The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: Meglos
Meglos: Part One (27/09/10)
Well, that was quite interesting. The Doctor and Romana spent the episode fixing K9. Literally. The entire episode.
The TARDIS is hovering in space and they haven't arrived where they're meant to be going yet, but that's fine. The Doctor found out they were near Tigella, a planet he's been to before (50 years ago, their time) so wants to pay a visit, once K9 is fixed. Tigella is an underground society (forced to live there due to the planet's 'lush, aggressive vegetation' on the surface) and populated by two bickering groups - the Savants (Scientists with blonde, bowl-cut wigs) and the religious Deons, led by Barbara Wright.
Yep. Barbara Wright... or at least Lexa, a character played by Jacqueline Hill. I have to say, as lovely as it is to see her again it's massively disappointing that it isn't actually Barbara. I wonder if the Doctor will notice (if he arrives) - this is a doppelganger story, after all.
Because on neighbouring planet Zolfa-Thura (which was destroyed by yet another planetary war, yawn) is the last Zolfa-Thuran, the cactus-like Meglos - yes, this week we have a talking fucking cactus; seemingly the second plant-based lifeform in a row if my assumptions about the Argolin are right.
The Deons worship a Dodecahedron which fell from the sky and powers their city (and it's failing somehow), which was created by the Zolfa-Thurans and could power a galaxy if used right. Anyhow, Meglos has lured a band of raiders who are little better than the bandits from 'The Creature From The Pit', along with a Human they've kidnapped who he's taken over the body of (somehow), and made it look like the Doctor, clothes and all (somehow - despite the Doctor not wearing his coat and scarf when Meglos spied on the interior of the TARDIS after trapping it in a time loop... somehow).
Like I said, interesting... but flawed. The CSO of the Screens of Zolfa-Thura was actually pretty spot on and, regardless of some iffy matting, it mostly did look like the 'Gaztaks' were walking around the model of the Screens. On the downside, Tigellan leader, Zastor, is played by a fucking awful actor. Jackie and the two main Savants are giving it their all while Zastor (Edward Underdown) is either massively underplaying or just unsure of what any of his lines mean! Meanwhile, the production values remain high and we have another new guy scoring the episode - Paddy Kingsland - whose electronica is more dramatic and doomy than Peter Howell. An okay start. Hopefully, Underdown's acting won't be quite so painful next week!
Meglos: Part Two (04/10/20)
It improved as it went along this week. The Chronic Hysteresis (Time Loop) went on a bit, and the way the Doctor and Romana got out of it was utter bollocks, but the stuff to do with Meglos taking the Doctor's form was pretty good. Tom's pretty decent at playing evil and made Meglos pretty believable (despite there being a million unanswered questions regarding him - how is a sentient cactus able to shape-change using a Human to look like someone he's only seen on a TV screen? How can he create a Time Loop? How can he see into the TARDIS? etc.).
The Gaztaks continue to be less than convincing, and it occurred to me today that on Tigella we have the same Bob-Cuts vs Flowing-Locks differentiation between local factions as we had in 'Revenge Of The Cybermen', with the exception that this lot aren't wearing Troll masks (and include women).
Jackie Hill continues to impress as Lexa but it's still a bit weird having Barbara around not being Barbara. And Zastor is still embarrassingly bad. How Underdown ever became an actor is anybody's guess! The other Savants aren't much better but at least as good as some of the actors I've recently seen on mid-90s episodes of 'Babylon 5' - that overly sincere type of acting when an actor doesn't fully understand a character's motives.
Back to Meglos - the cactus makeup when Meglos was trying to escape the city having stolen the Dodecahedron was good. It was marginally better in the opening scenes on Zolfa-Thura, but at least we can tell one Doctor from the other. Romana has changed into a really gorgeous outfit of deep red velvety lace and white, billowing cuffs, and been attacked by sheet-foam 'Bell Plants' - the lush, aggressive vegetation mentioned last week - but escaped only to bump into the Gaztaks who are about to kill her in an obviously-not-going-to-happen cliffhanger.
