Underworld (1977)

Underworld is a story that until it’s release on DVD, was the only Doctor Who story that I had never watched all the way through. That’s because it’s a story that is all over the place and that surprising considering the writers. This was Bob Baker and Dave Martin’s sixth story and their track record was very strong but unfortunately that perennial problem of money put a spanner into the works. This story is forever known as the one with the CSO. Apart from the spaceship set the story is entirely a CSO story which sees the actors trying to imagine where things are and this story pushes the boundries of what can be achieved with CSO.

The story starts off really well. We meet a group of people who seem to be on a long quest for something and have the ability to regenerate just like the Timelords. However after episode one the story starts to fall down as we find outselves in the middle of the planet. I was quite surprised to see that there was a civilisation in a world than until only a few moments ago didn’t exist.

Tom Baker and Louise Jameson do a reasonable job however neither of them are given anything memorable or major to do. Credit must go to all the actors (including the extras) who managed to work under very pressurised circumstances. When I was watching the DVD extras and they talk about having to film against CSO, you can appreciate just how much work and effort went into just making the damn thing ready for transmission. It’s not difficult now to film something entirely but for the very limited Doctor Who budget its something that hasn’t aged well and doesn’t look entirely convincing. Now with the benefit of hindsight, the thing I would have done would be to just use a minimal amount of CSO and use the remaining sets to tell the story. Ok it would have required some tweaking in the script but I think it would have been far better than Underwrodl.

Once you get past the CSO then its down to the story and sadly it is very dull indeed. Essentitally there is a lot of running around with some people in strange looking costumes and masks covering their face. To be honest I could try and talk about the plot but the problem is that its just not very interesting and I don’t like saying that about a Baker and Martin script but the truth is that even there was a budget for this then it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Underworld is a story that isnt very good but you have to watch it just to see how sheer determination and hard work manage to get something this ambitious to screen. Sadly the plot is very boring and doesnt really work.

The Sun Makers (1977)

The Sun Makers is written by one of the greatest writers that Doctor Who has ever had. Robert Holmes is someone that has written some truly classic stories. Sadly The Sun Makers isnt one of those but having watched it recently I have to admit that its slightly better than I had previously given it credit for. The story takes place on Pluto which at the time must have seemed a fantastic idea, however since 2004 it’s not called a planet and is considered to be a collection of gasses. Thus making a planet where any civilisation cant live impossible. This story comes in Graham Williams’ first season as producer and he was trying to steer the show in a new direction after years of dark and gothic adventures. This story was suppose to be a satire on the taxation system however it gets bogged down and ends up being a slightly dull story.

The story is essentially about the Doctor helping those ‘tax dodgers’ from rising up against Gatherer Hade and the Collector. However the problem is that the people that he is trying to help are very boring and I find myself not really caring about them. The only one that I found myself liking was Roy Macready (Cordo). We get to hear his story and so can sympathise when he attempts suicide but is saved by the Doctor and Leela. Aside from that only Williams Simons is worth watching and that’s only because he was in the ITV drama Heartbeat. Richard Leech is pretty poor as Gatherer Hade. I know that this is suppose to be a satire but his character could have been slightly less camp and a bit more sinister. It seems odd that the collector would have Hade working for him but I suppose it was needed for the story.

There are things to like about this adventure. The story does come up with a funny line where Leela asks if paying taxes is like sacrifices to tribal gods and the Doctor replies “Paying taxes is more painful”. Then there is Henry Woolf. His involvement only starts in episode two but whenever he is on screen I find that the scene and the story pick up. The location scenes are very good and Pennant Roberts makes the best use of what there is. It would have been better if the sun had come out because the view would have been spectacular but Roberts still does well.

The ultimate problem with this story is the Robert Holmes has taken his eye of the ball and lost what he does best. Instead of telling a damn good story he is using this show as a way of ripping into the Inland Revenue for whom he had some dealings with previously which weren’t nice. Ok I can understand his frustration but there are better ways of dealing with that and The Sun Makers is a story that shows what a horrible thing taxation can be towards the poor but it should be able aliens and gribly things.

Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are reasonable in this story. Quite why Louise Jameson considers this to be one of her favourites is beyond me. Ok she’s entitled to her opinion but I think there were better stories to feature Leela. This isnt one of Tom Baker’s finest stories either but he’s just going through the motions here. The less said about K9 the better. There is a scene where he is meant to be creeping up behind someone but he’s making such a bloody racket that its hard to believe. The Sun Makers is a watchable story that has some good things in it but sadly is ruined by a lacklustre rebellion group and a gatherer that went AWOL from a panto. Not one of Robert Holmes’ finest.

Image of the Fendahl (1977)

Image of the Fendahl is a very strange story in that it is very dull but is at the sametime very watchable. This is the third story from Chris Boucher in the space of a year and its very different from The Face of Evil and The Robots of Death in that it has a earth settin with familiar things like proper chairs and tables and scientists in white coats and some very dodgy accents. The story takes place in a village called Fetchborough where four scientist are working on a skull that they found in Kenya which is apparently over twelve million years old. It’s not long before things start going wrong and the race if on to stop the Fendahl.

With its very dark and gothic story you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was a Philip Hinchcliffe story and not a Graham Williams and whilst the story itself is fairly dull it’s the cast that makes this story what it is. Lets start with Wanda Ventham who is just brilliant at the beginning. As Thea Ransome she seems to be the most normal member of the science crew. She is really good as Thea but then in the latter half become the Fendahl Core she goes into a different style of performing. I also liked Denis Lill as Doctor Fendelman who puts on the oddest accent that I have ever heard. It’s quite funny to think that these two would go on to play the parents of Cassandra in the BBC Comedy ‘Only Fools and Horses’. Lill has to spend the early part of this story playing to fans potential theries that because his character’s name is close to the name in the title that he would become the bad guy but this a nice little red herring thrown in by Boucher. Another familiar face that appears in this story is that of Geoff Hinsliff who would play Don Brennan in the ITV soap Coronation Street from 1987 to 1997. In this story he plays the son Jack Tyler who’s mother is quite the strict person. He is involved in one of the most bizarre cliffhangers in Doctor Who history. I thought that the person playing his mother was far more entertaining. Daphne Heard played Martha Tyler like a very typical TV mother. She starts off a very odd but then by the half way stage she develops into a very fun and likeable character and when the story starts to get bogged down its good that she was there to provide some entertainment.

There is something about Louise Jameson in this story that doesn’t quite work. I think it might be her outfit or it might be the fact that she seems to be wearing more make up than she usually does. She massive brown stains on her cheeks which become distracting as well as her hair being up as opposed to down which is how she normally has it. Now it could be argued that this is the Doctor’s continuing attempt to make Leela more civilised but I just think that if your going to change someone then go the full hog and just dress her up like she was in Horror of Fang Rock and Talons of Weng-Chiang. This just made Jameson look odd. Performance wise, Jameson is on very good form and is on par with Baker who seems to be growing in confidence to make the Doctor more comedic than he has ever been.

The design of the Fendahl is very impressive and way better than that stupid looking prawn in ‘The Invisible Enemy’. It’s only when it moves that it becomes a little bit silly but when you see it and you look at pictures of it you cant help but be impressed with it. Jokes are made about how rubbish some monsters are but on this occasion a lot of time and effort has gone into making the Fendhal creature look as good as it can.

The story begins and ends with scenes featuring K9. The ‘loveable’ tin dog who debuted in the previous story doesn’t feature quite as prominently as I thought he would which says to me that his introduction to the TARDIS crew was a very late addition. I have to say that I am glad because I really couldn’t see the point of K9 and thankfully this story doesn’t lose anything from not having him in it. Image of the Fendahl is a story the benefits from some really good directing but the main problem with the story is that it isnt very interesting and its only because of the performances that makes this story worth watching.

