#120 16 Nov 2004, 12:57 am
Dorney
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The Wheel in Space 1:
David Whitaker never had it easy. Whilst I think it's true to say that he's still a vastly popular writer (wasn't he in that DWM special's top 5? Something like that), we've never really seemed to grasp whether we like his stories or not. His early Hartnell two parters are ignored (though they are both rather fine examples of the two part form, possibly the most natural ones of the series). And look at the contrast between his stories for season 4 and 5. Two scripts in both, one a season finale featuring a recurring monster... and in one we have two of the most popular scripts of all time, and in the other... two fairly forgotten tales, certainly the least well regarded stories of the fifth season. The one's that tend to get ignored in the praise.
Now, you may have noticed above that I loved Enemy of the World. Always have, always will. So it's time to get a bit of thought in about Wheel, a story I know very little about.
Not that there's that much in this first episode. It's virtually plotless, and little actually happens - certainly surprisingly little that can follow on - the little bubbles is about it, as far as I can tell - otherwise this episode is pretty stand alone. With the vague threat of the Servo Robot neutralised at the end, you do get the feeling that this episode is just an add on to the main plot.
That's not to say it's not good though. I find it odd that when I watch a lot of old tv programmes, they're incredibly wordy and slow in comparison to modern tv... but they seem to be much more engrossing, and as a result, they pass quicker. I've watched episodes of I, Claudius and Edge of Darkness that seem to go by in half the time of an episode of Spooks (and I enjoy Spooks). Simultaneously, an episode of Sapphire and Steel goes by much quicker than a comparitively pacy Tomorrow People (though in that case it may help that S&S is simply better). I've tried to think why this is. I think we like detail. There are whole five minute sequences of Bob Peck just walking around a room in Edge of Darkness... but it's never boring. Likewise, I love the overwritten bits of Stephen King where he tells you far more than you need to know - bizarrely it aids readability. Likewise this episode goes by surprisingly quickly considering how little happens, because Whitaker explores the situation in full detail - we are asked to consider how they eat, all the investigation... and it's fascinating.
The episode in that sense reminds us of Edge of Destruction... and it's odd how similar the two are (well, to that first thirteen episode block anyway). There's a bit with a food machine that's spookily similar to that of the early days, reference to the fault locator and the fluid link (odd to have such a continuity mad episode, especially when it's by someone who's written a lot for the new version of the show). The long introductory episode reminds us of Hartnell, as does the forthcoming Doctor holiday.
Following on from the Sonic Screwdriver, the time vector generator essentially fulfills the same function - but it's easy to see why it didn't get taken up more. It feels more like a magic wand than the screwdriver did - for the pathetic reason that the screwdriver sounds less like technobabble (we can conceive how it works from the name, but the vector wotsit is just a magic stick that can do whatever the story needs it to - essentially the same thing as the SS became, but it's amazing how much you'll buy with a solid base).
A few final thoughts - lovely, but surprisingly jarring, having Wendy Padbury on vocals for this cd release. I'd forgotten the variation and it was quite a shock. And I do think it's weird having a reprise of a bit that doesn't feel like a cliffhanger (do you get the feeling Fury 6 was running short and they added this little scene? - it added little to the former).
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#121 16 Nov 2004, 7:44 am
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Re: Day by Day
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I agree that episode one is a bit slow, but I think the story does really pick up in episode 2, even if it is Doctorless. There's a great cast guest in this one.
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“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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#122 17 Nov 2004, 12:28 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Wheel in Space 2:
Anyone else think that, without the Doctor, and with a large spacestation filled with glamorous international types, this episode feels a little Star Trekky? Leo Ryan with his exaggerated smoothness comes across as a virtual Captain Kirk type.
This is another odd little episode. The plot proper really takes a long time to get going in the story, and this is another episode of procrastination - which seems weird at the beginning of a story. The little dollops of plot established in the first part - the tiny bubbles - don't really progress. We're reminded of them, and a few more have their go... but there's no real development of them. We don't get to see anything further about what they do, why we should be worried.
The odd thing is that this manages to be, perhaps, equally as intriguing. The very obvious lack of proper plot is bizarrely just as much of a hook. We're kept hanging, wondering what the plot itself is going to be, and caught up in the tension of that mystery, rather than any specific plot related intrique (there's enough vague information to suggest that a plot will eventually materialise, just as of yet we've no idea what it will be). It's odd that whilst very little happens, it remains an enjoyable episode to watch. It's filled with enough detail to keep it from being boring.
It has to be said that the absence of the Doctor from this episode is a bit of a drawback. Without it being used as as much of a plot device and a tension tightener (as in Enemy and Web), and with the plotless episode, we do really miss him. Jamie's a lovely character, but he really does need the Doctor to bounce off (he is driven by loyalty to the Doctor more than any natural curiosity, so it's tricky getting him to drive a plot rather than react to it). The introduction of Zoe doesn't really help in this, as their relationship (one of my favourite in the show, and one I'll come back to another time) hasn't established itself yet. She just comes across as a little bit annoying (and for one of the companions that regularly does well in the 'most fanciable female in Who' type threads and polls, boy does she get a lot of unflattering photo's in the telesnaps).
Characterisation beyond all that is interesting - always Whitaker's strong point. The crew's overjoyed response to the prospect of blowing something up is wonderful (they even want to get a video of it), and it immediately suggests the boring environment they're working in. Having said that, I do think they're a tiny bit obvious and on the nose straight away - Jarvis is clearly a bit nutty very very soon, before anything's really happened, for example. Leo and Tanya are the voices of reason (bar a bizarrely mental bit about her nose), and Gemma is a little cold. But they do all have immediate personalities, and we have to be pleased with that.
Great cliffhanger too, clearly suggesting that thing's are going to heat up in the next episode. Which is, joy of joy's, back on video!
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#123 18 Nov 2004, 12:44 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Wheel in Space 3:
Actually, it doesn't heat up much at all. The Cybermen are activated - in order to sit in a couple of chairs and update their boss. C'mon. These are the current big monster. Why waste them?
The Cybermats are the bigger threat in this episode, and truth be told, they're never that terrifying (and why do the Cybermen instruct them to kill anyway? Surely that should alert the Wheel staff that something dodgy is happening?). It's weird that of the two guys who see them in this episode, the first thinks they're cute, and the second is immediately terrified. Make your mind up. They're either clearly scary (which to be honest, they're too small and, yes, cute looking to pull off) or they're not. The second sequence is probably the hammiest bit of Who I've seen in ages. The guy immediately crouches down into a chimpanzee impersonation, pulling the most comically aghast faces you'll ever see. Not exactly the greatest moment in the series. I'm glad he's killed so quickly.
But at least we can see it. It's lovely to be back on video for a change. Certainly Wheel 3 is something of a watershed, in that you finally feel like you're out of the wilderness years of missing episodes. OK, there are still another nine missing, but you feel like you've broken the back of them. Someone observed that there are (or rather were, pre-DMP2's recovery) three batches of thirteen episodes in a row without an episode extant. This is the end of the third batch, and whilst it's not as annoying as the first (we do at least have telesnaps for this period), it's still a struggle at times.
What kind of idiot is Jamie? Why not just tell the Wheel staff not to blow up the rocket? Why just blunder in and smash it up - I say smash, but his desperate 'spraying' seems a rubbish way to sabotage a device. It happens to work, but you can tell that's more by luck than judgement.
I'm beginning to get slightly frustrated by the inaction of the plot though. The characterisation does begin to feel like desperate filler - Leo and Tanya's flirting in particular. It's nice that they've all got distinct and different personalities... but they do still feel a little stock - over-serious scientist, increasingly deranged commander (Bennet is still unreasonably quick to fly off the handle - how on earth was a man this obviously unstable get into a position of authority? Remember, they haven't really been at crisis point, until this episode, where he proceeds not to help in any clear way, concentrating more on domestic difficulties - who cares about firing Bill when there's a meteorite storm coming!) There is a degree to which it does feel like characterisation by numbers - each character gets a one line personality - nutter, flirt, etc.
The plot isn't helped by trapping the Doctor in bed for the entire episode either - that's half the story gone with him unable to interact with anyone else. And then Jamie and Zoe pretty much join him there. I'm beginning to warm to Zoe. Cold and annoying in the last episode, the Doctor does seem to bring out the best in her, a friendly meeting of minds. The relationship with Jamie starts here too - the thing I've always liked about them is the way they patronise each other. Zoe patronises Jamie because he's not as smart as she is. He patronises her because she's a girl. There's a real sense of this sparkiness in their scene where they identify the Cybermat.
A lot of this story is still good. The writing is classy, the seeds of the plot seem intriguingly elaborate... but it really ought to get going before too long. There's only so much build up you can take before you want things to take flight.
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#124 18 Nov 2004, 1:34 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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I still think it's fantastic. Listened to it one episode a night and was fairly rivetted. And don't you love the fact that the Cybermen turn Italian for one scene, the cliffhanger to part 3?
"You-a will-a take uzz to da wheel-a!"
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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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#125 19 Nov 2004, 11:57 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Wheel in Space 4:
Yeah, what is up with the Cybermen voices? Sounds too me like they retained that dental plate device for the command wotsit, but went to manually impersonating it for the rest of the story. They're ok for what they are, and slightly up the clarity. But they don't really have any menace - my mum caught the cliffhanger to part three and was laughing for about ten minutes (and you've got to love a review that mentions the reviewers mum, haven't you). Fortunately, they shut up for the majority of this episode.
Generally, the story is well written, the characterisation is at worst thought through (you do get the sense that these people could have real lifes outside Who - Gemma's talk of her dead husband is irrelevant to the plot, but is good detail). It's a shame none of it really progresses, but they're trying.
The big flaw is that the law of diminishing returns is really settling in. Now, I've been fairly open in suggesting that the description of this season as being 'base under siege' doesn't really hold up (very few sieges - the Cybermen invade the base here terribly easily for example). But that's more in a literal sense, if I'm honest. There is a certain samey quality to a lot of these stories that's a little annoying when watched in a lump. And certainly, Wheel suffers from overt similarity to it's predecessors, and Fury in particular. Honestly, I can't figure out why the production team allowed these stories to go out so close together. Robson and Jarvis Bennett are practically clones - increasingly deranged and dangerous. Put that together with recurrent themes of possession, and then minor little details - the first to be possessed are a duo, who then bring the enemy inside. There's a couple (of sorts) in both bases. The sensible authority figure is a woman. And so on. For what it's worth, Wheel is probably an enjoyable, if slow, story out of context. Following on from Fury and the other, vaguely similar scripts, it just comes across as a lot of things we've already seen. Even the Cybermen seem unexciting for a change (what exactly was this 'plot' suggested by Pedler - one sentence perhaps? 'Cybermen invade spacestation'?). Still, at least the characters echo my own thoughts from last episode, wondering how someone like Jarvis could possibly reach this sort of position and post. Shame they don't answer it.
Generally though, I can't help but wonder how someone dies on the ship and everything seems to go along as normal. Everyone's still doing their jobs, not seeming to care what's just happened. There's no real investigation or anything. Odd that. But at least the Doctor finally gets out of bed and starts to interact with the plot proper.
I seem to recall writing an article, yonks ago, and never completing it that debunked David Banks' Cyber-chronology. It was entirely rooted in the placement of Moonbase vs. Wheel, which he has in that order. My contention was that it had to be the other way round, due to an incident in part six that I'll get to later. However, it does seem odd that the staff of the Moonbase know who the Cybermen were, but the staff of the Wheel have never heard of them. Hard to know what that might signify (the Moonbase incident could have been hushed up. Wouldn't placing Wheel before Moonbase be too close, in time, to the events of 10th Planet for such a mistake to be legit?).
Zoe is increasingly likeable. Smart, a little lippy and seemingly less of a wimp than Victoria, easily able to hold her own. I love the way Zoe berates Jamie by his full name (which she's already learnt). Really sums up the relationship the two have, straight away. Her little worries about emotionlessness also emphasise her human side, and make us warm to her a lot (and they're rather appropriate for a Cyber-story too). I felt, certainly when I joined fandom, that Victoria was regarded as the 'definitive' Troughton girl, mainly because she appeared in all the high popularity season 5 stories, and 'Evil', less than on the actual quality of the character. Zoe's always romped it for me, and her instant likeability helps. Mind you, I think I liked Victoria intially (still do I suppose, just not as much). Zoe just seems sparkier.
Lots of meaningless little observations on this episode tonight. First, one of the staff of the Wheel looks twelve to me. Not Zoe, I'm not mad. Have a look at the girl in the bottom of the tenth telesnap here and tell me I'm wrong. I'm not you know. Next: Is Chang supposed to be Chinese? I'd imagine so, with a name like that. Shame the accent is one of the worst ever and the actor in question doesn't even look vaguely oriental, to the degree I didn't immediately match the photo with the voice. I dunno. Why bother going for the 'multi-cultural' space-station if you don't get actors of the right race. Good job he dies straight away (and the casual take on what happens to his body is pricelessly nasty - nice to see the series treat us with intelligence). Next, I love the bizarre safeguard of a Hypnosis Monitor. Blimey, how often do they need that?
And finally, Bill's screams getting hypnotised and killed (the cd and telesnaps can't agree whether he's electrocuted or shot) are two of the most wonderfully ott things you've heard. This story is a treasure trove
of ham. They're the worst screams since Del Henney, and whoever played the Make Up assistant in 'The Last'. Worth the admission fee alone, them.
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#126 20 Nov 2004, 12:35 am
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Yup, strange Cyber voices. However, the Cybermen of this story are me favourites of the series...
I listened to Wheel an episode per night straight off from Fury, and enjoyed it a lot. It is slow, but has a nice creeping menace, and the Cybermen's plan is complicated enough to while away a half hour or so laughing at it....
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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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#127 22 Nov 2004, 12:40 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Wheel in Space 5:
Huzzah! The last episode I'll have to watch with telesnaps. For this thread anyway. At least until I go back and do 'Marco Polo' properly. I could have phrased that better I suppose...
I love the way that after all the detailed and complicated stages of their plan, phase six for the Cybermen is simply 'take over space station'. What, that's it? That's the best they could come up with? It's like they're so unconvinced that they'll manage to get into the Wheel that they haven't really thought what to do with it (especially since their plan seemed to include putting the Wheel in very real danger of being destroyed, you really don't get the impression they've thought this through - and bar the unplanned stowaways they'd have been blown up five minutes into episode 2. So it's the Doctor's fault).
What is odd here is that the Cybermen still don't really feel like part of the main action. None of the main characters really seem that fussed about them - they're more worried about the meteorites. I accept that they are dangerous, but I want to see a little more acknowledgement of the fact that they are sharing their spaceship with dangerous monsters. Likewise, the Cybermen are wandering around killing people every now and then, but there is equally little drive to them. They're not attempting to hide, but they're not exactly up to anything either (the resolution to the cliffhanger is that the Cybermen, casual as you like, nips into the (now notceably brighter) storeroom and gets himself some berylium before nipping off again. What's that all about?) Everyone's wandering around the ship as if this is what happens every day.
It's a shame, because there is a lot of attempts as pseudo-action in order to fill up the time. The Irishman who fights the controlled humans, for example, and the attack of the Cybermats. Neither of these progress the story at all (one of the controlled humans is killed, but then immediately replaced. Why bother?) The Cybermat sequence does at least resolve their hanging plot thread, I suppose, but that hardly makes it any less padding.
Likewise, the Jarvis stuff seems to lack any real point. He doesn't speak in this episode, and the story really wouldn't have gone anywhere different if he'd stayed sane. OK, there'd have been one more character to stand around doing nothing, but that's not the point. The characterisation drifts in this episode (Tanya and Leo pretty much might as well be non-speaking desk workers for all the individuality they display) but the fact that there's been some effort with this before stands them a bit better than if we knew nothing about them. Most of the character stuff is reserved for Zoe, who's increasingly likeable and sweet. She's flawed, and she knows it.
Looks worryingly like we're heading for a technobabble finale too. The defeat of the Cybermats has a vague whiff of this, but the Doctor's need for the time-vector generator (as I think I said before, a precurssor to the Sonic Screwdriver, in it's meaningless catch all get out clause status) is dangerous.
I'm wondering whether Whitaker's heart just wasn't in this one. Once or twice, I've tried writing stuff based on ideas friends have given me... and I find it so much harder to get enthusiastic about it. Even if I like the idea. I just think DW can't think of ways to invest in his story, really. It's not a story he wants to tell, really, it's a story he's been asked to tell. It's well written enough to sustain our interest, the man knows how to write dialogue and how to entertain... but it just ain't vintage Whitaker.
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#128 23 Nov 2004, 1:18 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Wheel in Space 6:
Why's it called a Wheel anyway? It doesn't really look like one. If it was on its side, maybe. But this way up it looks like a fancy lamp at best.
Well, we're onto the final episode. I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never realised until the end credits that this story does feature one massively well regarded actor in a bit part - the great Donald Sumpter as Enrico. It's weird. Now I know it's him I can see him instantly, just never did the maths on it til now.
This is one of the few saving graces of the episode though. It's hard to knock a lot of the more hilarious moments throughout the story though - the script can't quite figure out how many Cybermen there are aboard. Clearly there are two, as they eventually admit with one dead... but a lot of the rest of the time they can't quite bring themselves to accept this. Flannigan has a couple of lines to try and make the whole thing seem a bit more threatening (Something like 'This place is swarming with Cybermen' and 'I've got a whole bunch of them locked up'), but it still never seems like they're a credible threat (it's telling that the climactic cliffhanger of the story doesn't focus on the cybermen at all - the crew are more concerned about other things for the majority of the story). The moment they actually interact with anyone proper, they get killed (the defeat of the second cyberman in particular seems terribly weak). This sudden invasion force that lurch out of nowhere, in their strange balletic manner are funnier than threatening, and are defeated with equal ease. The general defeat seems so easy and anti-climactic (they just blow up their ship), and it's because there's never really been a sense of threat. Add to this a fairly unclear motivation for them anyway (there's a vague attempt at explaining why they need the Wheel... but to my mind it's fudged. It's some guff about radio waves or something).
