OOO2 - The Time Monster 2

This episode is the best of times and the worst of times for the Brigadier and UNIT. In reverse order, look at the Brigadier in the scene set in Stuart's flat. Has he ever looked more out of place than when he's standing stiffly amidst Stuart's collection of hippie artifacts and Elton John posters? He's then made to look very foolish by asking all the dumb questions, and not knowing when he's actually suggesting legitimate answers. The Brig has become a character, at best, endured by those around him - no longer in charge, no longer offering anything to the situation.

Then comes the brilliant scene outside of the TOMTIT complex where The Brigadier instructs the government types to keep schtum about what they've just seen, even quoting rules and regulations while doing so. That sorted, he then directs his attention to Dr. Percival, letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that UNIT is now fully in charge at the university. Attaboy, Alistair. It's good to see that you're honour isn't fully dead and buried yet.

Even Sgt. Benton gets in on the act, successfully fooling The Master into thinking that it was he who was actually fooled, then sneaking up behind The Master and (almost) nabbing him for good. Usually, UNIT's power has been seen through its artillery strength, but it is almost heartwarming to see that their recruits can be authoritative and cunning, as well.

OOO1 - The Time Monster 1

Fresh off the nadir of the Jon Pertwee era, we're treated with another inauspicious start to a story with Episode One of The Time Monster. There's more garbled and confused storytelling right from the get-go. The Doctor has a dream about The Master (whose appearances have become so common now that his initial scene at the TOMTIT lab doesn't even warrant an introduction), which seems to be of dreadful importance, but its significance is forgotten almost instantly once Captain Yates and Jo start investigating. (The beginning of this story also is remarkably similar to the beginning of The Daemons.)

Ah, yes - TOMTIT. Was this the best acronym for a time experiment that writers Robert Sloman and (an uncredited) Barry Letts could come up with? Surely they would have realized the ridicule they would get by using that name, no? And why is The Brigadier and not The Doctor going to a demonstration of TOMTIT when he clearly, and admittedly, knows nothing of the process? Nor, it appears, does he know much about anything anymore. What has The Brigadier been doing during his few weeks off from the show, anyway, to get so stupid? And what is the point of the scene where a window washer falls off the ladder after he sees TOMTIT in action?

Ruth and Stuart seem to be in a different programme altogether. I keep expecting to hear slightly bemused laughter from the studio audience every time they engage each other with their "with it" banter. Ruth is apparently a keen feminist (as her almost every single sledgehammer-subtle line in this episode attests), but her and Stu have the following exchange when debating whether or not to carry out a test without Professor Thascalos present:

RUTH: Men! It's their conceit that bugs me!
STU: Hey, I'm on your side, remember?
RUTH: You don't count.
STU (tired of being treated like the "big sister" that he is): Don't I? And why not, may I ask?
RUTH: Look, don't bully me, Stu, or I think I might burst into tears!

Nice, Ruth. Way to stay strong under pressure. The episode ends with the viewer unaware of any impending danger, other than The Master shouting "Come, Kronos come!". Looks like we're in for another rough ride...

NNN6 - The Mutants 6

What a remarkable series of coincidences that help out The Doctor in his case to try and disprove the Marshall to the Investigator in this episode. Just when it looks like all is lost, Jo, previously held hostage by the Marshall, is paraded through the door by the Investigator's guards. The Doctor can now speak freely - hooray! But he doesn't have proof of his claims that the mutations that are afflicting the Solonians are natural. Don't worry! Sondergaard is marched through the door at just the right time. Amazing luck, that.

A fitting end, though, to a very poor story. It all comes down to something I mentioned before about how the writers and the director both differed on what direction they wanted the story to take. Writers - segregation satire. Director - rebellion against tyranny. As each separate story thread moved along, the more each separated until neither thread was portrayed strongly enough to hold up the story as a whole.

This story was cited in Salmon Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, of all places, as being racist. I don't think it is, to be honest, but it's intention of showing the Marshall to be racist might be even more offensive. Was it Bob Baker's and Dave Martin's collective intention to show that, in using the mutants (or mutts, as they are colloquially known) as an allegory for the repressed black population in South Africa, the creatures who were scorned so much were merely at an earlier stage of evolution, and that they soon evolve into higher beings? I hope, for Baker's and Martin's sakes, that this was not the case.

