Tag: Doctor Who

Doctor Who: Inferno

2012-12-18, 11:43 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

Originally posted brontoforum.us, 2008-12-28.

Inferno, it turns out, is another great Pertwee serial that is available through Netflix (disc only, no streaming).

Essentially, it's like Mirror, Mirror, except instead of Spock with a goatee, it has the Brigadier with an eyepatch.

It's a little long (could be one episode shorter -- he spends the entirety of the first episode in the parallel universe trying to explain to everyone that he's from a parallel universe), but really it runs at a great pace overall and has a whole lot more action than most Who from that period.

The parallel universe is used to good effect, emphasizing characters who are much different (the Brigade Leader is a coward hiding behind his gun and his rank) as well as characters who are more or less the same (the pompous Professor Stahlman, who would doom the world rather than take a blow to his ego, and the dashing Greg Sutton, who defies him), with companion Liz Shaw somewhere in-between.

The best device, IMO, is that in episode 4 or 5 the Doctor outright tells the parallel cast that they're screwed and past the point of no return and there's nothing he can do for their world, but that he can still save his own, leaving several episodes for the parallel cast to come to grips with their certain impending doom and react accordingly.

The "there are some things man wasn't meant to tamper with" premise is stale, but works well for an apocalyptic "Earth ends in fire" story -- the ending of the penultimate episode, with a wave of lava coming toward the cast, is cheesily green-screened but nonetheless makes a striking image.

The finale is another episode that could safely be chopped in half, but it mirrors the events of the parallel world, with slight changes, satisfyingly. The ending is vintage Third Doctor, with the Doctor and the Brigadier butting heads and then one of them forced to eat crow.

The transfer has all the usual flaws I've now come to associate with Pertwee-era serials, an often-grainy picture and occasional wavy lines. I watched one episode (3 or 4) on an SDTV and it was a lot less noticeable.

There's also a second disc with extras on it; I assume they're neat but I'm not going to bother.

All in all, classic Who; worth renting, worth buying. (It does help to have a cursory background knowledge of the Third Doctor's setup, that he's been exiled by the other Time Lords and trapped in 1970 London, and that at this point he's trying to fix his TARDIS so he can travel again. Probably good to check out Spearhead from Space first, and maybe The Silurians. The Ambassadors of Death, the serial immediately preceding this one, is out on DVD now too, but I haven't seen it yet.)

Netflix Does Something Stupid and Annoying

2012-12-06, 11:57 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

So I just went to fire up some old Doctor Who, only to find that every single Doctor Who serial had been purged from my Netflix queue.

So I thought, What the hell? Has Doctor Who been removed completely from Netflix Streaming?

It turns out that no, it hasn't, they've just decided to make it way more difficult to find and navigate!

See, now instead of having the old Doctor Who serials split up by title -- Horror of Fang Rock, Caves of Androzani, and so forth -- they've combined them all under a single heading, Classic Doctor Who.

Which may sound like a good idea -- and it would be, if it were put together by someone with a basic understanding of how human beings locate things! -- but sadly, it was put together by complete goddamned morons.

See, instead of being sorted by serial titles, the series is split up into 18 "collections". Numbered. 1-18. And you have to click on the number of the collection to see what serial's actually in it.

Which might make some sort of sense if they had the complete series split up into seasons. Or had at least one serial from every season. Or, I don't know, even put them in the right damn order. But they don't. Here's the order (Edit 2013-01-01: The order has been changed since this original posting; go to the end of the post for the current order):

  1. The Carnival of Monsters [sic] (1973)
  2. Horror of Fang Rock (1977)
  3. Pyramids of Mars (1975)
  4. Spearhead from Space (1970)
  5. The Androids of Tara (1978)
  6. The Ark in Space (1975)
  7. The Aztecs (1964)
  8. The Caves of Androzani (1984)
  9. The City of Death [sic] (1979)
  10. The Curse of Fenric (1989)
  11. The Green Death (1973)
  12. The Leisure Hive (1980)
  13. The Mind Robber (1968)
  14. The Pirate Planet (1978)
  15. The Power of Kroll (1978)
  16. The Ribos Operation (1978)
  17. The Three Doctors (1972)
  18. The Visitation (1982)

And it took me actually listing them all out where I can see them all at once, but now at least I understand how they're sorted: they're alphabetical, sort of. Except nobody bothered to add the convention of dropping articles from the sort, so serials beginning with "The" (which is nearly all of them) appear under "T".

(Except The Carnival of Monsters -- probably because that is not actually the title of the episode; it's just called Carnival of Monsters, which does fit the sort. Which indicates that maybe the database has both a display title and an indexing title for each episode -- but who the hell even knows. Especially since City of Death isn't actually called The City of Death, either.)

