PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 543

I watched the new animated version of The Macra Terror today. It's the 7th serial in the 4th season of Doctor Who. Patrick Troughton is the 2nd Doctor and he's got Polly (Anneke Willis), Ben Jackson (Michael Craze), and Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) as his companions. The 4 episode serial aired March 11 to April 1 of 1967 and the episodes were lost in the big purge of tapes and copies. There are audio recordings, a tiny bit of video and many stills available.

The animation will do, it's available in Black and White or color. It's more fun to watch than the still photo reconstruction of the show which in turn is more fun to watch over the audio only. It's nice to have both, the photo reconstruction at least lets you see the actors and sets as they were. Some of the animation drawings of the characters didn't look much like the actors.

The story was OK, it's written by Ian Stuart Black and John Davies was the director. Davies appears in a taped interview on one of the episodes commentaries. The story has the Doctor and pals land on a planet that has a colony that seem a bit odd. Turns out they've secretly been taken over by some giant lobster like critters. They've drugged the humans and use them to mine the gas the Macra need to survive. The Doctor kills the clawed pricks off with a big ass explosion. Nice one, Doc.

It was be nice to see them do the missing episodes but I wish they would speed up the process a bit.

Nebulous Series 1-3 BBC Radio 4

While reading an article about the series of Ideal that I just watched I saw a mention of another Graham Duff program. It's a radio show called Nebulous and it ran for three series on BBC Radio 4 starting back in 2005. The 18 episodes are all on YouTube. I only listened to the first one and that makes me think I'll like the rest. Beside writing the series Graham Duff acts in the show with a bunch of other interesting actors like Mark Gatiss, Rosie Cavaliero, Matt Wolf, Paul Putner, Julia Dalkin, Graham Crowden and David Warner. Guest stars include Peter Davison, Steve Coogan, Kate O'Mara, Julia Davis and David Tennant. Nicholas Briggs is the director, he's better known for his Doctor Who work. He does a good job of filling the air with sounds and voices.

The series is set in 2099 and the Earth is very different, people are clustered in small areas after a series of disasters have made a lot of the dirt not so good for living. Mark Gatiss plays Professor Buffo Nebulous, he's the head of KENT, the Key Environmental Non-Judgmental Taskforce, and his goal is the make more of the planet inhabitable. It's a bit of a parody of programs like Quatermass, Doctor Who and Red Dwarf. One episode refers to both The Stepford Wives and Jurassic Park. It also reminded me of the Firesign Theater. I found it humorous but reserved. There's some humor in the situations. Though the jokes aren't scattered liberally through the show, the ones that do pop up are pretty good. It's not going to appeal to everyone but people that like Firesign Theater, and the like, might want to give it a go.

Science Fiction Sunday 431

It's back to Doctor Who for me. I got a copy of the newly animated version of the 30th serial The Power Of The Daleks from the library. The whole serial is missing except for audio saved by radio listeners. The 6 episodes first aired in November and December 1966. It's written by David Whitaker and uncredited Dennis Spooner. It was directed by Christopher Barrie.

The 30th serial was the third story in the 4th series and it's the first story with the second Doctor. Patrick Troughton fades into focus when William Hartnell collapses to the floor and shimmers into oblivion.

Anneke Wills and Michael Craze play the Doctor's companion Polly and Ben Jackson. Next serial will be The Highlanders which introduces Jamie McCrimmon who was played by Frazer Hines. I liked Jamie better than Ben, who seems to yell a lot and do little.

The story has the Tardis land on Vulcan. The Doctor collapses on the floor and changes into Patrick Troughton. Ben and Polly are stunned and don't understand. The second Doctor isn't much help in quelling their fears. He's confused and in pain for a while but eventually settles down. He still isn't forthcoming on what's happened Ben is suspicious but Polly seems to accept that he's still the Doctor.

The Doctor takes them outside and they meet a man who's killed by an unknown person wielding a gun. The dead man wears a badge that says he's a special examiner from Earth. The Doctor takes that and then pretends to be the dead man when a security teams finds them. They are taken to a city where they meet the people in charge.

A scientist has an alien vehicle that he's been experimenting on. The Doctor is horrified to find that it's a Dalek vehicle and the scientist has revived one of the rolling human exterminators.

