PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 317

The Two Doctors brings Partrick Troughton back to the series. It's the 141st serial and it first aired February 16 to March 2 1985. Colin Baker is the 6th Doctor and Patrick is the 2nd Doctor. Nicola Bryant plays Peri Brown and Frazer Hines plays  Jamie McCrimmon. It would be the last time that Patrick and Frazer would play their characters. The 3 episode story was written by Robert Holmes and directed by Peter Moffatt. Jacqueline Pearce plays totally villainous Chessene, I had been seeing her in Blake's 7 as the evil head of the Federation, she plays a similar evil character there.

Doctor 2 and Jamie are in the Tardis, they land on Space Station Chimera where they meet Dastari, the Head of Projects, and explain they are on a mission from the Time Lords. The station has some scientists experimenting on Time Travel and the Time Lords want them to stop. The Time Lords lack any interest in sharing their control over time. Dastari introduces Chessene to Doc 2 and Jamie. She's been experimented on, changing her from a primitive bestial Androgum to a more human with great intelligence. Still, underneath she's an evil and murderous creature with thoughts of univeral domination.

Chessene has made a deal with the Sontarians to steal the time experiments and kill everyone on board the station except the Doctor, Dastari and the Androgum cook. They all leave and a short while later Peri and the 6th Doctor show up. They follow the trail to Seville Spain on modern Earth where Chessene gets her plans rolling. The Docs put that plan to rest but it takes a while so there's the usual chasing, getting caught and escaping. There are some nice scenes in the Spanish countryside and Seville.

The program got some negative feedback for the violence. That all ramped up and the show got put into a year hiatus when the season ended. I liked the episode well enough  but I was more interested in seeing the return of Patrick Troughton than seeing the plot play out. At one point Dastari starts the process to change the 2nd Doctor into a Androgum. That's him and the cook below. The cook does murder several people in a rather horrible manner. He's a pretty awful creature, not human, but willing to eat them.

It's a 2 disc set and the episode disc has a fairly good commentary with Peter Moffatt, Jacqueline Pearce, Frazer Hines, Peter Davison and Nicola Bryant. There's an Easter Egg with some footage of the credits, an info track and an isolated score. The only other extra is a clip from Jimmy Savile's show Jim'll Fix It called A Fix With Sontarians. Jimmy sets up a scene for a little Doctor Who fan. He gets to do a scene with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and some Sontarians. Recently it was revealed that Jimmy Savile was a sexual predator who carried on his dirty business for decades.

Disc two has a whole bunch of extras. There's a nice featurette on writer Robert Holmes. He died in 1986 and there isn't much of him on video. There's over an hour of raw video shooting, some in the studio and some on location. There's a promo celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Doctor. There's a featurette on location shooting in Spain with  production manager Gary Downie. It was his job to recce the Spanish locations where he returns to talk about the experience. There's a nice Photo Gallery and an episode of the radio program Wavelength which talks about Doctor Who.

Science Fiction Sunday 316

The 3rd serial of the 22nd season is The Mark Of The Rani. It's the 140th serial and it's 2 45 minute episodes first aired February 2-9 1985. Colin Baker is still the 6th Doctor and Nicola Bryant is the companion Peri Brown. The script is by Pip and Jane Baker and directed by Sarah Hellings. The Tardis is pulled off course and winds up in England in the 19th century. They are near the town of Killingworth where Lord Ravensworth is planning a conference of men of science. The local luddites are attacking the mine and the machinery. That mine and machinery are part of a large group of museums and historic sites called the Ironbridge Gorge Museums. They were important in the Industrial Revolution. George Stevenson is the scientist who works for Lord Ravensworth. Both men are based on the real people.

There are two villains this story. The Master (Anthony Ainley) has managed to escape the fire from his previous appearance. He's managed to pull the Doctor's Tardis to him. Unfortunately the other villain, a banished Time Lord called the Rani (Kate O'Mara), has a evil plan going on. It's not evil to her of course, she's just a heartless scientist who has some work to do. She's removing a chemical from people's brains and that turns them into raving lunitics. Not a problem to the Rani, she doesn't care one way or another.

