Days 636 to 637 - Vengeance On Varos

I noticed for the first time here that Colin Baker has a couple of black cats sown into the inside of the yellow lapel of his coat. I was aware that Colin was a cat fan, as the cat badge the Doctor always wears was his own contribution to the costume. There are some great moments in the last few stories where the Doctor has rubbed the cat badge for luck.....I had to try really hard there not to make a "pussy" joke....yes I think I made the right decision not to. Anyway the black cats inside the coat are a count of how many adventures the sixth Doctor has been on with an extra cat added after every story..that's pretty cool. Also it seem that Colin may have had some precognition of how unfortunately short lived his stint as the Doctor would be. Where the hell would all the cat badges go once the lapels were complete??

Anyway I'm ignoring the story here and I don't know why because this one is awesome and I think definitely one of the strongest of the sixth Doctor era.

The Doctor visits Varos in order to obtain some minerals (Zeiton-7) that he needs to power the TARDIS. Varos is one of the only planets where this mineral can be obtained and as it is an important part of most craft then it is extremely valuable. However the people of Varos are living in poverty as they are unaware of the true value of Zeiton and are being taken advantage of by a creepy slug like alien called Sil who is purchasing the mineral from them at ridiculously low prices.

One thing I love about this story is that the world just seems so real. The history of the planet is rich and every time I see it I learn new things about Varos that I have failed to pick up on before.

Varos was previously a prison planet and now the inhabitants are living in poor conditions with their main entertainment being "reality TV" broadcast from the punishment dome where they can view tortures and executions.

The political system is also quite interesting. The Governor makes decisions for his people to vote on which they can do immediately via voting buttons in their homes. If his decision is agreed upon then that is fine. If they disagree however then he is blasted with a ray causing great pain, and after several bad decisions will eventually cause death. The idea being that a man afraid for his life will find a way out of the terrible predicaments that Varos finds itself in. Just this idea itself makes this story awesome. The Governor knows that there are no popular choices and therefore has to accept his fate that eventually his people will kill him.

There are just so many interesting things going on I could talk forever about this one. Unfortunately I'm still running behind with this blog so I must be moving on to the next one now!

Days 634 to 635 - Attack Of the Cybermen

The first proper Colin Baker season begins with the return of the Cybermen!

Also this feels like the moment where the success of the challenge stands in the balance. This season is made up completely of 45 minute stories instead of the more traditional 25 minutes. That extra 20 minutes a day makes a whole lot of difference believe me! At least it will be practise for when I reach the new series!

To fully understand this story you unfortunately need to be familiar with several previous Cybermen stories going right the way back to their first appearance in The Tenth Planet. Luckily the Doctor gives us a potted history of events to remind us just what the hell is supposed to be going on.

The events of The Tenth Planet (the final story of the first Doctor) revolved around the Cybermens planet of Mondas approaching Earth and draining it of it's energy. Fortunately the Doctor was around to save the day as usual. The Tenth Planet was broadcast in 1966 but the events were set in 1985 which just happened to be the present day when Attack Of The Cybermen was broadcast. Therefore we see a return to this plot with the Cybermen having access to a time machine which they hope to use in order destroy the Earth before the Earth has a chance to destroy Mondas..clear??

As well as a return to the events of The Tenth Planet we also have a return to the events of the second Doctor story, Tomb Of The Cybemen! As if things weren't confusing enough! Tomb Of The Cybemen takes place on the planet Telos where the Cybermen have frozen themselves in order to preserve their energy. In Attack Of The Cybermen we return to Telos.

I love Tomb Of The Cybermen and I think it's a real shame that they didn't try to match the sets more here as the original tombs were amazing! In a bizarre decision we also get the Cyber Controller played in this story by the same actor who played him in Tomb Of The Cybermen. I mean what the hell is the point of that?? The actor has clearly put on weight so we get a rather strange looking Cyberman and there just wasn't any need to have the same actor play him! We can't see him and his voice is changed by the synthesiser so it's just completely unnecessary

The Doctor is still acting pretty erratic and poor Peri is doing her best to put up with him. I think the idea of having a Doctor like this is good but I think the reason it may fail (as some people claimed it did) is that I think they should have brought in another companion too. This way Peri and the new companion would at least have had each other for support and Peri could have someone to talk to about the Doctor. As it stands at the moment I'm just left wondering why she puts up with him!

The Doctor also temporarily fixes the chameleon circuit of the TARDIS allowing it to change its form once again to blend in to its surroundings albeit with limited success! This was a tease on the behalf of the producer who had jokingly threatened to change the look of the TARDIS from a police box to something else. By the end of the story though the TARDIS is back to it's old look.

Days 630 to 633 - The Twin Dilemma

The sixth Doctor era begins with this four part story. Now as I mentioned before, the prior story to this one was voted the best Doctor Who story of all time back in 2009. It is therefore unfortunate that this one was voted the all time worst! What a spectacular disaster that is! You have the very best story followed by the very worst! And the strange thing is that this one is also in the same season of the show. Usually a regeneration would take place at the end of a season acting as a cliffhanger for next year but this time the decision was taken to begin the era of the sixth Doctor with a single story tagged on at the end of season 21 in order that the new Doctor could establish himself. Normally I would think this was an awful idea but I think it works really well here for reasons I will go into later.

I don't think the story is the worst one ever. I mean its not great. But I've definitely seen worse. The basic plot is that two child geniuses are kidnapped from their planet in order that they can assist a giant slug in his ambition to manipulate the orbit of planets in order to cause a huge explosion that will scatter his seed through space. Sounds pretty vile actually! 

One of the problems come from the casting of the twins. They are bloody awful actors and its rather unfortunate that they give the characters if Romulus and Remus to two actors who can't pronounce their Rs. Also most of the sets look pretty shabby too. I'm guessing that because this is the last story of the season that the budget must have been running pretty low by this point.

But that's all the boring stuff anyway. The real interesting part comes from the new Doctor. A complete change from his previous self, this Doctor is rude, loud and pretty unpleasant. He also suffers the worst examples of regeneration trauma of any Doctor including nearly strangling Peri to death! All this is good stuff as we are faced with a Doctor who is completely unpredictable. Now for the bad stuff...the costume. Poor Colin Baker wanted to wear something like a black suit and has gone on record as saying that actually what he described as his ideal costume was what Christopher Eccleston ended up wearing as the ninth Doctor. However the producer John Nathan Turner wanted the costume to reflect a Doctor with incredibly bad taste and they at least succeeded in that! Unfortunately it had the side effect of turning the Doctor into a bit of a joke. It's just pretty stupid and we end up with the Doctor in a clown costume! 

