Sunday 14th December 2014
The year is slowly reaching it's end and the same goes for our viewing of Hartnell! Once again we all met around Jason's (except Shaun who had better stuff to do!) to complete two stories. For a nice change we only had 1 re-con to watch as the other 5 episodes exist!So firstly we had to complete our viewing of The Celestial Toymaker and last time we had the invisible and mute Doctor (Hartnell was on holiday again!) playing his trilogic game against The Celestial Toymaker - at the same time Dodo and Steven had just escaped from some living dolls!
Photo 1: Jason (holding The Celestial Toymaker DVD cover), Mark, Jim (with the sign) and Leigh (with the Lost In Time DVD cover) around Jason's house.
So we started with the re-con of the third part ("The Dancing Floor") and Steven and Dodo find themselves in an old fashioned kitchen. Here cook Mrs. Wiggs (Edith from "'Allo 'Allo" - or the female clown/Queen playing card from the previous games) and soldier Sergeant Rugg (the King Playing card from the previous game) are bickering - whilst another character (a Kitchen Boy who looks very like the Knave of Hearts) is asleep. Our travellers find they have to get through a locked door and so have to play "Hunt The Thimble" (or "Key" in this case!). Steven is getting annoyed with these games and meeting lots of silly characters who seem to keep slowing them down! Dodo however appeals to the Sergeant to help her find the key - especially as she's a lady he is a gentleman! Anyhow after lots of plate smashing (which infuriates Mrs. Wiggs), bickering and the like they find the key in a pie! Escaping the kitchen they see another TARDIS - but blocking the way are lots of dolls. Steven bravely tries to dash at them but gets forced into a dance! He's not alone as Dodo, Sergeant Rugg AND Mrs. Wiggs also try to get past but end up dancing with dolls! Eventually Steven ends up dancing with Dodo - which seems to break the spell and they end up getting to ANOTHER fake TARDIS.
Watching all this the still invisible Doctor laughs - angering The Celestial Toymaker who sends out another character that he thinks will do the job better - a tubby Billy-Bunteresque schoolboy called Cyril (basically a tubby actor who was in his 40's at the time!), recognisable as the Knave of Hearts AND the kitchen boy. After electrocuting Steven with a buzzer in his hand he sinisterly directs them to the next game, which will be played against him!
Photo 2: Mark, Jason (holding The Celestial Toymaker DVD cover), MJ (with the sign)
and Leigh around Jason's house.
and Leigh around Jason's house.
So we finally got to the final part (not a re-con) "The Final test" and the game will be "TARDIS hopscotch". Each player rolls a die at his
turn, moves the number of triangles indicated and the first to reach the
TARDIS is the winner!
Simple enough - any tricks? Oh, yes, the ground in between is electrocuted! Anyhow they have to play the game with Cyril trying out a few mishievious deeds (catapulting the back of Steven's neck, adding slippery powder to one of the later blocks and pretending he's hurt his leg with fake blood). The latter trick makes Dodo leave her stand to see if he's alright (thus breaking the rules by moving off her square and having to go back to the start)! Cyril then only needs 5 to get home and, would you know it, rolls a 5! Yaroo! He rushes home....only to slip on his forgotten slippery powder, falling to the floor and electrocuting himself! He ends up as a doll - like the other charcters did. This leaves Steven and Dodo as the winners and they make their way up to the ACTUAL TARDIS (with Dodo nearly slipping on the powder herself!).
In the meantime the Doctor is now again fully visible and only has one move to make - he has won his game and goes to meet the other at The TARDIS!
Problem is the Doctor hasn't won yet - he has to make the last move, but if he does that then the Toymaker loses and thusly The Toymaker's world will be destoyed - along with the TARIDS and it's crew. They also can't leave the land until the last move. For some reason the Doctor tries out an idea where he imitates the Toymaker's voice to make the last move - whilst Steven simultaneously throws the TARDIS switch and they de-materialise as the Toymaker's world is destroyed. This is where I found it a little confusing until I chatted it through with Jason again and of course it's obvious! The Toymaker all THROUGH the game had been advancing the game onwards to speed things up, saying things like "Go for move 930!" etc. The Doctor, by imitating this voice, forced the game to end and the world to destroy itself - whilst Steven got them the hell outta there!
