The Seeds of Doom - Episode 6

I think that its fair to say that this six part story has felt longer than six parts. True there have been some good moments but there have also been moments that have very hard to sit through. I think that the main problem with this story is that there hasn’t been six episodes worth of plot. They could easily have condensed all the stuff on the Antarctic down to one episode and the rest could easily have fitted into three episodes. Then this would have been a much better story. As I watch it I just cant find myself getting that excited with whats happening.

The fact that UNIT are in the story but the Brigadier or Benton aren’t in it is something that doesn’t work for me. The person who is leading them (the brigadier is in Geneva) doesn’t quite carry it off and I just think that its UNIT without any of the joy that comes with it. They are just as ineffective as ever but it just doesn’t carry the same weight as if Nicholas Courtney was shouting his way through things.

The models of the Krynoid over the house is quite a good one. It shows why models are better than CSO and even shows that compared to the CGI that 2014 Doctor Who could achieve, model work still works and when its done right can actually  be better than what we have today. The explosions were also quite good but on the downside it does ruin what was a good model of the house.

Something that was a bit differnet in this episode was Tom Baker’s performance. The last couple of episodes he has been shouting and very angry whereas in this episode he was bit grumpy but on the whole he was a bit more his usual self. This is good because as much as its fun to see a less pantomime version of the Doctor (which we will get in future stories), I would rather the Doctor not be as grim as the deaths are in this story. Baker’s second season shows that he is on his way to becoming the best Doctor of the classic era if not the best ever. Elisabeth Sladen was due to leave in this story but would stay on. I think that this story was a sign that the character had pretty much reached its course. The average time that a companion has spent on the show is currently 48 episodes (I will use this average stat if future as I like it so much).

Scorby’s death is quite a grim one (not the first or the last). I think that the reason for him being out was a bit silly but that doesn’t detract from the death itself as he drowns. Sgt Henderson’s death is also quite a grim death as he ended up as compost. Considering that this show was suppose to be a family show, its not particularly bothered with how far they push thing and that’s a good thing as far as I am concerned. I mentioned in the previous episode that I wanted more Chase and Doctor scenes and it’s the same in this episode although we do get a great fight scene between the two which ends with Chase becoming compost in what could be argued is the most violent death in Doctor Who (at this point). Despite the fact we don’t see blood of the rollers or hear any bone crunching, the scream of Chase and the knowing what is happening is perhaps more grim that if they had blood and bones.

This was the last Doctor Who story to be directed by Douglas Camfield. Camfield has directed 50 episodes of the show (including this one) and he is 11 episodes ahead of Christopher Barry. Camfield’s first contribution was ‘Planet of Giants’ and over the course of 11 years, he has directed all the story he has been involved in with a regimented familiarity and when you look at his stories its clear to see why he is one of the best directors in Doctor Who. Despite not being totally over the moon with this story, I think that Robert Banks Stewart has been a good addition to the show and if this had been a four part adventure then the story would have been better than what it ultimately ended up.

The Seeds of Doom is an average story to what has been largely an average season.

The Seeds of Doom - Episode 5

The penultimate episode of this story starts off with the reminder of how Dunbar died and how silly the Krynoid looked staggering towards the camera. This reprise seems to go on for an age before it resumes with the Doctor, Scorby, Sarah and two guards running into a cottage. I like how the Doctor is very angry in the early stages of this episode spending a fair amount of time shouting at Scorby.

The Krynoid is very big now by the middle of the episode. Although despite the epic size that Krynoid can (and does), I find the simple effect of vines smashing through windows to be more effective than the huge krynoid running rampant around the house. The effects used to make the plants that are overpowering Sarah, Scorby and the Butler is simple yet effective and these do more to create an impression of terror than the CSO version that we get.

Chase continues his ideal that humans are replaceable and krynoids aren’t. It’s a fair point but it doesn’t diminish that the character is a strong one and at one point he seems to have gone a bit mad when he says to Scorby that the krynoids have the right of the earth and that humans are parasites. His madness is made very obvious when he is talking to hit plants and has his legs crossed. If there had been more Chase in this story then I might have felt more positively towards it. In fact I wish there were more scenes between the Doctor and Chase because Tom Baker and Tony Beckley are two very different actors but together they worked very well. Elisabeth Sladen has been very good over the course of the previous five episodes and showed some of her old self. This is her 65^th episode in the role and she’s currently the fifth longest serving companion and is just nine episodes behind Jacqueline Hill. This is also Tom Baker’s 45^th episode as the Doctor, Philip Hinchcliffe’s 41^st episode as the producer and Robert Holmes’ 45^th as script editor.