The Doctor and Peri run about a bit, get caught a bit, escape a bit and then put things back nearly right. At the end of the episode the Master and the Rani wind up in her Tardis (below) which the Doctor has fiddled with. They blast off through space and time at an enormous rate with a growing T-Rex in their control room. I know they will be back, they mention it on the commentary. The Doc and Peri leave in their Tardis. It was a fairly entertaining program that might have been better with just one villain. It's what Anthony Ainley would say later on. Colin Baker and Kate O'Mara discuss that on the commentary.

I enjoyed the commentary with Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Kate O'Mara. There's a making of with the cast and crew of the serial, some continuity announcements from the broadcast hidden in an Easter Egg, a Now and Then look at the locations, a short bit on the creation of the music, some deleted scenes, the info track, a clip with Colin and Nicola on Saturday Superstore, a segment on the Ironbridge Gorge museums from an episode of Blue Peter, pdfs of the 1985 Doctor Who Annual and the Radio Times listing.

Science Fiction Sunday 315

Vengeance On Varos is the 139th serial and it first appeared January 19–26 1985. It's the 2nd serial of the 22st season. Colin Baker is the Doctor and Nicola Bryant is Peri Brown.  It's written by Philip Martin and directed by Ron Jones.

The Doc and Peri are having some issues with the Tardis. He figures out they need some Zeiton-7 which is available on Varos. It's a hostile place that has the inhabitants living underground. It used to be a prison planet but they got some government. One with forced votes and spying on your neighbor. The officials broadcast torture and execution of rebels. It's pretty hard on the governor too, a no vote for him puts him in the hot seat where his atoms are damaged by a beam weapon each time it's turned on. Four no votes leads to death.

The Doc and Peri help the rebellion and force the government to change. They had been getting cheated by the alien who buys their Zeiton-7 and the Doctor helps sort that out too. I didn't find this one to be that interesting. Another downtrodden planet with some aliens controlling and cheating them. The Doctor kills a lot of them and the BBC got some feedback from the viewers on the amount of violence on the program. The creepy alien guy was kind of interesting and he's played by Nabil Shaban who has osteogenesis imperfecta. At first I thought the lower part of his body was in the stand but he's just a tiny person. Jason Connery, Sean's son, makes his acting debut here.

There's the usual commentary with Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Nabil Shaban and Jason Connery. Not one of the better ones but still entertaining. The serial was released on a single disc first and a 2 disc special edition more recently. I got the 2 disc set from the library. It has all the same stuff as the first release as well as a while bunch of other extras. They are about average and I still have fun watching them.

Science Fiction Sunday 314

 

The 20th season has a bit of a format change, the episodes have moved back to once a week broadcast, on a  Saturdays, and each story is presented as two 45 minutes episodes. The first story was Attack Of The Cybermen and it was broadcast January 5-12 1985. Colin Baker starts his first full season as the Doctor with Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown. Paula Moore is the writer and Matthew Robinson is the director. Eric Seward is the script editor and John Nathan-Turner is the producer.

The Doctor and Peri show up in London in 1985 where they stumble on a robbery by some thugs and an alien. They find Lytton, from Resurrection Of The Cybermen, is planning a robbery of some diamonds. At least that's what he's told the men that are working for him. In the sewers they discover the Cybermen are up to something.

They all get caught and the story moves to Telos, the world the Cybermen stole from the Cryons. There Lytton plans to steal a time vehicle from the Cybermen, Peri gets seperated and falls in with the Cryons. The Doc joins up with them and they try to stop the Cybermen from blowing up the Earth. Not too bad, it moves along ok and there's stuff happening most of the time.

There's a commentary with Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Terry Malloy. Terry, one of the robbers, leaves after the first episode and is replaced with Sarah Berger who played one of the Cryons. There's a making of the episode, a short on the history of the Cybermen, a gallery of Cybermen over the years, a short featurette on possible human cyborgs, a coming soon trailer for Image of the Fendahl and an Easter Egg called The Cybernetic Autonomous Dalek with Professor Kevin Warwick. There's that pesky info track, some trails and continuity bits, a photo gallery and the Radio Times listing.