So, want to see if Netflix has a given Doctor Who serial, out of the 128 extant serials that make up the original series? All you have to do is poke around half-blindly through 18 not-quite-alphabetically-sorted collections and see if it's there! That is, if you know they're sort-of-alphabetical -- which you probably won't even notice, looking at them one-by-one. (Actually, I'm going to go add a review to the page right now that explains that, with the full order -- hopefully it'll help somebody.) If you don't notice, well, just click on all 18!

Amazon, meanwhile? If you type in "Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani", the first match is Doctor Who (Classic) Season 21, which does in fact have a streaming video of The Caves of Androzani. They don't have as many episodes available for streaming as Netflix does, and some of them cost money to watch even if you have a Prime account. But they're sure the hell organized way better.

Of course, the easiest way to find any of these episodes, without worrying about availability, nonsensical navigation, or the possibility that you'll just find them all removed from your queue one day without notice, is just to torrent the damn things.

Kinda makes you feel like a chump for paying good money for Netflix and Amazon Prime, don't it?

Edit 2013-01-01: The order has been changed; they're now in chronological episode order:

  1. The Aztecs (1964)
  2. The Mind Robber (1968)
  3. Spearhead from Space (1970)
  4. The Three Doctors (1972)
  5. The Carnival of Monsters [sic] (1973)
  6. The Green Death (1973)
  7. The Ark in Space (1975)
  8. Pyramids of Mars (1975)
  9. Horror of Fang Rock (1977)
  10. The Ribos Operation (1978)
  11. The Pirate Planet (1978)
  12. The Androids of Tara (1978)
  13. The Power of Kroll (1978)
  14. The City of Death [sic] (1979)
  15. The Leisure Hive (1980)
  16. The Visitation (1982)
  17. The Caves of Androzani (1984)
  18. The Curse of Fenric (1989)

So at least, if you were to for some reason want to watch a small selection of 25 years' worth of Doctor Who in chronological order, you could do that now. But it's still a legitimate hassle to find episodes by title, like a normal person.

Doctor Who: The Green Death

2012-11-26, 8:39 pm
Categories: TV

Originally posted brontoforum.us, 2008-12-03.

The Green Death is pretty good. By-the-numbers story, with too much wandering around in caves and futuristic businesses, but the Third Doctor and the Brigadier are in top form, and the villains are pretty awesome too.

The environmentalist bent to the story is obvious but still takes a backseat to rubber monsters and an evil computer. It does do a decently fair job of setting out the green-versus-labor dilemma and pit the down-to-Earth miners against eccentric hippie scientists, with the Brigadier somewhere in the middle, ever the pragmatist. It also strikes a chord in that the evil polluting corporation is so powerful that it has the full support of the PM, and in one scene the villain threatens to have the Doctor (I think it was the Doctor) arrested under the Emergency Powers Act.

There are some problems with the transfer in places -- I streamed it, so I'm going to chalk all the artifacting up to that, but there are bits where there's flickering light at the bottom of the picture and a couple of places where it looks like the master tape was crinkled. Nothing deal-breaking.

Anyway, it's become one of my two favorite Pertwee serials (the other is Inferno); must-see (streaming on Netflix!) and worth buying.

Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet

2012-11-16, 9:33 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

I am very tired, so here's another old Doctor Who review. Originally posted Brontoforumus, 2008-11-18.

The Pirate Planet is not what you expect either from the title or for the writer (Douglas Adams). The pirates are not of the traditional variety (though the leader has robot parts), are never referred to as pirates, and it is unclear until halfway through or more why the serial is called "The Pirate Planet".

But all that's part of a series of mysteries in the serial that are quite cleverly revealed. Some are obvious, others (why do gems fall from the sky right before the stars change?) are not.

Adams crafts a story with far fewer laughs than you would expect, but it's quite clever and plays out at a good pace, and features an interesting cast of characters (particularly the villains). As usual, he wears his environmentalist cred on his sleeve, but uses it in a way that makes the story interesting.

For $11, it's on the "worth owning" list.

That said, I have zero interest in watching the rest of the Key to Time Series. I've already watched 200 minutes of a collection quest; I don't really see following the remaining 450. Frankly, as much as I love Baker I think I'll take a break from him, maybe watch some more Pertwee or Davison.

Doctor Who: The Ribos Operation

2012-10-23, 10:47 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

All right, so I'm phoning it in with another Doctor Who review I already wrote. Just because I've got free time doesn't mean I've got ideas for things to write about -- hell, the opposite may even be true.

So here goes. Originally posted on Brontoforumus, 2008-09-03.

