(639) Revelation of the Daleks - Part 2

The final episode of the shortest season of Doctor Who at this point and it’s the final story of the 22^nd season. I mentioned in the previous episode that the episode wasn’t as grim as I remembered. I still don’t think that this episode was as grim as I remember but there are some moments that do stand out as memorable. The cliffhanger from the previous episode has some good things about it but I think that its instantly forgotten just moments are the episode starts.

Jobel begins his interest in Peri and his dislike of the Doctor from the very beginning. Jobel’s time in this episode is rather entertaining. He walks around the place with arrogance. The attitude he has aimed at Tasambeker leads to her killing him and its hard to muster any sympathy for him. There is a little bit more sympathy when she is exterminated by the Daleks. On the subject of Jobel’s death, it was another example of the violence in Doctor Who at this point and its one of the more valid points. There is a slight dark comedic moment in his final moment in the store when his toupee falls onto the floor.

There is a solid moment with Orcini and Bostock when they are on Necros and come across as Dalek. It ends with a spectacular explosion. They don’t seem to feature in the episode as much as I thought they did but when they are in then they are fantastic. Their next big scene is when they encounter Davros but things start to go downhill for them and Bostock is the first to fall. Orcini’s death is far better because it’s a noble death and he dies with his friend next to him. William Gaunt has been a superb piece of casting.

I like how Davros sends some Daleks to ‘protect’ Kara and Vogel. It’s at this moment that it’s clear that they won’t have very much time left in this episode. Vogel’s death is rather amusing because it’s over the top. Kara’s death is slightly better but only because it comes at the end of a good scene where she meets up with Orcini and he stabs her. It’s hard to find sadness in her death because whilst she might have started out with good intentions, the fact that she was more looking out for herself sort of removes any sympathy that the viewer should have.

The DJ in this episode is less annoying and becomes a more likeable person. The first scene with him and Peri is a rather sweet and lovely encounter. He is willing to fight against the Daleks that is good for the viewer to see but I think that he was a bit rubbish in the seconds leading to his death. He deserved slightly better. The casting of Alexi Sayle might have been part of a long running problem that hung around this period of the show but I thought that Sayle managed to that this was more than a one dimensional character.

I had forgotten about the moment where the Doctor first encounters the Daleks in this story. It’s good to have this brief encounter and if there was one thing I would change about this story then it would be to have more time between Colin Baker and Terry Molloy. Terry Molloy’s performance wasn’t mentioned in the previous entry but he has really performed well in this serial. He is just a head for most of this serial and yet he manages to be one of the best things in this serial. Davros is very good in this episode and I like the twist when it appears that Orcini and Bostock have killed Davros. Davros does something that hadn’t been seen on screen before and that is he floats in the air. It’s often mentioned that the Daleks floating in Remembrance of the Daleks is the first time they are seen in the air but Davros beat them by three years.

It seems like I have had to wait for ages to see the Doctor meet Davros. There is a nice bit of continuity link back to Resurrection of the Daleks. Another memorable moment for Davros apart from the levitating bit is when his hand is blown off. The next time we see his hand is in metal form in the new series. Davros is basically led out to survive and fight another day. This seems like a plausible way of keeping the option open of using the character in another story.

There are a new breed of Daleks that have the more traditional colour scheme. The white and gold ones that are associated with Davros are the better looking ones and thankfully they return in the next story. Compared to the Davros aligned ones, the Daleks that are associated with the Supreme Dalek look rather bland in comparison.

The final scene is quite sad because I know what’s coming up. The Doctor talks about taking Peri on holiday is about to take her to Blackpool but due to the show being cancelled before being renewed, that is edited out so that we would have to wait until 2009 before Big Finish would take us to Blackpool. It’s a shame that the show was put on hiatus at this time because it seems like the show was still firing on all cylinders. Apart from Timelash, I thought this had been one of the strongest and most consistent season for quite some time. It would be 525 days before the show would return but it wouldn’t have the soul that it had before. This would be the last great story that Colin Baker would have but one thing is for sure the next fourteen days are going to be a mixture of emotions but one of major change.

