The Rescue (1965)

The Powerful Enemy is the first episode to feature a new companion since An Unearthly Child and it introduces Maureen O’Brien to the show as Vicki. It’s the first time that we don’t have Carole Ann Ford and it must have been weird watching this in 1965 to not see her with the rest of the regulars. O’Brien is the first person that we encounter in the episode. She hears a noise on the scanner which she thinks is rescue. She is stuck with Bennett who is bed ridden and is determined to be a killjoy when Vicki comes in with so much energy.

Koquillion is introduced into this story as a mystery figure. Both Bennett and Vicki are afraid. When we do get to see him the costume is rather good. The music helps create the menace and its good that we don’t hear anything from him at first. It’s a first good impression. Sadly when he does speak to Barbara and Ian it’s a little disappointing. No electronic effect is used and it’s a shame really.

It’s nearly four minutes before the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are introduced. The Doctor is asleep when the TARDIS lands and his behaviour is very unusual. At first there is no real effect of Susan’s departure until they are about to leave the TARDIS and I like how the Doctor is embarrassed that he made the slip. The interaction between the Doctor, Ian and Barbara is rather sweet. It’s almost like a small family.

When Koquillion is left alone with Barbara its clear that something bad is going to happen. She falls of the side of the cliff and is only saved after clinging onto a branch and she manages to survive. Before long she is helped by Vicki. Bennett then tells Vicki after his ‘meeting’ with Koquillion that they have died and Vicki tells him that one survived and the look on his face is priceless.

The Doctor has visited the planet Dido before and remembers it’s as a nice place and there is a lovely scene where he reminisces to himself and has a nice chuckle about whether he can convince Ian that it was done on purpose. William Hartnell seems to be different in this episode and it’s a wonderful performance. The scene where the Doctor comes out of the TARDIS after the explosion in the cave and there is no smoke or dust yet the Doctor is acting like there is seems to be a slightly odd moment. It seems like the dust was suppose to move quicker than it did.

This a good episode by Christopher Barry. The bit where the Doctor is choking on no dust is a bit of a letdown but there is a good moment where Ian and the Doctor are walking along the ledge and see the monster below. The shot where Barry fits both in I thought was a good camera effect and it set up the cliffhanger rather well. This is a good episode as it sets up a new character but doesn’t make it obvious. I also like the small cast as it gives the characters more on screen time and even though this is the first of two episodes, it still feels like they are taking their time in telling this story. This episode is about setting up the mystery and the menace of Kaquillion and its done very well.

The final part of this all too brief adventure which introduces Maureen O’Brien to the Doctor Who world resumed with the Doctor and Ian about to be a late lunch for a monster that doesn’t look to dissimilar to the slither from Dalek Invasion of Earth. The way that Ian gets around the sharp knifes is quite clever. The story moves back to Vicki, Barbara and Bennett where Bennett continues the pretence that Ian and the Doctor are dead. When Barbara comes up with a plan to surprise Koquillion the look on Bennett’s face is great.

Barbara does a very bad thing in one scene where she shoots the monster after she thinks that Vicki is in danger. Vicki is angry and doesn’t appreciate what Barbara thought was a good deed. It’s a typically Barbara thing to do to instinctively try and do whatever she can to help someone else. However on this occasion she read the situation wrong and killed something that wasn’t going to cause harm. The first encounter between the Doctor and Vicki is a bit more grandfather/granddaughter than we had with the Doctor and Susan. He talks down to her far more than he ever did with Susan. It’s a worrying moment when this happens because this is pretty much why Carole Ann Ford left the show.

The story starts to take shape when the truth starts to emerge when the Doctor tries to speak to Bennett. When he finally gets in he discovers a room with audio equipment and also a trapdoor. Its simple but effective and its low-tech enough to believe that it could fool Vicki and not make her look like an idiot. There’s a funny scene where Vicki works out that Ian and Barbara are 550 years old. It’s funny because of the reaction of Ian and Barbara who feel old all of a sudden.