The Mutants is a poorly directed, poorly acted mess, and is easily the top contender for worst Jon Pertwee story thus far.

NNN5 - The Mutants 5

Poor Rick James. I'd like to think he's a better actor than he is. I'd like to think he's an actor, period, but having seen him in one another thing (Blake's 7), I can't even think that with the greatest of confidence. But every time I watch this story, I can't help but hope James (not the character he is supposedly playing, Cotton, but Rick James himself) comes out of it okay because it really looks like he's the winner of a write-in contest to be in Doctor Who. Did Blue Peter hold such a contest at that time? For adults? Or for kids, and Rick James won, anyway?

Apologists claim that James was dealt a bad hand from the start because the part of Cotton was originally written with a white, Cockney actor in mind. Nice try. No matter what the dialogue, James merely recites it, line by line, as if he's reading it off the same cue cards Jon Pertwee would have loved to rely on. In fact, James never actually forgets or fluffs his lines, so I'd be willing to bet that he is reading them. It's patently obvious that he's never rehearsed the scenes. Look at the way he awkwardly manhandles Katy Manning and Garrick Hagon as he helps them up the ladder in the refueling station. Surely someone would have objected to this in a proper rehearsal, no? Or, going back to my earlier point, was everyone too polite to upset the Blue Peter contest winner?

I could go on about James, and the silly conclusion to the Episode Four cliffhanger (our heroes wriggle about on the floor a bit, then get up and walk out of the room), but why bother? At least there's only one episode left...

NNN4 - The Mutants 4

Lobot himself, John Hollis, makes his first appearance in this episode (well, his first appearance out of the silver suit he wore earlier), playing Professor Sondergaard. The professor's name and slight Afrikaans accent gives the game away a bit more towards the writers' original intentions of The Mutants being a pastiche on colonial South Africa.

I'm not entirely sure what the significance of the tablets concealed in the Time Lord's canister is. The Doctor's big revelation when examining them is that they represent the four seasons on Solos, an idea that Sondergaard initially shoots down. However, Jaegar mentions in Episode Two that Solos is, after 500 years, entering a new season. And just how The Doctor determines that the little swirls on one of the tablets represents thaesium radiation is a mystery. Also, why does the box even intended for Ky? He has no idea what to do with the tablets, nor what they mean. If anything, the Time Lords should have directed it to open for Sondergaard, as he is the only person on Solos versed enough in understanding their properties.

The weak cliffhangers continue with the end of this episode. First off, what kind of shoddy workmanship results in the outer hull of the Skybase being ripped apart by a blast from the Marshall's handgun? Why does Varan not explode in the depths of space? Why doesn't everyone in the room explode? It's not as if the room is shielded more from open space than Varan is, but perhaps given the fact that the amount of air being sucked out of the room is akin to that being blown by a table fan set on medium. The only thing that looks more ridiculous, no doubt, is the resolution to this scene in Episode Five...

NNN3 - The Mutants 3

Episode Three benefits from the fact that most of the scenes in it are on film in a cave. everything looks gloomy and atmospheric, there's fewer scenes with the grotesque Marshall, and The Doctor finally manages to meet up with Ky (whose name is slightly rude, I've only just noticed) and give him the mysterious capsule that the Time Lords have entrusted to him.

However, all the effort in getting some good filmed material is completely wasted when it comes time for Varan to return to his village. The village set is embarrassing. Only a small hut is seen, you can almost hear the dry ice machines spewing forth the fog, and the scene is so brightly lit that it puts most of mid-1980s Doctor Who to shame. When the camera zooms in on Varan's stunned face, you can almost see the reflection of the lights in his face. And when a cheesy voiceover happens, supposedly to represent Varan's inner monologue, that sound you hear is my 14-year-old self switching this story off. Even in my most loyal of eras of my Doctor Who fandom, I thought that Doctor Who had, at that moment, been the cheap, embarrassing programme that had been derided by my friends and family for so long. From this moment on, I would hide my Doctor Who passion from anyone who I met, and I wouldn't come out of the closet, so to speak, for a good few years afterward.