K9 is working again but didn't do much apart from go looking for Romana only to turn back because his batteries are low (wtf?). On the whole, not a bad episode, although this new series does seem to consist of very short episodes - 'The Leisure Hive' mostly clocked around 21 minutes and this one barely passed that as well. Still, it looks pretty good.
Meglos: Part Three (11/10/20)
That wasn't a bad episode, but under-ran again - barely over 21 minutes! And whilst it was enjoyable, in hindsight it did seem rather padded. Romana spent most of the episode leading the Gaztaks round in circles, and they themselves are pretty rubbish (both scripting and acting). The jungle sets are quite good, though.
K9 did bugger all again, but the focus on the Tigellans was quite good and we got an idea of their society, albeit a rather flawed one. The story seems to be very pro-science/anti-religion. The Deons are being painted as the villains and Barbara... sorry, Lexa has taken control and banished all the Savants to the surface while she sacrifices the Doctor to the Ti believing the Dodecahedron has been taken back by the god and sacrifice alone will bring it back. It does highlight a flaw in the concept of their society, though. They were driven underground by the lush, aggressive vegetation on the surface and lived in caves powered by an alien/holy source which none of them understand, but nobody bothered to try and build a refuge of any sort in case the power source failed. Okay, this may underline the stupidity of relying on religious trust and belief, but given how advanced their technology is you'd think they'd've come up with some form of back-up, especially when they're currently only 2 hours from the caverns being entirely uninhabitable!
Another thing that jarred was Caris sort-of-not-really going along with Meglos when he revealed himself to her. First he was cactus-like, then not, then cactus-like again, and got her to help him because he wasn't the Doctor, and then showed her the shrunken Dodecahedron (at which point she should have shot him at the very least!). Then, when he escaped with Romana's accidental help, Caris acted like she already knew Romana was a friend. In fact, all the Tigellans did, despite her turning up just before the Gaztaks raided the city!
It's flawed scripting (and with two writers, you'd expect better) but nevertheless not a bad story so far; and Tom is chilling as Meglos. I assumed he was going to kill Caris when he approached her, his acting was so creepy and disturbing. I actually think I like Tom more as Meglos than the Doctor!
Meglos: Part Four (18/10/20)
Hmm. I don't really know what to make of that.
On the whole it was okay, I guess, but it wasn't exactly 'The Enemy Of The World', and there were a couple of bits which were actually pretty rubbish.
First off, huge recap - nearly three minutes - and the Doctor was freed from being sacrificed pretty easily with Lexa suddenly accepting what Zastor and Caris were saying and relinquishing the power she usurped very willingly (considering she'd just banished everyone not Deon)! Then there was her seemingly utterly pointless death. Just as the Doctor and Romana were leaving to chase after Meglos, one of the Gaztaks woke up and shot Lexa off-camera. You heard her call out "Romana!" and next thing she's dead on the floor. It was some of the worst Directing I've seen in a long time! There was no build up, no point for her to throw herself in the line of fire; did she even know Romana's name? Or who she was? We didn't see her jump in the way or even get hit and, given that the religious leader of the Tigellans had just been murdered, not a great deal was made of it other than Romana's strangely teary acknowledgement that Lexa had saved her life!
Then it was off to Zolfa-Thura for some poor CSO and shenanigans with coats. Given this was a story which set Meglos up as a Big Bad, he gave up pretty easily when the Gaztaks locked him in their ship. And Tom's outfit beneath the coat is pretty awful, and he's looking rather old and drained. It's probably just as well this is going to be his last series, although I do feel he's stayed on far too long.
Romana, Caris and the Other Bloke broke the Doctor and Meglos free - Other Bloke hitting the Gaztak guard over the head with a rock to absolutely no effect, so K9 finished the job with his laser. They grabbed Meglos, but he left the Human's body and scuttled (that's not quite the right word for what we saw, but I can't think of another way to describe it) back to his base. That effect in itself was pretty bad, but if Meglos was a big lump of snot inhabiting a cactus, and needed a Human to gain and maintain that form (seemingly unable to use the Gaztaks despite them being physically identical to Humans), what was his plan to stop the countdown the Doctor had set to destroy the planet? And wasn't that a bit extreme, anyway? Couldn't the Doctor have just done something else?