The revival sets off a series of events that leads to the death of many. The Doctor and companions wind up in jail for a bit, they escape, get caught again and eventually figure out how to kill the Daleks. Everyone likes a Dalek exploding.

Don't worry, there will be more Dalek action in the future. It was a pretty interesting episode with the Doctor being regenerated for the first time. When I watched the old series a few years ago I got to like the Patrick Troughton Doctor quite a bit. Sadly a big chunk of his work is gone. If only we could go out into space and collect the transmissions of all those lost programs.

I didn't like the animation at first but I got used to it as the episodes played out. The production seems to get better as it goes along. I guess I'm glad that they bring these things back. Sadly it's going to take a long time to get the whole bunch of missing episodes animated. In the mean time you can listen to the audio versions of the missing shows. All of the remaining 97 missing episodes has available audio. Most of them have been released more than once on an audio format.

There's a good commentary that runs over the whole serial. The guest are mix of actors and crew with Toby Hadoke as the moderator. The guests: Anneke Wills, Derek Dodd, Michael E Briant, Edward Kelsey, Nicholas Hawtrey, Alexander Tynan, David Hankinson, Robert Shearman, Nick Briggs, Adrian Salmon, Martin Geraghty and Charles Naughton.

The second disc has a B&W version of the serial and plenty of extras: Animation and Photo Gallery, Animation Test Footage, Original Title Sequence, Servants & Masters - The Making Of The Power Of The Daleks, Surviving Material & Original Trailer, Telesnap Reconstruction, Original Dalek Recordings and PDF materials.

Doctor Who - 500 Miles

 

I really enjoyed the song, from The Proclaimers, and the images from the Doctor Who cast and crew from the days when David Tennant was the Doctor.

Science Fiction Sunday 335

Doctor Who: The Movie is the 1996 TV movie that brings back the Doctor for a brief adventure. Sylvester McCoy appears as the 7th Doctor but he's killed right quick and Paul McGann takes his place. Eric Roberts plays The Master. The script is by Matthew Jacobs and the director is by Geoffrey Sax. Jacobs had written some episodes of Young Indiana Jones and his father Anthony Jacobs had appeared in the 1966 Doctor Who serial The Gunfighters and taken his son to visit the set. Saks would direct lots of British TV like The New Statesman, Lovejoy, Bergerac and Blandings.

The Master has been tried on Skaros and the Doctor is recruited to take his remains back to Gallifrey for burial. The remains escape and force the Tardis to land in Chinatown San Francisco the night of 12-30-1999. The Doctor is shot by some Asian gang members and he winds up in the hospital where Doctor Grace Holloway kills him while trying to save his life. The Doctor gets stuffed in the morgue where he revives. The Master inhabits Eric Roberts and goes about his evil plans. The revived Doctor stumbles around for a while, gets some new clothes, and gets befriended by Grace.

The Master chases after the Doctor, he wants the Doc's body since there are more regenerations left in it. You only get 13 regenerations or some such. He gets into the Tardis and, with the help of a young Asian guy named Lee, opens the Eye of Harmony. It will destroy the Earth so there's that ticking away. The Doc gets caught and The Master kills Lee and Grace. The Doc beats The Master down and lets him fall into the Eye Of Harmony. It closes and he takes the Tardis back a couple of days so that Grace and Lee are alive again. The last action makes me wonder why he didn't do this in the past. It seems kind of a cheat.

Lee leaves with a couple of bags of gold. The Doctor asks Grace if she wants to go with him but she turns him down. He leaves in the Tardis for more adventures. It would take 9 years before we learn what happens too him next. I had seen the movie when it was on TV in 1996 but I wasn't really a fan of the show and hadn't seen it since. I thought it was ok but less entertaining than some of the better TV serials.

I got the 2 disc Special Edition of the movie from the library. There a commentary with Geoffrey Saks and a second one with Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann and Nick Briggs. It's got a 53 minute documentary on the making of the movie with all the film makers, a shorter interview with Josie Long, Simon Guerrier and Joseph Lidster discussing the movie. There's a Coming Soon trailer, info track, Radio Times listings, an isolated music track and a photo gallery. The second disc has more extras: Making of featurettes, lots of interviews and some behind the scenes footage, a bit on the 8th Doctor and another on his comic appearances, and a special on Blue Peter's love of Doctor Who.

