The Talons of Weng Chiang

“The Talents of Weng Chiang”, “The Burt Kwok Show”, “Keeping it Greel”

“The One with the Negative Portrayal of Chinese Americans” (USA), “Doctor Who and the Chinese Time Cabinet of Doom” (Target)

Doctor Who and Leela stop a time traveller from time travelling as it would be gimmick infringement.

*** - I don’t know who the tall chap with the curly hair was but he was rather good.

“Honorable gentlemen will like this illusion, not a lot but he will like it…” (cut from the theatre scene on the grounds that Paul Daniels was annoying even then)

"'Eureka' is Greek for 'these pants are too hot'."

The TV expert of the Daily Plunge said this story ‘made me tingle in all the good places’ while the Express’s correspondent said it was ‘like racial purity – a good idea on paper but never quite as good on terra firma’

This story won the ‘Best Use of Chinese People’ at the British Chinese Media Awards.

The giant rat was achieved by means of special effects. Never has the word ‘special’ been so misused.

Three people complained to the BBC about the cruelty involved in stretching the rat to such extreme proportions. Those three people were instantly put on the BBC’s Moron list and have received tickets for the National Lottery Live ever since it began.

This story was sold to China and renamed ‘The Claws of Martin Wiggins’

Drugs have been an important part of Dr Who ever since William ‘Willie’ Hartnell smoked a pipe in the debut serial. But rarely has illegal drug use been as blatant as this story’s scenes in an opium den. Real opium was used as it was the last story of the season and, to quote the director, ‘we’ve got all summer to recover and, if necessary, make bail’.

It is worth spending £20 for the DVD to laugh at the witless continuity announcer who repeatedly calls this story (snigger) The Talons (guffaw) of (chortle) Weng (starting to lose control of bladder) CHANG. Ahahahahahahaha – what an idiot…

...is that you shouldn't sleep unless you can carry your house on your back.

Si Hunt

“I have nothing against the Chinese - indeed, my preferred acquaintance Ian Devine is fifty percent Chinese. Well, he was an hour ago when he finally got back from Mr Dong's ill-considered "all the noodles you can eat for £3.50" promotion <g>. However, I recently had cause to interview a prominent member of the Chinese acting community who bemoaned the opportunities for his people on the television.

"I remember a Doctor Who where a British man played a Chinese character. That kind of thing is disgraceful and rightly would not happen today."

"Don't be pathetically stupid" I quipped, "a meat puppet is a meat puppet regardless of the shape of his face. Every actor - whether he is black, white, male, female, tall, short, normal, a deviant or some ghastly combination of the above - is just as worthless as every other. Their job is to stand in front of the carefully prepared cameras, read from the fascinatingly typed manuscripts and sign whatever items may be placed in front of them at specially arranged events.  That is all. It's bad enough that valuable programme budgets are wasted on their excessive fees without them actually holding opinions too. You would get an equally good set of results if their names were put in a hat and drawn out at random. Actually, that would be a better system as men like me would then be able to study and publish lists of which names went into which hat."

I would've continued advising him about how he should aim to reform the acting professional when he punched me in the throat and rendered me unable to speak. I sent him a fully detailed proposal in the mail but the postman returned it with a note saying that there was more than one Chinese gentleman in London.”

"I have never seen such abysmal drivel in all my life" said Roderick Bibb in a 1984 edition of 'Richard Whitely Magazine', "Talons of Weng Chiang takes a fundamentally unbalanced premise - that of the mixing of futuristic technology with genuine historical settings - mixes it with racial unpleasantness that would make a Conservative blush and serves it with a highly derivative salad which rips off everything from Sherlock Holmes to Fu Manchu and back again. That I was forced to sit through two and a half hours of this abomination makes me almost as sick to my stomach as the site of that enormously cuddly rat and I would personally oppose the introduction of the video cassette player if it meant I could spare others from this torture. The jokes are flatter than Leela's chest, the supposedly inspired double act is enough to make you relish spending the rest of your life alone and in a bed sit and when will producers learn that casting midgets is bound to lead to trouble? I mean, sooner or later the RSPCA will come down hard on bonsai actors and the people that make them. The BBC would be well advised to wipe the tapes of Weng Chiang and then burn them for good measure. I would then ask that I be allowed to urinate on the ashes. If anyone wants me I'll be having a bath in Detol to rid me of the foul stench that encases my eyes after watching that abortion." He went on to give it two out of five.