DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 30th MEET-UP - THE MOONBASE

Sunday 22nd March 2015

Well here we all were again (minus Jim), meeting around Leigh's house for another Troughton.  However, unlike all the ones we've watched so far this four-parter has a proper DVD release!  Woo-hoo!

Okay 2 episodes are missing (Parts 1 and 3) - BUT those lovely DVD makers have recreated the missing first and third parts with animation.  Hoozah!  Ahh but what style of animation?  Will it be the choppy not-so-popular Reign of Terror style?  Or will it tilt towards the slightly better Tenth Planet style?  Well after the usual bout of hello's and all that jazz we put the DVD in Leigh's player and pressed play.....

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

...and I was very happy indeed!  For me the animation was very good.  Not too choppy, lots of nice atmosphere and the characterisation was pretty spot on.  Polly and Ben had been animated before, but it was a first for Troughton and Jamie.  Patrick Troughton must be a joy to animate as he has such a wonderfully characterful face!  Anyhow the episode starts with the TARDIS making a bumpy landing and the Doctor declaring that they have arrived on Mars.  Sadly the TARDIS (or his control of it) has planted them not on Mars but on the Moon in the year 2070!  Instead of leaving they decide to lark about in space suits - which all looks quite fun, until Jamie leaps a bit far and knocks himself out!  Before the can rescue him his body is discovered from strangers who have emerged from a nearby base.  The Doctor, Ben and Polly decide to go after him and get welcomed by the workers there.  After explaining that they've taken Jamie to sick bay one of their men suddenly sprouts coloured veins on his face (with a cool animation effect that we would see properly in later existing episodes) and collapses.  He gets taken to sick bay whilst the guy in charge, Hobson, tells the Doctor that this base is a weather control station that keeps Earth's weather in check.  They are using a gravity machine called the Gravitron to control the weather.  Offering to help them the Doctor then hears that a recent communication to Earth had been listened in on nearby on the moon....  Oooo!

Elsewhere in the sick bay Polly is looking after Jamie who keeps hallucinating and mumbling about about the Phantom Piper - a legend from his clan (a sort of Grim Reaper type).  Ben has been sent to help another guy, Ralph, in the store-room.  However whilst Ben is busy elsewhere Ralph gets attacked by a metal hand and, when Ben gets back, Ralph's body has gone!

Back in the sick bay another crew member dies - the Doctor tries to convince the Controller, Hobson, that something is wrong and they should warn Earth.  However Hobson doesn't want to trouble Earth with something that might turn out to be nothing!

The episode ends with Jamie waking up alone in sick bay facing his Phantom Piper - which is really a Cyberman!  A Cyberman who advances towards the bed as Jamie collapses again.....

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

Episode 2 exists!  Hoozah!  And we see the fully re-designed Cyberman.  Certainly slicker than the previous ones from The Tenth Planet and I really like how they look, but I would have liked to have seen more stories with the previous design!  Anyhow this Cyberman takes another body and leaves the unconscious Jamie.  Polly arrives to see the Cyberman exit and she screams!  The Doctor and Hobson rush back and she tells them what she saw - of course Hobson doesn't believe her!  In fact he starts to see that all the bad stuff SEEMED to start with the arrival of the Doctor and his companions.  Still he gives them the benefit of the doubt and 24 hours to find out what's really going on.

After lots of to-ing and fro-ing the Doctor works out why this disease is affecting some people and not others.  The sugar supplies have been poisoned - some people take it, some don't!  See, it doesn't just rot your teeth - it gives you dark veins and kills you as well!  The Doctor says Cybermen must have contaminated the sugar, Hobson says the whole base has been checked and nothing found.  However the Doctor asks about the room they are in - the sick bay?  Hobson days they didn't need to as someone's always been in there!  Bad mistake as soon as he says that the covers on one of the beds a thrown off revealing a Cyberman with a weapon!

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

Episode 3 and we're back to animation!  The Cyberman reveals that they have been taking the sick bodies to convert to Cybermen - but they left Jamie as his head had been bashed - they don't like damaged goods!  The Cybermen reveal that they want to take over the Gravitron to destroy Earth so that they eliminate any danger!  I assume they mean just to eliminate the humans as surely the Earth would be a better place to live than the moon?  And surely they ought to keep the human's alive so they can convert them??

Anyhow the whole episode ends with an army of Cyberman marching across the Moon to the base!  THAT is an impressive site - I can't remember how many there were but it looked good to see them trudging slowly across the Moon set - watching as slow cloud of dust moved up.  I think it being in black and white really helped the atmosphere.

Photo 4: Close up of sleepy, but content, Shaun (holding the sign)
and Leigh around Leigh's house!

Episode 4 begins with the base being told that "Resistance in futile" and they should give in!
They refuse of course as a relief ship is on it's way to help - however that gets deflected by the Gravitron towards the Sun.  They check out the Gravitron's controller and see that it's Evan's - a crew member who has been taken over by the Cybermen!  Before they can rush him the Cybermen radio the base to tell them not to touch him - and to make the point fuller they fire a laser at the base causing a hole to be blasted in the plastic window and the air starts escaping rapidly (again - why didn't this happen in the other hole earlier?  Anyhow...).  This is solved by Hobson and Benoit placing a plastic tray over the hole!

Another Cyber Ship lands and more Cybermen march towards the base -  but our Doctor has an idea!  If they can lower the Gravitron down lower than it usually goes, then they can shoot it at the Cybermen and their ship and that should knock them all off the Moon.  So with a bit of fiddling, they manage this and so the day is won.  The Moonbase crew all turn to thank the Doctor but he (and his crew) are already away in the TARDIS.  Here the Doctor shows where they are going next (on his time scanner) and Polly screams when she sees a menacing large claw moving on the time scanner screen.  Ooooo - that would be the Macra Terror - but that's next time....!

