2 Jul 2006, 2:14 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 3:50 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Rather ironically, I've discovered two episodes in that this story is so episodic, the old format may work better this time. So here we are.
The Mind of Evil 1:
As opening episodes go, this ain’t bad. But there is a flaw. The best way to start a story is usually the hook – offering up an intriguing situation, and asking the audience to guess what’s behind it.
Sure enough, Mind of Evil takes that route. The opening episode presents us with two distinct halves – the Doctor and Jo at the prison (a wonderfully different and dangerous setting), and the Brigadier and UNIT at the Peace conference. The question the audience is left asking is ‘how are these two threads connected?’ Even in the last five minutes or so, when we are given a blatant link with Chin-Lee, the two plotlines seem so vastly different in terms of place and content, that it muddies the waters further. One storyline isn’t going to impact on the other – the two plot lines are directly connected. I’m instantly reminded of the Usual Suspects, where you spend the vast majority of the film wondering how the plotlines converge.
The problem is that this is the only area of intrigue. The only surprise is outside the story itself, in the structure of the plot. The internal storyline isn’t really initiating any mysteries of its own.
For example, the Keller Machine. The moment it is used, and well before anyone dies, the Doctor starts talking about how he knows that the machine is evil. Well, where’s the intrigue there? The moment someone dies, we know that the machine is responsible. If the Doctor is pointing at the villain saying ‘look, him, he’s an evil bastard, isn’t he’, before anything has actually happened, it does rather take away some of the intrigue.
Think about how it could have been done. When Kettering dies, Michael Sheard’s character uses the memorable phrase ‘he drowned – in a perfectly dry room.’ Immediately, that’s an intriguing idea, and it’s completely nullified by the fact we actually see the death happen.
Surely it would be more interesting if the Doctor came down to Stangmoor to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. As it is, the motivation for UNIT needing to come along as visitors is never really explained properly, but this would give them an interest. Once there, he becomes intrigued by the Keller Machine, and only at the cliffhanger would it be definitively proved that the machine was dangerous, with it attacking the Doctor.
Likewise, the Chin-Lee storyline would be about a million times more interesting if she wasn’t wandering around with the words ‘possesed slave of the villain’ printed in felt tip across her face. Then the Brigadier realising that she’s a traitor at the end would be so much more exciting, and the link with the prison so much more intriguing.
It’s a shame, because the parallel stories are quite a rare trick for Who, and they work quite well (though I think they needed a scene with the Doctor leaving UNIT and the Brigadier at the beginning – by presenting two completely different threads, the episode does feel a little unfocused. Maybe opening with the Doctor in the background of the ‘missing papers’ scene might have helped to make it feel a bit more planned. It sort of needs to let the audiene know that the plots are part of the same show a bit earlier than it does). It would just help if they weren’t treating it as the only hook. Structure either of the storylines properly, and this would be perfect.
The Doctor is on form – his personality shifts from happy go lucky child arsing around for Jo’s amusement to moral crusader and sarcastic anti-authoritarian. Odd that Pertwee always seems so much more establishment than the first two Doctors, despite the fact that he’s almost always being rude to them. I’m not sure how it works, to be honest – at points in the show, he’s sipping wine and champagne and talking about his friends in high places, but he’d slag off anyone who behaved or said the same to him. Is it that he wants to undermine the establishment – or is that he thinks he is the establishment? Perhaps more accurately, above the establishment? If nothing else, it feels like a logical response to being trapped on Earth amid humans.
The humans fare less well in this episode. After being surprisingly charming in Terror of the Autons, Jo has nothing to do in this episode apart from following the Doctor around and giving him someone to talk to (not so much to ask questions as to listen – a character always needs an audience, otherwise why should they talk? That’s the main reason Robert Holmes wrote so many double acts). I watched the episode last night, and already I can’t remember anything she does.
The Brigadier is a different kettle of fish entirely. We get to see him on his own for a change, in a practically solo adventure. And he doesn’t do too bad. Given the chance he’s resourceful and intelligent, and a worthy ally. Yates, on the other hand, comes over as wet – ‘quite a dolly’ indeed.
