Chris Hardwick: Some Thoughts

I have never liked Chris Hardwick.

My main issue with Hardwick was his sycophancy towards those he claimed he and his organization, The Nerdist, to be reporting on.  He made himself the emblem of 'nerd culture', the cheerful, grinning face of Comic Cons everywhere, the 'fan who made good' and became a star in his own right, admired, respected, even perhaps seen as a bigger star than the ones he was perpetually kissing up to.

In reality, to me, he was a duplicitous part of the marketing machine, a poser, someone who touted himself as an expert on all things pop culture, specifically nerd culture (video games, sci-fi/fantasy shows, comic books/films), but who used his position to enrich himself by being at the beck and call of the studios to be a de facto promotional tool.

Yes, I would call Chris Hardwick a tool.

I found him odious in his gleeful cheerleading, refusing to ask tough questions and dismissing those who disagreed with him.

Now, we find that Chris Hardwick may have been more than just Marvel Studios' favorite fraudulent fan.

Chloe Dykstra, Hardwick's former girlfriend (emphasis mine, which I will get back to), posted an essay which details years of abuse and of deliberately blacklisting her in the entertainment industry.  She does not name Hardwick directly, but the details are hard to miss.

Dykstra states her abuser was someone almost 20 years her senior.  She's 29, he's 46.

The unnamed boyfriend went from "a mildly successful podcaster to a powerhouse CEO of his own company".  Hardwick was a podcaster who now wields great influence through his 'many-headed beast', The Nerdist.

Dykstra refers to him as 'a cheery-sounding famous guy'. Hardwick's public persona is that of a perpetually grinning, upbeat man.

All signals point to this unnamed person being one Chris Hardwick.

The details of Hardwick's alleged actions range from the boorish to the criminal.  According to Dykstra, he told her to drop all her male friends, to not leave her hotel room at a San Diego Comic-Con while he went out and partied with various beauties, and to serve as his sexual plaything, ready to indulge his desires whether she wanted to or not.

In other words, she had to have sex with him whenever he wanted, not whenever they wanted, which veers dangerously close to if not actual sexual assault as there was little to no actual consent on her part.

A particularly ugly charge regards when she is recovering after surgery for an ectopic pregnancy.

After being told she'd come out of the surgery fine, her mother thanks God.

Hardwick's first statement is, "That's great.  When do you think I can have sex with her again?"

His reaction here isn't illegal.  It's just grotesque.

While people get hung up on the sordid and sad details of Miss Dykstra's post, I think we need to look at another part which is getting lost in the tawdry bits.

According to her, after she left this toxic relationship after three years for another man, Hardwick "made calls to several companies (she) received regular work from to get me fired by threatening to never work with them. He succeeded. I was blacklisted".

That is criminal in a literal sense.

Hardwick, if this is true, deliberately sabotaged another person's career out of spite, using his influence to pressure others not to hire someone out of revenge.  This is something Harvey Weinstein, unintended Godfather to the #MeToo movement, would have done and may have done.

Hardwick used his connections, his name, his fame to keep someone else from finding a job and furthering her career.

There is no way of dressing this up if true.  What Chris Hardwick did to sabotage Chloe Dykstra's career, if proven true, is no different than what Weinstein did, or what any other Hollywood producer or bigwig did to make sure someone did not get work because they used personal influence against them.

How is that not immoral?  How is that not illegal?  How can that be defended?

What makes the charges, all of them, more appalling is how Hardwick presented himself publicly: as a woke male feminist, championing gender equality.

Take for example the 13th Doctor on Doctor Who.  Hardwick stood on a stepladder to look down his nose at anyone who had objections to why a female was cast as The Doctor, calling those who objected 'a**holes' and 'not real fans'.  On his @Midnight show, he went one better, insinuating they were losers and horror of horrors, virgins who in his words 'have never screwed anything'.

Given his own sexual appetites, it's no wonder he fixated on that.

As he dismissed and ridiculed those who had an issue with the reasoning behind this change, he was allegedly simultaneously forcing his own girlfriend to have no life outside him, serve as essentially his 'call girl', openly asking when she'd be ready to service him sexually after a traumatic experience and working to derail a woman's career once the relationship ended.

Over and over, as Hardwick promoted himself as both a major player in the industry and as a progressive friend to female representation, he appears to have worked to discredit a former lover.

That smearing continues today, when he issued his response to Dykstra's post.  He denies any assault, then he carefully adds that during the relationship 'Chloe had cheated on me, and I ended the relationship'.  He goes on to say that Miss Dykstra wanted to get back together and even start a family, but that he 'did not want to be with someone who was unfaithful'.

Not since Harvey Weinstein declared he was going to take on the NRA as a result of the various allegations against him has there been such a tone-deaf response.

It's classic victim-shaming.  She cheated on Me.  I was the victim.

Hardwick now is essentially saying the opposite of what he has said anytime anyone else, from Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey to Bret Ratner to Louis CK to Charlie Rose to Matt Lauer to Al Franken to Jeffrey Tambor to Joss Wheadon even such seemingly-mild men as James Levine and Garrison Keillor among too many men has faced similar charges: always believe the woman.

For Chris Hardwick, it's "always believe the woman...unless the woman is accusing me.  Then she's just a bitter ex-girlfriend/'broad' (though I figure another word would be used)".

Perhaps because of his reputation as this woke male feminist, or perhaps because he represents to so many non-virgin nerds a cooler version of themselves, Chris Hardwick's #MeToo moment has become unique.

In all the time the #MeToo/#TimesUp movements have burst onto the scene, I cannot recall a time when someone was as vociferously and ferociously defended as Chris Hardwick.  I do not know why he, out of all those accused, has met this level of impassioned defense.

When Garrison Keillor, of all people, was accused of sexual harassment, Minnesota Public Radio wasted no time in firing him and going so far as to change the name of his former radio show A Prairie Home Companion to Live From Here to disassociate themselves from his alleged acts.

I don't remember people calling for 'due process' and insisting Keillor was 'innocent until proven guilty'.  I don't remember anyone doing the same for Tambor or Rose or Spacey or just about anyone else accused of sexual harassment/assault.

For Chris Hardwick, however, I keep seeing everything from 'we need to hear both sides' and 'he's innocent until proven guilty' to 'Chloe Dykstra is just getting back at her ex-boyfriend'.

It's puzzling to me why Chris Hardwick, of all those myriad of accused, is getting the greatest benefit of the doubt.

Let's say that instead of Chris Hardwick, it was Chris Pratt who was accused of what Hardwick is alleged to have done.  Hardwick and his BFF Wil Wheaton would be pushing others and each other out of the way to condemn Pratt, to say what a horrible person he was, to run him out of the industry.

Instead, Wheaton asks for 'time to process' before making any statements when it comes to Hardwick.  Fine, but Wheaton and Hardwick have constantly and consistently insisted we always believe the accuser when they make sexual harassment/assault accusations against others (since in at least Kevin Spacey's case, the accusers were men).

Wheaton, Hardwick or any of Hardwick's defenders have never, to my knowledge, ever asked that we 'hear both sides' when it came to Weinstein or Spacey or Tambor or anyone else.  Wheaton, Hardwick or any of Hardwick's defenders have never, to my knowledge, said any of the accused should be given due process or that they were innocent until proven guilty.

Instead, Wheaton, Hardwick and Hardwick's defenders were almost always the ones who would call for boycotts and protests and attack anyone who dared defend the accused. They have been consistent: always believe the women/accuser.

Now, it looks like when it comes to Chris Hardwick, it's 'always believe the women...unless they accuse someone you like or even identify with.  Then she's a liar'.

I wish I knew why, of all the men caught up in this maelstrom, Chris Hardwick is the one that has to strongest and fiercest defenders.

You cannot have it both ways.  You cannot call for someone's metaphorical head and then turn around and insist we 'hear both sides' just because you're a fan of one accused.  You Must Be Consistent.