So what about this time?  Well I thought The Moonbase was excellent!  The story zipped along nicely, I thought the set design was excellent - It looked like it COULD be on the Moon.  The base seemed small and claustrophobic (which added to the atmosphere), the story and acting seemed good and the were some excellent costumes and effects (I especially enjoyed the redesigned Cybermen - though I wish we could have had some more adventures with them in their previous costumes and way of talking!  I especially liked the grumpy commander and of course Benoit - the French guy with his very French -style scarf!  Actually why did the crew all have name badges with their countries flag on them?

Anyway apart from some possible dodgy science (and plot holes - well a couple of actual holes.  As I said before wouldn't that first big hole in the base suck all the air out?) this was a great serial, in my view.But what about Jason's view?

"The Moonbase - review by Jason

The more I think about this episode the more I like it.  I declare it PROPER DOCTOR WHO!
In fact I actually did declare that during the episode.  The Doctor announced that he must stay and see the adventure through instead of escaping in the Tardis.  I could easily see any of the later Doctors acting in exactly the same way.  Though there have been some moment I felt that it was at this key-point that the Doctor became fully-formed as to who his core-character would become.  He now definitely sees it as his role and responsibility to take control and save the day.

I feel that all of the characters were written and portrayed as well-rounded and believable individuals.  The office-politics and bureaucracy that I see in a lot of the 60s episodes, no matter what species or location, was again present here.   I loved the interplay between those stationed on the moon and their bosses back on Earth.   Also there were moments where Ben lost his cool and displayed growing concerns about losing his close relationship with Polly.  I'm not too sure of Jamie's intentions, but sailor-boy seems especially threatened by the Scottish lad and it made Ben all the more human.

As for the actual story, I could see no plot holes other than not explaining how the Cybermen survived the events of the Tenth Planet.  If that bothers you, then you may want to skip the next forty-odd years of Who's recurring villains.  I loved the continuity of the people already knowing of the Cybermen, but as a thing of the past.
 
The Moonbase is a proper thrilling sci-fi base-under-siege story full of mystery, threat and creepy villains.

My favourite part though is that they not only continued the 'Polly put the kettle on' running gag (at least in my mind), but it was actually a plot point. 10/10."

Well that was a lovely addition by Jason.

Well next time we have to deal with giant crabs - even though, there is no such thing...

That will make sense next time!

Until then, I shall return, yes I shall return!
MJ - 25-03-15

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 29th MEET-UP - THE UNDERWATER MENACE

Sunday 8th March 2015

As the year doth "March" on (see what I did there) it was time to meet -up again.  Sadly Jim was still unable to join us (although I did see him on my way to our meet-up and he hoped to re-join us soon...!) and Shaun also couldn't join us because, in the words of Mark, he was "being gay".  Such a shame as there's plenty of room for gayness in our little group - and the following tale could be seen as quite camp.

So the rest of us trooped over to Mark's to digest a feast of Cheese, biscuits and oven cooked duck-things!  Very yummy indeed!  All this was a prelude to another feast - a right piece-meal of a serial called "The Underwater Menace"!

Why do I call this a "piece-meal"?  Well you may ask that, whilst stifling a yawn, and I'll tell you!  Episode 3 happily exists on my "Lost In Time" DVD collection.  Episodes 1 and 4 do not exist - fair enough, re-cons it is then.  But Episode 2?  Ahh yes, the earliest surviving Troughton does indeed exist and was re-discovered back in 2011 (along with part of "Galaxy 4") but it has still to be released!  There have been hopes of a release with 2 animated parts, but sadly the classic Dr Who DVD is at an end - all other titles have been released and the BBC have dragged their heels with this release.  I suppose, after the discovery of 2 (nearly) complete Troughton serials back in 2013 they wanted to hold off animating in case more came back.  Well they haven't so far.....

So where does this leave us.  Well thankfully someone has uploaded a rough pirate copy of the episode on the internet - so this is what we watched.  2 recons, 1 real episode, 1 rough online episode!  Talk about a right kerfuffle!

Photo 1: Leigh (with the "Lost In time" DVD cover), Mark (holding the sign)
and MJ (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!

Anyhow our re-con of Part 1 starts with new crew member, Jamie, being quite confused by the inside of the TARDIS!  This is soon interrupted as our crew land on a Volcanic island - where, of course, they are immediately captured and taken underground in a lift!  As they descend further and further downwards they lose conciousness.  When they awaken later, in a compression chamber, they work out that they must be on Earth sometime after 1968 (Polly finds a bracelet from the 1970 Mexico Olympics - so not a bad deduction.  Although it does mean this could be 1970 or 2370!  Anyhow moving on our crew are told they are to be sacrificed!  The Doctor deduces that an amazing scientist called Professor Zaroff (a very clever chap who had done some renowned work but had disappeared...) must be here and gets one of the underground people (Ara) to smuggle a note to Zaroff.  The note says "VITAL SECRET WILL DIE WITH ME. DR. W" - this intrigues Zaroff enough to get the Doctor brought to him!  Jamie and Ben get put to work in some mines by a guy in charge called Damon.  What about Polly?  Well after being shown some underwater farming being done by the "Fish People"  - she is informed that she is to have an operation to give her plastic gills, thus transforming poor old Polly into a fish person!

Meanwhile the Doctor with Zaroff discovers what this underground place is.  Yes it's only the lost sodding city of Atlantis!!  Zaroff intends to RAISE this country once again!  The episode ends with Polly about to be anaesthetised by Damon....

 

Photo 2: Leigh (with the "Lost In time" DVD cover), Mark (holding the sign)
and MJ (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!

So there we are and we're onto the earliest Patrick Troughton episode to exist!  So after a right kerfuffle finding the leaked online version we see Part 2 starting with the Doctor fiddling with some controls which affect the room Polly is in - this stops the procedure and in much confusion Ara takes Polly and gets her away!

