DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 39th MEET-UP - FURY FROM THE DEEP

Sunday 26th July 2015

And lo it was said unto the Four-Whoresmen group:
"You've watched enough full-on re-cons.  Well done.  From now on, as your reward, there will be no more COMPLETELY re-con stories.

Well, except for this one!"

Yup we were all gathered around Mark's house to watch the 6 part (completely re-con) story "Fury From The Deep".  This time we were all present - but still Jim-less.  At this stage I think Jim ain't coming back.  Still he did do all of Hartnell, so kudos for that.

In fact for the last few group signs I've changed the "& JIM" to "& SHAUNY-JIM" (Still gotta keep the "Jim" name in the group - I LIKE that name!)

Photo 1:

MJ (holding the DVD Cover), Mark (holding the sign),

Shaun and Leigh around Mark's house!

So anyway onto the story (which featured the first ever use of the "Sonic Screwdriver"!).  The TARDIS lands on the sea (just off the East Coast of England) and they have to use a rubber dinghy to get ashore!  The Doctor says they must be in England - Jamie agrees pointing out the rubbish weather as proof and suspects that the TARDIS must be broken as it keeps returning them to Earth - a nice little in-joke!  The come across a pipe (with "EuroSea Gas" written on the side) leading into the sea and hear strange noises coming from it!  After larking about throwing foam at each other the Doctor tries to get a look inside a box that is attached to the pipe.  He can't but does use a stethoscope on the pipe where he hears a strange distant, faint, pumping heartbeat!  Definitely not what you should be hearing in a gas pipe!  They move on but are soon all shot down by a remote controlled camera - with a weapon attached (I presume!).

Photo 2:

MJ (holding the DVD Cover), Mark (holding the sign),

Shaun and Leigh around Mark's house!
MJ and Shaun were the only ones to do the
"Possessed Poisonous Gas Breathing Men" from the story!

When our team are woken up they are in a power station and are accused of being saboteurs, interfering with the pipe.  The guy in charge here is John Robson.  A no-nonsense London-accented chap who's constantly tetchy!  I could have seen Sid James playing that part!  Anyhow they (including another Scientist called Frank Harris) give our gang an antidote to the knock-out drug and try to question them some more.  Not happy with the fact that "they just turned up and aren't saboteurs" excuse, Robson gets Harris and guards to lock them up in a bunk room.

Photo 3:

Jason (holding the DVD Cover), Mark (holding the sign),

Shaun and Leigh around Mark's house!

So we get some to-ing and fro-ing as we discover that the enemy is SEAWEED!  It's intelligent and when it stings you, you become taken over by it!  Oh and it makes you equipped with poisonous breath!  In fact one creepy scene that does exist (thanks to being snipped out by those Aussies) has two characters, Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill, mentally controlled by the seaweed (or Possessed Poisonous Gas Breathing Men!), advancing silently towards Maggie (Harris - wife of Frank Harris) before opening their mouths to choke her with poisonous fumes!

In fact they aren't the only ones to be possessed!  Even grumpy Robson gets possessed and steals a helicopter (whilst kidnapping Victoria).  There was a cool scene of him covered in foam in the middle of a room talking quite calmly - quite the opposite of the usual hot-headed character we were used to (who had been on the rigs for FOUR YEARS).

Another cool and creepy scene was set outside on the beach Robson and Maggie (Harris) meet up.  They are both now possessed by the seaweed and Maggie, quite cryptically, that  there is little time and that Robson knows what to do!  Then Robson stays there and  watches as Maggie walks out into the sea until she is no longer visible....!  VERY eerie scene indeed!  It's like she's walking out to her death...

...Except we see her again later when all the possessed people are released from the hypnotic seaweed!

SPOILERS!

 

Photo 4:

Close-up of MJ (holding the DVD Cover),
Mark (not impressed andholding the sign),

and Shaun around Mark's house!
MJ and Shaun were the only ones to do the
"Possessed Poisonous Gas Breathing Men" from the story!

Ahem, anyhow the seaweed tries to take over but they stop it by, well firstly Victoria screams at it, which seems to make it recoil (as most of us would!) and the Doctor records this and plays it through an amplifier - which makes the seaweed retreat.

So, yes, our last completely missing story seemed to go down well.  PLUS we had the leaving of a companion.  Victoria has finally had enough of screaming and being constantly scared, so decides to stay.  In fact there were plenty of hints throughout this serial - her moaning about them ALWAYS being in danger and not knowing where they are going.  I wish we could have SEEN this scene as it would have been nice to see Jamie's reaction.  Although never stated you can see he adores Victoria - possibly even loves her.  You might wonder, if it was real life, he would have stayed with her.  Thankfully he doesn't as we NEED a Jamie in the TARDIS!

