Publicity Shots From Hell No.130

As ever, the domestic situation has kept me from these pages for a while. With builders, electricians, plumbers, joiners, window installers et al trooping through the real world Security Kitchen on a daily basis, I have been feeling too worn out on an evening to attend to my online responsibilities.

 

So in an attempt to mollify my public, here's a little something to keep you all twisting and jiving...

 

 

Altogether now... "Klokleeda partha mennin klatch, harroon harroon harroon!"

Esacpe To Danger No.55

It's five years to the day since my father died. I'm not mentioning this to gain any kind of sympathy, but in order to offer another example of how deeply Doctor Who is engrained in my life and psyche.

 

Having been to visit him earlier in the afternoon, I could see my dad was in pretty bad shape, and I was kind of half-expecting some development later in the day. So to kill some time whilst waiting, I continued watching some rather special downloads I had started some time previously.

 

So I'd just got to the bit in Episode 6 of "The Web of Fear" when the paranoia's ramping up, and Jon Rollason reappears as Harold Chorley after a few episodes of absence. It's a really great scene, and one of my personal favourites.

 

It's also the point when I took the phonecall that informed me that my dad was gone forever.

So, it appears that I was watching Doctor Who as my father lay dying. But at least it was one of my favourite stories, and one of which I never tire. (Well, I never tire of any of them, but you know what I mean).

 

I've mentioned previously (and I can't be bothered to link to the entries in question just now, sorry) how Serial QQ was probably responsible for my initial fascination with the London Underground system. And I still get a kick from looking at an Underground map and seeing names like Goodge Street and Charing Cross even today. (Even though the Charing Cross mentioned in the story is now Embankment, trivia fans).

And speaking of maps, why does a military operation use the iconic schematic of the Tube system, instead of the somewhat rather different map that actually gives the genuine layout of tunnels and stations?

Just saying, is all...

As a quick off-the-cuff sequel, "The Web of Fear" is remarkable. Much like the Cybermen did on their speedy return, the Yeti get a makeover that has both good points and not-so-good points. The Great Intelligence is back too, and the whole concept of it is still as fucking creepy as ever. London's been evacuated (a first in Proper Who?) and the army are trying to contain a weird fungus that is engulfing the Underground system and thinking it would be jolly helpful to have a United Nations quango to deal with this sort of thing.

 

All well and good, but the masterstroke here is the inclusion of the character of Professor Travers.

For a programme which has  time travel as a central premise, Doctor Who in what we now seem to have to call its "Classic" phase fought incredibly shy of portraying its possible ramifications. (Of course, the modern reboot decided to rectify this "mistake" to a tedious degree by getting all touchy-feely and timey-wimey at the drop of an Archimandrite's hat).

Seriously, it's worth thinking about Travers for a moment. In "The Abominable Snowmen", he wasn't exactly likeable at times, and the same goes in "The Web of Fear". But with more than forty years between the two stories, we see for the first time a character who has aged. Travers is now an old man, has somehow secured some kind of scientific kudos, is probably battling the onset of dementia, and has been drafted in as some kind of reluctant advisor to a reluctant military.

And he has a daughter, and quite a hot one at that.

The tragedy of Travers is that he is forced to encounter three acquaintances who've hardly aged a day since he last saw them forty years ago. The scene where he meets Jamie and Victoria could have been one of the most moving that Proper Who had to offer if it hadn't been played for laughs, and (like Hartnell's heart-rending soliloquy at the end of "The Massacre") one of the least mentioned.

The other really great thing about "The Web of Fear" is that it sets up the familiar yet effective conceit that there is a possessed traitor in the tunnels, and really makes you work to try and figure it out. Anybody who encounters the fungus and survives is an immediate suspect (the comedy Welshman), as is anyone who wanders off for a length of time and later turns up alive (Chorley).

Fantastic direction from Douglas Camfield, some really great use of stock music especially in the first episode, and the sets are so good even London Transport thought they'd been filming illegally in the Underground.