The Cybermen just seem to wander around looking for something to do. As I said before, the elaborate plan to get on board appears to be all they could think of (their poisoning scheme is simple to step around and even their crew possesion device wotsit is implausibly easy to over-ride). They just march around looking for someone else to threaten - the death of Jarvis in particular - again, no plot function at all, his madness not adding to anything in the slightest - couldn't he have redeemed himself somehow, switched over the oxygen or something. As it is, we're not even given a reason why he decides to nip off. He quite literally nips out just to get killed.
Want the other piece of evidence that suggests Wheel has to take place after Moonbase. Look at the photo sequence when the Cybermen are trying to identify who knows them. They recognise the Doctor, so one Cyber-story has to take place before this one. Now, I know what you're thinking. It could be The Invasion. But if this group of Cybermen are affiliated to that group, they recognise Zoe. And they don't. So they have to know him from the Moonbase.
I love the last scene with the crew - if we ignore Tanya and Leo fondling each other, which is given great significance in the direction as if it hasn't been clear that they're an item since about episode two - I like the terribly casual way Leo sums up the situation to base. 'Radio transmission interrupted because of invasion by alien force. I'll tell you more later'. And the other end of the call doesn't even seem surprised.
Generally very disappointing. It's a Cybermen story that forgets to be about the Cybermen, really. When there seems to be more urgency and fear of meteorites than the main villains, you know you're doing something wrong.
On the plus side, Zoe is tremendously promising - sparky and likeable, and ballsier than Victoria. Looking forward to the next season.
Well, that's me a full year into my rewatching, and pathetically far behind on my original daily plan as you can see (at this rate it'll take me four years or so to do them all!)
Should add a little warning that I'm going to be in a play out of the country as of about February next year, so there might be quite some delays in the updates... unless I take a few VHS with me... but then I won't have a connection to the Internet all that often...
Ah rabbits.
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#129 23 Nov 2004, 6:17 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Hurrah! Entertaining review, for a story I rather like even I do agree with everything you say!
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Showing posts with label season five. Show all posts
Showing posts with label season five. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Fury from the Deep
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#107 3 Nov 2004, 12:21 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 1:
I've had the audio cassette of this for years. As far as I'm aware, I've never actually listened to the whole thing. I don't know why. Perhaps it was a combination of the fuzziness of the audio and the lack of proper narration. I do remember trying to use the DWM telesnaps at the same time... but they're so minute they're no use whatsoever. The problem with this is that I got through all the rest, and they're all equallly cack. (OK, so with virtually no recollection of Macra Terror, but I'm certain I got through it).
One thing that might have contributed is that this isn't the most exciting episode ever. For the first part of a legendary classic, you wouldn't immediately think it's going to be all that. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly fine - just nothing particularly special yet. In deed, it mainly seems reminiscent of the previous two stories (arrival on a beach, then shot - Enemy of the World, Monstrous foam - Web of Fear), and as a result it's slightly underwhelming (I have to say that the early beach sequence seems curiously disconnected from the rest - the shooting seems a desperately contrived shortcut to get them into the action to me). As I say, it's not bad, just nothing exciting. In deed, you get the vague feeling that certain bits (discarded seaweed 'pulsating') would look really really rubbish.
Am I the only one scared by the concept of mid air landings for the TARDIS? Surely it's implausibly dangerous. Shouldn't there be some controls to prevent this? Though this leads into a nice scene with the regulars, laughing and playing and having fun (it's too easy, especially with the insistence on cliffhangers leading from one story to the next, to envisage TARDIS life as being just lurching from one perilous situation to another, meaning the regulars staying seems increasingly bizarre). There's a sweet line about the TARDIS always landing on Earth recently, acknowledging the awkwardness of this conceit, and always England (well, not quite Jamie, two in a row, with two others going to Australia and Tibet, but you're close enough). Ending with the introduction of the sonic screwdriver. It's surprisingly casual, and it amazes me that anyone would remember it enough to bring it back after this script. Odd to see how many of the staples we associate with the series are still being introduced, this late in the game (the Brig, UNIT and the screwdriver).
The opening scenes get going quite quickly (ok, so the regulars get the foam off their clothes impossibly fast). But, as with a lot of the rest of the recent stories, we've got a fairly good idea of the central threat very early on (we know there's something nasty in the pipes before we've met any of the characters). I'm not so sure this is a good thing. Mystery is a good thing. The behaviour of the riggers is odd, but we've got a fairly good idea what caused it. It all serves to slightly lessen the creepiness and the atmosphere - and in deed, watch for some staggeringly weak exposition when Harris reveals all the companies woes to a bunch of strangers pretty much instantly. It's tell, not show, in reverse of the regular maxim.)
One or two of the supporting characters show promise though. The Harrises seem fairly traditional straight edged decent sorts, but the main interest is in Robson. It's nice, for a change, to have a commanding officer who's more than a little rough around the edges, and definitively not posh. He's grumpy, surly, and instantly dislikeable. There's a lovely salt of the earth arrogance about him, a dislike for the suits, that makes him the most interesting commander this season (and we've had a few). Likewise, Van Lutyens is rather good, mainly for his stream of dutch insults. The guys got a bit of an edge.
So, fun, but nothing special. Yet.
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#108 4 Nov 2004, 12:03 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 2:
Nice to have the episode captions visible on the telesnaps. I've missed them.
Well, another good episode... but I'm still not particularly excited by it yet. It's hard to put a finger on why exactly. I suppose, so far there's no real sense of threat. The menace itself is fairly nebulous, and hard to define (so far, just a heartbeat). It hasn't done anything particularly nasty yet either... no-one's dead, it's merely blocked a pipeline. It's not dangerous yet, merely annoying. All the moments that try to present it as scary (the cliffhanger to part one, the appearance of Oak and Quill) have a certain effect, but no underlying weight. Yes, Victoria screams at the appearance of the weed. But as of yet, we've no reason to assume there's any need to be scared. Likewise, Oak and Quill are creepy, but whilst it remains unclear exactly why they're doing anything, it's baseless. It says 'here's a creepy bit', rather than it tying in to the story directly (it's there because they need a creepy bit, more than they need to do it). It doesn't really help that they're main function in this episode is to mess with a cooker and open a door and that John Cura, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that one of the key images to preserve from this episode is a close up of Oak's arse.
One of the other great images is mere background. I love the fact that the word 'pipeline' is written in large letters on the pipeline. As if people working there couldn't possibly guess.
One of the oddities here is that no-one seems to care that the Doctor, Victoria and Jamie were locked up the last anyone knew. No one even asks how they escaped, or moves to send them back. Last episode they were considered worth imprisoning, this episode they're given the run of the place, vanishing for sections on end with no trouble at all. The standard Troughton plot involves the Doctor turning up and analysing/solving some problem - the tests in Ice Warriors, the return of the Ghanta - and as a result become a figure of trust for the inhabitants of this week's base. But here it's like someone's forgotten that scene. In fact, there's a scene of almost the exact opposite (surely Victoria's adventures in the oxygen room would make her less trusted? Couldn't the others have locked her in?) You had them shot and tranquilised a week ago people!
I've pretty much run out of things to say here. Pleasant, well made and acted, and the heartbeat and end credits combine to form a sort of dance music version of the theme at the end. But it still just isn't grabbing me and exciting me in the way Web did. Sorry.
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#109 4 Nov 2004, 5:04 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Ah, I got interested in this from the relationship between the characters about halfway into part 1, and loved part 2, especially the cliffhanger.
It's unfortunate that episode 6 has such dire padding, really... Scary story till then, only for comedy hijinks in a helicopter...
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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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#110 4 Nov 2004, 7:21 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Don't get me wrong. I like it, the characters are good, the writing's good and there's no obvious sagging. I like it, but I don't really like it, yet, and I sort of expected to (expectation possibly the problem here - that and coming after Web - which is stunning).
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#111 5 Nov 2004, 11:37 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 3:
Well, following on from my criticism of the last episode, everyone suddenly remembers that the regulars are supposed to be prisoners in this one (actually, a quick relisten to the start of part two reveals a barely audible mention from Robson, asking 'who let you out'. But seeing as no-one really cares it's not that relevant). Can't see why they'd bother reminding everyone of a carefully ignored plot point from a couple of weeks back, especially considering it plays no further part in this episode either. It's just drawing attention to the problematic plotting. Especially weird is the reference in the scene to the Doctor being a 'harmless old man'. Really? That's Hartnell, surely. How does Harris know? (And why does it look like Harris has a moustache half the time? It's something a little odd in the photos that).
The plot is beinning to warm up properly now. It's a slow acting story, with most of the plot to date fairly easy to condense into a single episode if you wanted to (nothing much happens with the concealed seaweed for a long time - found in part one, still lying on the patio in part three - and likewise Oak and Quill seem to be there to knock up the menace quota and fill in time - surely Mrs Harris has already been infected by the weed by the time they get there?). There's a degree to which the thin-ness of the plot is reflected in this being rather a short episode, 20 minutes only.
Victoria is rather coming into her own in this story. She's still not the greatest companion ever, tending on the whole to be whiny, and foolhardy (she always wanders off on her own and gets captured immediately... I wouldn't mind if she ever actually gained anything, or behaved bravely). Wet is probably the best, and currently most ironic, word for her. But there's a lot of detail for her here, and she's clearly in 'companion leaving' mode. She's suddenly developed an aptitude for lockpicking (wouldn't that have been useful before? Say, whilst captured by the Daleks?) and gets that little 'Oh, I wish it wasn't always dangerous' speech that's a bit forced.
Generally, I'm liking it still. There's a nice eerie atmosphere building up (particularly in the strange cliffhanger). Great acting and characterisation (Robson's breakdown comes from nowhere, but it somehow works) Problems still remain. The monster is rather an ethereal threat, still not really doing all that much to make us worry. The story is classy, but not exciting. Though as I've said before, that doesn't mean it ain't good.
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#112 8 Nov 2004, 1:08 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 4:
As I keep saying, I do like this story, I'm just underwhelmed. It does have the reputation of being the great lost classic of the Troughton era, and I'm just not getting that. I'm getting a good solid story, with some nice creepy imagery at points, great characterisation and acting... but not an all conquering classic. In fact, I'd go so far as saying that it's exceptional in practically all those departments (for acting - look at Victor Maddern's eyes in the telesnaps, and the slow panicky drifting off of his voice; for characterisation, look at Megan Jones, a uniquely powerful woman for Doctor Who, effortlessly controlling the situation from the moment she appears). Just there's something missing. And I think I've figured out what it is.
It's a villain. The Weed as it stands is a fairly indistinct threat, at a remove from the action. It doesn't seem to be an intelligent foe as such, and it's not as physically threatening as it could be - no-one dies! Pmeperton seems to realise that he needs someone attacked permanently, hence the descent into the pipe discarding Van Lutyens (you can tell it's a token development as he is immediately replaced by a brand new character filling essentially the same plot function). But even this doesn't entirely work. The disappearance of Van Lutyens seems like a death, but it seems more like natural causes, in the sense that the weed doesn't seem like a plotting calculating thing, just more of a natural chancer that happens to be inimicable to life. It's the difference between being stabbed by a maniac, and drowning. There needs to be someone to act as a focal point for the Weed, otherwise it's just a distant threat that doesn't really connect with the main plot. They keep telling us it's threatening, but we don't get to see that much of its effects. It's the whole 'don't tell, show' thing again. We keep getting told it's dangerous, but we don't see it. We need a villain, otherwise there's no way for it to interact, there's no way to let us in. Putting it simply, we need a Harrison Chase (another story about a lifeform that is essentially unintelligent responding to natural urges).
Having said that, they are getting close. The distracted madness of Robson is creepy, and is going some way towards fulfilling the required function, and there's a lovely bit where the rig workers are literally overwhelmed by weed... but it still lacks a focus. And this means that the moments of danger are a bit samey, and occasionally contrived (Oak and Quill trapping the Doctor and Jamie for about a minute is a case in point).
Now, I will reiterate my point - I do like the story. A lot. But it's in a different way to most Who. It's not really the fast paced adventure serial we expect, it's more a thoughtful, dare I say it, Quatermass type of plot. The interest is derived more from the characters, their interactions and their responses to the situation than the threat of death and violence. It doesn't want to frighten us, it wants to un-nerve us. It's quieter, less energised. This isn't inherently a bad thing of course. However, by not quite feeling like Doctor Who, I think Fury manages not to be quite a classic.
Why is it Deborah Watling's acting is suddenly much better? Victoria's various crisis scenes are remarkably calmly played considering how hysterical she always seems to be up to now. The scenes are sweet, and the confusion in Jamie sums up the character perfectly. Of course, as with all these 'companion about to go' scenes, it does feel a little tacked on to the rest of the story, but it's nice nonetheless.
There we go then. Fine tv drama though only good but not great Who.
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#113 10 Nov 2004, 3:31 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 5:
I'm warming into this story rather. It's rather a quiet, unshowy piece, more about a creeping menace than a melodramatic threat. The story is cerebral rather than visceral, and whilst this makes it less of an adrenalin rush than it's immediate predecessor, it doesn't make it any less successful. Less obviously thrilling, less obvious full stop, but intelligent and adult.
The central themes of possesion (I typed 'alien possesion' there, then changed it - it's rarely stated, but the weed is seemingly a natural threat, something that's been lurking in the depths for a long time until we disturbed it - a monster that has lived alongside us all the time) are genuinely unnerving. The sequences with the distressed Robson in this episode and the last are compellingly strange (and seem to be shot beautifully, from what we can judge of the telesnaps - there are several telesnaps that contain a heck of a lot of pain and drama for a tiny photo). And also, surprisingly for Who, genuinely rather sad. There's a sense that he has a history - when Megan Jones suddenly and unexpectedly calls him by his first name, John, there's a real feeling that this character isn't just limited to the context of the story. He existed beforehand, with friends and family. It's a sort of area not usually covered in Who. And it's bits like this, the sense of a man slowly losing his mind that really begin to ground the serial. The fact that the Weed is essentially non-intelligent is becoming part of the central horror. The central conceit is that the human's are losing individuality, not that they are being attacked so the fact that the villain of the piece lacks any real presence or representation doesn't matter. It's about the effect, not the cause. In many ways, this is more effective - an enemy you can't reason with is scarier than one you can, obviously. But it does mean it does lose a bit of the 'action-adventure' feel Who usually has. This must be the only Who story where none of the guest cast are villains, and as a result it does mean that everyone's vaguely pulling the same way, so the energy is lower (Oak and Quill are at best lip service to having villainous figures - for all their reputation, they don't do all that much - their attack on Maggie doesn't really do anything that couldn't have been acheived without them, and after that they lock Jamie and the Doctor in the shaft for about a minute, and kidnap Victoria for about twenty seconds).
One thing that isn't going as well is the set up for Victoria going. They're milking it now. The couple of references over the past two episodes have been nice, but they just going overboard with it now. It adds little to the episode and just makes her look like a whinger. Had they left it, it would have been sad. But now you just want her to go. It's like the 3 Sisters - in a bad production the constant talk of 'oh, I want to go to Moscow', makes you want to buy them the ticket yourself as long as they sod off.
Some lovely scenes here - the Doctor's immediate decision to go straight to the Weed's nerve centre to rescue Victoria is particularly sweet. Quite why he insists on the bobble hat, I don't know. There are no massive set pieces, true (the room exploding with foam is fab, but a bit grafted on - the doors close and hem it in, and it gets forgotten rather quickly). But it's intelligent and unsettling drama... as I keep saying, not really Whoish in style to be one of the absolute best, but satisfying.
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#114 10 Nov 2004, 6:32 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
This must be the only Who story where none of the guest cast are villains
My favourite TV story, "Full Circle", doesn't have any villains at all, either - the Marshmen do things by instinct, and rarely attack anyone unless attacked first. If I recall, "The Savages" doesn't have villains per se either, just misguided scientists...
Oh, and I reckon your slow appreciation for this story might go for a burton at the beginning of part 6...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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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#115 11 Nov 2004, 11:09 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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You know I have a habit of making these sweeping statements that just go absolutely tits up with a little thought. You are of course bang on.
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#116 11 Nov 2004, 12:45 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 6:
Hmm. What an odd episode. Lots of good stuff. Lots of poor stuff.
Right, let's try and get the bad out of the way first. The strangest thing about this episode is it's desperation to pad where it doesn't need to. There are huge amounts of additional material here at the expense of what matters. Most noticeably the helicopter sequence. Now I'm prepared to be a little lenient here, as this may have looked good on tv. On audio it's atrocious. 3 minutes of pure boredom, containing nothing but mild groans from the regulars and the other pilot seeming to stay 'stick back' all the time. But, regardless of whether it looked good or not, it's hard to justify the sequence in story terms. It just doesn't fit with the rest of the script. The story literally stops still for three minutes whilst they fart around. Visually entertaining or not, that's slack. All the built up tension is disipated. Still, we do get one of the great dodgy lines of all time from the Doctor - 'I've got it up all right, and it should be comparitively simply to propel it forward.'
Similarly, there are one or two other little bits that just feel tacked on. I can forgive the crappy forced jollity of the Harris' dinner party (it's got to set up Victoria's leaving), but the actual leaving scene does slightly go on too long (they over-do it just a bit... the final TARDIS scene is a little too flabby, really just repeating emotions already expressed). And the final scene with Robson, still grumpy, is a lovely idea... but it just feels uneccessary. Considering how anti-climactic the Weed creature's defeat is, you almost expect it to be a prelude to a twist, with Robson suddenly gassing some random Survivor. But no, it's just a scene. Without any real narrative point.
And the frustrating thing is that these wasted minutes could have been used so much better elsewhere. The actual defeat of the weed is, as I said above, deeply anti-climactic. The use of Victoria's screaming as the means to defeat it is, simultaneously, ingenious (it's been before our eyes all the time, it's obvious), and disappointing (a monster that can be defeated by someone screaming? Not exactly the best choice is it? Isn't that the stupidest weakness a monster could have? It's so pathetic and minor too...). But worst of all, it's over before you know it. The vast danger, all that foam swamping everything, the giant referred to at the end of part four, is defeated in the speediest and simplist way. Seemingly instantly, Maggie and Robson are radioing back that they're in perfect health (I love the dodgy money saving device of saying 'Oh yeah, Van Lutyens is fine too, by the way' - though we never find out what happened to Mr Oak). What a let down. (And why did Maggie walk into the sea anyway - the Weed captures two people... and then just doesn't bother to use one of them at all!)