Phew! Well that was the end of that. So, the whole story? Well, it was silly, odd, not something you'd want every week (or again!) but I did enjoy it as something different. The sets and characters were inventive and there seemed quite a lot of fun to it!
Simple enough - any tricks? Oh, yes, the ground in between is electrocuted! Anyhow they have to play the game with Cyril trying out a few mishievious deeds (catapulting the back of Steven's neck, adding slippery powder to one of the later blocks and pretending he's hurt his leg with fake blood). The latter trick makes Dodo leave her stand to see if he's alright (thus breaking the rules by moving off her square and having to go back to the start)! Cyril then only needs 5 to get home and, would you know it, rolls a 5! Yaroo! He rushes home....only to slip on his forgotten slippery powder, falling to the floor and electrocuting himself! He ends up as a doll - like the other charcters did. This leaves Steven and Dodo as the winners and they make their way up to the ACTUAL TARDIS (with Dodo nearly slipping on the powder herself!).
In the meantime the Doctor is now again fully visible and only has one move to make - he has won his game and goes to meet the other at The TARDIS!
Problem is the Doctor hasn't won yet - he has to make the last move, but if he does that then the Toymaker loses and thusly The Toymaker's world will be destoyed - along with the TARIDS and it's crew. They also can't leave the land until the last move. For some reason the Doctor tries out an idea where he imitates the Toymaker's voice to make the last move - whilst Steven simultaneously throws the TARDIS switch and they de-materialise as the Toymaker's world is destroyed. This is where I found it a little confusing until I chatted it through with Jason again and of course it's obvious! The Toymaker all THROUGH the game had been advancing the game onwards to speed things up, saying things like "Go for move 930!" etc. The Doctor, by imitating this voice, forced the game to end and the world to destroy itself - whilst Steven got them the hell outta there!
Phew! Well that was the end of that. So, the whole story? Well, it was silly, odd, not something you'd want every week (or again!) but I did enjoy it as something different. The sets and characters were inventive and there seemed quite a lot of fun to it!
But what did Jason think!?
Jason: "I don't really know how I feel about this one. I like that we got a new adversary with lots of promise, apparently infinite abilities and resources. The Toymaker had a god-like presence that reminded me of Q from Star Trek. I accepted early on that it was going to play out like a game-show with our heroes having to compete through various levels. I was pleased that the Toymaker didn't just stick to his word letting them go at the end and instead it required some trickery from the Doctor, but … meh.
Jason: "I don't really know how I feel about this one. I like that we got a new adversary with lots of promise, apparently infinite abilities and resources. The Toymaker had a god-like presence that reminded me of Q from Star Trek. I accepted early on that it was going to play out like a game-show with our heroes having to compete through various levels. I was pleased that the Toymaker didn't just stick to his word letting them go at the end and instead it required some trickery from the Doctor, but … meh.
It just didn't completely work for me. Maybe it suffered by being a
reconstruction. It seems a very visual story. So much happened yet none
of it really grabbed me. I wanted it to feel more threatening and
other-worldly. On reflection maybe a potentially very good story and
villain suffered because it had to be written around a Hartnell holiday.
[Having already seen the 2nd-Doctor story 'The Mind Robber' I saw a lot of parallels and couldn't help but compare them. I may have appreciated 'The Celestial Toymaker' more if I had seen them in the order they were originally broadcast.]
I didn't hate it, but I also didn't love it.
4/10."
Fair enough! Anyhow after a break we moved onto the last Hartnell story that I had never seen - "The Gunfighters". All I knew of this tale was it's reputation of being bad, with dodgy accents and an annoying song! Well I have to admit I was happily surprised to see that it was better than it's reputation suggests!
The previous story had ended with the Doctor eating one of Cyril's sweets and hurting his tooth - meaning he needed to go to a dentist. And where better to see a Dentist than the wild west!! In fact (apart from that brief trip to the top of the Empire State Building in "The Chase") it was our first trip to America!
[Having already seen the 2nd-Doctor story 'The Mind Robber' I saw a lot of parallels and couldn't help but compare them. I may have appreciated 'The Celestial Toymaker' more if I had seen them in the order they were originally broadcast.]
I didn't hate it, but I also didn't love it.
4/10."