If it had been Chris Pratt and not Chris Hardwick who was accused, and if you have always said 'always believe the accuser', then you must believe Chloe Dykstra and call for Chris Hardwick to go.

You cannot have it both ways.

P.S. I don't think anyone will accuse Chris Pratt of anything excepting giving bad performances.  I may think he's just a good action star and not an actual actor, but from all I've read and heard he also is a genuinely nice guy.

Sex and the Single Doctor: Thoughts On The Thirteenth Doctor

So much to cover with Jodie Whittaker becoming the Thirteenth Doctor on Doctor Who.  I have an unfortunate habit of going on and on about things, waxing poetic endlessly, using as many words as I can fit into an essay.  I'm going to break with that and force myself to be brief.

I tried.  I failed.  It's going to be long.

I oppose the casting of a woman as The Doctor because I think it is being done to promote an agenda, not to serve the narrative.

I oppose the casting of a woman as The Doctor because I think it serves no purpose apart from pleasing a loud group which has argued for this change for the thinnest of reasons.

I oppose the casting of a woman as The Doctor because I think it alters the very nature of the character.

#NotMyWhovian

 

If you got through that, I figure some of you might already have decided I'm a sexist.  It's easier to call those who disagree with this decision 'sexist' than to listen to any reasons we may present.  It's the Whovian version of 'and when did you stop beating your wife?', to build in the assumption of guilt with only your own views as evidence.

I know that Chris Hardwick at The Nerdist has decreed by fiat that I am 'not a real fan' for holding views contrary to his own on this subject. He's even metaphorically called me (and those who agree with on this) 'an asshole' for not being on board and having issues with this gender-bender.

This I find highly ironic given that Hardwick and The Nerdist in general go beyond ass-kissing to straight-up rimming people like Doctor Who showrunners/writers Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, incoming showrunner Chris Chibnall or any other showrunner/production company they shamelessly shill for.

The main arguments against my views appear to be as follows: that I am against it because I don't want women to advance or cannot accept that Doctor Who has long established cross-gender/bigender Time Lords.  My opposition to the casting of a female therefore is built on animosity towards the feminine gender and run counter to a highly successful transition in the show's history.

Allow me then a chance to offer a different view.

And you are...

Opposing the casting of Whittaker, or any female, as The Doctor is not ipso facto sexism.

I would equally oppose the casting of a male to play the female Time Lords Romana or The Rani.  Granted, most Doctor Who fans whom Hardwick and Company cater to probably don't know who Romana and/or The Rani are.  At the Day of the Doctor screening I went to, all those who were dressed up in fezzes and bow ties had never heard of Romana, and Moffat has stated that bringing back the villainous Rani would be wasted on the fans.

"People always ask me, 'Do you want to bring back The Rani?'  No one knows who The Rani is.  They all know who the Master is, they know Daleks, they probably know who Davros is, but they don't know who the Rani is, so there's no point in bringing her back" (emphasis mine).

Then again, Moffat seems extremely contradictory when it comes to The Rani.  On one hand, he insists 'no one knows who the Rani is', and on the other, he says he tried to fool people into thinking that Missy or The Mistress, who was once known as The Master, was indeed The Rani.

Am I the only one who wonders why he wanted to fool people into thinking Missy was a character no one knew?

When it comes to this crossing genders, I think we need to step back a bit.

NuWho fans and their defenders insist the idea of Time Lords changing genders has been 'long established'.  Between 1963 and 1989, and even up to the 1996 television movie/backdoor pilot, the exact number of Time Lords who had regenerated from one gender to the other was zero.  Despite twenty-six years and various opportunities, no Time Lord ever changed gender.  It wasn't just The Doctor who could have regenerated into a woman in this time.  Other Time Lords could have done so, but none of them did.

As of today, I have yet to find a Classic Doctor Who episode or story that said Time Lords changed genders.  Some point to Romana's first regeneration as proof that they can change into more than just males and females.  However, a look at Destiny of the Daleks showed that even when she was 'trying on different bodies', she was always female.  The Rani herself, if memory serves correct, made a comment that at least she can choose her regeneration, which some fans took to mean that female Time Lords had greater control over their regenerations, something male Time Lords did not have.

As such, if Time Lords were always 'gender-fluid', how was it that female Time Lords like Romana or The Rani never regenerated to males, or other Time Lords like Borusa didn't regenerate into females?  Even faux-Time Lords like River Song never regenerated into opposite genders (all three of her appearances were female).

The idea that crossing genders has been 'long established' is valid only if by 'long established', you put your marker in 2011, when the subject was first mentioned.  In The Doctor's Wife, the Doctor mentions another Time Lord, the Corsair, who was a he, but on occasion, a she.  Seven years hardly makes for 'long established'.  At the time, I dismissed it as a throwaway line, but there was more to come.

There's the character of The Master, who returned in a female form, calling itself Missy, short for 'The Mistress'. That was in 2014, a mere three years ago.  Again, 'long established'.  The Master in the past had 'stolen' a body to keep on living through an unauthorized 'regeneration' in The Keeper of Trakken; as such, I took that 'Missy' was another 'stolen body' and nothing more.

The final 'long-established' point is when The General regenerated from an old white man to a not-so-old black woman in Hell Bent.  Apart from making misandristic statements ("My God, how do you cope with all that ego?" and how she was 'back to normal', suggesting being a man is 'abnormal'), The General's on-screen regeneration played no real part in his-Her personality.

In long, it has been only in revived Doctor Who were the idea of bigender Time Lords has come into being.  In each case: the Corsair, The Master/Mistress, and The General, I believe that all were done for one reason only: to clear the way for a female Doctor.

I believe this change, this kowtowing to a small group of loud fans/pseudo-fans who see sexism and injustice everywhere, is a terrible mistake.

Is there anything wrong with a female Doctor?  Perhaps not.  Is there something wrong with a female Doctor if the reason it is done is 'because it's TIME we had a female Doctor'?  Most certainly yes.  This is going to take the show down a road from which it may not come back. 

Already this casting choice has split fans.  In 2014, a small majority of polled fans said they were opposed.  When Whitaker was cast, a slim majority said it was a good idea.  DoctorWhoTV, as pro-Moffat a group as you can find outside The Nerdist, at least was honest when it said that as late as 2013 a vast majority of those polled (87.1%) believed the 12th Doctor should be male.

I  don't believe there ever was such a mass push for a female Doctor.  It was only a small but loud group that demanded it for no other reason than to push a particular agenda.

Contrary to what Moffat, Hardwick, or anyone at the Doctor Who production office insists, this decision to make such a radical change has not been met with universal acclaim or with nary a hint of backlash.

It was met with much backlash and anger, with many Doctor Who fans flat-out saying they will no longer watch.  Hardwick calls them 'assholes' for not going along with it.  Others call them sexist, misogynists, and chauvinists.  The pro-Female Doctor group insists all the anti-Female Doctor group has is bigotry.  Yes, there were those who were out-and-out bigots (all those 'Nurse Who' cracks were dumb), but a vast majority of those opposed did so because we firmly hold that the change is being done not to move the story forward, but to make a sociopolitical statement.

NuWho, along with the sycophantic press & the fans who see injustice in a male playing a particular role, has convinced itself that casting a female in the role is a brilliant idea. They think it will equal great ratings, with all those fans who left more than made up by those who will hold Whitaker as the heroine their little girls need (since little girls have never heard of Sally Ride or Jane Goodall). They'll get the praise & the press that, in theory, will build to a long-running series.

However, as much as they may think that men & women are interchangable and that you'll get the exact same results with a woman as you would with a man, they are, in my view, tying themselves to a difficult position. By casting someone to demonstrate 'progressiveness', they now will be held to a standard where all future castings will be likewise judged. If Whitaker does not pan out, if she & Chibnall's showrunning fail to bring up ratings, the BBC cannot just dump Whitaker. Cries of 'sexism', 'toxic masculinity', and the like will be thrown at them. As such, they may have to ride out falling ratings for maybe one-three years to save face. 