Christopher Barry continues to phone it in for this, his weakest directorial effort thus far. There is no drama in the cliffhanger for this episode at all, as Barry makes the baffling decision to shoot the final scene of our heroes in peril in long shot. The sense of danger is not made evident at all because we can't see how the characters are reacting to it. Not good.

NNN2 - The Mutants 2

Add George Pravda to the list of actors giving bizarre (or, to use another word, terrible) performances in this story. Pravda's Jaeger is strange creature - often an ally to the Marshall, but more often complaining about him in his presence. The Marshall and Jaeger make a perfect poor man's version of Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy. Or, at least, that's what they want you to think...

What more can be said about the acting thus far in this story when the best performance in it is easily that of Geoffrey Palmer, and he gets killed off before the end of Episode One? This story is the second of three Doctor Who stories to criminally misuse an actor of Palmer's calibre. He's given precious little screen time in Doctor Who and the Silurians, has a mere cameo here, and then has an even smaller role as the Captain in 2008's Voyage of the Damned. If the new series ever lands Judi Dench to play a role, one can only hope that she makes it until at least halfway through the episode.

This story is becoming a textbook example of what happens when the writer(s) and director disagree on the direction a story should take. Writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin intended The Mutants to be a satire on the apartheid in South Africa and Great Britain's colonial system of the 19th century. Director Christopher Barry didn't like this angle, and so veered away from it as much as possible. The tattered remains of the Baker/Martin version can be seen in long winded scenes such as the one between Ky and Jo in the cave in this episode where Ky complains about the effects that Earth colonization has had on Solos and its people. Barry's focus would seem to be more on the evil machinations of the Marshall. Guess which storyline wins out in the end.

NNN1 - The Mutants 1

The Mutants doesn't really get off to the best of starts. The first scene shows the "It's Man" from Monty Python's Flying Circus being chased by a bunch of soldiers (one of whom, Cotton, clearly can't say his lines without imagining that he's reading them at the same time) who are led by Boss Hogg's understudy - the ranting and raving Marshall.

The first scene featuring Jo and The Doctor has Jon Pertwee repeating the line "No, I'm not meant to open it. I could open it even if I wanted to" twice. It's always been pointed out that this is a fluff on the part of Pertwee, but it looks more like a very clumsy line in and even clumsier exchange of dialogue.

Speaking of clumsy dialogue, the first scene between Ky and Varan is an exercise in horribly plodding exposition, with James Mellor playing Varan as if he was negotiating a coma, and Garrick Hagon's Ky flying over the top in an attempt to make sure Mellor stays awake.

Having said all that, for some reason, I didn't find myself loathing the entire episode as much as I thought I would, although most of that can be explained by the fact that a good chunk of this episode takes place in a space station, and I've always had a remarkable soft spot for stories set in space stations.

LLL6 - The Sea Devils 6

Has there ever been a better ending to a Master story than the one seen in The Sea Devils? Forget about why The Master would have a mask of his face on his person (although carrying these things around seems to be a hobby for him. Look at Terror of the Autons). The sudden realization from The Doctor that the man on the stretcher is not The Master, then look up to see the real Master waving and driving away in the hovercraft more than makes up for any supposed plot holes. It's also rarely satisfying to see The Master "win", but also be able to rub it in a bit at the same time.

For a Malcolm Hulke script, there isn't as much of the morality play at work as in other Hulke stories such as Doctor Who and the Silurians and Colony in Space. There is a brief moment in Episode Five where it looks like The Doctor has struck a peaceful alliance with the Sea Devil leader, but those hopes are soon dashed. It's no surprise, really. Despite The Doctor's best intentions, the Sea Devils are thinking of war right from the outset. They are often the first to open fire when they meet humans (as well as a Sea Devil's first meeting with The Doctor, where the Sea Devil fires at an unarmed Doctor). The Doctor is fighting an uphill battle in trying to achieve a peace between the humans and the Sea Devils.

The Sea Devils is a truly fantastic story - easily the gem of Season 9, and certainly the best story thus far in the post-Season 7 Jon Pertwee era.