Fair enough! Anyhow after a break we moved onto the last Hartnell story that I had never seen - "The Gunfighters". All I knew of this tale was it's reputation of being bad, with dodgy accents and an annoying song! Well I have to admit I was happily surprised to see that it was better than it's reputation suggests!
The previous story had ended with the Doctor eating one of Cyril's sweets and hurting his tooth - meaning he needed to go to a dentist. And where better to see a Dentist than the wild west!! In fact (apart from that brief trip to the top of the Empire State Building in "The Chase") it was our first trip to America!
Photo 3: Mark (his eyes are open!!), Jim (holding The Gunfighter DVD cover),
Jason (with the sign) and Leigh around Jason's house.
The story is also the last story of the classic series to have individual episode titles. From now on they would be called "Story Title - Episode 1/2/3/4 etc...".
So we kicked off with "A Holiday For The Doctor" and our travellers arive in the Wild Western town of Tombstone and the Doctor is grumpy about his toothache! He's not sure whether he should get his tooth fixed here (and I agreed! Why not go to a future age and get it done by someone more professional AND with anaesthetic!!??) but Steven and Dodo are excited to be in the Wild West and convince him that it's fine and get changed into fancy dress cowboy gear. "Yes Doctor, you go ahead and have torturous dental surgery whilst we get dressed up in fun Western gear!"
Anyhow the Doctor gets his tooth sorted by Doc Holliday himself! Whilst this happens Steven and Dodo end up having to sing and play piano to satisfy a bunch of outlaws who are out for blood. They also meet Wyatt Earp and many other well known people of the time.
Photo 4: Mark, Jim (holding The Gunfighter DVD cover), MJ (with the sign)
and Leigh around Jason's house.
I won't bang on about the whole plot (read elsewhere if you want to know!) but I must say, whilst some of the American accents sounded dodgy, I was quite a fan of the old timer playing Doc Holliday! I thought he came across as fun and menacing at the same time. It wasn't all jolly - as the very dark character of Johnny Ringo proved. Just on a whim he decided to shoot the poor bar man, Charlie, who seemed a simple fellow and I don't think deserved to die like that! Elsewhere I thought Steven and Dodo came across well in this tale and had lots of fun stuff to do. The Doctor too seemed on top mischievous form and the whole thing ends in a gun-fighting blood-bath (with no blood of course!).
I think I need to re-watch it again to see how I feel about it properly, but I don't think it is AS bad as it's reputation suggests. Yes it drags a little in places - and there is a bizarre song (sang by the unseen Lynda Baron - Nurse Gladys Emmanuel from the sitcom "Open All Hours"!) that weaves in and out of the story which seems to narrate what's going on. This was a fair bit distracting and started to annoy a little. I'm sure if you were to watch one episode a week (as it was intended) then it might be fine but, well, yes...
Photo 5: Mark (his eyes are open!!) and Jim (holding The Gunfighter DVD cover)
around Jason's house.
around Jason's house.
But enough of that! What did Jason think!?
"'The Gunfighters'
Overall I enjoyed the Gunfighters. I like westerns anyway, so that probably helped. One of the things I enjoy about Doctor Who is its ability to change up the atmosphere and even the genre of the show each week. Though not entirely successful, I like that they attempted some western tropes such as more dramatic camera angles and tied it all together with the accompanying ballad. In particular it reminded me of 'High Noon'.
There were lots of deaths and drinking. I loved Hartnell's Doctor here. His reluctance to use a gun was illustrated with great comic timing and yet again he is mistaken for a local figure. Steven and Dodo had several great interactions as well as time to shine individually.
Dodo seems to have had some difficulty regaining her regular 'northern' accent after using her cowgirl voice. She now has much more plummy southern tones. This may be down to an issue with the Tardis' translation unit as it also regularly affected the rest of the townsfolk.
I found the Gunfighters to be a fun little adventure with both comedic and dramatic moments and included pretty good gunfight at the end.
The moral: Don't accept sweets from Billy Bunter as it may get you shot.
7.5 /10"
So there we are - anyhow next time our story will be set in "the far future in an age of prosperity." (or so the Doctor states at the end of this episode) and leaves us with the image of a savage man running down a hill...
Until the next time I shall return, yes, I shall return....
MJ 15-12-14
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