The Mind of Evil 2:
The problems with the first episode are slightly magnified here.
With the Keller Machine thoroughly identified as a bad thing, the Doctor immediately has it locked away, and all but ignores it (for all his complaining when Yates brings him back to London, he’s quite happy to sit around having tea with the Chinese ambassador). This bit of the story has run out of plot. And the Brigadier is having Chin-Lee followed, so that’s pretty much done there too.
With the two threads of the story all but tied up, the story has to find new things to keep it moving. As a result, we gain the missile convoy and the prison escape.
It’s all far too messy and unfocused. There’s a lot going on, but what’s the story? I’m not sure which plotline is supposed to be the main one. Should I care about the prison? The Keller Machine appears to be important, but the Doctor ignores it. The conference? Why, exactly – only one person is messing it up, and we know who she is. The escape? Again, why? We’ve only met this bloke two minutes ago and we don’t know who he is.
This is all clearly illustrated by the rotten cliffhanger to this episode. The American delegate thinks he sees a dragon. Well, bully for him. Remind me why this matters? A bloke we’ve not met before this scene, no more important than the already dead Chinese delegate is under threat (and due to the preceding scene with the Doctor and the Brigadier, it’s already fairly clear how he’s going to escape). Why should we care?
The best kick in the pants the episode gets, though, is the Master. It’s obviously going to get a bit wearying as time goes on, but his appearance here is exactly what you need. Here, he’s like a substitute in a football match, brought in to shore up the flagging show. In more literal terms, his appearance is a promise to the audience that something’s actually going to be happening at some point (I mean, the Keller Machine appears to be involved in something, but it’s a box in a room, it’s not exactly the scariest villain the series has ever had!). Considering the fact that he doesn’t really do anything in this episode other than wear a desperately unconvincing mask and sit in a car, it’s tempting to think he should have been held off a bit further until he had something to do, but I’d argue that his worth is in the potential. He shores up the episode by using our anticipation. His appearance is designed to make us think ‘ooh, something interesting is going to happen’, whereas if he simply turns up, it’s just a sudden shock moment (in deed, maybe that’s the reason for the bad mask – so we’re aware there’s something wrong with the engineer… what is it with the Master and telephone engineers, anyway?). A shock is good, but it’s not what this story needs – purpose.
I’m rather liking UNIT here. Yates still makes no impression at all, but Benton comes over as extremely likeable (though he’s a little rubbish as a soldier, if we’re honest). The scenes where he’s lectured by the Brigadier are witty and clever, without insulting the characters. The further the show goes on, the more the ‘family’ element of UNIT is played up, with all of the regulars overly sentimental and fond of each other to the show’s detriment (I seem to recall that The Time Monster is particularly guilty of this) but here the levels are just right. The UNIT characters are treated with respect. They’re not friends so much as colleagues, all behaving realistically. There’s guarded respect, bit always the sense that that respect has to be earned. There’s a lovely bit of contrast when the Brigadier berates Benton, running rings around him – and ten minutes later finds himself on the other side, being dismissed by the Doctor. The point is that no-one is acting like an idiot – Benton loses Chin-Lee for understandable reasons, and the Brigadiers response is measured and correct (and very funny). His behaviour with the new Chinese delegate is equally correct – but in a different context, he’s outsmarted by the Doctor. But none of the mistakes are made through stupidity. We’re encouraged to like these smart people, with the smarter ones besting the less smart ones in battles of verbal dexterity and wit.
After having had a fairly dull first episode, Jo gets a bit more to do this week when left to her own devices, and demonstrates the warmth and friendliness that made her so appealing in her first story. Her plotline still doesn’t seem to be going anywhere though. In deed, it’s something of a missed opportunity that the cliffhanger doesn’t focus on her. For the last ten minutes of the episode, the Stangmoor scenes seem to forget she’s there. It’s kind of hard to get excited about the escape of some random thug, or about the generic wardens he attacks and threatens. Surely we’re only going to be nervous if he threatens someone we know and care about? We can only be scared if we’re scared for someone. And we’re not going to be scared for characters we don’t know – be they wardens, or diplomats. The cliffhanger really should be Jo getting in danger. That way, it all connects with the main characters, and the central story (whatever that is). Heck, even if Mailer only attacked Michael Sheard it’d have been a better cliffhanger.
