'Twas the night before New Who

After some thought I’ve decided how my reviews of the new series are going to work. I’m going to post as soon after the episode has aired as I possibly can. This initial review will cater for the child in me who is overjoyed at seeing new Doctor Who and will probably end up being polarised at either extreme of enjoyment or annoyance. Then, a few days later, after a re-watch and some time for reflection, I will update that review with a more considered opinion, in the same style as my Masterpiece Theatre pieces. The initial post will remain because I think it’s valuable for me to see just how my views have changed after my inevitable over-excitement or intense disappointment.

So we’ll start tomorrow with Asylum of the Daleks. The story sounds good and it looks good, and I’ve managed (I think) to avoid any sniff of a spoiler. But more importantly it signals the return of Doctor Who to our screens. He’s been away too long.

Masterpiece Theatre: The Long Game

Masterpiece Theatre

Number 11: The Long Game

The Long Game is an odd beast. It comes at the midway point of Christopher Eccleston’s sole season as the Doctor, before the misery-guts decided that playing a character who occasionally smiles was not for him. Written by Russell T. Davies, the story exists for one purpose; to show us that the Doctor only takes the best as his companion. This message comes at the expense of the story somewhat, which is a fairly perfunctory mystery that the Doctor solves without really breaking a sweat...

In the Doctor Who Magazine Mighty 200 survey of all the stories up to Planet of the Dead, The Long Game places at number 165. It trails in last of the Eccleston adventures, a long way behind Boom Town and Aliens of London/ World War Three for reasons that totally escape me, but which I will attempt to unravel.

 

 

Of all the stories broadcast during Doctor Who’s triumphant return to the television screens in 2005, The Long Game is the one that resembles old-school Who the most. This is quite understandable as the concept comes from a story Russell T. Davies submitted to the Doctor Who production team in the eighties at the tender age of seventeen. It was summarily rejected, which in hindsight is a blessing for us all as Russell may well have been put off Doctor Who for life if he had actually worked for the Eric Saward/ John Nathan-Turner regime with all its inconsistency and in-house fighting. Granted, the initial idea was probably substantially different from the version that was dusted down and presented onscreen, but there is certainly an eighties feel about The Long Game. Perhaps this is some of the problem; long-time Doctor Who fans were desperate to see the programme succeed. The infant reboot did not need to remind viewers and by association the BBC paymasters of the dark times of the mid- to late-eighties, when the show was breathing its last and the casual audience had long-since departed. But to look at The Long Game merely as a reheated Peter Davison or Colin Baker story misses the point completely.

Whilst pitching the idea of Doctor Who’s return to the BBC hierarchy, Russell T. Davies wrote a series document mapping out how the series was going to develop. The Long Game was pitched as The Companion Who Couldn’t, demonstrating that right from the word go it was designed as an episode that generated character development rather than a plot-led behemoth. The character of Adam was created with the single intention to showcase the relationship between the Doctor and Rose and to deepen it into something more than friendship. He was never intended to be anything more than a pale reflection of Rose. Adam’s selfishness and cowardice nearly cost the Doctor at a time when the villain in the story is struggling to gain any sort of advantage. He reacts in ways that many of us would if placed in the same circumstances. He freaks out and gets into trouble through his own stupidity. He skirts around the edges of the adventure, never in any real danger, and fails to engage in the mystery at the heart (top?) of Satellite Five. He abjectly fails where Rose succeeded; when the Doctor is trapped and needs his help, Adam is busy helping himself. There is a direct link between the Doctor being captured by the Autons in Rose and his imprisonment by the Editor in The Long Game. Whilst Rose swings improbably to his rescue in the former, Adam isn’t even aware that his fellow travellers are in trouble.

But his failure allows the Doctor to see how important Rose has become to him. He takes another step back from the brink and moves away from the damaged individual he was at the start of the season. The Ninth Doctor has the best character development of any of his incarnations, and The Long Game is pivotal in his growth. He has let someone in for the first time since the Time War, and by this point needs Rose as much as she needs him. He is lonely, but will not ease that emptiness in his hearts with just anyone. He has to have an equal, and Rose is that person. Adam, on the other hand, is not. It’s telling when, just two stories later, in The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances, the Doctor allows Captain Jack on board the TARDIS after the Time Agent has seemingly sacrificed himself while saving his friends and countless innocents from a falling bomb. In his actions, Jack proves his heroic credentials, and redeems his earlier selfish mistakes in the eyes of the Doctor, just as Mickey does in World War Three. The Doctor is willing to forgive the brave; self-serving cowards like Adam can go home. By the time we reach Boom Town, the Doctor’s rehabilitation is complete. He surrounds himself with the three humans he has let behind his barrier and he feels more at ease with himself once more.

