|
City of Death
I watched this in my usual Sunday morning slot and I remember seeing the
opening sequence and just sort of knowing that we’d see it again at the
end. It seemed like one of those bits which was destined to be replayed at
the end. The Tom era specialised in great openings – or maybe I was just
excited for the first ten minutes and then reality set in – and this was
particularly impressive. The space ship looked really good. The strange
folding-in explosion-thing looked less good and I strongly suspected
they’d spent the pyrotechnics money on some more bits of model space ship.
I gave it 9/10 in my diary and said it was the most fun story I’d seen in
ages. That same day I must’ve watched the Chase and concluded it was
better than the 6 ½ points I gave it at some unspecified point in the
past.
This may be the best non-nude Doctor Who picture ever
The Creature from the Pit
This is how I remember it - I found nothing even remotely good about this
one. It was so bad that I didn’t watch a minute of it (save any clips on
the Tom Baker Years) between 1994 and last November when I gave the video
an airing in the kitchen. I couldn’t even find any amusement in the
unintentional fellatio performed by the Doctor on the alien blob. It turns
out from the aforementioned diary that I found it to be much better than I
was expecting. For the first time I found Lalla Ward really pretty –
something else I wasn’t expecting to do apparently.
Not as rude as Dalek Sec's face
Nightmare of Eden
I know I wasn’t impressed by this. I don’t need to consult what historians
call a primary source to know I was deeply unhappy with Lalla’s dress. One
week after deciding I could fancy her after all I find she’s wearing a
grey wigwam which made her flat chested.
One of the earliest thoughts I ever expressed online was that history
really should be changed so Nightmare of Eden was made in season 18 and
Meglos was made in season 17. Nightmare of Eden is so serious at heart –
drug dealing and ecological rape – that the jocular tone and outrageous
accents do it no favours. Equally, Meglos is too utterly silly to be made
in Bidmead’s hard science era. This revelation caused literally no debate
and wasn’t as popular as jokes about a Renault Espace and Matthew
Waterhouse. I forget the details. I still think I’m right though – a camp
and Douglassy Meglos could’ve been a treat and a Bidmeaded Nightmare of
Eden might’ve been a thought provoking minor classic (like Full Circle).
Nightmare of Eden might also be the last time I sat down and watched a
Doctor Who video. It was years ago – I MSNed one of the Simons later that
evening and I haven’t had any MSN buddies for yonks. We’ve probably
already covered that I don’t tend to watch Doctor Who DVDs in their
natural state although I’ve watched a few of them over the years. But Nightmare
of Eden stands (and technology suggests will stand forever more) as the
last story I sat down to watch on VHS. I’ve had other stories on in the
background but never the full, seated, attention-wrapped experience. I
must’ve been in a good mood because I’ve had a much more positive opinion
of the story ever since.
NFTB - Not Flattering to Breasts
The Horns of Nimon
It’s one of those stories which really does improve with age. I was more
or less aghast the first day I watched it. It didn’t help that UK Gold’s
teletext said it was the Leisure Hive this week so I wasn’t expecting it.
My only strong memory is being convinced that the Nimon head would turn
out to be a mask. It had to be – it looked like a mask, the whole point of
the thing was that the Nimon was tricking the natives and it was quite
clearly technology rather than something which grew on top of their
shoulders in the normal way. I waited and waited and waited for it to take
its helmet off and show us the real Nimon beneath. It didn’t. You know as
well as I do that those were meant to be real heads. I was – as Tom Baker
said on a video I’ll be mentioning soon and as every character in my
serials appears to be at one point or another – APPPPPPAAAALLLLLLLLLLED.
Luckily, the story also features Janet Ellis and I’ve always fancied Janet
Ellis. That’s why I’ve never been able to fancy Sophie Ellis Bextor
despite her being one of the few musicians to force their way onto my iPod.
She is not as cute as her mother was and that’s something I just can’t get
past.
Looks left, pop right - that's the rule
Shada
My eighteenth birthday fell very nicely. Not only was it eighteen years to
the day since my regrettable birth, it was also the day after my A-Levels
finished. So it was with an enormous sense of relief that I went into
Manchester and did some carefree and cash-rich shopping. Amidst the
ephemera which seemed like a good idea at the time but which no doubt made
me look like a twat were two videos. The first was Shada – a unique
collector’s pack containing a video tape, a script book and a piece of
genuine BBC polystyrene. The second was “Live At the Ambassadors” – the
first Eddie Izzard video and my introduction to his peerless stand up
comedy. There are three people I place on a talent plinth above all other
living beings and they are Eddie Izzard, Derren Brown and Stephen Fry. But
I digress. Shada was a strange and beautiful thing – if it had been
finished it would probably be the pinnacle of Tom’s Doctor Who. Tom’s
links are of course a thing of wonder – wearing a formidable suit and
standing amidst a raft of Doctor Who monsters he gives every line 110% and
has enriched the idiomatic vocab of every proper Doctor Who fan. But the
most overjoying thing (if I can use a word like overjoying which annoys me
by not existing when it quite clearly ought to) was that it was episodic.
Ok so it padded out the tape and made it feel like we were getting more
than we were but it was episodic and as that first cliffhanger stung into
music and newly minted credits I was even happier than I had been a few
minutes earlier when I put the tape in. Tiny things and tiny minds.
The only thing was that I wanted more – I wanted to know the full story. I
tried reading the script but there is a good reason why script books
reformat the scripts before publishing them. This was the raw scripts and
it was hard to follow. My solution to this problem was found in an old
back issue of DWM. It contained a detailed scene by scene breakdown of
Shada. Splendid. Two things – it was written in the present tense (“the
Doctor walks down a corridor…”) and I decided to record it on tape. What I
intended to do with the tape is anyone’s guess. Maybe the reality of the
longest holiday of my life was dawning on my and I had afternoons to fill.
Whatever made me do it made me do it and I did it. I’ve never listened to
the tape, I don’t know what happened to it and my plan to carve out an
audio cassette shaped gap in the genuine BBC polystyrene so the cassette
could live alongside the script and the video to make the complete Shada
package never reached fruition.
The re-recording with Paul McGann, Lalla and a bunch of new people wasn’t
the same. These days people play Douglas Adams material with such a sense
of reverence that they almost suck the spontaneous joy out of it. He wrote
hand to mouth (at least he did at his busiest) and that was the way the
BBC liked to make programmes until the 1990s came along and spoilt things.
I like the new opening scene and they pull off a miracle by making this
new version as close to canon as a webcast is ever likely to be but it
wasn’t the same.
Autumn leaves - contain colours
|
Doctor
Who, What, Where, When, Why and How