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Planet of Fire
I don’t remember Peri at all. Not from here, not from Caves of Androzani
and not from the entire Colin Baker era. I knew he travelled with a girl
(obviously) but I remembered nothing about her. I wouldn’t be introduced
to her until I got the video of Vengeance on Varos many years later. As it
was, I saw Peri’s debut in a late-night UK Gold feast of flesh.
I’d stopped switching over to the adult channel by now – believe it or not
it got boring even with boobs involved – so this was the limit of my
erotic excitement. Which is a shame as Planet of Fire is not sexy. Peri
looks fine in a bikini – she fills it admirably – but when she spends most
of her bikini time drowning and choking it loses its stimulating
qualities. Staggeringly, it is almost immediately apparent that her
wearing a bikini makes dramatic sense and isn’t just a bit of titillation
for pubescent boys, dad’s who want to know what all the fuss is about and
lesbians who still watch Doctor Who even though it doesn’t say anything
meaningful about the plight of women in a patriarchal society. To be
honest, I was more interested in Peter Wyngarde. I was – and still am,
obviously – a fan of Department S and the chance to see Jason King after
all these years was a draw. Again it was a case of “…and?” Not the most
overwhelming guest star appearance of all time.
The thing which really bugs me about Planet of Fire – and this is
dangerously close to a point rather than a thinly painted memory – is that
they chose the most amazing landscape to be the surface of an alien world
and presented us with a stunning vista which looked like nothing on Earth.
A pity then that they set the earthbound parts of the story in the same
place. What were they thinking? They’d achieved something miraculous by
making Doctor Who rocks look like a real alien planet and that’s not
enough – you need some scenes set in a café and a few tourists to really
burst the alien bubble.
The Caves of Androzani
We see out the Davison era with my first modern taste of it. The BBC2
repeat run of 92/93 really did select some pips and some dandies. It takes
a heck of a story not to feel like an anti-climax after Genesis of the
Daleks but Caves of Androzani is, fortunately, a heck of a story. Though
the thing I remember most clearly from 1993 is how bad my BBC2 signal was
by this stage. I don’t know why it would’ve deteriorated so much between
1992 and 1993 but it was shocking. So shocking that in the final episode –
and this is word for word what happened – I was watching the Doctor carry
Peri and I thought “She’s got great legs”. It was only when I saw it on UK
Gold that I realised she has scabby, diseased, toxiced-to-death legs by
this stage. I literally couldn’t tell the difference.
I mentioned in the section on Ambassadors of Death that the end of part 4
was the first time I experienced a real Doctor Who cliff-hanger. I meant
it – the BBC2 repeat seasons were weekly episodes and gave me plenty of
cliff-hangers but none of them gave me that little “oooh – I can’t wait”
thrill. Not even the end of episode 3 which is quite simply stunning. It
could’ve been because it was built up to for several minutes whereas the
Alien coming at the Doctor from behind just sort of springs up at the last
moment. It could be because I’d already seen it in “Resistance is
Useless”. Or it might’ve been that I know the Doctor was going to die in
the next episode and that paradoxically lessens the danger of the
cliff-hanger because even I knew the Doctor wasn’t going to “die” at the
start of the next episode, he was going to wait a good twenty minutes.
Caves of Androzani is also blessed with the first really great DVD
commentary. Remembrance of the Daleks came close but didn’t quite hit the
mark. Caves of Androzani brings irreverence to the booth for the first
time. It features people who clearly like what they are seeing but who
aren’t afraid to mock it gently.