LLL5 - The Sea Devils 5

Permanent Under Secretary Walker is perhaps the most blatant example, in a long line of blatant examples, of the pompous, ineffectual civil servant called in by the government to put a situation to right, but just ends up getting in the way of those who are actually solving the problem in the first place. Masters, Brownrose, Chinn, and now Walker, and each with diminishing returns. Sometimes, subtlety has been an elusive beast in Doctor Who.

I'm going to stand shoulder to shoulder with Doctor Who composer and Radiophonic Workshop archivist Mark Ayres and be two of the very few defenders, and fans, of Malcolm Clarke's score for The Sea Devils. Comments about Clarke's score have been universally negative, but I have always been won over by its quirkiness. The strangeness of the soundtrack, with its blurps and bubbles, meshes perfectly with the aquatic theme of the story, and I personally enjoy Clarke's theme for The Master more than Dudley Simpson's. Also, to have a story that is so close to a normal Doctor/UNIT story, but missing one vital half of that equation, and have a soundtrack similar to other stories of the era would seem out of place.

Having watched The Sea Devils a few times over the years, I can't imagine any other score being used for it, and I can't imagine any other score that would have made the story better.

LLL4 - The Sea Devils 4

Captain Hart and the Navy play the role of substitute Brigadier and UNIT, respectively, very well in this story. In fact, they almost play it too well. By the beginning of Season 9, the relationship between The Doctor and the Brigadier had become so familiar that The Doctor no longer had to try and convince the Brigadier of the dangers of an approaching alien menace. The Brigadier knew enough to just believe his scientific advisor and suitably adjusted his strategy to accommodate. Of course, by now that strategy often extended to simply staying out of the way while The Doctor sorted it out.

With a new authority figure in Captain Hart, The Doctor is forced to start from scratch in trying to convince Hart that the Sea Devils are a threat. While Hart sees enough proof, and the thus act more quickly than the Brigadier might have in a similar situation, Hart's Navy does seem at least more competent in this situation than UNIT ever did. (This may have more to do with the fact that not only were the Navy extras playing soldiers were actual Navy personnel, but also because the production were keen to show the Royal Navy in a good light in exchange for their assistance in the production of the serial).

Season 9 is not the Brigadier's or UNIT's finest hour, and The Sea Devils is the ultimate slap in the face because it shows that their roles can not only be replaced in a story quite easily, but greatly improved upon as well.

LLL3 - The Sea Devils 3

Thankfully, we're treated to a splendidly arranged sword fight sequence twice in this story - once at the end of Episode Two, and again in the reprise to Episode Three. Watching it with the benefit of hindsight, it seems a complete insult to have put a sword in the hands of Tom Baker, Peter Davison, and David Tennant and hope that they could possibly come off looking better than Jon Pertwee in this scene. Fair do's to his three swashbuckling successors, but nobody has buckled swash in Doctor Who quite like Dr. Cool himself, Jon Pertwee. Pertwee acquits himself well in one of his last unaided fight sequences of his tenure in Doctor Who.

I spoke of how intriguing the Doctor-Master relationship is, but what is even more interesting as the story goes along is the connection between The Master and Trenchard, as well as that of Trenchard's staff. Some scenes indicate that The Master has a completely hold over everyone in the prison (asking a guard for a second colour television in his cell, for instance). However, it does become clear that The Master can't use his skills of hypnosis on the guards. Even though Trenchard shows The Doctor an example of this in Episode One, judging by how The Master treats Trenchard, it seems quite plausible that the whole scene was staged for The Doctor's benefit.

It's not. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that The Master has been able to hypnotize Trenchard either. After Trenchard and a guard walk into (and break up) the fight between The Doctor and The Master, The Master has to plead for his innocence to Trenchard. Trenchard seems far too unimaginative to have a mind worth hypnotizing, but, as is revealed later, The Master has promised Trenchard the glory of exposing and defeating traitors to the Crown. The Master may have had a mental hold over Trenchard at one time, but he's now depending solely on the web of lies he has created around Trenchard to get what he needs before Trenchard meets his inevitable end.

