Tuesday 23rd December 2014
Wow! So near to the end I can smell bad-times a-coming for Hartnell....! Anyhow we all decided (as a pre-Christmas treat!) to meet up at Mark's and watch six more Hartnell tales!
This time we had a four part re-con and the first two parts of an existing tale to watch! Exciting times indeed! Sadly we lost two members of our crew (Jim and Leigh) but we did gain a Gavin! So with this in mind we put on the four-parter "The Savages". In this tale the Doctor, Steven and Dodo land up in the far distant future. After leaving the TARDIS they meet the elegant Elders who seem to know who the Doctor is. It seems they have been admiring his travels from afar and predicted that he would soon be arriving there.
Photo 1: Gavin, Jason (holding the sign),
Shaun and Mark (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house.
Shaun and Mark (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house.
Well the Doctor is greeted as an old friend and they are all made very welcome and all seems lovely....but of course it isn't and it's up to Dodo to find out what's really going on. What we discover is that the Elders are getting all there re-newed energy by kidnapping the Savages, zapping them of their life force in a transfer device, then dumping them out in the scrub lands to recover! With their secret out the Elders guards chase Dodo and Steven out into the scrub-lands where they meet-up with the Savages and find them to be a friendly but sorry lot!
The Doctor isn't so lucky! After confronting the Elders and telling them off about their wicked ways the leader of the Elders, Jano, tells the Doctor that what they are doing is in the name of progress! And who cares about the Savages outside, eh? This surely is for the greater good!! The Doctor of course takes umbrage with this and Jano decides the best thing to do is to drain] the Doctor of his life-force and takes it for himself! Which he does!
Photo 2: Gavin, MJ (holding the DVD cover - honest!),
Shaun (with the sign) and Mark around Mark's house.
Shaun (with the sign) and Mark around Mark's house.
Meanwhile in Gotham City - ahem I mean meanwhile outside Steven and Dodo having chatted to the sorry old Savages, who have given up on life it seems - why fight when the Elders have Light Guns (oh yeah - sorry the light guns capture their prey in a beam of light and keep them frozen! Shame we only have re-cons as I'd like to see how they did this!).
Photo 3: Gavin, MJ (holding the DVD cover),
Shaun (with the sign) and Mark around Mark's house.
Anyhow Steven manages to attack one of the pursuing guards nick his light gun and get back to the city where they find a very weak Doctor! The third episode ends with them with the weak Doctor, trapped in a corridor filling with gas. The one silver-lining seems to be that Jano, after his transfer with the Doctor is now developing some of his personality and is getting a conscience about what bad stuff they've done. In fact the actor does a very fun thing - mixing his performance with a vague impression of Hartnell's Doctor. It's quite fun and quite subtle in many ways.
Photo 4: Gavin, Jason (with the sign),
Shaun and Mark (holding the DVD cover) around Mark's house.
Shaun and Mark (holding the DVD cover) around Mark's house.
Anyhow the last episode finishes with Jano encouraging Dodo and the others smashing up the transfer equipment and the Savages, with Steven's help, overthrowing the Elders and meaning everyone can live in harmony. Thing is they need a strong leader! Jano wants the Doctor (who refuses) but the Savages leader Chal wants only one man - Steven! So we finally say a farewell (which thanks to a fan we can see on some flickering cine-camera footage) to our Space hero Steven. Quite sad in a way as I felt he was way underused in stories - he should have been used a lot better as I like Peter Purves the actor.
As far as the tale goes I did like it but do wish it existed so I could see things like Jano's Doctor impression and Dodo and the Doctor smashing up the equipment!
Anyhow with such thoughts lingering our TARDIS crew (The Doctor and Dodo go into our next adventure "The War Machines").
Photo 5: Gavin, MJ (holding The War Machine DVD cover),
Shaun and Mark around Mark's house.
Shaun and Mark around Mark's house.
Another milestone to be proud of! Anyhow we decided to just watch the first 2 episodes of this tale set back on modern day (well, 1960's) Earth! We start in London, 1966, and seen as Police Boxes are in common use the Doctor hangs an "OUT OF ORDER" sign on the TARDIS - right before a Policeman comes along and tries to use the TARDIS phone! They both notice that the Post Office Tower has been completed and the Doctor gets a weird feeling like when he met the Daleks (to Dodo "Oh that's right you never met them did you" I wonder if she ever will... (no - is the answer!). He decides he must go and visit the tower. They both do this with the Doctor pretending to be a computer specialist! He is of course welcomed (by Professor Brett) and shown around the place finally facing the new super computer WOTAN (pronounced "Votan"). They ask it some questions - square roots and the like before Dodo asks it what "TARDIS" means. Spookily it answers correctly which worries the Doctor! Dodo then becomes to mesmerized by the machine and starts to hear a buzzing in her ears! She starts to complain but says she thinks she'll be alright if she can maybe have a rest - so Professor Brett's Secretary, Polly, invites her to a club with her. the nattily named "Inferno Club"!
Photo 6: Gavin (holding The War Machine DVD cover), Jason, Shaun (holding the upside down sign) and Mark around Mark's house.
Here Polly and Dodo come across (behave!) a Sailor on shore-leave who looks glum! This is Ben! They have no luck and leave him to his grumpiness. Then some sleazy type tries to come onto Polly and Ben springs into action! Starting (then ending!) a very quick bar fight!!
Anyhow I shan't talk about ALL the plot here - suffice to say Dodo gets hypnotised and tries to get the Doctor to go back to see WOTAN ("WOTAN - why are you so fat, WOTAN?" - sorry Grange Hill reference!)! In fact the computer says "DOC-TOR WHO IS NEE-DED" rather strange as he's NEVER called "Doctor Who" usually! I guess nobody told the guy who wrote this script! Anyhow back in a guy called Sir Charles office the Doctor finds out that Dodo has been hypnotised and puts her to sleep. Thus keeping her out of the story.
Photo 7: A close-up of Shaun (holding the sign) around Mark's house.
The Doctor does find out that these War Machines are to be placed within strategic points around the country - to do what I don't know as they are quite bulky slow things! Still The episode ends with Ben in a warehouse (a warehouse in which the baddies had tested out the War Machines earlier by killing a poor tramp in cold blood!! Boo to WOTAN/VOTAN/RO-LAND!!!) being threatened by one of the War Machines! Scary stuff!
I did enjoy these two episodes, they felt pacey and it was nice to be back in the "modern day" Also I do like Ben and Polly! The feel fun and new!
Until the next time I shall return, yes, I shall return...
MJ 27-12-14
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