(638) Revelation of the Daleks - Part 1

Revelation of the Daleks is a story that I have waited for and it arguably the last great Sixth Doctor story. This is the final story of the 22^nd season and the final story to air as a 45 minute episode until the show returned in 2005. It is also an Eric Saward story so you can expect a darker Doctor Who story than normal. It is also a story directed by Graeme Harper which means that the story will move in an interesting way. It seems that the Doctor and Peri’s relationship is as frosty as the lake the TARDIS lands by. The fact there is a lot of snow adds something to the story which is an added bonus.

Clive Swift appears as Jobel. He is quite an arrogant individual and is instantly unlikeable but that makes his likeable. He treats everyone around with contempt and that includes Tasambeker. Tasambeker is someone who has a bit of a crush on Jobel. Tasambeker is played by Jenny Tomasin  and she might be small but she almost stands over some of the other performers. Tasambeker comes to the attention of Davros which isn’t always a good thing.

Alexi Sayle appears as a DJ and adds a bit of anarchy to proceedings. He seems to be in own little world talking to those who are in suspended animation. He in fact doesn’t interact with anyone which is quite similar to Arak and Etta in Vengeance on Varos. Sayle’s performance is quite entertaining but it’s more fun trying to listen to the music playing in the background and guessing what the tracks are.  

It takes just eight minutes for Davros and the Daleks to make a return and this is a wonderful change of form because normally they wouldn’t appear until the half way point or even later. Here, Eric Saward doesn’t waste anytime. What he does do however is delay when the Doctor realises that the Daleks and Davros are on Necros with the name ‘The Great Healer’.

The Doctor and Peri spend an awfully long time just walking around. I suppose this allows for the other aspects of the story to take centre stage. The only person they come into contact with is someone who is quite deformed due to the Great Healer’s experiment. It almost seems like they are being kept separate from the main action. They are there for the cliffhanger however when a statue of the Doctor falls over and seems to crush the Doctor. The cliffhanger is different because it’s a white statue that falls to the camera and then the screen goes white before the credits roll.

There are several different plot strands that take place in this episode . The first involved Kara and Vogel. Kara (Eleanor Bron) and Hugh Walters (Vogel) run a factory that is basically a plaything for Davros. They dislike Davros but are nice as pie to his face. They are arranging for Orcini and Bostock to kill him. The first scene between Kara and Orcini is a great one because Kara is gushing about him but Orcini is less enthusiastic and acts like a nice guy because he gives his fee to charity. William Gaunt is brilliant as Orcini and the character is great because Gaunt makes us believe that he is a gun for hire and is a man with morals and a code.

Natasha and Grigory appear at first to be two body snatchers which is a wonderfully dark idea to have in a Doctor Who adventure. They are looking for Natasha’s father and it doesn’t take long to find him. He is in a glass Dalek casing and its in a dark room that has a faint red glow. The image of a glass Dalek casing is wonderful and the make-up used for Natasha’s father is quite gruesome. He wants her to kill him which is a quick and surprisingly emotional moment.

This episode didn’t strike me as grim or dark as I remembered. I do think that this might change in the next episode but the episode wasn’t slow and had enough going on to maintain my interest. It shouldn’t be a surprise considering how good Eric Saward’s last credited effort Earthshock was. Graeme Harper also deserves credit for directing this episode with the passion that it needed to. No story will ever be as well directed as The Caves of Androzani but Harper has shown again how a story should be directed. I look forward to the season finale.

(614) Resurrection of the Daleks - Part 2

So this is the final episode for Janet Fielding who is bowing out of the show after 64 episodes. She is the eighth longest serving companion and has appeared in 12 episodes more than Carole Ann Ford.  After being impressed with the first episode there was a fear on my part that it would have lost something in the concluding part but it’s a relief to say that this isn’t the case. The Stien truth s comes across quite good. Rodney Bewes is brilliant in this episode as during the course of the episode he becomes the hero of the adventure. He is the one that presses the self-destruct button. His death sort of happens thanks to the Daleks but it’s the last action of pressing the button is a nice moment.

Turlough’s new friends start the episode in the chamber for the self-destruct device. Turlough and Mercer seem to spend most of the time bickering which isn’t the best thing to do considering that there isn’t the time. In normal circumstances I would have really disliked Mercer for just being annoying but with every going on there wasn’t the time be bothered by him.