In general however, the story still works. It mainly coasts by on the successes of the previous episodes making the damp squib acceptable. Victoria's leaving is very nicely done, though as I said last time, slighlty spoilt by over-doing the build up in the last three episodes. It's genuinely sad, and it's been a while since we've had the time taken over the companion departure (in deed, this is one of the few occasions where the story seems to have been well built around it - Victoria being instrumental in the ending, if tending towards getting captured and knocked out just as much as usual).
A very good story then, with reservations.
At the end of the cd release there's the original trailer for Wheel in Space. I love the way this gives away plot twists over three weeks away - 'who's gonna hatch from these eggs? Looks like the Cybermen might be up to something'. Hilarious.
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#117 11 Nov 2004, 5:50 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Ah, I actually loved "The Wheel in Space". After a few dodgy stories, season 5 really gets underway with The Enemy of the World, for me...
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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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#118 11 Nov 2004, 6:08 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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I think I agree. I like Tomb - it's brevity helps it work, a lesson a lot of the rest of the season could have learnt from I feel.
But certainly Snowmen and Ice Warriors are pretty much just 'ok'. Neither too bad, but neither that exciting. The last three have however been a fairly solid run through. I listened to a dodgy audio recording of Wheel years and years ago, so my knowledge of it is fairly non-existant. It'll be rather good to relisten, I think. As with a lot of these I haven't watched them or listened in absolutely ages, so it's a story I've been looking forward to, as I've no idea what happens in it!
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Last edited by Dorney; 11 Nov 2004 at 6:10 pm.
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#119 11 Nov 2004, 6:27 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Had seen the two surviving episodes a while backon the Years tape, but only listened to the Cd recently. I'm not really a fan of Cybermen stories - I like the monsters themselves, but rarely enjoy their stories. "Wheel" actually entertained me, and it's certainly me fave Cyberstory. I even like the voices for them in this one. Especially the Italian ones at the end of part 3.
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#107 3 Nov 2004, 12:21 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 1:
I've had the audio cassette of this for years. As far as I'm aware, I've never actually listened to the whole thing. I don't know why. Perhaps it was a combination of the fuzziness of the audio and the lack of proper narration. I do remember trying to use the DWM telesnaps at the same time... but they're so minute they're no use whatsoever. The problem with this is that I got through all the rest, and they're all equallly cack. (OK, so with virtually no recollection of Macra Terror, but I'm certain I got through it).
One thing that might have contributed is that this isn't the most exciting episode ever. For the first part of a legendary classic, you wouldn't immediately think it's going to be all that. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly fine - just nothing particularly special yet. In deed, it mainly seems reminiscent of the previous two stories (arrival on a beach, then shot - Enemy of the World, Monstrous foam - Web of Fear), and as a result it's slightly underwhelming (I have to say that the early beach sequence seems curiously disconnected from the rest - the shooting seems a desperately contrived shortcut to get them into the action to me). As I say, it's not bad, just nothing exciting. In deed, you get the vague feeling that certain bits (discarded seaweed 'pulsating') would look really really rubbish.
Am I the only one scared by the concept of mid air landings for the TARDIS? Surely it's implausibly dangerous. Shouldn't there be some controls to prevent this? Though this leads into a nice scene with the regulars, laughing and playing and having fun (it's too easy, especially with the insistence on cliffhangers leading from one story to the next, to envisage TARDIS life as being just lurching from one perilous situation to another, meaning the regulars staying seems increasingly bizarre). There's a sweet line about the TARDIS always landing on Earth recently, acknowledging the awkwardness of this conceit, and always England (well, not quite Jamie, two in a row, with two others going to Australia and Tibet, but you're close enough). Ending with the introduction of the sonic screwdriver. It's surprisingly casual, and it amazes me that anyone would remember it enough to bring it back after this script. Odd to see how many of the staples we associate with the series are still being introduced, this late in the game (the Brig, UNIT and the screwdriver).
The opening scenes get going quite quickly (ok, so the regulars get the foam off their clothes impossibly fast). But, as with a lot of the rest of the recent stories, we've got a fairly good idea of the central threat very early on (we know there's something nasty in the pipes before we've met any of the characters). I'm not so sure this is a good thing. Mystery is a good thing. The behaviour of the riggers is odd, but we've got a fairly good idea what caused it. It all serves to slightly lessen the creepiness and the atmosphere - and in deed, watch for some staggeringly weak exposition when Harris reveals all the companies woes to a bunch of strangers pretty much instantly. It's tell, not show, in reverse of the regular maxim.)
One or two of the supporting characters show promise though. The Harrises seem fairly traditional straight edged decent sorts, but the main interest is in Robson. It's nice, for a change, to have a commanding officer who's more than a little rough around the edges, and definitively not posh. He's grumpy, surly, and instantly dislikeable. There's a lovely salt of the earth arrogance about him, a dislike for the suits, that makes him the most interesting commander this season (and we've had a few). Likewise, Van Lutyens is rather good, mainly for his stream of dutch insults. The guys got a bit of an edge.
So, fun, but nothing special. Yet.
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#108 4 Nov 2004, 12:03 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 2:
Nice to have the episode captions visible on the telesnaps. I've missed them.
Well, another good episode... but I'm still not particularly excited by it yet. It's hard to put a finger on why exactly. I suppose, so far there's no real sense of threat. The menace itself is fairly nebulous, and hard to define (so far, just a heartbeat). It hasn't done anything particularly nasty yet either... no-one's dead, it's merely blocked a pipeline. It's not dangerous yet, merely annoying. All the moments that try to present it as scary (the cliffhanger to part one, the appearance of Oak and Quill) have a certain effect, but no underlying weight. Yes, Victoria screams at the appearance of the weed. But as of yet, we've no reason to assume there's any need to be scared. Likewise, Oak and Quill are creepy, but whilst it remains unclear exactly why they're doing anything, it's baseless. It says 'here's a creepy bit', rather than it tying in to the story directly (it's there because they need a creepy bit, more than they need to do it). It doesn't really help that they're main function in this episode is to mess with a cooker and open a door and that John Cura, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that one of the key images to preserve from this episode is a close up of Oak's arse.
One of the other great images is mere background. I love the fact that the word 'pipeline' is written in large letters on the pipeline. As if people working there couldn't possibly guess.
One of the oddities here is that no-one seems to care that the Doctor, Victoria and Jamie were locked up the last anyone knew. No one even asks how they escaped, or moves to send them back. Last episode they were considered worth imprisoning, this episode they're given the run of the place, vanishing for sections on end with no trouble at all. The standard Troughton plot involves the Doctor turning up and analysing/solving some problem - the tests in Ice Warriors, the return of the Ghanta - and as a result become a figure of trust for the inhabitants of this week's base. But here it's like someone's forgotten that scene. In fact, there's a scene of almost the exact opposite (surely Victoria's adventures in the oxygen room would make her less trusted? Couldn't the others have locked her in?) You had them shot and tranquilised a week ago people!
I've pretty much run out of things to say here. Pleasant, well made and acted, and the heartbeat and end credits combine to form a sort of dance music version of the theme at the end. But it still just isn't grabbing me and exciting me in the way Web did. Sorry.
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#109 4 Nov 2004, 5:04 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Ah, I got interested in this from the relationship between the characters about halfway into part 1, and loved part 2, especially the cliffhanger.
It's unfortunate that episode 6 has such dire padding, really... Scary story till then, only for comedy hijinks in a helicopter...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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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#110 4 Nov 2004, 7:21 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Don't get me wrong. I like it, the characters are good, the writing's good and there's no obvious sagging. I like it, but I don't really like it, yet, and I sort of expected to (expectation possibly the problem here - that and coming after Web - which is stunning).
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#111 5 Nov 2004, 11:37 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 3:
Well, following on from my criticism of the last episode, everyone suddenly remembers that the regulars are supposed to be prisoners in this one (actually, a quick relisten to the start of part two reveals a barely audible mention from Robson, asking 'who let you out'. But seeing as no-one really cares it's not that relevant). Can't see why they'd bother reminding everyone of a carefully ignored plot point from a couple of weeks back, especially considering it plays no further part in this episode either. It's just drawing attention to the problematic plotting. Especially weird is the reference in the scene to the Doctor being a 'harmless old man'. Really? That's Hartnell, surely. How does Harris know? (And why does it look like Harris has a moustache half the time? It's something a little odd in the photos that).
The plot is beinning to warm up properly now. It's a slow acting story, with most of the plot to date fairly easy to condense into a single episode if you wanted to (nothing much happens with the concealed seaweed for a long time - found in part one, still lying on the patio in part three - and likewise Oak and Quill seem to be there to knock up the menace quota and fill in time - surely Mrs Harris has already been infected by the weed by the time they get there?). There's a degree to which the thin-ness of the plot is reflected in this being rather a short episode, 20 minutes only.
Victoria is rather coming into her own in this story. She's still not the greatest companion ever, tending on the whole to be whiny, and foolhardy (she always wanders off on her own and gets captured immediately... I wouldn't mind if she ever actually gained anything, or behaved bravely). Wet is probably the best, and currently most ironic, word for her. But there's a lot of detail for her here, and she's clearly in 'companion leaving' mode. She's suddenly developed an aptitude for lockpicking (wouldn't that have been useful before? Say, whilst captured by the Daleks?) and gets that little 'Oh, I wish it wasn't always dangerous' speech that's a bit forced.
Generally, I'm liking it still. There's a nice eerie atmosphere building up (particularly in the strange cliffhanger). Great acting and characterisation (Robson's breakdown comes from nowhere, but it somehow works) Problems still remain. The monster is rather an ethereal threat, still not really doing all that much to make us worry. The story is classy, but not exciting. Though as I've said before, that doesn't mean it ain't good.
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#112 8 Nov 2004, 1:08 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 4:
As I keep saying, I do like this story, I'm just underwhelmed. It does have the reputation of being the great lost classic of the Troughton era, and I'm just not getting that. I'm getting a good solid story, with some nice creepy imagery at points, great characterisation and acting... but not an all conquering classic. In fact, I'd go so far as saying that it's exceptional in practically all those departments (for acting - look at Victor Maddern's eyes in the telesnaps, and the slow panicky drifting off of his voice; for characterisation, look at Megan Jones, a uniquely powerful woman for Doctor Who, effortlessly controlling the situation from the moment she appears). Just there's something missing. And I think I've figured out what it is.
It's a villain. The Weed as it stands is a fairly indistinct threat, at a remove from the action. It doesn't seem to be an intelligent foe as such, and it's not as physically threatening as it could be - no-one dies! Pmeperton seems to realise that he needs someone attacked permanently, hence the descent into the pipe discarding Van Lutyens (you can tell it's a token development as he is immediately replaced by a brand new character filling essentially the same plot function). But even this doesn't entirely work. The disappearance of Van Lutyens seems like a death, but it seems more like natural causes, in the sense that the weed doesn't seem like a plotting calculating thing, just more of a natural chancer that happens to be inimicable to life. It's the difference between being stabbed by a maniac, and drowning. There needs to be someone to act as a focal point for the Weed, otherwise it's just a distant threat that doesn't really connect with the main plot. They keep telling us it's threatening, but we don't get to see that much of its effects. It's the whole 'don't tell, show' thing again. We keep getting told it's dangerous, but we don't see it. We need a villain, otherwise there's no way for it to interact, there's no way to let us in. Putting it simply, we need a Harrison Chase (another story about a lifeform that is essentially unintelligent responding to natural urges).
Having said that, they are getting close. The distracted madness of Robson is creepy, and is going some way towards fulfilling the required function, and there's a lovely bit where the rig workers are literally overwhelmed by weed... but it still lacks a focus. And this means that the moments of danger are a bit samey, and occasionally contrived (Oak and Quill trapping the Doctor and Jamie for about a minute is a case in point).
Now, I will reiterate my point - I do like the story. A lot. But it's in a different way to most Who. It's not really the fast paced adventure serial we expect, it's more a thoughtful, dare I say it, Quatermass type of plot. The interest is derived more from the characters, their interactions and their responses to the situation than the threat of death and violence. It doesn't want to frighten us, it wants to un-nerve us. It's quieter, less energised. This isn't inherently a bad thing of course. However, by not quite feeling like Doctor Who, I think Fury manages not to be quite a classic.
Why is it Deborah Watling's acting is suddenly much better? Victoria's various crisis scenes are remarkably calmly played considering how hysterical she always seems to be up to now. The scenes are sweet, and the confusion in Jamie sums up the character perfectly. Of course, as with all these 'companion about to go' scenes, it does feel a little tacked on to the rest of the story, but it's nice nonetheless.
There we go then. Fine tv drama though only good but not great Who.
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#113 10 Nov 2004, 3:31 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 5:
I'm warming into this story rather. It's rather a quiet, unshowy piece, more about a creeping menace than a melodramatic threat. The story is cerebral rather than visceral, and whilst this makes it less of an adrenalin rush than it's immediate predecessor, it doesn't make it any less successful. Less obviously thrilling, less obvious full stop, but intelligent and adult.
The central themes of possesion (I typed 'alien possesion' there, then changed it - it's rarely stated, but the weed is seemingly a natural threat, something that's been lurking in the depths for a long time until we disturbed it - a monster that has lived alongside us all the time) are genuinely unnerving. The sequences with the distressed Robson in this episode and the last are compellingly strange (and seem to be shot beautifully, from what we can judge of the telesnaps - there are several telesnaps that contain a heck of a lot of pain and drama for a tiny photo). And also, surprisingly for Who, genuinely rather sad. There's a sense that he has a history - when Megan Jones suddenly and unexpectedly calls him by his first name, John, there's a real feeling that this character isn't just limited to the context of the story. He existed beforehand, with friends and family. It's a sort of area not usually covered in Who. And it's bits like this, the sense of a man slowly losing his mind that really begin to ground the serial. The fact that the Weed is essentially non-intelligent is becoming part of the central horror. The central conceit is that the human's are losing individuality, not that they are being attacked so the fact that the villain of the piece lacks any real presence or representation doesn't matter. It's about the effect, not the cause. In many ways, this is more effective - an enemy you can't reason with is scarier than one you can, obviously. But it does mean it does lose a bit of the 'action-adventure' feel Who usually has. This must be the only Who story where none of the guest cast are villains, and as a result it does mean that everyone's vaguely pulling the same way, so the energy is lower (Oak and Quill are at best lip service to having villainous figures - for all their reputation, they don't do all that much - their attack on Maggie doesn't really do anything that couldn't have been acheived without them, and after that they lock Jamie and the Doctor in the shaft for about a minute, and kidnap Victoria for about twenty seconds).
One thing that isn't going as well is the set up for Victoria going. They're milking it now. The couple of references over the past two episodes have been nice, but they just going overboard with it now. It adds little to the episode and just makes her look like a whinger. Had they left it, it would have been sad. But now you just want her to go. It's like the 3 Sisters - in a bad production the constant talk of 'oh, I want to go to Moscow', makes you want to buy them the ticket yourself as long as they sod off.
Some lovely scenes here - the Doctor's immediate decision to go straight to the Weed's nerve centre to rescue Victoria is particularly sweet. Quite why he insists on the bobble hat, I don't know. There are no massive set pieces, true (the room exploding with foam is fab, but a bit grafted on - the doors close and hem it in, and it gets forgotten rather quickly). But it's intelligent and unsettling drama... as I keep saying, not really Whoish in style to be one of the absolute best, but satisfying.
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#114 10 Nov 2004, 6:32 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
This must be the only Who story where none of the guest cast are villains
My favourite TV story, "Full Circle", doesn't have any villains at all, either - the Marshmen do things by instinct, and rarely attack anyone unless attacked first. If I recall, "The Savages" doesn't have villains per se either, just misguided scientists...
Oh, and I reckon your slow appreciation for this story might go for a burton at the beginning of part 6...
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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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#115 11 Nov 2004, 11:09 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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You know I have a habit of making these sweeping statements that just go absolutely tits up with a little thought. You are of course bang on.
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#116 11 Nov 2004, 12:45 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Fury from the Deep 6:
Hmm. What an odd episode. Lots of good stuff. Lots of poor stuff.
Right, let's try and get the bad out of the way first. The strangest thing about this episode is it's desperation to pad where it doesn't need to. There are huge amounts of additional material here at the expense of what matters. Most noticeably the helicopter sequence. Now I'm prepared to be a little lenient here, as this may have looked good on tv. On audio it's atrocious. 3 minutes of pure boredom, containing nothing but mild groans from the regulars and the other pilot seeming to stay 'stick back' all the time. But, regardless of whether it looked good or not, it's hard to justify the sequence in story terms. It just doesn't fit with the rest of the script. The story literally stops still for three minutes whilst they fart around. Visually entertaining or not, that's slack. All the built up tension is disipated. Still, we do get one of the great dodgy lines of all time from the Doctor - 'I've got it up all right, and it should be comparitively simply to propel it forward.'
Similarly, there are one or two other little bits that just feel tacked on. I can forgive the crappy forced jollity of the Harris' dinner party (it's got to set up Victoria's leaving), but the actual leaving scene does slightly go on too long (they over-do it just a bit... the final TARDIS scene is a little too flabby, really just repeating emotions already expressed). And the final scene with Robson, still grumpy, is a lovely idea... but it just feels uneccessary. Considering how anti-climactic the Weed creature's defeat is, you almost expect it to be a prelude to a twist, with Robson suddenly gassing some random Survivor. But no, it's just a scene. Without any real narrative point.
And the frustrating thing is that these wasted minutes could have been used so much better elsewhere. The actual defeat of the weed is, as I said above, deeply anti-climactic. The use of Victoria's screaming as the means to defeat it is, simultaneously, ingenious (it's been before our eyes all the time, it's obvious), and disappointing (a monster that can be defeated by someone screaming? Not exactly the best choice is it? Isn't that the stupidest weakness a monster could have? It's so pathetic and minor too...). But worst of all, it's over before you know it. The vast danger, all that foam swamping everything, the giant referred to at the end of part four, is defeated in the speediest and simplist way. Seemingly instantly, Maggie and Robson are radioing back that they're in perfect health (I love the dodgy money saving device of saying 'Oh yeah, Van Lutyens is fine too, by the way' - though we never find out what happened to Mr Oak). What a let down. (And why did Maggie walk into the sea anyway - the Weed captures two people... and then just doesn't bother to use one of them at all!)
