The Savages

Another four-part reconstruction. ‘The Savages’ is the first Doctor Who serial to not have individually named episodes (instead calling them Part 1, Part 2, etc.).

It’s a shame the footage was lost as it’s one of the better stories. Again, a classic sci-fi trope, an advanced civilization that has come about by exploiting supposedly “lower” life forms. The savages outside in the wastelands, and the more “evolved” scholars and leaders in their vast and impressive city. They drain their life force to feed their intellect, but it turns out that the savages are no less evolved and have merely been exploited all these years, much to the ignorance of the general population.

The savages. Grrr, so savage!

The Doctor gets a bit of heavy discussion with the the city’s ruler, who raises the interesting point that all advances in society must be built on exploitation one way or another. I would have liked to have seen his idea expanded on, but ultimately the story comes to end through the Doctor’s apparently strong moral compass being passed into the leader through an energy transference, and changing his mind about the whole thing.

The Doctor and the leader Jano talk about their perfect society for a while.

The equipment gets trashed and Steven stays behind to unite the two people as one. Given Steven’s origins (settling a new world), I suppose this is a fitting end to his story, leaving the Doctor and Dodo to travel onwards. I had grown to like Steven’s character, so I hope there is a worthy replacement soon!

As an aside, Dodo’s accent has become posher and posher. I’m chalking that up to the effect of the Tardis – it makes every living thing in the Universe a posh British person.

The Doctor gets some of his life force extracted. He’s fine, though.

As Steven departs, I will summarise and comment on his role.
A plucky young spaceman, Steven took over the role occupied by Ian. I must say, I grew to like the character. He handled most of the roles pretty well. He’s just not as entertaining, sarcastic or curious as Ian was. He doesn’t have the same rapport with the Doctor. He’s fun to watch, though. I was sorry to see him leave.
He ends up on an alien planet, helping its wealthy city-dwellers and underclass population function together as equals. Considering Steven was originally en-route to colonise some other planet, he was up the job and it seems like a suitable enough end. He had no ties or place to be, so he didn’t mind staying behind.

The Gunfighters

This is basically Doctor Who Does A Western. They only stop off so that the Doctor can get a tooth extracted at the dentist, but a case of mistaken identity sees them all in trouble before long.

While on holiday, the Doc visits another doc, the dentist, Doc Holliday.

For the most part, Steven and Dodo enjoy their time in the wild west, occasionally pretending to be American, which is sadly how most of the period characters sound too. Some very dodgy accents going on here.

Steven is forced to sing. The horror!

It wasn’t terrible, but by the end of the fourth episode I was getting pretty bored with it, even with the shootout at the OK Corral. There’s a sort of musical vibe throughout, with an ongoing song about their antics, but it’s overused and really starts getting annoying.

The Celestial Toymaker

I struggled through this, it’s pretty excruciating. The theme and style reminded me of old Star Trek episodes where they face god-like beings with childish minds (‘The Squire of Gothos’, ‘Plato’s Stepchildren’, etc.). I never cared for those either, and this has the curse of being more than twice as long.

“You WILL entertain me!”

For a large part of the story, the Doctor is kept separated from the others, not allowed to talk to them, or talk at all! The Toymaker even goes so far as to make the Doctor invisible/incorporeal, aside from one of his hands, so all he can do is continue to solve a brick-stacking puzzle set for him. Perhaps William Hartnell couldn’t make it into work that day.

While the Doctor gets distracted, Steven and Dodo have to play potentially deadly games against toys brought to life as real characters, and encounter fake Tardises on their quest to reach the real one. Each episode ends with a riddle for the next puzzle, so the kids watching at home can play along or something.

The Doctor, Steven and Dodo have a discussion, most likely about Steven’s awful jumper.

Learning is fun. This was not.

The Ark

I really enjoyed this one. Excellent premise with it being 10 million years in the future and the last humans are leaving Earth for a new planet. The Doc and co arrive and accidentally infect them with the common cold, which is deadly to them! It’s perfect sci-fi, really, with a great twist in the story half-way through, and not one episode felt wasted or dragged out.

The Doctor tries to cure the disease that they brought with them.

The Monoid aliens are creepy (a single eye inside their ‘mouth’ under a mop of hair), and is it my imagination or did the BBC throw a shedload of money at this one, because the two main sets are pretty huge and extravagant too. The control room set is brilliant and full of little details and built-in TV screens and things.

The large control room of the Ark.

The only bad thing I can say about it is that the new companion ‘Dodo’ has a terribly annoying voice, but I think that’s the point of her, since even the Doctor says he wants to teach her proper English.

Dodo and a ‘Monoid’. I don’t know which is creepier.

That aside, I think this is my favourite Classic Who serial so far, and without even a mention of Daleks!

The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve

A four part story (all reconstructed) set in 16th century France just prior to the events of the massacre of thousands of protestants. It was frightfully dull, in all honesty, and the whole story just felt like it was leading up to the riots at the end.

The Doctor and Steven visit the pub.