The Ribos Operation is a mediocre story saved by interesting characters. It's probably most remarkable as the first appearance of Romana, who isn't one of them. At this point she's just a know-it-all college girl and general ice queen (as made less subtle by her costume). While this is the only serial I've seen with Mary Tamm in the role, I can reasonably assume she and the Doctor warm up to each other over time -- but I can also reasonably assume she never achieves the same chemistry with Baker that Ward had, what with Baker and Ward sleeping together and all.

This is the first part of The Key to Time Series, AKA Collection Quest: The Movie, wherein a generic good-guy overlord tells the Doctor he has to collect a series of MacGuffins before a generic bad-guy overlord can get to them first. The plot from there is simultaneously simple and needlessly convoluted: as the Doctor and Romana seek the first piece of the Key, they find that a royal exile and a pair of small-time thieves want it too. The series shows the pacing problems faced by so many early Who serials in that nothing really happens until it's half-over.

That's saved, as I said, by a good cast of characters: the lovable con-men, the ambitious villain, an alien version of Galileo, an entertainingly over-the-top augurer, and a rubber-suit monster that doesn't get nearly enough screen time.

It ends with what I've so often complained that RTD simply can't seem to do: a short but satisfying goodbye scene.

All in all, it was probably worth the rental but leaves me fairly nonplussed about the whole Key to Time series. I assume I will find the next serial, The Pirate Planet, much more impressive, as it was written by Douglas Adams.

I expect I will get to reposting my Pirate Planet review at some point here; suffice to say it had its moments but I was largely disappointed and I didn't stick around for any of the rest of the season arc. I did watch the Black Guardian Trilogy from the Fifth Doctor Era, and wished I'd stopped after the first serial.

Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka

2012-10-08, 8:42 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Comics, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Another old Who review. Originally posted Bronto, 2008-07-11. This is about Scream of the Shalka, starring Richard E Grant -- which is timely, as Grant's set to show up in this year's Christmas special.

Scream of the Shalka is an animated Webcast from '03 that was originally intended to serve as a pilot for a new series.

All in all, the biggest weakness is Richard E Grant's Doctor: bluntly, he's a prick. He's got all of Eccleston's sarcasm and condescension, with none of his whimsy or manic energy.

Now, there's a reason the Doctor is a prick, it's just not a very good or interesting one. The canonical #9 and #10 have done the "guilt and isolation" schtick too, but much better; the Doctor covering up his personal pain with constant wackiness is much more enjoyable than covering it up by simply insulting everyone and brooding all the time.

The most interesting element of the series is the robotic Master -- one of very few hints that Grant's Doctor has a sense of humor, and the only thread I would have liked to see developed had this made it to series. (The one brief nod on the current series: Derek Jacobi appearing as the Master in Utopia.) The serial's writer, Paul Cornell, would go on to use a similar idea years later in his Action Comics run, starring Lex Luthor and a robotic Lois Lane.

Aside from that, it's a generic alien invasion plot. The animation is serviceable -- and, since it's properly-done Flash, vector graphics and all, looks great on an HDTV -- but very low-budget; it would definitely look at home alongside any number of current cartoons on Nickelodeon or CN. Animations are simple, backgrounds are practically nonexistent (but lots of Kirby dots!). The animators' later attempts (the missing eps in The Invasion and The Infinite Quest) look a good deal better.

Anyway. It's worth checking out; the price is right. And I'd like to see more animated Who (either new stuff or more Invasion-style fill-ins of missing episodes). But ultimately, it's like the '96 movie: it's an interesting "What-If" for a series that never was, but the one we got instead is much better.

Doctor Who: Survival

2012-10-04, 8:48 pm
Categories: TV

Another old Who review; originally posted on Brontoforumus, 2008-04-11. This episode directly follows the last two I reviewed, Ghost Light and The Curse of Fenric.

The original 26-year run concludes with the ironically-titled Survival. (Gloria Gaynor can relate, I'm sure.)

It lacks the deeper themes and clever storytelling of the two preceding serials, and, due to the presence of Cheetah People, is far, far sillier. But it's a fun, if nonsensical, straight-up Doctor versus Master story, and is significant both for the last appearance of Ainley as the Master (a 1990's adventure game notwithstanding) and of course the series finale. Plus it explains what the Master's doing with yellow cat eyes in the 1996 TV movie.

$25 at Amazon; comes with a second disc that apparently has a lot of extra features dealing with the historical significance of the ep. It's not available streaming on Amazon Prime or Netflix; if you're still doing the disc version of Netflix I'd say get it that way, and the second disc is optional. The serial's worth checking out, but its predecessors are better.

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric

2012-09-13, 9:06 pm
Categories: TV

Continuing from Ghost Light; originally posted on Brontoforumus 2008-04-06.

