Ongoing Dr. Who Thread of Doom...

[Volpone]

OK. So Retro does classic who 7 nights a week, but they don't...they do it smart. M-F is an hour a night. Saturday is a 2 hour block that is a different run through the library. Same for Sunday. So the weekday rotation is on #3, Jon Pertwee's final season while Saturdays are late #4 Tom Baker and Sunday JUST reset to the start of #1, William Hartnell. Sadly I missed the first story, "An Unearthly Child." It is a classic. Caught the end of the serial. So tonight I tuned in, expecting to see "The Daleks."

Now "The Daleks" is iconic. It almost certainly launched Dr. Who into what it is today. But it is also looong. And slooooow. And I've seen it a lot of times. So I was almost set to watch Story TV, which was doing "Biography" reruns. But I popped on and apparently they pulled "The Daleks" from rotation, because it was "The Aztecs," which I've only seen once since the 1980s.

Neat story. They keep it to a relatively tight 4 half hour episodes. They land in an Aztec temple. Barbara, a history teacher, specialized in the Aztecs, so she knows about them. Through a mixup, she is taken for a messenger from the gods. The high priest of knowledge embraces her, while the high priest of sacrifice is suspicious. Despite The Doctor's warnings not to interfere, Barbara tries to wean the Aztecs away from human sacrifice. Ian runs afoul of their greatest warrior while The Doctor accidentally gets engaged to an Aztec woman. Susan is sent off to a convent to learn the Aztec ways. The high priest of sacrifice does his best to do away with the interlopers but eventually they win their way back to the TARDIS and escape.

A straight-up historical piece, where there are no science fiction elements and their actions don't alter anything. The actor playing the high priest of sacrifice is great. Reminiscent of "Animal House" era John Belushi. Very good story.

 

[Volpone]

Skipped "Monster of Peladon." I really don't understand that serial. They did "The Curse of Peladon" earlier with Jo as a companion. Then they do a Peladon sequel with Sarah that doesn't really gain any new ground--if anything it goes backwards because the Ice Warriors are traditionally a villain and "...Curse..." flips it so they're Good Guys while "...Monster..." makes them the Baddies. And it is needlessly long. But enough about that. Tonight was "Planet of the Spiders," the final Pertwee story before we get #4, Tom Baker.

Mike Yates, formerly Captain Mike Yates of UNIT, had some bad turns. He got brainwashed during "The Green Death" and it messed him up. The Doctor's blue Metabelis Crystal (apparently) cured him, but the bigger problem of Corporate Greed, Raping the Earth stuck with him so, for "Invasion of the Dinosaurs," he got roped into a scheme to reset the Earth to before humans were there, leaving a picked group of contemporary humans to guide things--and wiping out everyone before that point, Thanos style. Well he winds up at a sort of hippie place run by Tibetans but Weird Things are happening there. Odd rituals in the basement make him get in touch with Intrepid Girl Reporter, Sarah Jane Smith, to bring UNIT onboard.

Turns out The Doctor's Metabelis crystal is important to giant spiders that have established themselves on the planet and they're using people from the llamasary to try to get it back.

Lots going on. The weasely scientist actor from "Tomb of the Cybermen" and "Ambassadors of Death" (and maybe 1 or 2 more I'm forgetting) is an actual psychic. He gets killed when he picks up the crystal while the wicked people at the Tibetan thingie are doing a ritual. There's a bananas Jon Pertwee chase scene, where the Baddie steals the crystal right from literally under the Doctor's (well Sarah's) nose at UNIT HQ. Then he steals the Whomobile so Benton, the Brig, and...Sarah? Sarah, pursue in Bessie whilst The Doc chases in a tiny autogyro. A confused British constable briefly is involved with the chase and while they are all talking next to the abandoned Whomobile, the Baddie steals the autogyro (with help from the giant invisible telepathic spider riding on his back). Little does he know that the Whomobile can actually fly, so The Doctor and Sarah give chase. When the minicopter runs out of gas, the Baddie steals a speedboat. Conveniently there is a hovercraft nearby that The Doc is able to commandeer and give chase. But just as he finally overtakes the boat, the giant invisible backpack spider helps the baddie teleport away to safety.

And that's just the first 2 episodes.

 

[Volpone]

I'm going to write up the next hour--Parts 3 & 4--of "Planet of the Spiders" because it really highlights how ploddingly slow the 3rd Doctor stories can be:

OK. First off, I should mention there's a retarded man that lives at the retreat, as a kind of "mascot." He has a fascination with "pretty" things and lives a closet under the stairs (like Harry Potter) with a shoebox of trinkets.