All together now... "Nobody destroys Julius Silverstein's collection! Nobody! No!"

Great Fan Myths of Who No.5

During a recent conversation, I was suddenly reminded of this old chestnut. I can't remember where I first heard it, but I really must sit down one day and go through old Matrix Data Bank columns in back issues of Doctor Who Monthly...

TRUE OR FALSE? William Hartnell had an uncredited cameo in Jon Pertwee's debut story, "Spearhead From Space".

 

Well, I think it's safe to say that this is utterly false. But looking at the scene in question, you can see how the misunderstanding could have arose.

 

It would have been bloody cool if it were true, though...

 

 

Of course, "Spearhead From Space" does genuinely feature one notable uncredited guest cameo, which is probably the point where people started getting their wires crossed.

 

So here's series Producer Derrick Sherwin, who bravely stepped in after he sacked the original actor for presumably not being able to perform a comedy car park attendant well enough...

 

 

Publicity Shots From Hell No.129

With panto season rapidly approaching, it's time to take a brief look at some memorable pantomimes of yesteryear.

 

While many believe that John Nathan-Turner was the first to use his Doctor Who connections to sell a few extra tickets for his annual celebrity panto, let's turn back the clock to the early 1970s and see how other production teams rose to the challenge...

 

In what can only be a performance of "Aladdin", we can plainly see Roger Delgado, Barry Letts and, erm... Terrance Dicks letting their hair down for the festive season.

 

But where, I hear you cry, is Jon Pertwee? Never one to shy away from dressing up (or publicity in general), you would have thought he would have been on hand to join in the fun.

Sorry, my mistake...

Escape To Danger 2.0 No.9

When I was writing the original Escape To Danger article for "The Faceless Ones", I was in a bit of a hurry and wanted something quick to dash off which wasn't very image-intensive.

 

Likewise today, when I'm trying to get back into actually doing something on these pages, I find myself in the need of something similar to help ease myself back into things.

 

How fortunate that Serial KK is one of those rare stories for which hardly any publicity images seem to have been taken. (Well, obviously bad for posterity bearing in mind the state of the archive holdings, but good for me being a lazy bugger right here and now).

  

In fact, I was so embarrassed at the paucity of the goods in the original article, that I gave a little description of the images I would have included if the remit of the column were different.

 

So, erm... here they are now. And this one below still grosses me out.

I've always found "The Faceless Ones" to be a genuinely unnerving story. Doppelganger stories are always good for cranking up the paranoia, and having most of it solely on soundtrack seems to (accidentally, I admit) actually intensify the feeling of dislocation.

 

The contemporary setting was still relatively new to the series at that time, which also lends to the feeling of oddness. And the discovery of the missing humans in cars in the Gatwick parking lots is another slightly sinister twist.

 

Would the story have been improved if set in a department store as originally intended? Maybe not, but it would have been nice to see Doctor Who's take on the familiar creepy mannequin trope a few years before "Spearhead From Space" gave it a try.

 

And did Pauline Collins do the decent thing by not accepting the offer to take Samantha Briggs into Time and Space? Think of all those excellent hats we missed out on...

Escape To Danger 2.0 No.8

Earlier today I happened to read a piece of modern commentary that was at great pains to remind less worldly fans that Doctor Who seasons from the 1960s weren't micromanaged to the ridiculous degree that seasons of the rebooted series are today. (No story arcs, no character development, no plot pointers scattered hither and yon, and certainly no - insert teeth-grinding sound effect here - "emotional climax").

 

Similarly, it's so easy these days to be tempted to view stories like "The Three Doctors" by modern expectations of what constitutes an anniversary knees-up. But when you actually look at things, Doctor Who makes a wonderfully characteristic inconsistent stab at it.

 

 

And to keep you in suspense, we'll get back to talking about the first notable anniversary (the ten year one) later when we've had a look at some notable others.