Tegan and Laird do a feeble attempt to pretend that Tegan is sleeping in the bed but instead use one of the capsules. I really do think that the character of Laird is very good and Chloe Ashcroft does a good enough job but ultimately it’s a rather poor character. Her death is something that Tegan finds sad but I just found her to be a bit of a redundant character and as such her death didn’t bother me.

The Daleks are going to duplicate the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough to go back to Gallifrey and assassinate the high council. This might be a little bit convoluted but compared to some of their plans, this is probably one of their best. The problem in Destiny of the Daleks is that the Daleks don’t look in the best of condition and the all looked tatty and tired. Whereas fast forward to this story and they look great and the colour scheme is very much like the traditional ones. Davros clearly doesn’t trust the Supreme Dalek 100% because he manages to get two Daleks to work for him. There is another flashback for the Doctor as we see all (or most) of the companions that the Doctor has travelled with including previous incarnations.  I always think that is fun when they sort of things happen and it’s better than the one used in Earthshock.

The scene where Tegan is running from the policemen who in turn shoot a stranger with a metal detector on the bank of the Thames is quite grim and I think that this is the moment when Tegan decides that she doesn’t find travelling in the TARDIS as much fun as she use to. After being somewhat side-lined in the previous episode, its good that Janet Fielding gets to be a bit more active.

We have to wait until the half hour mark before the Doctor gets to encounter Davros. There isn’t quite the chaotic feel to their scene that there was between Tom Baker and Michael Wisher or David Gooderson. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good performance and both Terry Molloy and Peter Davison match each other but there is just something different in this encounter.

The Doctor decides that he is going to kill Davros. Anybody who has been watching this show for a long time will know that the Doctor would never kill Davros so it’s quite a brave/silly thing to do to have the Doctor put in this situation. The alliance between Lytton and the Daleks really starts to unravel as the situation during the episode gets worst and the Daleks realise that Lytton isn’t quite the mastermind they thought he was.

It’s always good when Daleks decide to blow seven lumps out of each other. It is something that will happen in future Dalek stories but there are a few moments in this episode where it happens and its short but sweet.

The Daleks in the warehouse are defeated with the movellan virus. It is perhaps not the greatest way that they would be defeated but considering that its not the main area of action it is perhaps understandable that the Daleks didn’t get the perfect ending. The supreme Dalek’s appearance on the TARDIS scanner screen  is quite good but he tells the Doctor that some of his duplicates are placed in “strategic places”. This is a rather silly thing because its clear that the plan has been stopped. However you have to give it to the Daleks that they never throw in the towel even when its obvious that they should.

Lytton manages to escape by simply walking out. He obviously makes a return in a few stories time but I think that Lytton has been a good villain. I think its funny how he just walks off into the distance with two of his officers. Davros is stopped in his tracks by being affected by the movellan virus. It’s implied when Stien blows up the prison ship that Davros has been killed but obviously they wouldn’t kill him off like that. Terry Molloy has been very good in these two episodes and its easy to see why he returned for two further adventures.

I really liked Tegan’s departure scene. After everything that has happened during this story it is perhaps understandable that she doesn’t want to go on. It’s been a long time since a companion has had anything approaching a good departure. She decides that as its stopped being fun that she wants to leave and I think that her final words were a fitting end. “Brave Heart Tegan, I will miss you”. Really couldn’t have ended it any better. Tegan has been a really good character and have developed quite a lot since Logopolis. Her finest story was Kinda and even in Snakedance she still gave a solid performance.  It’s weird to think that it would be 22 years before she would return to play the role for Big Finish.

Resurrection of the Daleks is one of the strongest Dalek stories for a long time. In fact its one of the best Peter Davison stories and it missed the top 10 and at the moment is currently placed in 14^th place and also in terms of ratings it is better than Genesis of the Daleks and only Mission to the Unknown rates higher. I think that this was a great Dalek story and it does feel like the transition period that there was during Tom Baker’s final few stories is happening again. It’s weird to think that there are just two stories left featuring Peter Davison.

(613) Resurrection of the Daleks - Part 1

Resurrection of the Daleks is a story that should have gone out as a four part adventure to mark the departure of Tegan, however due to the 1984 Winter Olympics this was reduced to two forty-five minutes episodes which was in effect a trial for what would happen in the next season. Technically this was the first Dalek story since they made a cameo appearance in The Five Doctors but really their last story was Destiny of the Daleks back in 1979.