Meanwhile Damon is mad at the Doctor and Zaroff agrees - but still tells him of his plans!  He's going to drill into the core of the Earth, drain the water into the core and let the Earth rip itself apart!  Why?  Because, according to Zaroff, it will be the greatest scientific achievement ever (although if he blows up the Earth who will be around to admire his work!!??).  The Doctor, quite reasonably asks "Are you quite mad"?  Anyhow to cut a long story short the Doctor manages to escape and, after finding Ara, hears that Polly is safe.
Whilst there he overhears Ramo (a priest who distrusts Zaroff) talking to Damon.  The Doctor manages to get to talk to Ramo and tries to convince him that Zaroff is bad.  They decide to take this information to Thoris - King of Atlantis.  He mulls it over but, deciding he wants Atlantis to be raised again, hands them over to Zaroff!  Clearly he doesn't know the Earth will blow up - I think Zaroff left that tiny detail out....!

Photo 3: Leigh (with the "Lost In time" DVD cover), Mark (holding the sign)
and Jason (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!

So the existing Part 3 starts with the Doctor and Ramo being taken to High Priest Lolem (played by the same chubby actor who was Cyril in "The Celestial Toymaker").  Before they can be be-headed the temple idol of Amdo booms out that they should all bow their heads.  They do this and the Doctor, recognising the voice as Ben's (played through a microphone and speaker system) takes Ramo and escape into the Idol!  Inside here the Doctor starts to organise his plans.  Sean and Jacko (a couple of Irish shipwrecked sailors who also became slaves) are to insult and goad the Fish People into going on strike.  Meanwhile Ben and Jamie are to disguise themselves as guards and Doctor and Polly are going to disguise themselves as regular Atlantean shoppers - here they manage to trick Zaroff away from his guards and capture him.  However he manages to escape by stabbing Ramo and taking Polly hostage - Jamie manages to get her back but Zaroff still escapes!

We then go back to Thous wondering if they should have a nice chat with the Fish People and sort things out.  Zaroff comes in and disagrees with all that, so Thous tries to have him arrested but Zaroff is having none of this and shoots Thous!  The episode ends with Zaroff's glorious line:"Nuzzink in the World can stop me now!!!"

Photo 4: Leigh (with the "Lost In time" DVD cover), Mark (holding the sign)
and Jason (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
Here I asked them to pose with a "Nuzzink in ze Vorld can stop me now!" pose!

Back to recons for Part 4 and we begin with the Doctor and Ben finding the guards killed by Zaroff, but Thous is still alive.  They decide to take the wounded Thous to the temple.  The Doctor then comes up with his grand plan - he is to flood Atlantis to stop Zaroff!  He gets Jacko and Sean to move the people while he and Ben will begin the flooding process.  A bit much but hey, being flooded is what Atlantis is famous for!

Zaroff starts hearing of reports of the chaos occurring and decides to bring his plans to destroy the World forward!  However he gets locked in his laboratory by Ben and, as Atlantis starts to flood, he slowly drowns!  Thanks to those Aussie censor clips we have this grisly demise of Zaroff!

Well our TARDIS crew, the Irish pair and the Atlanteans all seem to make it to safety!
Thous wants to raise a stone for our Doctor in a new temple, but Damon says there will be no temples in the new Atlantis!  So lessons are learned and our TARDIS crew head off with the Doctor being mocked about his lack of control over the TARDIS!  The Doctor takes umbrage to this and sets co-ordinates for Mars.  I won't say if he makes it or not, but the next serial is called "The Moonbase" so I'll let you make your own guess....!

So overall I enjoyed it - we had a proper mad scientist in it!  Plus we had some other nice characters and it all seemed well costumed with nice sets!  This story hasn't the greatest reputation on the world of Who - but I thought it rather good (so did "The Book")!  Still that's what I thought - how about Jason?

Jason:

My review of 'The Underwater Menace'.
It was fun to finally see a good chunk of a 2nd Doctor story moving as intended.  And move along it did, as I didn't feel it dragged at all with pointless filler.  The set up is established quickly with the Tardis crew immediately being captured and whisked straight into the adventure on Atlantis.

Polly's character seems a bit inconsistent with how we last saw her.  In 'The Highlanders' she was all gung-ho / waving knives / blackmailing / say exactly what she thinks to anyone. Here the first episode began with her asking 'the boys' if they can take a break after they've been walking up a hill for less than ten seconds and later she frets, but doesn't help at all, while her friend is being attacked in front of her.

I note that so far the 2nd Doctor has at some point used a disguise or false identity in each of his adventures and also seems to enjoy starting rebellions.

What was great about this weeks episode was that the reasoning behind the enemy's actions was simply that he was a 'Mad Scientist (™)'.  He knew full well his plan would destroy the Earth and he didn't care.  I loved it! Zaroff's plan to 'RAISE' Atlantis is up there with Ian's understanding of scale.  He would 'raise' it by lowering the sea.  As a by product this would cause the end of life on Earth which he seemed very excited about.

I thought there were some good ideas in this story and a good balance of action, characters and humour.  The mutant slave race were well-realised for the time and did not overshadow the human drama.
9/10

*************************************************************************

Shaun did catch up with the story on his own and said:
"I would have watched it sooner if I knew it had a SHARK PIT!!! :D
The setting was forgettable, could have been anywhere really, but Zaroff was superb.  Especially his insane motivation."
So I think that was positive!

Well that's all for now - next time we have a four-part that's fully moving!  2 parts animation - 2 parts real!  So join me us next time when we take a trip to the Moon....!

Until next time, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 12-03-15

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 28th MEET-UP - THE HIGHLANDERS

Sunday 22nd February 2015

In the cold of February the gang met up again - but once again lacking our "And Jim" - a moniker which had made our group sound so attractive to outsiders!