Really, for three and a half episodes, it was just loads of British people pretending to be French, walking into rooms and talking and plotting with each other.* And most of them had the same beard, so it was hard to follow who was who.

“Oh, I… erm… I think I’d better leave.”
“Yes, I think you better had.”

But, speaking of “who was who”, it did have an intriguing sub-plot where the Doctor disappears and we’re led to believe he’s impersonating the Abbot of Amboise, who then gets killed. It actually turns out this was a bluff and he was simply someone else who looked like the Doctor for no apparent reason.

The Queen mum.

Really, the best part of this serial was right at the end of the last episode, having escaped France and returned to (1960s) present day, Steven temporarily leaves the Tardis and the Doctor reminisces about his prior companions and – for a moment or two – contemplates going home to his planet. But then a woman looking for a police box stumbles into the Tardis by mistake, Steven comes back, and all three vanish off on their next adventure.

*Basically this.

The Daleks’ Master Plan

Only four of the episodes exist in completed form, but due to the good audio quality and the large amount of visual material available, the reconstructions are the best I’ve seen so far. They even made some CGI Dalek sequences.

As for the plot, it is a long-winded one, entirely hinging on the Doctor stealing a core component of the Daleks’ new time-destructor weapon, thus halting their invasion of the universe and causing them to chase him through time and space for a bit.

The Doctor steals the Daleks’ crucial and irreplaceable McGuffin.

There is a low-point in the middle, a dreadful Christmas special shoved into the story, which is the worst episode of Who I’ve ever seen, taking its cues from those awful parts of The Chase but somehow even worse, and ending with the Doctor turning to the camera and wishing us all at home a merry christmas. I guess it was supposed to be charming and whimsical, but in the context of an epic disaster serial, it really didn’t work.

“And a merry Christmas to you at home as well!” ‘The Feast of Steven’ sets the trend for awful Christmas specials.

The time-meddling monk from a few episodes prior makes an unexpected return near the end, perhaps to pad out the story some more, but this is handled rather well, and I suspect he will return again in later stories for his revenge (I hope so, anyway).

Also, the galactic council, previously seen in the one-off Doctorless episode Mission to the Unknown, returns, headed up by the ruler of the solar system (turned power-hungry traitor) Mavic Chen, who provides backchat for the Daleks and is generally enjoyable to watch in all his scenes. Obviously, he’s betrayed by the Daleks in the end.

Mavic Chen and the Daleks. An alliance that cannot last.

Again, the scale of the plot is laughably unbelievable. The rulers of the other galaxies are planning to invade the solar system (sol). That’s like the leaders of Asia deciding to invade the inside of my shoe.

Still, despite its length (and awful sagging in the middle), this was an enjoyable serial, with the Daleks at their most ruthless and evil. Plenty of deaths, too. I was hoping Space Police Officer Sara Kingdom would survive for more adventures, but she died rather spectacularly to the ravages of accelerated time. Interestingly, the Doctor did not, suggesting for the first time ever that he may age considerably more slowly than everyone else.

Space Police Officer Sarah Kingdom doesn’t live for long. Shame.

As Katerina departs, I will summarise and comment on her (brief!) role.
A temporary companion, she believes the Doctor is the god Zeus. She helps him out of duty, but also fascination at the Doctor’s miraculous ‘temple’. She’s not in it for more than one story, and she doesn’t have much of a character to speak of. It could have been interesting to have an ancient human as a regular, but it never went anywhere this time. She ends up dead, unfortunately. Although her sacrifice was not in vain – she intentionally jettisons herself and her assailant from an airlock of a spaceship, to stop him from taking over. The Doctor had the Daleks’ secret weapon component in his possession, and needed to get away quickly. She basically saved them all, in her service to her ‘god’. Since she thought she was in the afterlife anyway, I suppose it didn’t matter too much to her!

The Mythmakers

The Doctor and co take part in the siege of Troy! Obviously this means they get captured and/or split up again and the Doctor has to help the Greeks build their giant wooden horse, etcetera, etcetera.

Fight!

Amongst the predictable plot, there were some enjoyable characters, although I was disappointed that Achilles didn’t get shot through the heel. Vicki and Steven take on the names of Cressida and Diomedes, and play their roles in the legend. She falls in love with Hector’s brother Troilus and ultimately stays behind with him.

“Is there a doctor in the horse?!”

Steven gets wounded at the end as the Doctor gets them out of there in the Tardis. One of Cassandra’s hand maidens, Katerina, joins the Doctor and Steven in the Tardis, and into the next episode(s). Will she be a permanent replacement for Vicki? That could be interesting. She still seems to think the Doctor is a god and the Tardis is his temple. Since Troy was being destroyed, chances are she would have died with the city had she not come with the Doctor and Steven.

All four episodes were reconstructed from audio and photos, with the odd video clip and text description. They were watchable but it’s quite action-heavy so it suffers from not being able to see what’s going on more than some of the other reconstructions.

Vicki stays behind.