The Doctor is the one that works things out and slowly starts to put things together. This is William Hartnell’s best episode for a while as he becomes the smart one of the group The scene where the Doctor meets Koquillion is a great scene and its lit well and the atmosphere make it’s the best scene of the two episodes. It helps that its filmed in Black and White and not colour as I always think that monochrome adds so much to a story. The truth about Bennett is that he is a criminal that killed the crew and tried to blame it on the locals. It’s a good enough story and it works in the context of this story. In the fight that they have the Doctor is quite energetic and it’s the quickest I think we have seen him move for sometime. The battle end when two of the locals come out and force Bennett off the cliff. Quite why they waited until this point to come out of hiding is never made clear.

With her parents and Bennett dead, it’s the perfect opportunity for Vicki to join the crew. It’s nice how the Doctor, Ian and Barbara all come up with the same idea and it shows what a stronger team they are. The final shot on Dido is of the two Dido people smashing up the equipment. Not really getting that this wont really stop the rescue ship from coming.

The cliffhanger is literally a cliffhanger with the TARDIS materialising on the edge of a cliff and falling. It was a really good way to end the episode because it must have raised questions in peoples mind about what was going to happen. As an episode it was good because it did exactly what it needed to do. It solved the mystery of what was going on and found a constructive way of introducing Vicki As a story its just the right length and doesn’t get bogged down in trying to put padding into it and there are just the right number of characters in it to make it work. I thought that it was a good introduction for Vicki and a good story which isn’t that hard to believe considering its written by David Whittaker.

Cold Blood (2010)

The second two parter of this series sees the Doctor try and prevent a war between the Silurians and the Humans. Oh and by the way regardless of the several names that they seemed to have for me as a long term fan I will always call them Silurians. The problem with bringing back monsters from the past is that there is a fine balance to find between pandering to older fans and not alienating newer fans who probably wont have watched ‘The Silurians’ and ‘Warriors of the Deep’. The balance was found when the Doctor pointed out that he had met their kind before but the human wiped them out. Explaining the end of ‘The Silurians’ where the Brigadier wiped them out. There was a moment where they were

The most obvious thing from the previous episode is that either Rory, Tony or Ambrose would kill Alaya. The way that it happened was quite dramatic and I thought that whilst Ambrose probably didn’t intend to actually harm Alaya she was quite glad when she did. There was the thought in my head where I thought that this was going to be the catalyst to start a war between the Silurians and the humans. What was quite a refreshing change is that it didn’t spark this war but it came mighty close and that was entertaining.

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan were much stronger in this episode than the last. Gillan in particular was on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. I thought that she played the bit where she forgot about Rory seemed quite strange. I’m so use to her being besotted with Rory that to just blank him out was quite odd. I never thought I would say this but I was quite sad to see the character of Rory go. To be honest in the Eleventh Hour I found him irritating but since he came to travel in the TARDIS he has been one of the revelations of this story. Stephen Moore (Malohkeh) and Richard Hope (Eldane) were two names/voices that I recognised and their characters were likeable and very strong characters. There was the brief thought that I had was that he was going to join Restac and be involved in the war.

There were quite a lot of things I didn’t like in this story. I’m not totally sold on the look of the Silurians. I thought the mask with the massive black eyes were quite sinister but they were too far removed from the classic version. Yet again Steven Moffatt has an opportunity to update a classic monster (like the Daleks) and he has messed it up. They looked too human for my liking. I didn’t quite understand what the whole point of seeing Rory and Amy on the other side. Also where were the other villagers. Apart from the characters that we saw in this story there wasn’t a single human wandering around or getting involved asking why it was going dark in the middle of the day.

The ‘crack in the wall’ story arc returned in this story. The Doctor quite bravely puts his hand in the crack and one of the last shots was what the Doctor had pulled out of the crack and it was the top of the ‘call police’ sign on the TARDIS door. I just went NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO you cant leave it there. So this story whilst it wasn’t perfect and there were some fundamental flaws with this story (Chibnall should stick to doing Law and Order UK) at the end of the day the story was a welcome return for the Silurians but it will be remembered for the sad death of Rory.