Either that, or flat-out cancel the show to stop the financial bleeding. 

They will be bound to a showrunner and lead who instead of stemming the falling tide or bring the ratings up instead seemed to have accelerated the show's decline.  Firing Whitaker the way the BBC fired Colin Baker when he was blamed for falling ratings during his tenure as The Doctor is impossible.  If they tried to do push Whitaker out, those who pushed for a female in the role would scream, only this time there would be no other fans the show could rely on for help.  Those who left in disgust at what they saw as a stunt won't be talked back after being called 'bigots, sexists, idiots and fools' (and those were some of the nicer things said about them).

If the show managed to hold on to the hypothetical end of Whitaker's era assuming the show isn't flat-out cancelled during Her tenure, Her successor, however, cannot be anyone. The Social Justice Warriors, having tasted blood, will demand nothing more than 'correct' casting. More than likely the calls to have a minority actor/actress will grow, w/the same reason given ("it's TIME we had a black Doctor, an Indian Doctor, an openly Gay Doctor, an Arab Doctor, a Sikh Doctor..."). That is, if they allow for a male to get the role at all. Jumping about between genders seems to be a one-act trick: you can't keep doing it every time you need publicity.

Casting a male after a female may lead to calls of 'sexism', 'toxic masculinity', what have you.
 
If they opt to then go all in and cast a minority female (say a Thandie Newton or Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to have 'representation' (and a chance for the BBC to shield itself from accusations of 'sexism' and 'racism'), those who had originally rejected the idea of Whitaker's casting as being done for PC reasons may come to the conclusions the majority of us reached when Whitaker was announced: the casting was done for ulterior motives.

I have the utmost respect for Newton, Mbatha-Raw, or an Idris Elba or Alexander Siddig. They are all highly talented. However, they would be, in this theoretical casting, be given the role not for their talent, but to check off boxes. In a way, it undermines the very principle the BBC insists it has: to cast for the best actor regardless of sex or color.

By getting their way with Whitaker, they have put a litmus test on any future Doctor: do you fulfill a particular function in terms of 'representation'? I think few people would have had an issue with a minority male as The Doctor. It would not have changed Canon (Time Lords keeping w/in their gender). By selecting a woman to HAVE a woman, they have decided 'representation' was more important than anything else.

I don't know how it will go, but if it goes the way I think it will (the show petering out to an ignoble end), it will be Whitaker and those who said it was a bad decision who will get blamed. Those who came up with the idea, misguided as it was, were never in the wrong.  Those who pushed this idea likewise will never admit to being wrong.

Rather, the story will be that the problem wasn't that there was A woman cast as The Doctor, but that it was a PARTICULAR woman that was cast.  The line will be said that Whitaker was all wrong: that she got the job because she worked with Chibnall on Broadchurch, that she wasn't talented enough, etc. It will be a disservice to her if she is blamed for doing her job the best she could, even if perhaps the decision to cast a female to begin with was a mistake.

Hardwick will no doubt blame all those awful sexist/mysogynist/chauvinist men who left when they should have stayed.  He and many other 'woke' figures hold that the fans are almost obligated to stay with Doctor Who no matter how much they may grow to hate it.  I as a fan am not bound to stay and watch something I no longer care to watch.  I have quit Doctor Who before: after the horror of Love & Monsters, I refused to watch any more Doctor Who until the end of David Tennant's tenure.  Was I obligated to keep watching even after I felt the show went overboard?

By Hardwick's logic, Roseanne fans should have kept watching after the Conners became fabulously wealthy.  By Hardwick's logic, Happy Days fans should not have complained after Fonzie jumped the shark. 

Ultimately, for me the question isn't 'why can't they do it' because they could and did.  The question should be 'why should they do it', and the reasons the other side has presented have been very weak and not enough to convince me it was the right thing to do. 

"Because it's TIME" isn't an answer. 
"Because little girls need representation" isn't an answer.

The casting of Jodie Whitaker, irrespective of her talent as an actress, was done for what I believe were wrong reasons.  I think a lot of fans, who have stuck through a lot of bad episodes (Sleep No More) and a lot of really awful ideas (the Flying Cyber-Brigadier) finally had enough.  Whether the First Female Doctor is enough to bring new fans and hold whichever ones left I cannot say.

However, I don't fancy their chances, especially since it will be until 'late 2018' by the time Her tenure really begins.  That's well over six months between Her first few seconds and Her debut story.  Will all those women cheering this one hold on that long?  Former Doctor Who fans have held on for longer.  Now, it's not so sure.

At least she is bound to stay, so no matter what, Doctor Who will always have one viewer...

Doctor Who Story 029: The Tenth Planet

STORY 029: THE TENTH PLANET

Ice Station Cybermen...

The Tenth Planet is both a debut and farewell.  It is the first Cyberman story, a monster that has become one of the most iconic of Doctor Who monsters (who have also undergone many alterations in design throughout the series).  It is also the last First Doctor story, where we are left with the very first regeneration.  While the actual look of the Cybermen themselves may disappoint (and actually, I figure it didn't look all that good the first go-round), the actual concept of the Cybermen is in itself a splendid one.  The Tenth Planet also moves well and on the whole works, albeit not without a few hiccups.

It is the South Pole, 1986 (i.e. twenty years into the future).  On Station Snowcap General Cutler (Robert Beatty) is overseeing the routine flight of a spaceship, Zeus IV.  General Cutler (Robert Beatty) is running the International Space Command station while chief scientist Dr. Barclay (David Dodimead) handles the technical aspects.  Two groups arrive at Station Snowcap.  The first group is The Doctor (William Hartnell) and his Companions, Able Seaman Ben Jackson (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills).  The arrival of three humans in the middle of the South Pole startles the crew.  They are taken but found to be harmless.

Into this we find that Zeus IV is having technical issues.  The instruments on Snowcap are also experiencing strange readings.  The Doctor knows what it is, and soon his warnings are confirmed: a whole new planet is suddenly appearing.  The Doctor knows what this planet it.  It is Mondas, the Earth's twin planet, lost ages ago but now returning.  With Mondas' arrival we also get new beings: metallic beings who call themselves Cybermen.  They were once like Earthlings, but over time their body parts were replaced with robotic parts, keeping their brains but removing all things called 'emotions'.  The fate of Zeus IV is irrelevant to them.  Mondas is absorbing the Earth's energy and will soon destroy our world.  With that, the Cybermen say they will take humans and turn them into Cybermen.


Cutler and Ben are able to defeat this Cyber-party, but it looks like Earth is doomed due to Mondas absorbing Earth's energy and bringing Earth to an inevitable explosion. Zeus IV is destroyed when it was dragged to Mondas and exploded due to the absorption of energy. Cutler decides that he will use the Z-Bomb, a Doomsday Device, to destroy Mondas.  This of course could bring destruction to Earth, the nuclear force being so great it could wipe out the side of Earth that is facing Mondas.  Just when he is needed the most, the Doctor has become violently ill and is out of commission.  Cutler is also motivated by the fact that his son Terry (Callen Angelo) has been sent on a rescue mission to Zeus IV which was too late to save the ship and runs the risk of a similar fate.  Ben, echoing the Doctor's previous warnings, begs Cutler not to take this act, saying that Mondas is absorbing so much energy that it will destroy itself.  Barclay similarly insists on the dangers, but Cutler will not be dissuaded.

Ben and Barclay manage to sabotage the rocket that was to carry the Z-Bomb, and Cutler orders them killed.  However, a new Cyber-party arrives in time to kill Cutler, inadvertently saving everyone else.  The Cybermen, however, will now use the Z-Bomb against Earth to save Mondas, taking Polly as a hostage.  The Doctor, Ben, and Barclay manage to delay long enough to see Mondas explode, and with that the Cybermen disintegrate.  Ben and the Doctor rescue Polly, but now the Doctor tells them that it's far from being all over.  Having complained earlier that 'this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin', he has them rush him back to the TARDIS, where he locks them out.  Once they finally get inside, they find the Doctor collapsed on the floor.  As the TARDIS starts dematerializing, the Doctor's face begins to change into someone else's...