Science Fiction Sunday 334

Survival is the last of the Doctor Who serials, ending the 26 season run of the program. It's the 156th story and 3 part story first aired November 22 to December 6 1989. It's the last TV story for Sylvester McCoy as the 7th Doctor and Sophie Aldred as his companion Ace. Sylvester would return as the Doctor in the 1996 TV movie with Paul McGann. Anthony Ainley returns as the Master for the first time in three years. It would be his last appearance as The Master. The screenplay was the first and last story for Rona Munroe. Director Alan Wareing directed this serial and two others before going on to direct hundreds of episodes of Coronation Street, Casualty and Emmerdale Farm. Andrew Cartmel ends his turn as script editor and took a job doing the same on Casualty. John Nathan-Turner was offered a chance to produce Bergerac but he wanted to get rid of John Nettles and move the show from Jersey which the BBC didn't agree with. He would closed down the production offices after Doctor Who wrapped. The extra featurettes spend a lot of time discussing the end and comments seem to point to the then current BBC management not really caring about long running shows or science fiction, even if they were popular.

Survival has the Tardis drop the Doctor and Ace in her hometown of Perivale which is in North West London. It's mostly council flats and low income folks. Ace isn't so sure she wants to be there but she had said she wanted to know what's been happening to her old mates. Of course they find a bit of a problem, some of those friends have disappeared, and soon after finding that out Ace disappears. Some cheetah people have been jumping through space and time to Earth. They chase human's right back to their planet where they turn into cheetah people or get eaten.

The Doctor follows and meets up with his old nemesis The Master. He's as annoying as ever. The Doctor figures the planet is dying and they need to get out of there. The planet is what is turning people to cheetahs. There's plenty of running about and eventually they figure out how to get back to Earth. Some folks get pretty dead but the Doc puts a stop to The Master's plan. The Master returns to the cheetah planet but the Doc and Ace stay on Earth. They pack it in and head off for new adventures that wouldn't happen for a long time. It was an ok story with fairly good location work.

Sadly the cheetah costumes were really kind of poor as was the animatronic cat they used occasionally. That's it to the left. The cheetah costumes weren't what Rona Murphy imagined, she wanted the actors to just have a hint of cheetah rather than a full body suit of fake fur and a mask that wasn't very expressive. I agree but John Nathan-Turner didn't. The body suits were super hot in the 100 degree weather of the rock quarry where they were filming. Sylvester tells a story on the commentary about one of the actors in the cheetah suit getting fed up with the heat, stripping off her costume and disappearing over a sand dune dressed only in a thong. He rather enjoyed the sight.

 

There's a commentary with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Andrew Cartmel. They talk about the serial and the end of the series. Hardly anyone knew it would happen. The BBC was rather tight lipped and hoped to avoid a big stink like the last time they tried to cancel the series. There are some making of featurettes with interviews with cast and crew. There's a kind of stupid kids special and some kind of special on The Master that I didn't get. Some of the stuff is on a second DVD.

Science Fiction Sunday 333

The Curse Of Fenric is the 155th serial and it first aired October 25 to November 15 1989. It's the 2nd last serial of the 26th season. Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor and Sophie Aldred is Ace. The story was written by Ian Briggs and it was directed by Nicholas Mallett. The Wikipedia says that Producer John Nathan-Turner did some uncredited direction. Andrew Cartmel is the script editor and Mark Ayers is the music composer.

The Tardis pops up at a WWII British naval installation near Maiden's Point on the Northumbrian coast. It's all rocks and sea, very sparse and forbidding. The military is there to intercept German coded messages and translate them using the ULTIMA supercomputer. Think the Enigma Machine and Alan Turing. Ian Briggs said he based Dr Judson on Turing. Here Judson is using the computer to translate some ancient runes found in a nearby church cellar. Unfortunately the runes are part of the curse of Fenric and that whole bit of business turns people into evil vampire-like Haemovores.

Russian commandoes have come to take the ULTIMA back to Moscow. They come up against the British and the monsters and hardly anyone survives. The leader of the British forces, Commander Millington, has something going on with Dr Judson. They want to use the power of Fenric to conqueror the world. Of course the Doc has an opinion on that and since it's his show you can guesss what will happen.

