#5 (25.1 - 25.4): Remembrance of the Daleks.

The Doctor tries to keep Group Captain
Gilmore (Simon Williams) out of the line of fire.

4 episodes. Approx. 98 minutes. Written by: Ben Aaronovitch. Directed by: Andrew Morgan. Produced by: John Nathan Turner.


THE PLOT

The Doctor returns to where it all began: London, 1963. He has returned to this time and place to retrieve the Hand of Omega, a powerful Gallifreyan artifact that he left behind during his sudden departure.  He is not the only one seeking The Hand. An Imperial Dalek mother ship orbits the Earth, dispatching forces to search for it. Oddly enough, the Doctor does not want to stop them - He wants them to have it.

He hasn't taken everything into account, however. A military unit under the command of Group Captain Gilmore (Simon Williams) is tracks the Daleks' strange readings right into a deadly confrontation - leaving the Doctor to do his best to keep Gilmore's men out of the line of fire. Worse still, there's another group of Daleks: A renegade group, seen as racially impure by the Imperial Daleks. And if the wrong Daleks end up with the Hand of Omega, then the Doctor's plan will have ended in disaster!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: There's little denying that Season 24 portrayed Sylvester McCoy's Doctor as a broad comedy character. The occasional serious moment showed that he had the potential to do more, but such opportunities were severely limited. In this story, his characterization is effectively rebooted. The physical comedy is still there, but it's a secondary element. Instead, we see a Doctor who's a remote figure, concentrating on a big picture while trying to limit the destruction caused by the immediate situation. He has a warm relationship with Ace, but is often cranky when she interrupts him in mid-thought; and, as Professor Jensen (Pamela Salem) observes, everyone has to be reliant on him simply because he won't reveal the full truth. This is the version Doctor we would see for the rest of McCoy's time - on television, and in the decades' worth of novels and audios thereafter.

Ace: My reaction to her debut in Dragonfire was... not positive. I found both the character and Sophie Aldred's performance to be aggravatingly over-the-top. Even more than the Seventh Doctor did, Ace needed a reinvention. Thankfully, she gets one. She retains her enthusiasm for explosives, but it's no longer an idiot's delight in things that go "Boom." Instead, we see her observing the soldiers' artillery and making comments that show that she understands how it works and how it could be further refined. In this way, even her love of explosives is used to demonstrate a quick mind. She remains emotional (all the more important, with the Doctor becoming more remote), but now gets at least as many quiet moments as loud ones. Most important of all, she gets a chance to show real chemistry opposite McCoy's Doctor, an opportunity Dragonfire did not afford.

Daleks: Their final television appearance in the series' original run is a good one. With Davros (Terry Molloy) reduced to a cameo, the mutant pepperpots get to take center stage. The Dalek civil war, which was a major plot point in Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks, is revisited, with each side seeing the other as genetically unacceptable: The Imperial Daleks are "impure," having been modified by Davros; the renegade Daleks are inferior, precisely because they lack those modifications. This is paralleled with white supremacist Ratcliffe (George Sewell), who collaborates with them in hopes of using their power to impose his views on the world - and who, when told that this will result in casualties, gives a shrug of his shoulders as he mildly observes, "War is hell."


THOUGHTS

Remembrance of the Daleks feels less like the start of a new season and more like a complete relaunch. From the very first shot, a well-executed pullback from the Earth that ends with the revelation of a Dalek spaceship, there's a new sense of ambition and confidence. Gone is the cheap, frenetic desperation of Season 24. The series is once again willing and able to pace itself, moving quickly at the dramatic high points but slowing down for moments of reflection. It's almost as if Season 24 was a rushed dress rehearsal, with the true Seventh Doctor era starting here.

Ben Aaronovitch's script is complex, juggling: warring Dalek factions; an ambitious deception on the part of the Doctor; and multiple call-backs to the series' past, including visits to Coal Hill School and Totter's Lane and a military group that's a sort of proto-UNIT, complete with stand-ins for the Brigadier and Liz Shaw in the form of Group Captain Gilmore and scientific adviser Rachel Jensen. These references are just right, celebrating the series' past in a way that will draw smiles from old fans who will catch the references without causing any slow-down or confusion for casual viewers.