Thinking about it, what would have been a pretty good idea would be if they had put Colin in that costume for this story only. This would have reflected the Doctors poor state of mind as he had only just regenerated and would have been a wonderful trick to play on the audience with the story ending with a sort of "of course he isn't going to wear that ridiculous costume for his whole tenure, here's his real costume!"

The story ends with the Doctor still acting pretty brash but claiming that his personality has settled down and therefore this is the Doctor we are now stuck with. This is what I like about the fact this story was placed at the end of the season. The Doctor's final line to Peri could pretty much be him addressing the audience when he claims "I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not" Brilliant! And Colin Baker is an awesome Doctor who unfortunately got awfully mistreated by the show, more to come on that subject I'm guessing!

Days 626 to 629 - The Caves Of Androzani

So this is it. The end for another Doctor! It seems to have come round awfully fast this time. When the fourth Doctor died it felt like he had been around forever but for number 5 it feels like I'm still just getting to know him. However three years is about the average time for a Doctor so it was time to say goodbye once again.

In a poll done by Doctor Who Magazine back in 2009 The Caves Of Androzani was ranked as being the very best Doctor Who story of all time. I've never really understood this. It's a good one but I wouldn't have said that it was the best. However just like I was able to reappraise Planet Of Fire then I also saw this story afresh and I have to admit that it is pretty bloody spectacular!

The Doctor and Peri arrive on Androzani Minor and immediately get caught up in the fighting that is going on in the mining caves. The sinister Sharaz Jek has taken over the mine and as this mine is the only source of the life giving Spectrox then people are pretty desperate to get him out of there. Sharaz Jek is such a brilliant character. He is classed as the villain of the story but as with the best of villains his motives are pretty understandable and therefore I actually found myself feeling sorry for him. He was tricked into the mine by Morgus in order to extract the Spectrox but Morgus purposefully didn't tell him about a dangerous mud burst that was about to take place in order that Sharaz Jek would be killed and Morgus could take all the profits. Unfortunately for Morgus, Sharez Jek is still very much alive, albeit severely scarred after he had the skin melted off his face! I mean that would piss you off quite a bit, especially as Sharez Jek was apparently once an extremely handsome guy! Therefore Sharez Jek has gone a bit crazy (understandably) and is seeking his revenge against Morgus. 

It's this conflict that the Doctor and Peri find themselves in the middle of. Things take a further turn for the worse when right near the start of episode one, the Doctor and Peri contract Spectrox Toxemia which slowly starts to kill them off as the story progresses. The only known cure for which is the milk of a certain bat which is only to be found in the deepest part of the mines. 

Sharez Jek captures the Doctor and Peri and this is where things get a little creepy. Sharez Jek's attitude towards Per is a little...rapey. He is enraptured by her beauty and is determined to keep her down in the mines with her. However near the end of the story Sharez Jek becomes more of a sympathetic character as we learn why he is the way he is and the Doctor leaves Peri in his care whilst he searches the lower part of the mines for the bats milk that will save them both. As Sharez Jek mops Peri's brow and generally cares for her I began to feel a great liking for the character. Therefore it was all the more heartbreaking when Peri sees him without his mask and screams in horror causing Jek to recoil and hide under a table whimpering like a wounded animal. The poor guy.

The Doctor returns for Peri and they make their way back to the TARDIS surrounded by explosions from the most recent mud burst. As The Doctor fumbles for his key he drops the vial containing the milk spilling half of it. As they stumble into the TARDIS, the Doctor pours what remains of the milk into Peri's mouth (that sounds vile!) but there is none left for him and he realises he is dying.

The regeneration scene is brilliant, only slightly hampered by the fact that no matter how well Peter Davison is acting he is slightly overshadowed by the fact that Peri has her tits out right over his face! As he slips away, he sees images of his old companions begging him to survive, including Kamelion bizarrely! Does he count as a companion?? Finally the Master appears telling him to ignore his companions and just to get a move on with it and die already! The Doctor's last words are "Adric" showing how much he dearly regrets the death of his young companion at the hands of the Cybermen. Again he doesn't give a shit about the death of Kamilion!

As the picture clears from all the cool regeneration effects a new man sits up sharply. It's the sixth Doctor! Colin Baker! Peri scrambles to him asking what has just happens:

"Change my dear. And it seems not a moment to soon"

 

Five Doctors down! With just six left to go!

 

Days 622 to 625 - Planet Of Fire

It will be interesting to see how many hits I get on this blog entry with this picture! I think it will reveal quite a lot about how perverted some people are! This is the new companion, Peri, a young American girl that Turlough rescues from the sea and brings inside the TARDIS. This is during the first part of the story where we yet again get some filming outside of the UK, this time in Lanzarote. The Lanzarote locations would then double for the "Planet Of Fire", otherwise known as "Sarn" visited in the later part of the story.....you're still looking at the tits aren't you?? I could literally say anything here and it wouldn't matter. Oh well, I'll make this entry a short one anyway as I'm still trying to catch up!

The Master is back, this time in a different costume. Here he is wearing a simple black suit and it's strange just how much more frightening he seems when not in his usual pantomime type costume. It turns out this is not the real Master however but just the robot Kamelion (remember him from The King's Demons? He was the companion who came on board the TARDIS only to disappear and then reappear in this story! I assume he could have been wondering the corridors of the TARDIS all this time). The Master has taken over Kamelion in order to use him to free his real self which, in an hilarious cliffhanger, is revealed to have been shrunken to just a few inches high meaning that he can't reach any of the controls of his TARDIS. Well if you would experiment with your Tissue Compression Eliminator then you should expect some negative side effects!

This is the final story for two companions. One being Kamelion, whom the Doctor is forced to kill! Why do we never remember Kamelion when thinking about the few companions who have died whilst travelling with the Doctor? Oh yeah, I know why! Because no one give a shit about the crappy robot! That's why!