In general however, the story still works. It mainly coasts by on the successes of the previous episodes making the damp squib acceptable. Victoria's leaving is very nicely done, though as I said last time, slighlty spoilt by over-doing the build up in the last three episodes. It's genuinely sad, and it's been a while since we've had the time taken over the companion departure (in deed, this is one of the few occasions where the story seems to have been well built around it - Victoria being instrumental in the ending, if tending towards getting captured and knocked out just as much as usual).
A very good story then, with reservations.
At the end of the cd release there's the original trailer for Wheel in Space. I love the way this gives away plot twists over three weeks away - 'who's gonna hatch from these eggs? Looks like the Cybermen might be up to something'. Hilarious.
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#117 11 Nov 2004, 5:50 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Ah, I actually loved "The Wheel in Space". After a few dodgy stories, season 5 really gets underway with The Enemy of the World, for me...
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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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#118 11 Nov 2004, 6:08 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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I think I agree. I like Tomb - it's brevity helps it work, a lesson a lot of the rest of the season could have learnt from I feel.
But certainly Snowmen and Ice Warriors are pretty much just 'ok'. Neither too bad, but neither that exciting. The last three have however been a fairly solid run through. I listened to a dodgy audio recording of Wheel years and years ago, so my knowledge of it is fairly non-existant. It'll be rather good to relisten, I think. As with a lot of these I haven't watched them or listened in absolutely ages, so it's a story I've been looking forward to, as I've no idea what happens in it!
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Last edited by Dorney; 11 Nov 2004 at 6:10 pm.
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#119 11 Nov 2004, 6:27 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Had seen the two surviving episodes a while backon the Years tape, but only listened to the Cd recently. I'm not really a fan of Cybermen stories - I like the monsters themselves, but rarely enjoy their stories. "Wheel" actually entertained me, and it's certainly me fave Cyberstory. I even like the voices for them in this one. Especially the Italian ones at the end of part 3.
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The Web of Fear
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#96 16 Oct 2004, 9:47 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 1:
I seem to recall around the time of the vhs release of the Troughton years a letter in DWB or some such criticised the inclusion on said tape of the Abominable Snowmen 2 saying 'even a trained monkey could tell Web of Fear 1' is better.
Now, I'm not going to go all mental and try and prove the opposite, (sorry Abominable fans, it's true) but I did think it was worth asking why this is. Because on a lot of levels, Web really isn't that much better than Snowmen. It probably just loses out on coherency of plot for a start, and on an episode to episode basis the content in story terms at least is fairly much of a muchness. Characterisation is good in both, with some nicely drawn central guest stars and a few serviceable smaller parts. But in terms of the writing, Haisman and Lincoln aren't doing a vast amount better than last time. So what knocks this episode into the stratosphere, if it isn't them.
Well, it's two words, really. Camfield and atmosphere. Now these two do feed off each other to a degree, but let's consider them seperately. Let's go with atmosphere first. This story reeks of it. Like it or not certain locations, times and so on, suit Doctor Who like a glove. Now once or twice I've felt this is a problem - Doctor Who fans will dislike stories that don't broadly conform to the 'gothic' style, because they feel it's not just the best fit but the only, the paradigm that good Dr Who has to fit rather than a particularly succesful one - but the fact does remain that when it's done well, it's a damn fine type of story for the series. And this does feel like the most 'gothic' serial of all the modern day stories. It's all dark corners and enclosed environments, shadows and lurking monsters. You can tell this straight away from the opening sequence (well, the one in the museum), where it's all about slow burn scares and is placed in an environment that looks not too far from a haunted mansion. And the violence and scares keep coming - the death of Silverstein is surprisingly nasty in contrast to the mellowness of the Abominable Snowmen, and the dead news vendor is creepy as hell. This is a story that wants to scare you... and it does.
And that's mainly down to Camfield, who is essentially shooting an action thriller like a ghost story. The deserted underground is an unnerving environment - the sort of area we know terribly well, but presented in an alien and uncomfortable way (this is the Yeti in the toilet in tooting bec story - we're unnerved because it's something distinctly nasty in a place we know very well. For some reason it's creepier than the equivalents of War Machines and Faceless Ones... and there are several reasons why. The War Machines and the Chameleon's worked in a world running smoothly for a start - the world wasn't as affected by their presence as the underground here is. It's an enclosed environment as opposed to the streets (adding claustrophobia into the mix) Also, it's a creature we already know transplanted into our world . And frankly the War Machines and the Chameleon's are a bit crap, and never seem that creepy... whereas we've already been sold the threat of the Yeti with the nasty little prologue.
It's not just going for the creepy atmosphere that Camfield excels at by the way. There are loads of lovely little touches in terms of actor positioning (the scene where the TARDIS crew pop their heads out from round a corner, Victoria at the bottom, Jamie middle, Doctor top). There are lots of interesting angles and compositions, but they've never got that 'look at me, look at me' feel of bad direction.
Plotwise, the episode doesn't do anything particularly exciting. It's fairly simple and doesn't particularly have any interest in starting the plot proper, content merely to concentrate on introductions and set up - it's paced leisurely but not slow. The plot constantly progresses but is allowed time to breathe. Bear in mind the episode is pretty much based around the sort of scene that Ice Warriors did in 5 minutes - the crew arrive and meet the main cast. OK, the capture in space part goes some way to filling in a plot light episode, but it's played well and is tenser than it really should be.
Virtually no problems with this episode - the Discontinuity Guide criticises the jewish stereotyping, but that does sort of miss the point. Silverstein is in the episode for mere minutes, and the stereotype immediately supplies us with a personality for him. A cliched personality, yes, and that ain't great. But it's better than a swiftly killed cypher.
The only other problem is that I can't see the point of cliffhangers over from previous stories. If it's a cliffhanger that leads in to a new story, then it works. It's a tease. But this way... it just means you have to waste a few minutes at the beginning of the story ending a completely unrelated tale. And that's also the problem with end of series cliffhangers (see the shooting of Charlie in Casualty, the end of series 6 of Red Dwarf). With the story that led to that cliffhanger over, you're stuck with a scene that has nowhere to go left on the beginning of your new series. Always better to end with a climax that sticks in people's minds... or a cliffhanger were there is plenty of room for more story.
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#97 18 Oct 2004, 11:50 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 2:
The Web of Fear is Steptoe and Son. No, it is, really.
My favourite episodes of Steptoe are one's where the episode has a premise - they split the house in half, they plan a holiday, they write articles for a parish newsletter - that is then played on for the remainder of the story - looking for as many riffs and variations on the individual theme as possible. And watching this episode, I begin to feel that that's the way this is going.
There doesn't seem to be a vast amount of plot, if we're being honest. The story doesn't seem to be aiming anywhere in particular - the only real driver the story has, apart from Evans obviously, is the slowly encroaching fungus, the humans (and in deed, the Yeti) don't really seem to have an overall aim or plan. What it does is trap a lot of people in a claustrophobic environment, and play variations on that theme. It's a series of schemes to escape and threats, alternating. That's not to say this is a bad way of telling the story by the way, because no matter how simple the premise is (and it is very simple), the joy and the drama comes in the resulting set pieces. A structural brother is something like Cube, or Panic Room. Engage the audience immediately with a likeable cast of heroes, put them in a simple predicament - trapped, in a kill or be killed environment. Then present them with more difficulties in survival. Yes, it does mean that the story does become a series of set pieces rather than a vast overarching plot, but as an engine for tension it's unbeatable - and adding too much plotting would probably over-egg the pudding. Web's inherent simplicity is its best trick.
The mid episode Yeti attack here, for example seems from the soundtrack, telesnaps and those precious new zealand clips, to be a model of suspense. But with no greater threat than the very simple one: the goodies might get killed. But do you really need anything more? Web is a story about survival more than anything else, a desperate struggle to survive. Each episode seems to be themed around a central premise - last week it was the arrival of the regulars, this week it's the search for the Doctor. To my mind, this episode uses the holday of the lead actor better than any other. By not bothering to give an explanation for it. It's terribly intriguing, because he's being mentioned all the time, and there's no good reason for him not to be there. Amazingly it does work some way to raising our suspicions (not that he's necessarily working with the Yeti of course... just that he's up to something).
The characters are wonderfully real and varied. It's nice, for a change, to see at least two characters who do roughly what we would in the circumstances... crap ourselves. For all the cliches about Chorley and Evans being cowardly, the truth is that they're the closest characters to us in the scenario (ok, Chorley's more than a little vile, especially with his grim recording of the dying soldiers from Holborn, but there's something of his pragmatism in all of us). Even run of the mill grunts like Blake feel individual, and most of the characters are likeable for that reason alone. Doesn't matter that Arnold's gruff, he's still like regular people we could meet on the street.
So a good episode. The plot isn't racing off anywhere, but when it's as suspenseful, atmospheric and dramatic as this, who cares?
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#98 19 Oct 2004, 10:44 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Chorley's a very underrated character - vile, as you say, but superbly acted.
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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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#99 21 Oct 2004, 11:29 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 3:
I was thinking - is there anyone in fandom who doesn't like the Brigadier? Surely everyone does. Surely that's the one thing universally accepted by Who fans. Whilst there are always going to be those who aren't keen on City of Death, or Talons or Caves, or Hinchcliffe or Baker... everyone loves Courtney. And who can blame us?
It's an elegant controlled performance from the get go - the Colonel's first line is 'One moment', fact fans. Considering the fact that the character has only just turned up it's incredible how quickly he becomes commanding - and I mean this in more than the sense he takes control of Goodge Street. That's just the factual aspect of it. Without any real build up, he asserts control instantly, and he feels more of a commander than Knight, authoritative and strong. The only downside is he's quite blatantly touted as the red herring figure - there's a lovely moment to suggest this where he doesn't seem to know who Evans is - and of course that's never going to work now. Mind you, having said that, it shouldn't really work for the Doctor too, and we're sort of suspicious of him too at this point. Nice to feel, when watching these stories, that despite knowing who the traitor is, and knowing who it clearly isn't, you still get the sense of distrust inherent in the story. Signs of a strong script and direction there I think. After all, the entire story is, as I said last time, based on suspense.
There's still very little in the way of plot, per se, but the tension is racked up, and the plans get increasingly desperate with the slow advance of the web, and that gives the story the only driving force it needs, a constant threat of death to people we rather like - and we do like them. It's clear from these last few stories that the characterisation is important at this period in Who history, and each of the soldiers has a clear personality, meaning that the death of someone as minor as Weams at the end of this episode still has a strong dramatic weight. The script is, to my eye, the first 'base under siege' proper this season has had (in contrast to popular opinion). The forces in Tomb and Snowmen are mainly from within, and with the latter and Ice Warriors, the base is very rarely under attack. And in all three, no one is trapped, really. Here we're enclosed, in a deliciously claustrophobic environment, and under constant attack, a slow siege. In every sense. Boy is it tense.
The cliffhanger resolution is terribly weak. At the end of part two Evans and Jamie appeared to be trapped. Here they can just sneak away easily, with little explanation. Not good. It's a narrative cheat where the definition of the threat is changed between episodes. But the cliffhanger to this episode (which appears to be one of those tantalising clips at the end of the vhs) is rather fine.
Beyond all that, it's much the same as last time. A well scripted episode of slowly increasing tension. The fact that the central threat, the web, is so remorseless and impossible to reason with is what works here. It's the Doctor against a force of (un)nature. Rather like my favourite Star Trek episode, the Doomsday Machine. Unstoppable. Implaccable. Deadly. The most suspenseful Who story to date, in my opinion.
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#100 23 Oct 2004, 3:27 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 4:
About the time of the 25th anniversary, I was often in touch via mail with another fan who claimed to have seen two missing episodes. These belonged to the legendary 'fan on an oil rig'. One of them was Tenth Planet 4. The other was Web of Fear 4.
It's one of the truism's of the missing episode legend that no-one ever circulate's rumours about minor stories. Any rumours are always Fury, or Web, or something similar. Never has there been a rumour about Galaxy 4 episode 3. Of course, it's always true that the episodes that have turned up (at least, the two most recent ones anyway), aren't exactly the most excitng ones going. I'm not complaining they're back of course. Just that no-one ever sat around thinking 'gee, wouldn't it be great if the Lion was returned'. They simply weren't that high on our list of priorities.
So it's interesting that the rumoured episode from this story is this one. It's blatantly the most action packed one so far, with the most memorable set piece (one that does look amazing from the soundtrack and the little clips). It'd be a lovely one to have back, if we can't get the rest.
One thing that setpiece drove home to me rather is the realisation that the Yeti don't really do that much in this story. For all their iconic status, the threat is the Web. They just turn up to offer a direct foe for the heroes whenever there's need for action. In deed, it's a little hard to see why the Intelligence needed the Yeti at all here, except for the fiddly stuff. The Web is the monster. The big murderous set pieces are nice, and there's a genuinely uncomfortable brutality to their killings (there's something particularly unpleasant about the idea of someone being beaten to death, I find). But really, they feel like the cherry on top of the cake, rather than the cake itself. They're there to supplement the central threat, rather than present it - if you don't believe me, think about how much they actually do in the story. They're a fairly distant threat, and are barely referenced outside the central set pieces. They turn up around the cliffhangers, but for the most part remain fairly seperate from the main thrust.
And the central thrust is the web. I'm still cottoning on to why it works as a threat, and it's the sheer unknowable quality it has. It's hard to tell what it is, what it does, how it kills. We just know it does.
Equally, paranoia plays an important part. The constant repetition and accusation surrounding the traitor really begin to make you trust no-one. The Doctor does seem like a possible contender, as does the Colonel and Evans. The reason this trick really works is for two reasons 1) because we've got one obvious red herring, Chorley, meaning that he's the only one we can really dismiss 2) because it's not necessarily a willing traitor. Which means it could be anyone. Usually, you have to dislike the villain on some level in these things, but here it generally is open to all. And it could be anyone. Knight's death is one of the most shocking in Who because we've been made to care for him, and we don't suspect he's on the hit list - he's a proper character, high billing. He's quite witty and likeable, and flirty. The killing of a character we subconciously expect to survive makes us think that anything could happen here. It really could.
It's a classy, exciting episode. The Colonel really dominates the guest cast, it has to be said, making it hard to believe this is only his second episode. Class, pure class.
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#101 23 Oct 2004, 11:36 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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But aren't the Yeti so fun?
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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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#102 30 Oct 2004, 6:48 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Come on Dorney, old man, get yer act in gear!
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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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#103 31 Oct 2004, 9:25 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got out of the habit a bit when I was up in London this week (though I did take the cds). Should be back on track this afternoon, or tomorrow.
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#104 1 Nov 2004, 11:48 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 5:
The only real problem with the Web of Fear is that the atmosphere, tension and suspense of the story isn't supported by a genuinely interesting story. The revelation of the Intelligence's aim in this episode is emabarassingly weak here - it's all a plot to get the Doctor? You're kidding right? It's a very very thin premise, and the more you think about it, the less it fits (what is the point of all the murders... Knight, and so on? The human's only proper purpose in the trap is as bargaining material, so the fewer they have the less power the intelligence has over the Doctor, surely?). And there's the hilarious line from Travers/Intelligence that he's turned up because now's the time to tell everyone his plan. Why? Why even wait? Turn up and tell him straight away, save yourself a bit of time. Don't give him plenty of space to figure out a way to beat you. And if he is so bloody smart, why can't he speak up? Why's he whispering all the time?
It is much to the credit of this story's direction and atmosphere that you still come out at the end of
it enjoying it, despite the weakness of its foundations. (There is a genuine sense that Haisman and Lincoln really didn't have the time to come up with a plot). This episode however, is probably the weakest. Whilst the background ticking clock does rack up the tension a touch, the Intelligence is less blatantly on the attack because of it (there's no point in trying to kill someone when you've given them twenty minutes to make a choice). This does mean this is a treading water episode. None of the characters seem to be given anything new to do - Anne and the Doctor continue to experiment for example. And it seems to have run out of potential set pieces (The Brigadier and Jamie seem to spend the entire episode wandering around doing things they've already tried and coming back - yes, let's wander into the tunnels. Yes, let's try overground). The Doctor trying to capture a yeti is quite interesting, but with an effective truce in operation, there's clearly a lack of tension.
To be honest, I find there's little to add as a result. It's becoming a little easier to guess who the traitor is -Arnold's sudden reappearance stinks of dodginess. However, that isn't entirely fair as the script has been careful to write out most of the characters for long stretches (Evans, the Colonel, the Doctor, Chorley, Travers and Arnold have all been out of the story for one or two episodes at points). And the air of distrust seems a tiny bit forced, as we can assume the traitor isn't a willing pawn (for all these people saying 'well, you can trust me' are all telling the truth, as far as they can tell).
So overall, a disappointing episode. But I'm very much looking forward to part six.
(Incidentally, apologies to anyone who was bemused by my initial version of this post. Accidentally posted my half written notes instead of a post in another thread. Mea Culpa. The illusion is ruined, the magic is spoilt).
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Last edited by Dorney; 1 Nov 2004 at 12:20 pm. Reason: Accidentally posted the wrong post.
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#105 2 Nov 2004, 12:24 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 6:
So about a week later than I thought I'd get to it, it's the dramatic climax.
I've slightly changed my mind on one of the details here. Whilst the revelation of the Intelligence's plot is disappointing, and insanely illogical, it is rather fitting that it's so personal. The story hasn't really been about mass global domination or stuff like that, it's driven by the individuals, by the efforts of one small group to stay alive. A massive world threatening plot would seem somewhat wrong next to that. To illustrate what I mean... Enemy of the World has a big scale plan, hence the story deals in large areas. The world has to match the plot. Web never really wants, or needs, us to feel it affects more than the central batch of characters (we never see anything outside of London, no civilians worth speaking of outside of those already trapped). If the threat turned out to be global, we'd have had to have lost some of the claustrophobia and deal with how it affects the whole world... not just the circle line - I'm not sure I'm explaining that correctly... compare with the Dalek Invasion of Earth, and you should get what I mean.