The opening shot is very grim and dank which is probably how things felt in 1984 (I wasn’t even 1 when this episode aired so I wouldn’t know). The setting of the police shooting innocent people is something that is still quite shocking. It was filmed at Shad Thames and the Doctor comments that it was once bustling with life and Tegan replies with that it might be once again and she is right because if you watch the documentary you will see that it has become quite a trendy place to visit. Lytton comes across in the early stages of the episode as the boss and the one coming up with the plan but once the Daleks appear, he loses a bit of that authority vibe and just goes back to being a slave of the Daleks.

The story is set in two places. 1984 London and a prison space ship. Firstly there is a mystery about the time corridor that the Doctor, Turlough and Tegan encountered in Frontios. It doesn’t take long for the Doctor to realise who is behind it and from that moment the story is off to the races.

The Daleks’ first appearance in the episode comes just fifteen minutes into the story and comes after a huge explosion which shows where the budget was going. It’s not immediately clear why they are there because their invasion plans tend to take place on a planetary scale. It doesn’t take very long for this to be revealed. They have arrived there to free Davros who had been cryogenically frozen in Destiny of the Daleks. I like how Davros is clearly being awkward. Lytton wants Davros to go back onto his ship and yet Davros wont budge. The Daleks want Davros to think that they are working for him but in reality they are going to try and use him for their own ends.

This episode has a great deal of famous faces. Firstly there is Rodney Bewes who plays Stein. Bewes is perhaps most famous for appearing in The Likely Lads (1964-66) and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads (1973-74). Stein is a character that has a stammer which is something that becomes relevant later on. Rula Lenska has been in a huge number of things including playing Mrs Peacock in the ITV game show Cluedo. She plays a character called Styles who doesn’t really care about the things that are going on around her and the sub-standards that they are working in. Maurice Colbourne had appeared in such things as The Day of the Triffids (1981) and The Onedin Line (1979). Leslie Grantham has a rather supporting supporting role as Kiston. Grantham would go on to play Dirty Den in Eastenders (1985-1989 & 2003-2005).

Mercer is someone who thinks that he can changes things on the space station which is perhaps naïve considering that there is very little evidence that people around him don’t feel the same. It’s a good performance from Jim Findley and he has some good war of words with Lenska’s Styles. Terry Molloy becomes the third actor to play Davros. I think that his performance of the evil genius is perhaps the craziest version that we see. It’s one that immediately captures my attention and it’s a good idea that Molloy hasn’t tried to copy what Michael Wisher had done and just done what a new actor would do in playing the Doctor and that is give the character a new style but still make it seem like the same Davros that David Gooderson played.

Lighting has been one the big problems during the Davison era but the levels of lighting that are used in this story seem to mirror what was seen during Earthshock. There are moments where the lighting is a bit brighter but its not to the level of Warriors of the Deep. The Prison Ship is where the main action takes place and it’s a good group of sets and even the warehouse sets are dark and dirty so it kind of raises the question as to why the sets were so brightly lit for most of the stories.

It’s clear where the cliffhanger was suppose to take place had this been a 25 minute episode. It would have happened when the Dalek appears in the warehouse. As a result that this isn’t a 25 minute episode it means that there is a weird feeling about this particular moment because it clearly looks like a cliffhanger but the resolvement doesn’t really work and then its forgotten in a moment.

Tegan gets a bump on the head and this pretty much renders her incapacitated for most of the story. Considering that this is her final story, I would have thought that they would have had her involved in the story a bit more in this story. Peter Davison spends most of the episode in the warehouse looking around for the contents of the Dalek. It’s a bit disappointing really but on a positive note he does get to fire a gun at it when it is under a blanket. When he does eventually leave he takes Stein with him in the TARDIS but this doesn’t happen until just before the end of the episode. Mark Strickson gets to be the most active when he accidentally ventures onto the prison ship. He ends up joining Mercer and Styles to try and blow up the prison ship.

The proper cliffhanger is quite good because its Stein pointing a gun on the Doctor and reveals that he is a Dalek agent.  It was a good way to end the episode and I think I am going to like the 45 minute format. The issue with the cliffhanger that never was isn’t something that can really be blamed on the production crew cause they didn’t know what would happen so they did the best they could. As a story so far, it is quite good with a vibe to it that has been missing from the show since the last Cyberman story and it looks like one of the strongest Dalek stories since Genesis.