The other companion to depart is Turlough. Turlough has been a bit of a mystery since he joined the series. We knew he was an alien hiding away on Earth but we never really knew why. Here we finally find out that he was exiled to Earth as punishment and his father and brother were sent to
Sarn. The ship crash landed and his father was killed but his baby brother was rescued and here he is reunited with his bother. Turlough therefore decides to stay behind.

I enjoyed this story way more than I thought I would! I've seen it a couple of times before and never really thought much of it but for some reason watching the stories in order is giving me a whole new perspective on some of them!

Days 402 to 405 - Zygons, torn tapes and dodgy dealings!

Yet another problem faced me here, the fourth Doctor story, Terror Of The Zygons!

Despite the popularity of this one it still has yet to be released on DVD. In fact I think it has been purposefully held back to be one of the last stories that is released in the DVD range. However I was optimistic that this wouldn't be a big issue as my mate Matt had a copy on VHS that he kindly lent me. In fact I was quite looking forward to watching a story on an old VHS player!

I borrowed the tape a couple of weeks before it was needed. Taking it out of the box I noticed that it needed rewinding. How quaint! You don't get that with DVDs. I thought I'd better give the tape a try so I popped it into the machine and after a few clicks and whirrs the tape ejected itself. I thought this was strange but pushed the tape back in only to face the same result. Puzzled, I pulled the tape out and was horrified to feel resistance. I could barely bring myself to look but I'm afraid to say that my worst fears were confirmed. The tape was completely fucked! That's a technical term!

I tried to salvage the tape but I'm afraid to say it now looked like this:

Again I felt like I had had a near miss. What would have happened if I hadn't tested the tape and instead just tried it on the day that I actually needed it?!

Contingency plans were immediately put into place. I immediately ordered another VHS copy from amazon. It wasn't overly cheap but at the very least at least I could give Matt an unscrewed up tape back!

Stuart at work said that he should be able to get me a copy and he was true to his word, providing me with a copy on a memory stick.

The copy I ended up watching, as it was DVD copy and therefore easiest to use, was provided by my mate Tony who has helped me with some DVDs in the past. Tony was training at the time for a fight (he's a crazy person who fights in a cage which makes my Doctor Who hobby seem perfectly sane in comparison!) so I agreed to meet him at our old high school where the training was taking place. Suffering from my usual worry of being late I inevitably arrived about 10 minutes early and spent the time walking around the abandoned school grounds getting some strange looks from the few people who were there. This suspicious activity was further exacerbated when Tony arrived and approached me in the corner of the yard, reaching inside his bag he had all his stuff in for training. I've never been involved in a drug exchange (I'm a good boy!) but I imagine it is something like this. I found myself wondering how I would feel if someone confronted us and demanded to know what we were doing. My coolness points would plummet if instead of seeing me holding a bag of Cocaine I was found holding a copy of Terror Of The Zygons! I know which one I would prefer...Cocaine tickles my nose..That's a lie, I've never tried any. Although I did once put pepper up my nose to see if it really made you sneeze and the answer was yes. Yes it does.

Day 351 - The day I nearly failed...

November 2012, not even a year into my quest and the whole thing nearly came completely unravelled. Now I'm not on one to assign blame but it was completely Matt and Hannah's fault!!

Look at this man:

This man is Matt Deeley and whilst be may look like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth I need to make it clear that in terms of this quest this man is the Master to my Doctor, the Myrka to my seabase, the Axon to my Bill Filer. He also happens to be my best friend. Life is confusing like that sometimes.

Thanks to Matt and Hannah I will never again be able to watch The Green Death episode 2 without breaking out into a cold sweat!

We had agreed to go and watch the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, which was due to start at 8 o'clock in Crewe. As Hannah was driving I headed over to Matt and Hannah's house in plenty of time to get to the cinema. Knowing that it was going to be a popular film and therefore may sell out quickly I arrived at such a time that we would have ample opportunity to get to the cinema and buy our tickets. Unfortunately this meant that I was unable to watch my full episode after work before I needed to nip out again but having only about 15 minutes left to watch I believed I would arrive home after the film with plenty of time to spare to finish if off before midnight rolled round.

Poor naive me! What I failed to take into account is that other people do not always have the same level of neurotic time keeping as myself and in the case of Matt Deeley, actually flout such rules, generally turning up anywhere between half an hour to an hour and half later than planned. As such when we eventually arrived at the cinema we were told that the 8 o'clock showing had now been fully booked but if we would like to wait around then we could book tickets for the 9 o'clock one. This was terrible! There would have been no way that the film would finish in time for me to get home and as Hannah had driven I didn't even have my car available to make a quick escape route.

I was sent into a quiet panic which over the next few minutes became more and more intense as I realised all avenues of escape were closed to me. If this had happend in my first week or even my first month then I would not have been nearly as worried but I was coming up to the anniversary of when this all started and so the thought of failing now was terrible! As Matt and Hannah milled around the few arcade machines sprinkled around the bowling alley where we had decided to wait, I was faced with my last chance. YouTube!

Fortunately as I had been listening to music on my way walking to Matt and Hannah's house I had my earphones with me and after some searching located the episode online. The only problem being that the version online was the omnibus version with all six episodes of The Green Death grouped together into one feature length story. Therefore I had no way of knowing where episode 2 actually ended! Luckily I had quite a good memory of this story and so I was able to recall the cliffhanger to episode 2 and knew that was where I should stop watching. It still didn't feel completely right as I usually feel like I have to watch to the very end of the closing credits in order to have successfully completed the episode and as this was an omnibus version then there were no end credits.

However, disaster had been averted and a very good lesson learnt. Never trust Matt and Hannah to be on time for anything!!! However I do need to give credit where it's due, they have kindly sponsored me in my challenge! Maybe some other close friends should take note of that...ahh who am I kidding, no one is reading this anyway to take the hint. But its worth a try...please sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/James-Nicholls2

Days 620 to 621 - Resurrection Of The Daleks

Now here was a problem..How to watch this story?

I believe it was originally filmed as a four part story but when it was due to clash with another television show it was decided to edit the four episodes into two 45 minute episodes and broadcast it as a two parter. So should I watch it over 2 days? The DVD release has the story in four 23 minute episodes as originally planned though so should I watch it as four episodes over four days?

