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Lust in Space When was it made? 1998 Who made it? Reeltime Pictures What format was it on? VHS Familiar faces Loads – the three acting leads are Nicholas Courtney, Mark Strickson and James Bree. Appearing in studio are Sophie Aldred and Katy Manning and new videotaped interviews are recorded with Terrance Dicks, John Nathan Turner and Gary Russell. Oh, and Nick Briggs done a humorous cameo.
Familiar names The writer is Roger Stevens. Nope, me neither. All the famous names are on screen.
The blurb Dr Who is on trial - and the charge is sexism. Features Sophie Aldred, Carole Ann Ford, Katy Manning, Wendy Padbury, Sarah Sutton and Anneke Wills. Mark Strickson and Nicholas Courtney also make appearances along the way.
In a nutshell… It’s supposed to be a comedy – a spoof of Trial of a Time Lord which, in 1998, was highly satirical. James Bree and Mark Strickson are busybodies who scan the time lines for sexism (sidebar, the word sexism is used on average twice a minute, every minute, for the tape’s 52 minute duration). They find "Doctor Who" – an obscure little programme on a backwards world and summon to judge so they can put it on trial. The first few minutes are made up of clips from Reeltime’s own "Myth Makers" series (dealt with – occasionally – elsewhere on this site). To be fair they do make a joke out of this recycling of old material and move on to new material. They interview various Doctor Who luminaries – and Gary Russell – and try to keep the flimsy pretence going. It is utterly tiresome stuff and god knows who it was meant to be aimed at.
Is it any good? No – it is rubbish. It is absolute crap. It started reasonably well and it must be said the court room is more atmospheric than the real "Trial" set which leaned towards the sterile. Strickson as prosecution counsel and Bree as defence counsel interrogate a number of guests and keep asking the same dreadful questions over and over again. The interviewees on the other hand seem to be making it up as they go along. Katy Manning in particular does not seem to be reading her lines off an autocue. Katy is the best thing about it – though Sophie comes a creditable second. From her introductory scene in which she and Nick Briggs air kiss and she runs off but he can’t follow because he’s sprained his ankle and fallen over, to her courtroom rant which ends with her calling the whole project absolute rubbish, she is fantastic. And she’s right.
The interviews are largely dull – Terrance Dicks does his usual Uncle Terrance spiel which is never less than fun to talk along to. JNT seems more interesting but that’s probably because he sadly died before the DVD age and so isn’t in ten documentaries a year. He was even asked whether he ever considered casting a female companion who wasn’t attractive. He said he considered it but never actually did it. Now, no offence intended, but JNT hardly cast a bevy of babes did he? Janet Fielding? Sarah Sutton? Bonnie Langford? Sophie Aldred? All thoroughly nice people but hardly the classic four tissue fantasy. Nicola Bryant as the obviously sexy girl to be lusted over was the exception not the rule.
But I wasn’t going to use this space to be lured into their squalid little debate about sexism in Doctor Who. I promised. For Nick Courtney see Terrance Dicks – he gives his usual as a witness (he shows his versatility by playing the judge and the witness at the same time). He gets in "splendid fellows – all of them" and a pun about "five rounds rapid". I bet he did all the video signings too.
The trial is so insufferably tedious because the two lawyers ask rubbish questions (sometimes you forget which is which because the prosecution will sometimes be happy with a defence answer and vice versa) and everything goes round and round in circles. You find yourself looking forward to beating your head against the desk when it’s finished. Then you start to wonder why you should wait until it’s finished and start banging your head on the desk immediately. But worse is yet to come. The judge is about to announce his verdict when they actually wuss out of coming to a conclusion because Sophie Aldred, Katy Manning and a bunch of female extras with the least convincing guns you’ve ever seen burst into court and shoot all the men. Aldred and Manning then actually shout "Girl Power" and the extras cry "Hooray!" Then they blow up the space station and we can go on with our lives.
Anything for the BBC to object to? It’s crap. If the BBC saw it they’d want their money back.
Did it help fill the void? No – god no – this didn’t
help anything, ever. It was neither one thing nor the other – it wasn’t an
interview or documentary which told you stuff you didn’t know and were
interested in, nor was it an intelligent and amusing spoof which poked fun
at Doctor Who with jokes which go beyond Daleks, stairs and one not being
able to go up the other. They tried their best with what they had to work
with but it was a wafer thin script and nobody comes out of this without
reason to be ashamed. And that includes me just for watching it. This
would be booed off at a convention. Would it work on TV? If Channel 5 did a "crap
sci fi" night and wanted something cheap to put on after midnight they
might air it. The idea could – with an infinitely better script and access
to real footage – be made into something for a BBC 2 theme night but even
then you’re going to struggle because it would be made with the idea that
for 26 years the programme was sexist and it wasn’t until Billie came
along that we had a companion who wasn’t half naked and imbecilic. The
reality is that it didn’t take 42 years to get a strong and intelligent
female companion – it took about five minutes. Barbara was ten times the
character Rose was and nothing they will do in New Season 4 will change
that. If this or something this bad ever made its way onto TV I really
think the internet would melt with fury. Production 1/5 Entertainment 0/5 Whoishness 3/5 Overall 0/5
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