Galaxy Four

I finally got around to this story I had skipped and saw the hour-long reconstruction and recently found episode three (‘Air Lock’) that was placed on the second disc to ‘The Aztecs’ DVD.

Steven is trapped in the airlock

It’s very effectively told via this shortened recon, and a good thing it was shortened too, as it is not a story filled with action or adventure to say the least. As a story it hits no great heights. We have the Drahvins and  the Rills trapped on a planet about to explode. The Drahvins are beautiful blonde women, although only their leader, Maaga (Stephanie Bidmead) is capable of ‘thinking’. They want to take the Rill space ship to escape. The Rills are ‘hideous’ creatures, who have offered to help the Drahvins escape. They are served by the robotic ‘Chumblies’ – names so by Vicki. And that’s basically the whole story.

The Doctor and companions meet the Drahvins first, and are immediately alerted that they are not all that they seem. For two episodes they talk a lot and travel to and from the TARDIS to the Drahvin Spacecraft. The recently discover ‘Airlock’ (episode three) sees the Doctor and Vicki encounter the Rills for the first time, although we only see a glimpse of them through Perspex. This episode reveals what’s good and bad about the story.

Maaga and her troops

Firstly, the good. One could tag this story with the line ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. The Rills, ugly monsters they may be are actually the good, whereas the all-female Drahvins are untrusting and happy for everyone else to die. In the end the fact that they don’t trust anyone leads to their own destruction. I liked that the Rills, the ones who don’t look human, are in fact the ‘good guys’ of the piece.

On the flip side the story is somewhat two-dimensional. There are no really interesting characters, the Drahvins are (Maaga excepted) robotic drones and the Rills can only communicate from behind the Perspex wall on their space ship. So we see no interesting relationships. The Drahvins have a fair bit of dialogue which is mostly exposition of the situation or repetitive rubbish. Thus the story, which could be easily told in two parts, is stretched over four. The sets are okay, if filled with 1960s equipment everywhere, but the shiny black studio floor is evident in most shots. Paddy Russel’s direction makes no effort at all to conceal the surface of the planet.

Although I liked the themes of the story, I felt overall it was plainly too dull to hold serious interest for the viewer.

A Rill - he's rilly a good guy!

4/10

The Myth Makers

I have thoroughly entered the ‘missing years’ now it seems. A story with no episodes in existence, I did find an excellent reconstruction of this story on the Tube of You. Here we find the Doctor, Vicki and Stephen, back from their one week absence, arriving near Troy during the time of the Greek mission to take the city from the Trojans.  The ancient story of Odysseus and Agamemnon is somewhat brought to black and white life here in a good little four episode story.

The problem is, for the viewer watching in order, I imagine, is that they were expecting more Daleks! But no, we have to wait and extra four weeks (well back in the 60s we would have) to find out what happens after the events of ‘Mission to the Unknown’. A daring move perhaps by the production team.

‘The Myth Makers’, as its own entity though, is a rather good story. It’s filled with both violence and action, balanced with a fair bit of humour too. William Hartnell has a particularly good time of it. The first episode, ‘The Temple of Secrets’, features some sword play, the Doctor being mistaken for Zeus, and poor Vicki not even leaving the TARDIS. It’s not a fast moving story at first, but features witty dialogue and even the odd pun. We only see the desert and the camp of the Greeks in this episode, so locations are well presented on the design team’s behalf, but limited.

The second episode is hilariously entitled ‘Small Prophet, Quick Return’. Vicki finds herself inside Troy – Paris (excellent played by   ) has taken the TARDIS to Troy as a trophy. There she exits, smartly dressed in an appropriate robe. She clashes with Cassandra, a priestess, who thinks she is a bad omen. However, the others of Troy, defend her. They rename her Cressida. Vicki’s story is interesting, slowly falling in love with Troilus.

Fans of the bard will of course know of the play ‘Troilus and Cressida’, it seems Doctor Who has rewritten the truth or otherwise of that story. It’s a nice exit for Vicki, but in the final episode ‘The Horse of Destruction’, a lot goes unsaid. Vicki falls in love with Troilus, a Trojan, perhaps rather quickly and at the end the Doctor seems somewhat happy enough to leave her in ancient Troy which is a little odd and rushed. The Katarina helps Steven to the TARDIS and goes off with him, although she only features in the fourth episode, ‘Horse of Destruction’.

The Doctor has promised to come up with a way for the Greeks to take Troy. Naturally in the end he comes up with the idea of a giant empty wooden horse! Donald Cotton’s first Doctor Who script is very clever and uses a historical setting very effectively to tell and entertaining story.

