The Androids of Tara

The strength so far of this season, apart from some great casting, has been the variation in stories. We go from a moody slightly comical piece with excellent characterisations to a sort of fantasy world where everything is over the top, to a dark horror story which turns into a science fiction mishmash, and then ‘The Androids of Tara’ – a delightful swashbuckling tale of knights filled with sword fights and robots, based on a story called ‘The Prisoner of Zelda’.

Mary Tamm meets Peter Jefferies.

For me this one takes the cake as the best of the season so far. And if this rate of improvement keeps up the finale of the season is going to be awesome. This is one of my all-time favourites I’d have to say. If you take away the frankly awful creature that attacks Romana in the first episode, then it’s almost perfect!

The Android Prince about to be crowned King.

The locations were perfect, as was the weather. It was filmed in the Summer, a good Summer, in England which is not the sort of weather one associates with England. Often they would find themselves shooting in the middle of winter, especially back in the Jon Pertwee days. The cast must have been relieved to be shooting outside in this sort of weather.

The plot, David Fisher’s second story in a row by the way, takes the outline from a story called ‘The Prisoner of Zelda’, which I have never read. This was Anthony Read’s suggestion to the writer I believe. Read did well to find David Fisher who had never written for Doctor Who before, and did even better to get two top-notch stories out of him. The fact that this one was not a wholly original idea doesn’t matter, it was completely Doctor Who-ised and is four wonderful episodes of TV. The nature of the story, a medieval design set on a far off planet where robotics is popular, means that this is the sort of story which stands the test of time and doesn’t come across as particularly dated.

It’s primarily shot on film too which gives it a better look than ‘The Stones of Blood’. Apart from the sparkling script, what makes this story one of the best is the cast. It’s a top notch guest cast led by Peter Jeffrey, returning to Doctor Who for his second story (his first was’ The Macra Terror’ more than ten years earlier) who plays the Count with wonderfully villainous relish. Prince Reinhart is played by Neville Jason, again perfect casting for the romantic lead of the piece. The supporting cast is also uniformly excellent, with a special appearance by Cyril Shapps in his fourth and final Doctor Who story, and it’s an extra-special one – he doesn’t get killed in this one!

So it yourself android building!

The story also features Mary Tamm doubling, or in fact tripling up as Romana, the Pirncess Strella and an android double of the Princess. In fact there’s also an android double of Romana so technically she plays four characters. From the interview on the DVD this was probably her favourite story, and she clearly enjoys it. In fact, the entire cast are clearly having a ball from go to woe. It is however, played straight, but with enjoyment. As I have said before, when the actors are enjoying themselves, we tend as an audience to also enjoy ourselves.

This is right up there with the best of the best. Season 16 has transformed Doctor Who into a fun and clever programme once more after the very poor season 15.

9.5/10

The Macra Terror

Ian Stuart Black’s third and final story for Doctor Who is this rather strange beast, known as ‘The Macra Terror’. A completely missing story, bar a couple of very short censored clips recovered in Australia, it tells the story of a colony secretly controlled by giant crabs, known as ‘Macra’.

As ‘The Moonbase’ was basically a reworking of ‘The Tenth Planet’, in some ways ‘The Macra Terror’ is similar to Black’s first story – ‘The Savages’. The Doctor and his three companions (it is clear by now that’s one too many) arrive in the future in a place where everything seems to be paradise, but in truth something very sinister is going on. The Macra as using the colony to mine for gas, which they need to survive.

That’s where the plot differs greatly from ‘The Savages’. It’s an interesting story, a little weird and kooky in places, and one I liked a lot. It’s the last in another string of four parters – since ‘The Daleks’ Masterplan’ all stories bar ‘The Power of the Daleks’ have been four-parters. We have some very strange musical choices in a story where everyone is supposed to be happy.

Ben's beauty treatment.

There are the ‘Majorettes’, a group of girls that appear to be straight out of an American ‘pep-rally’ waving batons and marching, and curious songs telling everyone to be happy. The Macra are controlling everyone in the colony through gas and little electronic devices in the walls. The Doctor, Polly, Jamie and Ben are welcomed to the colony where an escaped prisoner runs into them and is therefore captured. They are given strange ‘beauty’ treatments. The Doctor gets all neatened up but is upset and puts himself, fully clothed, into a massage machine to mess up his hair and clothes.

Polly has her hair cut, or so it sees at least. This story is a good one, if not the best, for Ben. Ben’s character is taken over and obeys control without question, but slowly through the story Ben regains control of himself. Michael Craze hasn’t got the chance to do much interesting with Ben, but in this story there is some sort of progression.

The story, like ‘The Savages’, reminds the audience – if something seems too good to be true, it probably is! It’s a nice little theme that Black explores in two of his three stories. I’m sure we can relate it easily to everyday life. These dark ideas are tempered with some comedy, and Patrick Troughton’s Doctor is again progressing. It’s not nearly as wild now as it was in the first two stories, he is the one who can see the truth behind the colony well before anyone else can. Except perhaps Jamie – the hypnotising system has no affect on Jamie. He is proving to be a companion not fooled easily despite coming from more than 200 years further back in the past than Ben and Polly. Jamie has a lot more to do in this story too than the previous two.

There’s a wonderful scene in episode four when he tries to escape whilst doing the ‘highland fling’, as he says ‘it’s called the ‘highland fling’, because at the end you fling yourself out the door.’

Peter Jeffrey and Gertan Clauber.

Again the supporting cast do not get very well-rounded characters. The chief protagonist, aside from the Macra, is the Security Chief Ola (Gertan Clauber), who is bombastic and obeys control without question as he wants to become Pilot. The Pilot is played by Peter Jeffrey. He at least is changed by events, and a great piece of casting.

There are really only two other characters of significance  Escaped prisoner Medok (Terrance Lodge) is the only colonist who seems to know the truth, a decent part well played. Then we have     overseeing the mining.

The design is hard to comment on – I only had reconstructed episodes to go on. The Macra themselves appear to be well shot. They are only seen in the dark, or a gloomy space, with their eyes lit up, but you don’t get a good look at them. This is a classic technique to let the viewer’s imagination take over, and so that the obvious design flaws are not seen by the audience. It would have been too costly to build giant crabs that looked realistic and scary in the full light of day.

The set is one that doesn't clearly show you what life is like. I was confused if they go from building to building, or if it’s all one big complex. No model/exterior shots were shown, and I don’t think any were shot. There are quite a few sets – two control rooms, shafts, an entertainment hall, sleeping cubicles and the like. They all seemed to be pretty convincing.

To summarise, being chased by a giant crab is hard work! But I think this was a rather good story. It’s odd and different , and less formulaic than ‘The Moonbase’ and less camp and over the top than ‘The Underwater Menace’.

8/10