Tag: Third Doctor

Timestamp #53: The Ambassadors of Death

Michael Falkner5 Comments

Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death
(7 episodes, s07e12-e18, 1970)

Timestamp 053 The Ambassadors of Death

 

I spent a good part of this serial trying to figure out if the aliens were the Ice Warriors again.

A recovery capsule attempts to rendezvous with a Mars capsule that has lost contact with Earth and the whole world knows because, a concept completely (and sadly) foreign to us today, the mission is being televised. Over that broadcast, the Doctor (who has somehow removed the TARDIS control console from the blue box and is playing some crazy plot-filler shenanigans with Liz Shaw and micro-trips to the future) hears a sound that he recognizes. He and Liz make haste to the mission control center to figure it out.

Mars: Check. Time Lord familiarity: Check. It could be the Ice Warriors…

The Doctor determines that this sound is an encrypted transmission, and the slightly different version that pings back is a reply message. It’s certainly not a deep conversation; if this were a texting relationship, it would be like “hey” followed by “what up (smiley emoticon)”. There are a couple of investigations around the source of the reply and the freshly landed recovery capsule and gun fights break out. Meanwhile, General Carrington, the head of the Space Security Department, pulls a Homeland Security Department move and extracts the astronauts before UNIT arrives. He has removed the astronauts because of radiation exposure, but the astronauts now feed on it. They also emit it like a virus, which could potentially spread like a plague. The astronauts are not the humans, but rather legitimate aliens, and a criminal named Reegan and a disgraced Cambridge professor named Lennox are tending to them. The aliens don’t have enough radiation to consume and are weakening.

So, not the Ice Warriors, but instead an attempt at domestic terrorism on a large scale by way of a government cover-up, right?

By way of a convenient communications device, the antagonists send the aliens on a raid of the space center. It fails, and the Doctor goes into space to investigate astronauts he believes are still in orbit. He dodges an assassination attempt, docks with the capsule, gets intercepted by an incoming alien saucer, and learns that the aliens on Earth are ambassadors to fulfill a peace treaty with humanity.

Not a domestic terror plot. I didn’t see that twist coming.

In a far too quick resolution for an already thinly stretched plot, it turns out that Carrington met the aliens when he piloted the previous Mars probe, and he signed the peace treaty to lure them to Earth and stop what he interpreted as an invasion. The Doctor takes the ambassadors to space center to stop the general’s plan and exchange the aliens for the missing astronauts. The day is saved. The end.

Can I have the Ice Warriors instead? Please?

No, really. I felt like this story was just all over the place and had no idea where it really wanted to go. Seven episodes is just far too long for that kind of song and dance. There were some fun moments with the Doctor being all scientific again, but there were also some real groaners in here. For one, the strange titles – Main titles, teaser footage, return to the titles for “The Ambassadors… OF DEATH!” with some really bad sound editing – were annoying. For two, the “transmigration” of an object? Ugh. Far too magical despite the Doctor’s magician outfit. For three, the convenience of magic side panels on the escape van. I love my Bond moments, and I get the license plates spinning to conceal the car, but the side panels should have been a more realistic change.

Speaking of Bond, what good is an “anti-thief” device on Bessie if it’s clearly labeled, required to be switched on to immobilize the thieves, and frees the perpetrators after a short time? A thief could just steal the car and not touch the switch. Achievement unlocked: Grand Theft Bessie – +30G.

Finally, the episodes shift in and out of black and white because of more missing master tapes. I don’t hold it against the episode since I survived the first six seasons of the show, but it seems that the BBC certainly has a hard time learning from their mistakes. Especially after what comes across as a significant investment in the show’s future with color, higher production values, and so on.

But, yeah, just like the plot, my attention for this one was touch and go. At the end, I was just happy to see it go.

 

Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Inferno

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

 

Timestamp #52: Doctor Who and the Silurians

Michael Falkner19 Comments

Doctor Who and the Silurians
(7 episodes, s07e05-e011, 1970)

Timestamp 052 Doctor Who and the Silurians

 

Nothing good ever comes from spelunking in genre shows.

This serial focuses on a cyclotron proton accelerator being used to research atomic power for the country. It is having security, personnel, and scientific problems, and who else do you call in for such things than a paramilitary organization, a Ph.D., and a time traveling alien? The facility has been having major power drains, which have been covered up in an attempt to help a race known as the Silurians. These reptilians aren’t really aliens per se, since they were really the planet’s original inhabitants before the rise of humanity. People who have encountered the Silurians are either killed by fear or sent into a catatonic state. Additionally, their very presence seems to have affected the cyclotron’s staff, all of whom suffer from fear-based neuroses. The Silurians retreated into hibernation chambers when they saw a strange planet crashing toward the Earth – that “planet” turned out to be the Moon falling into its orbit – but couldn’t be revived again without a sufficient power source like the cyclotron.

The Doctor eventually encounters the leaders of Silurians and nearly brokers a peace that would allow them to be assimilated into the modern Earth population, but a younger impatient upstart kills the leader and unleashes a bacterial infection on the planet to kill humanity and leave the planet for the Silurians alone. They also plan on eliminating the Van Allen Belt and irradiating the planet. Go big or go home, eh?