(575) Earthshock - Part 4

This is technically the final episode for Matthew Waterhouse as a companion. Although he appears in the next episode as a mirage, this is really his final story as a companion and the last where he has any interaction with other people. This is pretty much what the episode is building up to because it feels like more effort has been put into the big bombshell as opposed to what the Cybermen are doing. I actually think that the Cybermen don’t really have much to do in this episode. They have done what they needed to do and so just spend a long time enjoying the misery that the humans are about to endure. They have turned the freighter into a bomb and they have put a device which only Adric can stop.

The Cyberman do get one good scene when the Cyber Leader has a nice interaction with the Doctor where they talk about the delights of smelling flowers and seeing a sunset and the Cybermen are talking about emotions being a disadvantage. It’s a nice philosophical discussion which sadly doesn’t last long. The use of the Cybermen have been largely good although I think that they didn’t quite shine as much in todays episode. The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan get back into the TARDIS with several Cybermen and this is another episode where Nyssa has been stuck in the TARDIS. There was a possibility that she would get to go out but is stopped by Scott and his guys when he run into the TARDIS. Despite not being allowed out of the TARDIS I thought that Sarah Sutton was very good in this episode and did well with very little.

I know that I haven’t been particularly positive about Scott’s group and in particular Kyle but I thought that she deserved a better death than that because she’s not facing the camera when she’s shot by a Cyberman. That’s the only death that doesn’t work because obviously the death of Adric is one of the biggest selling points of this story. Adric tries to save the day by figuring out how the deactivate the machine that is hurtling this freight towards earth. He is convinced that he can do it and the moment where there is just one more bit to do the audience thinks that he can escape just in the nick of time but a lone Cyberman stops this. The goodbye scene between the Doctor and Adric is heart breaking because they haven’t always been the best of friends and the row at the beginning of the story highlighted this. The goodbye between Adric and Tegan was also quite sad.

I thought that Adric’s death (his last shot) was very dignified. He was holding his holding something that belonged to his brother and he doesn’t cry or run around screaming but just stands there before the thing blows up and the reaction of the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan to this is a bit mixed really because without the commentary it is quite sad but when you hear it then it loses some of the sadness because the regulars are laughing about it. That said I think that after the loss of a friend it should be treated in a sad manner.

I don’t know if I agree with the idea of having the credit roll over Adric’s broken star badge. Normally there would be some music but I think this over does the sadness that the viewer is suppose to feel. It’s a significant moment (first companion to die since Sara Kingdom) but I think that the end should have been a proper end with the theme tune playing. The episode did what it needed to do and I thought that it was a stronger episode than the previous two. I have been surprised with how much I have improved my opinion about Adric. I still think his costume is a bit silly but as a character I thought that Matthew Waterhouse did quite well and much of the cristiscm that he has faced over the years has been very harsh.

As a story this has been a good one. The Cybermen have been used well and David Banks did a great job as the Cyber Leader. Thankfully it wont be seven years before the Cybermen return but their first adventure of the eighties is a strong one and the final story of the season is going to see a familiar face return and the fallout from Adric’s death.

(574) Earthshock - Part 3

This is the penultimate episode for Adric and this is where the Cybermen final seem to be joining in on the action. This is where the Cybermen begin their plan and start to make their presence felt. At the end of the previous episode, Ringway tells the Doctor and Adric that murderers are executed on his ship. This is pretty much forgotten about after a short amount of time. Ringway became a lot more interesting in this episode once the Doctor and the others learn that he is working for the Cybermen. Sadly this new found interest doesn’t last long as he is killed by the Cybermen (will they never learn).

It’s interesting that both group of humans appear in this episode for a reasonable amount of time because they don’t really seem that dissimilar. I still don’t think that Beryl Reid is a believable captain and think that the crew are a little bit hapless which is how the army crew come across because they spend quite a lot of time stuck in the TARDIS before Scott leaves with Tegan. On that point, Tegan gets to leave the TARDIS but Nyssa spends another episode stuck in the TARDIS with Kyle.

I find it surprising that the Doctor doesn’t realise that the Cybermen are involved until about the 10 minute mark. Once he does then that is when the episode picks up and I really enjoyed what was appearing on screen but found myself somewhat less interested when they weren’t on screen. All the action was taking place in the control room and it seemed like we were missing the party when we weren’t there.