Web is smaller scale than you realise. The danger is interpersonal, the set pieces are too. I don't think I can recall a more low-key climax episode than this one, played out more through psychology than action. Again, that's indicative of the story, which is often mistaken for being a UNIT style action thriller. It isn't. There are few action scenes (I can't really recall any in the last two episodes). The story is purely about a growing sense of threat and menace and unease. It's a suspense thriller rather than an action thriller, and as a result, a climax involving lots of shooting would be profoundly disappointing. It's fitting that the end is just a bunch of people standing in a room - there's a lovely air of melancholy and defeat about this episode. Every option has been exhausted (look how many characters pretty much give up in the story - even The Colonel here tries to encourage the Doctor to give in).
Arnold as the traitor isn't a vast surprise (especially considering it isn't really the man himself). They slightly hammer this home a bit too much early on in the episode with the 'Arnold was in the web. Don't know how he survived' bit. It may have seemed like an obvious problem, but I'm not sure anyone would have noticed without the attention being drawn to it. Personally, I'd have preferred it to be someone more amusing and likeable (imagine if it had been Evans!), and I have a sneaky feeling that it might not have been supposed to be Arnold (his sudden resurrection is perhaps a plot point too far... nothing's really gained from his fake death in part four, and his return only really serves to point up that it's probably him). I reckon he was originally due to be killed off in part four, but the writers decided they liked all of the characters left a little too much to let them go.
It is interesting that in a reversal of the usual morality of the series, the weak and cowardly characters live, and the brave ones die (Chorley is exactly the sort of character who would be bumped off for his desertion in other stories). Neither Evans nor Chorley get any real redemption for their weakness. It's quite nice for a change, because as I said they are the characters who we'd probably be most like.
Mild problems - well, after a lot of emphasis at the cliffhanger the fungus pretty much vanishes (and in testament to the fact that this episode is broadly a rewrite of the end of Abominable Snowman, the 5/6 cliffhanger to both stories is pretty much identical). No one ever really talks about it at the end. And it's a bit of a shame that the nice final scene with the guest cast isn't the proper end, and there's a pointless bit of silliness from the regulars. But none of this really detracts.
A beautifully concise, small scale thriller then, tense and human. It really connects to us for that very reason - it's a story about the human's rather than the monsters.
Dorney
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#106 2 Nov 2004, 5:34 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Hurrah! You're back!
And same views on Web that I've got - as a whole it's rather class, but runs out of steam in final episodes. I'm not exactly sure why the Intelligence decided it needed to knock out the London Underground in it's plan to get the Doctor... The Intelligence traps him in space in episode 1, surely a decent plan would have been just to keep him there until he submitted to the brain-sucker-outer-thingy. But then there'd have been no classy Yeti action. Ho hum.
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#96 16 Oct 2004, 9:47 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 1:
I seem to recall around the time of the vhs release of the Troughton years a letter in DWB or some such criticised the inclusion on said tape of the Abominable Snowmen 2 saying 'even a trained monkey could tell Web of Fear 1' is better.
Now, I'm not going to go all mental and try and prove the opposite, (sorry Abominable fans, it's true) but I did think it was worth asking why this is. Because on a lot of levels, Web really isn't that much better than Snowmen. It probably just loses out on coherency of plot for a start, and on an episode to episode basis the content in story terms at least is fairly much of a muchness. Characterisation is good in both, with some nicely drawn central guest stars and a few serviceable smaller parts. But in terms of the writing, Haisman and Lincoln aren't doing a vast amount better than last time. So what knocks this episode into the stratosphere, if it isn't them.
Well, it's two words, really. Camfield and atmosphere. Now these two do feed off each other to a degree, but let's consider them seperately. Let's go with atmosphere first. This story reeks of it. Like it or not certain locations, times and so on, suit Doctor Who like a glove. Now once or twice I've felt this is a problem - Doctor Who fans will dislike stories that don't broadly conform to the 'gothic' style, because they feel it's not just the best fit but the only, the paradigm that good Dr Who has to fit rather than a particularly succesful one - but the fact does remain that when it's done well, it's a damn fine type of story for the series. And this does feel like the most 'gothic' serial of all the modern day stories. It's all dark corners and enclosed environments, shadows and lurking monsters. You can tell this straight away from the opening sequence (well, the one in the museum), where it's all about slow burn scares and is placed in an environment that looks not too far from a haunted mansion. And the violence and scares keep coming - the death of Silverstein is surprisingly nasty in contrast to the mellowness of the Abominable Snowmen, and the dead news vendor is creepy as hell. This is a story that wants to scare you... and it does.
And that's mainly down to Camfield, who is essentially shooting an action thriller like a ghost story. The deserted underground is an unnerving environment - the sort of area we know terribly well, but presented in an alien and uncomfortable way (this is the Yeti in the toilet in tooting bec story - we're unnerved because it's something distinctly nasty in a place we know very well. For some reason it's creepier than the equivalents of War Machines and Faceless Ones... and there are several reasons why. The War Machines and the Chameleon's worked in a world running smoothly for a start - the world wasn't as affected by their presence as the underground here is. It's an enclosed environment as opposed to the streets (adding claustrophobia into the mix) Also, it's a creature we already know transplanted into our world . And frankly the War Machines and the Chameleon's are a bit crap, and never seem that creepy... whereas we've already been sold the threat of the Yeti with the nasty little prologue.
It's not just going for the creepy atmosphere that Camfield excels at by the way. There are loads of lovely little touches in terms of actor positioning (the scene where the TARDIS crew pop their heads out from round a corner, Victoria at the bottom, Jamie middle, Doctor top). There are lots of interesting angles and compositions, but they've never got that 'look at me, look at me' feel of bad direction.
Plotwise, the episode doesn't do anything particularly exciting. It's fairly simple and doesn't particularly have any interest in starting the plot proper, content merely to concentrate on introductions and set up - it's paced leisurely but not slow. The plot constantly progresses but is allowed time to breathe. Bear in mind the episode is pretty much based around the sort of scene that Ice Warriors did in 5 minutes - the crew arrive and meet the main cast. OK, the capture in space part goes some way to filling in a plot light episode, but it's played well and is tenser than it really should be.
Virtually no problems with this episode - the Discontinuity Guide criticises the jewish stereotyping, but that does sort of miss the point. Silverstein is in the episode for mere minutes, and the stereotype immediately supplies us with a personality for him. A cliched personality, yes, and that ain't great. But it's better than a swiftly killed cypher.
The only other problem is that I can't see the point of cliffhangers over from previous stories. If it's a cliffhanger that leads in to a new story, then it works. It's a tease. But this way... it just means you have to waste a few minutes at the beginning of the story ending a completely unrelated tale. And that's also the problem with end of series cliffhangers (see the shooting of Charlie in Casualty, the end of series 6 of Red Dwarf). With the story that led to that cliffhanger over, you're stuck with a scene that has nowhere to go left on the beginning of your new series. Always better to end with a climax that sticks in people's minds... or a cliffhanger were there is plenty of room for more story.
Dorney
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#97 18 Oct 2004, 11:50 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 2:
The Web of Fear is Steptoe and Son. No, it is, really.
My favourite episodes of Steptoe are one's where the episode has a premise - they split the house in half, they plan a holiday, they write articles for a parish newsletter - that is then played on for the remainder of the story - looking for as many riffs and variations on the individual theme as possible. And watching this episode, I begin to feel that that's the way this is going.
There doesn't seem to be a vast amount of plot, if we're being honest. The story doesn't seem to be aiming anywhere in particular - the only real driver the story has, apart from Evans obviously, is the slowly encroaching fungus, the humans (and in deed, the Yeti) don't really seem to have an overall aim or plan. What it does is trap a lot of people in a claustrophobic environment, and play variations on that theme. It's a series of schemes to escape and threats, alternating. That's not to say this is a bad way of telling the story by the way, because no matter how simple the premise is (and it is very simple), the joy and the drama comes in the resulting set pieces. A structural brother is something like Cube, or Panic Room. Engage the audience immediately with a likeable cast of heroes, put them in a simple predicament - trapped, in a kill or be killed environment. Then present them with more difficulties in survival. Yes, it does mean that the story does become a series of set pieces rather than a vast overarching plot, but as an engine for tension it's unbeatable - and adding too much plotting would probably over-egg the pudding. Web's inherent simplicity is its best trick.
The mid episode Yeti attack here, for example seems from the soundtrack, telesnaps and those precious new zealand clips, to be a model of suspense. But with no greater threat than the very simple one: the goodies might get killed. But do you really need anything more? Web is a story about survival more than anything else, a desperate struggle to survive. Each episode seems to be themed around a central premise - last week it was the arrival of the regulars, this week it's the search for the Doctor. To my mind, this episode uses the holday of the lead actor better than any other. By not bothering to give an explanation for it. It's terribly intriguing, because he's being mentioned all the time, and there's no good reason for him not to be there. Amazingly it does work some way to raising our suspicions (not that he's necessarily working with the Yeti of course... just that he's up to something).
The characters are wonderfully real and varied. It's nice, for a change, to see at least two characters who do roughly what we would in the circumstances... crap ourselves. For all the cliches about Chorley and Evans being cowardly, the truth is that they're the closest characters to us in the scenario (ok, Chorley's more than a little vile, especially with his grim recording of the dying soldiers from Holborn, but there's something of his pragmatism in all of us). Even run of the mill grunts like Blake feel individual, and most of the characters are likeable for that reason alone. Doesn't matter that Arnold's gruff, he's still like regular people we could meet on the street.
So a good episode. The plot isn't racing off anywhere, but when it's as suspenseful, atmospheric and dramatic as this, who cares?
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#98 19 Oct 2004, 10:44 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Chorley's a very underrated character - vile, as you say, but superbly acted.
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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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#99 21 Oct 2004, 11:29 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 3:
I was thinking - is there anyone in fandom who doesn't like the Brigadier? Surely everyone does. Surely that's the one thing universally accepted by Who fans. Whilst there are always going to be those who aren't keen on City of Death, or Talons or Caves, or Hinchcliffe or Baker... everyone loves Courtney. And who can blame us?
It's an elegant controlled performance from the get go - the Colonel's first line is 'One moment', fact fans. Considering the fact that the character has only just turned up it's incredible how quickly he becomes commanding - and I mean this in more than the sense he takes control of Goodge Street. That's just the factual aspect of it. Without any real build up, he asserts control instantly, and he feels more of a commander than Knight, authoritative and strong. The only downside is he's quite blatantly touted as the red herring figure - there's a lovely moment to suggest this where he doesn't seem to know who Evans is - and of course that's never going to work now. Mind you, having said that, it shouldn't really work for the Doctor too, and we're sort of suspicious of him too at this point. Nice to feel, when watching these stories, that despite knowing who the traitor is, and knowing who it clearly isn't, you still get the sense of distrust inherent in the story. Signs of a strong script and direction there I think. After all, the entire story is, as I said last time, based on suspense.
There's still very little in the way of plot, per se, but the tension is racked up, and the plans get increasingly desperate with the slow advance of the web, and that gives the story the only driving force it needs, a constant threat of death to people we rather like - and we do like them. It's clear from these last few stories that the characterisation is important at this period in Who history, and each of the soldiers has a clear personality, meaning that the death of someone as minor as Weams at the end of this episode still has a strong dramatic weight. The script is, to my eye, the first 'base under siege' proper this season has had (in contrast to popular opinion). The forces in Tomb and Snowmen are mainly from within, and with the latter and Ice Warriors, the base is very rarely under attack. And in all three, no one is trapped, really. Here we're enclosed, in a deliciously claustrophobic environment, and under constant attack, a slow siege. In every sense. Boy is it tense.
The cliffhanger resolution is terribly weak. At the end of part two Evans and Jamie appeared to be trapped. Here they can just sneak away easily, with little explanation. Not good. It's a narrative cheat where the definition of the threat is changed between episodes. But the cliffhanger to this episode (which appears to be one of those tantalising clips at the end of the vhs) is rather fine.
Beyond all that, it's much the same as last time. A well scripted episode of slowly increasing tension. The fact that the central threat, the web, is so remorseless and impossible to reason with is what works here. It's the Doctor against a force of (un)nature. Rather like my favourite Star Trek episode, the Doomsday Machine. Unstoppable. Implaccable. Deadly. The most suspenseful Who story to date, in my opinion.
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#100 23 Oct 2004, 3:27 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 4:
About the time of the 25th anniversary, I was often in touch via mail with another fan who claimed to have seen two missing episodes. These belonged to the legendary 'fan on an oil rig'. One of them was Tenth Planet 4. The other was Web of Fear 4.
It's one of the truism's of the missing episode legend that no-one ever circulate's rumours about minor stories. Any rumours are always Fury, or Web, or something similar. Never has there been a rumour about Galaxy 4 episode 3. Of course, it's always true that the episodes that have turned up (at least, the two most recent ones anyway), aren't exactly the most excitng ones going. I'm not complaining they're back of course. Just that no-one ever sat around thinking 'gee, wouldn't it be great if the Lion was returned'. They simply weren't that high on our list of priorities.
So it's interesting that the rumoured episode from this story is this one. It's blatantly the most action packed one so far, with the most memorable set piece (one that does look amazing from the soundtrack and the little clips). It'd be a lovely one to have back, if we can't get the rest.
One thing that setpiece drove home to me rather is the realisation that the Yeti don't really do that much in this story. For all their iconic status, the threat is the Web. They just turn up to offer a direct foe for the heroes whenever there's need for action. In deed, it's a little hard to see why the Intelligence needed the Yeti at all here, except for the fiddly stuff. The Web is the monster. The big murderous set pieces are nice, and there's a genuinely uncomfortable brutality to their killings (there's something particularly unpleasant about the idea of someone being beaten to death, I find). But really, they feel like the cherry on top of the cake, rather than the cake itself. They're there to supplement the central threat, rather than present it - if you don't believe me, think about how much they actually do in the story. They're a fairly distant threat, and are barely referenced outside the central set pieces. They turn up around the cliffhangers, but for the most part remain fairly seperate from the main thrust.
And the central thrust is the web. I'm still cottoning on to why it works as a threat, and it's the sheer unknowable quality it has. It's hard to tell what it is, what it does, how it kills. We just know it does.
Equally, paranoia plays an important part. The constant repetition and accusation surrounding the traitor really begin to make you trust no-one. The Doctor does seem like a possible contender, as does the Colonel and Evans. The reason this trick really works is for two reasons 1) because we've got one obvious red herring, Chorley, meaning that he's the only one we can really dismiss 2) because it's not necessarily a willing traitor. Which means it could be anyone. Usually, you have to dislike the villain on some level in these things, but here it generally is open to all. And it could be anyone. Knight's death is one of the most shocking in Who because we've been made to care for him, and we don't suspect he's on the hit list - he's a proper character, high billing. He's quite witty and likeable, and flirty. The killing of a character we subconciously expect to survive makes us think that anything could happen here. It really could.
It's a classy, exciting episode. The Colonel really dominates the guest cast, it has to be said, making it hard to believe this is only his second episode. Class, pure class.
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#101 23 Oct 2004, 11:36 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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But aren't the Yeti so fun?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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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#102 30 Oct 2004, 6:48 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Come on Dorney, old man, get yer act in gear!
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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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#103 31 Oct 2004, 9:25 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got out of the habit a bit when I was up in London this week (though I did take the cds). Should be back on track this afternoon, or tomorrow.
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#104 1 Nov 2004, 11:48 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 5:
The only real problem with the Web of Fear is that the atmosphere, tension and suspense of the story isn't supported by a genuinely interesting story. The revelation of the Intelligence's aim in this episode is emabarassingly weak here - it's all a plot to get the Doctor? You're kidding right? It's a very very thin premise, and the more you think about it, the less it fits (what is the point of all the murders... Knight, and so on? The human's only proper purpose in the trap is as bargaining material, so the fewer they have the less power the intelligence has over the Doctor, surely?). And there's the hilarious line from Travers/Intelligence that he's turned up because now's the time to tell everyone his plan. Why? Why even wait? Turn up and tell him straight away, save yourself a bit of time. Don't give him plenty of space to figure out a way to beat you. And if he is so bloody smart, why can't he speak up? Why's he whispering all the time?
It is much to the credit of this story's direction and atmosphere that you still come out at the end of
it enjoying it, despite the weakness of its foundations. (There is a genuine sense that Haisman and Lincoln really didn't have the time to come up with a plot). This episode however, is probably the weakest. Whilst the background ticking clock does rack up the tension a touch, the Intelligence is less blatantly on the attack because of it (there's no point in trying to kill someone when you've given them twenty minutes to make a choice). This does mean this is a treading water episode. None of the characters seem to be given anything new to do - Anne and the Doctor continue to experiment for example. And it seems to have run out of potential set pieces (The Brigadier and Jamie seem to spend the entire episode wandering around doing things they've already tried and coming back - yes, let's wander into the tunnels. Yes, let's try overground). The Doctor trying to capture a yeti is quite interesting, but with an effective truce in operation, there's clearly a lack of tension.
To be honest, I find there's little to add as a result. It's becoming a little easier to guess who the traitor is -Arnold's sudden reappearance stinks of dodginess. However, that isn't entirely fair as the script has been careful to write out most of the characters for long stretches (Evans, the Colonel, the Doctor, Chorley, Travers and Arnold have all been out of the story for one or two episodes at points). And the air of distrust seems a tiny bit forced, as we can assume the traitor isn't a willing pawn (for all these people saying 'well, you can trust me' are all telling the truth, as far as they can tell).
So overall, a disappointing episode. But I'm very much looking forward to part six.
(Incidentally, apologies to anyone who was bemused by my initial version of this post. Accidentally posted my half written notes instead of a post in another thread. Mea Culpa. The illusion is ruined, the magic is spoilt).
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Last edited by Dorney; 1 Nov 2004 at 12:20 pm. Reason: Accidentally posted the wrong post.
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#105 2 Nov 2004, 12:24 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:55 am
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Re: Day by Day
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The Web of Fear 6:
So about a week later than I thought I'd get to it, it's the dramatic climax.