Dorney
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#437 2 Jul 2006, 10:42 pm
The Secretive Bus
Time Lord
Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: 27 Jun 2009 7:02 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Yay! You're back!
I must admit, "Mind of Evil" is a story I really quite like - it's certainly my favourite of the season - though I don't know why. Certainly it doesn't leap out as the sort of Who story I'd like; it's a sort of cross between The Man From U.N.C.L.E and Quatermass in the setting for Porridge. But I still find it quite an involving story. Your review's as classy and incisive as ever, though.
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Ben grins out of the cockpit window:
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#438 3 Jul 2006, 2:59 pm
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
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Re: Day by Day
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The Mind of Evil 3:
A lot of the same criticism’s as last time, I’m afraid.
Mind of Evil is desperately unfocused. Actually, that’s not entirely true. It’s focused, but on the wrong area.
By the end of this episode, it’s clear that the Master’s planning to steal the rocket and destroy the peace conference. But the problem is that up until this point, neither have really got featured all that much. We’ve never seen the peace conference, we’ve only heard the Brigadier talking about it. Likewise, our experience of the rocket is pretty much limited to one of the most hugely embarrassing CSO shots of the series.
The emphasis and focus is squarely aimed at Stangmoor prison, and it’s still unclear what the point of these scenes are. Sure, the Keller Machine’s a bit nasty, but it doesn’t seem to be the main plot. The story is concentrating on the subplot, and as a result the story just doesn’t feel conherent. The way the story is told, we’re expecting the Master’s plan to be directly about the prison – but as it is, he just seems to be dabbling in prison reform on the side.
It’s a shame, because on the whole, the story ain’t too bad in terms of execution. The cast are giving it their all, and the script is full of decent lines and ideas. One of the great unanswerable questions of fandom is whether or not the black and white helps the story. It’s impossible to tell, obviously, because it’s impossible to visualise what a colour version could look like. My instincts suggest that it might help, though. Certainly, the surviving colour clip matches the outrageous gaudiness of the two stories either side – but perhaps more definitively, I’m reminded of my initial viewing of Terror of the Autons, which was in black and white. The colour version just seemed over excited in comparison, over reliant on pinks and yellows.
As it is, the black and white gives a gritty, serious edge to the already intelligent scripts (to be more accurate, I’d say it fails to take away the gritty edge to the scripts, as colour may have done).The Brigadier and the Doctor come across well, and Jo gets one of her best moments ever (single-handedly defeating the prison riot in a cracking act of bravery – I recall liking her less in her latter days in the series, but on current form, it’s hard to see why).
It’s something of a Master episode though, this one. His collaboration in the riot leads to a couple of nicely callous deaths, and a delightful rapport with the Doctor. In deed, considering that this episode features some of the most blatant padding ever (with the prisoners in charge, then neutralised, then in charge again within five minutes – clearly only there to give Jo something to do; and the Doctor captured by the Master, escaped, and then captured again within even fewer minutes) it’s good to see a fine dualogue between the two.
So, it’s enjoyable enough because it’s got a bit of a brain, I just wish someone had bothered to structure the script.
Dorney
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#439 3 Jul 2006, 5:02 pm
genesisrockz
Time Lord
Guildford, UK
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Re: Day by Day
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I don't like the cliffhangers in this one. 4 cliffhangers all involving the Keller machine. They get far too predicatable
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#440 3 Jul 2006, 6:49 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Ah, but the Doctor gets menaced by Slaar, War Machines and Koquillion! A wonderful line-up of foes guaranteed to strike terror into the heart of many a viewer.
What's Dorney's view on the use of old enemy cameos (or, rather, photos of them whirling around a screen)? A good touch or completely pointless?