Fortunately the decision was sort of made for me several weeks ago when I was planning ahead to the very end of the quest. As I wanted to end on a Saturday I looked into how I could make this happen without cheating. To knock two episodes out was ideal so therefore I was going to watch Resurrection Of The Daleks as a two part story.

So that is what I did. It felt a little uncomfortable as the DVD had the four part version and therefore I effectively had to watch two episodes a night. Also to my annoyance I found out too late that the re-release of this story, that I do not own, had the two part and four part versions so would have been brilliant to have had at the time.

Anyway, my manipulation of the episodes aside, I suppose I should say something about the story itself.

This story has one of the highest death counts in any episode! That's not including such stories where planets get wiped out or parts of the galaxy destroyed (how could we forget the Master's botched plan in Legopolis when he inadvertently wiped out a fair chunk of the galaxy!). I heard somewhere that there are approximately 70 deaths in this story. If that's true then that averages out as a death every 1.3 minutes!

The Daleks rescue Davros from his prison ship when they once again need his help. This time they need him to help cure a disease created by the Movellons (in a nice throwback to Destiny Of The Daleks) which is killing off the Daleks. Knowing that the Daleks will eventually turn on him once again, Davros secretly sets out to create a new race of Daleks which are loyal to him. This all leads to some cool Dalek vs Dalek battles and is actually the origin of future Dalek stories when the creatures are divided into two distinct factions, those loyal to Davros and those loyal to the Emperor Dalek.

I've seen this one a few times and I'm always determined to enjoy it. It starts off well but seems to fall apart near the end when things descend into anarchy and I lose track of whose side everyone is supposed to be on. This is not helped by the fact that some people change sides throughout the story. To quote one such character, "I can't stand the confusion in my mind!!!!"

As much as I feel that things fall apart near the end, there are still two fantastic moments that stand out to me. The first is when the Doctor returns to the TARDIS, picks up a weapon from one of the soldiers and announces his intention to kill Davros. It feels really shocking but not out of character as it is clear the Doctor can see no alternative and knows that Davros has to be stopped one way or another. Returning to Davros' lab with the two soldiers, Davros mistakenly believes that the Doctor is being held captive by the soldiers until the Doctor takes one of the weapons, levels it at Davros' head and announces "I'm not here as your prisoner Davros...but your executioner!" It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it!

The second moment that stands out to me is the very end of the story. As Tegan surveys the devastation around her she realises that she has reached the end of her time with the Doctor. She has witnessed too many good people dying and can't continue. For a companion departure it feels truly heartbreaking! Usually companions leave because they have found something better but here Tegan leaves simply because travelling in the TARDIS has become to unbearable for her. It's so sad.

Brave heart Tegan. I shall miss you.

Days 616 to 619 - Frontios

It seems Christopher Bidmead really hates the TARDIS. As in many of the other stories written by him he finds someway to do harm to it and here he takes the ultimate swipe at it by (apparently) completely destroying it!

The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough find themselves on the planet Frontios where the last remaining humans are trying to make a life for themselves on this barren rock. Their plight is not helped by the attacks from space as asteroids are being flung at their planet. I'm sure that's the basic plot of Starship Troopers! It's soon discovered however that the threat does not come from outer space but from deep beneath the surface of the planet itself where a group of Tractators are using their gravitational powers to pull the asteroids into the planet. It's quite a neat twist really.

Additionally we find out some more background of the mysterious Turlough as the sight of the Tractators awakens a race memory inside him and he is forced to relive the trauma of an attack from the Tractators on his home planet. As he is screaming and shouting about them he starts foaming at the mouth which isn't all that pleasant to watch but having seen the documentary that goes along with this story it becomes clear that the foaming at the mouth was specifically mentioned in the script much to the displeasure of poor Mark Strickson who played Turlough and was therefore required to do the foaming. Spit is never a nice thing to see! Especially when you are trying to eat your tea!!

During the first few years of Doctor Who, the Doctor and his companions were always trying to get back to the TARDIS so that history could run it's course without putting themselves in unnecessary danger. As the series progressed, the Doctor became more proactive, wanting to help the people that he meets. In many ways this story feels like a throw back to the old days as the Doctor clearly wants to get out of there in episode one because he knows that these are events in human history that he should not be dabbling in and if he does so then he will be risking the fury of the Time Lords. However his plans to escape of thwarted when he returns to where the TARDIS landed to find it gone, with only the hatstand remaining..for some reason. Of course the TARDIS has not been destroyed as the Doctor suspects, but has been pulled into the Earth by the Tractators.

Such things happen quite a lot in this story and it's cool to see people being pulled into the earth in some pretty neat effects. Frightening stuff!

I enjoyed this one much more than I thought I would. Like many fifth Doctor stories I was only watching this one for the second time and it was quite a pleasant surprise. The Tractators themselves aren't to bad and are pulled off quite well. The only bad part of the costume seems to be when they are required to collapse and all they can do is fall forward right on to their faces which I'm afraid to say is unintentionally hilarious!

Days 614 to 615 - The Awakening

The bad luck of Tegan's family continues unabated in this two part story where she decided to ask the Doctor if they can pay her Grandfather a visit in the quiet English village where he lives. Upon arriving the Doctor discovers the whole village is currently in the process of a reconstruction of a civil war battle headed by Sir George Hutchinson and worryingly Tegan's Grandfather is nowhere to be seen.

The events of being masterminded by Sir George in an attempt to create the real life events from the 17th century in order that the psychic energy created will be enough to awaken the Malus (pictured above) which originally came to village during the civil war. Tegan's Grandfather, having discovered Sir George's plot has been locked away where he can't cause trouble.

When I first saw this story I'm afraid to report that it was the single most boring fifth Doctor story that I had ever seen, and my opinion has only slightly improved. Thank God it's only two episodes long as I don't think I could make it through four episodes of this!

The Malus itself is sufficiently creepy but it doesn't really do much except stare out of the hole in a church wall. Plus the continuous mention of "the war games" made by various characters throughout the story just made be yearn to watch the second Doctor's final story which shares the same name of The War Games. The War Games is ten episodes long but I'd still much rather watch that than two episodes of this.