 

First out of the hat are the celebrations to mark the 100th broadcast story. Taking "Mission To the Unknown" into their count (as indeed they should), the production team initially went to all the trouble of writing an extra scene into "The Stones of Blood" where the Doctor is presented with a cake to celebrate his 751st birthday. Party-pooper Graham Williams deemed the scene too silly, and the it was never shot (but the crew got to eat the cake, apparantly).

 

While no great loss to the world, it would perhaps have been a nice touch had anybody realised at the time that the broadcast of Part Four of "The Stones of Blood" was to be a mere five days before the 15th Anniversary of the series. John-Nathan Turner would have sold his grandmother for a coincidence like that...

 

 

Which brings us to the next milestone, the 20th Anniversary. And what a corker that was. After the almost-afterthought misfire of selling Season 20 as featuring "an element from the Doctor's past" in every story (which is kind of ok if you want to count the Black Guardian three times out of an eventual six), we got "The Five Doctors", the Longleat weekend, and, erm... the "Doctor Who: A Celebration" book by Peter Haining.

 

Joking aside, "The Five Doctors" was at the time of broadcast seen to be such a success that it was temporarily cool to be a fan again, even in the confines of a provincial English public school where such things were normally viewed as juvenile and (as we said in the 80s) gay.

 

But more about "The Five Doctors", Longleat and Peter Haining when we look at Serial 5K itself...

 

 

Never one to fall foul of the mistakes of his predecessors, J-NT decided that the 150th broadcast story was worth a bit of publicity, and so the otherwise unremarkable "Dragonfire" got a minor bit of coverage in the press. Unfortunately, he jumped the gun somewhat when he cheated and counted "The Trial of a Time Lord" as four separate stories. If he'd only waited, the 150th broadcast show would have been "Silver Nemesis", which was ironically touted as the 25th Anniversary show. (It featured Courtney Pine, the Queen (cough), and the plot of "Remembrance of the Daleks").

The 30th and 40th Anniversaries saw the series not actually on the air, but the 30th gave us a repeat season, loads of VHS releases and "Dimensions In Time" (so it was therefore a good thing, despite what many might say). And the 40th had a nice logo...

And the 50th... well, yer modern timey-wimey stuff that at least brought Paul McCann back in from the cold (albeit obliquely) and managed very well thank you without the perpetually disgruntled Eccleston.

So... what's all this got to do with "The Three Doctors"? The question of perspective, that's what.

From the sometimes underwhelming on-screen evidence, it's difficult to remember what a big deal Serial RRR actually was. Look... all three Doctors (almost) together at last! A threat the (then) omnipotent Time Lords were babbing their pants about! Patrick-fucking-Troughton being interviewed on Pebble Mill At One!

I genuinely like "The Three Doctors". But while the concept and script are amazing, it looks as if all the budget was blown on securing Troughton and Hartnell for the party, with nothing left in the pot for what's happening on screen. Lennie Mayne was probably not the best choice of director for the gig, Katy Manning has to perform Jo Grant as a hideous moron, and the Brigadier's character also hits an all-time low. (At one point he has a little huffy fit where he has to go and have a private moment, and let's not forget the "hilarity" of the Cromer stuff).

But... perspective, I keep telling myself. Before "The Five Doctors" raised the bar so much (and "The Two Doctors" tried to deflate the pomp and circumstance), "The Three Doctors" was a special in every sense of the word. (And Troughton is so fucking amazing it almost hurts). 

As I said the first time around... what's a bridge for, eh? 

Publicity Shots From Hell No.128

"Please daddy, tell me again about how you came up with a sketchy idea for a monster for a kids' TV show and made a killing by retaining the copyright?"

 

 

"Please daddy, tell me again about how you came up with the iconic design for a sketchily described monster for a kids' TV show and made bugger all due to being a mere BBC staff member?"

Publicity Shots From Hell No.125

The producers of the legendary stage production "Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure" must have spent all of a few seconds pondering who to cast in the lead role...