When the baddie, Lupton, teleports back from the speedboat with the help of the giant invisible telepathic spider on his back, Sarah has recognized him, so She and the Doctor go to the retreat to pursue the trail. They wind up talking to the younger monk (sidebar: the retarded man is played by a non-retarded actor and the Tibetan man is played by a white man in very badly executed yellowface). While they're waiting to see Lupton, Tommy (the retarded man) wants to show Sarah something. He knows her from her earlier visit, when she gave him a "pretty" brooch to get rid of him. Turns out Lupton left the blue crystal near an open window and Tommy had shimmied out onto the ledge to steal it because it was "pretty," and he wants to give it to Sarah.

Meanwhile the spiders back on the Planet of the Spiders don't know Lupton and their scout spider have lost the crystal so they're going to teleport them back. Sarah hears about it and heads off to investigate before Tommy can give her the crystal. Tommy heads off to inform The Doctor and Mike Yates, who are still waiting around for Lupton. They get down to the cellar just in time to see Sarah get sucked along in the slipstream of Lupton's teleportation so they head back to UNIT so The Doctor can follow in the TARDIS. When he gets there he gets in a fight with the spider queen's human servants and gets badly injured by a lightning bolt from one of the servants' hands (this is a power the human servants of the spiders can do). He's supposed to be dead but it turns out he's still alive--barely so Sarah gets him into one of the hovels of the subjugated humans of the planet.

And that's it. That's a whole hour. Two episodes to get everyone to Metabelis 3 (with the crystal still on Earth in a shoebox in a closet).

 

[Volpone]

OK. In fairness, I must've gotten confused and only watched Episode 3. Because tonight was the conclusion and Episode 5 starts with Sarah a prisoner of the spiders and The Doctor running around trying to rescue her, so I'll try to fill in Episode 4 from memory before wrapping up the serial.

After The Doctor is left for dead, he gets dragged to a hovel where he asks Sarah to get a medical machine from the TARDIS. Sarah sneaks out after curfew (the penalty is death) and gets the machine that saves The Doctor. The Doctor realizes the blue crystals of Metabelis, used as a weapon by the spiders' human guards, can also be used to diffuse the energy of the offensive lightning bolts. Sarah has somehow been captured by the spiders so he sets off to rescue her--after first making headbands with the crystals for the human resistance force, who are planning to attack the spider stronghold.

For Episode 5, The Doctor fights his way through the Spider lair before eventually getting captured. He joins Sarah and another man who are wrapped in webs, waiting to be eaten. There's a power struggle between the Spider Queen and Lupton and the Scout who've come back from Earth. Lupton talks them out of being executed for failing to return the crystal and the Spider Queen announces that she will go speak to the Great One (ALL HAIL THE GREAT ONE) about what to do. Actually, the Queen plans to use Sarah as an invisible backpack slave to go to Earth to get the crystal. Meanwhile, The Doctor escapes, using a trick he learned from Houdini to escape his web cocoon and sets off to find Sarah.

Back on earth the crystal has cured Tommy of his retardation and he goes to Cho Jee to find out what is happening. Mike Yates convinces Lupton's "coven" to do another ritual to try to get Sarah back. This opens a gateway for giant spiders to infiltrate earth. While searching for Sarah, The Doctor encounters The Great One, who demands the crystal he took so she can fulfill her master plan. On getting back into the main spider lair, he encounters Sarah, who mysteriously is able to teleport them back to the TARDIS.

Cho Jee breaks up the summoning and gets zapped by the spiders (along with Mike Yates) just as the Doc and Sarah arrive. They escape and, with the help of Tommy, find the head Lama, Kempo Rinpoche. The Abbott seems to know The Doctor. They talk for awhile (while Tommy goes out to guard the door) and, after the Abbot convinces The Doctor that he must return the blue crystal to Metabelis, the Doc realizes the Abbot is his old mentor--another Time Lord. The Abbot reveals he is nearing a regeneration and that Cho Jee is actually a mental projection of himself.

Outside the door, Tommy is holding off Lupton's "coven," who have been possessed by giant spiders. His innocence allows him to resist the hand lightning bolts.

Down in the cellar, Cho Jee has managed to revive Mike Yates, who heads off to the action and takes a lightning bolt meant for Tommy. While Tommy is distracted, the spider coven rushes the door and manages to zap the Abbot--but not before he teleports the Doctor to the basement with the crystal so he can zap back to Metabelis. The revolt against the spiders has been defeated and the Doctor has the crystal, but he has said he is bringing it to the Great One and none of the other spiders dares challenge the Great One (ALL HAIL THE GREAT ONE), so The Doc heads to the cavern where he meets a huge ass spider on a bit throne, surrounded by deadly Metabelis radiation. The Great One reveals her plan--to create a crystal lattice that will amplify her mental powers so she can take over the universe. The Doctor warns that this will create a feedback loop that will destroy her but she ignores him and dies. This kills all the other giant spiders and frees the humans on Metabelis. The Doctor, dying from the deadly radiation, makes it back to the TARDIS and manages to dematerialize. Back on earth, while all this was happening, the Abbot "dies" and Cho Jee disappears before materializing into the place of the "dead" Abbot.

