‘Soon you will wish you had died on the Stone of Blood,’ says a Swampy to Romana at one point. Fair point, but I suppose then she would have missed out on The Androids of Tara. Robert Holmes is positively tempting fate with the above and exchanges like, ‘A sort of Holy Writ?’ ‘I think it’s atrociously writ’; ‘Too glib by half’. It’s not as bad as all of that, but this is definitely not vintage Holmes. Double acts are in short supply and exposition scenes (like the one where Dugeen and Thawn stare at a screen) go on forever without any good jokes to lift them. I suppose the whole plot revolves around Kroll’s farts, which are generating the methane for the refinery: I expect that had Holmes sniggering at the typewriter.

Continue reading →

I wouldn’t say that the production of Season 16 has been a great leap forward for the show. It’s a massive improvement over Season 15, but there’s been nothing that looks quite as impressive as a Douglas Camfield or David Maloney serial. But there’s been a shift into that late 1970s BBC space opera aesthetic – capes, frocks, tunics, blouses – perfected by Blake’s 7 but very evident on Ribos, Tara, and even Zanak. Strangely, the first thing I notice about The Power of Kroll is it looks like a Pertwee story, with the occupying Earth Empire in space uniforms and the native “Swampies” green and loinclothed like refugees from Uxarieus. Even the Doctor and Romana are dressed less exotically than usual (the Doctor’s new coat, presumably a replacement for the grey tweed one, is very nice but it’s got no swirling velvet tails) Only Rohm-Dutt brings a bit of Han Solo to the party, and he’d still never make it as one of Blake’s crew.

Continue reading →

Doctor Who has never been as swashbuckling as it gets here. Tom Baker looks the part, long coat swirling as he locks swords with Count Grendel, crashing the midnight wedding of the King and Romana in an eleventh-hour rescue. This looks as good as anything since Graham Williams took over: the night filming is a lot more effective than The Stones of Blood’s day-for night, the use of Leeds Castle for Castle Gracht helps sell the setting, and – perhaps aside from the intimate throne room – nothing in studio is beyond the bounds of the BBC budget.

Continue reading →

This is a rare example of the third episode of a Doctor Who story improving on the first two. Mainly, it’s because the stately pace of the first half, which allowed David Fisher to set up some of the plot convolutions and characters, all begins to coalesce here, and what might have been final-episode pay-offs, like Madam Lamia’s death, instead become part of events spiralling out of Grendel’s control.

Continue reading →

Wisely, for a story with so many doubles, David Fisher keeps the fairytale plot very straightforward. Less impressively, some of the dialogue seems to have been duplicated – the Archimandrite (yay, Cyril Shaps!) has the same conversation, about having to choose another king should the Prince not show up, twice in quick succession with Count Grendel: even making allowances for the “casual viewers” this feels a bit like overkill.

Continue reading →

While the Prisoner of Zenda references are well documented (not that I’d know Zenda from Zelda), Doctor Who’s 15th anniversary episode also owes a predictable debt to Star Wars. It’s got Mary Tamm cosplaying Princess Leia again (although, tantalising the dads, she dangles the possibility of wearing Tahitian costume), futuristic swords, a furry Chewbacca creature, the original Jabba the Hutt, and an advanced, android-building civilisation clothed like an operatic version of the 19th Century.

Continue reading →

‘You have been tried and found guilty of the following charges: impersonating a religious personage, to wit, a Celtic goddess…’ If only the Megara had been around in the Pertwee years they would have cleared up most of UNIT’s cases in record time. This is immense fun. I’m a sucker for a courtroom drama, so turning this final episode into Crown Court in space was always going to float my boat. But when it includes the Doctor calling Romana ‘Miss Dvoratrelundar’, Vivien feyly consenting to the mind probe, and the Megara being incredibly stuffy and pompous and accusing Romana of incompetence, I’m completely sold.

Continue reading →

Geekily, the most exciting thing about this episode was the surprise appearance (I think the first in the show) of BBC Micro style graphics to display the prison ship hovering above the stone circle. As a staple of the show (and schools) through the 1980s, it’s like seeing the future arrive. It’s also a great illustration of the central twist of The Stones of Blood: a story that, up until now, has been full of ancient stones and antique oil paintings veers into the cleanest white space corridors this side of Nerva (fittingly, there’s a Wirrn in one of the cells).

Continue reading →

Everyone talks about Emelia Rumford, who is one of the triumvirate of brilliantly batty old ladies in the Tom Baker years. But Susan Engel’s performance is superb. In a series that – to this point – has had vanishingly few female baddies, she sets the benchmark. Vivien Fay is playful and teasing, even flirtatious, but with a brutal streak and the sense that, like Richard III, she really rather enjoys being evil. Missy is basically Vivien Fay turned up to 11. The scene where she half-botheredly tries to nix Romana’s plans to investigate the Nine Travellers while sipping tea is brilliant.

Continue reading →

After Season 15 offered up Image of the Fendahl for Halloween, Season 16 gives us another Dennis Wheatley horror thriller set in contemporary Britain. So far, this is preferable, largely because the villains are more vivid (I love that De Vries smokes a cigarette and sips sherry during his interview with the Doctor: it’s so gloriously stockbroker-turned-Satanist) and there’s an oppressive, ominous atmosphere of empty countryside and haunting music that makes for an excellent contrast with the garrulous sci-fi of The Pirate Planet.

Continue reading →