Science Fiction Sunday 313

The first episode of the 6th Doctor is titled The Twin Dilemma and it's the 137th story so far. It was the 7th and final serial of the 21st season and it first aired March 22 - 30 1984. Colin Baker is the Doctor and Nicola Bryant is Peri Brown. Anthony Steven is the writer and Peter Moffatt is the director. The Doctor has a really colorful costume. His taste has changed and he's a bit abrasive at first.

The new Doctor is pretty screwed up when we start the 1st episode, he attacks and nearly strangles Peri. She yells at him and he settles down a bit. Some white robed guy kidnaps a couple of brainy twins for their math ability. He takes them to Titan 3 which is where the Doctor has decided to settle as a hermit. The space police send some cruisers after the kidnappers. They are destroyed and the sole survivor is found by the Doctor and Peri when they come to inspect the wreckage. The evil entity behind the kidnapping is a humanoid slug that wants to move a couple moons around his world. He has illusions of galactic domination.

Of course the Doc has to get his shit together and kick that creeps ass. He does get some help from Peri and Hugo, the surviving Space Cop. Kevin McNally plays Hugo and you might recognize him from the Pirates Of The Caribbean series where he plays Joshamee Gibbs. He appears in plenty of other films and TV programs. I saw him in two Midsomer Murders in the last year. They were 11 years apart and he played different characters. It's hard for British TV shows that last a long time not to reuse actors. Plenty of the same actors play different parts on various Doctor Who serials.

Not a bad story but not a great one either. I have only slightly warmed to the new Doctor though I liked listening to Colin Baker on the commentary where he's joined by Nicola Bryant and Kevin McNally. There's the usual extras: a bit on the title changes for the new Doctor, a short on the new Doc's costume, a segment on the new Doctor's stories in the Doctor Who comic, clips from Breakfast Time & Blue Peter with Colin and Nicola, info track, continuity clips, photo gallery, Radio Times Listings and the an Easter Egg of raw clapper footage from the location shooting.

Science Fiction Sunday 312

The Caves of Androzani is the sixth serial of the 21st season. It was first broadcast March 8-16 1984. It's the 136th serial and the last one for Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. Colin Baker pops up near the end as the Sixth Doctor. Nicola Bryant plays Peri Brown. The writer is Robert Holmes and the director Graeme Harper. The Wikipedia says: In 2009 The Caves of Androzani was voted by fans as the best Doctor Who story in history. I wouldn't go that far but it was fairly good. In other fan votes for the most popular serial it's ranked 1, 2 or 4. That's pretty impressive no matter what.

The Doctor and Peri stop on Androzani Minor and find some tracks while taking a look around. It looks like a ship had landed there. They follow the tracks to see what's up. They find some crates of weapons and get caught by a General. He's there to capture Sharaz Jek and take control of the anti-aging drug supply. It's created by the bats that live in the caves. An evil business man has sent some mercenaries to supply Sharaz with weapons for his android army. He's also got power over the General. He's a real greedy power mad creep, who does what he wants to get what he wants, at one point he even kills the President. Don't worry, he'll have a spectacular downfall, thanks to the  Doctor getting in there and doing his Doctor thing.

Sadly, the Doc has to die for Peter Davison to get out of the show and the next Doctor to take over. The Doctor and Peri get some organic matter on them and it will soon kill them. The only antidote is the milk of the mother bats. The Doctor gets some but only enough to save Peri. The Doctor goes through his regeneration and Peter moves along to other projects. Peri and Colin Baker take off just in time.

Director Graeme Harper has been listening to The Beatles song A Day In The Life and he was influenced by the crescendo near the end of the song. With swirling images of companions and villains, visual effects, flashing lights and a burst of energy the old Doc will expire and the new Doctor would be reborn. Harper said in the commentary that he got about 70% of what he would have liked. He would return to the world of Doctor Who when David Tennant was the Doctor and finally have the tools to do it right.

There's a nice commentary with Peter Davison, Nicola Bryant and Graeme Harper. There's plenty of the other usual extras spread over two discs. Most of it was fun to watch. Next week I'll see how I like the new Doctor.