Escape To Danger No.54

I've always felt a rather close affinity with Season 21. After the general dreariness of Season 20, it sure felt good to have the programme back and interesting again.

 

Even "Resurrection of the Daleks" looked good at the time, so caught up as we were in the warm afterglow of the 20th anniversary celebrations. Heady days for a fan, indeed.

 

But let's save that particular memory lane (or dead-end) for another time, and turn our attentions instead to more entertaining fare.

 

 

"Frontios" witnessed the return to the series of one Christopher Hamilton Bidmead. Despite having written "Castrovalva", we in the Security Kitchen still hold Bidmead in very high regard. Overseeing Season Eighteen in his capacity as script editor ensures he can do little wrong as far as we're concerned.

 

 

And it is with his previous gig with the series in mind that makes some of his script seem surprisingly ambitious. If Bidmead's Target novelisation of his own script is anything to judge by, the sheer fucking body horror of the Tractator's tunnelling machine would never have made it to the screen in 1984. Likewise, Bidmead's concept of a Tractator translator device made of human body parts would have encountered similar problems even in an early evening midweek timeslot.

 

 

What Bidmead does excel at, whether by accident or design, is help create believeable societies. Season Eighteen had their fair share. Traken and Alzarius in particular came alive under the stewardship of Bidmead. (Argolis may well have been hammered into shape before the new script editor got settled behind his desk, so I'll err on the side of caution before I heap praise on something he may have had little influence over).

 

The colony on Frontios is no exception, and as scripted the desperation and suffering of the settlers comes over very strongly, as does the extremely tenuous grasp of an authority oddly based on blind primogeniture.

 

Maybe those Blake's 7 Federation helmets were more than accidental...

 

 

I'll confess that "Frontios" is a bit of a personal favourite. The concept of Frontios "burying its own dead" is arresting and not a total loss on screen as some commentators have suggested. The TARDIS breaking apart is also memorable and raises the stakes most agreeably. Mark Strickson gets an opportunity to wonderfully overact and cover everyone with spittle, and Peter Gilmore gets to play Captain Onedin again for the last time.

 

And let's not forget some truly impressive matte work that always make me think of Captain Zep - (Super) Space Detective. (And not in a bad way, before I hear snorts of derision from the back).

 

While the brutal murder of Peter Arne at least gave William Lucas a chance to shine in a sensitive portrayal, it is the Tractators themselves that are usually viewed as the real source of tragedy in Serial 6N.

 

 

Hiring professional dancers to operate what turned out to be unduly cumbersome Space Woodlouse costumes may have been a bit of a cock-up, and the Gravis is admittedly a bit too chatty for comfort. Other than that, I don't see what the problem is.

 

But imagine my surprise and delight when I reached university and found myself studying the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein. When I discovered that we would be studying his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, I let out an involuntary snigger.

And when the student sat next to me did the same, we just looked at each other and said "Frontios!".

 

Logical Positivism was never quite the same again...

Publicity Shots From Hell No.121 - Crazy Caption Competition

Yes, it's competition time! No prizes (other than smug self-satisfaction), it's just for fun...

 

 

So, if you can think of what's causing Colin, John, Pip and Jane such merriment (and I can imagine quite a few things), send your ideas in and lend a struggling blog-writer a hand.

 

These things don't write themselves, you know...

Escape To Danger No.53

When Doctor Who Weekly began publication in late 1979, I wasn't allowed to buy it. It had been enough of an uphill struggle to secure regular viewing of the television series itself when Season Seventeen rolled around, after a chance encounter with "Image of the Fendahl" reduced me to a terrified, blubbering wreck a few years before.

 

So I decided to drop the matter, and bide my time. My mother's stated reason for denying the purchase of DWW, incidentally, was that I apparently required "a comic that will make you laugh". And so I was provided with a subscription to The Beano, which I honestly didn't find all that funny, and which probably accounts for me still being extremely wary of anything that claims to generate mirth.