The guest cast is fantastic, with Barrie Ingham as the clueless Paris. Jack Melford as Menelaus also gives a good performance of a weak and ineffective leader, whilst Frances White is excellent casting as Cassandra. It is Frances de Wolff as Agamemnon and Ivor Salter as Odysseus who steal the show with fantastic ‘larger-than-life’ performances of these amazing characters. Despite the humour and action of the piece, it is essentially a story where the acting stands out, with not a foot being put wrong casting-wise by director Michael Leeston-Smith.

I enjoyed this story quite a bit, considering it was purely a reconstruction.

7/10

The Time Meddler

Thankfully things picked up! ‘The Time Meddler’ is a wonderful pseudo-historical story, which I must try to have more of because I am always landing on modern day Earth or getting stuck somewhere like the time vortex which truly gets boring after a while.

Hey ho! Now I was looking for a new hat!

I really liked this story. It was a major improvement from the previous two which has really got old and slow – fast! A clever use of stock footage combined with studio work, simple but effective sets, a wonderful guest star in the amazing Peter Butterworth, one of the forgotten ‘Carry On’ regulars in nearly twenty of the films, and a clever plotline that was quite different from anything else that Doctor Who has presented thus far.

Peter Butterworth and Alethea Charlton

It wasn’t an amazing production, the script wasn’t mind blowing, but it’s a very solid four episodes. I almost didn’t notice that William Hartnell took a holiday during episode three! The Meddling Monk (Peter Butterworth) was a great foil for Hertnell’s Doctor, they worked well off each other and both injected some well needed humour into various parts.

We also have Peter Purves in his first full story as a travelling companion, Steven Taylor. He is filling William Russell’s shoes, but he brings a different sort of character to the table whilst still being able to be the slightly heroic figure who can get involves in fights which doesn’t fit Hartnell’s Doctor. Vicki, played by Maureen O’Brien, is as always very good too.

They keep the boundaries of the story, written by Dennis Spooner, simple and well contained. We see the monastery, the bottom of the cliffs, a small village with only one hut and a bit of forest scenery. It’s all the story needs. 

The Monk's console - slightly higher than the norm.

Ah but we do have the Monk’s TARDIS (and interior) as well as the Doctor’s. The floor is painted black and the console raised somehow so it’s basically at chest height, I think to watch it in the original run to see someone with a TARDIS other than the Doctor must have been a shock, but exciting.

As for the rest of the cast, they are mostly functional (especially the Vikings) but solid. A special mention goes to Alethea Charlton, in her second and somewhat similar Doctor Who role, her first being in the very first story, ‘An Unearthly Child’.

In ‘The Time Meddler’, the production team and Dennis Spooner have tried something a little different, and the result is a great little story!

Bloody Hell! Vikings!

7.5/10

The Space Museum

This is the first story I have seen to really play around with time. I enjoyed many aspects of this story, and was a little underwhelmed by some others. I am assured by my most excellent friend Andrew, that this is a common thing when talking about this story!

Hello! That's us over there trapped in glass cases!

For those who haven’t seen it, the only talking characters in the first episode are the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki. They have arrived... before they have arrived! The TARDIS has slipped a track in time. They can’t touch anything, or hear or talk to anything. Thankfully walking is ok! They don't disappear into the ground. The museum is rather simple, but they discover themselves in glass cases as a museum exhibit. The remaining three episodes will have them desperately trying to avoid this future!

It’s a great set up, and no doubt the original audience had their interested more than well and truly pricked. However, what followed perhaps does not live up to what was promised. I watched this on one of your Earth DVDs, and also watched a piece by Rob Shearman on ‘Defending the Space Museum’. He suggested that the last three episodes are a basically a satire of the series, that it is all tongue in cheek.

The Morox were at least given interesting hair!

Either that or no-one really cared to put much time, money and effort into it. As Rob said, even the computer that guards the weapons’ store sounds bored. The production notes proudly tell of how they ran the serial well under budget, and it shows. There are no frills here on this plain, dull planet.

The first issue is that we get no sense of the planet beyond the space museum. It seems unlikely that a space museum that no one visits is basically the whole planet, yet everything seems centred around it. The writer, Glynn Jones has not taken the time nor effort to imagine what the world is like beyond the museum, so when he writes about rebels overthrowing their oppressors, and then they win and over throw them in the space of half an episode, well it’s not even vaguely believable.

The locals and their wonderful eyebrows.

No characters outside the Doctor, Ian and Vicki (Barbara has precious little to do in this one) are worth caring about. There’s no thought been put into any of the characters. Then the costume designer steps in and decides that all locals just wear black skivvies and have very bizarre eyebrows. The poor actors have had their eyebrows poorly covered with face make up and new ones drawn a centimetre higher. It looks bizarre and not slightly convincing.