Science Fiction Sunday 311

Planet Of Fire is the 135th serial in the Doctor Who series. It's the 5th serial in the 21st season and Peter Davison is still the Doctor, at least until next the serial. Other people are leaving the show, Mark Strickson, who plays Turlough, leaves with this story and we say goodbye to the robot Kamelion who was voiced briefly by Gerald Flood. Peter Grimwade writes his last Doctor Who serial. He wrote three stories and directed four. Fiona Cumming directs her 4th and last serial. She worked on a William Hartnell serial back in 1966 when she was an Assistant Floor Manager. Fiona is also responsible for this serial's location, she'd been on vacation in Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, and taken pictures to introduce it to Producer John Nathan-Turner. One Million Years B.C., Krull and Enemy Mine have also filmed on the same island. A huge group of cast and crew flew over and had a good time during the week we were there. We meet the new companion, Peri Brown, who is played by Nicola Bryant. That's her with Peter to the right. 

We meet Peter Wyngarde, he's the Chief Elder on Sarn. They sacrifice non-believers to the fire. Back on Earth we meet Peri who's with her father on the island of Lanzarote. They're exploring a sunken ship. One of the items brought up to the ship is an odd shaped item that turns out to be a distress signal. The Tardis answers and when they get to Lanzarote the Doctor and Turlough go out for a look around. Peri is out for a swim and she nearly dowrns. Turlough rescues her and takes her into the Tardis. Off they go to Sarn where they have a bit of an adventure. The Master makes an appearance and we find out that Turlough's people had come to Sarn in the past. He finds his brother there and leaves the Doc to go home again. Peri decides to take a trip with the Doctor and they are off again.

There's a nice entertaining commentary with Peter Davison, Mark Strickson, Fiona Cummings and Nicola Bryant. There's a making of featurette with Fiona returning to Lanzarote, a short on the designs for the serial, some alternate edits, deleted scenes and the like. I'm not fan of the short bumpers that they broadcast at the start and end of the show but here's some. The photo gallery is nice, the info track I don't run, the Radio Times listing isn't much to give a shit about either and the Coming Soon announces the new DVD of The Dominators.

There's a second disc with a shorter version of the serial that has some of additional CGI added recently. It wasn't as interesting as the serial and I didn't care that much for the new CGI effects. There's an introduction by Fiona Cummings before it starts. There's a short on the shooting of the serial and a nice piece remembering Anthony Ainsley who plays the Master.

Science Fiction Sunday 310

Ressurrection Of The Daleks has the Doctor's old enemy the Daleks show up and try to release their creator Davros from a prison space station. Peter Davison is the Doctor, Janet Fielding is Tegan and Mark Stickson is Turlough. It's the 4th serial of the 22nd season and it was presented as two 45 minutes episodes, instead of the more normal 22 minutes, and broadcast on two wednesdays, February 8 and 15 1984, instead of the usual thursday and friday. This was because of the Olympics. The story was written by Eric Saward and directed by Matthew Robinson. The serial is the last regular appearance of Janet Fielding as companion Tegan Jovanka.

The Tardis puts the gang down on the docks of 1984 London. There's some activitiy and killing a block over. The Doc and the companions rush right in to find that it's tied in with the Daleks latest invasion of the Earth. They have also set up a time corridor to a prison space station which houses the frozen Davros. There's a huge body count, the largest according to the commentary, as the various groups battle for the control of the station. Davros is freed but he's a loser and the Daleks are dopes so the battle doesn't pan out to well for them.

Teagan leaving the show was only soured by Turlough staying. I did read ahead that he leaves the next serial, so that's something. It was an ok serial with lots of running about and action. I did like the 45 minute format. It would become the norm in the future. I did enjoy the Doc pushing a Dalek out a 2nd floor door and it blowing up on the ground. They blow up a few Daleks during the serial and one of the gooey creatures inside escapes and manages to bite some people before it's blasted. There seems less of the Doctor in this one.

 

The extras on the first disc include the usual commentary, this one with moderator Nicholas Pegg, Terry Molloy (Davros), Peter Wragg (visual effects designer) and Eric Saward (writer and series script editor). There's a making of, a location featurette, a clip with Janet Fielding and John Nathan-Turner on Breakfast Time, extended and deleted scenes, a trailer, isolated score, The Last Dalek (1967 shots of the effects guys blowing up some Daleks), Tardis Cam 4, Radio Times listing and a coming soon trailer for Death To The Daleks. 