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4 Jul 2006, 3:46 am
codywillis1
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South Australia
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Re: Day by Day
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I really like Mind, I think it's a cracking yarn, def my fave of season 8.
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"The McCoy era is the brilliant, magical, eternally under-rated, Indian summer of classic Who." - Hawksmoor
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#442 4 Jul 2006, 11:20 am
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Secretive Bus
Ah, but the Doctor gets menaced by Slaar, War Machines and Koquillion! A wonderful line-up of foes guaranteed to strike terror into the heart of many a viewer.
What's Dorney's view on the use of old enemy cameos (or, rather, photos of them whirling around a screen)? A good touch or completely pointless?
Oh, there's nowt wrong with a good cameo. I did think that it seems a bit mad to use dodgy photos when they've probably got the actual costumes lying about... but on rewatching, it's kind of cool. There's a faintly camp air to the Keller Machine, a lack of realism, that they suit. It's more nightmarish, as it's surreal (it's telling that the least successful of the nightmare realisations is the dragon, the only one that's actually 'live'). Shame they pick some rubbish monsters though...
The one problem I have is with the idea of the Doctor's greatest fear being these monsters. Surely that's nonsense? If he's that scared, why's he fight them, why does he explore? Surely being trapped is his greatest fear.
Dorney
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#443 4 Jul 2006, 11:43 am
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
Oh, there's nowt wrong with a good cameo. I did think that it seems a bit mad to use dodgy photos when they've probably got the actual costumes lying about... but on rewatching, it's kind of cool. There's a faintly camp air to the Keller Machine, a lack of realism, that they suit. It's more nightmarish, as it's surreal (it's telling that the least successful of the nightmare realisations is the dragon, the only one that's actually 'live'). Shame they pick some rubbish monsters though...
The one problem I have is with the idea of the Doctor's greatest fear being these monsters. Surely that's nonsense? If he's that scared, why's he fight them, why does he explore? Surely being trapped is his greatest fear.
Well, we've got the fear of fire at least...
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Ben grins out of the cockpit window:
“I am only borrowing this. I’m Ben Chatham” before expertly taking off into the clouds.
- "Face of Death" by Sparacus
"They laughed at Gallileo once."
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#444 4 Jul 2006, 12:04 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Oh, by the way, on 'Master' watch - it's noticeable that Jo is prepared to call him that in part four, but the Doctor refers to him (in a face to face situation) as Professor Keller. It's noticeably jarring, but it would feel weird if he didn't...
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#445 4 Jul 2006, 12:15 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Mind of Evil 4:
I think I’ve got this story figured out.
Occasionally, if you’re trying to come up with an idea for a script or whatever, you come up with a cracking concept – but no story. Several years back, I had an idea about Walt Disney’s mythically frozen head being revived at a time when animation was in crisis in part of a Robocop style cyborg scheme. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really sure where to take it from there. Where’s the story? What happens? The initial idea’s nice, but once you’ve covered that, what can you do with it?
Mind of Evil strikes me as being a bit like that. The basic concept is an absolute corker – a machine that can suck the evil out of criminals minds – but where does it go from there? Houghton doesn’t really seem to have any ideas on how to use it, with the whole Keller Machine subplot being completely irrelevant to the Master’s plan. I mean, what’s the point of it exactly? Why does he have it? Is it because he wants touse it on the conference, to kill the delegates? If so, why does he have it miles and miles away in a prison? Is it because the missile is going to be passing by that prison, and he wants it as a base of operations? Well then, if so, why’s he even bothering to kill off a couple of random delegates – he’s planning on pointing a huge missile at them anyway! There’s the faint suggestion that he wants to infiltrate the prison to get himself a team to steal the rocket – but again, that seems to be a bit mad. He got an entire circus to back him up in minutes in the last story, and even if it has to be criminals, surely there’s an easy way of infiltrating than capturing an alien parasite, spending time building a machine round it, testing it for months on end and using it in two countries (incidentally, how exactly does stealing the rocket mean that the strangely jolly hockey sticks prisoners – watch the scene in the yard where the Master tells them what they’re going to do – get a free pardon? Is the Master taking over the world? How exactly does he sell the idea to them? With no one to raise the alarm, how exactly would they get picked up overnight?)