I think overall though we were most amused by Robson constantly (and irritably) telling everybody not to tell him what to do  as he'd been "FOUR YEARS" on the rigs!  "FOUR YEARS"!

Did I mention "FOUR YEARS"??!

Until then, I shall return, yes I shall return - IN FOUR YEARS!!!

MJ - 31-07-15

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 38th MEET-UP - THE WEB OF FEAR

Sunday 6th July 2015

And so we advance into the heat of summer to our next meeting!  I was slightly worried.  The last time we had watched a six-parter, when it was really hot, had been during The Web Planet - which made everyone thoroughly miserable.  The previous few days had been such a hot few days that I was worried how we'd fair with today's story...

Not only that but I'd only just bought the DVD and it hadn't arrived in the post yet....


...I needn't have panicked!  The DVD arrived on Friday, Sunday actually turned out to be a cooler day than the days before - and the story turned out to be a lot of fun!

Photo 1: Jason (holding the sign),
Leigh (holding the DVD Cover)
and Mark (holding his eyes open!)
around MJ's house!

Re-discovered (minus one episode) back in 2013 the story starts with the TARDIS crew being nearly sucked out of the TARDIS doors (like Salamander was at the end of the previous story).  Thankfully they manage to close the doors and the story continues!

So this story take place nearly 40 years after The Abominable Snowmen, and we see an elderly Professor Travers (replete with white beard and extra grumpiness) who has reactivated a control sphere (the shiny, metal balls that controlled the Yeti Robots) during his studies.  He goes to warn his friend (Julius Silverstein - a collector of unusual objects), who actually has one of the de-activated robot Yeti's, that the sphere has re-activated and that he should hand him back the Yeti saying it's dangerous.  Silverstein (a funny little fellow with big glasses) refuses thinking that it's all a scam and that Travers must have found out that the Yeti is worth a lot of money and wants it back!  Travers's daughter then comes along and takes away her supposedly confused father...leaving Silverstein to be, surprise surprise, attacked by the re-activated Yeti!

Photo 2: Leigh (holding the sign),
Mark and MJ (holding the DVD Cover)
around MJ's house!

And so follows 5 episodes and 1 re-con (an official high quality re-con, don't you know!) of Yeti's (redesigned with big glowing eyes) on the London Underground shooting guns that make webs.  Yes, webs!  Webs that cover lots of London!  As Russell T Davies would later say "Web guns?  Surely that should be a spider-story?" - but isn't it even more fun that it's not!?  I think we should keep spiders out of Doctor Who until, say, the next Doctor's last story?....

Photo 3: Jason (holding the sign),
Leigh (holding the DVD Cover)
and Mark around MJ's house!

Other things of note in this story are the soldiers that the Doctor meets - especially one in particular: Colonel (later Brigadier) Lethbridge Stewart.  He would play a MUCH bigger part in Doctor Who mythology - but more on that at a later date...!  We'd also seen the actor before as he had played Bret Vyon in the Daleks Master Plan.
 

Photo 4: MJ (doing his best menacing Yeti impression),Leigh (holding the sign) and Mark (holding the DVD Cover)
around MJ's house!

I'd never seen the story before and would have to re-watch it to get a better idea of it all but I really enjoyed the tale myself.  There were some great locations, some great characters (the smarmy TV reporter was quite fun and Travers was great as an older grumpier man).

Photo 5: MJ (sneering whilst holding the sign AND the DVD Cover)
around his house!

I think the story went down well with all of us and the re-con was done so well that I almost forgot I was watching a re-con.

A bit of fun trivia was that the production team at the time asked to use an ACTUAL London Underground station but got refused permission.  So the team made their own version in the studio which was SO realistic that London Underground got in touch with the BBC and had a go at them for filming at a real station when they had already been refused permission!

Idiots.

Anyway that's it until next time when we shall be furious about deep stuff....

Until then, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 14-07-15

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 37th MEET-UP - THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD

Sunday 14th June 2015

Hello fans-of-dull-blogs!  You join me on our continuing quest to watch all of Doctor Who in order and we are up to a story that, up until 2013, was missing five of it's six parts!

The Enemy of The World kicks off with the TARDIS crew enjoying themselves on a beach in Australia in 2018.  Suddenly out of the blue the Doctor is subject to an assassination attempt.  The controller of the would-be assassins, an agent named Astrid Ferrier, rescues them by helicopter.  Yes it all kicks off early on - gun fighting, helicopter rides!  There's even a hovercraft at some point!
 
Anyway Astrid takes them to her boss Giles Kent who tells them that the Doctor is the physical double of Salamander, a ruthless megalomaniac who is dominating the United Zones Organisation.
 
Salamander has ascended to power by concentrating and harnessing the sun’s rays to generate more crops, but he wants MORE POWER!!
 