I've slightly changed my mind on one of the details here. Whilst the revelation of the Intelligence's plot is disappointing, and insanely illogical, it is rather fitting that it's so personal. The story hasn't really been about mass global domination or stuff like that, it's driven by the individuals, by the efforts of one small group to stay alive. A massive world threatening plot would seem somewhat wrong next to that. To illustrate what I mean... Enemy of the World has a big scale plan, hence the story deals in large areas. The world has to match the plot. Web never really wants, or needs, us to feel it affects more than the central batch of characters (we never see anything outside of London, no civilians worth speaking of outside of those already trapped). If the threat turned out to be global, we'd have had to have lost some of the claustrophobia and deal with how it affects the whole world... not just the circle line - I'm not sure I'm explaining that correctly... compare with the Dalek Invasion of Earth, and you should get what I mean.
Web is smaller scale than you realise. The danger is interpersonal, the set pieces are too. I don't think I can recall a more low-key climax episode than this one, played out more through psychology than action. Again, that's indicative of the story, which is often mistaken for being a UNIT style action thriller. It isn't. There are few action scenes (I can't really recall any in the last two episodes). The story is purely about a growing sense of threat and menace and unease. It's a suspense thriller rather than an action thriller, and as a result, a climax involving lots of shooting would be profoundly disappointing. It's fitting that the end is just a bunch of people standing in a room - there's a lovely air of melancholy and defeat about this episode. Every option has been exhausted (look how many characters pretty much give up in the story - even The Colonel here tries to encourage the Doctor to give in).
Arnold as the traitor isn't a vast surprise (especially considering it isn't really the man himself). They slightly hammer this home a bit too much early on in the episode with the 'Arnold was in the web. Don't know how he survived' bit. It may have seemed like an obvious problem, but I'm not sure anyone would have noticed without the attention being drawn to it. Personally, I'd have preferred it to be someone more amusing and likeable (imagine if it had been Evans!), and I have a sneaky feeling that it might not have been supposed to be Arnold (his sudden resurrection is perhaps a plot point too far... nothing's really gained from his fake death in part four, and his return only really serves to point up that it's probably him). I reckon he was originally due to be killed off in part four, but the writers decided they liked all of the characters left a little too much to let them go.
It is interesting that in a reversal of the usual morality of the series, the weak and cowardly characters live, and the brave ones die (Chorley is exactly the sort of character who would be bumped off for his desertion in other stories). Neither Evans nor Chorley get any real redemption for their weakness. It's quite nice for a change, because as I said they are the characters who we'd probably be most like.
Mild problems - well, after a lot of emphasis at the cliffhanger the fungus pretty much vanishes (and in testament to the fact that this episode is broadly a rewrite of the end of Abominable Snowman, the 5/6 cliffhanger to both stories is pretty much identical). No one ever really talks about it at the end. And it's a bit of a shame that the nice final scene with the guest cast isn't the proper end, and there's a pointless bit of silliness from the regulars. But none of this really detracts.
A beautifully concise, small scale thriller then, tense and human. It really connects to us for that very reason - it's a story about the human's rather than the monsters.
Dorney
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#106 2 Nov 2004, 5:34 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Edinburgh
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Re: Day by Day
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Hurrah! You're back!
And same views on Web that I've got - as a whole it's rather class, but runs out of steam in final episodes. I'm not exactly sure why the Intelligence decided it needed to knock out the London Underground in it's plan to get the Doctor... The Intelligence traps him in space in episode 1, surely a decent plan would have been just to keep him there until he submitted to the brain-sucker-outer-thingy. But then there'd have been no classy Yeti action. Ho hum.
The Enemy of the World
Enemy of the World 1:
Those of you who have been paying attention might remember one of the little ongoing mysteries of Day by Day. Around the time of Myth Makers I pointed out that there were fifteen missing episodes I really wanted back (obviously, I'd prefer them all, but it would only take a specific batch of fifteen to make me happy). The first four were Myth Makers. The next six were Power of the Daleks. The final five are the missing episodes of Enemy of the World.
Mad I know. To ignore Web, Evil, all that for Troughton with an accent. I don't know why, but I've always had a sneaky fondness for this story. Partially due to the double dose of the lead, always my favourite in the part. Partially due to it being the only Who story set, for some of it, in the land of half my ancestors, Australia. And it's the story I chose to write about for DWAS 40th anniversary Drabble collection, Who XL (and I'm still disproportionately proud that not one of those hundred words was 'Salamander'). OK, that was partially because I was in Australia at the time, and the stories I had to hand were limited (I'd just won the cd in a competition with the Oz Who fans at a mini convention, in a Mastermind quiz amazingly). And I'm fond of it because it has one of the three greatest twists in Dr Who ever (as I resolve one mystery, I start up another - what can the other two be? I will tell you in time).
Of course, I reserve the right to add Fury to my list, not having any real knowledge of that story. But for now, all I want is Enemy.
So what's this episode like... hmm. It's an intriguing opening, offering one of the most immediate drop ins the series has managed, with the action happening thick and fast, taking up the first half of the episode. It's quite unusual to have the first major action scene before the premise is actually set up, but that's what happens here. And as an immediate link into the story, it's rather effective -a touch jarring at first, but before you know it you're involved... (sort of like Die Hard with a Vengeance). It's quite a nice device, because it does put us in the same frame of mind as the characters. I'm reminded a touch of Caves of Androzani here, because they both feature a story being thrust onto the TARDIS crew rather than curiosity allowing them to stumble into it. I've never been quite sure of the Doctor's refusal to be involved here, and it does still seem a touch out of character that he doesn't even consider looking into it, but relistening it does come across a touch better - bear in mind that the Doctor's been jolted into action here, he's been shot at, the world's going mad around him, so the wariness is rather more plausible, and less of a 'Galaxy 4' style convenience.
It's a shame that the representation of Australia is a bit weak though. The beach scene doesn't really look all that Australian, being too grey and windy - that's not to say you don't get grey and windy beaches in Australia, you do, I've been on enough, just that if you're going to set a story somewhere foreign, it really helps if it looks more like how the audience would expect, much as in the same way you don't necessarily want authentic accents, you want accents that sound like you expect them to sound. Speaking of which, the guest Aussies for this episode (those in the hovercraft) look and sound like no Australian I've ever seen (but then they are so interchangable that watching the photonovel on the BBC site at the same time as listening to the audio I noticed that the narration on the two can't quite agree on which one of them gets shot).
I do like the hovercraft stuff, I should say. It's a shame it can't be seen, as there is something menacing about being chased by an amphibian craft (meaning that when they stop and hunt on foot, sort of reaching level pegging with the regulars, slightly loses impact). The lack of personality for them, and the swift way in which they get conveniently blown up is more problematic, as it does make the sequence feel a little tacked on. But it is completely in keeping with the plot, and so it doesn't feel contrived, and it does get us right into the story in record time.
The briefing by Kent does slightly smell of TV Comic obvious plotting in terms of the Doctor immediately being regarded as the man to save the day (he could be anyone, there's no reason to assume he's not a plant from Salamander, his brother or someone altered by surgery - surely such a resemblance wouldn't be so immediately taken as chance - given that Kent and Astrid are so suprised that The Doctor doesn't know about Salamander, why aren't they surprised no-one's mentioned it to the Doctor before, or there haven't been reports of a lookalike), but combined with the beginning that's disconcerted us and the Doctor's reticence, it manages to work. His immediate desire for the Doctor's help is a sort of desperation I suppose, so again it just scratches by as believable.
I notice that looks like I didn't like the episode. I do. It has faults, but it's written with conviction and well performed (if bizarrely choppy in its structuring, cutting suddenly into the middle of scenes). The central premise is intriguing, and the episode has the feel of a prologue, all set up before the main plot arrives, with a few nice bits of exposition and action warming you up. Not a main meal yet, but a perfectly enjoyable starter.
Dorney
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#85 5 Oct 2004, 4:12 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: Yesterday 10:45 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Yay!
The Enemy of the World is one of my top 10 Who stories. Actually, so far you've liked all my favourite stories (The Gunfighters, Power of the Daleks, you sort of liked The Daleks' Master Plan)...
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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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#86 6 Oct 2004, 12:53 pm
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
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Re: Day by Day
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Ah, Bus, well you always had exquisite taste. Except for not liking Dr Strangelove...
The Enemy of the World 2:
One of the things I love about the cd of this story is that it completely misinterprets how important some of the characters are when it designs the cover, favouring Denes and Fedorin and Fariah who are all in, what, two episodes or so each, over Kent and Bruce, even the regulars. That's what you get when you've only one existing episode, you overweigh minor characters.
Having listened to this episode though, you can sort of see why this happens. For characters that are essentially minor in overall time, practically everyone has a distinct personality. Everyone talks about this with Griffin the chef in the next episode, but never with everyone else and amazingly it's always as a negative (I'll cover him more next time, obviously). OK, you can pretty much sum each character with one word (Fariah is surly, Fedorin nervy), but it makes each individual distinct in a way the minor parts of other stories never are. As a result, the main strength of this story is the characterisation and the dialogue. The first confrontation between Bruce and Benik, for example, only just shifts the plot forward, but is filled with great detail - watch how quickly the mild antagonism of the relationship between them is bashed out, Benik's sarcy handkercheif line in particular illustrating how the two fit together. (In deed, it's worth looking to see how many of the characters are placed in pairs to discuss plot points, allowing us to understand more of each individual by how they react to the other, less by stating their own position clearly - it's deeply skillful character work, written and played beautifully by a great cast).
One other thing people talk about when they discuss this story is referring to it as being 'James Bond' esque. At times you can see their point. Salamander, outwardly respectable, but with as mad a plan as any you'll come across, foreign and with a tendency towards being ruthless when disappointed (and a somewhat foolhardy tendency to immediately trust any bloke who 'saves his life') does come across as an archetypal Bond villain. Also the sudden shifting between exotic locations, seemingly on a whim and for little plot justification, has a similar feel as well. The only thing that really knocks the comparison on the head at the moment is the more inherently political slant to the story than the Bond flicks.
One advantage of a lot of this is that this really does feel like something epic. With 'the world' in the title, it's nice to feel that the adventure truly is global, and the threat is just not to a bit of Berkshire. By travelling the world, rooting it's villain's power in the problems of today, such as famine, and dealing in the political this story is, future setting notwithstanding, very much connected with the planet we know today. It's a 'five minutes into the future' type story, and the lack of monsters and individual complexity makes it feel closer than usual to us. The slightly abrupt cutting in mid scene remains (suddenly Fedorin is being blackmailed, almost out of nowhere), but it's indicitative of the fact that this story is bigger in scale than the usual series. There's almost as much plot in these first two episodes as there was in the whole of the last two stories. The script is motoring along at quite some rate, with the allegiances shifting all the time, the regulars driving the story for a change. And its interesting to note that you do begin to side with the Doctor's awkwardness over interfering (in politics the villains are smaller than those he usually fights, less obvious). The more we see of Salamander, the more unpleasant he seems (Partially in contrast to the Doctor but mainly in personality terms) - but he's a politician, we expect that, and it's hard to see him as actually evil. That is, until the end of the episode when he casually chats about the impending assassination of Denes. And by virtue of his smallness, suddenly he's miles more unpleasant than any number of human beings we've had so far. He's a fairly real villain, by the show's standards.
Utlimately, the lack of monsters, or obvious heavy sci-fi trappings lend this story a poor reputation, a dismissal. But it's genuinely different and adult, it feels like no other story, and about human evil, the potential for evil we have inside us, rather than some simple 'nasty aliens' story. It's quite an uncomfortable tale. But it's pretty good.
Dorney
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#87 6 Oct 2004, 2:03 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Edinburgh
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
Ah, Bus, well you always had exquisite taste. Except for not liking Dr Strangelove...
... which is now one of my top 10 films.
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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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#88 8 Oct 2004, 12:06 pm
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
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Re: Day by Day
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Glad to hear it Bus!
Enemy of the World 3:
This is a unique episode for me. I listened to the cd recording of it when I was travelling Australia, but didn't have access to the video of this sole existing episode. As far as I can recall it's the only time I've ever listened to the BBC Radio collection version of an episode that exists fully - don't you feel slightly sorry for them? Doing all that work on an episode you know very few will listen too? (suddenly remembered DMP2, but that doesn't really count... honest).
It's really astonishing how fast paced this story is. Compare how far the characters have moved on through the course of this episode, how much they've done, to the progress in The Ice Warriors. One or two - the Doctor and Kent, most noticeably - don't change their position a great deal, but they only have one scene. Everyone else is go go go.
Now admittedly, I begin to get the impression that these whole two episodes have been something of a sideshow, an expository side step rather than dealing with the plot in particular - this is suggested by Salamander's implication that he's heading straight back to Oz. But this is merely a foreshadowing of the famous Robert Holmes dictum of splitting six parters into smaller, more manageable chunks. These two episodes offer a slice of the reality of this world, the way it runs. And they demonstrate quite how nasty a piece of work Salamander is. The world and it's politics are the root of the story, and they have to be established.
One of the reasons I think this story is under-rated is because it's very much about humans. It's the most non-fantastical non-historical out there (well, at least til Arrangements for War). The concerns are about human emotions - Salamander's lust for power, for example - and the battles are played out on a personal, human level, which gives it a grittier, nastier feel. Without the over-arching fantasy adventure feel, Salamander's casual murder of Fedorin is brutal. Likewise the shooting of the eminently likeable Denes (who's utmost jollity even when under guard makes his death all the more of a shock) is unpleasant in a way that any number of people being attacked by Yeti's or Daleks doesn't manage - it's human murdering human, for petty human reasons. Its a shame that dodgy direction (from Barry Letts, amazingly) and editing slightly nullify the impact of this moment. (We're not really allowed enough room to breathe between scenes, each one starting the instant the previous one is over - must have been a nightmare for the cd narration writing). I've said several times (and in deed, it was the theme of my drabble for this tale) that our perception of the quality of the missing stories is usually derived from the effect they had on the child audience who grew up to be fans. Enemy isn't a child friendly story, even from the get go, with their trusted hero warped into a murderer, and a lack of obvious child friendly thrills - no monsters, no spaceships. It must have seemed so dull surrounded by yetis and the like, but it's an interesting and startlingly relevant piece.
The characterisation still runs high. Denes as I say remains utterly likeable and sweet. Benik is one of the more memorable psycho's the series has had, simply by virtue of being underplayed (he reminds me very much of the great villain Count Rugen in the Princess Bride, played by the equally great Christopher Guest). As I said last time, Griff the cook is lovely, genuinely funny, and a testament to the level of intelligence in the writing... even minor character's are given their own distinct personality (look at Janos, the guard. He's the same. You get a real sense of his personality from his few lines. He's not just another grunt). The only oddity with Griff is that he's also Australian, which considering the rest of the story is set there seems a bit of a mad coincidence (when of course in reality, it probably means he auditioned for one of the three men at the start of part one, and was offered this part in stead).
As a final point, whilst it seems disappointing at first glance that we're not offered enough of the central trick of this story - the comparison of the Doctor and Salamander - in context the effect is better. By contrast, I don't mean the two interacting... that sort of stuff falls into tricksy cleverness even now. No, the major central effect is seeing how different the two men with the same face are. And watched in isolation, the Doctor's central five minute scene doesn't really offer enough. But in context, it doesn't really matter. We don't need to see the Doctor to tell how different Salamander is from him, we've been watching the Doctor for weeks, months! Troughton's dual performance truly is the tour de force of repute. Only once or twice you get flashes of similar technique (both characters can burst into fast,light, tight moments. The sequence early on where Salamander puts Fedorin's file in a safe is mildly reminiscent of the Doctor). But these are understandable, and the reality is that you can see you're being guided by a great performer.
Dorney
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#89 10 Oct 2004, 11:24 pm
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
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Re: Day by Day
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Enemy of the World 4:
You forget how good it is to have the telesnaps. Having got used to them covering my back for such a long time, the sudden loss of them for this episode leaves you slightly askance. OK, it isn’t as bad as it could be – the fact it follows on directly from an extant episode really helps, as it means for the first half of the episode at least you do have a visual sense of the story. You’re completely screwed for the second half of course, which introduces several new characters and locations, but at least you’ve warmed into it (this leads me to suspect that Invasion and Space Pirates might be a little trickier than I’d thought. The idea that something could make watching the latter even more of a trawl is a concept I find hard to grasp).
The other note I want to make first up is a little confession. I’d never quite managed to connect Giles Kent with Bill Kerr out of Hancock until now. I’d known that the latter was in Enemy but somehow I’d managed to convince myself that he was the chap playing Donald Bruce, rather than Kent. I finally righted myself of this misconception today, and its something of a relief. I'd not quite been able to fit the grumpy soul of those old Hancocks with the sensible security man here. (Ironically, if you'd asked me who Colin Douglas played in the story, I'd've known he played Bruce... so I sort of knew, but didn't, if you get what I mean).
This episode deals with the fallout from episode three, and its slightly annoying that the events in the past two episodes don't really change the rest of the story (none of the characters from the central zone last beyond this episode, and the files on Fedorin don't persuade the Doctor - and Benik gets them back in any case). However, it doesn't matter too much - firstly, it's quite unusual for the story to start a long time after the plot is underway - Salamander has been doing his stuff for a long time now - and where we're pretty much told who the villain is straight away. So we need to have an expository few episodes establishing how he behaves (in this way, the story is structured so that it starts with an episode that would usually fit in the middle, and the middle is the usual start of the story, the villain is revealed first, before the world is revealed, and in deed before his actual villainy is clear). And the travel and mass locations for the story give the story a fairly unique global threat (compare with, say, the 10th Planet, which tries to seem like a global peril, but really only feels like its trouble for one room in Antartica). So the central zone section does add to painting a portrait of the characters and the world that enrichens it (after all, this is a Doctor Who defined more than most by the relationship's between the characters - Kent vs Salamander is pretty much the central thrust). The only thread left hanging from the previous episode at the end of this one is Jamie and Victoria's capture. It's a tiny bit of a shame that their obvious absence isn't played for the tension it could be - mainly as a result of having to have the Doctor and Salamander take halves of the episode each.
