Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Director Paddy Russel’s first Doctor Who story was ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’, a strange story that I really enjoyed except for, well, any Doctor Who fan will know what’s wrong with this story. If you’re going to call a story ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’, then simply your first priority once the script is written is to have decent looking dinosaurs. And this story scores a massive fail in that area.

The Drashings were quite dinosaur-like in ‘Carnival of Monsters’, so it’s disappointing that something of the same quality couldn't be done for this story. The dinosaurs don’t work on any level sadly, and there are three key reasons why. 

Jon Pertwee CSOed onto a model. Not the best. The Stegosaurus isn't great, but the backdrop is dreadful.

1/ They lack detail, movable limbs and don’t look realistic at all. In fact, they look like something out of a carton of cereal. They appear to be held by their tails. It’s shocking.

2/ The backdrops they are put in front of don’t match the filming. They look like models sadly and it was a very strange decision to do it this way. As the dinosaurs only, for the most part, appear outside, the corresponding shots are all on film. So the Doctor looks up to see a T-Rex, cut to a T-Rex in front of a set that looks like it’s from ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’. They should have, in this case, shot the angles they needed on film and CSOed the monsters in. Instead the Doctor gets CSOed onto unrealistic backgrounds, shot on video, facing giant plastic toys. Fail on every level.

3. They linger sooooooo long on the dinosaurs. The key to building suspense is limit the time you see the monster. Give glimpses. But the shots just go on and on and on. The longer you look at the dinosaurs, the more you see their faults.

A T-Rex in chains.

Perhaps a different director would have come up with a different way to do the shots. But sadly it’s embarrassing for Paddy Russel. Michael Ferguson would have been perfect for this story – he is the most inventive and clever director of this era in my opinion, and that’s the sort of thinking ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ needed to work.

But enough of the criticism, because actually I like this story save the dinosaurs, which I understand is a fairly common stance amongst Doctor Who fans. The plot, although quite non-sensical when examined closely, is very interesting. I rather like most of the sets even if many of the corridors wobble a bit too much. It’s well cast, seeing the return of Peter Miles as Whitaker, played almost exactly as he played his character in ‘The Silurians’. But mad-Professor – he’s your man! Martin Jarvis as his sidekick was perhaps under-utilised. We have Mike Yates back and Richard Franklin gets to explore the more gullible side of his nature as he changes sides, believing this Earth is in trouble.

Whitaker (left) Sarah, Finch and Grover.

Whitaker plans to turn the Earth back to the Jurassic era, keeping London intact. Really though – isn’t he just taking London back in time? Why would you bother reversing time for all the Earth when you already had equipment that pulls dinosaurs out of time and brings them to the future – ie. he has already achieved time travel!

But don’t look too hard, and you won’t notice the absurdity of the script. We have a group of people who believe they are on a space ship heading to ‘New Earth’, but in fact are still stuck in central London whilst they turn time back. It’s interesting that Hulke has written them all as quite dim, but believing that the world has become ultra-polluted and society has degenerated. He writes them as fools, in stark contrast to characters in ‘The Green Death’. That’s what is really interesting about ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ – what happens when environmentalists go too far? Hulke and Letts, it must be said, were on different sides of the fence politically.

Sarah aboard the fake space ship.

The acting is very solid, this aspect Paddy Russel excels at when it comes to directing. It moves pretty well. There’s a strange instance when the Doctor has been framed, and then he escapes, and he starts running away to the middle of nowhere for some reason though, and that seems to simply be filler as there’s a long chase sequence. Benton has a wonderful moment when he punches General Finch, played by John Bennet. As they fight he is told he will be court-martialled and he says ‘yes sir, very good sir’ as the fight goes on. He then smiles about it in the final scene, and is wonderfully reminded by the Brigadier he’d better not make a habit of it. As for Mike Yates, it seems the end of the line for him...

Classic moment - Benton grapples with Finch!