There are a couple of good effects used in this episode. The effect of the Cyberman mixed in with the door is a great visual effect and still looks good today. Another very good effect is the final shot of the episode which is a shot of Cybermen marching towards the screen but its been copied and pasted to make three liens thus doing a great job of implying that there are more than just a handful of Cybermen. The cliffhanger itself was quite a good one because just the visual of what this means is a great way to end an episode and even though it does have the impact that the first cliffhanger does doesn’t mean that there wasn’t something to like about it.

This episode does seem to be another one of two halves but unlike the previous episode, I thought that it worked quite well. I am impressed with how quickly the story seems to be moving. It’s weird to think that the end of Adric is almost here but I think that so far the first Cyberman story in seven years is one of the strongest for quite sometime and shows how a Cyberman story should be set up.

(573) Earthshock - Part 2

Well the shock came at the end of the previous episode with the return of the Cybermen. Thankfully we get a lot more of them in this episode but the thing is that it takes an awful long time for the action to get going because there is all the busy with the Doctor and his friends trying not to get shot by the androids. Once the androids are dealt with then the thing does feel like it’s actually trying to move on. I like how Adric gets to be a bit heroic for the first time in a long time when he destroys one of the androids. Adric really does shine in this episode for me. Apart from that moment, I like the scene with him and the Doctor where he announces that he doesn’t actually want to leave and did all the calculations just to prove a point. It’s the exact opposite of their opening scene in the previous episode. I suppose it makes what is about to happening even more heart-breaking (although I am a bit more cynical so won’t be wiping away a tear).

The hatch business did show me that the low lighting hides the fact that it’s a studio and the low lighting continues when the plot moves to a freighter which is on its way to earth. We are introduced to a team led by Briggs. Briggs is played by Beryl Reid who I have seen in the BBC version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy playing the role that Kathy Burke played in the 2012 movie. The problem that I have with her casting is that she doesn’t come across as a captain, she just seems like a old woman who hasn’t got a clue about what she’s agreed to. Another problem is that Ringway is an irritating character and just seems like he’s there to whine and complain a lot. The only one who seems even remotely normal is Ringway (played by June Bland). Apart from that the crew of the freighter seem exactly the same as the cave crew.

This is where in the shows history that it starts the nostalgia nods. It does a nice job of pointing out some of the previous adventures that the Doctor has had with the Cybermen. I suppose its needed really because there will be people who haven’t seen any of the 1960’s Cybermen stories and as this is only the second story since the sixties finished then it’s a helpful addition. I just wish that the Cybermen were more involved in the story and the word that I would describe this episode is frustrating because I think that the Cybermen are somewhat out of the way in this episode and that’s a shame really.

I thought that the cliffhanger was a bit sloppy really because the Doctor and Adric are leaning over two dead bodies before Ringway announces to them that on the freighter, murderers are executed. I cant say that this is a particularly strong cliffhanger but I suppose that after the previous cliffhanger the rest of them were always going to be a bit of a let down but I just felt that it lacked something but I have seen much worse.

(572) Earthshock - Part 1

Earthshock is an important story in Doctor Who because it marks the return of the Cybermen and also the departure of Adric from the show. The former is more interesting because they were a regular feature in the 1960’s. They appeared in 5 stories in three years from 1966 to 1969 and in the subsequent 12 years, they only appeared in ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’. In an interesting statistic, Cyberman episode accounted for 10% that were transmitted whereas during the 1970’s it was 1.5%. Anyway the most important thing about this story to many is the death of Adric. I have to say that before I started this marathon I would have been looking forward to this story but having recently found a new appreciation for Adric, I think that this story takes on a whole new meaning. I personally think that this is one of the best Peter Davison stories but it had nothing to do with not liking Adric before.

The story starts off with a crew that are going into some caves for people that have gone missing. I have to say that I think that they are some hapless during this episode that I struggle to muster any interest in them. They manage to get picked off by the androids with a great deal of ease. Even when they come across the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan it seems that they cant do serious with any great enthusiasm. The regulars start off with quite a row because Adric decides that he wants to go back to E-Space and this leads to the Doctor going a bit OTT about it. They end up underground and come across some bones.