The story is a concept in search of a plot. It’s telling that the plot we eventually get (peace conference held hostage, missile hijacking) is a Bond film and not Doctor Who. It’s a desperate ‘can’t think of anything’ gambit.
And it’s a real shame, because it genuinely is the only thing that’s holding this story back – the lack of a clearly defined strong plot. The prison setting is strong and unusual, and the characters interesting (though there aren’t really any interesting goodies – Sheard’s doctor is just someone to act noble around Jo when the Doctor isn’t there, and the potentially deeply interesting character of Barnham is forgotten entirely this episode. I suppose this is the major drawback of the UNIT set up). The direction is at least mildly inventive (there’s a nice cross fade from the Doctor to the Master that is, admittedly, a somewhat tokenistic flourish, but it’s a start).
This episode itself is still something of a filler though. Beyond the big set piece with the theft of the missile (which seems about a million times less exciting than you’d expect) nobody really does anything. The Doctor and Jo spend most of the time in a cell, doing little. Then, they escape rather easily (the prisoner who overhears a commotion and then enters to investigate without looking around the cell the second he gets in is ridiculous), only to go to the office and sit around there doing nothing. When Jo suggests they leave, the Doctor says he’s thinking – but in reality, they’re just waiting around for the cliffhanger to turn up, because they’ve got nothing else to do this episode. This all ties in to the lack of a strong central narrative. If you don’t have an engine driving the plot along, everyone’s just sitting around waiting for something to happen.
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#446 4 Jul 2006, 4:25 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Last On: 27 Jun 2009 7:02 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
The Mind of Evil 4:
I think I’ve got this story figured out.
Occasionally, if you’re trying to come up with an idea for a script or whatever, you come up with a cracking concept – but no story. Several years back, I had an idea about Walt Disney’s mythically frozen head being revived at a time when animation was in crisis in part of a Robocop style cyborg scheme. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really sure where to take it from there. Where’s the story? What happens? The initial idea’s nice, but once you’ve covered that, what can you do with it?
God, i always get that. At the moment I've got 2 months of nothing to do until I get my A level results, and ideally I'd like to spend that time writing. I'd like to write a comedy play, just to get into practice, but I have few stage-worthy ideas and certainly nothing beyond mere concepts.
I did start writing a Survivor Wars sequel a while ago but it's a bit dispiriting to write a long comedy script that only 12 people will ever read...
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Ben grins out of the cockpit window:
“I am only borrowing this. I’m Ben Chatham” before expertly taking off into the clouds.
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#447 5 Jul 2006, 11:49 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Mind of Evil 5:
Now I beginning to let the odd plot mechanics wash over me a bit more, I’m kind of liking this story.
Sure, it makes very little sense, and appears to have been made up as it goes along (there’s an appalling resolution to the cliffhanger here – the Keller machine’s hopping around everywhere, and then it just stops, and everyone’s acting exactly as they were five minutes from the end of the last episode – and just how many one minute long escape attempts do the Doctor and Jo need to make exactly?) but overall, it’s rather good.
It manages, for example, to do something proper with each of the regulars. OK, Jo’s been reduced to listening to the Doctor for the last couple of episodes, but her riot halting and the attempted escape at the end of the episode are quite ballsy. And Yates finally gets something to do, with a good little scene with the Master and his own escape attempts. It does have to be said however that he lacks the roundness of Benton and the Brigadier – his only characteristic seems to be being terribly proper and brave and noble, which makes him rather dull.
Benton, most noticeably, gets a proper storyline all of his own, journeying from failure to redemption. He still comes across as a corking character, when he’s allowed to be: not terribly bright, but loyal and committed, a decent sort. His question to the Brigadier (about whether there’s any news of Yates) in unexpectedly touching in its care.
Similarly, the Brigadier is allowed to demonstrate his ingenuity and intelligence (well, he hasn’t had the Doctor around for two and a half episodes), and he plays a warm and human part in Benton’s redemption as well. This is where the character works best – when we get to see the strong military intelligence, and then catch the human being underneath. Not pitching him as a buffoon, as the series eventually does.