And it still is rather nasty, and bleak. Benik is a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work (his deathbed interrogation of Fariah sounds painful). And that's cos it could be any country in the world today - it's not until the halfway point of this episode, well into the story, that we begin to sense any sci-fi undertones. Until here it's a political thriller, not a fantasy, its about terrorism and murder, of ordinary people for reasons of power and greed. It's really with this episode you get the point behind the Doctor's reluctance - he knows he is being hired as a hitman, essentially and that would require a direct brutality the Doctor isn't capable of (of course, he's perfectly at home in a kill or be killed situation, say with the Ice Warriors, but if he is asked to murder someone who has not posed an obvious threat to him, it's good that he finds it hard).
Why is Astrid so convinced that Fedorin really was a suicide? Seeing as she's suspicious of Salamander all the time, why does she take this convenient and swiftly timed death at face value?
The scene is Salamander's bunker slips us into the main plot that's been bubbling away since around the end of part two, and we begin to get a sense of the overall plan and what Salamander is up to. It's a shame that there's no vast mystery preserved about the function of this base, it's pretty much explained instantaneously (whilst the whole 'scorched earth' thing could be kept, we don't really need to be told that they're the ones causing the Earthquakes yet. It does smack a little of laying all your cards on the table too soon. All the mysteries are cleared up now, and to be honest, practically before we'd realised there were any).
A quality episode nonetheless, moving the story on, action packed and involving. Still an oddity amongst Who, one of the least characteristic tales in the canon. But fun nonetheless and even featuring an early ventilation shaft escape (we ain't had many of those have we?)
Dorney
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#90 11 Oct 2004, 12:21 am
The Secretive Bus
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Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: Yesterday 10:45 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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I've never used telesnaps for these missing stories, I'm content with the BBC radio collection narration and my own imagination. Scenes like the Dalek army of "Power", the Massacre, and the Dalek conferences in "MasterPlan" look so much better without the constraints of a BBC budget...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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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#91 13 Oct 2004, 12:29 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Enemy of the World 5:
What a strange gun Bruce's guard has. One of the ugliest in the series, imo.
The impressive thing about this story remains its shades of grey. Very few of the characters are the stereotypical black and white characters you tend to get in Who. Bruce effectively changes sides in this episode, but it is noticeable that he does so without really changing his personal stance. His attitude and personality remain the same. Many characters are prepared to switch loyalties the more information they get (even in microcosm - witness Fariah's changing attitude's to the regulars for example). The world changes around Bruce, rather than him changing himself (and Astrid will find this occurs in part six). What it also reveals is another rare thing in Who - the individual personalities are driving the plot more than events. With the Doctor in full Salamander makeup throughout the pace can pick up (previous episodes having to either focus on one or the other, or just go in halves). But it remains a quiet episode, dealing with the character journeys. The direction the story goes in from here is directly defined by Bruce's thoughtfulness, Swann's rebellion, and by Kent's precise reason to want to help in the uncovery of evidence. The story's major incidents and turning points are internal, moments of personal change and revelation rather than vast action sequences. The crisis point for Salamander in this episode is created purely through him having to confront someone with enough force of personality and power to cause him trouble - and his weedling out is wonderful. This is a villain who's main power is guile. He's not the villain through sheer force of numbers, he's the villain through intelligence. Likewise, Swann's fate is created not through Salamander orchestrating an upper hand - but by Swann giving him all the chances in the world through sheer naivety.
And once more it reminds me of Caves of Androzani. The Doctor is in both motivated more by a desire to help his companions than he is to directly interfere in the world he arrives in, and his involvement is defined more by chance than by desire. And the more you see, the less you can blame him. Salamander is a dangerous man, but the Doctor has never felt the desire to act as judge and jury (and the permanent humanisation of all the characters - here very noticeable with the highly strung Colin, and last episode with Salamander's cigar smoking coming across as a fine touch of wit, something rare in a Who villain - reminds us this is about individual distinct people killing other individual distinct people).
Perhaps the only sequence which doesn't work as the rest is the interrogation scene, mainly because it doesn't really drive the plot forward. However, it is nicely written and the deeply camp Benik manages to be surprisingly menacing. Again, it's there to illustrate character for the most part - Benik is however, probably the only totally one dimensional character in the script. He's a fairly cliched sadist, and is probably the least interesting character in the tale. This isn't a vast insult when you consider the complexity of the other parts and that he's one of the more entertaining ones (everybody else is a little too serious to be really fun).
If anything, that's what makes this story feel so unusual. Its serious air. It isn't a light hearted adventure fantasy, it's a moderately gritty sci-fi thriller. The playful wit inherent in the characterisation manages to keep it feeling 'Whoish'.
The scene where the Doctor pretends to be Salamander to Jamie and Victoria is fab (why does he string it out so long though - its fair enough to tease, but they're in grave danger!). What's particularly interesting here is that one of the telesnaps suggests the Doctor is very much physically himself when playing Salamander - it's number 46 , and the photo's afterwards would suggest this has to be when he's pretending. Physically its clearly the Doctor. These are the bits I wish I could see - this makes it clear that Troughton's too good an actor to just repeat his Salamander performance. Troughton is playing the second Doctor as Salamander and it seems to be utterly different from his performance just as Salamander. It would have been an acting masterclass.
For a story with top cliffhangers (again, all pretty much character based, hinged around moments of revelation rather than moments of danger, particularly the terrific one at the end of part three as you literally see the wheel's turning in Salamander's mind) this one has a weird cliffhanger that doesn't really turn the story (it might in part six, but a cliffhanger with no impact til the next week is weak isn't it?). So in homage, I will end my summary in an odd manner, by simply going to bed.
Dorney
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#92 14 Oct 2004, 11:34 am
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:50 am
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Re: Day by Day
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The Enemy of the World 6:
Well, I said that this story had one of the greatest three twists in the series. If you don't know it (and believe me, you won't want a ginger fool like me to spoil it) I'd thoroughly recommend looking away now. And I'm going to give away the end of Reign of Terror here too, incidentally.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
Giles Kent's in on it! He's a baddy too! Blimey. As about faces go, this one really pulls the cat out of the bag. Like all good twists, its been carefully layered in - partially Kent's willingness to kill, as the Doctor observes, and partially his odd behaviour at the end of part five. In a series like Who were everything tends to be relatively straight forward, this is quite a shock... because we don't expect a twist. To give you some alternate examples, and how they're less effective - the revelation that LeMaitre and Stirling are the same person in Reign of Terror - well, of course they are. Stirling needs to turn up, he needs to be in disguise and he needs to be someone we know otherwise its a cheat. And that means there's really only one person he could be (call it the 'DaVinci code effect'). Whereas here, the story works without the twist (albeit with a few unanswered questions). The twist flips around your understanding of what's been going on, and makes you view it in a different light - but it doesn't undermine it (a criticism of some of the more 'rabbit out of a bag' twists in modern movies, the Village leaps to mind). There's one little lie at the heart, rather than a house of cards of them, ready to collapse at any point. The change affects our understanding, and our interpretation of character, rather than shifting the story around. And following my thoughts last time about the story being defined by character, it's worth noting that the villains are defeated by each other, rather than being shot or arrested by a third party. Now that we understand that the entire story has been built on their relationship and individual bitterness, it's a beautiful moment of irony that they both get their wish, moments before being destroyed (ok, so Salamander survives, but it is more as a sense of a coda - Kent has already destroyed him, just as he destroyed Kent). Once again, the nastiness of Kent's death is blatant. Shot twice, in pain, blowing himself up. Not pleasant.
Beyond that, its pretty much a question of all the points falling into place. Benik's berating of the guard for lacking sense is pretty rich - he clocks that the Doctor isn't Salamander is pretty much the first scene, yet he still allows enough leeway to Bruce that reinforcements can arrive (watch him - he doesn't do anything til about a second before he's captured - what exactly is he waiting for?).
The central trick of the story, the one we've essentially been promised all along, finally falls into place in this episode, with several moments that play on the identity of the central figure. Most of the time, it's fair to say, we're fairly clear who's who, but even then there are doubts (if you've been paying attention, the figure in the records room can't be Salamander... but you're never 100% sure). It is a shame however that the only meeting between him and the Doctor - again a scene essentially promised from the off - is so brief... but then, the Doctor wasn't so much against Salamander but for the world, and it's more appropriate that the vast majority of the climax is devoted to Kent and Salamander's secret war - notice how little the Doctor actually does to defeat Salamander. His main effect is on the other individuals, Bruce and Astrid, enabling them to see through the lies.
Jamie and Victoria don't get much to do, and this means they've been pretty much sidelined for the second half. Their episode away means that the vast majority of the stuff you'd expect a companion to do gets transferred to Astrid - and fair enough, she does it very well. You do slightly miss them though - especially as by episode three, Victoria in particular seemed to be having a bit more fun. She's quite sweetly jolly at points, far from her bossy whingy persona. As I've said before, it does rather render the central European trip a sideshow, but it is definitely a necessary one in order to set up the epic feel.
And epic it is. I remain deeply in love with this story. It's far and away the most underrated Troughton tale, one that's trying to do something different. Darker, grittier, and 'realer' than it's season 5 colleagues, it sticks out like a sore thumb - again something that is amazingly often said as a criticism. A mature script driven by character rather than spectacle. Yes, it never feels quite like the feelgood escapist adventure we think of the series as... but is playing outside the box a bad thing? It still feels like Who, with it's mad villain and sly wit. It's a classy international thriller, done Who style. It dares to be different, and it succeeds. I don't think we should dismiss it because it doesn't conform to a limited view of what 'good Who' is. Does it acheive what it wants to? Does it entertain, does it thrill? Is it a good piece of tv/audio? Yes, yes, and yes. Enemy of the World is excellent.
Dorney
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#93 14 Oct 2004, 3:23 pm
The Secretive Bus
Time Lord
Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: Yesterday 10:45 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Hurrah!
And next, The Web of Fear, another thoroughly classy Troughton tale. And I'm listening to Fury from the Deep at the moment, which is also turning out to be rather excellent! Season 5 was actually rather decent...
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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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#94 14 Oct 2004, 10:12 pm
Captain Renault
Time Lord
Leicestershire
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Yesterday 11:01 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Well that's three of us then.
I approached this with trepidation as the fan opinion didn't seem to be high.
Got it cheap off Play and listened to all of it while driving to Scotland.
It's just great isn't it.
BTW Mr Bus - Fury is pretty scary - or am I just a total wimp?
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I'm shocked - shocked - to see that gambling is going on in here!
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#95 15 Oct 2004, 12:04 am
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:50 am
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Re: Day by Day
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I think the problem is that Enemy is a fun thriller, rather than a fun fantasy. And some people just don't go for that. It's like me and Natural History of Fear. I appreciate that it's clever, well acted, written and made... it's just not a type of story that gets me. But it's status as an adult drama driven by character just give this one a great feel to me.
Those of you who have been paying attention might remember one of the little ongoing mysteries of Day by Day. Around the time of Myth Makers I pointed out that there were fifteen missing episodes I really wanted back (obviously, I'd prefer them all, but it would only take a specific batch of fifteen to make me happy). The first four were Myth Makers. The next six were Power of the Daleks. The final five are the missing episodes of Enemy of the World.
Mad I know. To ignore Web, Evil, all that for Troughton with an accent. I don't know why, but I've always had a sneaky fondness for this story. Partially due to the double dose of the lead, always my favourite in the part. Partially due to it being the only Who story set, for some of it, in the land of half my ancestors, Australia. And it's the story I chose to write about for DWAS 40th anniversary Drabble collection, Who XL (and I'm still disproportionately proud that not one of those hundred words was 'Salamander'). OK, that was partially because I was in Australia at the time, and the stories I had to hand were limited (I'd just won the cd in a competition with the Oz Who fans at a mini convention, in a Mastermind quiz amazingly). And I'm fond of it because it has one of the three greatest twists in Dr Who ever (as I resolve one mystery, I start up another - what can the other two be? I will tell you in time).
Of course, I reserve the right to add Fury to my list, not having any real knowledge of that story. But for now, all I want is Enemy.
So what's this episode like... hmm. It's an intriguing opening, offering one of the most immediate drop ins the series has managed, with the action happening thick and fast, taking up the first half of the episode. It's quite unusual to have the first major action scene before the premise is actually set up, but that's what happens here. And as an immediate link into the story, it's rather effective -a touch jarring at first, but before you know it you're involved... (sort of like Die Hard with a Vengeance). It's quite a nice device, because it does put us in the same frame of mind as the characters. I'm reminded a touch of Caves of Androzani here, because they both feature a story being thrust onto the TARDIS crew rather than curiosity allowing them to stumble into it. I've never been quite sure of the Doctor's refusal to be involved here, and it does still seem a touch out of character that he doesn't even consider looking into it, but relistening it does come across a touch better - bear in mind that the Doctor's been jolted into action here, he's been shot at, the world's going mad around him, so the wariness is rather more plausible, and less of a 'Galaxy 4' style convenience.
It's a shame that the representation of Australia is a bit weak though. The beach scene doesn't really look all that Australian, being too grey and windy - that's not to say you don't get grey and windy beaches in Australia, you do, I've been on enough, just that if you're going to set a story somewhere foreign, it really helps if it looks more like how the audience would expect, much as in the same way you don't necessarily want authentic accents, you want accents that sound like you expect them to sound. Speaking of which, the guest Aussies for this episode (those in the hovercraft) look and sound like no Australian I've ever seen (but then they are so interchangable that watching the photonovel on the BBC site at the same time as listening to the audio I noticed that the narration on the two can't quite agree on which one of them gets shot).
I do like the hovercraft stuff, I should say. It's a shame it can't be seen, as there is something menacing about being chased by an amphibian craft (meaning that when they stop and hunt on foot, sort of reaching level pegging with the regulars, slightly loses impact). The lack of personality for them, and the swift way in which they get conveniently blown up is more problematic, as it does make the sequence feel a little tacked on. But it is completely in keeping with the plot, and so it doesn't feel contrived, and it does get us right into the story in record time.
The briefing by Kent does slightly smell of TV Comic obvious plotting in terms of the Doctor immediately being regarded as the man to save the day (he could be anyone, there's no reason to assume he's not a plant from Salamander, his brother or someone altered by surgery - surely such a resemblance wouldn't be so immediately taken as chance - given that Kent and Astrid are so suprised that The Doctor doesn't know about Salamander, why aren't they surprised no-one's mentioned it to the Doctor before, or there haven't been reports of a lookalike), but combined with the beginning that's disconcerted us and the Doctor's reticence, it manages to work. His immediate desire for the Doctor's help is a sort of desperation I suppose, so again it just scratches by as believable.
I notice that looks like I didn't like the episode. I do. It has faults, but it's written with conviction and well performed (if bizarrely choppy in its structuring, cutting suddenly into the middle of scenes). The central premise is intriguing, and the episode has the feel of a prologue, all set up before the main plot arrives, with a few nice bits of exposition and action warming you up. Not a main meal yet, but a perfectly enjoyable starter.
Dorney
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#85 5 Oct 2004, 4:12 pm
The Secretive Bus
Time Lord
Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: Yesterday 10:45 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Yay!
The Enemy of the World is one of my top 10 Who stories. Actually, so far you've liked all my favourite stories (The Gunfighters, Power of the Daleks, you sort of liked The Daleks' Master Plan)...
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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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#86 6 Oct 2004, 12:53 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:50 am
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Re: Day by Day
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Ah, Bus, well you always had exquisite taste. Except for not liking Dr Strangelove...
The Enemy of the World 2:
One of the things I love about the cd of this story is that it completely misinterprets how important some of the characters are when it designs the cover, favouring Denes and Fedorin and Fariah who are all in, what, two episodes or so each, over Kent and Bruce, even the regulars. That's what you get when you've only one existing episode, you overweigh minor characters.
Having listened to this episode though, you can sort of see why this happens. For characters that are essentially minor in overall time, practically everyone has a distinct personality. Everyone talks about this with Griffin the chef in the next episode, but never with everyone else and amazingly it's always as a negative (I'll cover him more next time, obviously). OK, you can pretty much sum each character with one word (Fariah is surly, Fedorin nervy), but it makes each individual distinct in a way the minor parts of other stories never are. As a result, the main strength of this story is the characterisation and the dialogue. The first confrontation between Bruce and Benik, for example, only just shifts the plot forward, but is filled with great detail - watch how quickly the mild antagonism of the relationship between them is bashed out, Benik's sarcy handkercheif line in particular illustrating how the two fit together. (In deed, it's worth looking to see how many of the characters are placed in pairs to discuss plot points, allowing us to understand more of each individual by how they react to the other, less by stating their own position clearly - it's deeply skillful character work, written and played beautifully by a great cast).
One other thing people talk about when they discuss this story is referring to it as being 'James Bond' esque. At times you can see their point. Salamander, outwardly respectable, but with as mad a plan as any you'll come across, foreign and with a tendency towards being ruthless when disappointed (and a somewhat foolhardy tendency to immediately trust any bloke who 'saves his life') does come across as an archetypal Bond villain. Also the sudden shifting between exotic locations, seemingly on a whim and for little plot justification, has a similar feel as well. The only thing that really knocks the comparison on the head at the moment is the more inherently political slant to the story than the Bond flicks.
One advantage of a lot of this is that this really does feel like something epic. With 'the world' in the title, it's nice to feel that the adventure truly is global, and the threat is just not to a bit of Berkshire. By travelling the world, rooting it's villain's power in the problems of today, such as famine, and dealing in the political this story is, future setting notwithstanding, very much connected with the planet we know today. It's a 'five minutes into the future' type story, and the lack of monsters and individual complexity makes it feel closer than usual to us. The slightly abrupt cutting in mid scene remains (suddenly Fedorin is being blackmailed, almost out of nowhere), but it's indicitative of the fact that this story is bigger in scale than the usual series. There's almost as much plot in these first two episodes as there was in the whole of the last two stories. The script is motoring along at quite some rate, with the allegiances shifting all the time, the regulars driving the story for a change. And its interesting to note that you do begin to side with the Doctor's awkwardness over interfering (in politics the villains are smaller than those he usually fights, less obvious). The more we see of Salamander, the more unpleasant he seems (Partially in contrast to the Doctor but mainly in personality terms) - but he's a politician, we expect that, and it's hard to see him as actually evil. That is, until the end of the episode when he casually chats about the impending assassination of Denes. And by virtue of his smallness, suddenly he's miles more unpleasant than any number of human beings we've had so far. He's a fairly real villain, by the show's standards.
