DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 35th MEET-UP - THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN

Sunday 24th May 2015

Hello Cheeky?  How have you been?  Okay?  Well that's nice.  Here's a story about 5 chaps and their continuing adventures in Dr Who Marathon Land!

The week in question saw us gather around Leigh's house to watch the 6 part story "The Abominable Snowmen"!

Once again it was mostly re-cons (5 parts re-con - 1 part real) but from now on the amount of re-cons left to watch is getting quite small!  Only 1 more story left which is totally re-cons and only a couple with over half as re-cons.

Anyhow what can I tell you about this week's story?  Well Part 1 (re-con) starts off with the TARDIS landing in the Himalayas (actually the Welsh Mountains, but they looked impressive)!  Here we find an explorer, Professor Edward Travers,who is awoken from his sleep when he hears the screams of his companion!  He is horrified to see a lumbering, hairy creature standing over his friend's lifeless body - The Abominable Snowman - aka The Yeti!

Elsewhere The Doctor is happy at where they've landed and tells Jamie and Victoria to start searching for a 'Holy Ghanta' in his chest of treasures/junk.  He tells them that they have landed in Tibet, and the Detsen Monastery will "give them a welcome of a lifetime" if they arrive with the Ghanta: a bell and holy Buddhist relic the Doctor took three hundred years ago for safe-keeping.  Whilst his companions search, the Doctor steps outside but finds the dead body.  He picks up the rucksack that the man dropped and travels up to the nearby Monastery to prepare the way for his companions.  It seems the Doctor has been here before and cannot wait to go to the Monastery and get a heroes welcome!  However he comes against a lot of angry suspicious monks who think he's up to no good.  This leads once again the Doctor being locked up in a cell!

Photo 1: Leigh, Shaun (holding the mock DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and Jason
(holding the Lost In Time DVD Cover)
around Leigh's house!

Travers goes to visit the Doctor in his cell and says he's been looking for the Yeti - which the Monks say are a race of peaceful, shy creatures.  And yet these ones are attacking people.  Naturally suspicion falls upon the Doctor - especially as his big furry coat makes him look a little bit Yeti-like.  Oh, did I mention the furry coat?  Ah well, he's wearing one.  That bit was important!  Still the Doctor manages to get free by showing the Monk's (specifically their leader - the easily named Padmasambhava!) the Holy Ghanta (that Bell!).  Once free he starts investigating!

Meanwhile Jamie and Victoria have been terrorised on the hills by the Yeti.  The find a cave with a huge pyramid of shiny metal balls. The Yeti however finds them and attacks - causing a cave-in!  Our plucky companions escape (with a shiny ball!) and take it back to show the Doctor at the Monastery.  We view all this as it all happens in the existing Episode 2!  So that's nice.

Photo 2: MJ, Shaun (holding the mock DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and Jason
(holding the Lost In Time DVD Cover)
around Leigh's house!

Well as I said I won't bang on about the plot - it seems silly when you can watch it yourself!

Instead let's look at what I liked.  Well firstly Padmasambhava was fantastic!  The poor chap HAD been an old friend of the Doctor's but he'd been possessed by "The Great Intelligence" - an alien being with no form of it's own.  I think Padmasambhava had encountered the formless alien when he was meditating and had been travelling outer space in a sort if out-of-body experience.  It was here that The Great Intelligence had overtaken his body and come back to earth.  The actor, the gloriously named "Wolfe Morris" was great, both playing the gentle, but slightly creepy sounding, weary Monk who had been forced to live hundreds of years!  The Schizophrenic performance reminded me of Gollum from Lord of The Rings - one moment calm - the next rasping with hatred!

As with Marco Polo, most of the oriental people were played by English white chaps with make-up.  Though I thought the Abbot played it quite English like!

Photo 3: Close up of Leigh (very happy)
and Shaun (holding the mock DVD Cover) 
around Leigh's house!

The Yeti's weren't bad - they did have huge bottoms which they didn't shake to music - so that was disappointing!  They turned out to be robots - created by Padmasambhava with guidance from the Great Intelligence.  The metal balls turned out to be important - they were like a battery that, once slotted into a hole in the Yeti Robot's (not like that!), turned them on (again, not like that...!)

Oh I've had to copy and paste "Padmasambhava" every time I've used it!  You try remembering that damn spelling!


Overall it was quite enjoyable - I thought the sets and locations were good.  Some good actors and the Yeti's were quite cute!  Oh and we do get to see a "real one" right at the end - which pleases Travers.  He was a bit down having spent all that time looking for them - only to have them to have been robots!Well that's it - next time we're back in the snow!  So until then, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 29-05-15