The Doctor gets little to do in this episode, bar some technobabble nonsense, but even then he gets some nice padding in a scene where he has a gentle chat with Jo in the cell.
And the whole thing’s just played and written very well. There are nice little touches throughout (Mailer mimicking a kiss at Jo as he leaves the cell, for example – it’s got no need to be there, but it’s a nice little bit of detail that tells you so much, and adds verisimilitude).
In particular, the fight at the end is superb, with some genuinely nasty close up deaths adding to the gritty feel. For once, the raid does seem actually dangerous, and violent.
Shame about the plot. It’s all the story needed to be a classic. It just doesn’t have one.
Dorney
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#448 5 Jul 2006, 1:00 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
Shame about the plot. It’s all the story needed to be a classic. It just doesn’t have one.
No, YOU don't have a plot! Nyeurrrrgh!
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#449 5 Jul 2006, 6:11 pm
AlMiles
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Secretive Bus
God, i always get that. At the moment I've got 2 months of nothing to do until I get my A level results, and ideally I'd like to spend that time writing.
You're so lucky. I got about 2 days after my last exam until I was frogmarched to the job centre by my parents.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryback
Watching all these stories in the context of the marathon I realised how much variety there was in Hartnell's performance. His Doctor could do anything, support any kind of story, but at the same time he never lost his mystery. The show could never have become as flexible as it did without him as leading man.
A collection of great DVD covers (click for album).
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Gordon Brown, 16/04/09: "I take full responsibility for what happened. That's why the person who was responsible went immediately."
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#450 5 Jul 2006, 9:22 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AlMiles
You're so lucky. I got about 2 days after my last exam until I was frogmarched to the job centre by my parents.
My family keep nudging me but it doesn't get beyond that!
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Ben grins out of the cockpit window:
“I am only borrowing this. I’m Ben Chatham” before expertly taking off into the clouds.
- "Face of Death" by Sparacus
"They laughed at Gallileo once."
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#451 6 Jul 2006, 12:22 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Mind of Evil 6:
Easily the best episode out of the six, the final twenty five minutes of this story demonstrate how good the rest of the story could have been if it had had any coherency.
With the death of Mailer in the opening minutes (in a great trick resolution to a solid cliffhanger), the story no longer has a subplot to treat as the main plot, and has to concentrate on the central dilemma of the overall storyline – the Master and the missile.
Suddenly, it all works. The story has a focus, and a purpose, and it all seems to be going somewhere. Each scene is moving the story on, and pushing the story towards the conclusion. Now it’s got the emphasis right, it feels like it’s actually telling a story, rather than a series of vaguely connected scenes.
In some cases, this is a little too late. The revelation of Barnham’s power of the machine is a little late in the day and should probably have been done earlier. It’s noticeable (especially considering he’s been basically sitting around doing nothing since episode one) that his entire storyline is contained in this episode. I always thought that the tragedy of the character was a major factor in this story, but it really is just this bit. It’s a shame he hasn’t had a more active role in the rest of the story, because whilst his fate is rather sad (and beautifully explored by Manning and Pertwee in the aftermath), it is underlined by the faint feeling that the character’s only really been brought in to provide an air of tragedy.
In deed, there’s a general sense that the story’s entire plot has been pushed into this episode. The Master’s scheme is revealed here, and manages to be simultaneously barking and humdrum (which is quite an achievement), and does make nonsense of his promises to Mailer and the prisoners (but to be fair, it’s not like it’s ever worth trusting the Master). The biggest problem remains a complete lack of an explanation for what he was doing inventing the Keller Machine in the first place (it plays absolutely no part in the missile capture, and only features in the Masters plans when he kills the two delegates… but it’s not as if he needed to do that for his overall plan – it’s a thread that’s forgotten pretty much the second episode three starts – and it’s not as if he couldn’t have killed them pretty easily off his own bat – if you’ve got a possessed slave inside the building, can’t she just shoot them?) In deed, if anything, this story reveals the potentially biggest problem with the Master. He’s delightfully entertaining (the teasing banter he has with the Doctor, especially his sarcastic rejoinder to the Doctor’s car mime, are so much more stimulating and colourful than the usual bland mannered villains) but he’s completely lacking in motivation. His schemes can be utterly mental because he’s ‘evil’. Not because he wants anything particularly sensible, but because that’s pretty much his job (his ultimate aim here is to take over a planet that’s just been demolished by a nuclear war…probably not the most desirable rulership you could get. Just imagine the administration work and the forms you’d have to fill in). He is, I’m afraid, the first step in the dumbing down of the series, simply by virtue of making the rules cartoon like.