LLL2 - The Sea Devils 2

Michael Briant made his Doctor Who directing debut in Season 8 with the very flat looking Colony in Space, in which he displayed to all how he had never heard of the phrase "roll-back-and-mix" when conceiving the TARDIS materialization scenes. The Sea Devils is his second effort, and what a dramatic difference a year makes. Some of Briant's camera angles for scenes are stunning, resulting in a veritable bevy of Dutch angles during the Sea Devil-Doctor chase in Episode Two. In episode one, similar angles serve to show how unnerved and on edge the two maintenance workers who are forced to bide on the sea fort are.

A subtler use of direction takes place when Trenchard brings a box into The Master's cell. The Master can be seen to open the box, but both the box and its contents are below the camera frame. The camera then cuts to Trenchard, after which, finally, it is revealed that the box contained an admiral's uniform, and that The Master is now wearing the hat. Without a big revealing shot, or any dialogue explaining what The Master's plan is, Briant has very successfully kept hidden The Master's motives until just the right time.

Not unlike its predecessor, Doctor Who and the Silurians, the eponymous Sea Devils have scarcely been glimpsed outside of the sequence where one threatens The Doctor, as this story is more keen to explore the relationships between The Doctor and The Master, The Master and Trenchard, and The Doctor and Captain Hart. Not only are all three of these pairings worth exploring, but they also add a hint of mystery to the Sea Devils. Already, the Sea Devils appear more aggressive than their Silurian cousins, and they've also developed a rudimentary clothing system consisting of blue string mesh...

LLL1 - The Sea Devils 1

As exciting as watching two people have a casual chit chat for an hour or two is, who out there doesn't wish that the scene in this episode where The Doctor first visits The Master could have gone on for at least the better part of an afternoon? As The Doctor later laments, they were almost "at school together" in a previous time. What tales they could tell of when they once were friends. Seems almost a tragedy that The Master lets the audience know that the game is up at the very end of that scene, laughing maniacally as he does while starting up an exercise regime on the rowing machine.

It's the fascinating relationship between The Doctor and The Master that almost completely offsets the rampant overuse of the character in Season 8. The Doctor/Daleks rivalry is completely black and white - we see how it starts, and we've seen (one assumes) every skirmish that the two enemies have had in the history of the show. There's no mystery there. Daleks hate Doctor, and vice versa. On the other hand, The Doctor never wants to see The Master destroyed, and, despite all his boasting and his cliffhanger-friendly antics, neither does The Master want to see his possible one-time friend die. It's a tantalizing prospect to want to know everything that went on between the two before we meet The Master formally in Terror of the Autons, but one that we are never allowed to see.

One thing that we are allowed to see is that utterly delightful scene where The Master whistles along to an episode of the children's show The Clangers before being interrupted by the completely humourless General Trenchard. Only Roger Delgado could allow The Master to have such a "human" scene while still retaining the villainous dignity of the character.

MMM4 - The Curse of Peladon 4

David Troughton, who was only in his early 20s during the making of The Curse of Peladon, does a fine job, I think, of portraying a young king, forced to the throne before he was ready, and surrounded by men twice as old as him who are more keen to uphold tradition than aid their king. You feel Peladon's pain at the end when he mourns the death of Hepesh. Hepesh may have betrayed King Peladon, but he was the closest thing to a friend that the lonely king has ever known. When the King stands with his back to the court to mask his tears, you just wish he could have more than the few seconds he is allotted to compose himself before returning to his regal duties.

In understanding King Peladon's plight, it is no surprise that he latches on to Jo so quickly. Not so much because she's a pretty young "princess", but mostly because, even though they've only just met, she is instantly the person with whom he has the most in common. You almost wish that Jo would accept the King's invitation to stay, if only because you know that once the King is officially crowned during his coronation and his planet joins the Federation, his life will become even more hectic and lonely.

It's fascinating to see how The Doctor reacts to Jo being upset about having to leave the King. The dotty, scatter brained assistant who tripped her way into his laboratory a year ago was becoming a young woman in her own right, and this story is really Jo's big coming out party. She pretends to be a princess rather well, putting on a believable diplomatic front, she deals with a burgeoning relationship with a king, and she even manages to traverse some ledges in heels. Jo's wings are starting to spread. This story lays the groundwork for The Doctor's personal tragedy to come.