The Doctor tricks the Silurians by overloading the reactor and threatening to irradiate the area for at least 25 years. He stops the overload after the Silurians leave, and the younger Silurian is killed in defending the Doctor. The rest are placed in hibernation, and the Doctor wants to study them and negotiate a peaceful resolution. The Brigadier instead destroys all of them, which (rightfully so) disgusts the Doctor.

This Doctor is much harder to judge emotionally based on his reactions. He seems shocked to see the Silurian, but instantly turns congenial. Is he good at playing shocked, or good at rapidly overcoming it? I also liked his new wheels: The canary yellow Edwardian roadster named Bessie, complete with registration of “WHO 1”. He also can’t find his sonic screwdriver, and I couldn’t quite figure out if he was using it to fix Bessie or if it was lost in the fallout from The War Games.

I wondered about the dinosaur that the Silurians kept in the cave network. Was it also kept in hibernation? I assume so, since it wouldn’t have survived so long without a food source, but then why did they pick that particular dinosaur? I’m imagining a family of Silurians running for the hibernation chambers, and one of the kids won’t leave without the family pet Dino.

The Doctor mentions that he’s “beginning to lose confidence for the first time in my life, and that covers several thousand years.” The Doctor’s age is a wildly contentious item in the mythology. Is that travel time given the other estimates of his biological age throughout the franchise, or is he calculating on a different solar period?

The Doctor developing the antidote really emphasizes his scientific knowledge, something lightly touched on in the first two iterations. He really has nothing else to do since he’s grounded and waiting for the plot to come to him.

In minor notes, the music is odd in this one. It’s too whimsical for the dramatic tale, and doesn’t seem to fit with the story at all. The Silurian makeup is pretty cool, but it’s also impressive how far they’ve come to Madame Vastra in the modern years. It’s also the first use of “neutron flow” catch phrase.

The ongoing question will be how the Doctor can trust the Brigadier from this point forward. The Brigadier committed genocide – admittedly, in defense of the planet – which obviously disgusted the Doctor. The Doctor is pretty much locked into indentured servitude until he can unlock the TARDIS, so he can’t not work with UNIT, but can he really trust UNIT and the Brigadier?

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #51: Spearhead from Space

Michael Falkner23 Comments

Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space
(4 episodes, s07e01-e04, 1970)

Timestamp 051 Spearhead from Space

 

It’s Doctor Who, now in color!

There’s a nice new opening to take advantage of that fact, although the projector sheet is pretty obvious. They also spoil the surprise of the Doctor’s new face in the opening credits, which is odd because they tease it for a good portion of the first episode. The budget has also obviously skyrocketed and the pace is a whole lot faster for what is looking more and more like a soft reboot of the series.

It’s really nice to see the Brigadier and UNIT again. He reminds the audience that we’ve met him twice before, and this is obviously his playground. He’s also dismayed because he doesn’t recognize the Doctor’s new face. We also get a new companion with Doctor Elizabeth Shaw. She’s really gruff with everyone except the Doctor, with whom she seems quite enamored. She’s quite an empowered woman, and certainly less of a damsel in distress than previous companions. She also demands respect by not putting up with the Doctor’s subterfuge when the Time Lord tricks her into retrieving the TARDIS key. Of course, he subsequently pulls a Millennium Falcon with the blue box. (No, it wouldn’t help if Liz got out and pushed.)

This story also cleanly brings Doctor Who into the era of the 1970s, which was the modern era for the production. You have civilians like the porter and the poacher acting exactly as they would in the time, which makes the show a fun little time capsule.

This Doctor kicks things off with a lot of heart – two, actually, as we establish that part of the mythos – and comedy. He acts crazy about his shoes as a ruse to get the TARDIS key he secreted away, and then he escapes in a wheelchair after almost being kidnapped, makes a break for the TARDIS, and gets shot. He should be more careful with this new body. I also laughed a lot about the clever sight gag with the doctor’s locker room sign (“Doctors Only”) and his escape from the hospital, during which he steals a rich doctor’s clothes and figures out how to steal a car. He really is a doctor of “pretty much everything.”

The plot isn’t half bad either. Meteorites crash to Earth, but they’re made of blinking and ringing plastic and draw Autons like ants. They’re impervious to gunfire (but the UNIT soldiers just keep slinging lead because that’s what they’re scripted to do) and are replacing key members of local leadership to (what else?) take over the world.

Channing, a character played to apathetic creepy perfection by Hugh Burden, is the avatar of the Nestene Consciousness, a force that has colonized planets like a virus across the universe and has now focused on Earth. The Doctor and crew stop them with a jury-rigged device, and after a brief technical difficulty and a battle with tentacles, the Doctor fries the Consciousness. Anyone for calamari?

The Doctor agrees to stay on with UNIT in exchange for facilities, technology to repair the TARDIS, Liz’s help with all of it, and a car. He also starts going by the pseudonym John Smith.

This serial hit the ground running, introduced a new Doctor, and made me like him right away. According to the rules of the Timestamps Project, regeneration episodes get an automatic +1 handicap, but this story certainly doesn’t need it.

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who and the Silurians

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.