The action unfolds at a rapid pace, but that pace does pause for some scenes showing a reflective side to both Doctor and series unseen for far too long. Particularly good is a scene in Episode Two. Just before retrieving the Hand of Omega and putting his plan irrevocably into action, the Doctor stops at a cafe for a cup of tea. When the attendant offers him sugar, the Doctor reflects on the unintended consequences of even minor decisions. "Every great decision creates ripples, like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge, rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences."

Andrew Morgan's visual direction milks the most of the budget. Much as Graeme Harper did in Revelation of the Daleks, Morgan shoots the metal pepperpots from low angles to make them seem powerful. In an early scene in which Group Captain Gilmore calls for reinforcements, the camera tracks through lines of soldiers to disguise how few uniformed extras are actually on-hand. Throughout the serial, he shoots the characters through foreground objects, with further background details behind them, lending a sense of dimension. I won't say there's nothing here that looks cheap: The Daleks wobble a bit in location footage, and long shots betray the meager number of soldiers on-hand as Group Captain Gilmore barks his orders. But it's clear that thougth has gone into making this look as good as possible, and the result is the best-looking Doctor Who story since... well, since Revelation.

For the first three episodes, I was leaning toward awarding full marks. But it does weaken in the final episode. While for most of the serial McCoy is splendid, finally able to be the Doctor in a way his debut season never allowed, he just isn't able to gather the weight and screen presence to pull off his confrontation scene with Davros. This leaves the ending falling just a bit flat, which is one of the main reasons why instead of a "10" this story gets a still very strong...


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Story: Dragonfire
Next Story: The Happiness Patrol


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#1 (24.1 - 24.4): Time and the Rani

4 episodes. Written by: Pip & Jane Baker. Directed by: Andrew Morgan.  Produced by: John Nathan Turner.


THE PLOT

An attack forces the TARDIS into a crash-landing on the planet Lakertya, prompting the Doctor's newest regeneration. The attack was the work of the Rani (Kate O'Mara), whose latest experiment - involving a large group of geniuses and an asteroid composed of Strange Matter - is stalled. She needs the Doctor's help to repair her equipment.

The Rani induces amnesia, using the Doctor to restart her experiments. By the time the Doctor realizes that he has been used, the Rani's equipment is operational again. Now the Doctor and his companion, Mel, must unite with a rebel Lakertyan to stop the Rani - before she destroys not only Lakertya, but a large portion of the galaxy!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: I actually quite like Sylvester McCoy's Doctor, but his debut sees very mixed results. He's a very physical performer, and much of his nonverbal acting is rather good. His oddball presence is such that he instantly "feels right" as the Doctor. He also is quite good in small, quiet moments. When the Doctor pauses to reflect thoughtfully, or simply react to a moment, as when finding a Lakertyan victim of the Rani's experiments, he is effective.

Unfortunately, this serial isn't really well-crafted to show off these strengths. McCoy's first scene, the first impression viewers ever really get of him... sees him rattling off hastily-delivered dialogue and then taking two unconvincing pratfalls. By the time we do get some of the effective quiet moments, he has already played the spoons on Kate O'Mara's breasts and mangled several aphorisms in a running gag that has all the comedy value of being covered with honey over the top of an anthill. I do like McCoy. Nevertheless, on first viewing of this serial, when McCoy says, "Don't worry, I'll grow on you," I couldn't help but holler back at the screen: "Yeah, like a fungus!"

Mel: The most hated female companion in the series' history, and I've never really understood why. Perhaps it's an advantage of being a non-Brit, and thus not having been exposed to Bonnie Langford's previous children's role. In any case, while I can certainly see that Mel is a poorly-written character, even by classic Who's Companion standards, I cannot agree that she is a poorly-acted one. Langford does a perfectly decent job of making Mel both proactive and likable. It's a shame that her characterization too often devolves into walking into traps and screaming, and she gets some of the worst dialogue of a serial that has far too much risible dialogue. But these problems are with the characterization and the script, not with the actress.