MMM3 - The Curse of Peladon 3

Now we get into some standard Third Doctor fare as Jon Pertwee gets to tangle with the king's champion, Grun, in an epic-length fight scene that is sorely crying out to be scored by the fight music from Star Trek. Pertwee also gets to show off his singing voice again as he reprises his Venusian lullaby in an attempt to subdue Aggedor.

Of course, Pertwee himself barely features in the fight scene, leaving most of the work up to his stunt double, Terry Walsh wearing a bad wig. This story marks the end of the "stunt association" in Doctor Who. HAVOC will have their swan song in The Sea Devils (which follows Curse, but was actually made before it), and the stunt team that provided the arranging in this story was the short lived PROFILE. During the heyday of the stunt associations, Jon Pertwee was more adept at jumping in on the proceedings, but by halfway through his run in Doctor Who, his bad back had led him to sit on the sidelines more and more. It's a shame, that, as I immediately think of Pertwee as the eternal man of action, although he appears in a fair more active scenes in this story than he does in Season 11...

My favourite scene in this episode is probably the one where Hepesh offers The Doctor, who is condemned to death, a way out by telling him to simply leave the planet in peace. What I love about it is that Hepesh knows that The Doctor is too smart to believe that Hepesh isn't behind all the nefarious events on Peladon, yet he also knows that The Doctor has no way of proving Hepesh's guilt to the court. The Doctor could get proof, but he would have to convince a court and a populace raised on superstition. He knows that no amount of proof can sway the opinions of those who who don't wish to have them changed. It's a remarkably frank conversation and a joy to watch.

MMM2 - The Curse of Peladon 2

Not only is this story unusual for a Jon Pertwee story, it's also a remarkably claustrophobic one. The sets are very introverted, looking perhaps even smaller than they actually are, and the lack of electric lights serve to enhance that image. And it is never apparent that Peladon is a place teeming with life - only a handful of guards and King Peladon's personal confidants inhabit the palace, and the list of visitors that are the Federation delegates is also a small one.

Director Lennie Mayne accentuates this claustrophobia by shooting many scenes in tight closeup, which is great to see the actors' expressions, but variable in its success when it comes to the non-Earth delegates. Arcturus looks even more ludicrous from close up, but the extraordinary makeup job on Alan Bennion as Izlyr is shown in all its glory (as you can see from the pic above). Any shot of Alpha Centauri would make the creature look ludicrous, although not half as much as having to hear its voice for several minutes on end...

And you can almost feel the love in the scene between The Doctor and Jo early in this episode where take stock of the mess that they're in but revel in how much they're enjoying themselves. The standard Doctor/single companion relationship has been the norm for quite some time now in Doctor Who (especially in the new series), but it's important to remember that The Doctor and Jo were essentially the first such pairing in the show's history. The Doctor had either been surrounded by either two or three companions, and even when he managed to pare it down to one (Liz Shaw), she was more than often surrounded by the various members of UNIT during her brief tenure on the show. Apart from Colony in Space, which often saw The Doctor and Jo separated for much of the proceedings, The Curse of Peladon is the first story ever, nine years after it all started, to feature a close knit Doctor/companion relationship.

MMM1 - The Curse of Peladon 1

Jon Pertwee's Doctor finds himself smack dab in the middle of probably the oddest Jon Pertwee story ever made. The Curse of Peladon (like its sequel two years later) features no location filming, is predominantly set in dark, torchlit corridors, and is easily the most dialogue heavy story in the Pertwee era.

In fact, Episode One makes this seem entirely like a William Hartnell story. The Doctor and Jo are forcibly separated from the TARDIS (getting back to "The Ship" was a common motivation in early Hartnell stories), and then the pair adopt fake identities to bluff their way out of a tricky situation (a la The Aztecs). Seeing Jon Pertwee as the noble diplomat, conversing with royalty with all the courtesy and grace that he could muster, is also neat to see, given how The Doctor was busy blasting Ogrons and driving bubble tyred trikes just a week or so ago.