3 weeks later, Sara Jane Smith is loitering in The Doctor's lab when The Brigadier comes in to console her. Just as all hope is gone, we hear the TARDIS materializing. Much like his first appearance, back in "Spearhead from Space," The Doctor stumbles out of the TARDIS and collapses. Sarah thinks he is dead. Just as all hope seems lost, The Doctor's regenerated mentor, the Abbot/Cho Jee materializes to explain that Time Lords can regenerate and provides a "nudge" to help The Doctor recover. As the Brig and Sarah look on, The Doctor's features change to a much younger man who, it will turn out later, has a predilection for very long scarfs.

Oh, and I should mention that, basically after getting to Metabelis, Lupton's lines consist of "No!" "But our plans!" and "But what about MY power?!" before being unceremoniously zapped by the spiders.

 

[Volpone]

"Robot" and now halfway through "The Ark in Space." This is the first season with Tom Baker and, being aired on PBS, led to a huge surge of popularity for the show in the United States in the 70s and 80s. Baker was the longest running Doctor, with 7 years in the role. By the end it had pretty much become "The Tom Baker Show" and embraced the same aspects of the era that made the Roger Moore Bond films what they were. But in 1975 he was so young. And really got into the role.

Stepping back a second, he was the 4th actor in the role. William Hartnell played The Doctor for 4 years or so until frailty and difficulty remembering/getting the lines right started to take their toll on him. Since The Doctor was an alien, the showrunners came up with the idea that his race (unnamed at that point) could "renew" themselves when their bodies grew old. They cast Patrick Troughton as the "renewed" Doctor. They kept the costume somewhat similar, although a bit shabbier and less formal, and introduced some eccentricities like a love of silly hats and the recorder (instrument). We also got Jelly Babies and the sonic screwdriver. After 3 years, Troughton decided to move on. So at the end of the "War Games" serial, they had him captured by his race, the Time Lords, and tried for running away. The Doctor argued his case to the point that they decided to exile him to 20th century England and change his appearance. This Doctor, Jon Pertwee, was hospitalized while recovering from his regeneration and got his characteristic smoking jacket, frilly shirt, and cape look by stealing clothing (and a car) from the hospital locker room. While again a divergence from previous looks, it still had a dressy but eccentric style to it. When Pertwee decided to move on the showrunners were faced with possibly their most difficult regeneration. #1 regenerated because he was old. #2 regenerated as terms of a punishment. For the next regeneration, they had The Doctor receive a lethal dose of radiation. As he was at the point of death another roving Time Lord showed up to help facilitate his regeneration. And after a silly scene of him trying on a series of costumes--Viking, King of Hearts, clown, he settled on a sort of Bohemian college professor with a touch of Harpo Marx and a very long scarf.

Initially, the producers had planned on an older actor, so in addition to Sarah, they included UNIT medical officer Navy Dr. Harry Sullivan to fulfill a sort of Ian Chesterton role of handling any action scenes. Instead they cast 40 year old Baker, so Harry left after the first season. For the first season, they set out to firmly establish the new Doctor so after "Robot," which was a fairly standard 3rd Doctor UNIT story of a mad scientist organization set on using a giant robot to reinvent human civilization, we get "The Ark in Space" which kind of checks the 2nd Doctor "base under siege" style of story. From there we get a short palate cleanser Sontaran story before diving into the epic "Genesis of the Daleks" and wrapping up the season back on the space station from "Ark in Space", only at an earlier time in history, fighting the Cybermen. After defeating the Cybermen, they have to jet back to the present, as the Brigadier has called him on the emergency space-time telegraph and needs his help at Loch Ness...

 

[Volpone]

Well, the idiocy of the BBC/RetroTV licensing deal is killing this thread. "Robot" was a few weeks ago and we're already done with "The Deadly Assassin." They've cut almost half of the 4th Doctor/Sara Jane serials--and all the good ones. "Genesis of the Daleks"? Gone. "Pyramids of Mars"? They've never shown that the whole time RetroTV's been carrying the show. No "Seeds of Doom," no "Hand of Fear." By this point in the show the serials don't overlap as much as they did in the early days, but man, "What happened to Harry?" No one knows. Why did they need a Time Ring to get back to the beacon when they transmatted from Earth? You got me. What happened to Sarah? One minute we're coming back from saving Renaissance Italy and the next we're fighting the Master on Gallifrey. It's maddening.

