Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (75 page)

I love too the way that before dying, Slaar has to learn from his commander that he’s a failure. That his operation has been such a cock-up that he’s destroyed the entire invasion fleet, and sent it into the sun. There’s not much room for expression on an Ice Warrior’s face, but Alan Bennion nevertheless manages to manoeuvre it into appalled embarrassment. In his last scene, this vicious sadist is chewed out by his boss, is made to be just another loser. He becomes a Fewsham. Poor, picked upon, Fewsham. There’s a wonderful poetic justice to that – that Slaar is killed accidentally by one of his lackey’s guns, the clumsy death of a fool, is just the icing on the cake.

T:
Gosh, the whole “Troughton has fought his last monster” thing hadn’t occurred to me. You’re right, he’ll spend his last 16 episodes bereft of any such opponents. Is that some sort of record? (I think it might be.) And it’s also the first time a major con is used to resolve a cliffhanger, with loads of extra footage that places Zoe behind the door the Doctor is desperately trying to get through, even though she resolutely wasn’t seen there last episode. (You could find the same sort of cliffhanger-cheat on a number of those hokey old serials that they sometimes showed on BBC 2 when I was a boy – Daredevils of the Red Circle was one, King of the Rocket Men another.)

But the Ice Warriors seen here would have drawn my attention regardless of their getting the privilege of having a last go at their hated enemy – I love the way one of them nonchalantly tilts his head as the famous ricochet sound effect indicates the uselessness of the guards’ guns. Slaar dies like someone has punctured him, all the air escaping from his body in one big hiss, but he’s been one of the most effective talking monsters we’ve ever had in the series. I can’t think of a better Man In A Suit performance thus far, can you? I even liked his cracked skin and pointy teeth – a crusty and alien chin augmented by sharp and malevolent dentures. And it’s a nice detail that Graham Leaman, as the Grand Marshall, can speak properly because he’s in the Martians’ natural environment; it gives his desperate, final lament an added level of grimness, as one realises that as a result of the Doctor’s tinkering, the whole population of a space fleet is going to die a horrible, inexorable death. (And it just occurred to me: between this and The Macra Terror, Leaman is making a habit of getting bumped off on a monitor.)

Troughton himself is remarkably low-key in the finale... the Doctor seems almost resigned to death, which gives a fairly straightforward confrontation some unexpected depth and gravitas. I like to think that the actor himself is a little preoccupied, getting his head around the implications of leaving this career-defining part. (I know he’s more likely just a bit tired, or bored, or thinking about the shopping, but I can dream can’t I?) But if nothing else, the scene with him under a desk, pulling out a whole tangle of wires and cheerfully accepting that he’s going to have to sort through them, is a wonderful, definitive second Doctor moment.

The Space Pirates episode one

R:
Well, I’m sure it all looked lovely.

I’ve been spoiled. I’ve just got used to the idea that I can actually
watch
Doctor Who from now on, not listen to the thing and try to imagine. And up comes The Space Pirates, the very last story not neat and complete, and with a rather foggier soundtrack to boot. I can’t help but feel a bit irritated by it.

The DVD extras on the Lost in Time package suggest that the model work for this was terrific. And I’m quite sure those shots of astronauts laying detonation charges whilst doing space walks were gorgeous. The problem is... there seems to be rather a lot of them. Just like The Seeds of Death before it, The Space Pirates takes its inspiration from awed fascination with space exploration. The difference between the two is that Seeds used that fascination ironically, presenting us with characters who were disillusioned by the whole process. Whereas it’s rather hard to grasp any characters at all yet in The Space Pirates. A whole slew of conflicting accents do not personalities make. That it takes 15 full minutes before the TARDIS crew show up and start chatting on the soundtrack would be dangerous enough at the best of times – but here, where there’s so little to distinguish the actors between pirates and police, it feels like a particularly bad idea. There’s lots of talk about Beta Dart and Minnow spaceships, so that when we finally hear the traditional wheezing ‘n’ groaning, there’s an almost comedic contrast. And it’s lovely that the first thing the Doctor and his friends get to do is run around corridors dodging laser blasts. But for all the dazzling eye candy no doubt on display, this is painfully repetitious stuff. When at the cliffhanger one of the beacons blows up, this is the
third time
we’d have been expected to watch this in 25 minutes. That the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are in jeopardy this time around isn’t enough. Two times earlier, and this might have felt involving.