Another interesting thing to note is the way the DVD for this story was released. Some Doctor Who DVDs have been released in box sets, usually with some kind of link between them. For example, Kinda and Snakedance were released together as a box set as they both contained the Mara. The Awakening was released in a set with the first Doctor story The Gunfighters in a box set called "Earth Story" with the link apparently being that both stories take place on Earth!! What utter nonsense! There are hundred of stories set on Earth! Therefore it seems clear that they were aware that no one would buy this two part story on it's on so had to lump it in with another one. I'm assuming this was done solely because of the two part nature of this story and not because it's a load of crap!

Season 12 - Days 382 to 401

Broadcast Dates: 28th December 1974 - 10th May 1975

Relative Dates: 8th December 2012 - 27th December 2012

Time for a new Doctor. By now I was getting used to this steady flow of changing Doctors but I was very much aware that I was now going to be entering a tough time for my challenge as Tom Baker was the Doctor for such a long time that I would be seeing him every day from December 2012 to June 2013! I don't even see my best friends that often!

Robot

 



Tom Baker's era starts with a story that feels very much like a familiar Earth-bound third Doctor story which I guess is a good idea as it eases us into getting to know the new Doctor whilst still being around familiar characters such as Sarah Jane, the Brigadier and Sargent Benton.

Whereas the third Doctor spent much of his first episode in bed as he recovered from his regeneration, his fourth persona pretty much springs straight into action after a few brief scenes of manic behaviour where he ties up poor Harry Sullivan and bundles him into a cupboard.

The Doctor picks his new outfit from the TARDIS after a "comedy" routine where he emerges from the ship wearing various assortments of inappropriate clothing, from a Viking costume to a clown costume, before finally settling for a red jacket, hat and incredibly long scarf.

Apparently the scarf came about when the production team asked a lady to knit them a scarf for the Doctor and provided her with a sample of wool to use. It seems she misunderstood her brief and ended up using ALL the wool leading to the now famous scarf seen on screen.

The story itself is a fairly standard story. A group of elite scientist who want to take over the world so that they can run things their way are using a giant robot to achieve their ends. There are some similarities to King Kong here, with Sarah striking up an unlikely friendship with the huge metal beast. The King Kong references are pretty much rammed down your throat in the final episode when the robot grows to gigantic proportions and picks up Sarah Jane and starts carrying her round.

This leads to some pretty poor visual effects including an attempted forced perspective shot when a toy tank is pushed into shot in the vain hope that the angles used will convince the viewers at home that it is a real tank. I'm sorry guys, there is no way that that fool anyone!

The story ends with the Doctor tempting Sarah Jane into joining him on his travels with the help of a bag of jelly babies. (That sounds far more sinister than I meant it too!) Joining them on their travels is UNIT's medical officer Harry Sullivan who gets quite a surprise when he steps inside the police box.

The Ark In Space

Now I was moving on to one of the more popular stories, although it's one that I've always found a little boring. The TARDIS lands on a space station that is holding a group of humans in suspended animation who have been sent to the ark in order to survive some disaster on Earth. I think it was a solar flare but I may be wrong. Unfortunately an insect-like creature called the Wirren has got on board the ark and has laid eggs in the sleeping humans. It's basically Alien before Alien was made.

One thing I noticed about the early Tom Baker stories is that he tends to find some interesting uses for his long scarf. It's almost like now that they have been stuck with this incredibly long scarf the writers are at least trying to come up with good uses for it. Here he attempts to use his scarf to deactivate a sensor within the ark which is firing at him and Harry whenever it senses them move.

Additionally, during the same scene we get to see the sonic screwdriver actually being used to unscrew something! The Doctor unscrews a table that is screwed to the floor in order that he and Harry can use it to safely cross the room where the sensor is.

The model shots of the ark are pretty ropey and the DVD does have the option to watch the story with CGI effects instead but for some reason these just seem even worse! Therefore this was one of the rare cases when I decided to stick with the model shots.

The Doctor gives a great speech early on about Homo Sapiens being indomitable and surviving everything which is now quite famous and was actually pretty much used again by the tenth Doctor in the story Utopia.

There is also some great character moments between the Doctor and his companions. I've always thought Harry was great. He doesn't appear in many stories as he was only really brought into the show when they believed the actor who was going to play the fourth Doctor was going to be much older and therefore they needed a younger man as a companion in order to be in more of the action scenes in a similar set up to Ian Chesterton with the first Doctor. As such when Tom Baker was cast it became clear that this was no longer necessary which is a real shame because Harry is a great companion in both his scenes with the Doctor and his rather chauvinistic attitude towards Sarah Jane which causes some quite funny moments.

The pairing of the fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane has always been seen as a classic pairing and an example of why this is considered to be the case can be seen here. During the last part of the story when Sarah Jane is required to climb through some narrow conduits in order to transport a cable from the escape rocket to the main incubation chamber, she becomes stuck right near the end and starts to panic. The Doctor begins to yell at her claiming that he always knew she would let everyone down and that she is being whiny by crying. This gets her so angry that she manages to push her way out just to get at the Doctor which was of course the Doctor's plan all along. Brilliant stuff!

Instead of the story ending with the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor instead decides to teleport down to the now refreshed Earth in order to help fix...something which I've forgotten. This is why I should have kept up with this blog ages ago! But anyway, further adventures would now continue on Earth. It's cool to have stories run into one another like this.

The Sontaran Experiment

A nice two parter! Whilst on Earth the Doctor discovers a Sontaran who is performing horrible experiments on the few human inhabitants of the planet. These experiments are apparently to detect human weaknesses in order that an eventual invasion of the Earth can be planned.

An interesting feature of this story is that it was filmed completely on location with no sets. It was all filmed outside on some moors in Dartmoor. This is a good contrast from the very set heavy story of The Ark In Space.

There's not much I can remember to say about this one really. Some of the experiments that the Sontaran performs are pretty gruesome, including stimulating the fear centres of Sarah Jane's brain until she starts to believe such things as the ropes binding her are in fact snakes!

I heard a funny story about the making of this one too. Kevin Lindsay who played Styre, the Sontaran was not a well man when this was made and as such instead of march up and down the moors whenever a lunch break was called he decided to stay up there on his own and have his break up there. On one such occasion, when the crew returned and asked him if he was okay he replied that "I am, but some woman walking her dog has just had the shit frightened out of her!" This poor woman had clearly been innocently walking her dog and had happened upon Kevin Lindsay in full Sontaran make up!