As Vicki departs, I will summarise and comment on her role.
A young and inexperienced crew member of a crashed Earth spaceship on a remote planet. She joins the Doctor, Ian and Barbara almost immediately after Susan leaves. She is basically Susan’s replacement, a very similar character, taken under the Doctor’s wing. She has a cheeky sense of humour and an adventurous spirit, but she doesn’t spend as much time screaming or being captured, so this makes her automatically better. As a character from the future, she often has insights into things that Ian and Barbara do not. She’s not around for very long. Like Susan before her, Vicki falls in love and decides to remain behind to rebuild a civilisation. Like Susan, she is safe and happy to stay behind.

Galaxy 4

Much of this is reconstructed from fragments and pictures, but I am determined to watch every single episode regardless of its condition!

A bit of a shame, as the state of the surviving audio is very poor throughout. So much so that I missed some bits of dialogue that were too muffled. Fair play to the reconstruction team for what they’ve managed, but some subtitles wouldn’t have gone amiss!

Captured by Chumbleys!

Anyway, I got the gist of it. A doomed planet and two different groups trying to leave in their crashed ships: the Amazonian-like Drahvins and the grotesque Rills and their creepy robot drones. It turns out the humanoid women are the bad guys and the rubber suit things are the good guys, thereby teaching kids a valuable lesson in something or other.

The Drahvins.

The Rills.

Altogether too much footage of the little robot ‘chumbleys’ driving around making the same irritating noises over and over.

The Time Meddler

New guy Steven snuck aboard the Tardis at the end of The Chase, so he’s now the second companion. He’s amusing, but he’s no Ian. He just doesn’t have that “Science Teacher With An Adventurous Spirit” thing going on. It’ll never be the same again. (Sad face.)

New bloke Steven is not impressed by the Doctor’s helmet.

Still, that now means the Doctor isn’t travelling with any present day (well, 60s present day) companions anymore – both Steven and Vicki are from the future.

The Meddling Monk tries to tamper with the Tardis.

Anyway, I enjoyed The Time Meddler. I did not expect it to be another Time Lord with his own Tardis, even though he’s never referred to us such. In fact, much of the Doctor’s back story (regarding his species and planet) is a mystery at this point.

The Monk’s own Tardis undergoes an unfortunate transformation, leaving him stranded.

It was fun to see the other Tardis disguised as something else, referencing the Doctor’s “inferior” version, etc. The character of the meddler was enjoyable to watch, and the “what if” scenario of a time traveller breaking the rules was enjoyable. The 1066 setting allowed for a bit of history, and as the story didn’t rely on special effects or complex props, it has aged relatively well compared to something set on an alien world.

The Chase

It starts off fine, if a little silly. Time-travelling Daleks, giant octopodes, and Ian dancing around the Tardis to the Beatles – what’s not to love?

The Doctor’s new time scanner picks up the Daleks. And the Beatles on Top of the Pops.

Moving onto parts 3 and 4, we get an episode set on the Empire State Building in New York (complete with bad accents) and then on the Marie Celeste… fine, silly but fun.

Daleks board the Marie Celeste as they chase the Tardis through time and space.

But then there’s haunted house. Oh dear god WHAT?! This story definitely takes a turn for the weird. It was a theme park attraction? So, they were actors? But they were invulnerable to Dalek laser? What? WHAT?!!

Poor production, too. Cameraman shadows all over the set, audio cutting in too early.

And then robo-Doctor at the end, for some baffling reason played by a different actor even though he’s the only one in shot (and they’re saying he’s indistinguishable from the original). Wow.

A frankly bizarre turn of events in a haunted house. A low point for the series so far.

But anyway, aside from the ridiculous haunted house episode, I thought ‘The Chase’ was pretty good, particularly the final part where the Daleks and the robo-spheres have a massive shootout and their whole city explodes. And then Ian and Barbara leave and go back to London. Sad times.

On the final planet of the Tardis’ escape (they land on a planet originally set for human colonisation), one of the robo-spheres’ captives is Steven, whose survey ship was damaged and couldn’t leave, and he’d been held captive by the robotic inhabitants for many years waiting to be rescued. When the robot city is destroyed, Steven escapes, lagging behind the Doctor, and sneaks aboard his Tardis shortly before it departs.

The planet Mechanus, where Steven is held captive. This place goes BOOM!

As Ian and Barbara depart, I will summarise and comment on their role.
I can’t talk about one without the other; they arrive together, they leave together. Both Susan’s teachers at school, Ian is probably the best character so far; he handles the serious and the silly perfectly. His natural curiosity as a teacher of science lends itself well to the stories, and he manages to tackle the physical roles too. Barbara is similar, and she plays off of Ian and Susan very well, but she doesn’t get many good roles or chances to shine. She is briefly an Aztec goddess, which is about the most she gets to work with. She’s the sympathetic voice, kind and caring, but can handle herself well too.

They end up back in 1960s London, luckily! At the end of The Chase, they convince (eventually) the Doctor to rig up the Daleks’ time machine to send them back home. It’s the only chance they’ve had, since the Tardis could not be so accurately controlled. They arrive back in present day, the time machine self destructs, and they presumably get back to their normal lives… although not before a delightfully silly montage of snapshots of them both touring around the sights of London.