It is the most tantalizing loss in the Doctor Who archive: the very first regeneration.  The actual regeneration sequence does survive, thanks to a clip used on the children's program Blue Peter, but apart from that and a few off-screen recordings Episode Four of The Tenth Planet is lost.  Both the surviving sequence and the animated reconstruction are quite effective and chilling.  In fact, the animation for Episode Four gives indication that The Tenth Planet would have worked brilliantly as an anime-type story.  The destruction of Mondas and the disintegration of the Cybermen in their animated form is brilliant, and I think looks better than the actual footage would have looked like.

The animation is the same as that from the missing episodes of The Reign of Terror, not as fluid as that of the animation for The Invasion, but this time I didn't find it as much of a hindrance as I did for Reign of Terror.  I think it is probably because The Tenth Planet is science-fiction, so that kind of story lends itself better to animation than a historic-based story like Reign of Terror.  Seeing the Cybermen animated also makes them more menacing, even if the initial Cyber-design was not the best.  Fortunately, their design was worked on to where the Cybermen would become one of the great Doctor Who monsters rivaling the iconic Daleks. 

In terms of performances Hartnell, though slowly slipping into illness that forced him (in part) to retire from the role, seems oddly invigorated as the Doctor.  He still commands authority and mixes that with a genuine caring aspect for his Companions.  The fact that Hartnell became ill during the making of Episode Three (thus basically writing him off that episode) works because we can imagine that in retrospect it is the beginning of his regeneration taking effect.  His final moments as the Doctor were brilliant: a sense of fear and terror coming across as he is about to enter a new phase.  Craze takes command as Ben Jackson, being less a man of action and more a man who needs to do things to save others, like a good Royal Navy crewman would.  Wills, sadly, had the run of screaming and looking almost helpless, but that is a reflection of the times.  However, she and Craze have a great rapport, especially when their Swinging London sensibilities come against the ancient Time Lord's more Edwardian outlook, particularly in clothes.

The design for the Cybermen, as I stated, were a bit odd-looking now.  The costume, with that lantern on their head and the mask (whose mouth sometimes did not open when they first starting speaking) runs the risk of looking a bit comical now.  However, they were quite effective whenever they killed, and the sing-song voice they used indicated correctly that they had something vaguely human about them but that they were not entirely machine or human.  I have long wondered whether the Cybermen were the metaphorical ancestors of Star Trek's Borg, and hearing them say in Episode Four that "Resistance is useless" does heighten the suspicions.

I do have some questions in Kit Pedler's screenplay (with Gerry Davis co-writing Episodes Three and Four).  The Doctor has knowledge of Mondas' existence and who the inhabitants of said planet are, but we never learn how he came to this information.  Having the Cybermen have two landing parties does seem a bit peculiar, as does their fortuitous arrival to save them from Cutler.  In particular, the aspect of the Doctor knowing about Mondas but never learning how or why looks like it was thrown in just to have someone understand how this all came about.  The subplot of the Cybermen going to Geneva in their plot to either destroy or take over the Earth also was a bit short-shifted.

Still, apart from those aspects The Tenth Planet holds up extremely well and gives the First Doctor a proper send-off, leaving open so many possibilities that are now part of established Doctor Who Canon (regeneration, Cybermen).  It's a very good story, acted well, which moves steadily and who uses the Doctor's absence effectively.

Sadly, the next two stories,  the Second Doctor debut story The Power of the Daleks, and the historical adventure The Highlanders (which was the debut of Companion Jamie McCrimmon, the first Scottish Companion...sorry, Amy Pond), are lost, with no surviving episodes apart from short clips.  The third story, The Underwater Menace, is the first semi-complete Second Doctor story, and in perhaps the strangest irony, the first completely intact Second Doctor story is Story 037...The Tomb of the Cybermen.  The Tenth Planet moves well, has an interesting story, and despite the now-weak Cybermen look we can see how things will work out in the future.

We will not be deleted...

8/10

Next Story: The Power of the Daleks

Next Available Story: The Underwater Menace

Doctor Who Story 243: The Day of The Doctor

STORY 243: THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR

EDITOR'S NOTE:  In conjunction with my sister site Gallifrey Exile I've opted to publish The Day of The Doctor review here as well.

Impossible Things Are Happening Every Day...

This is the Second in a Trilogy regarding The Day of The Doctor.  Last time it was on the NuWho fans celebrating a 50th Anniversary while being continuously and almost stubbornly unaware of the first 40 years.  This entry is a formal review.  The third...well, Spoilers...

Let's start right off the bat by saying The Day of the Doctor is a remarkably stupid title for any Doctor Who episode, let alone what has been touted as the 50th Anniversary Special.  The title is so damn bloody close to the last Doctor Who story (The Name of the Doctor) that I constantly kept calling The Day of the Doctor The Name of the Doctor.   Someone MUST have thought that the titles were simply too similar to not make people wonder, right?  Of course, this was before I learned that the Christmas Special is to be called...The TIME of The Doctor.

Name, Day, and Time.  All that's missing is Rank.

In any case, The Day of The Doctor purports to be the 50th Anniversary Special to one of the most wildly-successful science-fiction shows on today, which has gone from cult to mainstream to almost mania.  I have wondered whether Doctor Who's massive popularity has damned the show to being mere spectacle, all bright lights and rapid pacing to cover plot holes and continuity errors to please a group of rabid fans who know little to nothing about what came before the show's revival in 2005.  I'd argue that most fans celebrating The Day of The Doctor know only or almost exclusively nothing but Doctor Who episodes from Rose onwards, the Ninth through Eleventh Doctors being their primary points of reference.  I've already talked about that, but now in the second part of our trilogy, let us go over the actual episode itself.

The Day of The Doctor cannot be called a 50th Anniversary Special because there is so little within it to actually suggest that much came before it.  There are nods to the Original Series (starting from the opening credits, which are the original opening credits seen in 1963 sans the 3-D effects), but apart from a few (which I'll mention here and in the future) so much of The Day of The Doctor revolves around 2005 onwards: the Doctors in the special, the Time War that has been dominant in NuWho, Companions and characters that came after Rose.  Leaving aside the dearth of acknowledgements of anything Who-related pre-2005 The Day of The Doctor is a big, lavish, loud spectacle that does the unthinkable: celebrate not the show itself but the revived series' ability to basically 'hit the reset' and erase so much that came before that it would be more intellectually honest to have Tom Baker onwards just open his eyes and say, "It was all a dream..."

Clara (Jenna Coleman), now a teacher at Coal Hill School, receives a message that 'her doctor' has called.  She jumps on her motorbike and speeds towards a desolate place, where the TARDIS and The Doctor (Matt Smith) await.  No time to go gallivanting as the TARDIS is picked up by helicopter and transported to The National Gallery in London, where Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), UNIT's Head of Scientific Research (perhaps the 'scientific advisor'?) and her aide Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) inform the Doctor that he was appointed the Curator of the Undergallery by Queen Elizabeth...the First.

In the Undergallery the Doctor is presented a Gallifreyan painting (bigger on the inside than the outside), with two titles: Gallifrey Falls or No More.  This painting is of the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city during the Last Day of the Time War.

We now inside the painting to The Last Day of The Time War.  The War Council knows things are going badly, and a strange figure identified by the Daleks as The Doctor (John Hurt) blasts into the walls "No More".  The War Council discovers that there is one weapon of last resort missing: The Moment, a weapon so powerful that not only can swallow galaxies but has grown a conscience.

The Doctor (or War Doctor if you like) goes into the desert to set the Moment, but he not only cannot open it (bemoaning the lack of a big red button) but the conscience of The Moment takes shape in the form of Rose (Billie Piper), or more specifically Bad Wolf Rose.  She urges him to think of The Children before using The Moment, and she opens a time fissure to show him his future.  Through this fissure drops in...a fez.