 

Of course, I nowadays find much private amusement in The Beano's mindset during the late 1970's, which seemed much more at ease with the world as it was in the post-war period of the 1940's and 1950's, but that's another story for another day.

 

Doctor Who Weekly morphed into Doctor Who Monthly, and suddenly it was deemed worthy of purchase by my mother. (Probably because it wasn't a comic anymore. Comics are meant to make you laugh, remember?).

 

As I've no doubt mentioned before and at considerable length, No.45 was my first issue, and its contents are to this day seared deep into my mind, continually running under the surface of my daily life until the day I take my last shuddering breath.

 

Yes, it was that good, and here's what was on the cover...

And in a rather Pertwee-heavy issue, there was a "Top Secret UNIT Special Report" (ie. prototype Archive Feature with a rather charming narrative take) on "The Ambassadors of Death", which goes some way to explain why Serial CCC has a particularly special place in my heart.

 

There are other reasons why I'm so fond of "Ambassadors", of course. Caroline John's excellent hat being merely one of them.

 

 

Although solely credited to David Whitaker, the script for Serial CCC ended up being famously hacked around by no less than three other writers (Malcolm Hulke, Terrance Dicks and Trevor Ray) in and attempt to "make it work", and this fact alone seems to have doomed the serial in the eyes of the usual idiots over the years.

 

On the other hand, history has hinted that Whitaker was perhaps given the runaround by a constantly changing production team with no concrete idea of what they actually wanted.

 

 

Rather than viewing the situation as a failure, I'm rather taken with the Whitaker/Hulke mashup. By the way, did you know that the astronaut helmets were originally made for Hammer's exquisite "Moon Zero Two"? You did? Oh, please yourselves...

 

 

Another more famous bit of cost-cutting was the sharing of the Recovery 7 interior set (not the prop, as most people seem to think) with the production team of "Doomwatch". (The "Re-Entry Forbidden" episode from the first season actually exists and was finally released on DVD a few years ago, so you've no excuse not to watch it. Unless you really don't like "Doomwatch", that is).

 

 

I don't know if the cash saved on sets and costumes helped boost the budget for location filming, but Michael Ferguson gets an amazing amount of quality footage for his money. Apart from the oft-mentioned warehouse raid and capsule hijack sequences, there are plenty of other stunning exterior sequences on offer. Weirs, (actual) quarries and what to this day I privately refer to as "Season Seven Industrial"; tanks, pipes, and oil-soaked walkways.

 

 

Oh, and because it's Season Seven, UNIT is still a joyously believable security organisation here, consisting of people who look, dress and behave like proper soldiers, instead of the long-haired layabouts of later seasons who couldn't hit a Yeti while it was sat on a loo in Tooting Bec...

 

 

Ah, and there's the comedy Pertwee car. That's one legacy of Season Seven that I never like to dwell on too much...

 

But Serial CCC shines in the studio as well. Ronald Allen in particular is superb, and Michael Wisher's role as television presenter Wakefield (doing a James Burke and commentating on the technical aspects of the unfolding space programme) adds a verisimilitude that I don't remember the series having up to that point.

 

Even the alleged villain of the piece is noteworthy, being more misguided than evil. (An unusual occurance in the normally black-and-white morality of the series by and large).

 

 

That shot above doesn't work so well in glorious greyscale, and I've never been convinced you actually see that image in the televised story itself. Which is a shame, because it's pretty iconic, and reminds me of the other thing about this series that I am head-over-heels enamoured with...

 

 

RADIATION! RADIATION! AND LOTS OF IT!

 

It was all over the bloody place when I was growing up. (Well, not literally, but you know what I mean). In Marvel comics alone, the spider that bit Peter Parker was contaminated with it, Bruce Banner got a whole explosive dose of it, and let's not forget the origins of Doctor Octopus, the Sandman and, erm... the Radioactive Man.