The Many Deaths of Jo Grant (2011)

The Many Deaths of Jo Grant is the most curious title that there has been with a Companion Chronicle adventure. Written by the ever reliable hands of Cavan Scott & Mark Wright (The Prisoner of Peladon, Project Lazarus, Project Twilight and Project Destiny). This story is very much in the same vein as stories like Recorded Time and Other Stories where there are multi stories in one release. Here we get three stories which start off like any normal story but then all end with the death of Jo Grant (hence the title).

The three stories are all fairly interesting with the curious part being why are they happening and if there not real or visions of the future then who is causing them and the answer is very good. Each story could easily have been tweaked to make a decent story. The thing that I liked best about this story is that it takes one simple thing about the character of Jo and exploited it into a 70 minute story. We all know that the thing that makes Jo special is her willingness to sacrifice her life for the Doctor’s. The most memorable moment came in The Daemons when she wouldn’t let the Doctor be killed and its where Azal could not understand someone willing to sacrifice themselves for another. This is where this story stands up and after the third time we find out the truth. It came at just the right time because any more and it would have left very little time for the explanation.

I was starting to get worried when in the final act we thought that the Doctor had been killed but it turned out to be another ‘dream’. I was worried for a moment that we were going to get a few more scenarios like this and this would be the point where I would have lost interest but credit to the writers they held back from this. I liked the little plot point the different scenario’s that Jo has been aware of has happened to her 412 times over the space of four days. This is a horrible thing to force someone to go through and its quite a relief when its over.

Katy Manning is superb in this story. Quite frankly I could listen to her in practically anything. I don’t know whether this has happened in other stories that Manning has done but when she is actually doing the Jo that features in the story as opposed to her narration voice, her voice is bang on to the voice used when she was on TV. Nicolas Asbury is good as the other performer and does well in each of the different segments of this story. To be able to do three different performances and make them seem totally different is quite impressive.

The Many Deaths of Jo Grant is a very good story that takes a simple character trait and uses it well to tell a very good story. I think that it might be my favourite CC of this sixth series and shows that even after 48 stories (not including Freakshow or Mists of Time), that the Companion Chronicles format is one that can achieve anything and its down to the limitation of the writer (or in this case writers) to show what can be done.

The Invisible Enemy (1977)

The Invisible Enemy is a very important story in the history of Doctor Who. Love him or hate him, this story saw the first appearance of K9. This is another story written by the very reliable double act of Bob Baker & Dave Martin. This was their sixth story for the show and whilst this isnt the best it certainly has some good things going for it. The first half of the story is the best because it’s the more dramatic. The story starts off with some space crew in horribly white spacesuits who are infected by the swarm. They then travel to the Titan Base where they plan to start a breeding ground.

Right, lets start with the positives. I like the plot, it’s a nice typical Doctor Who story that has some interesting ideas. The idea that there is a swarm that is trying to breed is very sci-fi and the sets set on Titan are very good. I also think that any story featuring Michael Sheard is going to be raised because of his prescence. Name me a story that Michael Sheard was bad in… You cant (I’m imagining you cant!). There are some shots when Sheard and other are appearing on a screen in the hospital which do look quite creepy. Ok the make up of the infected is slightly dodgy by today’s standards but there is something about it that is quite fun. Also all the performances are quite good. Tom Baker is on good form and so is Louise Jameson who continues to impress me. After two consecutive stories (Talons of Weng-Chiang and Horror of Fang Rock) where she was very strong, she gets some very good scenes and I do like they she was the only one who couldn’t get infected because she was stupid. The primitive nature of Leela’s intelligence has often been a source of mocking in her stories but in this case its used as a plot device and as a result Jameson gives a good account of herself.