After examining more of the Undergallery (including picking up a fez), the mystery of the paintings grow.  The glass has been broken from the inside of the paintings.  As part of the examination of the Undergallery, we see a portrait of Good Queen Bess with her husband, The Tenth Doctor. 

Now it's off to Merry Olde England 1562, where The Doctor (David Tennant) is courting Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I (Joanne Page) in a lovely picnic.  Things are going well, even to Her Majesty accepting the Doctor's marriage proposal.  The Doctor, however, knows that The Queen is NOT The Queen, but a Zygon.  Only, one small error...the Zygon is NOT the Monarch, but instead the horse he rode in on.

In the chaos and confusion of having Queen Elizabeth I and her Zygon double with him unable to fully find the fake from the real, a time fissure appears and in drops...a fez.  Now from the portal the Eleventh Doctor drops in the Tenth.

There's some banter, when from this comes The War Doctor, seeking the Doctor.  Now the three are arrested by Queen Elizabeth I and thrown into the Tower of London, thrilling Eleven but not pleasing either Ten or War.

Meanwhile, Clara is taken by Kate to the Black Archive, where the memory of every worker is wiped out at the end of their shift.  This explains why the TARDIS-proof Archive has photographs of all the Doctor's past Companions, including Clara.  Within the Archive is the Time Vortex Manipulator bequeathed to them by Captain Jack Harkness on his death (or at least one of them).  There's a dark twist for Clara, however, as Kate and Osgood are really Zygons about to take over the Earth.  Clara, however, gets the access code to the Manipulator (cleverly scratched on the walls of the Tower by the Eleventh Doctor all those centuries ago) and speeds to Elizabethan England.

The Doctors all attempt to a.) escape the Tower and b.) think of how the actions of the unacknowledged Doctor affects them.  In order for them to find a way out the War Doctor starts calculations on his sonic screwdriver, and the three discover that these calculations, which would take hundreds of years to complete, have been going on through all the other Doctor's sonics, completing at the time of the Eleventh.  However, all that for naught, as Clara comes in and informs them that the door had been open all that time.

Elizabeth, who we eventually discover is pretending to be a Zygon, tells them of the paintings, which is how the Zygons are freezing themselves until the appropriate time...2013 London.  Of course, we have to pause for Ten to marry Her Majesty, then off in the TARDIS to save the world.  In the Archive, the Zygons and the Humans are about to play chicken, Kate determined to blow up the city to save the world.  Fortunately, Eleven had called from the future to the present to get the Gallifrey Falls/No More painting into the Black Archive, and then the Doctors all burst through it and force the warring sides to peace.  The War Doctor, however, knows he must use The Moment.

He is joined, however, by Ten and Eleven, who decide they will share the burden of using The Moment to destroy the Daleks AND the Time Lords.  Clara is heartbroken that it's HER Doctor who kills The Children, but now he and the other two have decided to do the unthinkable: they will rewrite history and SAVE Gallifrey.

They race their TARDISes (TARDI?) to the besieged Gallifrey and when the War Council is told of their plans (to freeze Gallifrey and lock it in a statis cube to make it appear that the Daleks, who would be destroying themselves in the confusion and make the universe think Gallifrey was destroyed too), they tell the Doctors the calculations would take centuries.  However, not to fear, as all the incarnations of the Doctor appear to the Council to space their own TARDI and join forces.  All twelve, the Council thinks, until one of the Council says, "No.  All THIRTEEN" (and we get a quick glimpse of the upcoming Doctor). 

Plan successful the War/Tenth/Eleventh Doctors make their farewells.  The time streams are too confused to allow them to remember all of this, so the Ninth and Tenth Doctors won't remember saving Gallifrey and think instead they destroyed it.  (I digress to say that when the War Doctor says, "but at worse, we failed doing the right thing as opposed to succeeding in doing the wrong", the only thing that came to mind was OneRepublic's Counting Stars: "I feel something so right doing the wrong thing/I feel something so wrong doing the right thing".)  Tenth also will not know his future death on Trenzalore, but for now things are good.  However, the Curator (Tom Baker) tells Eleven that people always get the title of the painting wrong.  The painting has two titles: No More or Gallifrey Falls, but he tells the Doctor that it's not two titles but one: Gallifrey Falls No More.   Gallifrey survives, and now the Doctor can search for it.

I know that the NuWho fans who were watching The Day of The Doctor in the theater were thrilled with everything about the episode (one of Bryan Majewski's friends who sat next to me used the word, 'brilliant' to describe how Gallifrey survived), but that was just something that felt wrong to me.  I was never a fan of The Time War and thought from the get-go that it was a mistake to erase Gallifrey when Doctor Who was rebooted.  Despite that, what motivated The Doctor was survivor's guilt, the hurt and rage within him to have to exterminate his own people to save the universes.  With this timey-wimey reboot (something writer Steven Moffat is simply too fond of) that is all erased, rendering a lot of post-Rose Doctor Who either nonsense or just a waste of time.  When those episodes are watched, we know that he is going through all this for nothing.

Again, he might just as well wake up and say, "it was all a dream".

However, let's move on from that (more on that another time) and move on to whether The Day of The Doctor worked.  It didn't, again because the stakes are now never going to matter.  If we are always going to resolve things by basically going back and altering history (even if it means contradicting or erasing what came before) what tension exists in any story, let alone this story?

I note that at least twice times things were basically reset to get the Doctor out of his predicament (when the Doctor makes the call to send Gallifrey Falls/No More to the Black Archive and when The Doctors all jump in to save Gallifrey).  This is an easy way to get out of the difficulties Moffat gets into but it diminishes the Doctor's greatest virtue: his ability to think his way out of situations. 

However, there are other things that fell flat.  A big problem is in the performances.  Page was simply unbearable as Elizabeth I, turning the Warrior Queen as nothing more than a breast-heaving fangirl, permanently infatuated with the Tenth Doctor (perhaps she was suppose to represent all those little girls who fantasize about Tennant, Smith, and to a lesser degree Christopher Eccleston sexually?  However, I would have thought the Osgood character, down to wearing a Fourth Doctor-type scarf, was parody enough).  I was also surprised to see Tennant give a bad performance.  There were times when he seemed not so much bored but frustrated, as if he couldn't make himself believe what he was saying. 

Take when he tells Liz that he knows she's a Zygon via a machine.  He presents it to her and says, "Ding."  "What's that?", she screeches (I'm serious, Page was embarrassing throughout The Day of The Doctor).  "A machine that goes 'ding'", he replies.  This is something that I imagine the Eleventh Doctor would say, not the more serious Tenth.  Yes, Tenth could be goofy, but not this goofy.  Similarly, when Tenth revisits his Big Speech about who he is from Voyage of The Damned, he stops his tense tone when he realizes he's talking to a real rabbit and not a Zygon.  It's thrown in there to please the fans, but it takes it all out of context: what was once a statement of courage and defiance now is a chance to either wink to the hard-core NuWho fanbase or just mock the Tenth Doctor.

I actually felt a touch sorry for Tennant, one of the better Doctors, who was veering close to parodying his Doctor to please those passionate for the dim-witted Eleventh.  While watching him, the phrase "Don't you think he looks tired?" popped into my head.

Not as bad as I felt for Billie Piper, whose Bad Wolf Rose is there just to basically be there.  For being a sentient doomsday machine she isn't taking much of this seriously.  Perhaps it is too tempting to ask at this juncture why a figure from his future would appear as opposed to someone from his past (say, Lalla Ward's Romana II or Carol Anne Ford's Susan Forman, the Doctor's granddaughter, both who are very much alive, but since that might confuse NuWho fans...).  Serving as the Clarence to the War Doctor's George Bailey, Piper has not much to do.  Frankly, any old Companion would have done.

