|
Day of the Daleks
In those days there were two ways I would approach a Doctor
Who story. There were the ones where I knew what the generally accepted
faults were and I would look out for them. The others were the ones where
I didn’t have any preconceived ideas where the story succeeded or – more
usually – failed. Day of the Daleks was the one with three Daleks. I know
that going in. Three Daleks. Obviously three Daleks. Watch and count –
three Daleks. One gold one, two grey ones and one light grey one in some
scenes which was the gold one painted grey but not quite the right shade
of grey. That Sunday morning I sat down in front of the telly and I
counted Daleks. It didn’t take long. Mind you, I have lots of time in
which to count and recount as the gold Dalek spoke such long sentences in
such a clipped way that his colleagues may well have rusted between full
stops. Russell T Davies can destroy every Dalek in the universe in less
time than it took for one of these Daleks to tell someone not to move or
they would be exterminated.
Just call the story "The Three Daleks" and be done with it
It bothered me that I didn’t have this story in glorious episodic format.
The re-release was out print by the time I wanted it so my choices were
either a compilation (which must’ve been awkward as they put the musical
sting on in the wrong places) or an American import. I nearly said a
region 1 import which is a laughable mistake. My old telly wasn’t keen on
NTSC. It would grudgingly show it but it was not the smoothest, most
comfortable picture to watch. It was better than my previous television
which squashed everything down to a faux-widescreen because it couldn’t
handle the reduced resolution. Anyway, after a journey of several thousand
miles my tape was basically unwatchable. It made me feel sick watching it.
So, during my final push to obtain every single video, I bought another
copy – a proper copy – and I can watch that without feeling nauseous. I
haven't though. I’ve not even put it onto DVD so I’d be able to watch it
on a whim rather than with enough advance notice to re-plumb my SCARTs and
bring the video back into the loop.
The Curse of Peladon
The Curse of Peladon was another second hand video from the shop in
Manchester. It was a Saturday morning and not just any Saturday morning.
It was the day after The Coach Ride. I put it in capital letters because
it was the worst coach ride of my life. For some reason I thought getting
the coach from Coventry to home would be a really good idea. It wasn’t. It
was a really bad idea. It took five hours because we got stuck in lots of
bad traffic around Birmingham. Who knew there would be traffic in
Birmingham? Not the coach company apparently. They thought it would be
like a knife through butter. I never tried it again. None of which has
anything to do with Curse of Peladon in a meaningful way but saying it
cost £8 and that I can’t remember watching it isn’t a great way to spend a
paragraph.
There are times of the week when this is not a surprise
The Sea Devils
The Sea Devils was the third story of the 1992 repeat run. It was my first
Pertwee, my first look at the original Master and effectively my first
colour Doctor Who in many years. The two things I remember most clearly
about it – aside from the obvious monsters, masters and mayhem – are the
cars with no doors and the strange Venetian blinds they used as
televisions. The cars without doors I sort of understood – it was a prison
and it would make sense that the cars would be much less useful in an
escape if they have no doors. The commentary proved me utterly wrong on
that point – they had no doors because they were meant to look futuristic.
Whatever that means. The televisions were just odd. Can you imagine – as a
citizen of Century 21 – going into Dixons and looking at televisions,
trying to decide whether the eight slat set had a better picture than the
ten slat set? Would the 1970s curse of the tube going be replaced in the
future by the draw string going on the telly?
While I mention the commentary – and I shouldn’t given my self imposed
remit – when Uncle Barry is talking about the speeded up sequence during
the sword fight, why does he act like we can’t immediately spot the
speeded up bit? He actually challenges us to notice it. Of course we can
notice the speeded up bit – it is the bit which moves significantly more
quickly. I may even have noticed it at the time, a full fifteen years
before the challenge was set.
And I do a pretty good Sea Devil impression. “No – I do not think he lies”
I’ll say in my Sea Devil voice and all will be impressed. It is a short
party piece but parties tend to come to an abrupt halt when I become any
centre of attention so it is just as well.
This was at Shillpages - it looks more exciting than the Pertwee version
The Mutants
Something went wrong and I missed the Mutants. I don’t know whether the
video didn’t work, whether the satellite receiver had a wobble or whether I
simply forgot to record it. Whichever it was, I didn’t record the Mutants
when I should’ve done. This was obviously unacceptable to a mind which
needed everything in its proper place and its proper place was my video
collection. So, months or possibly years later, I left instructions with
Father that he should record UK Gold on this particular day, at this
particular time, on this particular tape and I would get it when I next
went home from university. It was nice to know I still had some sense of
priorities even after going peculiar when I left home for the shining and
exciting world of academe. It came as a nice surprise then when a parcel arrived the following Tuesday
containing my video cassette tape of the Mutants. There were only two
things wrong with it – firstly I’d given him a really crappy tape and the
whole thing was grainy as hell. Made worse by little black shards which
leapt to the right of any bright object. The second thing that was wrong
was the ending – I went twelve years until I was next as appalled by a
sudden godhood ending (when Last of the Time Lords so blatantly ripped the
Mutants off). I’d been expecting the Mutants to be no good – indoctrinated
by the Discontinuity Guide and other similar books – but Rick James aside
it was really rather fun. Lots of over the top speeches, Paul Witsun Jones
waddling preposterously, Pertwee at his most earnest and Jo being
breathlessly trippy. This was fun as I was beginning to realise old Doctor
Who could be.
It's really hard to recreate old, crappy VHS picture distortion
|