Twin Dilemma
The Colin Baker era – and I think it just about qualifies as an era – is
interesting in that I watched the Colin Baker Years before I saw any of
the stories except for Revelation of the Daleks which was on BBC2 in
spring 1993 and Vengeance on Varos which was still fresh in my mind from
its video release. It is true that I watched Tom’s Years before I saw many
of those stories but the format of the Tom Years was to show a random clip
and let Tom beam at it. He’d then say something marvellous and frequently
tangential before saying "Let’s have another one". Colin’s tape was an all
together more thought out chronicle of his time in the Tardis. I bought it
from Woolworths in Sheffield’s Meaddowhall shopping centre. My American
aunt – she whose attic room I was in when I saw a bit of Frontios and she
who gave me the chocolate coated Ayres Rock thing which makes me ill just
to think about – was staying with us and for whatever reason it was
thought a good plan to take her to a genuine English American style
shopping mall. We were sat in the café in House of Fraser and she asked
what I’d got in my carrier bag. If you want to picture my American aunt
think of the large woman in "The Germans" who won’t grasp the finer
details of what is and isn’t a fire drill. Even today I am regularly
surprised that she doesn’t have an American accent. Anyway, she asked and
I showed her the Colin Baker Years. "Who’s he?" she asked. There are many
ways to describe Colin Baker – chief amongst them being "He used to be
Doctor Who". No, I tried to explain who Colin Baker was to someone who has
lived in America since the war ended by telling her "He used to be married
to Liza Goddard."
The Colin Years – as I was saying before I distracted myself – is a mix of
clips, anecdotes and more than a little mitigation. The Twin Dilemma needs
a lot of mitigating because underneath the tacky exterior lies an idea
which seems so staggeringly bad that if it didn’t come directly from the
pen of Michael Grade himself, it jolly well ought to have done. Colin
tries to explain it away and much of what he says makes a sort of dramatic
sense. They wanted people to question the new Doctor, to wonder what he
was really like, to learn to trust and like him all over again rather than
just take for granted that he’s the good guy and nothing has changed. It’s
the old pro wrestling idea that if you want to make someone a huge fan
favourite you first present them as a dastardly bad guy who the people
gradually begin to like. Shoving someone down peoples throats as Mr Clean
the Happy Babyface rarely works and people resent being told who to like.
They are much less resentful being told who to hate. So we’re supposed to
start out hating this new Doctor because he’s a tasteless, arrogant,
violent bully with an alarming cowardice thrown in for good (bad?)
measure. By the end of the story he has settled down and become a hero
again and we love him. Except they don’t do that. Colin tells us their
plan was to keep people guessing over the long break. Bad idea. Very bad
idea. They should’ve taken inspiration from Invasion of Time which makes
the Doctor as close to a heel as he ever was and then utterly redeems him
at the end. They don’t leave it hanging because they realised that
audiences wouldn’t sit around waiting for nine months, eagerly waiting to
find out how much of a prick the Doctor would be this season. Leaving what
should be a subtle metamorphosis in the hands of bad writers was a
cardinal error. Anthony Read was a good writer who knocked up something
pretty good in a very short time. Andrew Smith and Eric Saward had a long
time to put this together and their effort was an epic fail.
So the Years tape had prepared me for the worst and when I got the video
of the Twin Dilemma - £7.99 though I forget where from – I was already
braced. I don’t remember anything from the original broadcast – the new
titles are a clear memory but they could’ve come from any point in his
reign. I loved the way the colour was added to his face. It was so much
more impressive than Peter Davison’s blinds. I hated the Blackpool
Illuminations which accompanied his face’s journey into our living rooms.
It was so tacky. It was so unbelievably tacky. And so unbelievably in
keeping with Colin’s Doctor that the whole tasteless thing must’ve been
planned so far in advance. It wasn’t a rushed, last minute decision. This
was the plan going way back to the early days of the sixth Doctor’s
creation. That thought appals me.
Despite all that, the first time I watched it I did rather enjoy it. The twins were terrible
of course but remember that I was braced for terrible. Besides, one gets
used to awful child actors and they are far from the most awful child
actors I’ve ever seen. Their mathematical genius manifested itself in
blocky computer graphics and massive amounts of hyperbole but it was only
the background to Colin Baker’s feet-finding expedition. Whether you like
it or not – and I didn’t – he gives it plenty. This is no meek and mild
debut. His eccentricity doesn’t seem as forced as Sylvester McCoy’s did a
few years later (ironic considering McCoy was playing much closer to his
own personality than Baker was). My favourite bit was Peri’s skirt – this
was a good look for her and it’s a shame they abandoned it. It’s also a
shame Hugo was disposed of at the end – he would’ve made a good companion.
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Doctor
Who, What, Where, When, Why and How