I still like this story despite a seemingly very critical review. The plot’s bonkers and the dinosaurs are embarrassingly woeful, but still I like this one. It’s a pity the colour-recovery didn’t work out for episode one, the results are ok at points but pretty bad at others. It’s possibly the best episode of the six too, very foreboding. I love the idea of the Doctor and Sarah returning to London to find no-one around, martial-law enforced and wondering what’s happened. It’s very eerie, and we only see a dinosaur at the very end. Oh, hate to end on a negative note but three episodes end with the Doctor being faced with a (dodgy obviously) T-Rex. Oh, if only....

6.5/10

The Time Warrior

Greeted by new credits

The season-opener for Season 11 is really a wonderful piece of writing, with some fantastic performances from the guest cast. It’s a fun romp, with a wonderful humorous  edge. Whilst Robert Holmes introduces the Sontarans, a potato-headed warrior race, the real stars of the show are the characters he wrote so beautifully in Irongron and Bloodaxe, portrayed by David Daker and John J. Carney. As a pair they are simply very funny, and work brilliantly off each other. There is something very funny about seeing two stupid people in positions of power.

Irongron (left) with Bloodaxe.

For Example: Bloodaxe (to Irongron): Indeed yours is a towering intelligence.

Then we have Professor Rubeish, played by Donald Pelmear.  A doddering old scientist blind without his glasses who potters along for the whole story like he’s invisible to Linx, the Sontaran, played by Kevin Lindsay, holding up a piece of glass he fashioned into a spectacle. Linx looks great, the mask is well proportioned to the actor’s face, and they cast exactly the right man for the job in my opinion. We only see his face sparingly too, the director has avoided revealing too much of his chief-villain.

Kevin Lidsay as the lovely Linx.

However, the end of episode one is extremely contrived. The Doctor is hiding in the castle behind a wagon or something, and Linx strolls out, and takes his helmet off so we can see his ugly features. There’s no good reason for him to do so unless he was desperate for air I guess.

Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith.

Now, we have a new character as well, a new ‘companion’ for the Doctor when she sneaks aboard the TARDIS as the Doctor sets course for medieval England, Sarah Jane Smith. Quite a departure from Jo Grant, Sarah is very aggressive and in fact thinks the Doctor is responsible for the missing scientists for a time. Played by the late Elizabeth Sladen, Sarah is very good in this story, making a strong debut, organising attacks on Irongron’s castle, kidnapping the Doctor and the like.

Eventually she realises the Doctor is on the side of good of course, and helps him out. She helps the rather helpless Edward of Wessex (Alan Rowe), who is attacked by Irongron and fears for his castle and lands.

personal favourite: Bloodaxe

What is strange is that Irongron and his band of men with questionable intelligence don’t seem to be very good at hunting, instead preferring to capture castles, stay there until all the food and drink has been consumed and move to the next castle. Not really sure what the ultimate aim is.

Linx and Irongron plot together.

It’s a nice, compact four-part story. The DVD release includes some new CGI effects, which is a good thing because to be frank the effects in the original telecast version are all a bit rubbish, especially the exploding castle at the end. Robert Holmes was apparently reluctant to write a story in an historical setting, however ‘The Time Warrior’ proves that mixed with science fiction elements, an historical setting is a great place to set a Doctor Who story.

8/10

The Green Death

Jo and Professor Jones.

We say a fond farewell to Katy Manning and Jo Grant in this story. We return to a far more familiar style of tale for the Pertwee era in an Earth-based story that could have been penned by Malcolm Hulke for its political message, but was in fact written by Barry Letts and Robert Sloman. It has a strong environmental message, before the green movement had really started to make waves. In fact we see the environmentalists shown as basically a bunch of fringe-dwellers led by the charismatic Professor Cliff Jones (Stewart Bevan).

Stevens and the 'BOSS'.

