The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: The Steel Sky - The Bomb
Doctor Who - The Steel Sky (05/03/06)
A bit of a disappointment after the last few weeks, but not bad. The Jungle sets were brilliant - though the opening shot of an off-camera stage hand chucking a bird onto a Monitor Lizard was a bit of a disconcerting way to start the story.
So, we're in the far future on an Ark in space that's taking the last of Humanity to a planet 700 years away. An interesting premise, if a bit flawed, enlightened by the fact that new companion Dodo has a cold and has given it to the Humans, who aren't immune. Special mention has to be made of the Monoids - aliens with Beatles haircuts! Dear god, what next? Nice idea, though, of the huge wigs covering the actors' eyes and having the single alien eye held and moved around in the mouth. Plus, there were actual animals (an elephant, toucan, lizard, snake, plastic locust) in the jungle, not stock footage!
Dodo is a bit annoying, to be honest - and where the hell is she from? Could be Manchester, or Leeds, or Clapham... Still, it's only her first episode. Hopefully she'll improve.
Doctor Who - The Plague (12/03/06)
Well, that was unexpected! Obviously, after a tedious trial and some bad acting from the bloke playing the commander, the Doctor cured the Plague/Cold. Everyone was happy and the Doctor, Steven and Dodo went back to the TARDIS and left. It looked like we'd had a simple two part story to introduce Dodo like we had with Vicki, 'til the TARDIS landed in the same jungle and the crew discovered that the statue being built on the journey to Refusis was complete... but with a Monoid head!
To be honest, this episode was average - interesting but largely dull. That is, right up until the shock revelation at the end. It seems that the last two weeks were just a build up to another story. Good idea, and I'm actually quite interested in what'll happen next. Sort of regretting dozing through most of this episode, but it was quite dull.
Doctor Who - The Return (19/03/06)
Okay, this is rather good now. It looks like the last episode was intentionally dull as it set up the basis for the Monoids' take-over. It seems to me the Monoids are actually a bunch of bastards as they had it fairly cushy in the first two episodes, and 700 years later they decided to enslave the Humans because they thought they were being treated like 2nd Class citizens. Oh, and they can talk now, which is cool as they have some sort of necklace which speaks for them.
Anyhow, they've taken the Doctor et al. prisoner and sent the Doctor and Dodo down to the planet Refusis II with a Monoid and a slave to meet the natives who are very civilised, but invisible.
Meanwhile, the Monoids are planning to blow up the Ark with the Humans in it. Dodo is growing on me. She twigged on the Monoids' plan and really mouthed off at them at one point. Maybe she'll work out after all. Haven't had a proper gobby companion yet!
Doctor Who - The Bomb (26/03/06)
Not a bad story on the whole. The Monoids started fighting amongst themselves and the Doctor and Dodo, aided by a Refusian, warned Steven about the bomb and prevented the Ark and the Humans from getting blown up. It wasn't a dull story; just a bit predictable. Still, there's been worse!
The best bit was at the end where Steven and Dodo appear to have raided the TARDIS wardrobe in search of the most ridiculous clothes they could find! Stripes and rings? I ask you! Then the Doctor became invisible.
"Is it something to do with the Refusians?" Dodo asked. No, love. It's a reaction to you and Steven's awful dress sense!
Dodo's quite bolshy to start with - well, in the bits where she's bolshy; her characterisation, like her accent, swings from one extreme to another at first - and there's a certain amount of promise there, but of course it'll all be squandered as she's only a stop-gap companion anyway.
ReplyDeleteAs for the story, the design is quite lush and the direction is quite interesting at times. The story has its good beats, too - but there's just not enough happening throughout to sustain your interest. And as I've mentioned elsewhere, I wish they had the foresight (and were organised enough) to break the story up properly, only returning to the Ark after they'd spent four weeks battling the Celestial Toymaker.
Looking back I feel I was unnecessarily harsh on The Ark. Out of context it's quite a fun little story with some fantastic design work on both the sets and the Monoid costumes. It feels like a new start and is an inoffensive runaround in the same vein as New Earth and Four To Doomsday. But given that this came after 5 months of possibly the best run of episodes the series has ever seen, I can see why I found it so underwhelming. I love the fact that this is the first story to deal with the destruction of Earth and yet isn't contradicted by The Ark In Space, Frontios, The Mysterious Planet or The End Of The World.
DeleteWithout looking ahead I can't be certain how I felt about Dodo (and I'm quite enjoying finding out as I go along what my reactions were 12 years ago!) but I think I quite liked her and certainly didn't see her as a stop-gap companion. It's a shame that the regular actresses this series were treated so unbelievably badly. I'm not surprised that Maureen and Jackie had very little to do with the series after they left!
Given that I regard Season 3 as my favourite, the fact that I've not been hugely impressed by Galaxy 4 and The Ark comes as a surprise to me. There are more ups and downs to come, but it's perhaps the diversity of the series which makes me love it so much more than the rest!
Stopgap in the sense that she was a late addition who was soon done away with, albeit by another new producer - I doubt John Wiles brought her in with the intention of only keeping her on for a handful of stories. She's served reasonably well in The Ark and The Gunfighters, is largely sidelined in The Savages, doesn't come out of The Celestial Toymaker all that well and is then unceremoniously dumped halfway through The War Machines. Ho hum. It's a sad state of affairs that between Ian & Barbara and Victoria pretty much every departure is bolloxed up in some way, either narratively, behind the scenes or both.
DeleteThroughout the 60s, the only decent departures for any companions were for Ian & Barbara, Katarina, Victoria, Jamie & Zoe. All the others were quite sudden and poorly handled, even Susan's who's leaving scene is quite emotional. Dodo, Polly and Ben were incredibly badly treated being absent for the majority of their final stories. Only Victoria really seems to have had any proper thought put into the fact that Fury From The Deep is her final story and a good portion of the final episode is devoted to the fact. Whilst the departures of Dodo, Polly, Ben and later Liz, Leela and Romana might reflect reality, in the TV show you more often than not want a bit more than a "Right, then. I'm/we're off then!" leaving scene.
DeleteIncidentally, I think that only The Celestial Toymaker treats Dodo pretty shoddily in terms of the script. In the others I recall finding her increasingly interesting and promising, despite her sudden disappearance in The War Games.
Leela reflects reality? Staying behind with someone you've shown no signs of any inclination towards at all? :D At least Susan's departure is built up to in the preceding few weeks, with a relationship of sorts being shown to be developing between her and David. Leela's is just a WTF moment in every respect, not least because it's so against her character. I mean even if they'd just said she was staying behind to lead the Shobogans, that would have been infinitely more believable (if just as unsatisfying).
ReplyDeleteMy meaning was absolutely nothing to do with the ridiculous way Leela was written out but regarding the brevity of the farewell. I completely agree that Leela's departure was entirely out of character, very obliquely hinted at during the final episode and possibly one of the worst departures a companion has had from the series.
DeleteBut in my experience, farewells are usually abrupt and brief, if they happen at all. Dodo's departure from the series may be incredibly unsatisfactory from a narrative perspective, it's also probably the most realistic (alongside Harry). But that's all yet to come.
Oh, we're on the same page then. Also yet to come, albeit a looooooong way off, is the polar opposite: the protracted and various departures of the Moffat-era companions, which are arguably just as realistic but just as narratively unsatisfying.
DeleteIt's a shame that overall the scales are very much tipped towards frustrating handling of companion departures in the series, classic and new all totalled.