The sets are all white walls with whatever bric-a-brac is lying around. They did a great job in saving money I expect but expressed nothing artistically in the look of the thing. The actors are all so bored with the one-dimensional characters they have been given nothing stands out at all.

Vicki plots revolution, to raised eyebrows! (lol - gosh I make myself laugh!)

Having ranted a bit, it’s not the worst bit of TV ever made, just very uninspiring.  It is watchable, but very hard to sit through the last three parts. Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) gets a decent part in this one at least. She defeats the bored computer and starts a revolution! Her energy and positivity towards the role is always unquestionable. In a rather dull story, she is the shining light!

4/10

The Web Planet

The Doctor, Vicki, Ian and Barbara arrive on the mysterious planet Vortis. Here they meet all manner of strange creatures – Menoptera, Optera, Zarbi, Larvi Guns and the Animus in one of the strangest adventures yet.

Barbara meets the Menoptra

Intelligent bug creatures are much more frequent in the Universe than most people might realise. I have met some nasties in my time – the Leeches spring to mind, big slugs always hell bent on sucking the life out of worlds, but all of these were new to me. In fact they were all pretty friendly in this tale, especially the Menoptera who were based on butterflies but definitely in design bore more than a passing resemblance to bees.

I think that ‘The Web Planet’ is an amazing vision. I think most of the design was wonderful, and Bill Strutton, the writer, was certainly brave to write a story where the Doctor and his companions were the only ‘humans’ in the story. It left quite the challenge for the design and costume team, and indeed the director Richard Martin.

For the most part they succeeded. The Vortis set works very well for such a limited space, and they even managed to make the Menoptra fly by hoisting them up on wires, no mean feat at all. They spent time at Eeling studios getting the shots, and it made me wonder why they didn’t just shoot the whole thing there! The smaller Riverside studios and the others that they used were clearly far too small for the show – just watch this story you will see a camera hit a part of the set on more than one occasion! No doubt it was all about money.

It's a Zzzzzarbi!

For the Doctor Who community, this story seems to divide opinions as far as I can tell. It was explained to me early on that Doctor Who was a children’s programme, and this story certainly feels like it. One could even say it was aimed at younger children than usual. I think as far as imagery goes, it’s outstanding. They achieved a lot on the tiniest of budgets. Unfortunately you could see where the budget couldn’t stretch any further – the Optera were added after the script felt a bit thin, and design-wise they drew the short straw. It’s almost as if someone hollowed out a stuff toy and threw an actor in the shell.

The Zarbi, I think, look very good. I know the actors legs are very obvious, but apart from that they are a different sort of creature compared to what has previously been seen in Doctor Who. Bill Strutton has created an amazing world with different types of insects, and the viewer feels like he understands the intricacies of the world he has created.

However, it really does feel like it’s totally aimed at children. There’s not a lot for the adult viewer. The other real negative is the pacing, it’s really very slow after episode one. There is a distinct lack of background music as well, and parts of the story would have been carried better if there was some background music, especially in the final episode.

Ian, Vicki and the Doctor inside the Carsanome.

Ian’s story line seems quite superfluous to the rest of the plot, but someone had to spend time with the Optera I guess. The story was running very short. The work done with the Menoptera by Roslyn de Winter was fantastic though, coming up with an alien way of speaking and moving. Very clever choreography and a great effort to make alien creatures actually seem alien.

In summary it’s hard to know what to make of this story as a piece. It’s too long, slowly paced and let down by the Optera costumes. However it’s a wonderfully created and very unique alien world. 

Barbara prepares the Menoptra to fight!

The imagination put into the creatures is fantastic, the opening episode is wonderful as are the Menoptera. The Animus voice is very good too, a lilting deep female voice – certainly not your average evil creature.

The heart of the Carsanome - the Animus

7/10

The Romans

I have to say, this is my favourite Doctor Who tale so far! I found ‘The Roman’s’ to be a highly entertaining four episodes with a fair deal of comedy thrown in for good measure. It’s interesting and a lot of fun – and the cast members seem to be having a fair bit of fun themselves.

The Doctor, Vicki, Barbara and Ian enjoy a relaxing, lighter moment.



William Hartnell and the gentle art of fisticuffs.

The first episode ‘The Slave Traders’ is a very strong start, and the cast member who really shines is William Hartnell. He is really on song in this episode and doesn’t miss a beat. The same can’t be said for the remaining episodes where he appears to be really struggling at times, but nevertheless the first episode is his highlight thus far. It’s great to have Maureen O’brien in as his sidekick too – she does a wonderful job, is bubbly and intensely interested and amused by what the goings on. Quite the opposite of Susan.