Kent, who was once Deputy Security Leader for North Africa and Europe, reveals that he had crossed Salamander, who ruined him and removed his various allies.  The only remaining Kent ally with any authority is Alexander Denes in Central Europe.  When Kent’s home is surrounded by troops led by Security Chief Donald Bruce, the Doctor is persuaded to impersonate Salamander to save his companions and to gather more information on his designs.

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

And so we get the joy of Patrick Trout-Man playing two roles - the Doctor and the (possibly) Mexican Salamander!  He seems to relish playing a suave but totally evil wannabe dictator - which also makes it fun to watch.  He seems to have no morals - poisoning a man in one place, shooting other ones - in fact the full extent of Salamander's scheme is revealed as we see him take a lift that goes DEEP underground which takes him to a gang of people who believe that a nuclear war has gone on above ground and that they are only safe under the Earth!  Salamander has convinced them that only mutants have survived and is getting his underground gang to cause all sorts of natural disasters (tsunami's, volcanoes etc) with special machinery and the like.  Salamander seems to want to cause all this chaos so that he can step in and take charge.

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

Anyhow there are nice character moments like when The Doctor picks up parts of some crockery, that some bad guards have broken up, and says “People spend all their time making nice things and then other people come along and break them!”
 

Photo 3: Shaun, Leigh (holding the sign),
 Jason (holding the DVD Cover) and Mark
around Shaun's house!

Another character who is quite fun is Fedorin who is second in command to Controller of the Central European Zone -  Alexander Denes (whom Salamader has locked up - saying he was negligent for ignoring Salamander's warnings about the volcanoes.  Volcanoes - of course - that were caused by Salamander's underground people!).  Salamander blackmail's Fedorin into poisoning Denes - but Fedorin can't go through with it.  Salamander smiles, telling him it's all okay - they find another way - and then poisons Fedorin with some poisoned wine!
 

Photo 4: Shaun, Leigh (holding the sign),
 Jason (holding the DVD Cover) and Mark
around Shaun's house!

So overall we have a good tale - a cracking villain (in the form of Patrick Troughton) and Doctor who is funny and quick (in the form of Patrick Troughton).  A good supporting cast - plus we had a helicopter AND a hovercar chase (in the form of Pat - oh no, he can't become vehicles.  Pat Troughton's great - but he aint no Transformer!).  The end scene is great too - when Salamander, having gotten into the TARDIS by pretending to be the Doctor, attempts to fly it off with the doors open!  This does him no good as he gets sucked out into the Time Vortex!

Well I enjoyed that one - and we have even MORE excitement next time as we find ourselves battling Yetis again!  Ooooo!

Well when I say "We" I mean the Doctor and chums!

So until then, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 22-06-15

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 36th MEET-UP - THE ICE WARRIORS

Sunday 7th June 2015

Say whaaaaaaaaaat?!  Another weeky - another meety!  Now it was looking like Jim wasn't coming back, so I decided to change our sign - it now states "AND SHAUNY-JIM".  I LIKED having the name Jim in it, so Shaun got a re-christening!!

Anyhow, this time we all met around Jason's house to watch the six part story "The Ice Warriors"!  Yup we were BACK in the snow "Oh no, not again!  Tibet was bad enough, but I think you've put us down just further up the mountain!" Jamie tells us!  But never fear - we're actually in England again, but in the distant future during a future ice age!  Human beings are struggling to keep the glaciers from taking over England, with the aid of computers and keepy-icey-away-machines!
Meanwhile other scientists on an archaeological dig find a massive warrior entombed in the ice!

We're mainly set in Brittanicus Base where senior control technician Jan Garrett and her staff struggle to control an ioniser they are using to slow the progress of glaciers rolling over Britain.  Leader Clent is convinced they can avert a new Ice Age, but the group knows they are only a few hours away from being forced to abandon the base.  Tensions rise when Penley, a maverick scientist who has defected from the team, is mentioned. 

Thus opens "The Ice Warriors" - four episodes of this exist (found back 1988) but the other two have been animated.  Thankfully we start with an actual episode which at least gives us an idea of what the characters look like!

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

And what great characters we had!  Leader Clent was marvellous - he was ALWAYS right.  Even when he wasn't!  He was so uptight and didn't care for others opinions as he limped around the base with his cane!  We also had Penley, the defector (that sounds wronger than I meant it to!), played by Peter Sallis (famous as playing Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine AND the voice of Wallace from the animated Wallace and Gromit films).  He had a fun world-weariness about him.  He'd seen all that humans were trying to do and didn't approve of any of it!

Photo 2: Jason, Leigh (fighting over the DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and MJ
around Jason's house!

