scaroth and its only ruined by the slight moment where the mask appears to be pulled up when the face mask is pulled off. Apart from that the revelation is quite good and ends of a good note. I have really enjoyed this episode after being slightly disappointed with the Dalek story and thought that this episode had everything that I would want from an episode and after several episodes which haven’t quite had that effect on me I am just relieved to get that fanboy feel from an episode.

The Invasion of Time - Episode 6

This is the last episode to feature Louise Jameson as Leela. Not that you would know that due to the fact there has been no real build up. This is the 40^th episode to feature Louise Jameson and this ties her with Debroah Watling in terms of episodes. The episode starts with the Doctor and everyone on the TARDIS about to be thrown into a black star. The hand held camera adds to the great dramatic feel to the start of the episode.

Stor takes off his helmet and everytime I see it, I cant help think that it looks like Bernard Cribbins. I cant help it. No matter how many times I see this story I think that this is Bernard Cribbins is making his first appearance in official Doctor Who. This is the episode where the TARDIS is explored in a way that has never been seen before or perhaps since. I wonder if the rooms that we see in this episode get deleted in ‘Castrovalva’. Would it really be missed if they were?

There is a moment when Kelnar and a Sontaran are looking at art and I cant help think about the opening scene in the Big Finish play ‘Dust Breeding’ where the Seventh Doctor and Ace are talking about art and I cant help think of the set used for this story. If you haven’t heard that story then you should because it’s a great story.

The new Doctor is tagged with being cold and heartless and perhaps the moment when Tom Baker’s Doctor kills Stor is an early example of this. I think that the shot of the Doctor holding the gun at Stor in a particular way is his ‘John Wayne moment’ is a very cool shot and is one of my favourite shots in the entire piece. I think that all the shot inside the TARDIS are quite nice however they are completely forgotten about as future tours into the bowels of the TARDIS are completely different so its hard to really take this episode seriously as far as continuity is concerned.

Leela’s final scene is a bit rushed and feels like it. Suddenly she has developed feelings for Andred and the Doctor is rather too quick to let her go. Even though Leela looks sad when the Doctor leaves, it seems like the Doctor couldn’t wait to get rid of her. It’s a shame that more effort wasn’t made to write a better departure for her. It surely would have made more sense to have her fall in love with one of the rebels. However as the story and episode stands it’s a fine end to the season. It’s not a perfect story by any means but I think that I would be lying if I said I didn’t largely enjoy it. Oh well, now we are onto the Key to Time series which is going to be a rollercoaster of quality.

The Invasion of Time - Episode 5

So the Sontarans have finally appeared. After being stuck with the horrible tin foil (or nice Vardens if you had been watching the CGI version), it was nice to know that they wont be making an appearance. They cant be that good an alien race if they allow the Sontarans to use them in this way. The appearance of the Sontrans on the stairs continues to impress me and I think that they manage to give this final season story a bit more gravitas than it would have had. Whether it is the best of the six part finales remains to be seen but considering that this is the only one to feature a returning monster then its certainly up their.

Despite this being their third story and the race suppose to be clones, the Sontarans we get in this story don’t look like anything that we had seen before. Just by looking at their hands shows that the budget clearly didn’t stretch to proper prostecthics. There is one shot where Derek Deadman (who plays Stor) is talking to Kelner and the mask he has to wear looks a bit iffy. I think that these issues will surface in a more noticeable way in the final episode but I think that the mask is going to be one of the problems I have with this story. Certainly if memory serves me right.

It didn’t take Kelner long to become best buddies with the Sontarans. Luckily the Sontarans don’t want to know and don’t see much value in him and refuse to listen when Kelner tries to tell them that the President is the Doctor. I still think that Kelner is the best of the supporting characters but I think that its down to Milton Johns’ portrayal of this role. John Arnatt is good as Borusa but becomes a bit more of a sidekick to the Doctor which given that Brousa is suppose to be the President’s number two isn’t perhaps surprising.