Well me had no time for tears - we had four episodes of (mainly) still photos with audio to get through and today had brought us the historical tale "The Highlanders"!

The Doctor and co land in Scotland (I think possible our first trip there!).  Ben and Polly are hopeful that this is their own time and they can get a train back down to London.  Sadly, for them, this isn't the case and they find out that they've arrived just after the Battle of Culloden (in 1746).  The British army is triumphant over the rebel forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie and our crew encounter fleeing Scots rebels and are taken prisoner by them.  They all hide in a deserted cottage with the Laird Colin McLaren, who has been badly wounded, his daughter Kirsty, his piper Jamie McCrimmon and his son Alexander.  Sadly for them Alexander doens't last long - and when a patrol of English soldiers finds them he ends up pretty-well dead!  The English patrol leader is Lieutenant Algernon Ffinch - double F.  He's pretty wet and foppish but his Sergeant is more forceful and takes the Doctor, Jamie, Ben, and the Laird to be hanged; while Polly and Kirsty manage to escape!  Kirsty then takes Polly to a cave, known to her and her family.  Whilst in their she shows Polly a valuable ring that she owns - a family heirloom - Polly wants to sell it.  Kirsty, quite rightly, doesn't want to and pulls a knife on Polly!  Polly gets in a strop and marches out - falling down an animal pit!  Suddenly someone lurks above the pit with a knife!

And so the episode ends - I have to say I do think Polly is a bit heavy handed here.  Wanting some girl she's just met to give away and sell something that's clearly important to her!  Having just met each other it does make Polly come across as a bit of a cow!  Perhaps some time in a pit is what she needs!

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

Part 2 starts with revealing that it was Kirsty with the knife!  Doh!  Anyhow Kirsty tries to help Polly out the hole but ends up falling in as well!  This isn't so bad as soon Ffinch is on the scene and, after telling his men off for losing the girls, falls down the animal pit himself.  Here they rob him, take a lock of his hair and leave him in the hole!  Nice.

Meanwhile the Doctor and Ben are thrown into a prison pit in Inverness - with a load of other prisoners.  There is also an ill Laird in the pit who is wearing the Prince's Standard!  The Doctor tries to tend to the Laird but then has an idea of escape!  He tells the guards he's a German doctor with information of a plot to kill the Duke of Cumberland!  He (with the Prince's Standard) gets taken away, much to the jaunts and jeers of the other prisoners!  Poor left behind Ben has to explain to them that it must be a ruse and he'll be back...

The Doctor gets taken in front of Solicitor Grey, a dodgy character who is profiting from the prisoners by selling them as slaves in His Majesties colonies (Boo!).  The Doctor manages to escape from here (by locking Solicter Grey in a cupboard and convincing Solicitor Grey's assistant, Perkins, that he's very ill and must blindfold himself and rest for an hour!  "But what about the noises by Solicitor Grey from the wardrobe" I hear you ask?  The Doctor's thought of that - he's no idiot and in a quite comical scene he convincesPerkins to ignore the noises as they are just in his head!  The Doctor then runs away to the kicthens and disguises himself as an old washer woman - there's something slightly Monty Python-esque about the whole disguise!

Elsewhere Ben and the prisoners are taken aboard a ship - where the Captain, Trask, orders a bound man to be thrown over the side and allowed to drown.  He then tells the prisoners that's the only way they'll ever get off the Annabelle....!

 

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

So the third episode has Jamie, Ben and the Laird shoved into the ship's hold.  Ben of course gets accused of being a spy (well, he is English!) but is vouched for by Ben and the Laird.

Meanwhile Polly and Kirsty are having a fun time - they go to the Sea Eagle Inn and find poor old Ffinch there.  Once again they threaten him and make him help them out!  He arranges for them to speak to Perkins (Solictor Grey's assistant) but this is a ruse and the girls sense this is a trap - thankfully the Doctor is on hand to get them out and, now re-united, they all go off to find weapons - this results in a broken sword and pitchfork and a couple of knives from the girls - and a whole wheelbarrow full of goodies from the Doctor!
The Doctor also manages to convince Kirsty to give him her ring as bait for "a greedy man"!

Back on the ship the prisoners are offered contracts to sign (which will bound them as Slaves in the colonies - a hard life which will result in an early death) - Ben asks to look at the contracts and then tears them up!  This serves him no good as he gets trussed up and thrown over board!  Thus the episode ends with a wet, possibly drowned, Ben!

 

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

Of course Part 4 starts with the crew pulling up the rope and finding that Ben is no longer at the end!  Has he drowned??

No, don't be silly.  This isn't "The Dalek's Master Plan"!  There will be no killing of assistants!
He ends up on the shore - held at musket-pint by a Redcoat!  Luckily for Ben it's the Doctor in another disguise!  Ben, Polly and Kirsty then take the weapons back to the ship and arm the prisoners!  The Doctor meanwhile goes back to Solictor Grey and says that the prison ship hold the Prince - he shows Kirsty's ring as proof!  This gets Grey's interest up and they all go back to the ship - where the prisoners are waiting!  A battle commences (which would have looked good - sadly not so much in audio and still photos!) and the good guys seem to win!  The prisoners all decide to sail for France where they have allies!

The Doctor and co, after a few more tussles with Grey, and some help from Ffinch, FINALLY get back to the TARDIS!  Here the Doctor, egged on by Polly, asks Jamie to join them on the TARDIS - as long as Jamie teaches him the bagpipes!  So they all disappear in the TARDIS.

Photo 4: Leigh, MJ (with the DVD cover)
and Jason (holding the sign) around Leigh's house!