I liked this story. There are some pretty poor fight scenes though. Near the end of the story, the Doctor and Styre are involved in some fisticuffs but unfortunately Tom Baker was injured in an earlier scene and as such a stunt man was forced to put on a curly wig and act out the scenes with Kevin Lindsay. Unfortunately it's not very effective and you can clearly see that it's not Tom Baker involved in the scenes. The various close ups of Tom Baker's face that they cut in to the action aren't fooling anyone sadly.

Genesis Of The Daleks

Now we're talking! This story is a bone fide classic!

Having pretty much repeated himself over and over again Terry Nation was challenged to write a truly original Dalek story. As such he decided to tell the origin story of the Daleks, something which had only ever really been hinted at in previous stories.

On route back to the ark in space (known as the Nerva Beacon) the transmat beam is intercepted by an unknown Time Lord who gives the Doctor a mission. The Time Lords have foreseen a time when the Daleks will have wiped out all other lifeforms and become the dominant race in the universe. As such they wish the Doctor to return to the Daleks' home world of Skaro before the Daleks evolved and either avert their creation or somehow change them so that they evolve into less aggressive creatures. What a set up for a story!

It's in this story that we first meet the Daleks' creator, Davros! Davros is the chief scientist of the Kaled race (guess what "Kaled" is an anagram for??) and is doing research into how the radiation fall out from their never ending battle with the Thals will eventually mutate the Kaleds' bodies. However, Davros is a megalomaniac, who is tampering with the mutated creatures in order to create the perfect life form which he christens a "Dalek". The Kaled scientists believe that Davros has created the travel machines for the Daleks so that when their race eventually mutates to this stage that they will have someway of getting around. However Davros is making his own modification, fitting weaponry etc.

There are clear reflections here of Nazi Germany with Davros's desire to create the perfect life form and the Kaled soldiers are pretty much dressed like Nazis to further emphasise this similarity.

What is also cool about this story is that some of the Thals are shown to be pretty nasty too. It would have been easy to have simply the Thals as the "goodies" and the Kaleds as the "baddies" as in most previous Dalek stories but here we have some not so nice Thals and some good Kaleds. For example when some of the Kaleds realise how Davros is abusing the Dalek experiment for his own ends they try to put a stop to it. This leads into some great scenes where Davros' right hand man (oh dear, that's a poor choice of phrase to use in relation to a man who only has a right hand!) Nyder starts to wheedle out the traitors. Finally Davros completely turns on his own people as he helps the Thals to destroy the Kaled dome because he knows the Kaled government want to investigate his experiments.

Near the end of the story we have one of the greatest moments in the entire series. The Doctor has rigged the Dalek "nursery" with bombs and is standing outside with Sarah Jane and Harry knowing that all he has to do is to touch two wires together and the Daleks will be finished and centuries of time rewritten as the Daleks are wiped from history. As he stands there holding the wires he debates with himself and his companions whether he has the right to do it. Just brilliant stuff!

Revenge Of The Cybermen

 

 

The Cybermen were finally back in Doctor Who! Having been such a prolific enemy of the second Doctor they had completely disappeared off the radar of the show, appearing in none of the third Doctor stories (unless you count their brief cameo in Carnival Of Monsters)

As is tradition, the Cybermen have been redesigned yet again. I guess it makes sense for them to change every so often as it reflects how they are constantly striving to improve their systems etc.

This is also the first Cyberman story where we discover their vulnerability to gold which is used to much effect in later stories. The plot of Revenge revolves around this fact as they intend to destroy the planet Voga which is rich in gold resources and was the main source of gold during the Cyber Wars when humans more or less wiped the Cybermen out.

We also see the return of the Cyber-mats, the cute little Cyber..rodent things..They don't look anywhere near as good here though I'm afraid.

There still some fun stuff going on despite the story being pretty dull. Poor Harry inadvertently causes a rock slide which nearly kills the Doctor. As the Doctor springs back to life he screams "HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE!!!" which echoes around the cavern. Poor Harry. Funny though.

Also, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention this, but I swear the CyberLeader sounds just like Morgan Freeman! I know its not Morgan Freeman though. At least he is not credited as such but who knows who is actually beneath that costume. Now that would be a turn up for the books if Morgan Freeman had secretly appeared in an episode of Doctor Who way back in the 1970s!!

So that was the end of season 12. There would be many more seasons for the fourth Doctor though, I had barely begun to scratch the surface!

Day 348 - The day I met Jo Grant!

I cannot believe I have not mentioned this in my blog yet! The day I met companion to the third Doctor, Jo Grant! Or Katy Manning as she prefers to be called in real life.

I heard mention that she was going to be in a play at the Lyceum theatre in Crewe. As this was just down the road from me then I thought it was to great an opportunity to miss. I tweeted her on twitter to ask her when was the best opportunity to meet her and she said I would see her if I waited in the lobby after the show. The only snag here was that I knew when the show started but I had no idea at all as to when it ended! Being terrified of missing my chance I arrived way to early and spent the next hour or so walking around outside the theatre getting some strange looks. I'm a paranoid individual in nature and I was beginning to worry that my activities seemed rather suspicious so I retired to the pub round the corner to gather my wits and try to calm my nerves.

Not long after, I began to see some people spilling out of the theatre and so I finished my drink and got myself positioned in the lobby feeling like I was planning an ambush. Waiting with me were two other men, both quite a bit older than me. I assumed they were there for the same reason as me as I noticed that one of them had some Doctor Who DVD sleeves for Katy to sign. As I stood there all nervous and wet (it had been raining!), clutching my little notebook and pen I realised I was very much a novice at this autograph hunting and I was stood next to a master. I was pleased there were only a few people there as I had seen many autograph signings online and they sometimes turn into a free for all!

After about 10 minutes she came out to the lobby with Melvyn Hayes who was also starring in the play. The other two men descended on them first whilst I remained at the back and patiently waited my turn. I thought I was the most polite out of all of them really! I started to wonder whether I should ask Melvyn for his autograph too. Personally I didn't really want it but started to panic that I would seem rude to only ask Katy for hers.