Castrovalva (1982)

In many ways, Castrovalva and Peter Davison were the classic series’ answer to Matt Smith and ‘The Eleventh Hour’. Peter Davison came straight after the phenomenally popular Tom Baker and Matt Smith came after the equally (if not more so) popular David Tennant. This story is the third part in the unofficial but blatant trilogy starting with ‘The Keeper of Traken’ and ‘Logopolis’. This was also the first time that Doctor Who had moved away from its traditional Saturday night slot. There would also be two episodes a week as opposed to 1 so it the whole series would be half of what it is normally.

Most of the first two episodes are set in the TARDIS which is always something that I approve of. The reasons behind are two fold. Firstly we get to find different rooms that we’ve never been made aware of. Secondly it provides a claustrophobic atmosphere. The TARDIS is usually a place of safety and the vehicle where the Doctor and his companions are travelling to get to a new world. Not this time. We get to see a new room (The Zero Room) for the first and last time. We are also treated to learning that’s their a information databank. It’s quite hard to fully describe Peter Davison’s Doctor. His impressions were very good. I thought his William Hartnell was an unexpected comedy moment. It was interesting that this wasn’t the first story that Davison recorded but actually the fourth. This shows as a fresh Davison probably would have gone overboard and the time to film other stories enabled Davison to find his Doctor. Anthony Ainley is very good in this story, even playing Portreeve he managed to give an entertaining performance.

The story is about the Doctor being taken to Castrovalva where he can relax and get over his regeneration. However the Master is trying to kill the Doctor and the TARDIS crew can plunging the TARDIS to the beginning of the universe where the Big Bang took place. The Master is using Adric (I shake my fist at him) to see what is going on and programme the TARDIS. As the Doctor gets Nyssa and Tegan to jettison rooms of the TARDIS, the TARDIS lands on Castrovalva I found myself being totally engrossed with the surroundings. The story seemed to stop for a short time and that meant that we could marvel at some of the shots Fiona Cumming did. Then the story starts to break apart. We meet the inhabitants and to be harsh they look stupid and as the story progresses we discover they really are stupid. Once the action moves away from the TARDIS and more into Castrovalva I started to get a little tired of it. There was an awful lot of walking around and watching Mergrave being a nice but ultimately lukewarm character which is a shame because I like Michael Sheard partly based on his performance in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. The character of Portreeve was so blatantly the Master that it was embarrassing that no one else could tell that it was him, I even noticed the first time I saw it and I’m not normally one to notice that thing first time around. Of the three companions its Adric that has the best story. It’s the first time that I didn’t find him totally annoying even though the bits with the Master came quite close. Matthew Waterhouse is helped with the stupid pyjama outfit but this was his best performance before ‘Earthshock’. Nyssa and Tegan’s relationship seems to blossom despite this being only their second story together. They work together in the TARDIS and dragging the Doctor’s zero cabinet. It’s a credit to Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton who aren’t annoying and manage to fight for their performances to stand out in a sea of different characters.

Castrovalva isn’t quite a great story but neither is it a terrible one. Christopher H Bidmead isn’t my favourite writer partly because he seems determined to through sci-fi down our throats as quickly as possible. The first half of the story set in the TARDIS is very tense and dramatic but then the stuff on Castrovalva is just a little bit dull. Its when the story gets on Castrovalva that all the techno-babble gets thrust on screen.

An Unearthly Child (1963)

EPISODE 1 – AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
Originally Broadcast on BBC – Saturday 23 November 1963

Very atmospheric opening. Foggy with the eerie theme tune helping to create a wonderful effect. The camera in a seemingly following forcing its way into the Junkyard just like Barbara and Ian are about to, thought it was a nice metaphor. It feels weird that the story starts off in ‘contemporary’ London, Doctor Who would obviously return to Earth in the modern day but considering its mostly a non-earth series it has a different feel to the rest of the story. Ian and Barbara’s introduction seems like two natural teachers with a friendship. It’s very low key.