 

William Hartnell in the title role has a ball. He even gets into a fight with a mute, and kicks his pants! There's an awful lot of hitting people over the head with vases - Barbara even knocks Ian on the scone.



Ian rows for his life in a slace Galley Boat.

Barbara and Ian each have separate storylines after being sold as slaves which are quite interesting. As in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, Ian (William Russel) finds himself paired with another similarly aged man, Delos (Peter Diamond). Ian leads the way here too, and the pairing works well. Barbara has less funny being chased by Nero (played by Derek Francis, who is excellent) and seems to always be the character who has to endure unwanted sexual advances (such as in ‘The Keys of Marinus’).



Highlights of this story include the Doctor pretending to play the Lyre, doing a whole ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ scene, and again William Hartnell in general showing glee in giving Nero the idea to burn Rome. Barbara and Ian have some wonderful moments in the first and last episodes in the villa they are ‘borrowing’.

Less impressive stuff? Well there’s a scene in episode two or three when two gladiators are practicing in a courtyard and they go at each other with the enthusiasm of a sleeping grandmother. Then we have the cut at the end of episode two where Ian looks out his cel window to see lions outside – clearly stock shots from a circus or zoo, or both! Not to forget when Ian and Delos are inside the galley, a well made set, they appear to have a bucket of water thrown over them from behind the camera instead of it coming from through the oar holes! Also, after episode one, despite a wonderful portrayal, William Hartnell does seem to really struggle on his lines for the remaining three parts. This was probably as bas as he's been thus far.

The limitations are a bit obvious, but despite them the story is effectively told. The sets belie the limited studio space, but also show what could be done. Simple, but very effective use of curtains and more curtains, balconies and columns equals authentic Nero-era Rome! J

The recycling of cast members is a little more puzzling. The rogue who is dealing in the slave trade suddenly appears as the captain of Nero’s guard! If so why did he need to sell Barbara to Nero via a third agent?

The models at the end when Rome is burning are rather well done. It’s hard to criticise the design when money and space were so scarce. It was interesting to learn that this story was in production around the time ‘Carry On Cleo’ was released in cinemas. Dennis Spooner, the writer, seems to have written a few gags and situations that wouldn’t have gone amiss in the Carry On series!  I enjoyed the comic turn however, and thankfully he didn’t set too much of this one in prison cells (unlike his previous entry, ‘The Reign of Terror’.)

I can honestly say I think this is the best story so far.

 

9/10

The Rescue



Ian and Barbara are faced with Koquillion

Next story along came this little two-parter – and now my blog has caught up with what I have been watching. I realise now that to finish all of Doctor Who by the end of the year I need to average a bit more than two episodes a day. I have watched four in the last five days so I am in a bit of trouble there!



Anyways onto the story which sees the Doctor replacing his grand-daughter Susan with the new Vicki (Maureen O’Brien). I have to say, Vicki is a decided improvement in my eyes. She is smiling and interested by most things, and generally bubbly and happier than Susan. This little story is well done. A very simple plot in David Whitaker’s functional script. Functioned to introduce Vicki and fill two episodes that is. Set on the planet Dido, Vicki and Bennet (Ray Barret) are waiting for a rescue ship to take them off the planet, where they crashed. They are monstered by the strange looking Koquillion, who has a magic spanner that can blast things. Turns out Bennet was responsible for the murder of the entire crew of the ship, and was disguising himself as Koquillion performing an amazing double act.

Ray Barret as Bennet.

The story is simple and easy to follow. The Production must have had a very small budget, but they did very well with the money they had. The space ship looks good and the model shots I think are far better than those in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’. William Hartnell as the Doctor has a very good story, almost without a fluff. The finale is shot in the Hall of Judgement or some such place, and that set is simple but very well done. The only thing that doesn’t quite look right is the presence of a reel to reel tape recorder, which I doubt will be in use a couple of hundred years into the future. Your future that is, not mine. I’ve been there but I would be contravening one of the laws of time if I was to tell whether they were or were not in use definitively here on this 21^st century blog.

Wonderful combination shot using inlay. Very difficult for the time.

I must admit I thought that Barbara and the Doctor were a little callous towards Vicki after Barbara killed her pet ‘Sandy’. Vicki screamed out to Barbara not to kill Sandy, but she shot it with a flare anyway! Surely Barbara would have known by now that just because it looks like a monster, it’s not necessarily hostile? Then they try to pass it off (Barbara and the Doctor) as something that couldn’t be helped. Well, thanks a lot!

Not much else to talk about here. Ray Barret, an Australian, did a very fine job as Bennet who was doubling as Koquillion, a stand out performance. All the regulars were good too, Ian had a slightly quieter role in this one. I liked it.

8/10