The plot is an interesting mix of styles I feel. It’s quite different in many ways from the previous two season-finales in ‘The Daemons’ and ‘The Time Monster’. There’s a blend of comedy in this one and I think it’s just about Jon Pertwee’s best performance as the Doctor. It’s little wonder – he gets to pretend to be a milkman and the cleaning lady in a wonderful comic-turn which had previously been denied the actor, who entered Doctor Who with a career primarily as a comedian.

The main protagonist is the ‘BOSS’, a megalomaniac computer voiced by John Dearth. It’s a lovely performance from a man who didn’t actually get to appear on screen, full of colour and clear enjoyment. His chief puppet is ‘Stevens’, the chief of Global Chemicals, played by Jerome Willis. There’s just one thing – where has this computer come from? Who built it? In some ways it’s a copy of WOTAN from the first Doctor Who story ‘The War Machines’, albeit done much better. The BOSS plans to take over the world when the other main computers are all linked to him. However, again, it is never explained where the computer came from and why it became so crazy and power mad.

Yates and Stevens.

The direction is solid, especially for the actors’ performances. I wonder though if they ran out of time on the location shoot, because there are a number of shots that should have been shot outdoors that have instead been done on CSO. It doesn’t work at all well unfortunately, and that’s disappointing because much of the story is really good and really well done. The glowing green marks on people infected by the ooze or maggots for instance. The maggots themselves are pretty well done in most cases. But, like ‘Carnival of Monsters’, CSO is relied on just a little too much. Also some of the model shots of the maggots on the hill don’t match the exterior shooting at all. At the end of the day, they had time and money constraints, but it holds back the story from being as good as it could have been.

Jon Pertwee the cleaning lady!

The characters are great, and the Brigadier, Benton and Yates all have good parts. Poor Richard Franklin, doesn't appear until episode three or four, and this was his only story in season 10! But he gets to look funky in a suit and wear his hair unlike a military type. Katy Manning gets a great send off, perhaps this is the one time I can believe in the ‘falling in love and getting married’ reason for leaving the show. With Letts and Sloman, Katy had a writing duo who know her character very very well, so the issues of ‘Planet of the Daleks’ do not resurface here. It does however make the whole situation with Jo and Latep in the previous story seem even more out of place.

Set in a wonderful little Welsh mining town, the characters and lilting accents colour the story very well, with some wonderful performances from the supporting cast. The Nut-Hutch, the home of Professor Jones and the whole-wheat community is also well done. Very sad to see Jo go, it’s definitely the end of an era. The final scene where the Doctor drives off, teary-eyed, is one of the most touching moments in the show’s history to this point, and I suspect, to this day it remains so.

7.5/10

The Three Doctors

Have you ever met yourself? I have. It’s a very frustrating experience to be honest. At least in this story the three Doctors didn’t start singing and dancing – that’s what happened when I bumped into to other selves the last time.

Publicity shot of the Three Doctors.

Please see ‘The Quest for the Golden Slippers’ for more information.

‘The Three Doctors’ was penned by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, and in some ways is the least bizarre of their first three tales. An honour to receive the chance to write the first ever multi-Doctor story I expect, they acquitted themselves very well. But as a viewer, it’s just a joy to see, above everything else, Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton on screen together. They look like they actually get along very well, but I believe initially they didn’t. However their dialogue, their exchanges were just a joy to behold, and Baker and Martin wrote very well from Troughton.

Poor William Hartnell, in poor health at the time, gets sadly very little to do except appear on the TARDIS scanner and issue instructions. Would have loved even one scene with him and the other two in the final episode. It’s a pity that wasn’t possible and for much of the story it is sadly just the two Doctors.

Perhaps though the actor that steals the show in this one is Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier in the way he deals with Patrick Troughton, not to mention the situation. Finally the Brig and Benton (John Levene) get inside the TARDIS to see what it’s all about. Nicholas Courtney spends most of the four episodes disbelieving everything the Doctors say to him, blowing his top and being extremely army-like (as in more than usual!). As with Jon Pertwee his best stuff is playing straight man to Patrick Troughton.