Katy was so so nice! She would have stayed and chatted with us for ages but unfortunately Melvyn was trying to hurry her away as they had to get ready for another show later that night. I began to panic that I had missed my chance but I managed to accost her and asked her politely if she would mind signing my notepad. She did and smiled at me when I told her how great it was to meet her.

The guy with the DVD covers got a picture with her and then the other guy asked me if I could take a picture of him with both Katy and Melvyn to which Melvyn exclaimed "This really must be the last picture!" at which point my heart sank. Melvyn was in no way being nasty and I understand that they had to rush off but I really wanted a picture of me with Katy! It would have been a brilliant addition to this blog but alas, due to the fact that I had been to polite and held back to allow the other guys to get their pictures first then I had missed my chance! Not only had I missed my chance but I was holding the camera to take the final picture for the autograph hunter who had jumped in front of me!!! Argh!! I must admit that a spiteful part of me wanted to completely screw up the picture for him but I did my duty and took the picture and left.

Despite the disappointment of not getting a picture I had met a true Doctor Who legend. She even stroked my arm! And I had an autograph to prove it!

Days 610 to 613 - Warriors Of The Deep

The Silurians are back! Except now they are speaking like robots and have a strange light bulb on their heads. Hmm oh well...that doesn't matter because the Sea Devils are also back! Except now instead of wearing the strange blue fish netting they are dressed like Samurai warriors...for some reason.

Also something that bothers me about the Sea Devils is the fact that they are now referring to themselves as Sea Devils. When they first appeared, the name "Sea Devil" was a name given to them by the humans who had seen them rise out of the oceans so it's not the actual name of their race. It's similar to the Ice Warriors really. That isn't their real name. Or if it is then its a bloody great coincidence!

The TARDIS lands in an underwater sea base approximately 100 years into the future where two great powers stand on the brink of war. The Silurians' plan is simple, they will break into the base and set off the first missiles that will cause the other power to retaliate and the humans will mutually destroy each other and the Silurians and Sea Devils can then reclaim the planet for themselves. Nice plan! And the cool thing is the Silurians can claim that they never killed anyone and that the humans destroyed themselves.

I enjoyed this story more than I thought I would. It has a reputation of being pretty bad but I think the story itself is fairly sound. The factors that let it down are the effects. Now, normally I don't mind a few ropey effects but when we see the giant reptile known as the Myrka break into the base then I'm afraid to say that its just...well...not good. Basically, for those of you who haven't seen Warriors Of The Deep, imagine a pantomime horse situation, it's that unconvincing!

Apparently the problem was that the costume department believed the construction of the Myrka was the responsibility of the effects department and the effects department thought it was the responsibility of the costume department. As such it was all a bit of a rush job and I'm afraid it shows. They could have maybe got away with it if Michael Grade, the future head of the BBC, hadn't tuned in and thought "What the hell is this crap?!!" and with that we heard the first death toll for the show.

There's a cool scene where the Doctor gets knocked over a railing and falls in a massive tank of water. In fact this is the first cliffhanger of the story when Turlough decides, pretty much within 10 seconds of the Doctor falling into the water, that he must have drowned and therefore they should abandon him and scarper back to the TARDIS. What great support the Doctor has from his companions! Still I suppose I mustn't grumble, it wasn't that long ago that Turlough was actively seeking to kill the Doctor. Also I noticed that when Peter Davison is underwater, he looks very similar to the way he does now which is rather strange. I think it's the hair.

The story concludes with everyone on the base dead apart from the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough. As the Doctor surveys the room fall of dead humans, Silurians and Sea Devils he sadly reflects that "there should have been another way" You think????

Ice Cream, Daleks and a NEW DOCTOR

Sunday was a bit too much excitement for me!

Snugburys have a new straw structure in the shape of a giant Dalek so that was a must visit situation! It's been years since I went to Snugburys which seems crazy because I really like their ice cream!

Me and a few good friends, Leanne, Fred, Sally and Andy went for a trip out there Sunday afternoon. Oh and Tom was there too. Sorry Tom! Looove you! Meh, who cares he won't read this!

The queue for the ice cream was quite large so we headed towards the Dalek first. Basically I needed to see the Dalek immediately so people were dragged along with me. What a sight! And it moves and speaks which is something I wasn't expecting! Tom's dog, Archie, literally shit himself with fear...well he had a crap anyway, I guess his proximity to the Dalek during such crapping could have been coincidence.

Check out me and Fred trying to look scared. I think Fred pulls it off quite well but you can sort of tell that I'm not to happy with Leanne making me do this! :-) It came out good though so was worth it. Wish I'd brought my scarf though!!

Then we headed over for some ice cream. I had strawberry cheesecake and death by chocolate. I was tempted by the special Dalek-triple scoop ice cream but I knew that as soon as I tried to eat it I would inevitably drop it all down myself and there would be tears so I thought it wasn't worth the risk.

It was a bit of a wet and windy day but still fun and may have to revisit soon, there is a hell of a lot of choice of ice cream there and I haven't even begun to sample it all.

Then it was back home for the big announcement of the next Doctor, live on BBC1. Honestly when the moment came I was so excited I thought I was going to pass out. After the casting of Matt Smith I really expected it to be someone I was completely unfamiliar with. So when the new Doctor stepped forward I was shocked and completely thrilled. Peter Capaldi!

What an amazing choice! One of the oldest actors ever cast being just a few months older than William Hartnell. I can't wait to see what he does with the part. And the regeneration into his version of the Doctor will be the last episode I watch in the challenge which is kind of sad. I re-watched some clips of The Thick Of It on YouYube after the announcement where he plays a very different sort of character with the filthiest language!! I couldn't help but smile thinking "I'm going to have an action figure of this guy!"

This show is now 50 years old but still has the ability to excite and be "renewed" with each new Doctor. Here's to the next 50 years!!

Day 609 - The Five Doctors

How exciting! All five Doctors in one story! Well....William Hartnell who played the first Doctor was actually dead at this point so really I should say...How exciting! Four Doctors in one story! Well...Tom Baker decided not to return so technically it's only three Doctors. Confused yet?

With the 50th anniversary fast approaching this year, it was fun to sit down and see how the celebrations were played out for the 20th anniversary.