Here perhaps is why I find it so hard to call The Day of The Doctor an actual 50th Anniversary Special.  All the Doctors and Companions: NuWho.  All the characters save the monsters: NuWho.  The guest character of Queen Elizabeth I: NuWho.  As I said, there are nods to the Original Series (certain lines and little hints), but on the whole nothing really connected The Day of The Doctor to anything from An Unearthly Child to Survival/Doctor Who: The Movie.

More things that I found generally displeasing were Murray Gold's score (I hated the cutesy and/or serious music blaring at us to virtually no end) and the visual effects.  Yes they were big and bold, but they were too reminiscent of Star Wars, almost as if they were showing off in the Last Day of The Time War just how much money they spent on it.

However, I'm not in the habit of thoroughly damning something if I find something good.  John Hurt was brilliant as The War Doctor, bringing a sense of pain and emotional weight to the role.  He also showed Tennant and Smith that sometimes taking and behaving seriously makes one a more authoritative figure.  Whenever he mocked his successors tendency to whip out their sonic screwdrivers or their silly catchphrases (Timey-Wimey?) Hurt showed not only the presence of intelligence (and how in the past, the Senior Doctor always knew better than those that followed...like a Dandy and a Clown), but in his regret and fear of the course he had to take made the Doctor a deeply wounded and conflicted character.

As much as I detest Smith I found that his scenes on Gallifrey with Coleman, when he isn't flipping his hands, when there is no music, when he is allowed to take things seriously, you actually get a good performance out of him.  When he discusses the pain of his past act with a distressed Clara, it was deeply moving and touching.  In fact, when things get past the whiz-bang of the lights and the loud music, when things are allowed to be taken seriously and settled down, we find that not only are the actors good but the scenario can be emotionally rewarding.  Seeing Tennant, Smith, and Hurt about to blow up Gallifrey, no sounds apart from their voices, makes things feel tense. 

For me, as someone who is more geared towards Classic Who than NuWho, who has become disillusioned with Doctor Who (in particular with the Smith/Moffat Era), The Day of The Doctor didn't celebrate 50 years of a television series.  It didn't even really celebrate the eight years its current regeneration has been on.  The Zygon subplot wasn't all that necessary to the overall story of rebooting the Time War (and I wondered why Elizabeth I didn't just wipe out the Zygons rather than allow them to keep going into the paintings).

I think that if I were fair The Day of The Doctor would really rank at 4/10 because in many ways it's better than some of the awful Classic Who stories (The Ark, The Gunfighters, Timelash).  However, I knock one point down for it failing to be an actual anniversary special.  What The Day of The Doctor was the 'handy-dandy big shiny reset button' writ large. 

3/10

Next Episode: The Time of The Doctor

SERIOUSLY...THE TIME OF THE DOCTOR AFTER THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR AND THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR?  So long as Capaldi's debut story isn't The Tea Time of The Doctor or The Afternoon Nap of The Doctor or even The Doctor of The Doctor...

Doctor Who Story 039: The Ice Warriors

STORY 039: THE ICE WARRIORS

A Song of Ice and Warriors...

It's a curious thing about Doctor Who monsters.  The Ice Warriors have appeared in only four Doctor Who stories (The Ice Warriors, The Seeds of Death, The Monster of Peladon and its sequel, The Curse of Peladon), yet they have been listed as among the best Who monsters.  While the Ice Warriors would not make a return appearance on Doctor Who until 2013's Cold War, they still remain wildly popular (even if Cold War significantly altered them to where they are unrecognizable from their first appearance).  The Ice Warriors is partially lost, but the animated reconstruction of Episodes Two & Three of the six-part story allows us to get a glimpse of one of the most impressive debuts of any Doctor Who monsters.

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his Companions Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) and Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling) arrive in a winter setting.  They discover they are on Earth, but that the Earth is undergoing a new Ice Age.  The glaciers are kept at bay by various stations, and the trio find themselves at the Brittanicus station, where they come into a great crisis.

Leader Clent (Peter Barkworth), who trusts the computer and computer alone, struggles to maintain the ionizer levels at enough strength to keep the glaciers from overwhelming them while not going so far that the station would destroy it all.  Meanwhile, Scientist Arden (George Waring) makes a curious discovery: a giant humanoid creature buried within the ice.  He brings it in, thinking it is the remains of a prehistoric civilization.  However, far from being dead, the heat has revived this 'ice warrior', named Varga (Bernard Bresslaw) who takes Victoria prisoner.

Clent and his second-in-command, Miss Garrett (Wendy Gifford) are more concerned over maintaining the ionizer levels than on one girl (especially since the computer insists things go as scheduled).  Reluctantly, and especially since the Doctor has been so helpful to their enterprise, he allows Arden and Jamie to go search for her.  Unbeknown to them, renegade scientist Penley (Peter Sallis), who left the station because he trusts humans not machines, has been monitoring the situation.  He and Storr (Angus Lennie), a scavenger who detests science and scientists who caused the Ice Age, know of the Ice Warriors, whom Varga has brought back to life.  The plan is simple: the Ice Warriors, finding this a hospitable place with Mars (their home world) out of reach, perhaps lost forever, will take Earth.

The Doctor wants only to rescue Victoria, keep both her and Jamie safe and prevent loss of life on either side.  However, things had gotten out of control.  The Ice Warriors have already killed Arden and Storr, heavily injuring Jamie.  The station has high concerns about the Warriors spaceship: continued use of the ionizer could make the Warriors' ship explode, not just killing them but allowing the glacier to overwhelm the world.  Clent in particular will not act without the computer's views, irritating the Doctor and Penley, with Miss Garrett wavering.

The Doctor allows himself to be captured by the Warriors to discover their plans, but armed with a secret weapon: ammonium sulphate, which will be harmful if not fatal to the Ice Warriors should they try anything.  The Ice Warriors, now in full conquest mode, storm the station to take the mercury to power their ship.  This will inhibit the ionizers from working, bringing total destruction.  The Doctor has rigged the Warriors' sonic cannon to work against them, and in the end their ship is destroyed but causes no reaction that brings the station to destruction. 

Despite the loss of two episodes, The Ice Warriors itself remains wildly effective and well-crafted.  One highly intelligent aspect of Bryan Hayles' script is that it speaks about the dangers of trusting too much in science and technology.  The character of Clent, a bureaucrat who has risen despite no initiative, always trust the computer as if it were a divine voice.  "If you want an impartial opinion, ask the computer," he says.  Penley represents the opposite: the scientist who thinks humans are both more capable to figure out things but more importantly more important that machines.  The conflict between humanity and technology has rarely been addressed so well, especially on a science-fiction program. 

We also learn that humanity, in its efforts at efficiency, can be more destructive and that worse, the cure can be worse than the disease.  We learn that there are no plants or crops to give the growing population more living space (hence, the loss of farms).  The loss of agriculture brings a decrease of carbon dioxide, which brought about the ice age.  To keep the ice at bay, they set about these stations. 

In each step we see that humanity, in their desire to bring efficiency to the world, ends up only making a muck-up of everything.  This story thread is not overtly stated, but I was fascinated that The Ice Warriors, at least in regards to this element of man's overreliance on technology, is far ahead of the curve.  If one reads between the lines, we see The Ice Warriors address such issues as 'frankenfood' and the destruction of the rain forests via 'slash and burn' to provide temporary farm and grazing land.

In the technical matters, The Ice Warriors does a lot with a limited budget.  The massive ice caves are extraordinary and beautifully rendered.  Certain sequences are enhanced with effective fog effects, making the setting more realistic.  There were also certain sequences masterfully filmed (such as when the Ice Warriors are finally defeated, a particularly chilling moment...no pun intended).  The score is also on the whole excellent: the vocal aspects did not drown out the music but complemented the scenes.

The performances were also brilliant.  Bresslaw, best known as a comic, was frightening as Varga, speaking in a whisper and elongated 'S' sounds.  He set the standard to how an Ice Warrior speaks and moves, and the decision to make the Ice Warriors soft-spoken but still reptilian is a key element that makes them the effective monsters we all remember pre-Cold War.