The episode plods along rather well because of one new technique used. The lighting has been turned down and this means that there is quite an atmosphere which is something that cant be created with bright light. The claustrophobic feel to the adventure also helps make it feel like more happens in the episode than actually happens. The androids appear at moments and the lighting benefits them because then can move about quite easily. The Cybermen make their first appearance in 170 episodes and even though they are on screen for just a few seconds, its amazing what impact they have. It has to be one of the best cliffhangers in recent times on the show. Knowing that they appear does take some of the thunder out of the ending but watching in 1982 it must have been an OMG moment which doesn’t happen in Doctor Who. John Nathan Turner turned down a cover on the Radio Times to hide the fact that the Cybermen were returning. This was a brave and ultimately wise move. I remember how the human Dalek from ‘Daleks in Manhattan’ was ruined by the Radio Times so at least common sense was used here.

This hasn’t been quite the sprint out of the starting blocks that I hoped and remembered. There is some good stuff with the regulars but to be honest, when the story moves back to the hapless crew then I lose a bit of interest because I think that the regulars’ story is more interesting and the departure of Adric is the most interesting aspect of that.

 

(569) The Visitation - Part 4

The cliffhanger from the previous episode wasn’t the strongest one in the world so the episode didn’t start in a particularly good manner. In fact the thing is it takes about 10 minutes for things to really get going. Thankfully once it does then it really gets going. Going back to the beginning I must admit that the way the Doctor gets out of his situation was quite clever and I didn’t see it coming. Now once the story moves to London it seems to find its feet. This is the episode where Nyssa finally gets to active her sonic boom thing that she spent so long of the previous episode putting together.

The funniest sight in the entire episode and perhaps story is that of Adric kicking the android to stop it from getting inside the TARDIS. It’s just a ridiculous sight and it’s a funny moment just before the android is blown to pieces.

The companions are all working quite well together and Adric’s best moment (apart from kicking the android) is when he actually pilots the TARDIS. This is something that is a bit of a burning issue because really the Doctor should be the one piloting the TARDIS. Plus the old short hop thing is something that never really got done before Tom Baker’s final set of stories and yet its done with regularity during the Davison era.

When the story moves to London I thought that the sets were really good and the film look to it worked really well and I wish that the story had moved to London earlier because the quality is much better. This is where a fire starts which suggest that the Doctor started the Great Fire of London. I like the idea that the Doctor causes historical events. I seems like it was all meant to be and well thought out and not just added on as a last minute thing.

I really liked this story but felt that certain parts of it didn’t work quite as well as I thought it did in the past. The crowded TARDIS thing wasn’t as much of a problem as it has been so far this season but as a four part story I thought that it worked rather well and I liked the location filming and the writing has been rather good. Eric Saward gets a bit of stick from time to time but I thought that the historical aspect helped the story. Peter Moffatt directed this story with a nice sense of enthusiasm and even made the TARDIS scenes to be interesting which is quite an achievement bearing in mind how static they can be from time to time.

(568) The Visitation - Part 3

It was obvious that the Doctor and Mace weren’t going to be decapitated partly because they are two central characters to the story and secondly the scythe that is used is too big to do any damage to the Doctor’s head. Once that is over the story sees the Doctor and Mace spend a little while locked up and then they have a scene with the Terileptil which does serve one purpose and that it explains just what the plan is and its simply to wipe out humanity and it does a great thing of using a real historical event (in this case the plague) for the purposes of television. Now that this has been explained it feels like the story can actually build towards something.

Sadly Adric does suffer from not doing very much because he goes from the house to the TARDIS and spends a bit of time there talking to Nyssa and not doing very much before leaving and then getting captured. Nyssa is slightly more productive but she’s stuck in the TARDIS for the entire episode making the sonic boom thing which may or may not work. Tegan perhaps has the best time during this episode although that is perhaps stretching the term slightly. She is still under hypnosis and by the end of the episode she is about let out the rats. Despite not really doing very much when its laid out like this, its surprising then that it feels like the story moved along as a good pace.