Given the fact that William Hartnell had died by this point the decision was made to hire a new actor who vaguely resembled him to play the part of the first Doctor. This was brave decision and not one I could imagine them doing today! I think they got away with it here because at this point old episodes of Doctor Who were not readily available and so the public may not have been as familiar with William Hartnell as we are now.

William Hartnell is not completely unrepresented however as, in a rare pre-credits sequence, we see an old clip of him taken from the end of The Daleks Invasion Of Earth as he bids goodbye to his granddaughter Susan with the words "One day I shall come back, yes I shall come back..." It was quite thrilling to see him again and really demonstrated how far I had come in my quest. I originally saw this clip over a year ago on the 12th January 2012!

Meanwhile Tom Baker turned down his invitation to return to the series which is a real shame! At this point he had only been gone for two years and I suppose having played the part for so long he really didn't feel like returning to a role he was pretty much already type cast in! We still get to see him however as footage is used from the incomplete story, Shada, before he is apparently trapped in a time eddy after being captured by the mysterious floating triangle which captures the other four Doctors.

The main plot of the story is that someone has kidnapped all the incarnations of the Doctor and placed them down in "The Death Zone" on Gallifrey. Here they all head to the tower in the centre which holds the tomb of one of the greatest Time Lords of all time, Rassilon, who apparently leaned the secret of immortality...so how did he die exactly?? Along the way the Doctor and his companions meet many an old foe, from Daleks, Cybermen, the Master, Yeti and a few new ones including the excellent Raston Warrior Robot! The Raston Warrior Robot kicks the Cybermens asses in one of the more spectacular scenes from the story. One part that especially sticks out to me is when one Cybermen gets impaled through the chest unit and lurches forward to vomit out some white gunk!

As well as the returning Doctors we also get many returning companions! Susan is back by her Grandfathers side and wastes no time in falling over and spraining her ankle proving that things rarely change!

Sarah Jane is also back. She is still living with K9 apparently who fortunately gets left at home. Poor Sarah Jane is involved in one of the poorer parts of the story when she is required to fall down a steep embankment only for the third Doctor to come along the road and rescue her. Unfortunately it seems the production team were unable to find a suitable location to film this scene and therefore poor Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah has to pretend to be trapped down a slight hill. As she is hauled up by the Doctor's rope its blatantly obvious that she could clearly just stand up and walk back up the hill!!

The second Doctor's companion is the Brigadier, despite the fact he had only just had a return to the series in Mawdryn Undead it was still awesome to see him back.

As the Doctors and companions get to the tower we see other companions acting as phantoms designed to keep people away from Rassilon's tomb. These include Liz Shaw and Captain Yates for the third Doctor and Zoe and Jamie for the second Doctor. The second Doctor realise that Zoe and Jamie must be mere phantoms when he remembers that as the Time Lords wiped all memory of him from their minds then Zoe and Jamie should not remember the Doctor at all. Now this throws up a problem in continuity. I can't go into to much detail here as its pretty complicated and it's not an exaggeration to say that books have literally been written about this problem. I will outline it below. It is known as the "Season 6b Hypothesis"

During the second Doctors final adventure at the end of season 6, he is eventually caught and put on trial by the Time Lords for his interference. Jamie and Zoe are returned to their own times with the memory of the Doctor erased from their minds and the Doctor is exiled to Earth with a new face thereby becoming the third Doctor. So the problem is, if the memory erasure happens just before the Doctors exile and forced regeneration, then how can the second Doctor as seen in The Five Doctors be aware of Zoe and Jamie having their memory erased as this could not possibly have happened yet from his point of view?? Therefore, as we never actually see the regeneration from second Doctor to third Doctor, the hypothesis has been established by fans (and pretty much made canon by some BBC books) that there must be a missing season between seasons 6 and 7 where the Doctor was not straight away exiled to Earth but first made to run errands for the Time Lords. I'll touch on this subject much later when I do my review of the sixth Doctor story, The Two Doctors, as things will hopefully make more sense then!

Anyway back to the story in hand. I love The Five Doctors, it's just a great celebration of the show. It's also much longer than I remembered it to be! I told my brother that I'd have to take over the television for a bit longer this night as instead of a 23 minute episode I was going to have to watch one that was about an hour long but I think the actual running time of the story comes to about 1 hour 40 minutes!

If I had any criticism of the story it would be that its shame that for the most part the Doctors are kept separate from each other, having their own little adventures on the way to the tower. They do meet at the end but it would have been nice to see them meet sooner as the banter between them sometimes is just brilliant and I would have liked to have seen more of it.

Days 607 to 608 - The King's Demons

It's nice when a two part story comes along. Some stories suffer from being padded out to fill the required number of episodes (usually four) so to have a two part story come along means its very unlikely that this will be an issue...you would think.

I don't know if anyone was fooled back when this story was first broadcast but did they really think that no one would recognise the Master if he put a ginger wig on and spoke in a French accent?? Maybe I'm more familiar with Anthony Ainley than the public were at the time as I've seen all his future stories but it just seems blatantly obvious that it's him! And his French accent is terrible! Still, at least his diguise here is not as bad as the one from Time Flight and there is at least a reason for him to be in disguise this time too as there are other people around who he is trying to hide from as opposed to Time Flight when there was no one to even see him so why the hell did he need to be in disguise??? Sorry, it still annoys me as it defies all logic.

This time the Master's plan is to prevent King John from signing Magna Carta. My history is very poor but luckily my brother was on hand to explain to be what Magna Carta means. He pretents he's not watching these stories but he pipes up with the odd comment every now and again so I think he is secretly enjoying them. Of course he would never admit to this!

In order to acheive his aims the Master is using the shape shifting robot known as Kamelion pictured above. Kamelion is eventually rescued by the Doctor and joins the TARDIS crew, where he mysterioysly disappears from the series for a considerable amount of time. Kamelion was brought on board by the production team as new companion for the Doctor, in a similar style to K9. Whilst Kamelion seems to be a fairly impressive prop he proved to be even more impractical than the ever unreliable K9 and as such was swiftly forgotten until they decided to bring him back for one more story near the end of Peter Davison's time as the Doctor.

I've never really like The King's Demons. Even as a two parter it just seems to be a bit dull. It may not help that whilst watching it my mind kept wandering to the excitement of what story was coming the next day - the 20th anniversay special, The Five Doctors!!