The problems with this story occur in the second half of the story. Once they go inside the Doctor’s head it really starts to test the patience of mine. The idea of going inside someone else’s body wasn’t new even in 1977 and for someone like me who will have seen such films as the 1987 Joe Dante film ‘Innerspace’ will have seen this done better. I know its unfair to criticise the show for such things because the budget for that film and this show are vastly different, however I think that there were two things that were totally avoidable. The first being the swarm creature itself. It’s laughably terrible. It has to be helped along by the cast because John Scott Martin had difficulty in moving. It is hard to believe that anyone would be frightened by this thing. I thought that the threat can from Lowe. Another thing that I found to be very bad were those white ball things that appeared in the Doctor’s mind. I reckon someone watched the Prisoner and thought ‘those white balls, they look menacing’. Well they do when they are attacking Patrick McGoohan but not when there in a BBC studio attacking Louise Jameson and Michael Sheard. Another moment that let the story down was the sign of the wall when it had clearly come away from the main part but had been put back together for another take. It’s easy to defend Doctor Who sometimes against people who mock it for poor production values, however in stories like this its hard to defend it.

This is a story that is let down primarily by the production values. I know we should be praising the show for pushing the boundaries of what is possible to do on a BBC TV budget but sometimes you just have to admit that the money isnt there, that you cant do everything you would want to do an move on. Things would be so much better if this attitude had been used. The Invisible Enemy is not as good a story as Horror of Fang Rock which proceeded it but it was a distinctive shift in tone from the more gothic type of stories that we were use to under the Philip Hinchcliffe era.

The Robots of Death (1977)

The second story to feature Leela as the companion and it’s the second story in a row to be written by Chris Boucher. This is his better story out of the two by a clear mile. The story is about some Robots that cause the deaths of humans. The story benefits from the fact that it is entirely studio based and is in an isolated environment. I always love a story that got an single setting with no chance of help (Tenth Planet for example). The sand miner has a human crew that treat robots like slaves and don’t have any respect for the them or the other crew. They spend the early part fighting and arguing with Uvanov. We are constantly told that Robots cannot harm humans. This is built into their core programming but as the title suggests and within the first ten minutes of episode one we are shown that this clearly isn’t true. The humans that we meet in this story are not particularly nice people and so when their demise starts then I’m not totally sad to see them go. Only Pamela Salem’s character was the right side of nice to warrant me to want to see her saved. Uvanov (Russell Hunter) redeemed himself at the end but it was too late in my opinion. D84 is the robot that has been put in this story to prove that not all robots are evil. D84 is a detective robot who is becomes the Doctor’s assistant when Leela isn’t around. I’m not sure if the person in D84 is the same one who is delivering the lines but if it is then Gregory de Poinay came across like he was child like which might explain why he came across as the nice robot.

David Collings is very good in this story and his character suffers a mental breakdown or Robophobia (hence the 2011 Big Finish story featuring the Robots). Another name for this condition if Grimwade Syndrome named in honour of Doctor Who writer/director Peter Grimwade who had worked as a production assistant on this story and had directed some of the scenes for this story. Collings is the first one of the crew to seem to want to trust the Doctor and Leela. However his greed (along with everyone else’s) is the thing that gets in the way of me caring about Collings’ character.

Taren Capel is the person that we learn is responsible for the robots going a bit mental and it then becomes part of the story to find out his laboratory and more importantly who he is. The revelation of the true identity of Capel turns out to be Dask (played by future Celestial Toymaker David Ballie). Ballie is the best of the supporting cast as he does a very good job of being in the background whilst the build up is taking place and then when its time he shines and despite the slightly dodgy make up he still manages to come across as a effective if slightly flawed villain. If I had a tiny issue in this area then it would be with a scene where we see this physcadelic screen and its meant to hide the human that we are told is Capel but its clearly Dask which slightly ruins the revelation.