Yet despite The Long Game’s undeniable status as a pivotal episode in Series One, it is a story that is not loved by many. So why is this? We’ve already touched on the eighties vibe it exudes, but at the same time it is impossible to imagine The Long Game being broadcast back then. In the original run of Doctor Who, each Doctor was unchanging. In reality the lead character was just a narrative function rather than a person in the truest sense. He was never affected long-term by events or people. His actions were all responses to events and there was never any lasting development in his personality after the seismic shift of a regeneration. The Long Game, and indeed Series One, is unique in Doctor Who storytelling. For the first time we see the lead character changing in response to an external force, in this case Rose. We see him come to terms with the events of the Time War and finally begin to let go of his guilt. It never entirely leaves him – even now as Series Seven is about to begin, the Doctor is still haunted by the Time War to some degree. Russell T. Davies had obviously taken on board the lessons that American TV was providing at the time. One of his admitted inspirations was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with its constantly evolving characters and season-long plot arcs. But the main difference between the two series is that Buffy had twenty-two episodes to play with in a season, so could afford one or two stories with a primary focus on moving characters and relationships in new directions at the expense of a more thrilling plot. With only thirteen episodes, it is much harder for Doctor Who to do the same. That’s why The Long Game is something of a disappointment. Its intentions are noble, but it is definitely weak Doctor Who, and in a lot of ways it breaks the template. This is not a bad thing; that a programme nearing fifty years of age can continue to change and adapt is nothing short of amazing. But it is telling that after Series One, there would be no more stories focussed solely on character development. Those that moved the lead characters on were given stronger enemies to bolster them, like the Krillitanes in School Reunion or The Dream Lord in Amy’s Choice.

 

 

Talking of enemies, the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe is an undercooked creation. It looks suitably nasty, but how the hell did it take over the Earth? It just hangs there and roars. There’s no sense of any intelligence to the Jagrafess. There’s no attempt by the script to explain how it got there in the first place and how it manages to control and subvert the news. It is simply a monster that’s there because the story needs some sort of threat. It is never revealed how and why the Daleks used it in the first place, only that they wanted to set Earth’s progress back by ninety years and somehow pave the way for the Gamestation and its unnecessarily complex method of capturing people for the Daleks to harvest. Perhaps the Jagrafess is a cousin to the Slyther, that unholy walking bag in The Dalek Invasion of Earth (See the video below for the full shambling horror)? It would make sense for the Daleks to keep on using the same old madcap monsters in their plans of conquest.  But the episode is there to set up the events of the season finale, when the Doctor revisits the same location one hundred years later. Even The Long Game’s title is a reference to the Dalek’s plan in the final two-parter, although it makes no sense in the context provided in this episode.

 

 

It is worth referring back to the original pitching document prepared by Russell T. Davies to sell the series. It states very early on that each story should be able to grab the headlines: Rose sees the end of the world, The Doctor meets Charles Dickens, Aliens invade Downing Street, Return of the Daleks. It is very difficult to summarise The Long Game in the same way. A giant space leech controls the Earth, maybe. Or, Adam shows why the Doctor picked Rose. Not exactly attention-grabbing headlines... In a similar vein, Davies states that each story should be strong, but The Long Game is not a strong story. It does not exist to be a strong story. But it is a fascinating insight into the Doctor’s psyche and the criteria he has for choosing his companions.

For all the series’ fundamental optimism about the future of the human race, the reboot has occasionally skewed towards the dark side, and The Long Game is quite a dark concept. It is an enjoyable enough story, but perhaps it veers too far from the purity of the concept too soon for the audience to accept. However, it should never be dismissed as a poor story, because it patently is not. So let’s look at all the good things The Long Game has to offer.

 

 

Ten Reasons The Long Game has walls made of gold

1.       Arriving on Satellite Five, the Doctor immediately senses that something is wrong, but to investigate he needs to get rid of Adam. So he uses his sonic screwdriver to access some credit and gives it to Adam. His exchange with his unwanted companion perfectly sums up the joy of time travel. ‘There you go, pocket money. Don’t spend it all on sweets,’ he tells Adam. ‘How does it work?’ says the bewildered boy. ‘Go and find out,’ says the Doctor. ‘Stop nagging me! The thing is, Adam – time travel’s like visiting Paris. You can’t just read the guide-book. You’ve got to throw yourself in, eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers, or is that just me? Stop asking questions, go and do it!’ He smiles at Adam and Rose as they head off, but the next second the smile is gone. The Doctor is in business mode.

 

2.       Doctor Who has a grand history of gloriously left-field guest appearances. When Adam goes in search of technical support to access Satellite Five’s computers, we get another one. Tamsin Grieg, as the unnamed nurse who talks Adam into having the Type 2 Port inserted into his head, is simply wonderful. Her slightly snarky and sarcastic tone is at odds with the written material and she brings a very minor character to life brilliantly. She’s worth watching just for the slightly confused way in which she says ‘Oh Danny Boy’.

 

3.       Simon Pegg is excellent as the Editor, so much so that it is nigh-on impossible to think of another actor who would have done so much with a villain who is in essence nothing more than a glorified middle-manager. He brings charm to the role, underpinned by a definite sense of menace. He is the first truly villainous human the Doctor encounters in the rebooted series and he sets the bar high for all who follow. He reins in his usual comedy routines in a way that Peter Kay fails to do in Love & Monsters, and you can see why Hollywood came calling not long afterwards.