Some of Ace's back story is revealed, she hates her mother and doesn't like to swim. The baby in the show turns out to be her mother. Fenric is revealed to be an ancient evil that the Doctor has faced before. He had beaten him with a chess problem. This time he'll beat him with something a bit stronger. The Doctor reveals that he had created the time storm that put Ace on Iceworld where they would later meet. It's a fairly dense story with lots going on. There's a good villain who gets his in the end. The monsters are ok and there's a good bit of action and running about. Sadly now that the show has become more interesting they will stop it.

There's a commentary with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Nicholas Parsons who played Rev Wainwright. It's a 2 DVD set that has more than the normal share of extras and they were the usual interesting lot. The first disc has the 4 part serial as it was transmitted, the second disc has a Special Edition of the story, taking out repeat credits and adding 12 minutes of material that was originally trimmed for time. The 4 part version runs 97 minutes and the SE is 103 minutes long. The music has been redone and the effects people fixed up and added to the material in the serial. It looks really nice and it's a better version of the story.

Science Fiction Sunday 332

Ghost Light is the 154th serial and the second of the 26th season. It's the last season of the first series and the last serial filmed. It all aired October 4-18 1989. The DVD cover says that it's the 157th serial but I'm not using that count. Nor am I using the one they use on the Wikipedia. The latter doesn't count the recently finished Shada though the DVD count does. The Wikipedia counts Trial Of A Time Lord as one series but the DVD does not.

Sylvester McCoy is the 7th Doctor and Sophie Aldred plays Ace. The writer is Marc Platt and the director is Alan Wareing. Script editor is Andrew Cartmel and the producer is John Nathan-Turner.

The Tardis settles in a Victorian house in 1883 Perivale. That's the town that Ace is from, only 100 year in it's future. There's some weird things going on in the house. The butler is a Neanderthal, the maids carry guns and the Master of the house is up to something. The Doctor and Ace dig right in. A visiting reverend is turned into an ape. He didn't believe in evolution and he paid the price for his ignorance.

Ace comes to realize that the house is one she had been in before. She was 13 and she snuck in, got scared, and burnt the place down. What she didn't know is that the evil presence she felt was left over from the adventure she would have years later in the past.

The Doc stirs the pot and it yields up the aliens who have the space ship in the cellar. The Light is a researcher going about the galaxy collecting data and species. He doesn't care much of evolution since he has to keep cataloging new beings. He's been locked in his ship by the survey agent who has taken over the Victorian house near London.

Light is a big baby and when the Doctor convinces Light of the futility of opposing evolution the glowing one blows up. It was essence of Light that caused Sophie to burn the place down. Mostly entertaining but the story is chopped up a bit so it's a tad confusing. The cast and crew kept calling writer Mark Platt to ask what he was writing about. He talks about it on the extras. Not a bad story, even with the issues it has but I'm kind of glad things are winding down. Two more stories to go and the season is done. Now the question is do I listen to the audio of the missing episodes in the first series or go onto the 8th Doctor and his future selves.

There's a commentary with Sophie Aldred, Mark Platt, Andrew Cartmel and composer Mark Ayers. There's some deleted scenes and raw shooting footage, a making of featurette and an video of the writer at a con, an isolated score and a photo gallery. It was one of the early DVDs, most of the material was copyright 2004 or 2005.

Science Fiction Sunday 331

Battlefield is the 1st serial of the 26th, and last, season of Doctor Who and the 4 episodes aired September 6-27 1989. Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor and Sophie Aldred is Ace. The story is by Ben Aaronovitch and the episodes are directed by Michael Kerrigan. Andre Cartmel is the script editor and John Nathan-Turner is the producer. The story features the return of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. It will be his last appearance on the series.

When the story opens we see the old UNIT Brigadier in his retirement buying a plant with his lovely wife, played by Angela Douglas. Carry On film fans will remember her from several of those films. I remember her from The Saint and The Avengers. She was married to Kenneth More until he passed away in 1982.

The Doctor and Ace return to Earth in 1989 to find UNIT moving a nuke somewhere. The Brigadier of the UNIT is Angela Bruce. The Doc and Ace hitch a ride and stop at the local hotel. They see a scabbard that seems to have some powers. It flies in the air and points to the lake. A soldier in medieval armor shows up and calls the Doctor Merlin.

