Relative Dates: 10th May 2012 - 18th June 2012
Talk about biting off more than you can chew! I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this but it does all need documenting for both myself and as proof for my challenge. If you don't think watching 900 consecutive days of Doctor Who is worthy of a small donation to Macmillan Cancer Support then surely the time I'm spending on this blog has got to be worth a few quid for charity! Anyway I'm moaning now. As much as I like Doctor Who, it can drive me a little nuts sometimes!
Anyway time for my thoughts on season 5. This was less than a year ago so hopefully I can actually remember this better than season 4...but I wouldn't hold your breath!
The Tomb Of The Cybermen
Fortunately this was way before my time of being a Doctor Who fan and I think this story is absolutely bloody brilliant! Given the limited number of complete Patrick Troughton stories, this would definitely be the one I would choose to represent his time on the show.
The Cybermen have not been seen for hundred of years so a human expedition is sent to the planet Telos to find out what happened to them. Here they find the Cybermen in hybernation and it's not long before a power hungry member of the expedition team is waking them up to form an alliance with him to take over the Earth.
There are some great great great moments in this story. The Doctor accidentally holding Jamie's hand when he meant to hold Victoria's is a nice comedy moment. There also a very touching scene shared between the Doctor and Victoria where they discuss the death of Victoria's father and the Doctor discusses his own family. Such scenes were few and far between in the old days of the show and so this stands out as being simply superb.
The scenes of the Cybermen reawakening and breaking free of their honeycombed tombs is completely thrilling and is accompanied by some of the best music ever!
CYBERMAN - "You belong to us...You shall be like us..."
I also love the character of Viner, a man who is in a state of perpetual panic! He's hilarious because he always looks so damned worried! With good reason I suppose as he gets shot in episode 2.
We also see the signs of the Doctor's manipulative side. Despite the fact that he is trying to warn the humans away from the tombs, he lets his own curiosity get the better of him and it's actually the Doctor who opens the hatch allowed the humans access to the tombs in the first place!
Honestly, this story is fantastic. If you want to watch any second Doctor story then watch this one! Even if you don't really watch any of the old show, just give it a try and I reckon you'd like it.
There's probably loads more I could say about this one but I have to move on as I'm only supposed to be giving a brief summary of each story from the prior 500 days of my challenge. This story deserves a blog post all to itself!
The Abominable Snowmen
And so after being spoilt with a completely surviving story I was unfortunately back in the realms of fan reconstructions with this six part story which only has one episode still in existence.
I should really take this opportunity to say thanks to the fans who have made these reconstructions, especially the guys at Loose Cannon. Basically if you contact them to tell them the stories that you want then they give to some contact details, send them over some blank DVDs and they pop the episodes on. It's all free of charge too as they are not allowed to make money from the BBC copyright which is something I'm all too familiar with having been told off myself for selling Doctor Who scarves on Ebay! Anyway for the most part the reconstructions are excellent and it's not as distracting as you might imagine. The only problem being of course if there are long action sequences where you all you get is some blurry pictures, some descriptive text and a lot of loud grunting!
But to the story itself..
The story marked the first appearance of another continuing Doctor Who villain in the form of The Great Intelligence, more recently played by both Sir Ian McKellen and Richard E Grant in the new series. Just take a moment to think about that..what a cast!
Anyway here he has taken over a Buddhist monastery in 1930 and is creating robot Yetis to take over the world..I guess. My memory is failing a little again I'm afraid.
There is some great location work which I believe was filmed in Snowden, doubling as Tibet. It's just a shame that there was no snow at the time because that would have been the icing on the cake (so to speak) and made the whole thing more convincing.
The Great Intelligence has taken over the leader of the monastery Padmasambhava (good luck pronouncing that one!) and he gives a very creepy performance. His voice is just so damn scary!
The Doctor also makes a new friend here in the form of Professor Travers who is "Yeti hunting" when the Doctor and his friends meet him. Professor Travers would later in the same season in the story The Web Of Fear (which fortunately I know a little more about!)
Not much more I can think to say about this one which is a shame because I quite enjoyed it.
Back in "the olden days" before video releases of Doctor Who and before Doctor Who repeats (which we still don't get now from the classic series!) Fans would have to rely on the target novelisations of the stories to remind them of what they watched several years ago. Quite often, people would read the novelisations first and then see the stories (usually to be slightly let down when the visuals could inevitably not meet with their imagination). Therefore, so that I could appreciate their point of view, I did a little experiment here and read the novelisation before I'd watched the story. To be honest I enjoyed them both as much as each other. I certainly tore through the book which is unusual for me as I'm normally a slow reader.