 

 

 

4.       Anna Maxwell-Martin manages to convince us all that Suki MacCrae Cantrell is simply a naive and happy character, until her abrupt about-face into a member of the Freedom Fifteen terrorist organisation. Her act has everyone fooled, the Doctor included, and she very nearly manages to stop the Jagrafess without the Time Lord’s help. The story leads us to believe that she will be the Doctor’s surrogate companion, so when her true identity is revealed and she is killed and zombified, it’s quite a shock and a loss to the rest of the story.

 

5.       Ice-zombies are quite a sore subject in this blog. It wasn’t so long ago I was suffering through Dragonfire and its icicle mercenaries. Luckily The Long Game shows the old series how to do it. They have an eerie quality, helped enormously by the blue ambient lighting and when the dead Suki grabs the Editor’s leg to stop him from escaping you get a chilling (sorry) hint that there is still a conscience trapped in there somewhere.

 

6.       The Doctor is furious with Adam. He summarily takes him home and literally chucks him out of the TARDIS. The righteous anger of a Time Lord is scary to behold. And yet he can’t resist clicking his fingers to open Adam’s new forehead orifice. And neither can Rose. And when Adam’s mum arrives home unexpectedly you can see the punchline coming. Once she clicks her fingers and the episode ends, you wonder what happened to poor old Adam. Was he dissected in a slapstick manner by Lee Evans in some UNIT Guantanemo Bay facility, or was he taken to Torchwood and touched up chopped up by Captain Jack instead? I remember the stupid theories people had at the time that he would turn up as Davros in the final episodes of the season. Looking back, that’s laughable, but at the time we all felt like anything could happen.

 

7.       Frozen vomit in a cube. As an added extra to the surgery Adam has just undergone, nanobots have been inserted into the lining of his throat to instantly freeze his vomit. So instead of a full-on Exorcist moment, Adam merely coughs up a small cube of coloured ice whilst Tamsin Grieg delicately holds out a receptacle for it. That should be compulsory on the NHS, I say.

 

8.       Adam’s opening scene sets up his subsequent failure to cut it as a companion. The scene is deliberately reminiscent of the one in The End of the World when Rose realises she is on a space station and looks down on Earth. Although initially disbelieving, she swiftly accepts it and asks the right sort of questions. When placed in the same situation five episodes later, Adam simply faints. ‘He’s your boyfriend,’ says the Doctor, not even sparing him a look. ‘Not anymore,’ replies Rose, not looking down either. It’s a fantastically clever inversion of the scene in the earlier episode.

 

9.       Cathica’s is a closed mind. She accepts the status quo without question. She purports to be a journalist and yet she has no sense that there is something wrong with Satellite Five. She just blithely goes about her business, never thinking of anybody else but herself. So when she meets the Doctor and has her world view fundamentally altered by him, we watch her grow and become a hero, just like so many that the Doctor influences. We see his effect on people never more clearly than here; he is a man whose goodness and bravery inspires others to grow and become more than they ever would have been. And she saves the day, taking the role of companion that should have been Adam’s.

 

10.   Entering the elevator, about to go up to Floor 500, where the walls are made of gold and monsters and danger await, the Doctor reaches for Rose’s hand. As the elevator door closes, they are holding hands like lovers. It’s a simple and powerful indication of the Doctor’s reintegration back into life and companionship. He’s moving on from being alone and guilty. He’s the one reaching out when before he tried to push her away. It’s the theme of the season in a moment.

 
 

So it is very obvious that The Long Game is a necessary step in the progression of Series One, but not necessarily a good story in its own right. It does its job well in the middle of the season and sets up the finale nicely. But the viewers who were watching for thrills and spills and a decent monster were probably disappointed. The Long Game is cleverer than that, but doesn’t linger long in the mind after a viewing. As I said earlier, chalk this one up as a noble failure.

Next Time: Four to Doomsday

 

Carnival of Monsters: Dalek Sec Hybrid and the Pig-Slaves

Carnival of Monsters

Number 7: Daaaalek SEC and his Pig Slave minions

Let’s be honest here. There are many successes in Doctor Who and there are a fair few failures too. Some of these can best be described as noble failures, where the cleverness of the concept or the story is lost somewhere in transition from script to screen and nobody can quite work out where it all went wrong.

The Dalek Sec Hybrid is one such noble failure.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what went awry in his design. After all, he looks superb in photographs, to the point where Russell T Davies and the editors of the Radio Times felt confident enough to put him on the magazine’s cover. This decision caused the ‘Sec-gate’ scandal, as it effectively destroyed the climax to Daleks in Manhattan. Sec was compromised by his publicity before he even had his moment in the sun. Like the Moxx of Balhoon, who was also prematurely revealed, Sec’s sixty seconds of fame came before he actually appeared in Doctor Who. His emergence from the destroyed remains of his Dalek casing should have been one of the most memorable cliffhangers ever, but we all knew what was coming. It was like a surprise party inadvertently announced a week early and Sec was the main guest.