And it’s a shame, because the set up is otherwise properly grown up. The Master is clearly intelligent and allowed to be as witty as the Doctor (if not more so), and the treatment of the other four regulars is equally grounded in a grown up feel. All of them are bright and resourceful (possibly excepting Benton, but even then that’s a little unfair) and the whole thing has the feel of a drama treating it’s audience with respect. We’re only ever laughing with the characters, not at them.
So, to sum up – not a bad story, but mainly in terms of its script, acting and direction. Plot wise it’s a mess, and that’s a genuine shame, because had it not got confused about where it should be concentrating, had it found itself a strong central thread that everything else related to, it would have been a classic just for those elements. As it is, it’s just good, but hollow.
Dorney
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#452 6 Jul 2006, 12:30 am
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 3:52 pm
Posts Here: 4,645
Re: Day by Day
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Just to keep everyone informed, Axos shouldn't be too hard to squeeze into my empty schedule, so hopefully I'll have it posted within a couple of months.
Colony might be trickier, but we'll see...
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#453 6 Jul 2006, 11:04 am
The Secretive Bus
Time Lord
Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: 27 Jun 2009 7:02 pm
Posts Here: 803
Re: Day by Day
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I've never been overly keen on the Master myself. Though Delgado is wonderfully entertaining to watch, th character is a bit rubbish; at least the Daleks and Cybermen seem to have ultimate goals (of survival) whereas the Master just doesn't seem to be trying to do anything. It's like he's there just to annoy the Doctor and probably does nothing else in his spare time besides making keller machines and forging fake passports. In fact my favourite version of the Master is the decayed one of "The Deadly Assassin" since he's a bit frightening and at least has hatred of his own people as a reason for existing.
Oh, but you didn't mention the slapworthy Major Cosgrove that the Brig's got working for him in the last few episodes. "It's rather like making a film, isn't it sir?" And that actually brilliant scene where the Master's worst fear is Jon Pertwee laughing at him. The only really worthwhile bit of the story, that.
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Ben grins out of the cockpit window:
“I am only borrowing this. I’m Ben Chatham” before expertly taking off into the clouds.
- "Face of Death" by Sparacus
"They laughed at Gallileo once."
- Sparacus
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Last edited by The Secretive Bus; 6 Jul 2006 at 11:15 am.
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#454 6 Jul 2006, 2:27 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 3:52 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Secretive Bus
Oh, but you didn't mention the slapworthy Major Cosgrove that the Brig's got working for him in the last few episodes. "It's rather like making a film, isn't it sir?" And that actually brilliant scene where the Master's worst fear is Jon Pertwee laughing at him. The only really worthwhile bit of the story, that.
I really should make notes sometimes... both of those are things I'd thought about. Cosgrove is a real irritant, and only serves to emphasise how smart and likeable the regulars are, and the laughing Doctor is one of the great images of the entire series.
Dorney
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#455 6 Jul 2006, 2:35 pm
The Secretive Bus
Time Lord
Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: 27 Jun 2009 7:02 pm
Posts Here: 803
Re: Day by Day
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What about that bit where Pertwee slaps Jo on the arse when running out of the lab? I remember raising my eyebrows at that bit.
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Ben grins out of the cockpit window:
“I am only borrowing this. I’m Ben Chatham” before expertly taking off into the clouds.
- "Face of Death" by Sparacus
"They laughed at Gallileo once."
- Sparacus
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