But what of the Ice Warriors?  Apparently they had come to Earth from Mars but their ship had crashed and frozen solid in the ice.  Though I wasn't OVERLY convinced by the Ice Warriors rubber pincer type claws (how on Earth (or Mars) did they build anything with those?!) or the way they moved their mouths (it looked like hey had something wrong with them!) I did think the look of them was quite impressive - tall and bulky.  They were all played by very tall actors - in fact their leader, Varga, was played by Bernard Bresslaw who was a very famous tall actor who was well-known from the Carry On film series.  In fact that was quite an oddity - why have a world famous actor and them completely cover him up!?

Oh and the way they talked was very hissy (or hissssssssy) - I guess they got the actors to do that as they were reptilian, but it did get a little wearing after a while.

Photo 3: Jason, Leigh (holding the DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and Shaun
around Jason's house!

I thought the animation was good - Patrick Troughton must have been a joy to animate as he has such a wondefully expressive face!  The style was simpler than "The Reign Of Terror", "The Tenth Planet", and "The Moonbase" but I think it suited the story well.  Plus you could always tell who was supposed to be who!
 

Photo 4: Jason, Leigh (with the DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and MJ (doing an "Ice Warrior Hand")
around Jason's house!

So that's that - next time we shall be watching a serial that was only re-found again back in 2013!  So until then, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 10-06-15

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

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 34th MEET-UP - THE TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN

Sunday 10th May 2015

Well once again we met on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Once again we were Jim-less but this time we had a GIRL in our midst!  Shaun (or "Added Shaun" as he's known) invited his sister Toni to come along and sit in a darkened room with five guys to watch black and white 1960's Doctor Who.

Luckily for her she joined us to watch "The Tomb of the Cybermen"!  Not only does it feature the return of a recurring villain (The Cybermen, but you guessed that) but it exists - completely!
 
No re-cons, no animation.  Four complete episodes - found in Hong Kong back in 1991!  What a great way to kick of Doctor Two's second season.

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

So we start with the TARDIS crew still on Skaro with new companion Victoria in tow - she can't believe they are about to travel through time and space).
However she soon starts to believe when the TARDIS takes off from Skaro and then lands on the planet Telos/usual quarry pit!

It's on Telos we find an expedition who are trying to find the tombs of the legendary Cybermen.  After setting some explosives they blast away part of a cliff face which reveals the entrance to the Cybermen's tombs.
 
They all cheer and are ecstatic - and quite right as well - it's a very good model shot!  However there cheers are soon muted when the Doctor turns up (having been found by another member of the expedition and brought to the main team at gunpoint) as they assume he's part of a rival expedition!  Still they don't have time to fret as they need to get into the Tombs via the main doors.  One guy tries (ignoring the Doctor's warning) and ends up being electrocuted!  Thankfully, although the guy is dead, the doors have lost all their electrical charge and so Kaftan (a lady on the expedition who is the female villain of the piece) gets her manservant (the giant Toberman) to open the doors!
Toberman is great - a giant, black actor with muscles as large as Birmingham!  He doesn't say much just grunts and shouts odd words - much like The Hulk might say "HULK SMASH"!  His mistress, Kaftan, is a member of the Brotherhood of Logicians.  Along with her colleague, Eric Klieg, she financed Professor Parry's expedition to Telos.  The Logicians secretly hoped to find the Cybermen and re-animate them so that they could form an alliance to rule the Earth.

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

The Cybermen do get found, frozen in suspended animation inside catacombs.  However they don't stay frozen for long as Klieg re-activates them and they quickly thaw out.  It's a really impressive scene to see them slowly thaw and break out of their holes before releasing the Cybercontoller!  He's a tall fellow, with no handles on his head - but he does have a cyber brain on show!

Photo 3: Shaun (being a robot),
Jason (holding AND pointing to the DVD cover) and
a bit of Leigh around Mark's house!

Well I for one really enjoyed watching the story - it zipped along nicely and had a nice mix of stuff that made sense and stuff that was outrageous!  Again we had a nice mix of accents and nationalities (though I wasn't sure on the accent of the American pilot who kept calling Victoria "Vic"!).  I think the Cybermen's design was impressive again, but I still find you really have to concentrate hard to understand what they are saying!  The supportive cast were strong and seemed to be quite fun - oh and of course we have the first appearance of the Cybermen's pet robots - The Cybermats!  They may be small but they can inflict some damage - well unless you trap them within a loop of electrical cable - which seems to fry their brains!

I think the highlight for me, was a quieter moment between Victoria and the Doctor in which they talk about how Victoria's feeling.  I mean let's not forget, she been yanked out of her own time after having had her father brutally killed.  So it's nice that they acknowledge this and we even get the Doctor talking about his own family - and revealing his age, which I think was the first time we heard it - though I might be wrong!

I think the gang (and the new girl) enjoyed the story - a strong start to the Trout-Mans second season.  Next time we're off to the Himalayas!

So until then, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 18-05-15