Episode #93 : The Invisible Enemy

"The Age of Man is over. The Age of the Virus has begun!"

Episode 93:   The Invisible Enemy.
Companions: 4th Doctor, K9 and Leela.
Air Date:       Four episodes. 1st to 22nd October 1977.

The TARDIS is infiltrated by the Swarm - a space-borne intelligence that wishes to spread itself across the universe - and the Doctor is infected by its nucleus. The ship then materialises on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, where the human occupants of a refuelling station have also been taken over.

The Invisible Enemy is a pretty awful story with a weak story with some really bad effects and costumes. The only good thing about it is the fast pacing which keeps it going along nicely. The story deals with a cloud of intelligent virus cells seeking to overrun everything in the universe, to place themselves at the top of the food chain. When the Doctor becomes infected, he clones himself and Leela, having them injected into the Doctor's brain to do battle with the virus nucleus. You can see definite references to Fantastic Voyage. It isn't enough to save this one though.

We see the arrival of K9, the Doctor's tin dog. He is a creation of Dr Marius on the medical station and at the culmination of the story is given over to the Doctor as a new companion. K9 is another companion popular with those of us who remember the classic series and to those newer generations who see him in the Sarah Jane Adventures.

There is little good to be said on this story and I don't consider it worth a watch.

Episode #92 : The Horror of Fang Rock

The Doctor: Got it. You're at last losing that interminable war with the Sontarans.

Rutan: [offended] That is a lie!

The Doctor: Is it? You used to own the whole of the Mutter's Spiral once. Now the Sontarans have driven you to the farthest fringes of the galaxy.

Rutan: The glorious Rutan army is making a series of strategic withdrawals

to selected strongpoints.

The Doctor: Rutan, that's the empty rhetoric of a defeated dictator,

and I don't like your face either.

Episode 92:   The Horror of Fang Rock.
Companions: 4th Doctor and Leela.
Air Date:       Four episodes. 3rd to 24th September 1977.

The cursed island of Fang Rock off the south coast of England is a place of rumour and tales of beasts from the sea. Three lighthouse men at the turn of the century face their fears when something comes from the sea to bring death to all it touches.

One of my absolute favourite episodes from the classic series, The Horror of Fang Rock is a perfect atmospheric horror story with or without the science fiction elements. The story takes place in the early years of the 20th century on a remote island off the south coast of England where a lonely light house stands. The three keepers are soon joined by our time travelling companions, the survivours of a boat crash and worst of all, a shape changing killer from outer space. Stuck on the island together who will survive to escape when dawn comes?

The monster of the story is a Rutan, a race of shape changing jellyfish who are waging a vast war against the Sontarans for control of our galaxy. They were first mentioned in The Time Warrior. This Rutan has crash landed and must find safety as well as a means of contacting the rest of the Rutan fleet. The appearance of the Rutan is a bit odd and I'm not sure really what they used for it as it looks like a squashed gooseberry. I hope that at some point we'll see a return of the Rutans in the new series of Doctor Who.

There is a lot of good acting in this story. The Doctor and Leela are fantastic, and the supporting cast really seem to get into character. All of which makes the story that much better. The only downer is the appearance of the Rutan but I can happily live with that as the rest of the story makes up for it big time.

The Horror of Fang Rock is the first episode where I feel it appropriate to give it a five star rating. The story, the atmosphere and a little bit of Lovecraftian influence really make it that good in my book.

Aye: though we hunted high and low,

And hunted everywhere,

Of the three men's fate we found no trace

Of any kind in any place,

But a door ajar, and an untouch'd meal,

And an overtoppled chair...

Episode #91 : The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Leela: What's the tribe here?

The Doctor: Cockneys!

Episode 91:   The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
Companions: 4th Doctor and Leela.
Air Date:       Six episodes. 26th February to 2nd April 1977.

The Fourth Doctor brings Leela to Victorian London to see how her ancestors lived, but is rapidly drawn into a fiendish plot involving Chinese Tongs, disappearing women, an Oriental stage magician, a murderous ventriloquist's dummy and giant rats in the sewers.