I’m not saying that it’s a dull episode but the episode really gets going in the final five or six minutes of the episode when the plants start to attack Scorby, Sarah and the butler. It’s made even better with Chase watching on in joy.  Sadly the butler meets his end during this scene so the number of character gets reduced further. The Doctor is given an ultimatum of giving himself up to the krynoid by dawn. What I don’t get is why if the Krynoid is as powerful as it seems does it wait for so long for the Doctor to give himself up, thus allowing him to come up with a plan?

The episode ends with Chase smirking to himself and it just confirms that he is the best thing in the episode. Whilst I think that the story is building up to a finale I think that there is something missing from the adventure.

The Seeds of Doom - Episode 4

The one thing that I knew was coming when I started to watch this episode was knowing that Tom Baker was going to come crashing through the rooftop window. That is about as energetic as the Doctor gets in this episode. I don’t quite know what the theory was behind this decision but it does seem odd that the lead character should be so inactive at such an important part of the serial.

The sight of the Doctor with a gun is a rare one and we know that the Doctor wont use it but he basically says that the others don’t know that so its clear it won’t be much of a problem. The Doctor’s fortunes take a drastic turn for the worst when he becomes attached to a machine that makes compost. It takes most of the episode to get him to the point and even then nothing happens so Tom Baker is really a bit wasted in this episode and it falls to Elisabeth Sladen to do a lot of the work.

Chase really comes across as a nasty piece of work when he doesn’t seem to concerned with Keeler’s transformation. I think he maybe one of my favourite villains in recent years in Doctor Who. Keeler does suffer a rather grim fate in this episode as he starts off as his normal self and by the end of the episode he has become a krynoid. It’s a shame really because he was a likeable person but he just chose a rather rubbish person to work for.

Miss Ducat’s involvement in the previous episode seems to be more relevant because she gets to distract Chase in a nice scene. It seems at first that its just another random scene with a dear old lady but soon it becomes clear for the reason of her unexpected visit. When she gets into a car we learn that she is sort of working with Thackeray and Dunbar. Dunbar slightly redeems himself when he reveals to Thackeray that he has made a mistake but doesn’t go the full hog and admit what he has done. This happens just moments before he meets a rather grim ending at the tentacles of a krynoid. It’s definelty a trait of the Hinchcliffle/Holmes era of the show that people who die in this show don’t exactly have a nice ending.

The cliffhanger does come across as slightly comedic because it’s the Krynoid staggering towards the camera. I know that they were intending some quite dramatic to end the episode but sadly it doesn’t quite work out that way. It’s another episode which seems to have a bit of padding but not as much as there was in the second episode. I think that this story is going to be just as I have thought of it in the past. It’s neither terrible nor is it great. I think that on reflection that they could have done a four episode and two episode split just like they did in the previous season.

The Seeds of Doom - Episode 3

I always feel bad when I accuse an episode of padding but in the case of the previous one, I feel that I was in the right. As I started to watch this episode I was hoping that things would improve a lot.

The explosions at the cliffhanger were really good and they looked just as good at the beginning of this episode. The story moves back to blightey and the shift of the story seems to have happened now. I cant say that I am totally sad to be leaving Antartica because whilst I did like the base under siege vibe that was going on, it does mean that the story can open up and more characters can become involved. There is a scene that occurs where the Doctor and Sarah are talking to Dunbar and Thackeray and its clear that the Doctor and Sarah are facing an uphill battle to persuade Dunbar and Thackeray of whats going on. There was a moment where Sarah seemed to be going back to the early days of her character by being a bit feisty.

After being sidelined in the previous episode, Chase becomes more involved in the story. He’s wonderfully bad in and doesn’t seem like he would be out of place at a pantomime playing some over the top character. That’s not to say that this gets in the way from being a believable villain but in this episode its clear that he is the main villain which is an improvement on the previous episode. Chase’s disregard for humanity is made evident when he reacts to the loss of a pod more than of human life.

Miss Ducat does seem like more padding but it was at least less noticeable and it was worth it just because of Sylvia Coleridge who played Ducat. Sadly her part in the story is all too brief but at least it does serve a purpose and that is to get the Doctor to that long overdue scene with Chase. I think that when it does happen it’s a great moment and Tony Beckley is more than capable of holding his own against Tom Baker.