As a side note, seeing how effective and chilling the Ice Warriors were in their eponymous story and The Seeds of Death is one of the many reasons their return in Cold War so bloody disappointing.

The performances of the guest stars were also excellent: the blind devotion Barkworth's Clent has to technology, the intellectual honesty of Sallis' Penley, the divided loyalties of Gifford's Garrett; each of them does a top job in terms of performance.

If anything, I find great fault in Watling's Victoria, who came across as a slightly dim, screaming girl.  Even (or perhaps especially) in the animated moments, Watling's performance came off as almost silly and laughable, as if either she didn't believe she was in the situations she was in or just didn't think it was worth it. 

The Ice Warriors keeps the pace well.  It is beautifully filmed, excellently acted (with the possible exception of Watling, who did improve over the series) and is a brilliant introduction to monsters who, while limited in series, had and continue to have a great impact on Doctor Who itself. 

Mark Gattissss...we shall dessstroy you
for what you've done to ussss...

10/10

Next Story: The Enemy of the World

Doctor Who Story 018: Galaxy 4

STORY 018 : GALAXY 4

A Lost Galaxy Rediscovered...

Until 2011, Galaxy 4 was one of the completely lost Doctor Who stories, with only a few clips being known in existence.  However, Air Lock, Episode Three of Galaxy 4, has been rediscovered, and as a result we now have one less story that has no complete episodes to look at.   The discovery of any lost Doctor Who story is always great news, and with the hour-long reconstruction of Galaxy 4 available, we can now get a glimpse of a unique Doctor Who story, one sadly done in by a failed effort to come up with a monster that just now looks comical, right down to its name.  Minus the 'creatures', Galaxy 4 is a surprisingly strong and solid story that has more pluses than minuses.

The Doctor (William Hartnell) and his Companions Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) and Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) arrive on a seemingly deserted planet.  However, as it stands, it is not deserted.  Instead, they first encounter little round robotic beings Vicki nicknames "Chumblies" (due to their clunky movement).  Believing them to be hostile, the Doctor and Companions escape the TARDIS, only to find themselves taking forced refuge with the Drahvins, a collection of women warriors headed by Maaga (Stephanie Bidmead). 

She believes the Chumblies and their masters, the Rills, are hostile.  According to her, the Drahvins crashed on the planet at the same time as the Rills, and ever since then the Drahvins have been attacking the Chumblies whenever they approach.  Maaga and her minions, robotic females, ignore the Chumblies messages that offer them passage on the Rills spaceship, which they have managed to repair, while the Drahvins' ship has not.  They believe that in fourteen dawns time, the planet will be destroyed (hence making escape vital).  The Doctor, however, realizes they really have two days before the planet is evaporated.

Maaga has come up with the idea of seizing the Rills ship, conveniently killing the Rills off and making their escape that way.  Believing the Chumblies and Rills dangerous, Maaga uses Steven as a hostage and forces the Doctor and Vicki go to capture it.  However, we discover the Rills (who yes, are rather frightening to humanoids) are actually a peaceful group.  They created the Chumblies to help them as the air is poisonous to them, and their efforts to bring the Drahvins with them are sincere.  However, the Drahvins are a warrior group, determined to conquer the galaxies.  The Doctor and Vicki now join the Rills to help their ship take off before the planet explodes.

First, however, they have to rescue Steven, who is nearly killed by Maaga when she won't let him enter from the airlock unless he surrenders.  The Drahvin, infuriated at the travelers escape, pursue them, but it is too late: the Rills have made their escape, and the TARDIS is defended by a Chumblie long enough to escape themselves.  The Drahvin are left to their fate, and the three space travelers ponder at what is going on in another world, one where a man tells himself he must kill...  

The Chumblies are not the first, nor would they be the last, 'monster' that might have looked good on paper but ended up coming across as a bit of a joke.  For whatever reason the First Doctor's tenure was plagued with weak imitations of the Daleks (like the Chumblies or the Mechanoids), and the Second Doctor's reaching a nadir with the Quarks in The Dominators.  It doesn't help matters that starting from Vicki, no one appears to take the Chumblies seriously as a threat (with the exception of the Drahvins).   For the record the creatures are never given an actual name, and it is only until The Exploding Planet (Episode Four) that the Rills use the phrase "Chumblies".  For the rest of Galaxy 4, they are almost always referred to as 'the creatures'.

The Chumblies sadly are the things that push Galaxy 4 down a bit, but despite their comical/cuddly mix the reconstructed episode is actually a good one.  First, I should compliment the editing work done on the restoration.  Using primarily telesnaps (photos taken directly from the screen when initially broadcast), one can sometimes see how it doesn't quite fit, but the did manage to integrate what was thought of as the only surviving footage (a seven minute clip of Episode One: Four Hundred Dawns) so well I hardly even noticed the transition.  Once we got the rediscovered Episode Three, again it flowed smoothly that it was never jarring, and when we returned to telesnaps for Episode Four: The Exploding World, it all fit in rather well. 

I don't want to give a wrong impression: it wasn't perfect.  It was obvious that sometimes the same photos were being used, but given the circumstances on the whole the effect on the viewing of Galaxy 4 made one focus on the story itself rather than on how there's only one episode left. 

Find Me...

As one watches Galaxy 4 one appreciates certain qualities in William Emms' story.  First, it is not often that the Doctor first encounters the villains and begins to take their side.  Galaxy 4 thus reverses the idea that what at first appears good and what appears dangerous really is not perhaps the truth.  Even in NuWho we have almost always had the Doctor and the Companion come across those in need FIRST, then the villains.  Galaxy 4 therefore, is one of the handful (and perhaps one of the few) to reverse that process, making it one with great twists and turns that are above all else, logical.

Second, in another Doctor Who rarity (certainly in the Classic Era) we get an on-camera flashback sequence.  Most of the time, even now, whenever a character talks about the past on Doctor Who, we just hear him/her describe what happened.  In the newly-discovered Episode Three: Airlock, we actually hear the Rills' version of events while watching it at the same time. Most of the time I find this rather distracting, but in Galaxy 4 I found it actually added to the story, primarily because it was so well-filmed.  Given that, it is a terrible shame that the other three episodes are not around to appreciate.  One imagines that Derek Martinus (with an uncredited Mervyn Pinfield) created some wonderful visuals.

They also brought great performances out of the guest stars.  Galaxy 4 is a sparely populated story (you have four Drahvins and hear the voice of one Rill), but the main weight is carried by Bidmead and Robert Cartland as the voice of the Rills.  Bidmead at first comes across as a strong and firm military mind but one who has cause to be hostile to the Rills and Chumblies, but by the end we see her as the villain, and a credit to her performance that she makes the transitional natural.  Cartland's impressive voice carries the rather frightening look of the Rills (which given their look would be nearly impossible to move about without looking strange at best, idiotic at worst).

One thing that is highly impressive is that the core group has great chemistry with each other.  I was very much taken by this exchange between Maaga and the Doctor.  When Maaga asks for them to help the Drahvins kill the Chumblies and Rills, the Doctor flat-out refuses.  "In the first place, Madam, I never kill anything.  Neither do my friends," he angry comments.

What a difference nearly fifty years makes...from a Doctor who says he never kills (and also one who in a future story, Inferno, states he isn't in the habit of telling lies), to a Companion who not only kills with glee but one whom he is supposed to be "passionately in love" with and a Doctor who has Rule Number One: The Doctor Lies.  Given how wildly Doctor Who has spun out of control, Galaxy 4 is a reminder, even in its incomplete state, of when the series took things seriously and has as its lead a man of intelligence and peace, not a nitwit who gave himself over to a psychopath. 

Yet I digress.

The Chumblies are sadly another failed marketing ploy, and their roly-poly appearance (not unlike James Corden) makes them more comical than menacing.  They are the answer to anyone who thought the Daleks were silly-looking.  Minus them, Galaxy 4 is a well-down story with good (and logical) twists and turns

I've faced down pepper pots.
Think I'll be afraid of a trash can?

