It’s a politically complex story, as one often gets from Malcolm Hulke, with easily the most evil character being the Permanent Under-Secretary from London, come to wipe out the non-humans because they are different. Even the Master’s motivation is a bit more three-dimensional than usual, and the Sea Devils themselves behave in good faith for a race which has been awakened from millions of years of slumber to find themselves under attack.
Note also Declan Mulholland as another Ulster actor to appear in Who apart from Harry Towb (and of course Lalla Ward). And Malcolm Clarke’s music is really good – I see he scored several later Who stories from Earthshock on, but don’t remember those being as memorable.
It’s weird because while I don’t rate Baker and Martin all that highly as writers, they are usually rather better than this, and Christopher Barry is one of the great Who directors. One can’t get it right all the time, I suppose.
Since the actual narrative makes no sense, our attention is held by the dynamic between the three central couples – Stuart and Ruth, the Doctor and Jo, and the Master and Galleia; and unfortunately the first of these, which carries the weight of the story in the early episodes, doesn’t really work – we never get a convincing sense of the dynamic between them, and Stuart’s totally rubbish moustache out-acts him in every scene.
It does pick up. The sequences of the Doctor and Jo marooned in the Tardis are as emotionally charged as RTD at the height of his powers. The dynamic between Delgado and Ingrid Pitt is very sexy, though badly written. John Levene has his best outing yet as Benton, even if he does get regressed to infancy. But really, this is not a lot better than The Mutants.
It is great to see both Troughton and, however intermittently, Hartnell once again, and although there are weaknesses (the anti-matter monsters, Omega’s dark side, the comic yokel Ollis, the pointless physicist Tyler, and the Brigadier losing his marbles), the story is a decent feelgood effort for the anniversary.
Michael Wisher is excellent as the villainous Kalik. Maybe they should bring him back to, I dunno, play a mad scientist who invents the Daleks. I love Cheryl Hall as Shirna as well, though admittedly more for her costume than her acting. The Drashigs rather let it down though. And I noticed a continuity goof: as Jo flees from being thigh-deep in the marsh, her trousers dry instantly (and her close-fitting pockets don’t seem to contain the bulky set of skeleton keys)..
For the first time this season, the production values more or less match the ambition of the story, lots of spaceship model shots and plenty of sets, none of which wobble. The short sequence of the Doctor in a spacesuit outside the Master’s ship is particularly well done. The Earth president, played by Vera Fusek, is particularly memorable, though she and General Williams have a more hands-on approach to dealing with espionage suspects than the presidents and senior military officials who I have dealt with in real life, and they are on the young side for such senior officials.
Another reference to sf outside the Doctor Who canon involving the Master: he reads a copy of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in Episode 4. (Wells himself, of course, turns up as a character in the Sixth Doctor’s era.) And did I pick up Ramsay Williams, as Congressman Brook, putting on a mildly Ulster accent as Congressman Brook?
It helps immensely that Delgado and Pertwee clearly worked very well together. Since the Third Doctor is haughtily dismissive of the Brigadier and UNIT, and needs a companion he can patronise, it is only the Master who is really his equal. His plans are almost always completely ludicrous, but the Doctor takes them deadly seriously and so therefore do we. He really does combine both menace and charm, and actively seduces both Queen Galleia and Captain Chin Lee as well as the audience.
I liked most of these stories about the same as last time I watched them – the two real turkeys, The Mutants and The Time Monster, remain turkeys, but the Season 10 stories seem more forgiveable somehow.
I am now 42% through the Old Who stories, 48% by screen minutes and episodes, and 36% of the time from November 1963 to December 1989 has elapsed.
< An Unearthly Child – The Aztecs | The Sensorites – The Romans | The Web Planet – Galaxy 4 | Mission To The Unknown – The Gunfighters | The Savages – The Highlanders | The Underwater Menace – Tomb of the Cybermen | The Abominable Snowmen – The Wheel In Space | The Dominators – The Space Pirates | The War Games – Terror of the Autons | The Mind of Evil – The Curse of Peladon | The Sea Devils – Frontier in Space | Planet of the Daleks – The Monster of Peladon | Planet of the Spiders – Revenge of the Cybermen | Terror of the Zygons – The Seeds of Doom | The Masque of Mandragora – The Talons of Weng-Chiang | Horror of Fang Rock – The Invasion of Time | The Ribos Operation – The Armageddon Factor | Destiny of the Daleks – Shada | The Leisure Hive – The Keeper of Traken | Logopolis – The Visitation | Black Orchid – Mawdryn Undead | Terminus – The Awakening | Frontios – Attack of the Cybermen | Vengeance on Varos – In A Fix With Sontarans | The Mysterious Planet – Paradise Towers | Delta and the Bannermen – The Greatest Show in the Galaxy | Battlefield – The TV Movie >
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