I know, from documentaries etc, that Jamie wasn't meant to be an assistant - but the actor, Frazer Hines, had impressed the production team and they had liked his charcter.  So he was written in - just like that!  Good job as Jamie will turn out to be one of my favourite companions!  Anyhow that was that.  I really enjoyed the story - it pelted along nicely and there were some nice moments of comedy and some very well-written characters.  It's a shame it's missing, but at least we had the full tele-snaps and even some moving images of the more gruesome parts (thanks to those fussy Aussies!).  Anyhow that's what I thought - what about Jason?

Jason: "My 'Highlanders' Review.

I was excited to see the Highlanders as I have always wondered what Jamie's introduction story was like.  I imagined it involved lots of men in kilts running over grassy hills and sword fights.  Though this did occur it was only briefly and actually featured little of Jamie McCrimmon at all.

What we did get was an enjoyable trip which I felt featured quite a few glimpses of what was to become 'Doctor Who' staples for me.

I love that the Doctor has become a bit more comical and devious.  We're starting to see that he's just better and smarter than those around him.  For example he manages to gather an arsenal of weapons while Polly and Kirsty only come up with a few swords.  He also manages to escape his prison cell by outsmarting his captors and taking control.  For me this is what Doctor Who (especially the post-2005 Doctor) is all about.  His main power is getting away with telling everyone else what to do by seeming to be an expert.
I liked the more light-hearted moments with Perkins (the secretary), Ffinch and Trask ("Arrrrrr!").  Polly is really growing on me.  She is very capable when left to deal with situations.  She can be a bit rude and bitchy too, which makes her seem more real and well rounded to me.

As for our new companion, Jamie, we have yet to see.  He did well, but seems to have become a companion in the same way as Katarina did - By just still being around at the end of the episode.  However I have a hunch he may last a little longer.  I do think they should have given him a bit more information before whisking him away from his time and planet though.

Overall this was the type of historical story I like.  It puts our heroes in an actual historical event but it's more about smaller characters and their story.  Doctor and the companions can have a worthwhile adventure and make things better for those around them without worrying about changing any major historic events.

7/10"

Anyhow next time we have more re-cons BUT we also have our earliest surviving Trout-Man episodes!  I also need to update our group photo - so here we go:
 

Nice eh?

Until next time, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 26-02-15

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 27th MEET-UP - THE POWER OF THE DALEKS (PARTS 3-6)

Sunday 8th February 2015

So another Sunday and we were sadly lacking in the "J Department" - for both Jim AND Jason couldn't make it.  This was a shame for Jason as it meant that I'm the only one to have not missed a single meet-up!  So I win!

Yay me


Anyhow we had the final 4 re-cons of "The Power Of The Daleks" to watch!  A lot of us had been out the night before celebrating Leigh's Girlfriend's Niece's 18th Birthday (keep-up with me!).  So lots of drink was consumed and we'd even been to a nightclub for a boogie - well actually a lot of the music was rubbish so there wasn't much boogieing!

All this made us very up for watching 4 episodes of still photos, muffled audio and written descriptions as to what was going on....!

Photo 1: Leigh (with the DVD cover),
Mark (holding the sign) and Shaun around Shaun's house.

That maybe a little unfair as The Power Of The Daleks is a fun story.  We start in episode 3 with the Doctor trying to convince the Governor of Vulcan that the Daleks are dangerous.  He however ignores his pleas - thinking how useful the Daleks would be as servants and says that Lesterson can continue his experiments.  The Doctor quietly vows that he will stop the Daleks.  We then learn that it was the Deputy Governor, Quinn, who had called the Earth and brought asked for the Examiner to help deal with the rebels.  The Head of Security, Bragen, dismisses this as nonsense and says that Quinn is in league with the rebels.  The Governor agrees and imprisons Quinn and promotes Bragen to deputy.

Bragen has also been meeting secretly with Janley (the only lady on the base (so it seems) and one of Lesterson's assistants).  She's the one who brought the Daleks to Bragen's attention and mentions that they could be used to overthrow the Governor and take over the colony - it turns out she's the rebel leader.  Bragen agrees but we can all see he's a sneaky one (he's a bad man (not Batman!)) and will be trying to take over himself - using the Daleks.  It didn't work with Mavic Chen, mate, but feel free to try!

So we then follow the next few episodes with Dalek sneakiness, lots of death, a kidnapped Polly and lots of recorder playing by the Doctor.  I did like Bragen and his badness but another performance I enjoyed was Lesterson the scientist who thinks the Daleks are a force that can be used for good - but he slowly unwinds, becoming quite deranged, as he realises that the opposite case is true!  He tries to stop them by limiting their power but that doesn't work with Janley and Bragen working against him.  The Daleks soon create their own source of power - a ring of power that surrounds the base giving them the static electricity they need to move.  The story ends with the Doctor sabotaging that and meaning the Daleks lose their power - but so does the base!  It will apparently take months to repair!
With that in mind the Doctor suggests to Ben and Polly that they'd better leave "before they send us the bill," and they hurriedly sneak away back to the TARDIS.

Photo 2: Leigh (with the DVD cover),
Mark (holding the sign) and Shaun around Shaun's house.

So that was the first Troughton/Trout-Man story.  Such a shame it doesn't exist in full-moving form as it looked like it would be a really good classic.  Still there were enough moving clips and good performances to keep the interest from waning and I DO like this new Doctor - he's cheeky, fun and you never know what he's quite up to - and are never sure if he knows either!

I seem to have lost the photos of me AT this meeting!  So I got some taken at Mark's the next time I got Leigh to pose as one of Shaun's cats - I think he does a grand job!

Photo 3: Leigh poses as one of Shaun's cats
(to give the illusion that we're still at Shaun's house
and not at Mark's!) with MJ (holding the sign and DVD cover).

Photo 4: A second shot of Leigh posing as one of Shaun's cats
(to give the illusion that we're still at Shaun's house
and not at Mark's!) with MJ (holding the sign and DVD cover).