We have the return of the Time Lord home planet, still unnamed (Spoiler alert: It’s Gallifrey. I should know, I was born there!). It’s very big and very blue, and we have a bunch of Time Lords without names who we don’t know much about running the show.

Then there is the villain of the piece, Omega, played by the boisterous Stephen Thorne. Thorne was equally as loud as Azal in ‘The Daemons’, still he didn’t hold back here either. In an interview on the DVD he said he would have played it much softer if he had the chance to do it again. He did, perhaps push it too far, although I didn’t mind the performance to be fair. It certainly is a very impressive voice! The mask and look was rather good too.

Omega

The story is not as clever as the previous two by this industrious writing pair. ‘The Mutants’ especially makes the audience think and analyse, and ‘The Claws of Axos’ is full of ideas an imagery, however, ‘The Three Doctors’ is an anniversary tale, and as such is somewhat functionary to allow the Doctors to come together. The ideas of anti-matter and going through a black hole are nevertheless interesting and may well have perked some kids’ interest in science and astronomy.

Back in a quarry, it would have been nice for a different sort of world, as much as did suit the world of Omega for the story. Quarries, by now, have become almost the default exterior location for filming Doctor Who. The sets were colourful, the use of bubbles nice on the walls, although the ‘blob’ or ‘bubble’ creatures were a little too comical for my liking.

The Brig and the second Doctor have some great moments.

Even counting the negatives, Patrick Troughton on screen, in colour bickering with Jon Pertwee erases most ills of this story in my opinion, and makes it an enormously fun!

8/10

The Time Monster

The Doctor prepares to track the Master.

‘The Time Monster’ was an interesting story. A lot of fun, a bit crazy and definitely non-sensical,  but an interesting idea that may or may not have worked. I’m still not sure. On the one hand as an audience member I had to suspend disbelief when looking at a man in a white bird suit apparently being the monster, and groaning at the name ‘Chronivore – eater of time’, and yet for much of it I enjoyed the absurdity.

Barry Letts the Producer often said he wanted science rooted in fact. Let’s be honest there was little to none of that in ‘The Time Monster’, which he co-penned with Robert Sloman who was credited with this story. I think it’s great that

Man in a white suit = monster???

Doctor Who had a story which had a little to do with time – such as the season opener in ‘Day of the Daleks’, but not a lot was made of it over these six episodes save for some things being brought forward in time to attack UNIT troops and the like. The plot again reads as the Master trying to control a being he could ultimately have no chance of controlling to give him the ultimate in power – which admittedly changes from story to story. Here it’s presumably power of all of time. He also tried to harness the Nestene, the doomsday weapon, the power of Azal and so forth.

The TARDIS full of salad bowls!

That aside, if you allow yourself into the world of this story it’s quite light-hearted despite the destruction of Atlantis and a couple of deaths. It moves at a decent pace, with the last two episodes set in Atlantis and features a lot of the TARDIS – both the Doctor’s and the Master’s, which we've seen precious little of since Doctor Who went into colour. Apparently no-one likes the salad bowl sets, except for me. I think they looked smashing and might yet decorate my TARDIS in such a design.

Delgado and George Cormack.

Moving on the cast is superb. Roger Delgado holds nothing back in this quintessential performance, whilst Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney, John Levene and Katy Manning are clearly having a ball. The Doctor builds a device to interfere with the Master’s TARDIS out of forks, a wine bottle and tea leaves, whilst the Master drops a doodle-bug on Mike Yates. Benton outwits the Master ever so cunningly only to have the Master fool him even more simply. THEN Benton ends up a baby!

Ingrid Pitt.

Ingrid Pitt guest stars as Galeia, Queen of Atlantis, a city with a lot of topless men who are very very white. The guest cast is full of brilliant performances from George Cormack as Dalios to Wanda Moore as Doctor Ruth Ingram. We even have another character in the style of a useless bureaucrat in Doctor Percival, played by John Wyse.