They've done it with the Hartnell serials in the Sunday rotation too. "An Unearthly Child" wasn't that long ago and we're already up to "The Time Meddler." It's really hard to get excited about watching when they've yanked out all the best stories. "Planet of Evil" isn't terrible, but it's just a Jekyll & Hyde story with cheesy 1970s sci fi sets and costumes. "Android Invasion" is fine but it really feels like they had material they didn't use in "Terror of the Zygons" that they reworked and padded out into another story. Depressing.

 

[Volpone]

"Talons of Weng Chiang" ended tonight. One of my favoritest serials, despite retroactively suffering for a white actor in yellowface. Tom Bake gets to be Sherlock Holmes. Against Jack The Ripper. He gets Dr. Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago (along with Leela) to fill the Watson role. Only serial where he never wears the scarf. I had something else I wanted to say but I'll be damned if I can remember it.

 

[Volpone]

OH! I remember where I was going. John Carpenter definitely has a sci-fi bent. I wonder if he was a classic Dr. Who fan via PBS broadcasts. The Tom Baker serial "Seeds of Doom" precedes "The Thing" but definitely has some parallels. And the throne room in "Talons of Weng Chiang," while not being an exact match, definitely throws off some "Big Trouble in Little China" vibes (which it, again, precedes).

 

[Volpone]

Wrapped up "Image of the Fendahl" tonight. This is kind of my end to good serials in Classic Who. It follows "Invisible Enemy," but K9 is being repaired so it is a classic Doctor and Leela story in the vein of "Pyramids of Mars" or "Horror at Fang Rock." Set in contemporary times in a haunted place, the Doctor heads to modern Earth to investigate a time disturbance. He finds an ancient Time Lord nightmare.

Scientists have found an ostensibly homo sapien skull, but dating puts it as 8 million years older than it could possibly be. These same scientists have been using a time scanner for their work that got the Doctor's attention. It seems there was an evil entity called the Fendahl that was so nasty that the Time Lords intervened to stop it--OR SO THEY THOUGHT! Turns out the Fendahl managed to project itself to Earth, where it was found by scientists. As they study it, it starts drawing power by killing people. The head scientist, Dr. Fendahl, tries to keep the deaths quiet while his top sidekick, Max, helps out and archaeologist/anthropologist Adam and carbon dating vixen Thea are pulled along for the ride.

Meanwhile, witchcraft is afoot in the neighborhood. The skull housing the Fendahl consciousness tries to kill The Doctora couple times but he escapes and teams up with a local witch and her grandson to foil the plot.

Things go sideways. The Doc and Leela find the planet the Fendahl has come from is in a time loop, set by the Time Lords. "They're not supposed to do that," says The Doctor. They get back as Max has captured Thea to use as his...catalyst? Dr. Fendahlman and Adam wind up tied to a pillar during the ritual. Fendahman realizes what's going on, freaks out, and is killed by Max. Max's ritual goes wrong and instead of becoming a god, Thea starts converting his coven into Fendahleen, part of a gestalt creature. The Doctor arrives in time to kill one with rock salt shotgun shells and then help Max commit suicide while rescuing Adam.

He and Leela go in and fuck shit up, manage to steal the skull and blow up the priory while the witch, her grandson, and Adam escape to the witch's house. The Doctor and Leela head off to dump the eeevil skull into a supernova while everyone else crawls out from under the coffee table to have tea.

Good story. About the last one before it became THE TOM BAKER SHOW! (WITH K9!) There are still the occasional good stories, but after this the show tended to lapse into the campiness the 70s were so known for and Baker tended to ditch any part of his costume he found uncomfortable. After this the show gets sillier and more badly written with every new story. This is a nice bookend to "Deadly Assassin" in introducing new Gallifrey Lore. Later we get "The Invasion of Time," but that's full on silliness, IMO. Well, the phone is charged enough now, time for bed. I'll have to see where we are on the Saturday and Sunday rotations. I think Sunday is about done with #1, William Hartnell, so we get the handful of Troughton serials they have (with a few pulled becuase the BBC is cheap and stupid) before delving into Pertwee, where they provide most of his stories. Then we get into Tom Baker again, where they've cut out about half the stores--including a lot of the good ones. It's hard to get excited by the same half dozen stories over and over when you know there's so much they refuse to release because of stupid greed. Can you really hold out on a rerun of a 1970s British children's TV show because a network won't give you enough money? Any penny you get is free money. And holding out good stories makes loyal viewers stop watching: "Meh. 'Planet of Evil.' AGAIN. Why can't they just show 'Pyramids of Mars'?"