The episode is significant for being the last time that the sonic screwdriver would be seen in the classic era. The sonic screwdriver was first seen in ‘Fury from the Deep’ back on March 16^th 1968 and it was written out in quite a good way when its destroyed by the Terileptil. I don’t agree with JNT that it was a easy way out for the Doctor because its not like he used it literally for ever situation. Anyway it wont be seen on this marathon until April 11^th according to my list of dates and episodes. This is the thing that stands out about this episode which might sound like there wasn’t anything in this episode but I enjoyed it very much and the death of the Sonic screwdriver is the thing that stands out about this episode.

The cliffhanger is perhaps not as strong as it could have been because there cant have been that much peril from Tegan opening a box but at this point in the story I can forgive writer Eric Saward for this brief weakness.   

(567) The Visitation - Part 2

The second episode doesn’t have John Savident in it (booo) but it does have a lot of other things which work very well. The cliffhanger of the previous episode was quite clever really because the Doctor had disappeared but when the episode starts it turns out that he went through a energy barrier which was designed to give the impression that the stairs led to nothing. The effect used to create this was quite good and even compared to todays standards it holds up.

This is the episode where the regulars get separated. After being inactive in the previous serial, its nice that Nyssa is given something to do and is tagged with the Doctor and as a result gets a lot more screen time. Tegan and Adric spend the episode together and its nice that they seem to be getting on with each other. There isn’t any bickering or back biting that would normally have happened between these two. They spend a fair amount of time locked up and they managed to escape which I found to be rather implausible but the objective really was to split up Tegan and Adric.

The Terileptil is introduced in this episode and I think that the headpiece is rather splendid, the rest of it looks like a bloke in a suit but the headpiece is quite effective and striking because it looks like the flesh has rotted and for 1980’s Doctor Who its one of the best headpieces that there has been. The only thing about the Terileptil that is a bit confusing is just what is its plan? Apart from that I thought that the Terileptil’s involvement in the story was well done and I think as a villain its quite good.

The cliffhanger is one that we have seen before and quite recently. It sees the Doctor (and Mace) about to be decapitated which is what happened during one of the cliffhangers in ‘Four to Doomsday’ so it seems like if it worked once then it could work again. I actually think that this one is more effective than the previous one because the darkness of the tone allows this cliffhanger to be more striking than in the rather bland surroundings of ‘Four to Doomsday’. So at the halfway point this story is moving far too quickly for my liking, I wish there were more episodes of this story left but I suppose that this is credit to Eric Saward and Peter Moffatt for producing this story and making it work as well as it has so far.

(566) The Visitation - Part 1

The Visitation is one of those stories that I have always had a soft spot for. It’s a story that seems quite fun although in recent years I have been watching this story with the amusing audio commentary on it. After being really impressed with the previous story I was hoping that the good form would continue. This era of the show was one story would link into the other and so once the opening scene was completed the TARDIS crew started they are referring to the events of Kinda. Now I think this is a good idea because it’s a bit like the very early days of Doctor Who where most William Hartnell stories would follow one another. There is more reference to Tegan trying to get back to Heathrow 1981 and the ‘goodbye’ scene between Tegan and Nyssa is very emotional and it’s a shame that its spoilt by the revelation that they have arrived at Heathrow, but just 300 years early.

The opening scene is quite fun just because it features John Savident who is perhaps best known for playing Butcher Fred Elliot in the ITV soap ‘Coronation Street’ from 1994 to 2006. Every time I see him in this I am expecting him to act like he did in Corrie. Sadly, Savident isn’t in the story for very long because as soon as the seen is over then that’s it. The scene also does a good job in setting up the main thing about this episode and that is the mystery of just what has invaded the house. We never see the person that kills several people and causes some damage.

The Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric eventually leave the TARDIS and the first thing that strikes me about their first scenes outside of the TARIDS is just how nice the location footage is. I know that its something I have gone on about in recent stories but I cant help it. After spending the last eight episodes stuck in a studio, it was nice to be outside. The inclusion of Michael Robbins as Richard Mace was a masterstroke and is central to the reason why I like this story so much. He is fantastic from start to finish and after enjoying the performances from Richard Todd and Simon Rouse in the previous story, its nice that the strong performances continue.

This is an interesting opening episode because it sets things up nicely and the whole thing moved along quite quickly. The only thing that stood out and not in the best way is the robot that does appear. It looks very 1980’s and there is worse to come when there is a shot of its hand which looks like a cricket glove that has some gems on it. Apart from that this episode is just as fun as I have thought of it in the past and its good to have Nyssa back in the story.