But we can’t hold that against the poor Hybrid. Daleks in Manhattan/ Evolution of the Daleks was conceived as a way of showing just how clever and creative the Daleks could be in ensuring their continuing survival. To remain a viable threat for the Doctor, they needed to prove how dangerously intelligent they were, and in that respect Dalek Sec and his Cult of Skaro are good value for money.

His grand entrance ruined, Dalek Sec is then poorly served by the story as he is immediately redundant to the Cult of Skaro. The Daleks waste no time in declaring him a failure and removing him from power. Sec may be the most intelligent Dalek ever, but he has nothing to offer beyond his odd appearance. He is ineffectual in his command decisions, questioning the Dalek reason to exist in the most inane manner. He pleads with the Doctor, the man who has only just succeeded in wiping the Daleks from existence, to help him in his truly insane plan to reinvent the evil pepperpots. We know from the outset is doomed to failure. After all, the Daleks are not going to be fundamentally altered, not after nearly fifty years. It just wouldn’t work, and the audience know this. Finally, Sec ends up chained to a wall and made to crawl on a leash in front of Dalek Thay and Dalek Jast in a disturbingly mid-boggling sadomasochistic image completely at odds with Doctor Who’s place as a family show. When he is exterminated it is almost a relief to realise that they aren’t intending to bring him back again.

Sec is not helped by a strange performance from Eric Loren. Granted the man is almost blind and deaf behind the mask and the servos operating his fake-looking tentacles. But a poor Dalek impersonator with an American accent just adds to the bizarre realisation of such a pivotal creation in Dalek history. Unfortunately he brings to mind another failed American incarnation of a loved Doctor Who baddie, and I don’t know about you, but the less I am reminded of Eric Roberts as the Master, the better. I wonder if Eric Loren ever sat down with Voice of the Daleks™ Nick Briggs and discussed Dalek inflections. Kids in the playground with their arms outstretched as plungers and gun-sticks do a better job than he managed.

Daleks in Manhattan/ Evolution of the Daleks is bad enough with one daft mutant, but unfortunately we also have the Pig-Slaves. What possible purpose could the Daleks have in converting people into porkers? We have seen before that the Daleks are quite happy to use slave labour to fulfil their nefarious plans, as they can replenish their supply of humans at any time. So what is the point in having Pig-slaves? We never see them do anything useful, apart from chase people and snort. The main stages to the Dalek plan, such as attaching the Dalekanium to the mast of the Empire State Building are carried out by human workers who are not even slaves. The Pig-Slaves don’t even last very long. And just how long does it take to convert a person into a pig? I’d imagine it is a fairly substantial drain on the Daleks’ already limited resources to alter physiology and rewrite DNA. For an alien race trapped on Earth during the Great Depression, the Daleks have an ironically poor understanding of cost-effectiveness.

 

 

It’s a testament to just how little regard there is for Dalek Sec when Doctor Who Magazine started to use him to advertise for subscriptions and the poor blighter ended up in some very poor company in this Doctor Whoah! Cartoon by Baxter from DWM 388, about eight months after his appearance on the screen.

 

(Baxter cartoon and subscription picture reproduced from Doctor Who Magazine).

The Mighty Ten

Ten stories in, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at how I would place the adventures I have watched so far, to create a personal Mighty 200, if you like.

So, in reverse order, from worst to best, here are the stories covered to this point with links in case you want to visit the relevant post:

10. Arc of Infinity

9. Dragonfire

8. The Space Pirates

7. Fear Her

6. The Smugglers

5. Timelash

4. The Keys of Marinus

3. The Power of Kroll

2. Paradise Towers

1. Nightmare of Eden

I realise it’s a subjective list, but the main thought that springs to mind is that, apart from Arc of Infinity and Dragonfire, and the early parts of The Space Pirates, I have vastly enjoyed everything I have watched. Even Arc and Dragonfire contain moments of quality, even if the overall impressions of them are poor. It’s good that I have been forced to re-evaluate Colin Baker, and even better that writing this Blog has meant that I have watched stories that I would otherwise have avoided and actually loved a couple of them. It has reaffirmed my faith in Doctor Who, if there was ever any doubt about that anyway, because I have seen so many good things even in those stories that have been judged as weakest.

The next ten in no particular order will be The Long Game, Four to Doomsday, The Invisible Enemy, The Chase, The Invasion of Time, The Krotons, The Monster of Peladon, Terminus and the twin evils of Time and the Rani and Meglos. After that, we’ll see if I’m still standing after the last two on that list...



I will also be reviewing the upcoming episodes in the same style, mainly because I am now getting very excited about the return of the best programme on TV.

Masterpiece Theatre: The Smugglers

Masterpiece Theatre

Number 10: The Smugglers

Masterpiece Theatre Number Ten brings us to the first historical story we have covered in this section. Indeed, Black Orchid and An Unearthly Child aside, this is the first pure historical I have ever watched, although listened to is strictly more accurate as The Smugglers is entirely missing from the archives apart from a few seconds here and there of violent deaths trimmed by the Australian censors.  I have used a Loose Cannon reconstruction to experience William Hartnell’s penultimate story in all its bloodthirsty glory.

