The most difficult thing about writing these entries is finding a particular angle of approach that is unique and interesting.
Whilst the first aspiration is virtually impossible (although the last entry in this series is probably as close as I've ever got on that score), the latter is also a laughable hope. Yet I persist in staring for ages at a laptop screen, trying to find different ways of saying "That photo appeared quite a lot, back in a time that isn't now".
For obvious reasons, it's much more difficult to organise your thoughts on something solid and enjoyable (yet utterly unremarkable) than it is to wax lyrical over treasured classics, champion underdogs, or put the boot into overrated claptrap.
It's strange to consider "The Visitation" as a story damned by just being amazingly good, but that's probably a Season Nineteen thing. I'll discuss my issues with Season Nineteen when I get around to looking at "Four To Doomsday", but for the moment I will say that Davison's first year just doesn't grab me in particular. There is much that is good, and some that is bad. But the bad stuff is really bad, and often overshadows the good.
There, I said it. And you can't take me to task on it yet, because I've committed to elaborating on it at an unspecified future date. (Thereby giving me an angle by which to approach another entry. Clever, eh?)
Although fourth in transmission order, Serial 5X was Davison's second recorded story, and his first time outside the confines of the studio. And rather a lot of lovely location work there is, too. Mainly woodland and an old house, but it's all very nicely done.
Look how happy everybody is, being in the fresh air? Davison's more or less settled into the role by this point, and his character is by this stage strong enough not to be drowned out by having so many damned kids around the place. (Sending Adric off into the woods to wander around for a bit also helps. With his Wolverine-style fast healing power, he needn't worry about twisting his ankle in increasingly hilarious ways).
One of the great strengths of "The Visitation" are the Terileptils. Apart from being yet another alien race from the 1980's who look like they'd have trouble scratching their heads (Gastropods, Tractators, etc), they're great. Even the Doctor's pretty impressed by them, and it would have been interesting to see them again in a context where we didn't meet them as escaped and marooned convicts.
Apart from Michael Melia and his animatronic head, the John Savident-tastic prologue to the story is well worth a mention. (And "I'll 'ave me posset now" always raises a smile). It doesn't even manage to clock five minutes of screen time, yet the entire scene is a wonderful and evocative introduction, made all the more effective by the narrative rejoining the Squire's house after he and his family have been killed, unbeknownst to the main characters.
Sometimes it's almost hard to believe that this is an Eric Saward script we're looking at. Despite my respect for him as a script editor during a very trying period, he did have a seeming penchant in later years for writing continuity-sodden clunkers, probably because everybody went crazy over the inferior "Earthshock" rather than heap praise on his earlier effort.
One of Saward's greatest wheezes in this script is kind of recycling a character from some radio series he'd worked on previously. Research would provide answers as to how much or how little the Richard Mace of "The Visitation" was based on the radio character, but as usual, I haven't done any.
Suffice to say, Michael Robbins is an unexpected treat, and gives a wonderful fruity performance. Janet Fielding's worth a mention too, and she finally gets a script where Tegan isn't a monumental pain up the backside.
So let's have another look at her in peril-monkey mode this time, with an android wearing cricket gloves. (Nyssa sorts it out later in a scene which allows lesser authors than me to make jokes about bedrooms and vibrators. I was tempted, though).
Meanwhile, Matthew Waterhouse gets to point at things and scrunch his face up.
Davison doesn't look that impressed, but that doesn't stop him having a go at it himself later on. I don't think Waterhouse has much to worry about.
Serial 5X was the first Davison story to be novelised, and thanks to Davison's agent, it was the first Target novel to feature a photographic cover. Pardon the lapse into colour, but since the featured photo was on my list for this feature and I couldn't find a decent resolution copy, here's a look at the cover in question...
There aren't many people who express fondness for the photographic covers, and generally consider them to be nothing short of heresy. However, it won't surprise you to learn that I don't have anything against them. There were only nine of them, but my personal favourites were "Snakedance" and "Enlightenment", which reverted to artwork but with a photograph of Davison peeking from behind the logo.
Anyway, the final word should go to an image featured as the end piece to Alan Road's excellent volume "The Making of a Television Series", which focused on "The Visitation", and featured many lovely shots of Michael Robbins having a fag.
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