It was all a bit rushed, including the return to Tigella where they're making belated attempts to control the lush, aggressive vegetation. Then there was a glib quip about the Human's 'missus' and the revelation that the Doctor and Romana have been called back to Gallifrey! And it wasn't even 20 minutes long!!!
The more I think about it, the weaker it becomes. I really hope this isn't representative of the new house style - all gloss and no content. Two stories in it doesn't bode well for the new era!
I agree with you that there's too little story for four episodes - the fact the Doctor and Romana don't even get out of the TARDIS until halfway through Part Two is positively Sawardian - and that's not even considering the fact that when you add up the episode run-times and cut out the recaps, there's barely more than three episodes' worth of material. Not that that's the writers' fault per se: C. Hamilton Bidmead should have noticed and sort out the problems. Then again, the start of this season clearly reflects the new production team getting to grips with making the show; not always successfully, alas.
ReplyDeleteThe central concept here is strong and its realisation is striking: an evil pretend Doctor with prickly green skin is very effective, particularly with Tom Baker throwing himself into it. But the narrative corner-cutting that sets it up, and indeed explains (or doesn't) everything else in the story, is little better than a kid making it up as they go along, with no attempt at making sense. And yes, it's ironic in a story about doppelgangers that you get the Doctor's first ever companion back in the show and he doesn't even vaguely acknowledge the resemblance.
A let-down after the far more stylish, and comparatively far more sensible and engaging, Leisure Hive.
So far this season has come across very much as more style over substance, which is a huge shame following an excellent series under Williams and Adams. Tom as the titular villain, especially the makeup, stands out in a story where little else does. At least The Leisure Hive had a compelling storyline and interesting characters! I also find it quite ironic that the writers have gone on record as regretting naming the character Brotadac as an anagram of Bad Actor when Frederick Treves' performance was 'anything but' - I'm afraid I really didn't see that great performance, especially at the end of Part Two where his closing dialogue seems to be vying with Edward Underdown in terms of unintelligibility!
DeleteIt's also surprising so early in the season, given Chris Bidmead's apparent determination to cut the humour and inject some 'hard science' into the show, that there is remarkably little recognisable science on display. For all we know, Meglos may as well be using magic to take over the Human's body, trap the Doctor, spy on him in the TARDIS, shrink the Docecahedron, etc. There's very little reference to anything scientific in all four incredibly short episodes, just a mention of some machines Meglos uses (which may as well be The Machine That Goes Ping) and the all-powerful Dodecahedron which gets no explanation whatsoever.
Bidmead doesn't just drop the ball with his script editing here, he doesn't even catch it! There are plenty of opportunities to flesh out the 'science' or build on the Tigellan society to pad the story out. Zastor and Lexa are barely in the final episode (I didn't even mention the former when I wrote my journal for Part Four last night because he did fuck all!) and it would have been a perfect opportunity to expand on the situation that is basically glossed over following the Part Three cliffhanger. Lexa has just taken over the city, ordered Zastor and the Savants expelled, and tried to sacrifice the Doctor, yet she gives in very easily when told she has the wrong man, even turning to Zastor for confirmation. Next scene, they're all chums and Lexa is shot dead off-camera. It really feels like a massive chunk of story is missing which could have, at least, taken the episode past the 20 minute mark!
Maybe Bidmead couldn't think of a way to pad the script out; maybe he couldn't be bothered - the writers were new and (I believe) inexperienced and I have no idea how much help they'd already had; maybe too much time was taken up with the fancy CSO tracking shots for extra material to be recorded and maybe JNT, Bidmead, Letts and Dudley all hoped that wowing the audience with new tech would cover the slightness of the story. I'll have to sit down and watch the making of feature to see if there's any explanation.
But it's not a *bad* story. Tom is great as Meglos, the costume designs are great, the model work is very nice and the CSO mostly works (notably less so in Part Four). The acting is all over the place, though, some of the casting quite awful, and it all feels much less than the sum of its parts. I could excuse all this as a fledgling production team finding their feet if it weren't for the fact that Barry Letts was giving them a hand (and JNT had been working on the show for a number of years already). In that light, there really is no excuse for what was delivered.