The Smugglers placed 159^th in the Doctor Who Magazine Mighty 200 survey from three years ago. It also has the distinction of being the lowest rated Hartnell story, with only 4.2 million watching Episode Three, although Battlefield would have killed for those ratings in 1989. It’s one of those stories that’s just there, with little reputation either good or bad. The Smugglers’ notable features include the first extensive location filming, the appearance of the earliest-born actor in Doctor Who (Jack Bligh, born 1890) and the caretaker from Grange Hill as a pirate.

In terms of story, it’s a shameless rip-off of Moonfleet and Treasure Island, with pirates searching for gold hidden by their long-dead captain and a smuggling ring whose base of operations is an old crypt. Author Brian Hayles does little to disguise these elements, so The Smugglers rather resembles an adaptation of one of those novels than a fully-rounded Doctor Who story. This means that it is also quite a difficult story to love.

The main problem for me is that Doctor Who has never done pirates well. Both The Smugglers and its recent cousin The Curse of the Black Spot suffer from the problem that pirates are, well, just a little bit dull. Both stories play to the stereotypical image of double-crossing, gold-stealing blackguards and both stories therefore are populated by ciphers rather than characters. It’s hard to find any distinguishing features in either Pike’s motley crew or Avery’s lily-livered bunch. In The Smugglers we have Cherub, who’s bald and good with a knife, rather like Greg Wallace on Masterchef; Jamaica, who is an overly superstitious and gullible black character; Gaptooth, who is old; Spaniard who ones presumes doesn’t come from Cornwall and Daniel who is so bland his name changes halfway through to Davy. In The Curse of the Black Spot we have McGrath who dies of a poorly finger before the credits; the Boatswain, who magically disappears halfway through the episode in one of the worst continuity errors in Doctor Who history; Dancer, who loses a sword fight with Amy Pond and fancies Lily Cole; De Florres who stands in the background before dying, and Mulligan, who does little apart from double cross his crew-mates and then he dies too. Would it be too much to ask for a pirate with a parrot and a wooden leg going ‘Garrrrr’? The only eyepatch we see in either story is the one worn by Madame Kovarian when she spies on Amy through that creepy little window.

It’s not that I dislike pirates. I enjoyed the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and quite liked On Stranger Tides, but that is probably more to do with the supernatural elements that keep the stories interesting than anything else. In that world we have the Kraken, pirates cursed to be undead by Aztec gold, vicious mermaids, a tentacle-bearded Davy Jones and the edge of the world, amongst other things. The Smugglers would be greatly enlivened by the appearance of a similar otherworldly presence, I reckon.

This leads me on nicely to a realisation; pure historical stories did not work in Doctor Who, which is why they were phased out three stories after The Smugglers. Now I realise that I am basing this on a watching of a reconstruction of one of the lesser historicals, but bear with me. After its initial few months on the air, Doctor Who had already ceased to be an educational programme as originator Sydney Newman imagined, and had instead become a series firmly based in the fantastical. I concede that Marco Polo, The Aztecs, The Romans, The Myth Makers and The Massacre were probably good stories in their own right, but the concept of fully historical stories sits ill at ease with what Doctor Who swiftly became. I’d imagine that there were many disappointed children each time a story turned out to be utterly devoid of monsters. But that’s not the biggest problem. Right from the start, the makers of Doctor Who seemed to be wilfully obtuse in their choice of historical events to show. Most of the early historicals depict events from other countries. Marco Polo takes place in China, with an Italian explorer; The Aztecs is set in Mexico; The Reign of Terror depicts the French Revolution, although admittedly this is a pretty recognisable era; The Crusade is located in the Middle East. By the time we get to The Massacre, the series is choosing totally obscure historical events. Not once do we get to see the history of Great Britain, where the series was first broadcast! I presume the remit from Sydney Newman was to extend the audience’s knowledge, not show things that they already knew something about. Also I suppose it allowed Doctor Who to be that bit different from the many historical series at that time. But what every one of the historical stories misses is a properly identifiable historical figure at the very centre of the story.

In Hartnell’s era, we meet Marco Polo, Robespierre, Richard I, Napoleon, Nero, Kublai Kahn, Catherine de Medici and Johnny Ringo amongst others, but Marco and Richard aside, none are more than peripheral characters and none of the stories featuring them do much to flesh them out beyond the pages of history books. There’s nothing new to be said about these characters. They are simply re-enacting the events for which they are famous. Contrast this with some of the historical figures who crop up in later Doctor Who stories after the pure historical had been summarily executed. We have Madame de Pompadour proving to be so intelligent and brave that the Doctor falls in love with her, Queen Victoria shooting that wolf-worshipping monk bloke with a shaking hand, Shakespeare reading the Doctor immediately and Elizabeth I fulfilling many a woman’s fantasy by losing her virginity to David Tennant. These character traits are surprising because they are so unexpected. This is Doctor Who playing with history, finally using the whole massive playground that its concept allows it. Altering one’s perception of these figures may throw out textbook accuracy in the name of story, but this sea-change has meant that a new generation falls in love with some of the most extraordinary men and women to ever live. My own step-daughter sought out extra information on Shakespeare and van Gogh following the episodes featuring those characters, and there is definite evidence that Doctor Who has improved her historical knowledge, more than a dry recital of events and dates would have done. This is an area where modern Doctor Who gets it so, so right and classic Doctor Who limited itself and its ambitions. History teaches the Doctor something new. He’s a Time Lord, who can see everything that has ever happened and everything that ever will, but the human race, past present and future, can teach him more than he will ever know. That’s history as a tool to improve the future, and if that’s not a fulfilling of Sydney Newman’s intent to educate I don’t know what is.