The Doctor becomes the first President to hold the great key. I think that calling it the Great Key is perhaps being a bit too kind because it looks just like a normal key. Speaking of the great key, it does lead to one of the nicest moments in the episode when the Doctor hands the great key to Leela and tells Borusa that he trusts Leela and Leela smiles. After not getting the impression that they were on the same page, it was nice to see in Louise Jameson’s final episode the two seemed to be working well.

As the penultimate episode this story feels like its still in transition even though more happens in it than in the previous episode. I think that it’s a very good episode and ends in a really bonkers way. The Doctor and Rodan (presumably the others as well) are in a tiny bit of trouble and the screen goes white with the Doctor looking at the screen. I think that with just one episode remaining this story has managed to deal with the lack of money a lot better than ‘Underworld’.

The Invasion of Time - Episode 4

Get your violins out but I’m currently a bit under the weather and there was a part of me that thought that I might not be able to do it but I’m gonna fight through it and just do the best I can. The episode starts with Andred pointing a gun at the Doctor that didn’t last long as K9 was on hand to save the day. Andred is finally let in on what the Doctor is planning. He realises that banishing Leela was a wise thing to do. Castellan Kelner is easily one of the best characters in the serial. He’s just loving walking around like he’s the boss.

I am watching this story without the CGI effects on and its sad that the tin foil Vardans don’t quite work. There is one bit where one of them is sitting in a chair and that looks quite good but that’s about as good as it got. The Vardans are quite stupid really because they don’t question where he is and why they cant read his mind. It’s almost like they are trying to lure the Doctor into a false sense of security. That’s the only reason I can think of for this level of incompetence.

Leela’s part in the story is starting to get interesting. She has managed to state a fairly impressive coup by overthrowing the guards. She is the one that drives the rebels and is the one that convinces them they can succeed. I think that without her the rebels would have carried on living outside in the rather bland wilderness. It’s not the wonderful orange sky that we get promised in future stories.

I like how everyone thinks that the troubles are over and then the cliffhanger changes all that as the Sontarans appear for the first time in 86 episodes. I have to say that their appearance was done quite well by Gerald Blake. This has been the transitional episode where the plot needs to change direction and stay interesting. The episode picked up in the final 10 minutes but before then it didn’t seem like it was really going anywhere but despite that I am still enjoying this serial and think that its not as bad as I previously thought.

The Invasion of Time - Episode 3

I was just browsing the Den of Geek site and there is an article about Rainbow (which is a show that I love) and I discovered that John Leeson was the voice of Bungle for its first series which aired on ITV from October to December 1972. That has nothing to do with this story but I just thought that it was an interesting fact to start things off. The cliffhanger is made great simply by the Doctor’s laugh when the Varden’s first appear. This might also be because the CGI effects makes it look really good. The effects that were used in the original transmission are somewhat disappointing.

I like how Leela accepts her exile because she still thinks that the Doctor must have something planned and she is still willing to trust the Doctor even after all that has happened in this story so far. Leela becomes a lot more active in this episode as she goes outside and interacts with other people who seem to be unlike the timelords in the citadel. When I say unlike I mean that there is less pomp and circumstance.

When Rodan is told that she will have to build her own shelter and hunt for her own food she is basically reduced to tears and this shows how pompous the Timelords are really. Leela seems to be in her element when she meets the exiles. To be honest, the exiles aren’t particularly pleasant and its easy to see why no one really ventures outside. Also it looks baron and horrible so that’s another reason. The Doctor finally reveals his plans to Borusa and this is the first time that there has been any sense of plot explanation. This is also the first time that the Doctor has really been himself. The scene between Tom Baker and John Arnatt are nice and humorous. I have thought that in recent years that Louise Jameson’s departure was rushed and made no sense but judging on this episode it seems to be far less rushed than I had previously thought. She seems to be at home once she’s outside and it’s the first time that she’s been truly happy since she boarded the TARDIS.

The cliffhanger doesn’t quite have the punch that the previous two had but its still a good ending. I get the feeling that the story is moving on and at the half way point I am still enjoying this adventure but feel that its largely down to the CGI effects. The performances are all good and the writing and direction are all perfectly fine. I think that out of the two stories set on Gallifrey, this one is the weaker of the two but it still has some good moments.