 

Invisible and lethal, radiation was the bogeyman of the post-war nuclear age. (Yet it never featured much in The Beano. Go figure). So it's always nice to see it appear in Doctor Who again.

 

 

"The Ambassadors of Death" was the last Pertwee story to be novelised in the Target range, the last Pertwee VHS release and nearly the last Pertwee DVD to hit the shelves. The latter two are due to the amount of restoration the story required to recolourise episodes 2 to 7, and while not perfect, the DVD release is probably as good as we are going to get without chucking ridiculous amounts of money at a story many sadly seem not to rate too highly.

 

 

But whatever you may think of the neglected gem of Season Seven, it took Doctor Who Monthly No.45 to teach an exciting new word to an impressionable eight-year-old. (See answer to question 5 below...).

 

Escape To Danger No.52

When I was a child and I used to go to friends' houses to play, there was one item of Doctor Who merchandise that was notable by its bizarre ubiquity. For out of the entire range of Target novelisations that had been published up to that point of my life (approximately sixty, I'm guessing), no less than three non Who-obsessive families had chosen Ian Marter's rendition of "The Ark In Space" as their one and only dip into the Target library.

Why this should be is a joyful mystery to me even to this day. The more iconic Daleks and Cybermen had in these three instances been usurped by the one-shot menace of the insect Wirrn, more than likely helped along by a carefully composed and masterfully elegant cover by Chris Achilleos.

I think it's the Wirrn encircling the thoughtful Baker's neck that really does it for me...

Anyway, whatever the circumstances of the family bookshelves of long, long ago, what does Serial 4C have to offer us today?

Sheer fucking body horror, Robert Holmes style, that's what.

In screen terms, "The Ark In Space" was Philip Hinchcliffe's debut as a Who Producer ("The Sontaran Experiment" used the film allocation originally mooted for an allegedly six-part Ark-based serial and was taped first, but for all purposes Serial 4C marks the true start of Hinchcliffe's tenure). And it is immediately apparent that something new is afoot, and something radically different in both tone and content.

Despite having commissioned it, it's hard to imagine how the Letts/Dicks partnership would have handled "The Ark In Space", especially in the light of their lacklustre performance on Season 11. (Well, it's not that hard to imagine... just think of Mister Pastry and even more bubblewrap, And whilst you're at it, have a go at contemplating how the story would have turned out if John Lucarotti hadn't thrown in the towel on the script...)

As I've probably mentioned many times before, it was more likely Robert Holmes rather than Hinchcliffe that helped change the tone of Doctor Who at this point, and it was "The Ark In Space" that set the ball rolling. Unhappy with the way the scripts were going, Holmes did a total rewrite and added a new dimension to the standard threat of alien invasion - loss of personal identity through possession and/or transformation.

This was a theme with which Who had dallied in the past, but Holmes cranked it up to 11 for the next few years until it became a standard trope of the series. But being a new boy, Hinchcliffe played it careful on his first transmitted story, and the famous scene where Noah begs Vira for death is both a sad loss to the episode and a horrendous edit that makes little sense.

It's also interesting to note that, whether intentional or not, Holmes decided to hit the rewind button and have an opening episode similar to the premier installment of 1963's Serial B (whatever it's called this week). The focus on the regular characters exploring their surroundings more or less uninterrupted gives the Ark a presence and believability similar to the establishment of the Dalek city and petrified forest on Skaro in the aforementioned serial.

And thanks to the cliffhanger ending of a cockroach falling out of a cupboard, ratings rocketed from 9.4 million for Part One to 13.6 million for Part Two, which was no mean feat and a feather in cap for the new production team.

None of which helps me determine how "The Ark In Space" ended up being the sole Target book of choice for three disparate Yorkshire families in the late 1970's...

The final word however should go to director Rodney Bennett, who in interview recalls his struggles with the lighting directors to get the sets lit as brightly as possible.

If this is true, it must make Bennett the only director in the history of Proper Doctor Who that had to beg for the lights to be turned up rather than down...