The grounds of his house are rather nice to look at. Thankfully we get to see a fair amount of it because there are two chases which are quite good action sequences. After the poor attempt to try and convince us that by painting a quarry white that it could pass as Antarctica, its good to enjoy some location filming and Douglas Camfield directs these scenes very well and actually directs the studio scenes rather well. It seems like he was having an off day in the previous episode.

The episode’s cliffhanger is a strong one because it involves Sarah and she is about to be infected by the pod which about to open up. The Doctor has a birds eye view of this and the question will be just how close the Doctor will leave it before getting involved. I really liked this episode and thought that it was much better than the previous one. There was some excitement going on during the course of the previous 25 minutes and whilst I am still not sold on the story I can’t deny that I have been intrigued by what’s been going on.

The Seeds of Doom - Episode 2

As I start to watch the second episode I am wondering whether my opinion of this episode would change. I think that over the course of the episode my question was answered and not in a totally positive way. When Winlett looks at the camera in the early stages of the episode he does look a bit like Tom Baker. Its something that I always think everytime I watch this story. First time I ever saw this story I thought it was him and that I missed something.

When Boycie, sorry Scorby appears on screen he becomes main villain in the episode and that’s partly down to Chase not really featuring in the episode. It’s really difficult to know who we are suppose to consider the main villain because a case could be made for Scorby, Chase and the Krynoids. Speaking of the Krynoids, sadly they are the Axos creatures that were used in ‘The Claws of Axos’ however on this occasion they have been painted green. I suppose that unless you were told you wouldn’t have noticed the difference but now I do then all I can think that that Axons change colour depending on the temperature.

Dunbar is another crony of Chase’s and is doing it more for power and the annoyance he’s felt of being overlooked. This was quite an interesting moment in an episode that was lacking interesting moments. The episode is really a lacklustre one and that because it only really gets going in the final few minutes of the episode. This isn’t the first story that Robert Banks Stewart has written for Doctor Who with his first being ‘Terror of the Zygons’ and at the moment I think that the Zygon story was the better one (so far).

The episode ends with a very big explosion and to call it a cliffhanger is probably over doing it. I wasn’t totally impressed with this episode as it did feel like an awful lot of padding was involved before we got to anything interesting. I don’t think that every episode is going to be like this this is definelty a decline in quality in terms of storytelling.

The Seeds of Doom - Episode 1

There have been so many four part stories recently that it feels weird that I am about to watch a six parter. This is the first six parter since ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ and this is the final story of Tom Baker’s second season. I haven’t been a particularly fan of this story but I am hoping that this will change over the course of the next six episodes.

The episode starts off with a photo and some fake snow, this might look impressive in 1976 but now it looks a little lacklustre. This scene set in Antarctica is a good opening scene because it introduces the setting and the supporting characters. I like the setting because it feels remote and claustrophobic. It harks back to the days of a base under siege story.

World Ecology Bereau (WEB) is the organisation that mentioned at the beginning of the episode and they have lured the Doctor into what’s been going on at the Antartic base. The villain of the episode is Harrison Chase (played by Tony Beckley) comes across as a horrible person from the moment that he appears. He walks around with gloves on and on baddies do that don’t they? He seems like he has the W.E.B in his back pocket which just confounds the idea that he’s a baddie. Although he does come across as a baddie with a soul.

John Challis appears in this episode as Scorby who is a thug of Chase’s. He would go on to play Boycie in the BBC classic ‘Only Fools and Horses’ and its spin-off ‘The Green Green Grass’. Michael Barrington plays Sir Colin Thackeray and he played the Governor in the BBC sitcom ‘Porridge’.  Two very recognisable (to me) comedy actors in one Doctor Who story isn’t something that happens very often and in the case of Challis, its hard to see him as a baddie but I just wonder where Marlene is.

Winlett becomes the first person to be infected by the pod and it doesn’t take long for him to be completely covered by the green stuff. He has quite the tough time in this episode and I think that he drew the short straw when it came to casting.

It’s eleven minutes before Elisabeth Sladen appears on screen after the Doctor appeared briefly at the beginning of the episode. Sladen doesn’t really do very much as the story doesn’t really allow her to get too involved. Tom Baker’s Doctor is very grumpy in this episode. There isn’t much in the way of humour for him which isn’t normal for his character.

The episode ends on rather a violent note and it doesn’t even feature the Doctor or Sarah. It’s an odd opening episode but still a good episode and I think that this six episode run might be a good one.