The final issue with pure historicals is that in the denouement there is usually little for the TARDIS crew to do but watch as events in which they cannot involve themselves unfold in front of them. This means that the audience is not invested in those stories as the outcomes are already known. Most historical stories seem to consist of the crew realising where they are and attempting to escape back to the safety of the TARDIS. Very few of them actually take the time to make a telling comment on that era or on the series as a whole. The one exception to this is The Aztecs, which presents the concept of not getting involved in a clear way for the first time; an idea that resonates through to Doctor Who in the present day. This is a historical that moves our understanding of the programme along, and allows our heroes to be permanently changed by the events they witness. Sadly this model was ignored as the series went on, and by the time we reach The Smugglers we are stuck in the cycle of capture – escape – recapture to avoid returning to the TARDIS. This is true up until William Hartnell’s fantastic moment listed in the ten best bits below. Then The Smugglers shows signs of what it could have been if it weren’t just ripping off the works of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Incidentally, it’s no wonder the pirates couldn’t find Henry Avery’s treasure; he threw it overboard in The Curse of the Black Spot before he flew off around the galaxy with Lily Cole!

But back to The Smugglers. It’s clearly a lesser historical tale, created at a time when the interest in them was faltering, both in terms of the audience and the production team, and its cause is not helped by its absence from the archives. This particularly affects Episode Four, when we miss out on seeing what sounds like a decent set of sword fights and full-on battles. The soundtrack can only do so much, and it is very hard to imagine what the fight between Cherub and Pike actually looked like. Yet it is an important story in establishing to Polly and Ben as the new companions that the Doctor is telling the truth and the TARDIS is indeed a time machine. It embeds them as the new generation of companion in readiness for the new generation of Doctor at the end of the following story. It represents the last-but-one breath of a dying Doctor Who story-type and it is a real shame it no longer exists as I think it would be more fondly remembered. As it is, unfortunately it is hardly remembered at all.

Ten Reasons The Smugglers is buried treasure

1.       A few minutes into Episode One, William Hartnell provides one of my favourite Billyfluffs. The Doctor is justifiably annoyed by the sudden presence of Polly and Ben in the TARDIS. He doesn’t want them there, just as he didn’t want Ian and Barbara way back at the start of the programme. His belligerence gives way to a sense of superiority as he explains the workings of his ship to his mystified new companions. Unfortunately the Doctor then blows it. ‘Now you see that scanner?’ he asks Ben. ‘That is what I call a scanner up there.’ Ben, to his credit, doesn’t dignify this obvious statement with a reply, but the Doctor’s mistake only endears him further; his annoyance and his superior tone is a facade. He doesn’t actually know what he is talking about, and he is as susceptible to error as the rest of us.

2.       The Smugglers features the first true example of location filming. Director Julia Smith, who later co-created Eastenders, enjoyed a full five days filming in Cornwall. This was the first moves of the series beyond the confines of the studio. In a few short years we’d have Cybermen outside St Paul’s Cathedral and Autons on Ealing Broadway. There’s a great story of Julia Smith, filming a scene on a boat and feeling the effects of seasickness, shouting ‘Get ready, cameras – oh hold it,’ throwing up over the side of the boat and then continuing with ‘Action!’ in the same breath. It’s such a pity we can’t see what she achieved as The Smugglers may well look like one of the most expensive stories of the Hartnell era.

3.       The running joke of Polly being mistaken for a boy is a subtle but amusing one. Anneke Wills is one of the prettiest companions ever, and certainly the sexiest in Doctor Who up to this point. With her legs that go on forever and her long fluttering eyelashes, she’s a sixties Karen Gillan. So it’s quite implausible that anybody could mistake her for a boy, let alone every single character that comes across her. Either everyone in Eighteenth Century Cornwall was blind or they were very sexually confused.

4.       George A Cooper’s Cherub is an effectively menacing character. He out-villains Pike, the supposedly lead baddie in the story, and almost manages to double-cross him successfully. He is also responsible for the death of Holy Joe and Kewper in scenes considered too violent to show in Australia. His skills at knife-throwing make him an unusually effective henchman in Doctor Who terms. Cooper gives him a rough edge that makes him a believable killer, so that every time his character crosses paths with one of our heroes, you believe he could do them some serious harm. In that regard, Cherub is one of the most underrated Doctor Who villains.