The second disc has another copy of the serial, this one in the 4 part format. That's just a space waster but the is another commentary with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and director Matthew Robinson. It was more interesting than the commentary on the other disc. There are a handful of extras to look at. There's an hour long documentary on the 5th Doctor and the various workings behind the scenes at the BBC. It's hosted by David Tennant and there are plenty of interesting people interviewed. The Tomorrow's Times looks at Doctor Who coverage in the varous British newspapers. Walrus is a short with a Dalek, there's a photo gallery, info text and a coming soon trailer for Death To The Daleks.

Science Fiction Sunday 309

Frontios is the 133 serial and it first aired January 26 to February 3 1984. It's the third serial of the 21st season and there were 4 parts. The story was written by Christopher H Bidmead. He had been the shows script editor before Eric Saward took that job over. Ron Jones is the director and this story is the 4 of the 6 serial he would direct.

The Tardis gets pulled down to a planet where the last of the human race is struggling to survive. The colonly ship had crashed 40 years before and after a few years of peace they have had 30 years of meteor bombardment. The people of the colony figure it's an attack from some other planet. The Doc, Tegan and Turlough get right into the mystery and the secrets of the planet. There's some bug like aliens in tunnels under the crash site that are making a mess of things. The Doc puts that right and they leave. I wasn't that keen on the story for some reason. I wouldn't call it below average but I found myself speeding it up to get to the end of the story. There were some big sets but the bug guys aren't too good. I did notice that the human soldiers are wearing helmets from Blake's 7. That series would have finished it's 4th and last season and I guess the props were fair game for reuse.

There's a kind of low key commentary with Peter Davison, script editor Eric Saward, actor Jeff Rawle, sound guy Dick Mills and John Gillett who played the head alien. There's a makng of featurette, some poor looking deleted and extended scenes footage, a photo gallery, an info track, a coming soon ad and the Radio Times listing.

Science Fiction Sunday 308

 

The 132nd story is called The Awakening and it's the 2nd serial of season 21. It was originally broadcast in two daily parts January 19 - 20 1984. Peter Davison is still the Doctor, Janel Fielding is Tegan and Mark Strickson is Turlough. the story was written by Eric Pringle and it was directed by Michael Owen Morris. Here's a bit from the Wikipedia about the Eric Pringle's work on the show:

In 1975, he was commissioned by then-Doctor Who script editor Robert Holmes to pen a two-part serial entitled The Angurth for the programme's thirteenth season. This was eventually abandoned, but in 1981, Pringle was encouraged by his agent, former Who producer Peter Bryant, to submit new material for the show. Pringle delivered two proposals for four-part stories to the production office in August, one called The Darkness (possibly featuring the Daleks) and another entitled War Game. Script editor Eric Saward finally responded to Pringle, and in 1982, Pringle was asked to put together a scene breakdown for War Game.

By 1983, War Game had been rechristened The Awakening (and may also have been called Poltergeist at some point). Saward and producer John Nathan-Turner had also come to the realisation that the story did not merit four episodes, and so Pringle was asked to condense it down to fit the two-part slot for Season Twenty-One. Pringle concurred and performed the necessary rewrites by April. Saward was still not satisfied with Pringle's modifications; consequently, he elected to heavily rewrite The Awakening. Pringle was not particularly pleased with Saward's rewrites, believing they made the story confusing and rushed. The Awakening would be his only contribution to Doctor Who.

The Tardis crew are heading for Earth in 1984 so Tegan can visit her grandfather. They arrive in his town only to find it's filled with crazy villagers who have been taken over by an alien entity. The townsmen are re-enacting a famous battle from the 17th century. They kidnap Tegan and make her the May Queen. It's one of those honors that end with the queen being sacrificed. There's plenty of running around and being captured and escaping. It was ok for the most part though I agree that the story doesn't do as well in the second episode. It kind of reminded me of an older story with one of the previous Doctors. The location shooting is nice and the big sets of the church are pretty good too. The evil alien entity prop is kind of fun. It still exists and some guy paid £3500 for privilege of having it and hanging it on his living room wall.

There's a commentary with Micheal Owen Morris and Eric Sward that's hosted by Toby Hadock. There's a nice short on the visit of the show to the town, a Now and Then look at the town, a short on the giant head of the alien entity, a photo gallery, a coming soon and the like.