Jean Marsh and her soldiers show up to take over and Lethbridge-Stewart shows up to join the Doctor for another adventure. There's the usual running about and fights as the Doc chases after Jean and her troops. It all ties into the Merlin - Arthur legends and it appears that the Doctor will become Merlin in his future. I enjoyed the show and had a laugh or two. It was nice seeing the Brig back again.

There's the usual commentary Sophie Aldred, Andrew Cartmel, Nicholas Courtney, Ben Aaronovitch and Angela Bruce. The making of was ok, the nice thing about the later serial extras is that more of the people that made the show are still alive and they have a bunch of them on the featurette. There's a writing featurette with writer Ben Aaronovitch and a shot piece on the water tank scene and it's problems. There's nearly 19 minutes of unedited recording footage from the studio. Jean Marsh is the subject of a short piece on her appearances on Doctor Who back in the 1960's and the 1989 serial. There's the Trails and continuity, a photo gallery, the info track, an isolated score and the Radio Times listing. There's a second disc with the serial with all the titles and credits edited out. I'm not a big fan of those but there you go, someone seems we need that. There's also a trailer for the 26th season.

Science Fiction Sunday 330

The Greatest Show In The Galaxy is the 152nd serial in the series. It's the last story of the 25th season and the 4 parts aired from December 14 1988 to January 4 1989. Sylvester McCoy is the 7th Doctor and Sophie Aldred is Ace. The script is by Stephen Wyatt who only wrote one other script for the series, Paradise Towers. It's directed by Alan Wareing who would directs a couple more Doctor stories the next season and then go on to direct hundreds of episodes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale. Not shows I would watch myself. Andrew Cartmel is the script editor and John Nathan-Turner is the producer.

John would have a lot of trouble with this episode. After the location shooting was done the cast and crew came back to London to find the BBC studios had been closed because of asbestos. The BBC said they couldn't rent any other companies studios and of course all the BBC properties were overly full. The serial was briefly cancelled until John Nathan-Turner figured out that they could erect a giant tent in the car park of the BBC Elstree Centre and shoot there. The thin walls and top of the tent were no barrier for ambient noise but they managed to get the show shot.

The Doc and Ace get invited to the Psychic Circus on the planet Segonax. Ace isn't too interested, she's no fan of the clown, but they go anyway. Other travelers arrive too. There's something sinister going on at the circus. People are killed mysteriously and the Doctor and Ace are in jeopardy. The Psychic Circus used to travel about the galaxy but they have gotten stuck on this planet under the control of three of the Gods of Ragnarok. The circus people make their customers perform and the Gods kill those who do not satisfy them. They are pretty big dicks, those Gods,  so most people are killed. The Doctor will soon kick their jaded asses. Sadly many of the circus staff die in the fight.

I enjoyed this episode for the most part. It had a nice level of the bizarre and there was some danger and humor. I did like the evil head clown played by Ian Reddington. He was voted Best Villain of the year by Doctor Who Magazine readers. He was pretty creepy. Chris Purdy plays one of the circus staff and I couldn't place why he was familiar. It turns out he was Ian McShane's assistant in Lovejoy. I watched that whole series a while back and enjoyed them for the second time through. Most of the other actors I wasn't familiar with but I have seen T P McKenna in The Saint and other British TV. Daniel Peacock, whom I first saw on The Comic Strip Presents and The Young Ones plays the biker below. Everyone in the crew wanted to drive the motorcycle and Sophie said she had a turn.

There's a nice enough commentary with moderator Toby Hadoke, Sophie Aldred, actor Christopher Guard, composer Mark Ayers, Stephen Wyatt and actor Jessica Martin. There a making of the episode featurette, some deleted scenes, a short on a model shoot, a Psychic Circus music video, Mark Ayers music demo reel, a look at the newspaper coverage of the Seventh Doctor, a sketch from the Victoria Woods show with Jim Broadbent as the Doctor, a photo gallery, info text, isolated score, a coming soon promo for the Planet Of Giants DVD, the Radio Times listing and Visual Effects designs and storyboards PDFs.