Best of all, though, is the fact that the Ice Warriors don't appear to be the baddies in this, although obviously The Doctor immediately suspects them to be up to no good. Director Lennie Mayne doesn't share this suspicion, though. Aware that their very reputation will cast doubt on them as to their intentions, Mayne introduces the Ice Warriors rather casually as Ssorg walks casually through a shot of The Doctor and Jo hiding behind a stone column. A more dramatic entrance for the Ice Warriors would have led everyone to believe that they were the villains. Mayne's subtlety leaves the viewers questioning their own ideas about the Ice Warriors, leaving only The Doctor convinced that the Ice Warriors are up to no good.

KKK4 - Day of the Daleks 4

There is something blissful about spending 92% of one's free time growing up watching Doctor Who (that percentage has probably been even higher for me during this Chronic Hysteresis journey) in that if Doctor Who was ever ripping anything off, then I wouldn't have known about it unless that which was ripped off happened to be encompassed in the remaining 8% of free time that was allotted to me when not watching Doctor Who. I had never seen Quatermass before watching The Ambassadors of Death or The Claws of Axos, two stories which I'm reliably informed borrowed heavily from the BBC's early sci-fi effort, so I just ended up enjoying both stories for what they were.

Another example: Day of the Daleks. A story featuring people coming back to the past to try and change events to suit their purposes, but then finding out that they were the ones who originally created the mess that they were, in fact, trying to fix, seems so brilliant, yet so obvious, that I can't help but think that this idea has already been thought of and used in some other science fiction novel, film, or TV show. But thanks to my blissful ignorance, all I can think of is the 1984 film The Terminator that is similar to Day of the Daleks. (I'm sure some of the more educated readers of this blog (ie. all of you) will be quick to prove me wrong on this, of course).

Whatever the source of inspiration that this story uses (or doesn't use), it's a splendid idea and one that is surprisingly novel for Doctor Who. Why does a series is about time travel so seldom deal with the complications of traveling through time? Day of the Daleks is a great story, if let down by the presence of the Daleks themselves. Inserted into the lineup after the first draft of the script had been written, there's nothing too Dalek-y about the Daleks in this story. They stay within the confines of the control room for the most part, they fire their weapons a grand total of two times throughout the whole story. They don't even sound like Daleks, voiced as they are by Peter Messaline and Oliver Gilbert (the George Lazenbys of Dalek voices), and they move even slower than in some of the creakier 1960s episodes. Not the best way to usher back in the flagship monsters of the series for the first time in five years.

Two quick notes - Katy Manning wears probably my favourite Jo Grant costume in this episode, and it is so refreshing to hear that Dudley Simpson has managed to hire back a small orchestra to perform the score for this story and all those that he did after this. It seems like a breath of fresh air now, mind, but one should remember that Simpson's music would rarely stray from this sound for the rest of the 1970s.

KKK3 - Day of the Daleks 3

Aubrey Woods plays a superb Controller in this story - smooth and smarmy when he has to be (like convincing Jo, successfully, I might add, that the rebels are her enemy and not him), and cold, calculating, and stern when dealing with Ogrons and other subordinates. Woods and Jon Pertwee have a fantastic scene in Episode Three where The Doctor, growing increasingly intolerant, pushes the Controller to admit what The Doctor already knows - that the Daleks are the ones in charge of Earth in the 22nd Century.

Not immediately explained is why the Controller (and especially his female control room staff) seem to have silver faces. Are they androids? The women certainly sound like they are. The Controller's face is less silver-y, but can't Aubrey Woods ever appear in anything without having to put on silver makeup? (Witness his appearance as Kantor in the 1978 Blake's 7 episode Gambit - surely the campest and gayest 50 minutes in British television history.)

Also not explained is if this 22nd century Earth that's been conquered by the Daleks is the same one that we see in 1964's The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I'd like to say yes, which would give the series a rare dual perspective of one event in history. We see the rebellion at its lowest ebb in Dalek Invasion, forced to hide in sewers, trying to invent bombs that never seem to work against Dalek casing. The rebellion in Day of the Daleks is going much better and seems much more organized, and the rebels even have time technology on their side, so it would appear to be much earlier than the 2165-ish era seen in Dalek Invasion. But then, if the Doctor defeats the Daleks at the end of each story (presumably. I haven't watched Part Four yet, but I can kind of guess what the outcome will be), how can the two invasions be related?

Or can I just use the phrases "Time War" and "Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey" to retrofit everything and not have to worry about it?