The Five Doctors

Tegan and the Doctor at the Eye of Orion

Carole Ann Ford as Susan with a NEW First Doctor.

After twenty years, it was time for a one-off special, and in the vein of ‘The Three Doctors’, ‘The Five Doctors’ provides an entertaining, fun story to celebrate a very special milestone. The fact that Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee were in it is a little bit magical. Tom Baker declined (in the end), and I must admit I think it might have been a little strange if he was in it. The use of the ‘Shada’ clips was a clever way around it and allowed the story to be called ‘The Five Doctors’. Add to that Richard Hundrell’s First Doctor, (Hartnell sadly passed away in 1975), and the thing works brilliantly. Hundrell is NOT William Hartnell, but similar in many ways whilst putting his own mark on the part as well.

Then Carole Ann Ford, Lis Sladen and Nicholas Courtney came back to reprise their roles, with cameos from Caroline John, Richard Franklin, Wendy Padbury and Fraser Hines. Plus Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti and Athony Ainley as the Master. It really was a celebration of all that had come before in the previous 20 years. A tough task for Terrance Dicks, but one he did a great job with considering all the things he had to include. His writing is very natural, and whilst it feels quite different from recent stories, it was a true ‘Doctor Who’ tale from a man who knows the show as well as anyone.

Jon Pertwee is also back.

I won’t go into the behind-the-scenes issues with Robert Holmes and the likes here, I will just look at this 90 minute special, which was slightly extended on the version I saw on the DVD. To the short comings firstly. It was sad to see Borusa turned into the bad guy, and Peter Moffat cast him with the fourth actor in as many stories (Philip Latham) who seems evil from the get-go to be honest. So this turn to the dark side was telegraphed and with the Borusas we have seen previously, it is rather hard to believe as well. Paul Jericho is back as the Castellan, getting brutally

And Pat Troughton!

shot on Borusa’s orders, and the garish Gallifrey/capitol sets are also back with a vengeance. Borusa also gets some crazy headwear at one point. A couple of dodgy direction points here and there – Susan spraining her ankle was perhaps more a nod to this oft-used plot device rather than anything else, but it’s not done or directed convincingly. When the Third Doctor meets Sarah, he pulls her up a slight incline using a cable and Bessie. To be frank it looks ridiculous and something else should have been done in my opinion if they couldn’t convince.

A couple of old companions cameo.

Aside from that, what’s not to like? Okay, the script isn’t amazing, ground-breaking stuff, but it didn’t need to be. It needed to provide something for all appearing Doctors to do, which it did admirably, and it needed to wrap things up nicely. It also did

that. The principle location, Wales, was a good choice. Certainly better than a quarry! Then we have a new TARDIS console, a huge step up from the previous one which had been used, I think, since Graham Williams took the reins, and to be honest was a poor cousin to the original console first seen in 1963.

It’s a wonderful nod to the past, Peter Davison gets a good run as ‘the Doctor’, as he should have. I agree with some disappointment that it would have been nice to have the Doctors sharing more screen time together. Pertwee and Troughton again are great together but they don’t  get that much of a chance. They both still retain what they originally brought to the role brilliantly, even if Troughton is a little more understated than he was in ‘The Three Doctors’. He is ten years older of course.

What else is there to say? This ticks a lot of boxes for me. Much better than the general feel of Season 20 too, which was rather bland at times despite the Guardian stories being rather solid.

8.5/10

The King's Demons

Gerald Flood as bad King John

Some stories don’t need as many words to sum up as others. This is one of those stories. ‘The King’s Demons’ is Terence ‘it’s only Doctor Who’ Dudley’s last script for the show thankfully. It’s starts well enough, King John (Gerald Flood) is visiting a castle in the north of England somewhere even though he is also in London. The King is in fact Kamelion, a robot the Master found of Zeraphax who can change his appearance. Hence the name.

Can you see through the disguise?

It’s a two-parter, which don’t appear to work very well in the Davison era. Come the 15-minute mark of the second episode the writer seems to realise that there’s very little time left and everything gets wrapped up as quickly as possible. The Master spends most of the first episode disguised (badly) as a the King’s (French) champion. So far in every Davison story he’s appeared in he’s had a disguise. Groan. Gerald Flood hams it to the max. Tegan complains how cold it is for pretty much the entire story. The locals hate then like then hate the Doctor again. But no connection with any character is made by the Doctor or his companions. Turlough does very little.

The Doctor and Master grapple for control over Kamelion.

It’s not the worst of the season, it has a good look, sets are solid, costumes fantastic, but at two episodes and a very weak plotline – the Master wants to change history by preventing Magna Carta from being signed, so he’s trying to discredit King John by having Kamelion do wacky things, this story falls far short of what it could have been. In fact it still has me going until the reveal of the robot, which was a real robot, albeit one that didn’t work very well.