In their first scene it is Barbara who is the driving force into discovering the mystery about Susan. In the scene where Ian and Barbara are in the car it’s interesting how Barbara is the one that can sense there is something odd about the area. Susan’s introduction is really good. The way that she says that she likes walking through the fog as it’s mysterious. There is a moment when Susan is listening to John Smith and the Common Men. It’s odd how the John Smith gag seems to come from The Wheel in Space but this is the first mention of John Smith so this episode is the birth of the John Smith joke but it would be four years before it became part of the character. I thought the French Revolution reference was quite fortuitous as it would form the final story of this opening series.

The scenes where Ian and Barbara talk about their encounters with her are quite rare for the show as flashbacks don’t form part of the narrative until the new series and there good as we only see Susan but only hear Ian and Barbara so its as if we are the ones confronting Susan. Hartnell’s first appearance comes at the 11 minute mark which shows that this is really Ian and Barbara’s episode. Hartnell isn’t the warm and grandfather like figure that we know he becomes. In many respects he is the anti-grandfather figure. When they are in the TARDIS, he is very reluctant to explain himself to Ian and Barbara and won’t let them leave fearing that they will tell people.

Ian and Barbara’s first encounter in the TARDIS control room is our first encounter and it’s a superb introduction.  The console room might not have the grand scale that the new series console does but it still an impressive room. They are trying to use human logic to what they are experiencing and it’s a futile venture.  After Barbara leading the curiosity, its Ian who now leads the mission to try and understand where they are. Ian’s inability to try and understand what’s going on is fun to watch. Barbara still thinks its some sort of trick and she seems to be dealing with it a lot more than Ian.

After a superb start for Susan, she quickly resorts to being the child of the group. When she wants to leave the Doctor and live her life on earth. She seems to throw a mini-tantrum when they says this and its perhaps the only time (apart from Inside the Spaceship) that she shrugs off the child image and acts like an alien.  The cast do some fine wobbling acting when the TARDIS ‘takes off’. The panning out shot of London along with the ‘time vortex’ from the title sequence is as best an attempt to create the impression to the viewer that the TARDIS isn’t in a junkyard in November 1963.

The Cliffhanger is absolutely brilliant. A shadow appearing out of shot is one of my favourite cliffhangers in Doctor Who. This was an wonderful episode. It started off very well and continued to maintain my interest. Even though there are other people in the episode they don’t have an impact on the story and so its one of the rare occasions in Doctor Who where it’s just the main cast that are involved and it’s a clever move which helps establish that this isn’t your typical drama.

EPISODE 2 – THE CAVE OF SKULLS
Originally Broadcast on BBC – Saturday 30 November 1963

After the introduction episode we get to the main part of the story and our first introduction into a different world. We find out what the shadowy figure was from the cliffhanger. It’s a rather gormless looking individual. It’s a  case of the mind perhaps creating a more impressive answer than what we could possibly have expected. It would perhaps have been better to have a look in the TARDIS before we get to meet the clan. The first voices we hear in this episode are from the clan. It’s nearly 3 ½ minutes before we get back to the TARDIS and in that scene we get to basically understand what the next three episodes will be about. When we go back to the TARDIS there is a dramatic near four minute scene where Ian and the Doctor square up to discover the finer points of science. Despite what must have been a turbulent journey, Ian is still reluctant to accept what’s going on.

A nice scene in the TARDIS takes place concerning the name of the Doctor. Doctor Foreman is the name mistakenly given by Barbara as to the identity of Susan’s grandfather. With Ian being the first to question just what the Doctor’s real name is (a question still being asked 50 years on).When we leave the TARDIS we learn another thing about the show and that’s the TARDIS is suppose to change shape and blend in with its surroundings. It’s also rather odd to see the Doctor actually doing some scientific research into the surroundings. Normally the episode starts and the Doctor and crew are off and away so its nice to see the Doctor doing some research.