  


7/10

Next Story: Mission to the Unknown

Next Available Story: The Daleks' Master Plan

Doctor Who Story 008: The Reign of Terror

STORY 008: THE REIGN OF TERROR

The six-part First Doctor story collectively known as The Reign of Terror is yet another of the 'lost' stories, with two episodes missing.  Through the magic of animation reconstruction, we now have as close to a complete restoration as possible should the episodes never be found.  It is also a historical story, and with the collective title of The Reign of Terror we can guess it takes place during the chaotic post-French Revolution period.  We learn that the French Revolution and the succeeding period is the Doctor's favorite period in Earth's history, though one wonders why a pacifist would enjoy a period a particularly bloody period.  While The Reign of Terror suffers from an excess in length and appears to be taking its cue from other stories (more on that later), it is on the whole less an adventure story and more a history lesson through the six episodes: A Land of Fear, Guests of Madame Guillotine, A Change of Identity, The Tyrant of France, A Bargain of Necessity, and Prisoners of the Consiergerie.

The Doctor (William Hartnell) is in as especially cross mood.  His Companions Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) and Ian Chesterton (William Russell) want to go back to their own time.  With a mixture of anger and hidden sadness he drops them off at what he thinks is 1963 England.  As is the ways of Doctor Who, he is mistaken: he lands them in France, specifically mid-July 1794 at the end of the rule of Maximilien Robespierre. 

The Doctor, his Companions, and his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford) now find themselves caught up int chaos of the Revolution.  Captured in a farmhouse, Ian, Susan, and Barbara are taken to Paris for prompt beheading as Enemies of the Revolution.  The Doctor, having survived the torching of the farmhouse, goes to their rescue.

He needn't have bothered.  While Ian is separated from the women, their route to the execution is interrupted by a secret group that rescues those sent to the guillotine.  Their rescuers, Jules (Donald Morsley) and Jean (Roy Herrick), suspect that there is a double agent within their ranks.  Also aiding them is the handsome and charming Leon (Edward Brayshaw), who has smitten and been smitten by Barbara.  Susan, however, has taken ill, and after a dangerous visit to a physician, they are recaptured and sent back to the Conciergerie Prison.

The Doctor, meanwhile, has infiltrated the Conciergerie, pretending he is a high provincial official of the Revolution.  The Jailer (Jack Cunningham) is constantly puzzled by this official, while the prison official and Revolutionary leader Lemaitre (James Cairncross) suspects there is something peculiar about this garishly-dressed officer.  It also doesn't help that he thinks Ian knows something about an espionage ring that is working with the British.  Ian, having overheard a dying prisoner, escapes and now has two goals: to find Susan and Barbara, and deliver a message to the mysterious James Stirling. 

Eventually the Doctor and his Companions are reunited, Barbara and Ian arrange a secret meeting where some Corsican general is offered one of three consul positions in a new French government, James Stirling's identity is exposed and Robespierre fell, bringing an end the Reign of Terror.

The Reign of Terror is at heart, a good idea for a story, but it has some flaws.  One big flaw is its length: at six episodes is it two episodes too long.  We go through a lot without actually having the cast be participants in either affecting or altering history be it major or minuscule.  Instead, they were just carried into events, always reacting to things but not impacting them.

Second, Dennis Spooner's story appears to be drawing inspiration (consciously or not) from The Scarlet Pimpernel.  We have a British agent working during the French Revolution who is involved in rescuing people from the guillotine while maintaining a secret identity.  Furthermore, we don't have any specific reason as to why Jean and Jules rescue Barbara and Susan in particular (other than they just happen to be in a passing tumbrel).  Part of me would have liked to have seen a little more humor without flashing back to the Looney Tunes' The Scarlet Pumpernickel.

The entire subplot of Ian's involvement with British spies seems to be there just to A.) lengthen the story and B.) give Ian something to do.  Most of the non-Doctor action involves Susan and Barbara: attempting to escape prison, attempting to stay alive and find both Ian and the Doctor.

Moreover, Ford's Susan proves herself to be shockingly annoying.  One appreciates that she has become violently ill during her time in prison (although to be frank, this whole 'Susan is getting in the way' business is slowly starting to get a bit tiresome), but even as she grows weaker and weaker (only to have a great recovery before the story ends), her whining and complaining about things slowly starts getting on our nerves.   It almost seems that most of the story is there, without the main cast having to do things to either get into or out of their situations.

One thing that was amusing (perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not) was the Doctor's wardrobe.  With his mass of feathers in his cap, it seemed that we can never fully take his get-up seriously.  Granted, it was done to get into the prison, but at times it does prove almost hilarious to see him constantly strut around like an unhinged peacock.  We also have an extended sequence in Episode Two: Guests of Madame Guillotine where the Doctor is put to manual labor which seems to just stretch the story.

Finally, for a story that is set in the Doctor's favorite era in human history (again, though we don't know why this particular time period is his favorite...I would have thought the Renaissance, or the Enlightenment, or even the Era of Good Feelings), he doesn't seem to either know much or show any particular fascination of being within that time frame.  He never stops to marvel that he is rubbing shoulders with Robespierre (who at least is seen as a loon).

However, The Reign of Terror has some wonderful things buried within this lost story.  Cunningham is in turns comic and menacing as the Jailer.  With equal ability he can be flustered, even flummoxed by the Doctor's mind games and suggest that he will take advantage of Barbara.   The identity of James Stirling does come as a true and unexpected shock.  We also have some of best examples of how Hartnell's Doctor is brilliant in how he is able to outwit his enemies rather than by using force.  How he manages to deceive the Jailer and Lemaitre, then use his backfired plan against the Jailer shows he is simply on a higher intellectual level.

One positive aspect is the conflict between Ian and Barbara after Leon the traitor is killed.  While Ian sees things as black-and-white (Leon was evil, he had to be killed), Barbara sees things in shades of grey (perhaps fifty given how she appears to like Leon).  She comments that Leon saw himself as a patriot, not as a villain.  In his perspective, Leon was working for the good guys and Jules and Jean were the bad guys.  It's unfortunate that the suggesting of attraction between Leon and Barbara stumps her argument, it does show that Doctor Who was willing to explore ideas about good and evil.  Unfortunately, this fascinating discussion was dropped pretty quickly but the fact it was introduced at all was a positive step.

Finally, the end of Episode Six has a simply wonderful closing scene with beautiful dialogue.  Having perhaps accepted that the four must keep wandering through time and space together a little bit longer, the Doctor muses, "Our lives are important, at least to us.  But as we see, so we learn."  Ian asks, "And what are we going to see and learn next, Doctor?"  The Time Lord replies, "Well, unlike the old adage, my boy, our destiny is in the stars, so let's go out and search for it."  We now see the chief strength of Doctor Who: limitless possibilities in terms of story. 

As far as the animation for the lost episodes (Episodes Four and Five: The Tyrant of France and A Bargain of Necessity) this is the second time we've had a reconstruction through animation.  The Invasion, the lost Second Doctor story, was brought to life through the work of Cosgrove Hall.  The Reign of Terror's animation is brought by Theta Sigma, and the styles of animation are clearly evident.  It might not be unfair to compare the two works, and I'm willing to acknowledge that perhaps seeing The Invasion first I am prejudiced towards that style of animation.

For myself, the animated episodes looked garish and surprisingly nonhuman.  I recognize that animation sometimes looks unreal, but with the two missing episodes I felt there was too much focus on the art and less on the human aspect.  In short, the animation drew a bit too much attention to itself in my view and less on the story.  While I got lost in the story of The Invasion and gave the animation not much thought (seeing it flow naturally in the story), The Reign of Terror didn't seem too concerned to make things look more natural.

On the whole, The Reign of Terror is a long but straightforward historic piece.  It isn't terrible but it has one or two flaws (particularly the length) to make it among the greats.  Still, on the whole mildly entertaining but nothing to lose our heads over.    

Unofficial Inspiration?

    

6/10

Next Story: Planet of Giants