Anyhow more re-cons next time - but until then, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 09-02-15

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 26th MEET-UP - AN ADVENTURE IN TIME & SPACE AND THE POWER OF THE DALEKS (PARTS 1 & 2)

Sunday 25th January 2015

Here we all were again - ready to start the new year and a bit of The Trout-Man - aka Troughton.  But before that I thought it might be nice to watch a drama about the First Doctor's era on the show.  Produced and broadcast last year during the show's 50th Anniversary, "An Adventure In Time & Space" was a journey through William Hartnell's time on the show - tracing the show through it's origins to Hartnel's last story.

Sadly Jim couldn't join us this week and, after a heavy night, Shaun had fallen asleep!  he said to watch the drama without him as he had seen it and he would drive over and join us for the start of Troughton.

Photo 1: Leigh, MJ (holding the sign), Jason (with the DVD cover)
and Mark around MJ's house.
Note my yellow Dalek mug!

The story was written by Mark Gatiss (a well known comedy writer and actor AND a writer on the modern Doctor Who show) and was originally broadcast on the 50th anniversary night on 21st November 2013.  It weaved key moments of the show, how the show came together, the problems with the pilot, the fight that producer Verity Lambert had to put the Daleks on and showed the various ups and downs of making the show.  David Bradley played an excellent William Hartnell and got all the nuances and noises spot on.  They kept in all of his mistakes, his irritable moments - as well as the softer side of this often grumpy man.

Photo 2: Close-up of Jason (holding the sign) around MJ's house.

There were cameos by many of the companions of Hartnell - in fact all of the living ones appeared in it apart from Jackie Lane aka Dodo.  A lovely cameo came at the end as The First Doctor prepared for his final scene in the TARDIS and, looking across the console, sees the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) looking back and smiling.  I thought it was wonderful, a real love-letter to those early days of Who.  Made by the fans for the fans and I found it very touching indeed.  Also it was fun for us seeing all these scenes made familiar by the past years viewing - it also reminded us how we all missed Ian and Barbara and that the First Doctor got it right.  That first performance was very important and he got it spot on.

However to make sure the show continued they needed to make sure that they could continue the show without Hartnell and with a strong actor.  That leads us onto our first episode with the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton!  His first story, although being thought of as a classic, is completely missing.  So back to re-cons it was - so to ease into this gently I thought it would be nice to just watch 2 episodes out of the 6 part story.

Photo 3: Leigh, Shaun (holding the sign), Jason (with the DVD cover)
and Mark around MJ's house.
Note my yellow Dalek mug!

So the episode starts with Ben and Polly not sure if the newly transformed guy is the Doctor - especially as the Doctor himself is acting strange and referring to "The Doctor" as a third person!  What's nice about these scenes is that we actually have a few clips and so get to see Troughton's first few moments testing out his Doctor!  He then starts rummaging through a chest a picks out a recorder (which he tootles a tune on), a 500 Year Diary and a piece of metal - about which he utters "Exterminate"!  He then leaves the TARDIS with his head down in his Diary.  This is a dangerous rocky planet, filled with pools full of mercury - all of which the Doctor avoids (head still looking down in his book).  They are on the planet Vulcan (nothing to do with Star Trek!).  Vulcan was a small planet proposed to exist in an orbit between Mercury and the Sun.  It was theorised to exist by a French mathematician to explain why Mercury had an peculiar orbit - however Albert Einstein later disproved it's existence by saying that the anomalies in orbit could be explained by his Theory of Relativity.  Still no-one saw fit to tell this to the writers of this story and so here we are on Vulcan!  Anyhow the Doctor sees a man shouting for assistance, however the man is shot and killed before the Doctor can get over to him!  Things start heating up (no pun intended) as the Doctor gets knocked out and Ben and Polly (having left the TARDIS) also get knocked out by getting too close to the mercury pools and collapsing from the fumes! 

When they all wake up they find they have all been collected and taken to the Governor of the planet.  The Doctor avoids trouble by claiming that HE is the Examiner - thus giving him a full run of the base.  In a labratory the Doctor comes across a bespectacled scientist, Lesterson, who seems particularly irritable and nervy!  They also discover a capsule there that Lesterson has been studying.  The Doctor, though silly, is wise enough to know something else is going on and, later that night, goes back the capsule and inside frinds two dormant Daleks - oh and Polly screams when she sees a Dalek mutant slither over the floor!

So that was Part 1!

Photo 4: Leigh (holding the sign), MJ, Jason (with the DVD cover)
and Mark around MJ's house.
With my yellow Dalek mug!

Anyhow Part 2 starts with them leaving the capsule and being found by Lesterson - who is angry at our heroes being in his lab - he doesn't even mention the open capsule.  This makes the Doctor believe that Lesterson has been inside already and accuses him of hiding a third Dalek - which Lesterson denies!  However when the Doctor leaves Lesterson bring out the Dalek from a secret compartment!

Anyhow this wholse episode is some to and fro-ing as the Doctor tells everyone at the base not to revive the Daleks but they get revived and end up shooting one of the Staff - thogh not killing him.  Further excitement occurs as they try to discover who killed the Examiner (the dead guy they found by the mercury pools in Part 1) and the whole episode ends with a Dalke being brought into an enquiry room (with some sort of courtroom bobbins going on) but not to destroy the people.  Instead it states that "I am your servant!" over and over again - whilst the Doctor pleads for them to destroy it!

So there's not really much else I can say about this until we watch the rest - 4 more re-cons!
I do however like the idea of the Daleks being cunning and not just going in and killing!  They're being very-very sneaky!

But until then I shall return, yes, I shall return...

MJ 30-01-15

****************************************************************************************************
POWER OF THE DALEKS EXTRA!

So in November 2016 the whole of this completely missing story was released as a complete black and white animation!  In April 2017 me and Shaun decided we would catch, up as an extra, to watch the results.  No transcript or review - just some photos.