The central performances are noticeably different from the first episode. William Hartnell plays the Doctor really well in this episode as the Doctor is less frosty in this episode despite his stand-off with Ian. William Russell is putting a good performance. I like how confident Ian thinks he is that the Doctor is a charlatan. Even after stepping out of the TARDIS he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. This continuous refusal to believe what’s in front of him would normally be quite annoying but with Russell its good. Carole Ann Ford does the best that she can but Susan’s still hysterical. She’s degraded quickly. Barbara is playing the mother figure, it’s quite surprising just how quickly these two characters have been bedded down but I still think that Jacqueline Hill is a very good actress and Barbara is the stronger written character out of the two. The TARDIS crew that we have now do the finest ‘pretending to be frozen in a baking hot studio’ acting I think I’ve ever seen

The problems with this story become evident in this episode. The cave storyline is rather pedestrian and dull compared to the more interesting storyline with the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara. Essentially it’s a power struggle with the leader being the one who can make fire. The only character that is of any interest is Old Mother. Old Mother is clearly someone who revels from Za not being able to make fire. Eileen Way is clearly having fun despite looking haggard and grim.

The only time that the cave clan become interesting is when the Doctor gets bought in a then it leads to quite a dramatic rescue by Ian, Barbara and Susan with an even better moment where the Doctor tries to save Ian’s life. But it’s a futile attempt as it leads them to the first prison cell scene of Doctor Who.  Considering the episode is called ‘The Cave of Skulls’ it quite bizarre then that its 23 minutes before the story moves into the cave. The cliffhanger is quite good as at the time it must have been quite grim because the camera focuses on a skull with a hole in it and the idea that you would have to wait a whole week to see whether your new favourite characters would have a hole in their head after just three weeks is quite nice.

The Cave of Skulls isn’t quite as good as An Unearthly Child but there are still some elements that are entertaining.

EPISODE 3 – THE FOREST OF FEAR
Originally Broadcast on BBC – Saturday 7 December 1963

The Doctor opens the episode apologising for getting them trapped. It’s probably the nicest that the Doctor would be for a while. As he drastically changes throughout the episode. The story in this episode sees the TARDIS crew trying to desperately escape from the cave and get back to the TARDIS however as the power struggle in the tribe gets worse and worse it heightens up the tension for the Doctor and co. There is a wonderful quote in the early part of this episode “Fear makes companions of us all” is a wonderful quote from the Doctor.

It’s not been mentioned before but the set designs are quite good. It’s not really evident that it’s been filmed in a studio. The cave sets in particular are well designed and have a claustrophobic feel to them which is I know what you would want from a cave but it’s lit quite badly and that helps to create the right impression.

Ian’s role as the action man of the group is established in part three as he is the one who’s hopes of setting them free rely upon. He becomes the one who is quite resourceful and is always trying to come up with ways of helping someone. Russell has been a strong presence in these episodes whether its having the argument with the Doctor in the previous episode or being resourceful.  It’s Barbara’s turn to be the hysterical one. After two episodes of being the strong one taking things in her stride, she then becomes the one that just screams and cries during the course of the episode. Her decision to go and help Hur after Za has been attacked might seem like a stupid thing to do but it recovers Barbara from being the hysterical one and establishes the character as a caring person.

The Old Woman doesn’t want the Doctor to make fire. It’s a curious request considering how much everyone else wants it. It’s a shame when she dies cause I thought that she was a really good character and well played. Eileen Way has been one of the gems of this story but I think that her usefulness has run its course but its still a shame when a good character gets written out. Za and Hur are really good in this as Za’s desperation intensifies and Hur is doing everything she can to help him. Za does raise a good point about why Hur did nothing when Old Mother took Za’s rock. Apart from that she is really good and even Za is quite good.

The middle section of the episode is the highlight of the episode because it’s a good chase sequence with Za and Hur chasing Ian, Barbara, Susan and the Doctor. It’s halted when Hur gets attacked by something which we don’t see (presumably a tiger or a lion). The moment when the Doctor picks up a rock and is clearly going to kill Hur is something that you wouldn’t associate with the character. It shows the darker side of the character and its quite a surprising thing because he of course would play the grand father figure quite well in the rest of his time on the show and he continues to be the anti-grandfather. Hartnell’s performance is very good  and is the best out of the regular characters.

The cliffhanger was quite good. Just when we think that the Doctor and the rest have made it back to the TARDIS then they encounter some of the tribe who come out of the darkness its quite well done and then when Ian tells the other to go back they face more trouble in the form of Kal. The look on his face is very serious as his power in the tribe grows. I thought that this was a much improved episode on Cave of Skulls. For one, the title actually has some meaning here as most of the story takes place in the forest and there is a certain amount of fear. The final episode is set up nicely by what goes on in this episode.