A wonderful array of sets for Atlantis, essentially only appearing in the final two episodes, were contructed too and kudos to the team for that because they can’t have had much money for them. Unless they borrowed them from ‘I, Claudius’ ???

Look, it’s no classic, some could even say it’s so bad it’s good, but I think it’s a pretty enjoyable 6 part story.

7/10

The Curse of Peladon

Following the season opener, the Doctor and Jo have been released from Earth for a second time to help out the planet Peladon, seeking entrance to the Galactic Federation sometime in the future. It’s an interesting blend of the new and the old – Peldadon is a planet seemingly in its own ‘middle ages’, ruled by a singular castle in a cliff where storms rage and beasts roam.

Izlyr, the Ice Warrior, with Alpha Centauri, the Doctor and Jo

The thing is, we are presented with merely a glimpse of the planet, and another planet that presents as a small city at best. It’s a great image to start with, but quite limited in the end. However, ‘The Curse of Peladon’ is a pretty good tale.

King Peldaon fails to win Jo's heart :(

For starters, we have David Troughton, son of the second Doctor (who also appeared in the War Games’ appearing as King Peladon in a great performance. We have the return of the Ice Warriors, whom the view spends most of the time presuming to be the villains, but as it turns out are not! It’s excellent that Brian Hayles, the writer and creator of the Ice Warriors, saw fit to present them in a different light rather than the atypical ‘they are monsters, therefore they are bad’ approach.

I like the imagery, the direction, the story. The costuming is excellent, the only thing missing is the concept of Peladon as a world, rather than a small kingdom. How does King Peladon rule the world? Especially without even basic wifi!

The Galactic Federation have sent delegates from four planets, including Earth (who doesn’t show up until the very end, and the Doctor poses in their place), Mars (the Ice Warriors), Alpha Centauri and Arturis. The last two are both rather clever creations. Alpha Centauri has multiple legs and one giant eye, and perhaps looks a little ridiculous by 2013 standards, but I rather liked. Arturis was very nicely made, a small green creature in a machine that kept him alive and allowed him to be mobile.

The strange and devious Arcturus

There is a great action/fight sequence between the Doctor and Grun, the King’s Champion, in a sort of pit they are lowered into surrounded by ropes. It was rather well done, and well thought of artistically. Then we have Aggedor, the ancient beast of Peladon, whom the High Priest Hepesh (getting to this character) has made a sort of god. This was very well shot, as was the whole piece, so that they never had him on screen for a long continuous period of time which would have emphasised the limited ability the production crew had to make a convincing looking beast.

Aggedor was mostly shot in the shadows, and thanks to good lighting, there were plenty of those. Doctor Who sometimes has over-lit sets which makes them look really bland, but in the Pertwee era usually the lighting has been much more subtly done thus far. ‘The Curse of Peladon’ is another example of that.

As for Hepesh, the high Priest of Peladon played by Geoffrey Toome, and the guy responsible in the most part for all killings and so forth, it’s a very considered performance in a role that despite his actions, the audience can sympathise with. In some ways the story is a bit of a ‘whodunnit’ especially in the first couple of episodes. It’s great that it’s not a black and white case of ‘he’s a bad man’. That coupled with the Ice Warriors who even defend the Doctor at times, makes this a well thought-out story. To be fair to the Ice Warriors, only in ‘The Seeds of Death’ have they been involved as full-on baddies who just want to invade and kill. In ‘The Ice Warriors’ they are trapped in the ice and desperate.

The Doctor fights Grun in the pit.

And so ‘The Curse of Peladon’ has been reviewed. Mostly positive stuff, without it being brilliant or extremely exciting. My only other criticism would be it is a little slow, but an enjoyable tale with some wonderful memorable moments such as the fight in the pit, oh and perhaps the best of all is Jon Pertwee singing a Venusian lullaby to calm and slightly hypnotise Aggedor. A wonderful moment for the third Doctor there.

8/10