So on Wednesday 26th April we got together at Shaun's to watch Parts 1 to 3.  I think we quite enjoyed it - it was also good for Shaun as he couldn't remember much of it at all!

Above: Photo 1 - Shaun. Photo 2 - MJ. Photo 3 - Shaun & MJ
All with the DVD and sign

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 25th MEET-UP - THE TENTH PLANET

Saturday 10th January 2015

Wow!  This was it - the end of the Hartnell road.  It had nearly been a year since we had all set off on this journey - well all except Shaun who joined us later!  However he hadn't missed out as he'd been beavering away, in his own time, watching all the stories that he'd missed!  Yes, even "The Web Planet"!  So, a nice thing was that, after a big push, he was fully caught up with us for this final Hartnell meet-up!

Sadly I'd already revealed that this was Hartnell's last story to the group - I sort of wish that I had kept it a surprise and saw how they reacted - but anyhow it did give us a reason to celebrate so I thought it would be nice to meet on a Saturday night and have a few drinkies
to celebrate!

So we all (including Gavin who was with us again) gathered around Jason's house (where we'd met for our very first meet-up).  Jason had very nicely left some Jelly Babies for us (though this reference won't make sense until Doctor number four!) and a lovely printed photo of the First Doctor which Shaun had printed off for us (which we placed just below the TV) and we all sat down to watch Hartnell's swan-song: "The Tenth Planet".

Photo 1: Gavin (holding the sign), Leigh (with the DVD cover),
Shaun (holding a photo of the First Doctor),
Jim, Mark and Jason around Jason's house.
All celebrating with some cheap bubbly!

The story was set in the future - in the year of 1986!!!  And the first episode (with a funky animated title card) starts with the TARDIS landing at the South Pole.  Leaving the TARDIS Ben, Polly and the Doctor are soon surrounded by armed men who have come from a nearby snowbase (called Snowcap).  Wondering what the heck they are doing there the men take our TARDIS crew into the base for questioning.

Inside some men interrogate our heroes eventually calling for a very grumpy General Cutler!  He has no time for nonsense and puts them into an observation room to deal with them later.  In the meantime the base is having trouble with a space ship (Zeus IV) which has contacted them because it keeps being taken off course and whatever is taking it off course is draining it's power!

Photo 2: Gavin (holding the sign),
MJ (holding a photo of the First Doctor),
Shaun (with the DVD cover),
 Jim, Jason and Mark around Jason's house.
All celebrating with some cheap bubbly!

The Doctor writes a note on a piece of paper saying what he thinks is the issue, the base crew ignore this and carry on trying to work out what the issue is.  They finally see what's been causing the issue - there is a new planet up in the sky - it is the mirror image of Earth (with all the landmasses upside down).  The Doctor then tells them (specifically Doctor Barclay) to look at his piece of paper and on this he has predicted that there would be a new planet in the sky.  This new planet was the Earth's twin - Mondas - but it became a rogue planet, soaring through the galaxy!  A completely nonsense idea - but one I liked just for it's sheer fun!

The General doesn't believe a lot of what is going on and suspects the Doctor has caused all the issues - he gets a couple of his men to go outside and try and break into the TARDIS - but when they can't one of them goes back to getting cutting equipment.  During all this a strange spaceship lands and one of the occupants of the spaceship comes along and knocks out the remaining man by the TARDIS!  He then knocks out the other guy when he returns and we see the full reveal of a robot with human hands - a Cyberman!   That's where we leave the first episode.

Photo 3: Leigh (with the DVD cover),
Shaun (very happily holding a photo of the First Doctor),
and Jim (holding a mini TARDIS around Jason's house.
All celebrating with some cheap bubbly.

Onto episode 2 and we have the General still not believing the Doctor about visitors from the alien planet - well that is until the Cybermen enter the base - disguised in the clothes of the chaps they killed outside!  The Cybermen explain that their planet, Mondas, was Earth's twin and as that they were once like humans but had slowly replaced most of their body parts with cybernetic parts - most importantly they had removed all emotions! 

Polly pleads that they allow them to try and save the lives of the crew of the spaceship
Zeus IV - but the lead Cybermen tells them there is no point as they will be dead! This leads to my favourite exchange:
POLLY: But don't you care?
CYBERMAN 1: Care? No, why should I care?
POLLY: Because they're people and they're going to die!
CYBERMAN 1: I do not understand you. There are people dying all over your world yet you do not care about them.....

Fantastic stuff.  In fact the Cybermen don't come across as really evil.  In fact, as far as they are aware, their main objective to turn humans into Cybermen - free from disease, pain, suffering.  They certainly aren't like the Daleks who destroy life and certainly don't want to "help" other creatures become like them.

Photo 4: Gavin (holding the sign),
MJ (holding a photo of the First Doctor),
Shaun (with the DVD cover),
 Jim (holding a mini TARDIS keyring),
Jason and Mark around Jason's house.
All celebrating with some cheap bubbly!

Still the Cybermen do allow the base to contact the space ship but it's too late - Mondas's pull is too strong and the ship explodes.  Back in the base Ben takes a gun from a dead soldier and tries to unsuccessfully use it against the Cybermen - but this doesn't work and he gets locked away!

In the mean time it's discovered that General Cutler's son has been sent up in a rocket (Zeus V) to try and rescue the crew of the Zeus IV - of course it's too late now and his son is trapped in orbit.  The base then discovers that a fleet of Cybermen ships are coming to the Earth!

Episode 3 starts with the Doctor fainting (another break for William Hartnell then - in fact I believe that "The Doctor" that we see fainting probably was another actor in disguise!  Ben and Polly take the Doctor to some quarters with Polly saying that he seems "worn out".  The sad fact is that, about from brief clips, this is the last we see of the Doctor.  He'll be back for the last episode, but as that's missing we'll only have an animated Doctor!