Characters are somewhat one-dimensional, but solidly played except for flood who goes too far

camping it up like crazy. As the Master’s only appearance this season, and his previous story ‘Time-Flight’ (which this story references without explaining how the Master escaped) I would have hoped for better for Anthony Ainley. Very hard it seems to tell a good story over two parts.
4/10

Snakedance

Martin Clunes as Lon with Collette O'Neil

‘Snakedance’ is Christopher Bailey’s sequel to ‘Kinda’, and although it’s not as thought-provoking or skilfully crafted as the first story, it’s a decent piece with some lovely characters and superb acting, which makes it generally enjoyable even if it still suffers from unconvincing snakes and a very confusing ending which really needed to be explained but wasn’t

John Carson (second from left)

Martin Clunes heads an all-star guest cast as the son of the Federator who wears quite the most ridiculous costume I’ve ever seen – a sort of short white dress with blue clouds on it. Hmmm, yes very fetching. His mother, Tanha, is played by Collette O’Neil, also a very good performance but special mention must go to John Carson as Ambril, whose reactions to the Doctor and general disposition are a real hoot.

Janet Fielding gets to do a bit more of the evil voice and evil acting, even if she comes across as a whining wimp in the first few scenes at the thought of the Mara returning. I thought Adric had left? Maybe she was filling the breach.  I like the ideas, and some of the sets too. The image they went for was Morocco inspired like a huge bazaar. Tents and colours abound.

My issue is seriously with the lighting.

It’s always hard to light for exterior when shooting multi-camera on a set, but this is very poor. I always feel like it’s a set. Even the cycloramas on the stuff that was filmed belies the actual location of filming – they are white! The set is a bit polystyrene too. The inside of the palace or wherever the Federators’ wife and son are staying is good, and I LOVED the six faces of delusion mask (brilliant moment in the story).

Manussan street

Snake finale with Janet Fielding

So it was a real mixed bag. Some stuff is downright creepy, the scenes in the hall of mirrors are some of the best from a writing and directing point of view. And then we hit the end. The Doctor communicates in the middle of a supposed desert with Dogon, the old high priest or some telepathically and goes back to the cave. The Mara appears, the Doctor holds out a small crystal and does something unexplained with his mind and he kills the Mara. In the next story he explains the Mara can only be killed between stages of its becoming or some waffle like that, but I was just left wondering why the Mara lost.

Costumes are a bit much really. Lots of layers, yet

apparently we are close to a desert. Also, everything looks clean and new. Much as I like the colour purple, perhaps tan and brown would have given a better sense of the location? It’s just so… so… so studio. And you get no concept of the full town, where the palace is or anything, or how far from the desert the town is either.

But it’s a lot of fun but it really is like watching a play. The designer Jan Spoczynski was very wrong for the show it seems. Enjoyable story thanks to the cast.

6.5/10

Arc of Infinity

Amsterdam

Better than ‘Time-Flight’. Just. That’s not saying much is it? I’m sorry this isn’t going to be a long review today. Johnny Byrne managed to write one of the most forgettable Doctor Who stories here which consists of an entire episode of running around Amsterdam. Gawd! And a conclusion which is the Doctor shooting Omega, the villain of the piece.

Instead of getting the incredible Stephen Thorne back to reprise this role, one I truly believe there was no need to bring back anyway, they got in Ian Collier who was in ‘The Time Monster’ and frankly the role worked better as a shouting loony than trying to turn him into something he wasn’t. It’s a bit convoluted, the Time Lords are done just as bad as they were in ‘The Invasion of Time’, except they were now more eighties, and generally it’s a boring groan-fest of rubbish, not auguring well for the rest of the season to follow.

It’s also full of ridiculous coincidences, especially that last episode Tegan went away and the next they bump into her in Amsterdam because her cousin, who is also from Australia without the apparent accent, has been caught by Omega because he happened to need a place to sleep for the night and his incredibly geeky friend thought a crypt would be the place to go.

Colin Baker as Maxil.

Then we have Colin Baker as Commander Maxil, he would go on to play the Doctor but for some reason this part and that of the new Castellan (Paul Jericho) has been written with both having venomous hatred for the Doctor. Why? No idea don’t ask me I just work here. Borusa has regenerated again and is now President. Michael Gough camps up the Time-Lord traitor Hedin who apparently was a great friend of the Doctor but we’ve never heard of him in 20 years of them making the show.

Omega's new mask

Ian Collier

The show starts with the Doctor repairing parts of the TARDIS by opening ‘roundels’. Hmmmm, did they have to give the circles on the walls names? I’m sure the series would have survived without that. The sets are plastic and bright, too long again spent in the TARDIS. Time Lord technology looks like something created by Mattel. It’s DREARY! Seriously dreary. The script is nonsense, Omega runs around looking like Peter Davison and suddenly they change the actor rather than do split screen and it’s so obviously. And don’t get me started on the ludicrous Ergon.

Rubbish.

1.5/10