T:
I remember looking in the Doctor Who Programme Guide and being shocked that this universally unadored adventure (even Doctor Who – A Celebration, which only had true ire for The Gunfighters, said this moved at a snail’s pace) had such an impressive cast on paper. Jack May from The Archers as General Hermack? Donald Gee from The Doctor Who Monster Book (the only non regular actor to get a thank you in the back due to a picture of him as Eckersley) as Major Ian Warne? Even It Ain’t ‘Alf Hot Mum’s George Layton as the lowly technician Penn? Impressive!
Especially
Jack May, as I was brought up having to endure The Archers (usually in omnibus form on a Sunday) as I helped Mum in the garden or kitchen, or we were on a long car journey somewhere. The only respite to the ooh-arrs and bumpkins droning on about butter and cows was the fruity and charming presence of the roguish Nelson Gabriel, played by May. He was easily the best character in the series, and something of a radio legend. And it was always good to see him occasionally crop up elsewhere, and to hear his reassuringly witty voice in Count Duckula. He even did the eulogy for Patrick Troughton on Radio 4, as a tribute to his recently deceased old mate.

But now, here Jack May is! In all his glory! On Doctor Who!... and, well, he’s rubbish. I genuinely have no idea what he’s trying to do. He seems to attempt an American accent for approximately his first two minutes on screen, then wisely gives up. His delivery is determinedly odd, it truly is. It doesn’t help that most of this episode is spent with him and Major Warne, the two dullest spacemen yet seen in the series. They make Captain Maitland from The Sensorites seem positively wacky.

And the script isn’t doing May any favours – to get the exposition out of the way, Robert Holmes resorts to giving Hermack a turgidly lengthy amount of info-dumping to his crew, and even Hermack admits that they already know much of what he’s telling them. This Robert Holmes chap showed a bit of promise in The Krotons, the shortcomings of which I went out of my way to pin on the production team. But with this story, any culpability has to be laid firmly at Holmes’ doorstep. And
maybe
at Patrick Troughton’s too, if complaining about his workload resulted in this sort of non-event. Gosh, I can’t believe I’m saying this – everything that is wrong with this is down to my two favourite Doctor Who people of all time! It’s like having the worst night of your life with the girl of your dreams...

On the plus side, the sleekness of the models is very pleasing, and Dudley Simpson’s music really catches the mood, effectively using the services of a (space) opera singer. And the space pirate leader, Caven (whom I had thought was “Kay-ven” rather than “Kavvan” until I first heard the soundtrack) is effectively unpleasant, telling his men matter-of-factly to bring the captured Lieutenant Sorba if he can walk – but that if he can’t, to leave him to his inevitable death. Caven is quite a clinical murderer; he’s not an evil sadist, he’s just a brutal, cold, money-grabber.

Hermack tells us that he’s going to find Caven even if it takes the next ten years. Good God! If the story carries on like this, it’s certainly going to feel like that long.

May 1st

The Space Pirates episode two

R:
The space drifter Milo Clancey may be the sort of Wild West parody who says “howdy” and “tarnation” a lot, but hey – he also moans about his solar-powered toaster, and is more concerned with his breakfast than he is all that dull space protocol stuff I had to listen to yesterday. So I think he’s great. Yes, Gordon Gostelow gives a larger than life performance – but by God, it’s what this story needs! And it’s full of little subtleties. The mock amazement at realising that young Warne is a major, the deliberate way that in being
so
impressed by the quality of Hermack’s spaceship he can show how much he despises it. If there’s one fault to Gostelow, it’s that he makes everyone else seem even more strait-laced and tedious in contrast. Even Donald Gee! I like Donald Gee. After Chesterton, I’m automatically sympathetic to any character called Ian. Before Milo turns up, Ian Warne is the likeable one of the story – and he becomes something of a miserable prig.

What’s peculiar is that, with all this barnstorming comedy going on elsewhere, Troughton is offering in contrast an unusually serious performance. You can almost hear in your head how the production team expect Troughton to play the scene where his experiments with magnetism shoot him and his friends deeper into space away from safety – that there’d be a little burst of comic wailing, as he calls himself an idiot. He refuses to do it. He plays all his scenes clean, and with solemn intent. The result is quite brilliant. All these sequences of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe stranded on the beacon feel increasingly like padding, but by playing the crisis so straight – his telling Zoe off for being a pessimist not comic banter at all, but beautifully underplayed – Troughton brings a real tension to an episode that would otherwise have felt flaccid. It’ll never be seen as one of his stand-out moments, lying on the floor with his friends, trying to suck out the last bit of oxygen from a canister, but it’s the Doctor played with a grimness that we haven’t seen for a long while. If only one episode of The Space Pirates had to be in the archives, then I’m glad it’s this one, just so we can see Troughton in his penultimate story still approaching the part from a fresh angle. The pained defeatism he shows as he’s forced to reveal to his friends that they’ve no longer any chance of survival, not even wanting to look at them, his voice drained of energy, is gobsmackingly good.

T:
Call me old fashioned, but I think I’d prefer it if the episode of The Space Pirates that existed had some actual space pirates in it. And that the TARDIS crew did something of note. I mean, c’mon – it takes until the end of this episode for the TARDIS crew to even
meet
another character. For the majority of new Doctor Who, that’s the length of an entire story!