I really haven't done this story service. Anyway must move on...
The Ice Warriors
This is an incredible run of stories when you think about it. The last episode of season four starred the Daleks, then this season started with the Cybermen. (Both fantastic returning monsters). And now we have had the introduction of The Great Intelligence, The Yeti and The Ice Warriors (who incidentally are also due to make their return in a few weeks time in the new series. Can't wait for that one!)
Fortunately this is a nearly complete story with four out of the six episodes existing. I believe they are currently in the process of animating episodes 2 and 3 for a DVD release and I can't wait to snap that up as I seriously need to re watch this story.
And one of the main reasons I need to re watch this story is because, yet again, I can't really remember it. This is getting embarrassing. My knowledge of the first couple of seasons of Doctor Who is pretty good because I've watched those stories a lot. But now I'm in the realms of the semi-complete to non existing stories (i.e all the ones that haven't officially come out on DVD yet) then my knowledge is lacking and so I'm trying to rack my brains to nearly a year ago to remember this story which I've only seen once!
What is an Ice Warrior actually called? We call them Ice Warriors simply because we found them frozen in ice but I don't think their real name has ever been revealed. They have hands like Lego men which is quite amusing and originate from the planet Mars (not sure how that's going to be ret-conned into the new series since we have now sent probes to Mars. I'm guessing they lived underground.
The Ice Warrior we see at the beginning of the story actually gets redesigned after it's first appearance which is unusual. I think they did a similar thing with the Sensorites in season 1.
Also Peter Sallis is in this story (Wallace from Wallace and Gromit) which is something I had no idea about until I watched this story so was quite exciting to see. It's a good performance too and so different from the other roles he's famous for (i.e Wallace and Clegg from Last Of The Summer Wine) so it was quite cool to see.
The Enemy Of The World
It seems each Doctor has to have an obligatory story where the actor who plays the Doctor, plays both the Doctor and another character. William Hartnell played both the Doctor and the Abbott Of Amboise and now it's Patrick Troughton's turn. Here he plays both the Doctor and the villainous Salamader (who has a very strange accent...possibly Mexican?)
The Doctor having a doppelganger is played out much better than it was in The Massacre. Not long after the TARDIS lands the Doctor gets roped into the rebel schemes and persuaded to take on the persona of Salamader.
I remember this being one of the stories that really gripped me. I knew very little about it before I watched it so wasn't sure what to expect. I remember when it started it was very "James Bond" like with an exciting helicopter chase across a beach. I think the helicopter ends up getting blown up but I may be wrong. Unfortunately this was all in a missing episode so I can't really pass judgement on how well this was all realised.
Halfway through the story, there is a side plot that is suddenly introduced involving Salamader keeping people trapped underground by convincing them that there has been a huge nuclear war and that the Earth is now full of hideous mutants. Again I can't really remember why he does this. My God! Considering I keep telling people that Patrick Troughton is one of my favourite Doctors, it seems I know very little about his stories!
It takes until episode 6 for the Doctor to finally come face to face with Salamander inside the TARDIS which I remember being rather exciting. This is another story I need to revisit when this quest is over because it was actually really good and I can remember very little about it which is beyond annoying and I refuse to cheat by checking on wikipedia. This is why I should have kept up to date with the blog as I went along but there's no sense crying over spilt milk I suppose.
Patrick Troughton does give a fantastic performance as Salamander though. I haven't seen Patrick Troughton in anything else besides Doctor Who so it's very strange seeing him play a different character but it goes to show what a great actor he is as Salamader is so significantly different to the Doctor that its sometimes hard to believe its the same man playing him.
The Web Of Fear
The Yeti are back! And this time they have invaded London via the underground system. This could be argued as being the Doctor's fault because it seems the eleventh Doctor let slip to The Great Intelligence that the London underground was a key strategic weakness. It's all very wibbly wobbly timey wimey!
Professor Travers is also back, this time as older man as this is set about 30 years later than The Abominable Snowmen (I think..dating issues is something I'll go into when discussin the era of the third Doctor, more familiarly known as "The UNIT dating controversy")
Something I didn't mention when talking about The Abominable Snowmen was that Professor Travers is played, both in that story and this one, by the father of Deborah Watling who plays Victoria. There's a lot of family ties like that in Doctor Who.