 

The Invasion of Time - Episode 2

The second episode starts with the rather impressive cliffhanger reprise. It still works a second time. Something that struck me about the previous episode was that Leela shouldn’t be on Gallifrey due to her being an alien. Sarah Jane had to leave the TARDIS for this reason prior to ‘The Deadly Assassin’. This is resolved fairly quickly in this episode and it leads to Leela being exiled to the wastelands.

The scene where the Doctor is pretending to talk to Borusa so that he can open the secret door is quite amusing and does feel like the dark clouds have been lifted from the doctor for a moment. Such as hopscotching down a corridor and the chat he has with K9.  That didn’t last for long as by the midway point he’s back to shouting Borusa in a very stern way. I quite like John Arnatt because he gives a very grandee performance and is believable as Chancellor. Milton Johns returns after last appearing in ‘The Android Invasion’, here there is something rather slimy about him but it works and that is why he is one of the best supporting characters in the episode.

Tom Baker’s strong performance continues. It’s reassuring that he goes back to his old self and there is one look he gives K9 in the TARDIS which shows his good self. The thing about the Doctor is that its very difficult to tell whether he’s pretending to be devious or whether its just the new Doctor. The mystery is quite fun and considering the number of times that I have watched this story its still difficult to work it out. Louise Jameson’s performance is hampered somewhat by not really being given anything substantial to do. All that she does that is noteworthy is where she is introduced to Rodan (played by Hilary Ryan). Rodan seems very much like the rest of the Timelords as she shows very little interest in whats going on.

This episode has another cracking cliffhanger. This is where the people that the Doctor has been working for finally arrive after nearly an hour of storytelling. Thanks to the CGI effects being switched on for this DVD it means that the ending is far better than it would have been in 1978. This story is moving along at a decent rate but it does feel like it needs to start delivering soon. Two episodes in and there is no indication that Leela might be leaving. The episode works well and I am just waiting for it to all go badly wrong.

The Invasion of Time - Episode 1

After being largely surprised with how much I have enjoyed the last few stories, I am looking forward to the six part finale that makes up Louise Jameson’s final appearance in the show. This story also marks the first appearance of the Sontarans since ‘The Sontaran Experiment’, nearly three years ago. This is their third encounter with the Doctor but this opening episode sees the show start off in a way that most people wouldn’t have expected. The episode starts off with the Doctor acting quite oddly. There is a nice scene between Leela and K9 and by the end of it, Leela looks like she is being left out in the cold. When the Doctor lands on Gallifrey he claims the presidency which is very unlike what I saw in the previous Gallifrey story. Tom Baker is on absolute fantastic form in this episode, giving the sort of performance that I haven’t seen for quite sometime.

This DVD is one that features new CGI to replace some of the rather poor special effects. The effects don’t really stand out in this episode but if memory serves me correctly then it wont take long for the effects to stand out. This story is famous really for delving into the TARDIS like the show had never done before, this will happen later on it the story. In this episode Leela is having a swim.

Once the action moves to Gallifrey, Leela’s role in the story becomes clear and it is to spend most of her scenes shouting at Andred. I cant quite make my mind up about Andred because he doesn’t really stand out much as a guard. He doenst have much of a presence about him and it does seem that if he was a guard then the standards would have slipped quite a bit.

This story takes place on Gallifrey but its slightly different to the Gallifrey that we saw in ‘The Deadly Assassin’ just two years earlier. Yet whilst there is a similarity to the old set, the new set isn’t as dark and it seems like they left the lights on during this story. The weird random chairs that seem to be dotted around the place are slightly distracting. They don’t really seem to fit the tradition and sophicastion of the Timelords yet just seem to be a ‘modern’ thing to add.

The cliffhanger was really good as the Doctor’s coronation starts off all nice but then it goes a bit wrong when the ‘crown’ is put on his head and he falls to the floor in pain. This ends what has been an intriguing opening episode and the Sontaran’s return is held off for another episodes, its not been 83 episodes since they last appeared. Having remembered what they look like, I cant say that their return is 100% welcomed.