Utlimately, the lack of monsters, or obvious heavy sci-fi trappings lend this story a poor reputation, a dismissal. But it's genuinely different and adult, it feels like no other story, and about human evil, the potential for evil we have inside us, rather than some simple 'nasty aliens' story. It's quite an uncomfortable tale. But it's pretty good.
Dorney
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#87 6 Oct 2004, 2:03 pm
The Secretive Bus
Time Lord
Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
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Re: Day by Day
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
Ah, Bus, well you always had exquisite taste. Except for not liking Dr Strangelove...
... which is now one of my top 10 films.
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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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#88 8 Oct 2004, 12:06 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:50 am
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Re: Day by Day
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Glad to hear it Bus!
Enemy of the World 3:
This is a unique episode for me. I listened to the cd recording of it when I was travelling Australia, but didn't have access to the video of this sole existing episode. As far as I can recall it's the only time I've ever listened to the BBC Radio collection version of an episode that exists fully - don't you feel slightly sorry for them? Doing all that work on an episode you know very few will listen too? (suddenly remembered DMP2, but that doesn't really count... honest).
It's really astonishing how fast paced this story is. Compare how far the characters have moved on through the course of this episode, how much they've done, to the progress in The Ice Warriors. One or two - the Doctor and Kent, most noticeably - don't change their position a great deal, but they only have one scene. Everyone else is go go go.
Now admittedly, I begin to get the impression that these whole two episodes have been something of a sideshow, an expository side step rather than dealing with the plot in particular - this is suggested by Salamander's implication that he's heading straight back to Oz. But this is merely a foreshadowing of the famous Robert Holmes dictum of splitting six parters into smaller, more manageable chunks. These two episodes offer a slice of the reality of this world, the way it runs. And they demonstrate quite how nasty a piece of work Salamander is. The world and it's politics are the root of the story, and they have to be established.
One of the reasons I think this story is under-rated is because it's very much about humans. It's the most non-fantastical non-historical out there (well, at least til Arrangements for War). The concerns are about human emotions - Salamander's lust for power, for example - and the battles are played out on a personal, human level, which gives it a grittier, nastier feel. Without the over-arching fantasy adventure feel, Salamander's casual murder of Fedorin is brutal. Likewise the shooting of the eminently likeable Denes (who's utmost jollity even when under guard makes his death all the more of a shock) is unpleasant in a way that any number of people being attacked by Yeti's or Daleks doesn't manage - it's human murdering human, for petty human reasons. Its a shame that dodgy direction (from Barry Letts, amazingly) and editing slightly nullify the impact of this moment. (We're not really allowed enough room to breathe between scenes, each one starting the instant the previous one is over - must have been a nightmare for the cd narration writing). I've said several times (and in deed, it was the theme of my drabble for this tale) that our perception of the quality of the missing stories is usually derived from the effect they had on the child audience who grew up to be fans. Enemy isn't a child friendly story, even from the get go, with their trusted hero warped into a murderer, and a lack of obvious child friendly thrills - no monsters, no spaceships. It must have seemed so dull surrounded by yetis and the like, but it's an interesting and startlingly relevant piece.
The characterisation still runs high. Denes as I say remains utterly likeable and sweet. Benik is one of the more memorable psycho's the series has had, simply by virtue of being underplayed (he reminds me very much of the great villain Count Rugen in the Princess Bride, played by the equally great Christopher Guest). As I said last time, Griff the cook is lovely, genuinely funny, and a testament to the level of intelligence in the writing... even minor character's are given their own distinct personality (look at Janos, the guard. He's the same. You get a real sense of his personality from his few lines. He's not just another grunt). The only oddity with Griff is that he's also Australian, which considering the rest of the story is set there seems a bit of a mad coincidence (when of course in reality, it probably means he auditioned for one of the three men at the start of part one, and was offered this part in stead).
As a final point, whilst it seems disappointing at first glance that we're not offered enough of the central trick of this story - the comparison of the Doctor and Salamander - in context the effect is better. By contrast, I don't mean the two interacting... that sort of stuff falls into tricksy cleverness even now. No, the major central effect is seeing how different the two men with the same face are. And watched in isolation, the Doctor's central five minute scene doesn't really offer enough. But in context, it doesn't really matter. We don't need to see the Doctor to tell how different Salamander is from him, we've been watching the Doctor for weeks, months! Troughton's dual performance truly is the tour de force of repute. Only once or twice you get flashes of similar technique (both characters can burst into fast,light, tight moments. The sequence early on where Salamander puts Fedorin's file in a safe is mildly reminiscent of the Doctor). But these are understandable, and the reality is that you can see you're being guided by a great performer.
Dorney
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#89 10 Oct 2004, 11:24 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:50 am
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Re: Day by Day
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Enemy of the World 4:
You forget how good it is to have the telesnaps. Having got used to them covering my back for such a long time, the sudden loss of them for this episode leaves you slightly askance. OK, it isn’t as bad as it could be – the fact it follows on directly from an extant episode really helps, as it means for the first half of the episode at least you do have a visual sense of the story. You’re completely screwed for the second half of course, which introduces several new characters and locations, but at least you’ve warmed into it (this leads me to suspect that Invasion and Space Pirates might be a little trickier than I’d thought. The idea that something could make watching the latter even more of a trawl is a concept I find hard to grasp).
The other note I want to make first up is a little confession. I’d never quite managed to connect Giles Kent with Bill Kerr out of Hancock until now. I’d known that the latter was in Enemy but somehow I’d managed to convince myself that he was the chap playing Donald Bruce, rather than Kent. I finally righted myself of this misconception today, and its something of a relief. I'd not quite been able to fit the grumpy soul of those old Hancocks with the sensible security man here. (Ironically, if you'd asked me who Colin Douglas played in the story, I'd've known he played Bruce... so I sort of knew, but didn't, if you get what I mean).
This episode deals with the fallout from episode three, and its slightly annoying that the events in the past two episodes don't really change the rest of the story (none of the characters from the central zone last beyond this episode, and the files on Fedorin don't persuade the Doctor - and Benik gets them back in any case). However, it doesn't matter too much - firstly, it's quite unusual for the story to start a long time after the plot is underway - Salamander has been doing his stuff for a long time now - and where we're pretty much told who the villain is straight away. So we need to have an expository few episodes establishing how he behaves (in this way, the story is structured so that it starts with an episode that would usually fit in the middle, and the middle is the usual start of the story, the villain is revealed first, before the world is revealed, and in deed before his actual villainy is clear). And the travel and mass locations for the story give the story a fairly unique global threat (compare with, say, the 10th Planet, which tries to seem like a global peril, but really only feels like its trouble for one room in Antartica). So the central zone section does add to painting a portrait of the characters and the world that enrichens it (after all, this is a Doctor Who defined more than most by the relationship's between the characters - Kent vs Salamander is pretty much the central thrust). The only thread left hanging from the previous episode at the end of this one is Jamie and Victoria's capture. It's a tiny bit of a shame that their obvious absence isn't played for the tension it could be - mainly as a result of having to have the Doctor and Salamander take halves of the episode each.
And it still is rather nasty, and bleak. Benik is a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work (his deathbed interrogation of Fariah sounds painful). And that's cos it could be any country in the world today - it's not until the halfway point of this episode, well into the story, that we begin to sense any sci-fi undertones. Until here it's a political thriller, not a fantasy, its about terrorism and murder, of ordinary people for reasons of power and greed. It's really with this episode you get the point behind the Doctor's reluctance - he knows he is being hired as a hitman, essentially and that would require a direct brutality the Doctor isn't capable of (of course, he's perfectly at home in a kill or be killed situation, say with the Ice Warriors, but if he is asked to murder someone who has not posed an obvious threat to him, it's good that he finds it hard).
Why is Astrid so convinced that Fedorin really was a suicide? Seeing as she's suspicious of Salamander all the time, why does she take this convenient and swiftly timed death at face value?
The scene is Salamander's bunker slips us into the main plot that's been bubbling away since around the end of part two, and we begin to get a sense of the overall plan and what Salamander is up to. It's a shame that there's no vast mystery preserved about the function of this base, it's pretty much explained instantaneously (whilst the whole 'scorched earth' thing could be kept, we don't really need to be told that they're the ones causing the Earthquakes yet. It does smack a little of laying all your cards on the table too soon. All the mysteries are cleared up now, and to be honest, practically before we'd realised there were any).
A quality episode nonetheless, moving the story on, action packed and involving. Still an oddity amongst Who, one of the least characteristic tales in the canon. But fun nonetheless and even featuring an early ventilation shaft escape (we ain't had many of those have we?)
Dorney
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#90 11 Oct 2004, 12:21 am
The Secretive Bus
Time Lord
Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: Yesterday 10:45 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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I've never used telesnaps for these missing stories, I'm content with the BBC radio collection narration and my own imagination. Scenes like the Dalek army of "Power", the Massacre, and the Dalek conferences in "MasterPlan" look so much better without the constraints of a BBC budget...
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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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#91 13 Oct 2004, 12:29 am
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:50 am
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Re: Day by Day
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The Enemy of the World 5:
What a strange gun Bruce's guard has. One of the ugliest in the series, imo.
The impressive thing about this story remains its shades of grey. Very few of the characters are the stereotypical black and white characters you tend to get in Who. Bruce effectively changes sides in this episode, but it is noticeable that he does so without really changing his personal stance. His attitude and personality remain the same. Many characters are prepared to switch loyalties the more information they get (even in microcosm - witness Fariah's changing attitude's to the regulars for example). The world changes around Bruce, rather than him changing himself (and Astrid will find this occurs in part six). What it also reveals is another rare thing in Who - the individual personalities are driving the plot more than events. With the Doctor in full Salamander makeup throughout the pace can pick up (previous episodes having to either focus on one or the other, or just go in halves). But it remains a quiet episode, dealing with the character journeys. The direction the story goes in from here is directly defined by Bruce's thoughtfulness, Swann's rebellion, and by Kent's precise reason to want to help in the uncovery of evidence. The story's major incidents and turning points are internal, moments of personal change and revelation rather than vast action sequences. The crisis point for Salamander in this episode is created purely through him having to confront someone with enough force of personality and power to cause him trouble - and his weedling out is wonderful. This is a villain who's main power is guile. He's not the villain through sheer force of numbers, he's the villain through intelligence. Likewise, Swann's fate is created not through Salamander orchestrating an upper hand - but by Swann giving him all the chances in the world through sheer naivety.
And once more it reminds me of Caves of Androzani. The Doctor is in both motivated more by a desire to help his companions than he is to directly interfere in the world he arrives in, and his involvement is defined more by chance than by desire. And the more you see, the less you can blame him. Salamander is a dangerous man, but the Doctor has never felt the desire to act as judge and jury (and the permanent humanisation of all the characters - here very noticeable with the highly strung Colin, and last episode with Salamander's cigar smoking coming across as a fine touch of wit, something rare in a Who villain - reminds us this is about individual distinct people killing other individual distinct people).
Perhaps the only sequence which doesn't work as the rest is the interrogation scene, mainly because it doesn't really drive the plot forward. However, it is nicely written and the deeply camp Benik manages to be surprisingly menacing. Again, it's there to illustrate character for the most part - Benik is however, probably the only totally one dimensional character in the script. He's a fairly cliched sadist, and is probably the least interesting character in the tale. This isn't a vast insult when you consider the complexity of the other parts and that he's one of the more entertaining ones (everybody else is a little too serious to be really fun).
If anything, that's what makes this story feel so unusual. Its serious air. It isn't a light hearted adventure fantasy, it's a moderately gritty sci-fi thriller. The playful wit inherent in the characterisation manages to keep it feeling 'Whoish'.
The scene where the Doctor pretends to be Salamander to Jamie and Victoria is fab (why does he string it out so long though - its fair enough to tease, but they're in grave danger!). What's particularly interesting here is that one of the telesnaps suggests the Doctor is very much physically himself when playing Salamander - it's number 46 , and the photo's afterwards would suggest this has to be when he's pretending. Physically its clearly the Doctor. These are the bits I wish I could see - this makes it clear that Troughton's too good an actor to just repeat his Salamander performance. Troughton is playing the second Doctor as Salamander and it seems to be utterly different from his performance just as Salamander. It would have been an acting masterclass.
For a story with top cliffhangers (again, all pretty much character based, hinged around moments of revelation rather than moments of danger, particularly the terrific one at the end of part three as you literally see the wheel's turning in Salamander's mind) this one has a weird cliffhanger that doesn't really turn the story (it might in part six, but a cliffhanger with no impact til the next week is weak isn't it?). So in homage, I will end my summary in an odd manner, by simply going to bed.
Dorney
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#92 14 Oct 2004, 11:34 am
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:50 am
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Re: Day by Day
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The Enemy of the World 6:
Well, I said that this story had one of the greatest three twists in the series. If you don't know it (and believe me, you won't want a ginger fool like me to spoil it) I'd thoroughly recommend looking away now. And I'm going to give away the end of Reign of Terror here too, incidentally.
S
P
O
I
L
E
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Giles Kent's in on it! He's a baddy too! Blimey. As about faces go, this one really pulls the cat out of the bag. Like all good twists, its been carefully layered in - partially Kent's willingness to kill, as the Doctor observes, and partially his odd behaviour at the end of part five. In a series like Who were everything tends to be relatively straight forward, this is quite a shock... because we don't expect a twist. To give you some alternate examples, and how they're less effective - the revelation that LeMaitre and Stirling are the same person in Reign of Terror - well, of course they are. Stirling needs to turn up, he needs to be in disguise and he needs to be someone we know otherwise its a cheat. And that means there's really only one person he could be (call it the 'DaVinci code effect'). Whereas here, the story works without the twist (albeit with a few unanswered questions). The twist flips around your understanding of what's been going on, and makes you view it in a different light - but it doesn't undermine it (a criticism of some of the more 'rabbit out of a bag' twists in modern movies, the Village leaps to mind). There's one little lie at the heart, rather than a house of cards of them, ready to collapse at any point. The change affects our understanding, and our interpretation of character, rather than shifting the story around. And following my thoughts last time about the story being defined by character, it's worth noting that the villains are defeated by each other, rather than being shot or arrested by a third party. Now that we understand that the entire story has been built on their relationship and individual bitterness, it's a beautiful moment of irony that they both get their wish, moments before being destroyed (ok, so Salamander survives, but it is more as a sense of a coda - Kent has already destroyed him, just as he destroyed Kent). Once again, the nastiness of Kent's death is blatant. Shot twice, in pain, blowing himself up. Not pleasant.
Beyond that, its pretty much a question of all the points falling into place. Benik's berating of the guard for lacking sense is pretty rich - he clocks that the Doctor isn't Salamander is pretty much the first scene, yet he still allows enough leeway to Bruce that reinforcements can arrive (watch him - he doesn't do anything til about a second before he's captured - what exactly is he waiting for?).
The central trick of the story, the one we've essentially been promised all along, finally falls into place in this episode, with several moments that play on the identity of the central figure. Most of the time, it's fair to say, we're fairly clear who's who, but even then there are doubts (if you've been paying attention, the figure in the records room can't be Salamander... but you're never 100% sure). It is a shame however that the only meeting between him and the Doctor - again a scene essentially promised from the off - is so brief... but then, the Doctor wasn't so much against Salamander but for the world, and it's more appropriate that the vast majority of the climax is devoted to Kent and Salamander's secret war - notice how little the Doctor actually does to defeat Salamander. His main effect is on the other individuals, Bruce and Astrid, enabling them to see through the lies.
Jamie and Victoria don't get much to do, and this means they've been pretty much sidelined for the second half. Their episode away means that the vast majority of the stuff you'd expect a companion to do gets transferred to Astrid - and fair enough, she does it very well. You do slightly miss them though - especially as by episode three, Victoria in particular seemed to be having a bit more fun. She's quite sweetly jolly at points, far from her bossy whingy persona. As I've said before, it does rather render the central European trip a sideshow, but it is definitely a necessary one in order to set up the epic feel.
And epic it is. I remain deeply in love with this story. It's far and away the most underrated Troughton tale, one that's trying to do something different. Darker, grittier, and 'realer' than it's season 5 colleagues, it sticks out like a sore thumb - again something that is amazingly often said as a criticism. A mature script driven by character rather than spectacle. Yes, it never feels quite like the feelgood escapist adventure we think of the series as... but is playing outside the box a bad thing? It still feels like Who, with it's mad villain and sly wit. It's a classy international thriller, done Who style. It dares to be different, and it succeeds. I don't think we should dismiss it because it doesn't conform to a limited view of what 'good Who' is. Does it acheive what it wants to? Does it entertain, does it thrill? Is it a good piece of tv/audio? Yes, yes, and yes. Enemy of the World is excellent.
Dorney
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#93 14 Oct 2004, 3:23 pm
The Secretive Bus
Time Lord
Edinburgh
Joined April 18, 2004
Last On: Yesterday 10:45 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Hurrah!
And next, The Web of Fear, another thoroughly classy Troughton tale. And I'm listening to Fury from the Deep at the moment, which is also turning out to be rather excellent! Season 5 was actually rather decent...
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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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#94 14 Oct 2004, 10:12 pm
Captain Renault
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Leicestershire
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Yesterday 11:01 pm
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Re: Day by Day
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Well that's three of us then.
I approached this with trepidation as the fan opinion didn't seem to be high.
Got it cheap off Play and listened to all of it while driving to Scotland.
It's just great isn't it.
BTW Mr Bus - Fury is pretty scary - or am I just a total wimp?
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I'm shocked - shocked - to see that gambling is going on in here!
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#95 15 Oct 2004, 12:04 am
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
Last On: Today 10:50 am
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Re: Day by Day
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I think the problem is that Enemy is a fun thriller, rather than a fun fantasy. And some people just don't go for that. It's like me and Natural History of Fear. I appreciate that it's clever, well acted, written and made... it's just not a type of story that gets me. But it's status as an adult drama driven by character just give this one a great feel to me.
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