Curse of Fenric makes a fine followup to Ghost Light. It's got vampires, Ragnarok, game theory, cryptography, World War II, sea monsters, time paradoxes, causality loops, and ancient exiled evil.

Most interesting is the "Battle not with monsters lest you become one" theme. I can't recall an American children's show ever uttering the word "Dresden"; hell, I'm hard-pressed even to think of one that actually showed a swastika. Acknowledging that the Allies were far from innocent in the war is powerful stuff for -- what was the expression Sharkey used? -- goofball foreign children's television.

The plot twists are obvious, the characters are simplistic, and all in all it's a lot easier to follow than Ghost Light. But simplicity aside, the characterization is excellent, particularly from the Doctor and Ace during the climax.

All in all, a great mix of elements, well-written and well-acted. I think I'm going to have to agree with the fanboys: it's a pity the show was cancelled just when it was starting to turn around.

Available on Netflix and Amazon Prime; well worth watching.

Doctor Who: Ghost Light

2012-08-27, 6:06 pm
Categories: TV

Well, by now Who fans have presumably watched the first Pond Life minisode, and the show's coming back on Saturday. So here's another of my old reviews, originally posted on Brontoforumus on 2008-03-28.

The Seventh Doctor era gets a lot of (presumably well-deserved) flack, and some fans blame McCoy and Aldred for the waning quality and ultimate cancellation of the show. Others blame the writers, and Ghost Light seems to vindicate that view, as it shows McCoy and Aldred do a perfectly good job when they have a decent script to work from.

Ghost Light tends a bit toward the confusing and I found myself hitting up Wikipedia to explain what it was I'd just seen when it was over, but that's not necessarily a negative; some of my favorite sci-fi is inscrutable.

It's something of a mishmash of references to such works as The Shining, Pygmalion, and Heart of Darkness, with a dash of Douglas Adams thrown in. But the Victorian haunted-house ambience is suitably creepy, and most of the cast -- creepy housekeeper, insane hunter, lord of the manor who wears glasses indoors, caveman, crazy hooded figure, monstrous angel -- is interesting. The Seventh Doctor comes across as a mysteryman who manipulates Ace to force her to confront fears out of her past, and when he confronts Light in the final act, reminds the audience that he is indeed both ancient and alien. Ace is a far more complex character than most companions in the original series, and paves the way for Rose and Martha to have involved and (sometimes) interesting backstories 15 years later.

All in all, it's better than the Tom Baker/Terry Nation/Douglas Adams Dalek story I watched two weeks ago, and that has to count for something.

$12.99 on Amazon -- worth buying. Or you can stream it -- free if you've got Prime, $1.99 for each episode ($6 total) for a 7-day rental, or, inexplicably, the same price for a purchase.

Doctor Who: Destiny of the Daleks

2012-08-21, 10:06 pm
Categories: TV

Hey, here's another old Who review. Originally posted on Brontoforumus, 2008-03-14. (I guess my last Who review post was a Dalek serial too, but what the hell, that was like 6 weeks ago.)

Destiny of the Daleks is Tom Baker's second and final confrontation with the titular monsters (memo to Rusty: yes, they only did two Dalek stories in eight years), as well as Lalla Ward's first appearance as Romana (she'd played Princess Astra in the previous serial) and the second appearance of Davros.

It's a pretty run-of-the-mill story; by far the best sequences are the creepy, antediluvian ruins of the Dalek city, best used in the end of the second chapter when a cobweb-covered Davros begins to awaken.

It's sort of downhill after that. The creepy aliens of indeterminate race and sex turn out to be bad guys, Davros and the Doctor banter back and forth about their respective philosophies, and the whole thing sort of falls apart in the last chapter where it turns out the two alien races are in a stalemate because their battle computers are evenly matched.

The Daleks' blind obedience to Davros is a pretty radical change; not only have they, over the few hundred years since Genesis of the Daleks, gone from attempting to exterminate him for being inferior to reviving him because he's much smarter than they are, but within the span of two episodes they go from "Self-sacrifice is illogical and therefore impossible" to strapping bombs to themselves on his orders.

And on the subject of logic -- I've noticed more than one fan bellyache about the "Daleks trapped in a logical impasse" element, as that sort of story is much better suited to the Cybermen; Daleks aren't generally depicted as slaves to logic.

For a serial with both Terry Nation (writer) and Douglas Adams (editor) named in the credits, it disappoints. There are a few good Adams-y one-liners in there, but they're far between. As for the "comedy" in the opening segment, Romana's regeneration scene painfully fails to amuse, and of course reminds us that no two writers can agree on how regeneration works anyway.

It's not great, it's not terrible. Rent, don't buy.