Terror of the Zygons - Episode 4

This is the final episode where Ian Marter appears as a regular and is the end of the regular appearance of UNIT. It is also the final appearance of Nicholas Courtney for a good number of years so it is the end of an era which is quite a sad moment. The episode starts of with the ship going off into the distance. There is a line about the spaceship last seen over Leicester but then they lost it. How exactly do you lose a massive ship like that. It’s a bit like in the 1998 version of Godzilla when it just disappears. Speaking of the ship I thought that the false perspective of the ship was a very good shot and I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been for the information text on the DVD. The model blowing up was another nice touch and it blowing up was another good blown up model.

The Prime Minister is mentioned and the Brigadier uses the term madam. This story was made four years before we got a female prime minister and so this just goes to show how ahead of the game the show was. Depending on your political views this was a nice moment or not.

I like it when we see the real versions of the caber, the duke and sister lamont. It shows that they are quite nice people and it. Sadly by the time we get to meet the nice versions they are written out of the show as the action moves away. I still think that Sister Lamont was the best of the supporting characters with the Duke being a very close second.

It’s good that it seems like the story is over when the Zygon ship is blown up but then the action moves to London at alarming speed when the Broton Zygon and the Skaran is about to attack the conference. It’s dealt with quite quickly with Broton shot by the Brigadier and the Skaran is left to go back to the loch.

The final scene is quite a nice one with the Doctor and Sarah going off leaving Harry and the Brigadier. Harry’s final line is about sticking to intercity isn’t the best departing line for a companion but it pretty much sums him up. The idea that Sarah only agrees to with him so that they could go to London seems like the wrong thing to say because it was obvious that she would really want to go with the Doctor anywhere so its no surprise that they don’t make it to London.

The line that the Duke gives to the Brigadier about being a Scotsman is a stereotypical line implying that scots are tight which I thought was probably intended as a joke but just comes across in todays world as a bit of a shame really but that said its hard to find any fault with this story because its been written well and a good start to the thirteenth season of Doctor Who. Now its just the Doctor and Sarah for the rest of the season and now that Harry is out it means that what I consider the golden era of the show can really get started. I’m sorry to say this about Harry and Ian Marter but I think that this character was a victim of circumstances and Ian Marter did the best he could.

Terror of the Zygons - Episode 3

The penultimate episode of this story is one where thing need to be introduced to keep the interest going because after the initial reaction to the Zygons has past, the story needs to have something else to keep the interest going. The reprise was of the Doctor being chased by the Loch Ness monster which as we all know is being controlled by the Zygon. Whereas the shots with the Doctor and the Loch Ness looked good the thing is that they never actually mix. In the reprise it does and it’s a shame to say that they don’t work quite so well.

The action moves to Forgill Castle which despite the rather lacklustre model/photo, the castle set looks very impressive. Every scene that takes place in the castle set is interesting and I wished that there were more because you could spend ages looking at various bits of it.

The effect of changing Sister Lamont to the Zygon is another good effect. I still think that Sister Lamont is one of the funniest characters in the serial. Not funny because it’s a poor character but funny because it seems like she’s escaped from an insane asylum or maybe she’s auditioning for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The final good effect is that of the Zygon ship rising from the bottom of the sea. It’s a good model shot and works well. Even when it’s coming out of the sea, it still is an impressive sight.

The sister waking the rock on the back of the head on a soldier is quite a shocking for family viewing. This is definelty not something that Barry Letts would have done and that’s not me saying it was something wrong but it’s clear that the show is being run differently. On the downside the bit where Sarah walking into the secret lair of the Zygons was a tad bit predictable and typical of what the female companion would be doing in future Doctor Who stories. It was redeemed slightly a few moments later though. I love the scene where Sarah is trying to tell if Harry is the real Harry and it’s only by him saying “old girl” that she decides that he is the real one.

The cliffhanger is rather disappointing considering how good the effect of the ship rising is. I think that it certainly lacks the drama of the first episode cliffhanger. Despite this rather damp squib to the episode, I think that the story is still a strong one with a very good creature and some very good pieces of casting. I am enjoying the fact that this feels like a different era of the show and not a Pertwee story with a different actor playing the role.

Terror of the Zygons - Episode 2

The first Zygon adventure continues with as much intrigue and darkness as the first. After the very good cliffhanger the story continues very quickly and before there is time to brief and settle down the Doctor is stood by the Sister. Sarah has disappeared and Sister Lamont is fantastically cold when she is talking to the Doctor. The bit where the Doctor and Sarah have been trapped in the decompression chamber is great because the Doctor puts Sarah into a hypnosis and does the same to himself.

