Happy new year, everyone! I hope Christmas and the New Year
holidays went well for you all, but after all that, it’s back to work and – for
this student, at least – studying. Oh
well, I did say I was going to study more as part of my new year’s resolutions,
didn’t I? I also aimed to start losing weight which, as it turns out, may be
even easier than I thought – mum and dad have bought a rowing machine, and I’ve
been going on it a couple of times a day. I’ve also discovered the delights of
smoothies, particularly strawberry and banana. Sweet as hell, and just as I
like it! So yeah, who knows, maybe in time I will genuinely start to lose some
weight and end up with a healthier body.
In the meantime, amongst all the studying and the exercise,
I have finally begun my favourite era
of the show, production wise. I wonder if that will change at all as I watch
the stories in order, or if my love for this era grows stronger. Who knows? It’ll
be an interesting part of the journey, that’s for sure!
Season 12
Now here’s an interesting point to me in the watch, as it’s
one of the few seasons of the classic series that I have watched completely and
in order before, so no surprises here. Still, I definitely can’t complain, as
this has a couple of stories that are easily in my top 20, maybe even top 10
favourite stories of all time, and this isn’t even the best one of the new
production team, which featured the combined and brilliant talents of Robert
Holmes as script editor, one of the best writers of Doctor Who of all time, and
Philip Hinchcliffe as producer, both of which took Who in a bold and completely
different direction.
Well, after Robot, anyway…
Robot
Watched this the other day, the first story of Tom Baker,
currently the longest running Doctor
to date (without interruption, anyway). Right from his first episode, he comes
across as a rather cheerful, eccentric and totally bonkers new Doctor. Seeing him get up and seem to look at
everything in wonder is a joy to watch.
What’s less of a joy is the plot. With the story of Sarah
Jane befriending a robot and encouraging it to feel emotions, it comes across
as more than a little clichéd, especially when it becomes a GIANT robot. The King Kong influence by
this point is more than a little obvious, especially when the robot is carrying
Sarah in one of its claws. The story’s not terrible, but it’s not the freshest
story that the old production team of Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts had done,
and boy, does it show, right down to the rather weak CSO used to show the GIANT ROBOT. I can see why they decided
that having the new Doctor’s first story made by the departing production team
might smooth the transition, but honestly it comes across as being the weakest
story of the season.
Fortunately, with Tom Baker fully in charge by the end and
the new production team ready to begin, the following story is, as they say,
where the shit gets real…
The Ark in Space
Now this is more
like it! Finally, the Holmes/Hinchcliffe era truly begins, and what a way to
kick off: dark corridors, rich characters, body horror, an interesting dose of
post-apocalyptic scifi, and some well-placed moments of humour, all topped off
with a Doctor who’s just a little more serious, mysterious and alien figure
than the last story showed.
There’s a lot to love about this story. Firstly, the monsters
in the story, the Wirrn. There’s something truly scary and basic about a
monster that can turn you into one of their own, absorbing you and your very
identity into their own race’s. The actual depiction of the body horror is also
great – while it’s not exactly on the same level of physical repulsion of, say,
John Carpenter’s The Thing, even with rather basic stuff green paint and bubble
wrap it scared the crap out of me when I was 8 years old. Just the very basic idea, more than anything else, seriously
freaked me out. It’s a very adult idea of horror given to the family audience,
and considering how much tamer the previous team had been by comparison in
terms of horror, it’s a wonderful way to kick off the new production team’s era
in style.
Something else I’ve gotta praise, and praise highly: Tom
Baker. Now, I’ve watched this story plenty of times, and I always thought he
was great, but watching it in context and acknowledging the fact that this is
only his second story, it’s amazing how easily he’s embodied the role already.
In the previous story, his Doctor was happy and eccentric and just a little bit
insane, but now he’s fully settled into his new body, he’s now just a little
more serious and alien. A fantastic script gives his Doctor such wonderfully
tiny, subtle, alien moments: taking an artificial gravity test with a yoyo; a speech
he gives completely in praise and almost awe of humans; a little smile he gives
when he thinks of something incredibly dangerous. Across the entire series
history he is, along with David Tennant, by far one of the most popular
Doctors, and watching this story, it’s certainly not hard to see why. To say
that I’m glad that there’s 7 seasons of his Doctor to watch in order is putting
it mildly – if the quality of his performance remains half as good as it is
here, he may replace Troughton as my favourite Doctor of the watch so far.
The secondary characters are also wonderfully well written,
especially the character of Vira. A woman of the far future who starts out as
very robotic in her vocabulary and manner. As the story goes on however, her
armour starts to break down – she starts to become more emotional, first in her
manner and even in her vocabulary. It’s a wonderful journey in little over
sixty minutes that not only showcases what made the original serial format so
great, but also why Robert Holmes was a master
of writing characters that genuinely felt real.
I’m going to stop my praise of this story – to be honest, I
feel that if I didn’t stop now, I might never shut up about it. Everything,
from the look, the tone, the performances, even the very structure – which has
a first part that’s shrouded in nothing but mystery and focuses on the regular
characters of the Doctor and his companions only, before developing the story
proper in the next 3 episodes, feeling less drawn out than the usual 4 part
story – are wonderful to watch. Does it help that this story comes after
watching the previous season by comparison, which in my opinion was the weakest
of Pertwee’s run? Of course, after stories like Planet of the Spiders and
Robot, this is nothing but a huge
breath of fresh air, but mostly it’s just a great Doctor Who story in its own
right, part of an era of consistently high quality stories, and one I shall
savour and enjoy for as long as I can…
Classic quotes
"You're improving, Harry!" "Am I really?" "Yes! Your mind is beginning to work! It's entirely due to my influence, of course. You mustn't take any credit."
“Homo
sapiens! What an inventive, invincible species! It's only been a few million
years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless
bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars
and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a
new life. Ready to out sit eternity. They're indomitable... indomitable.”
“It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my
favourite species!”