EPISODE 4 – THE FIREMAKER
Originally Broadcast on BBC – Saturday 14 December 1963

The final part of this introduction to Doctor Who after nearly getting into the TARDIS, the crew are captured and taken back to the cave. When they do get back to the cave there is a nice bit of teamwork between the Doctor and Ian, it’s made even nice when Ian makes sure Za knows that the Doctor is the leader. The first eight or nine minutes bumble along and there is nothing really exciting that grabs the attention but then at nine minute mark the power struggle takes centre stage. It’s been bubbling along for the previous two episodes but here it intensifies when fire has been made. We have our first big action sequence and it doesn’t involve any of the regular crew. It’s between Za and Kal It’s quite a violent  encounter  buts its well worked out.  The reactions from the regulars help make that scene even more graphic.

There is a last minute plot device to crank up the tension when after Ian has made fire for Za, he refuses to let them go and the TARDIS crew are still trapped. However it’s a short lived imprisonment because they discover a way to get out. Susan is the one that works out how make the cavemen scared. It might have been Ian that worked out the finer details but its still Susan who starts the ball rolling. Considering how for the last two episodes she has been whining and acting like a kid but here that has all disappeared. The cavemen are pretty easy to scare and so it’s a plan that works well. It’s a wonderful image of the skulls being on fire, it’s quite a well realised image that is helped because its black and white television.

The central performances are all consistently good for the first time since the first episode. The Doctor is less grumpy and frosty than he has been and William Hartnell performs very well. It’s quite good how he has become more dishevelled as the story has progressed and has mellowed since the first episode. Carole Ann Ford has had a good episode, not only does she come up with the idea but she doesn’t go hysterical and is good to watch. Jacqueline Hill puts in a good performance after her brief moment of hysterics she is the strong figure that we know she can be and Hill can play that well. William Russell’s most significant contribution to the story is when Ian makes fire. It’s not to say that he wasn’t very good but I don’t it was his finest episode. In the supporting cast Alethea Charlton has become the star of the story with her stunning performance in the past three episodes. She started off quietly but soon became an important member of the story and she was strong until the very end.

Visually the story has been very good and continues here. The cave scenes have been the heart of the story and it was made very well. The scene where the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan are running back to the TARDIS and being chased is done in a rather odd way. Just static shots of each of the regulars with branches hitting them in the faces. I know that it was a means to an end because they probably didn’t have the space to do a running scene but it just doesn’t sit as well as the rest of the story.

It’s good how when the TARDIS takes off, Barbara and Ian think/hope that the Doctor will take them back to 1963 but it’s not going to be that simple. The sense of desperation from Ian and Barbara shows that a trip back in time isn’t going to make them want to go travelling with the Doctor which is what happens pretty much every time that someone new joins the show. When they do land the world that they have landed on doesn’t look like Earth and the cliffhanger ends with the radiation detector hitting danger just after Susan has checked it when it was normal.

As an episode it’s half a good episode but spends an awful long time to get into gear. When it does though its really good and the second half is what saves this episode. As a story, I had always thought that it was one quarter very good and three quarters ok. However having watched them over four days I must say that its half a good story and half ok.  The first and third episodes are enjoyable and the second and final episode sort of let the side down but it definelty a good start to the journey of the Doctor.

The Mind Robber (1968)

The Mind Robber is a strange story in more ways than one. It uses a lot of characters from stories and fables and what appears to be normal isn’t. The story was actually only meant to be four episodes however due to problems with the previous story ‘The Dominators’ that story was made one episode shorter and a new Episode 1 was required. However with no money for extra sets or characters it was just the main cast, the TARDIS console set and a white cyclorama that was used.

I like episodes that are just set in the TARDIS. It gives a claustrophobic feeling that is very refreshing. That’s one of the reasons why I love ‘Inside the Spaceship’ so much. Like that story there is an unseen threat to the TARDIS crew which sees Jamie seeing his home town in Scotland and Zoe’s home town in some space-age town. Both wanted to get out of the TARDIS and they soon realise that it’s a trick. Due to the fact that there are only the three characters it means there’s a lot more time for them to interact and this is intriguing to me.

