The Brain of Morbius

This is another one which I can remember watching but that’s all. I think I found Sarah Jane’s blindness acting quite amusing but given my squeamishness about eyes it is just as likely I found it rather uncomfortable. It’s just one of those gothic stories which I got to the end of – now fortunately over in two hours rather than three – and thought “that was good. I don’t ever want to see it again.” As far as I know, I never have. The one bit I was looking forward to - the "legendary" sequence in which we might see the faces of some earlier incarnations of the Doctor - was such a success that I didn't realise what it was when I saw it. I remember assuming the stuff of legend was still to come. The end credits suggested it wasn't and that was that. Sorry, Morbius.

Postscript - I have now watched the documentary on the DVD. I saw it on a 7 inch portable DVD player in a Travel Lodge on the outskirts of Telford and it told me everything I already knew about the Brain of Morbius but in a fun way. I think I started the commentary too. That's as close as I've got to making the paragraph above a lot of lying nonsense.

Morbius doesn't realise Sarah Jane has borrowed
part of him for her own amusement

The Seeds of Doom

The first viewing – another omnibus – was so insignificant that I can’t remember anything about it. I don’t even really remember watching it. Well, maybe I remember the bit in the snow. Maybe we went out after that. I do however remember calling in to the Virgin Megastore one day after lectures and finding the video of Seeds of Doom in a sale. It would have been what we later knew was a period of clearing old stock before the TV Movie came out and all old Doctor Who was out of print. It was £4.99 which in those days was cheap for a single tape let alone a double. I know I was excited to have found it so I must’ve quite liked first time around. The Virgin Megastore was so well situated – I got off the bus outside Waterstones (which may have been Dillons back then), up the ramp, into the West Orchards centre, into Virgin Megastore, do whatever needs to be done, down the stairs and out, onto the road home. It was very nearly a short cut. I expect it’s a Zavvi now. But to me it’ll always be the Virgin Megastore where I got Eddie Izzard’s “Definite Article” the moment it was released, where I got the TV Movie (more later) and where I bought my first ever off-colour video.

I also had a signed video cover of the Seeds of Death on my wall for many years. Manchester’s K9 books had a “Day” with Elisabeth Sladen some time around the summer of 1994. It was my first – and last – signing type thing. We stood outside for a while (getting looks from passing drivers because there was a K9 apparently keeping us in line) then went in to be gouged of cash. You’ve been to signings – you know what it’s like. Cash to get in, cash to get something, cash to get the something signed, cash to go downstairs to the Q&A… Yes there was a Q&A session downstairs in the “Tardis Club” – a strange little room with roundels on the walls. He once told me he was hoping to make it some kind of special, private members’ establishment but that might’ve been a sleazy come on. I do know he made people pay £6 for “membership” before they were allowed downstairs for the Q&A and then pay the “reduced members’ rate” for entry to the Q&A itself. All I remember about the Q&A was sitting quite near the back and Lis being a bit evasive at times. She was asked about the pittance actors got for UK Gold repeats and although she wouldn’t be drawn, it was clear she wasn’t happy about it. Then she said she’d recently blocked something… and the she wouldn’t elaborate. She let it slip out and then immediately moved on to something less interesting. Then it was back upstairs for more cash, more signing of things and then I somehow found myself chatting to her as she walked to the car which would take her to the station. I babbled. I was reminded about that babbling every time I saw that signed video cover. But I always babble. Why should Lis Sladen expect anything different?

West Orchards, Coventry. I have lots of fond memories of this otherwise generic shopping centre

The Masque of Mandragora

I’ve always been fairly protective of Doctor Who. Less so these days – now I can enjoy its failures and weaknesses, if not in the spirit they were intended then in a spirit of understanding that just making it to the screen was sometimes a miracle. That’s probably why I never used to watch Doctor Who with anyone else. They might laugh at the wrong thing. They might not see things the way they were meant to be seen. They might mock the CSO fringes or the rubberness of the monsters. They might laugh at it not with it. So I was delighted when mother made mock this Sunday morning. “Those masks aren’t very convincing” she said. She might even have said “those are convincing masks” in a tone dripping with sarcasm. Oh joy of joys – I was able to tell her that they were meant to be masks. They were men in masks not men in masks. In that instant I was vindicated. Or something. I found the story dull so I took pleasure where I could find it.

Ha - it doesn't even need to try to be convincing

The Hand of Fear

If this project ultimately fails it will probably be the fault of stories like the Hand of Fear. All I remember from the UK Gold showing was the opening sequence. I thought this was going to be brilliant. Then we left ancient Kastria and it became another contemporary run around. Sarah Jane was less than sanely dressed and there was a sense of departure running through it (probably just because I knew she was going). These days most people know the Hand of Fear because it was the Lungbarrow of the video world for so many years. Deleted only weeks after release, it became expensive beyond the dreams of avarice. I did eventually get a copy during the oft mentioned quest to own them all. I’ve looked at my email archive and I lied to you earlier when I said I didn’t pay over the odds for any of them. It turns out I paid £15 plus P&P for the Hand of Fear. Just when I was feeling silly for myself I thought I’d look in the other folder. I have one for things I’ve bought and one for things I’ve sold. Yeah, I sold the same tape eleven months later for £34. Formidable.

The Hand's exercise video never really went beyond press-ups

The Deadly Assassin

I must’ve bought the video of this during a school holiday because it was definitely a weekday. I got it from WH Smith and I remember watching it that afternoon. I wasn’t massively keen on the matrix episode. Which is the only thing I have in common with Mary Whitehouse. At least I hope it is.

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The Face of Evil

Apart from thinking it was really stupid, I don’t remember anything about this. Even buying the video – something I’m usually borderline autistic about – is a blank. It's on the shelf, it must've happened, it's still sealed, usual story for the Tom Baker years. The one reliable and satisying thing I remember about this story isn’t really about this story at all – it was a publicity photo of Leela on the set of Face of Evil which, many years later, became a poster in the Doctor Who “Classic Comics” magazine. I had that particular issue to read on the way down to Warwick University for an open day. Classic Comics wasn’t something which took long to read so you can imagine how much of that two and a bit hour journey was spent transfixed by Leela’s thighs. I don’t think this is the exact picture but it looks very like it.

That loin cloth can warm the back of my head anytime