Fortunately, it’s so much easier to pick out the positives when one can actually see what’s going on. You’ve mentioned most of them, as they generally come from Gordon Gostelow, who injects a bit of manic energy into this hitherto straight-laced little jaunt. Clancey not only hates his solar toaster, he bungs the burnt toast on the floor behind him. (You’ve never been to my messy house, have you? If you had, you’d probably know why I feel that Clancey’s a bit of a kindred spirit.) Why, I was even going to call my firstborn Milo (
not
, I hasten to add, because of Doctor Who – I just like the name) until The Tweenies got there first. And Clancey mends his malfunctioning light by banging a panel with a hammer – which is about the extent of my technological know-how.

Meanwhile, it’s clear to everyone apart from the characters themselves that the head of Issigri Mining Corporation, Madeleine Issigri (and her metal hair-hat), is a baddie. She comes equipped with some nifty tall silver wine vessels, and an equally sleek and metallic bottle – though the illusion is hampered somewhat when she pours Hermack a drink but no liquid comes out. (Perhaps she thinks he’s had enough.) Hermack himself, much as I might wish otherwise, continues to succeed in the monumental feat of being both stultifyingly boring and astronomically thick. And my ears
must
be playing tricks on me – this week, I’ve decided that May might be attempting a Russian accent. But at least his really odd enunciation distracts us from the terrible exposition he is forced to do again, this time telling Madeleine stuff she already knows for our benefit.

I don’t know what it is about this story, Rob... this close to the finish line for the Troughton era, am I running out of steam? Or is it because I empathically feel that since the TARDIS regulars haven’t properly bothered to show up for this party, I needn’t either? As you pointed out, last week’s episode (barring Mission to the Unknown, of course) set a record for the longest time lapse between the episode starting and the arrival of the regulars. Well, recap aside (in which all they do is tumble about for two seconds), they look like they’re having another go at it, not turning up for a full seven minutes.

Let me put it this way: there’s talk of a mind probe. It’s a damning indictment of this story that even mention of the infamous Gallifreyan Castellan Embarrasser isn’t enough to distract me from the tedium on display here.

The Space Pirates episode three

R:
I’m in a bit of a quandary. Here I am, halfway through No-one’s Favourite Troughton Story. And unlike you, I’m rather enjoying it. Is it possible to enjoy something for the wrong reasons?

Because I think, left to my own devices, I’d probably concur that this really isn’t very good. The plotting is very slow. The characters are very broadly drawn. And, perhaps most telling of all, three episodes in, and all the Doctor cares about is getting his TARDIS back. He doesn’t give a stuff about these space pirates, so why should I?

And the truth of the matter is, I don’t
care.
The whole thing is rather washing over me. But I like it, strangely enough, for that very reason. This is Doctor Who so off-kilter that I find it strangely beguiling. You’ve got characters like General Hermack, who are so positively stupid that they don’t recognise that Madeleine Issigri is the most suspicious femme fatale since Lauren Bacall told Bogart to whistle. You can use that as a stick to beat this story with – but isn’t his dense detective work part of the fun? It’s not as if the adventure is trying to disguise Madeleine’s guilt – so isn’t Hermack just a comic character (like Duggan, say, from City of Death) played so straight by Jack May that we’re inclined to take him seriously? And then, on the other hand, you’ve got Gordon Gostelow, turning everything into humourous bluster – but all to disguise the fact that Clancey is the most intelligent and independent character of the lot, and that there’s a darker side behind his comedic patina. (In that way, he very much anticipates a lot of Robert Holmes’ most interesting characters still to come.) It seems to me that the actors are playing this all against type – the comic buffoon played straight, the wily maverick played like a fool. It doesn’t necessarily work. But it’s rather a clever intent, isn’t it?

And the scale of the thing! After the way that Hartnell’s Who tried to see the whole universe as its oyster, only a fraction of Troughton’s stories have set foot off Earth. (Even Pertwee, who’s exiled to the bloody planet, pops around different worlds more freely than Troughton does!) And yet, here we are with a story that genuinely takes pleasure in racing around different planets – there’s Lobos, there’s Ta; for the first time since The Daleks’ Master Plan, of all things, there’s a story which wants to use a huge canvas. Okay, we can’t see these places, and they were probably just a bunch of corridors, but it’s as if at its last gasp, Troughton’s tenure has gone from its claustrophobic template into widescreen.

Yet this is as unlike The Daleks’ Master Plan as you can get. Because for all that I’ve just described, this isn’t remotely epic – Clancey delights in being mundane, and even the pirates themselves are coolly down to earth. This is a big adventure, and yet it’s not at all, it’s intimate. This is a space opera, and yet it’s really a self-regarding comedy. This is Doctor Who, but Doctor Who’s barely in it. It’s a mistake, most probably. But there’s nothing else like it. Is it possible to enjoy a story for that reason, the wrong reason, that it’s getting it all back to front? Does that make me a bad person, Toby?