This story features the Master but not the one that we all know and love. He turns out to be controlling the controller but all we see of it is a big ball with some cobwebs in it. The Master was bought to the Land of Fiction though he doesn’t class himself as a prisoner. He loves writing but is wired to a machine and it is the machine that wants the Doctor to replace the Master due his age. The Master starts off as a nice bumbling author who is as sweet as pie but when the Doctor refuses to take over from him he shows his nastier side. The plan is that the Master/Controller is going to take all the people on Earth and use their imaginations for his purpose. With the Earth empty, the Master can create his own world with his own characters. As plans go its quite out there. But then what in Doctor Who isn’t.

There’s a nice battle of words between the Master and the Doctor with the threats and dangers getting more extreme each time. It was nice to begin with but ultimately got silly as time went on. I found the idea that there was that the actions of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe were being read out via a machine and the Master.

This story is also notable for the fact that for one episode, Frazer Hines got replaced by Hamish Wilson due to Hines having Chicken Pox. To be Wilson he did a competent job, he wasn’t on par with Hines but then that like getting another actor to pretend to be Patrick Troughton. They’ll do a decent job but it just won’t work. When Hines was in it he was his usual likeable self. Wendy Padbury was also on good form but I did find it disconcerting that she kept screaming. For some reason I think that smart academic women like Zoe or Liz Shaw shouldn’t scream. It just doesn’t seem natural. Patrick Troughton was on usual good form and at this time of his run as the Doctor he was seemed to be getting slightly tired of these sorts of stories.

The main problem that there is with this story is that it’s just dull. There’s no immediate threat for the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. It was quite late in the story before the Doctor meets the master. I think that this should have happened quite a lot earlier in the story. Also I found the actors playing some of the literature characters to be a bit below par. Especially Christine Pirie who played Princess Rapunzel. She seemed wooden to me and I didn’t care for the character. I also can’t understand why they bothered to bring in Karkus. The actor playing Karkus (Christopher Robbie) wasn’t a muscular as he should have been and the scene with Karkus battling Zoe was just embarrassing and shouldn’t have been committed to film. The only character that I thought worked was Gulliver as played by Bernard Horsfall who is always a reliable actor.

The Mind Robber isn’t a bad story just dull. Peter Ling did a credible job writing this story but just put too many characters in it. Worth a viewing but don’t expect too much from it.

Night's Black Agents (2010)

May is the month where Big Finish release two Companion Chronicles. Despite numerically this story is the latter I decided to listen to this one first. This is also the first Sixth Doctor Companion Chronicle with only the Eighth Doctor yet to have one. A fact that will be resolved in June 2010. Set immediately after City of Spires but recorded after Legend of the Cybermen, this story tells of the dreaded Kelpie. Night’s Black Agents is written by newcomer Marty Ross. As the Doctor and Jamie head back to the TARDIS they discover that the TARDIS has been taken and soon running from the Kelpie. They are rescued by Reverend Merodach who as it turns out is the Devil.

The story took a while to get going with the setting up the story and the introduction of Reverend Merodach but once all that was sorted the story really got interesting and the moment that the Reverend was revealed it became marvellous. I had an issue with the fact when the Reverend/Devil said he wanted the TARDIS because he had seen the future and wanted to leave to try his luck on another world. Come again? How rubbish is it when the Devil (or even someone pretending to be the Devil) gets scared by the future of Earth and wants to get out before it gets difficult.

Frazer Hines was brilliant in this story. He has a reputation for being able to do an outstanding Patrick Troughton impression but he also did a good impression of Colin Baker. Not on par with Troughton but I did get what he was trying to do. However Hines was out performed by Hugh Ross who’s voice was created for radio. He played the Reverend with an elegant style and before his revelation gave some superb lines aimed at trying to show the Doctor how he was in the wrong. When he became the Devil his voice became even more powerful and part of that was due to Howard Carter who modified the voice to create the right impression. Lisa Bowerman has become effectively the chief director of the Companion Chronicles and has done another great job and moved the story along at quite a steady pace.