I still don’t think that Tom Baker’s Doctor is suited to dealing with UNIT. In his brief scene with Benton it just doesn’t quite work and I think that it worked much better when it was Jon Pertwee. It’s perhaps the wisest thing that they have decided to pretty much do away with the UNIT stories because with a new Doctor should come a new direction for the show and UNIT was very much a product of the Pertwee era and worked for him but definitely doesn’t work for Baker.

Most of the Zygon mask/headgear does look quite good but it’s the mouth area that it looks a bit ropey. I think that it suffers from the same problem that the Vogans had in the previous story but that’s the only problem with the Zygon costume. From head to toe they look gruesome and they look rather effective. There is a nice shot where we see the real Sister Lamont and the real ‘caber’ and it leads to a good CSO where a Zygon.

I like this episode beause we get to see evil Harry. Of course its not the real Harry but a Zygon duplicate. When he comes in it turns into a nice little action sequence which seemed very much out of the Pertwee era. There’s a great shot of Harry’s eyes starring at the screen which is very similar to Capaldi’s stare in the 50^th Anniversary special. It’s quite a shocking moment when Zygon Harry goes for Sarah with a pitchfork, misses and then gets impaled on it. There is another big sequence which comes when the Doctor is trying to hide from the big creature. Whilst Tom Baker is good and some of the shots of the creature are good, its not a particularly great cliffhanger compared to the previous one. It’s still a solid episode with some great moments but it’s the ending that lets it down. It’s a shame but the opening story to the thirteenth season is one that has lots to enjoy and very little to knock.

Terror of the Zygons - Episode 1

The start of the thirteenth series starts just 112 days after the final episode of ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’. Normally I wouldn’t comment on this but its another stat that I can use and it’s the shortest gap since between the fifth and sixth seasons which were only 70 days apart. The shortest gaps were 49 days during seasons 1 & 2 and 2 & 3. The longest was 203 days between Jon Pertwee’s last season and Tom Baker’s first. Another fact is that this is the 80^th Doctor Who story. Anyway enough stats for today and the opening story of the season sees the introduction of an underused creation. This is one of the Tom Baker stories that I have seen the least for some strange reason.

The opening scene of this episode reminds me of the opening of ‘The Sea Devils’. This is the season when Philip Hinchcliffe put his stamp on the show and its clear that the show has progressed a little bit since the last season. Tom Baker seems more confident in the role and it seems Elisabeth Sladen is adjusting to Tom as the leading man. This is her 47^th episode overtaking Peter Purves and becomes the seventh longest serving companion. There that is the last stat of the review.

The Brigadier has some devise that can effectively recall the Doctor and whilst it’s a good idea, this is the only time that its used and seems like a plausible plot device to get the Doctor back to earth. Quite why the TARDIS couldn’t make it closer to where the Brigadier was is a bit of a mystery. It’s been an awfully long time since we last saw the interior of the TARDIS. In fact I think that it was during ‘Death to the Daleks’ that we last had a scene inside the TARDIS and that was over a year since this episode was broadcast. I best people were forgetting what it looked like.

This is the final story for Harry who has been rather under used since he first joined the show. He’s more use in this episode than he was for most of the previous season. However about the halfway point he get’s shot at. When he wakes up that is when his usefulness becomes important and what he heard that bloke say was what led to the cliffhanger. Not many times that Harry has been anywhere near the cliffhanger.

This story features John Woodnutt playing the Duke of Forgill who had previously appeared in ‘Spearhead from Space’ and under a Draconian mask in ‘Frontier in Space’. Like his previous two appearances, he instantly becomes an interesting character. Another fun character from the moment she appears on screen is that of Sister Lamont played by Lillias Walker. I cant let this review go by without mentioning Angus who comes across as a bit weird because he think’s that he has second sight but there is something quite charming about the performance that really sticks in the mind. It’s good to have the Brigadier back, even if its just to be mocked by the Doctor and Sarah.

Even though the title has Zygons in it, we don’t see a great deal of them. Just the eyes and hand of one until the cliffhanger when it is about to get very close to Sarah. It’s a great cliffhanger to what has been a very solid episode. I cant really find fault with it and the best thing is that as its Harry’s final story as a companion, he’s given something substantial to do and I will probably mention that a couple of time over the next three episodes but its perhaps the most interesting part of the story.