5.       Ben and Polly are trapped in a jail cell, like so many companions before or after them. Rather than waiting for rescue. Or resorting to violence, the two companions affect their escape by making a little straw doll and convincing poor thick Tom the guard that the Doctor is a warlock who has captured Tom’s soul. The terrified jailer lets them go immediately. In this scene, Ben and Polly show a level of resourcefulness that marks them out as good companion-stock.  If only Turlough had thought of doing something like this in the Peter Davison era, in the seven thousand times he got captured, he wouldn’t have spent most of his episodes in a locked room and could actually have got on with the business of killing the Doctor.

6.       The Doctor’s speech in Episode Three is reason enough for the story to exist. It’s the last bit of truly brilliant Hartnell. The travellers have been unable to return to the TARDIS because the seaside cave where it materialised is cut off by the high tide. However that tide has now receded and Ben and Polly urge the Doctor to leave. His response is one of the high points of Hartnell’s Doctor and sets the bar for any Doctor to come. ‘I’m afraid I can’t leave here. Not yet. It may be difficult for you to understand, but I feel a – moral obligation. I have become involved in the affairs of this village. Who knows, my interference may even have brought about the threat of destruction. I feel I must at least try to ward off the danger.’ In that one speech, Hartnell beautifully encapsulates the Doctor’s reasons for travelling in the TARDIS; his reason for living, if you like. He will fight for good no matter where he goes. He will interfere with the timeline because his sense of justice compels him. It is here we see the direct line from the First Doctor through to the myth of the Eleventh. Here is a man who has done so much good; who will do so much more, yet he puts the lives of people he has never met above his own. No wonder the universe would come to his rescue if he asked. What a hero.

7.       Jamaica’s perfunctory death is both brutal and shocking. It marks the arrival of Captain Pike as a properly bloodthirsty character. Lifting him from his endless scenes of dialogue. The surviving footage indicates a fair bit of blood, whilst Jamaica’s unseeing eyes are wide with shock. Doctor Who transcends its children’s TV heritage to become edgy and dangerous. It would walk this fine line for the rest of the Sixties and Seventies.

8.       Polly and Ben split up in Episode Four. Polly is returning to the TARDIS and Ben is going to locate the Doctor. Before she can go, Ben calls out to her. Ben: ‘Polly?’ Polly: ‘Yes?’ Ben: ‘Put the kettle on.’ Obvious, but funny.

9.       John Ringham is one of those jobbing actors who always seemed to do fantastic work on Doctor Who. Here he has very little to work with as Josiah Blake, the earnest revenue man on the trail of the pirates, but he imbues Blake with a dogged determination and keen eye that raises the character above the mundane.

10.   Anneke Wills and Michael Craze are both brilliant in this story, providing a sense of the modern that had been lacking for quite a while in Doctor Who, unless you count Dodo’s unfortunate mess of a character. They are the last contemporary companions until Liz Shaw at the start of the Pertwee era, and so are the only TARDIS travellers who give a taste of the swinging sixties at its height. The two work so comfortably together and it’s so obvious they will get together when they leave. It is unfortunate they never got the regard they deserved from the production team, who felt the need to replace them rather quickly.

The Smugglers has been lost in more ways than just its junking from the archives. Most of the actors involved with it are dead now, and it seems to have faded from the collective consciousness of those still alive. Similarly it occupies a place at the edge of the Doctor Who world, unloved and mostly forgotten. It is better than that, and for the single reason that it represents Hartnell’s last hurrah, The Smugglers is worth a listen.

Next Time: The Long Game

Art Gallery: The Japanese Edition

Art Gallery 8

The Japanese Edition

It has been estimated that the Target range of Doctor Who books sold more than 13 million copies between 1973 and 1994. That’s a very impressive sales figure for what was essentially a low-cost tie-in licence for a gradually fading BBC TV programme. Over that period, several overseas publishing houses tried to get in on the act and bought the rights to sell the novelisations in their own countries. We’ll cover a few of these over the coming weeks, but I want to start with the fascinating Japanese editions.

In 1980, Hayakawa Publishing Inc. bought up five of the Target novelisations and translated them into Japanese. Japan had initially refused to buy any of the black and white stories, but in 1978 had broadcast some of the colour adventures, although details of which ones are sketchy. It would be reasonable to assume that these included some if not all of the Jon Pertwee era given as four of the translated novelisations are Third Doctor stories. There are no details about how well they sold, at least as far as I could find, but given as they are among the rarest variants of the novelisations it would be reasonably safe to assume that they flopped in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The five books chosen were The Daleks, The Cave Monsters/ Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Doomsday Weapon/ Colony in Space, Day of the Daleks and Spearhead from Space. However their titles were somewhat lost in translation. The Daleks became The Big Bloody Battle in Space-time!, complete with exclamation mark. The Doomsday Weapon was translated as Be Fearful of the Ultimate Weapon!, Spearhead from Space became The Auton Army Invasion. Day of the Daleks was rechristened The Dalek Race’s Counterattack! and The Cave Monsters rather brilliantly became known as Shuddering! The Underground Monsters. Steven Moffat has already spoken about his desire to give the stories shamelessly crowd-pulling names in the upcoming Season Seven. Maybe he should ask a Japanese translator for advice.

