There sure is a lot of rock climbing in the 77th serial, The Sontaran Experiment,which aired starting February 22 1975. It's a two part story that was completely shot on location with portable video equipment. Hound Tor on Dartmoor is a wonderfully rocky and barren place. I guess it was somewhat dangerous since Tom Baker broke his collarbone during the shooting. The man who played the Sontaran Styre, Kevin Lindsey, had heart trouble. He had trouble working on the rough terrain in the hot and heavy make up and costume. A stuntman would double for him in some of the action shots. Someone else would double for Tom Baker in the big fight scene at the end of the second part. It mostly worked out well enough. It's not a bad episode but it seems like filler to get the Tardis gang from one story to another. It really should have been worked into the previous story.
After the end of the last serial the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry all transport down to the Earth. The arrive in a rocky area. The Doctor starts fine tuning the ground bound transporter mechanisms and the other two go exploring. Harry falls down a hole and Sarah encounters some human spacemen. The men are hiding from a Sontaran who is capturing them for his nasty experiments. Those Sontarans are real dicks. Like many of the villains on Doctor Who they care little for anyone but themselves and their plans. Several of the original 9 crewmen have died in the Sontaran's experiments and the remaining men are running about trying to keep out of the way of the alien's robot. There's plenty of rock climbing in that running about, especially after the Doctor arrives. Neat as Hound Tor is I am quite happy to watch it on the TV. Eventually the Doc and his pals get the better of the Sontaran and beam off the show.
There's not much by way of extras. There's a half hour documentary that spends time on the serial and the Sontarans, a photo gallery and a commentary. I haven't listened to the commentary track, even though there were only the two episodes, I decided to watch an additional serial today.
Genesis Of The Daleks is the 4th serial of the 12th season and the first of the 6 parts started airing March 8 1975. After beaming out of the last serial the Tardis gang are intercepted by a Time Lord. They pop up in a smokey place. The black robed Time Lord wants the Doc to go to Skaro, the home world of the Daleks, and put a stop to them before they were created. The Doctor agrees and the Tardis gang find out they're already there. That's handy, huh. Two rival groups have ruined much of the planet with their fighting. The Kaleds and the Thals are the principle players, each living in a domed city for protection. After arriving the gang encounter some of the planet's inhabitants. The Doctor and Harry are captured by the Kaleds. Sarah Jane escapes into the wasteland and encounters some mutants who are then captured by the Thals. The Kaleds main scientist is Davros. That's him in the black outfit and Dalek base above. He's a pretty good villain who introduces the Mark III Travel Machine. It's an emotionless killing machine which we know as a Dalek. Davros wants to use them to first conqueror his own world and then everything else. We know that he succeeds from seeing all those other appearances on Doctor Who. It would be nice to go into the past and stop them but we know that trick never works.
There's plenty or running around. Everyone gets captured quite often. Davros yells a lot. He's a meanie who even has his own Total Destruct button. I believe it to be made from a film can with a hole cut out of the top and something like the plastic lid from a paint can pushed through the opening. I often find a bit of joy in noticing what a prop is made from. Once, in some low-budget SF movie, there was a Mimeograph stencil scanner and cutter turned so the top was facing out. It was turned on so the drum would be turning. It was pretending to be some sort of electrical device and in that limited role it did well enough. I happened to know what that device was because I had one. It was from the days when I had printing equipment in my place for fanzine production. The story is by Terry Nation and it has become a fan favorite. Some of the story is ok, some parts are kind of dumb. They change the Daleks origin story that was mentioned in their first appearance. Not that it matters much really, it's just one of many continuity issues over the decades. It's a too many cooks situation that I can't do much of anything about.
There's a nice 63 minute documentary on the creation of the serial. Producer Barry Letts and Script Editor Terrance Dicks were the guys who first commissioned the story. They wanted another Dalek story so they went to Terry Nation. They thought the story outline he turned in was too much like his previous stories. A bit of brainstorming and Genesis Of The Daleks was born. There are plenty of actors and crew that worked on the serial still around and some of them appear on the same documentary. Some of the conversation is about the change in tone of the show. It's gets a bit more grim and violent with Producer Philip Hinchcliffe and Script Editor Robert Holmes in charge. There's a 53 minute documentary that covers the history of the Daleks and their overlord Terry Nation. It was about as interesting as most of the extra material they produce for these dvds and I find I like listening to it as much as the serial. The Daleks have sure dominated the whole series as villians and cultural icons. They've appeared in 97 episodes of the tv show. They sure aren't my favorite Doctor Who villain but I'd be hard pressed to pick one. Certainly the Master is more interesting. There are some BBC announcements and a Blue Peter segment on a young man's home made models of characters, monsters and sets from Doctor Who. They are pretty cool and they appeared in the BBC Doctor Who exibition in Black Pool. I wonder what happened to them.
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