London has been evacuated and a group of soldiers are attempting to hold the Yeti back in the underground. It's very exciting to see the first appearance of Colonel Lethbridge Stewert (later to be promoted to Brigadier). The importance of this character to the history of Doctor Who cannot be understated. As to whether or not he is classed as a companion can be argued. In many way he seems more than a companion. After meeting the second Doctor, he would go on to meet the third, fourth, fifth and seventh Doctors so he is one of the Doctor's most enduring friends. In this story is seems that the Colonel is a character that we are supposed to be suspicious of. Looking at this from a modern perspective this doesn't really work as we know the Colonel is probably the person that the Doctor can trust the most!
The Doctor comes up with a plan to vanquish The Great Intelligence once and for all. Unfortunately due to Jamie and Victoria not understanding that that is what he is doing, they attempt to save the Doctor at just the wrong moment, meaning that The Great Intelligence is defeated this time, but would be free to return once again....played by Sir Ian McKellen in 2012. Haha! Sorry I just can't get over how awesome that is!
Fury From The Deep
How scary is the above picture?? This is from one of the scariest scenes ever where two men quietly enter the room of a young woman and proceed to gas her by ejecting poisonous gas from their lungs. Very very creepy, this must have given kids nightmares.
The TARDIS lands on the coast (in fact I think it lands on top of the sea!) and Jamie and Victoria are soon investigating a strange pipe on the beach. To explore it further the Doctor produces an instrument from his pocket, the sonic screwdriver! Another first for the show!
Memory is failing again here! Can't say I really enjoyed this one. It's 6 episodes long and none of the episodes exist. Luckily the above clip was considered too scary for Australian viewers and was cut from their version so is actually one of the only surviving moments from the whole story.
Theres a long helicopter sequence in a later episode where the Doctor struggles to fly it away from the rig out at sea. This goes on for a far too long, making what should be exciting into something quite tedious! Especially becuase we can't even see the bloody thing!There's also a lot of foam being produced by something. I think maybe the foam was the villain..possibly.
There is nice development for Victoria here though as she slowly gets more and more hystericla throughout the story and realises that she really is not enjoying the adventures with the Doctor anymore and so she decides to stay behind and is adopted by a kind couple. The last half of the last episode is given over to Victoria's leaving of the show which is nice to see, specifially after the rather abrupt exits of Dodo, Ben and Polly. It's also quite touching when Victoria asks Jamie not to leave without saying goodbye.
I liked Victoria, it's just tough luck for here that so few of her stories exist anymore.
The Wheel In Space
So with Victoria gone it’s time to meet the new companion –
Zoe. Zoe is a nice contrast to Victoria. Whereas Victoria was a companion from
the past, Zoe is a companion from the future.
Actually, it’s only just struck me that for the past few
stories the Doctor has had two companions that are both from the past. Poor Katarina
must have been spinning in her grave (if she had a grave, she’s probably still
a spinning frozen corpse in space)
Also the Cybermen are back! Now Cybermen tend to have really
convoluted plans for domination but this one takes the biscuit! I can’t fully
remember it (surprise, surprise!) but it involves about 10 different chain of
events being set off at just the right time. Ridiculous!
Whereas the Daleks had been the main foil for the first Doctor, the Cybermen are definitely the main enemy of the second Doctor having appeared in three stories so far out of two seasons.
Most of the main action takes place on a space station, i.e
The Wheel in Space where Zoe is working. Not quite sure what her job is but she’s
certainly an annoying “know-it-all”! Luckily this will be toned down in later
stories and she will become quite a likeable companion.
The end of the story is a very strange one. With Zoe coming
on board the TARDIS the Doctor thinks it only right that she should be warned
of what adventures and dangers lie ahead for her. Surely the recent adventure
with the Cybermen should be a fair warning! Anyway, the Doctor sits her down to
watch The Evil Of The Daleks from the last season. I think this is explained as
the Doctor feeding his thoughts and memories into the TARDIS monitor.
Now this is interesting for two reasons. First of all, what
are the chances that the clip we see at the end of this story is actually one
from the only episode of The Evil Of The Daleks that still exists! That’s so
annoying as if they had played any other clip from that story then we would
have another surviving clip..it that makes sense. Also the reason for this
bizaare action is that with season five coming to and an end with this story
the BBC wanted to show a repeat of The Evil Of The Daleks and so it was
actually linked into the final story of season five. How very weird! Now it
could be (very loosely) argued that that means I should have to watch The Evil
Of The Daleks AGAIN! But then I decided I was being too nit picky so went
straight on to season 6 and some surviving stories! Yay!
It was getting tough with so many missing episodes but season five was finally complete and I was beginning to see the light with a mostly complete run of stories for season six..the dark days were finally behind me. Come back soon for season six!
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