The Rani: Her debut story, opposite Colin Baker, saw her as a cold, amoral scientist. She would do harm to people as a side effect of an experiment and not be bothered by it, but she was not interested in subjugating planets or in dominating anyone. She even mocked the Master relentlessly for his ridiculously convoluted schemes.

Well, that characterization has gone out the window.  Her second appearance turns her into a female Master. She has enslaved the Lakyertians, when she could probably just as easily have gone about her experiments in secret.  She has gone so far as to set up sparkly "bubble traps" and unleash "killer insects (that) kill!" She even dresses up as Mel for a fair portion of the first episode, presumably to make sure that any of the character's initial dignity would be gone for good. Kate O'Mara still seems to be having fun, which keeps it from being a complete loss. But a character who was promising on first appearance is completely destroyed in her second.  Also, while O'Mara sparked opposite Colin Baker, she just doesn't have the same presence when playing opposite McCoy.


THOUGHTS

What can be said about Time and the Rani? It's a horrible, tacky story that makes The Twin Dilemma look like something from the pen of Shakespeare. The production is awash in so many gaudy colors, I would not recommend it be viewed by anyone susceptible to nausea. Even the Rani's TARDIS, a wonderful set in her first story, is transformed into a gaudy purple-and-pink pyramid. This is Doctor Who as pantomime (one of the very few times in the series in which that overused criticism is valid), and it's really not a good template for the series.

The whole thing is horribly mispaced, with a rushed and frenetic feel that can make it exhausting to watch for any length of time. It's a horrible introduction for a new Doctor, and I feel very lucky that my first exposure to McCoy was The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. As unfair as I think it is that McCoy's entire tenure is too often judged by his first season, first impressions do stick - and despite several good moments, this story does not make a good first impression for the new Doctor. The mismatched sayings are particularly groanworthy.  By the time the Rani slapped him near the end of Part One, I was ready to cheer her on.

"The Rani never does anything without reason," the Doctor intones at one point. Yet there seems relatively little reason for the Rani to set up a convoluted "killer insect" trap for the Lakertyans. That's more the sort of thing you'd expect the Master to do. Surely her superior technology and the ruthless Tetraps would provide sufficient threat without killer insects that kill?

Also, there's the serial's most famous line: "Leave the girl. It's the man I want." Yes, it's hilarious for all the wrong reasons. But it's also incredibly stupid on the Rani's part. Leave the Doctor's companion unguarded and alive, so that she can sneak into the laboratory later on to free the Doctor? Why? Surely it would be smarter to take both of them, if only to keep Mel out of the way and potentially use her as a hostage. Given that the Rani eventually does capture Mel (after a great deal of effort that would have been saved by simply having the Tetraps take both of them in the first place), I can't help but suspect that this dazzlingly poor plotting has more to do with stretching the plot to four episodes than anything else.

And yet...

Time and the Rani is bad Doctor Who. But it's not unwatchable, or even unentertaining when viewed one episode at a time. Donald Pickering and Wanda Ventham manage to infuse their characters with a surprising amount of dignity, even underneath the Lakertyan make-up and even when garbed in what looks suspiciously like cloth banana peels. Andrew Morgan is a strong director in technical terms. While the sets look gaudy, they don't look bad. Computer generated anything was still very young when this was made, and the opening attack on the TARDIS looks like something out of a (bad) videogame. But the exterior of the Rani's laboratory and the bubble trap effects are quite good. The story's bad, but it's not badly made, and that does help keep things watchable.

There is also quite a bit of energy. There isn't much sense, there isn't much discipline. The story falls on its face more often than Sylvester McCoy does, and the handful of good moments can't overwhelm the sense of mess. But for all of that, there's something fundamentally likable about it. The show may be bad, but it's fresh again - no sense of staleness. Season 24 is the show's lowest ebb in most respects. But I suspect all the flailing around may have been necessary, for the show to find its feet again.


I still can't give it anything other than a very low rating, mind you. I'd say Colin Baker made the right choice in refusing to come back to make this as his farewell story. "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice" may not be the greatest thing to go out on, but it's still a better curtain than this would have been.


Rating: 3/10.

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