Anyhow in the meantime General Cutler is getting more gruff and irritable - now that his boy is in danger he wants to launch a Z-Bomb (a series of nuclear bombs that are placed at strategic points around the world) to destroy Mondas.  His bosses at Geneva refuse but he re-words the question asking if he can do anything he deems suitable in order to destroy the Cybermen.  His bosses agree and Cutler takes this as permission to use the bomb!
Ben argues with General Cutler saying this isn't what the Doctor wanted but Cutler doesn't care and locks Ben up - this leaves Polly in the control room where she convinces Doctor Barclay to help her save Ben so they can diffuse the bomb.

So whilst this happens more Cybermen land but the General soldiers destroy them (with some of the old weapons left by the other Cybermen!) but of course more will be on their way.

Meanwhile Ben has been released by Polly and has reached the bomb to disarm it but during this he is discovered by Cutler and knocked out.  The episode ends with Ben coming around and not remembering if he'd succeeded in his mission or not - whilst the launch of the bomb countdown approaches zero.....!

Photo 5: Jason holds Shaun's print-out of the First Doctor
around his house.

Episode 4 is lost.  It's an episode that many people would like to see returned but in the meantime we have many still tele-snaps, the audio and now an animated version!  It's this animated version we watch and it starts with the Doctor recovered and back in the control room.  He's just in time to see the Z-bomb failing to launch - this angers Cutler so much that he ignores the fact that Cybermen have entered the base and that Mondas is about to blow-up!  All he wants to do is kill the Doctor - luckily he himself are killed by the Cybermen who have just enetered the base.

Anyhow lots happens, The Doctor and Polly are taken to the Cyber ship and held captive whilst Ben is made to disarm the bomb.  He wonders why, quite rightly, the MUCH stronger Cybermen aren't doing it themselves?  He deduces that they must be afraid of the radiation - which they are and he uses this (holding a rod of radioactive stuff with tongues) to attack the Cybermen and get out of the room and run around the base.

Anyhow most of this is irrelevant as Mondas soon melts (I'd have loved to see how they did this!) and, as this was where they draw their power from, all the Cyberman (all over the world) collapse and die.

And so that's the end of the Cybermen - I guess we'll never see them again....!

Of course Ben rescues Polly and the Doctor but the Doctor is in a very sorry state.  He mumbles some nonsense stuff and stumbles quickly back to the TARDIS - leaving Ben and Polly to follow confused!  Once they de-materialise the Doctor collapses and in a long flash of blinding white light changes into a completely different man!  Welcome to Doctor Two!

Of course the regeneration footage does actually exist (thanks to being shown in Blue Peter), so after the end of the episode I showed the proper footage to the gang.  So there we go!  The end of Hartnell.  I felt we needed to celebrate and we all said cheers with a bottle of Lambrini!

Photo 6: Three Jelly Babies pose in front of my
TARDIS key ring around Jason's house.
This reminds me of a shot of three Yeti's in front of the TARDIS in a
later story - but that's not for now!

I did like the last story but have to say that I found the sound-quality to be rather bad!  Maybe that was just me!  The story itself was quite silly in places but it had enough fun characters and stuff going on that I could forgive it!  The Cybermen were a huge success in my books.  I honestly feel that they are the creepiest they have ever been in this story.  I loved the odd sing-song way in which they spoke and the look is awesome - Cybermen are supposed to be human's augmented with electronic parts and they really look like it in this! They have human hands, they have human mouths and I like the cumbersome look they have.  It's like they've been put together, not because a funky-design ethic, but through a necessity to survive.  It really feels like the need all the bulky equipment.

However, here we are at the end of nearly a years worth of viewing, with no more Hartnell (unless he comes back for some sort of anniversary special of something....!) and I felt it was time to reflect.  We all talked about the companions and I think everyone felt that Ian and Barbara couldn't be topped (those early stories really were the best) - though we really liked Vicki.  Plus, although we've only had them for a couple of stories, Ben and Polly seem like they could be really good!  Already they seem a lot more fun than Steven and Dodo.

We also had a little poll on what we thought were our favourite stories of each season.
Season 1 was a strong season and Jason opted for the completely missing "Marco Polo", Mark went for "The Aztecs", Shaun was an "Edge of Destruction" man whereas the rest of us went for "The Keys of Marinus" (though I was torn between this and Marco Polo).
So "The Keys of Marinus" was the winner!

Season 2 was another strong season and this split us all a bit more!  Shaun was a fan of "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth" whereas Leigh liked "The Rescue".  However the winner was a draw between Jim and Jason's choice of "The Romans" (which I too thought was a strong contender!) and mine and Mark's choice of "The Time Meddler"!

Season 3 was possibly the weaker season of the 3 but there was a clear winner - "The Dalek Master Plan" was voted for by all of us - except Jason who preferred "The Ark" (oh Gavin liked "The War Machines" but that might be because he only watched a couple with us!).

As Season 4 had only just started it's a bit unfair to vote just between two stories (though "The Tenth Planet" would win!).

Photo 6: Three Jelly Babies pose in front of my
TARDIS key ring around Jason's house.
One has been killed since the last photo!

We then voted pitched our overall winner and surprisingly the (mostly missing) 12 part epic "The Daleks Master Plan" won - voted by all except Jim and Jason who liked "The Keys Of Marinus" best - and why not!

So that's Hartnell.  Thank you, you were a fun Doctor to watch and, even with the fluffs, you were amusing and interesting to watch.  Plus you were the first it was down to you to pull it off and make it a success.  Well done you!

Next time we meet we shall watch the drama based on Hartnell's time on the show "An Adventure in Space and Time" before continuing with Season 4 in the shape of a Mr. Patrick Troughton.  We'd better start getting used to re-cons....!

But until then I shall return, yes, I shall return...

MJ 12-01-15