Each of the books featured dust covers that listed the main characters on the inside flaps. The umbrella title written in a black box was Doctor Who Series and the author’s name was listed alongside that of the translator. But the best part about them is definitely the covers.

This is the front cover for The Daleks/ The Big Bloody Battle in Space-time! We have what must be Susan emerging from a red public telephone box instead of the usual blue police box. Of course the red version is more synonymous with British culture so it is no wonder that the unknown cover artist, probably having never seen the TARDIS if the only stories broadcast in Japan were the early Pertwees, resorts to the only version of a British telephone box he knows about. Beneath Susan is a depiction of the strangest Daleks ever to trundle out of Skaro. Their method of propulsion appears to be rolling around on a large ball. It’s no wonder one of the poor dears has fallen over and another one is about to go as it is attacked by a cross between Abraham Lincoln and Jack the Ripper. These Daleks have no visible means of defence; all they have is a single R2-D2-like radar dish protruding from the top of their vaguely Dalek-shaped bodies. One can only assume that they were Davros’ first effort before he realised he’d invented space hoppers by mistake. What is quite interesting is the person hanging out of the upturned Dalek. Could this have been inspired by the infamous Dalek mutant in the glass case from the David Whitaker retelling who jumps up and down and bangs its fists on the glass in a tiny Kaled tantrum? Or has Ian had an unfortunate and possibly fatal bad bounce?

Another of the poor beasties plummets from the sky on the cover to Day of the Daleks/ The Dalek Race’s Counterattack! Evidently the counterattack didn’t go very well... What’s more confusing is the identity of the woman holding the smoking gun. The televised Day of the Daleks has the jarring and wrong moment when the Doctor vaporises an Ogron, so perhaps Jo Grant has picked up on that bloodthirsty character trait and has shot Mike Yates for stealing crackers and cheese off poor Sergeant Benton. More likely it is Anat, one of the guerrillas from the future about to shoot the Third Doctor for being too arrogant and pompous, although she was never that glam. Good to see that in between planning raids on Dalek factories and assassinating politicians she has found the time to arrange her hair.

Talking of arranging hair, the third cover comes from The Doomsday Weapon/ Be Fearful of the Ultimate Weapon! Like the mad American novelisation cover, it represents a parallel reality version of Colony in Space that was actually interesting. In fact its image of a girl apparently combing her hair for the entire story suggests an activity that is infinitely preferable to having to sit through that particular snooze-fest ever again. (Wait a minute – it’s ranked 171^st in the DWM Mighty 200. That means I’ll have to watch it again. Noooooooo!!!!). There’s also a man in the background playing what looks like drums whilst another man is on vocals with the world’s longest microphone lead. Perhaps in Japan Colony in Space was improved by turning it into a sing-along-at-home Karaoke. Whatever it is meant to show, the cover for this story is a touch ordinary.

The Cave Monsters, or Shuddering! as it will hereafter now be known, at first glance also features a disappointingly generic cover. However on closer inspection there’s a real cleverness to it. Okay, I’ve no idea who the lady posing with a paintbrush is meant to be, but I like the idea that she is there to demonstrate the human race memory of the Silurians hinted at in the story. By rights she should be a gibbering wreck on the floor, reverting back to being a cavewoman, but it gets the concept across neatly and succinctly. And I rather like the woman’s artistic impression of a Silurian, here re-imagined as a bed-headed Velociraptor with three eyes and a knowing smile.

The best of the covers is definitely Spearhead from Space/ The Auton Army Invasion. Jon Pertwee’s debut story is transformed from an average runaround with one classic moment to a haunting tale of unrequited mannequin love. Forget your Autons bursting through the shop window and Pertwee’s tentacle gurning; this single image of a mannequin reaching out temptingly as her hand moves to strangle you is scarier and more memorable than anything the story actually showed. Mary Whitehouse would have had a fit if this had been broadcast on BBC1 at teatime. The crack in the doorway behind the plastic girl means that she has come into the room when you weren’t looking and invaded a place of safety. Now you’ve noticed her, she throws out her arms in a calculating attempt to lure you in, to kill you with love.  In many ways she’s as scary as the Terror of the Autons horror doll thing.

The Autons have invaded in exactly the same way three times already, with only The Pandorica Opens offering anything fresh. This image indicates the power of a Silent-Hill-esque approach  to the Nestenes, giving them a scare factor that they presently lack. Making them living, thinking, manipulative mannequins would send children scurrying for the back of the sofa. Where the plastic girl’s other arm is waiting...

I wonder what the Japanese book-buying public made of them. Were they a niche market for the knowledgeable, much like manga and anime are in this country? Or were they just ignored, dismissed as strange curios from the West? Hayakawa Publishing Inc’s decision not to make further purchases from the Target range after the initial batch of five would lead me to suggest the latter was true. One thing is clear though; these books are incredibly hard to track down and much-prized for their scarcity, and represent an almost forgotten sidebar in Doctor Who’s ongoing quest for world domination.