Night’s Black Agent is a very good Companion Chronicle story. I wish I had listened to this before Wreck of the Titan because I think that the whole Sixth Doctor/Jamie story arc would have been that bit more special but we learn from our mistakes (hopefully).

The Enemy Within (a.k.a The TV Movie) (1996)

He’s Back...and it’s about time! Well that’s the tag line that the continuity announcer gave when Doctor Who returned onto BBC television since December 1989. This was the first Doctor Who story that I had watched since I became a fan back in 1988 after seeing an episode of Remembrance of the Daleks. This TV Movie was a co-production between Universal, the BBC and FOX and was an attempt at a back door pilot to hopefully be made into a full series. An interesting stat according to Wikipedia states that this episode of Doctor Who cost close to £3.5 million or $5 million US. In was recently commented on in one of the DVD’s that they thought it was a mistake for them to bring back Sylvester McCoy only to kill him off 10 minutes into the story. I disagree. I think it was a nice piece of continuity and it was a mistake that they didn’t bring McGann back to regenerate into Christopher Eccleston. Also for the record, I think calling this story just ‘The TV Movie’ is a bit weird. From now on I’m going to call it the name that keeps getting banded about – The Enemy Within.

I quite liked the opening bit which explained that the Master had been exterminated by the Daleks. Quite why they bothered to use the Daleks when you only hear their voices is beyond me. The story sees the seventh Doctor regenerate into the eighth and a race against time to stop the Master from using the Eye of Harmony to destroy the Earth. There are many questions that remained unanswered in this story such as where and how long ago did Ace depart to? Also when did the Doctor become so in love with Gothic furniture and statues? The opening few shots have loads of bits and pieces.

There were many things that I liked about this story was that for the first time in the history of Doctor Who it looked like some money had been spent on it. The interior and console of the TARDIS looked beautiful and far superior to anything that is seen even in the new series. I also thought that Paul McGann was a very good Doctor. At the time I wasn’t aware of anything he had been in and at 13 years old at the time all I knew him as was the next Doctor. I thought that McGann gave a very credible performance and with some of the action sequences reminded me of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor. Pertwee sadly died shortly before transmission. Daphne Ashbrook was also very good in this story as Dr Grace Holloway. To be honest she did grate on me at first but after the scene with her and Chang Lee. Also I had the same reaction to this character played by Yee Jee Tso. I thought the final scene with everyone in the Eye of Harmony room was probably the best of the entire piece. All the character being killed and chained up left right and centre along with the Master taking all of the Doctor’s memories was a real highlight.

There were flaws with this production. It pains me to say this but Julia Roberts’ brother Eric was very poor in this. He camped the scene in the TARDIS where he says “I always dress for the occasion”. Not even John Nathan Turner would have allowed that. He wasn’t a total disaster but neither was he anything like Anthony Ainley and worlds apart from Roger Delgado. Another problem was the plot was a little bit basic. I know that it’s a pilot and had a series been cast then there would have been better stories planned out but for most of the story it was the Doctor and Grace chasing the Master and Chang Lee around San Francisco on the eve of the Millennium.

In one way it’s a shame that FOX never made a series out of it because it would have been nice to see what McGann’s Doctor would have been like. To be fair we now know what it would have been like thanks to Big Finish who have given McGann well over 30 adventures over the last near ten years. However when watching this TV Movie I am left wondering WHAT IF?? That said on the other hand I’m glad they didn’t because now we have a TV series of Doctor Who that’s made by the BBC and made in Britain where it wont be watered down and made to be like Jack Bauer with a Sonic Screwdriver. Oh it was good that they bought the screwdriver back, long overdue!

At the end of the story I thought it was a good story. Brilliant production values and even after 14 years it stands us really well. Matthew Jacobs has written a good script with ok characters but largely good solid ones and Geoffrey Sax has directed a nicely paced adventure. The only Doctor Who story of the 1990’s and the last to be made in the 20th Century was a good piece of drama and at 85 minutes long this story is something that should be viewed by every new Doctor Who fan.