Of the main performances, both have changed significantly since the previous story. Tom Baker was less comedic in Robots though there was the right amount of humour and drama. Louise Jameson’s performance was much stronger in this and that is largely because she has a female co-star which was lacking in Face. My favourite line came from Jameson when she was describing Paol as he was entering the role.

There are some quite gruesome moments, obvious the sight of robots killings humans but perhaps the strongest was in episode four when Uvanov stabs V4 in the back of the head. This is heading towards the end of the Philip Hinchcliffe era and whilst it might not be as dark and gothic in tone as other stories but there is still a lot to enjoy. For the second story running some of the people have to wear ridiculous outfits. The humans have to wear some stupid head gear along with some weird lines on their face. I don’t know that it was the 1970’s but that excuse can only work for so long. The design of the robots is quite good but it’s the heads that impress me the most. They look very sinister and I find it creepy.

The Robots of Death is a very good story but I’m not sure it’s the best story of this season. It does have some very atmospheric scenes and the story itself is far stronger than Face of Evil. The penultimate story of this season is a return to form for the series.

The Face of Evil (1977)

After a companion free story we get back to more traditional Doctor Who storytelling. Louise Jameson makes her debut in this story as the primitive yet aggressive Leela. The story sees the Doctor arrive on a mysterious planet where there is a primitive tribe that denounce the Doctor as the Evil One. The story suffers from a lack of a story. Ok there is a mystery as to why there is a huge rock with the Doctor’s face on it and why everyone thinks that the Doctor is the evil one but that mystery is very thin and is resolved once they travel through the mouth of the Doctor.

It seems odd seeing Louise Jameson’s Leela like this. Considering all the Leela stories I watch of her are of her later time it’s not much of a surprise. I have always had mixed feelings about the Leela character because sometimes I like her and sometimes I find her annoying. I think that despite the weak script she does well in this story and it’s probably a good thing that there was a four week gap between Elisabeth Sladen’s departure and Louise Jameson’s debut. However as we would see in future stories, Louise Jameson would effectively be background noise as Tom Baker would steal the scenes that they were in together. Tom Baker never wanted anyone to replace Elisabeth Sladen as he thought he could do it himself and as a result this is where the silliness of Tom Baker’s Doctor took over, there didn’t seem to be the sense of seriousness that there had been before.

There is a good performance from David Garfield as Neeva. He plays the one who’s getting the voices and is at several points possessed by Xoanon. He gets massive brownie points from me because in the early part has to walk around with a massive glove on his head. Leslie Schofield returns to Doctor Who after having appeared in ‘The War Games’ in 1969. In this he plays Calib which was an ok performance but nothing really special. Another familiar name is Lloyd McGuire who appeared in this story as Lugo (which doesn’t ring a bell) but he appeared in the Channel Four drama ‘Teachers’.

The different tribes that are this mysterious planets were well realised. They Seva team are the usual band of argumentative people with a certain number vying for the position of leader. It seems odd that Leela is the only woman that we get to see in this story. It’s never made clear why this is. She can’t be the only woman on the entire planet yet even the Tesh’s don’t have a female crew member. On the subject of the Tesh, I feel sorry for the actors because they are forced to wear the stupidest looking outfits I’ve seen for a long time. As a result I can’t take them seriously.

The only cliffhanger that was of any worth was episode three’s. The idea of the Doctor being killed or whatever by voices and a CSO laden effect of Baker’s face was quite effective. The rest were rather dull but unfortunately that sums up my feelings for the story. The first third is pretty much boring but the last quarter was where all the interesting stuff happens. It was a fun notion that it was the Doctor had effectively caused all of this. Had it not been for his involvement (in an unseen adventure) and use his mind print on something then things probably would have been better.

The Face of Evil is the worst story of the fourteenth season. It lacks any drama and as a result I find the Serva team to be a bunch of bland group of people. Chris Boucher’s first story isn’t his finest (but then again neither was the great Robert Holmes) but it introduced Leela and that’s the best thing in this story.