The adventures of the 4th Doctor come back to their horror roots with another classic adventure in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. The setting for this tale of mystery and terror is the fog wrapped streets of London of the 1890's. The atmosphere for this story has been piled on thick and it serves to present a really top notch tale.

The story has it's science fiction elements as always. In this case the villain posing as the Chinese god Weng-Chiang (A made up deity I believe) is a renegade and war criminal from the future, the 51st century to be exact. We get a little bit of details about that time in this story, specifically the Doctor mentions that the Earth is in a grip of an ice age and the villainous Greel speaks about Time Agents (of which future companion Jack Harkness was once a member as we know) looking for him. We know about the ice age in the future from The Ice Warriors. It's nice to see some continuity linking from the past and the future of the show.

While the story itself is excellent the episode has some issues. My main grumble is the length of it. At six parts it is close to a three hour story and that is just too long even at the time when production and scripts were much better than the dawn of the series. The second is some truly poor effects. A couple of times we see an experiment of Greel's, a giant rat which hunts the sewers under London. The giant rat is simply a man in an oversized and painfully obvious rat costume. It is so bad as to be laughable.

This story has garnered controversy for some of its Asian roles being played by white actors in "yellowface", especially John Bennett as Chang. Most of this controversy is in the US and Canada, where the use of yellowface fell out of practice earlier than it did in the UK. Indeed, TV Ontario refused to air it after consulting with local Chinese-Canadian groups, and multiple stations in the US and Canada also declined to air it.

Episode #90 : The Robots of Death

"There was a Voc therapist in Kaldor City once. Specially programmed, equipped with vibro-digits, subcutaneous stimulators, the lot. You know what happened, Borg? Its first client wanted treatment for a stiff elbow. The Voc therapist felt carefully all round the joint, and then suddenly just twisted his arm off at the shoulder. Shoompf. All over in two seconds."

Episode 90:   The Robots of Death.
Companions: 4th Doctor and Leela.
Air Date:       Four episodes. 29th January to 19th February 1977.

The TARDIS materialises on board a massive sandminer vehicle combing an alien world for precious minerals. The miner is run by a small human crew with the aid of numerous robots split into three classes: Dums, Vocs and a single controlling Super Voc. The crew are being picked off one by one by an unseen killer.

The Robots of Death is an excellent adventure combining elements of science fiction, horror and murder mystery genres. You can also tell that elements of this story were inspired by Issac Assimov's I Robot and Frank Herbert's Dune. A good combination of elements that make for one thoroughly engrossing story.

After an excellent introduction for Leela in the previous story, she gets dropped to the side somewhat in this one with the Doctor getting almost all the limelight. However you get some good interaction as she attempts to adapt to technology and the larger universe. There is a very nice scene at the start of the adventure where the Doctor tries to explain how the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than the outside which helps us, the viewer, understand how it works more than it helps Leela.

 

 

The story is well written and has you guessing who the culprit is pretty much throughout. The only let down (somewhat) is the motivation but I tend to find that with most murder mysteries. The setting, that of a moving sand crawler mining craft, is delivers a small claustrophobic feel in keeping with the story. Whatever happens no one can simply just leave and everyone is trapped on board with the killer. Robots of Death is another story well worth the watch. Enjoy.

 



Episode #89 : The Face of Evil

"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."

Episode 89:   The Face of Evil.
Companions: 4th Doctor and Leela.
Air Date:        Four episodes. 1st to 22nd January 1977.

The TARDIS arrives on a planet where a savage tribe called the Sevateem worship a god called Xoanon. The Doctor discovers that Xoanon is in fact a spaceship computer that he tried to repair at some point in his past and inadvertently drove mad by giving it a multiple personality.

The Face of Evil is another classic science fiction trope. In this case it is a deranged computer with multiple personalities caused by the fourth Doctor in a previously untelevised story. I'm guessing there is a big gap of adventures following the Doctor departing Gallifrey in the previous story as I can't see when he could have done it otherwise. Although the insane computer backstory is central to the adventure, it also deals with the power struggle in the Sevateem tribe and their struggle against the Tesh who serve the computer. All in all, not a bad little story.

The Doctor is joined by a new companion, Leela, a primitive female warrior of the Sevateem played by Louise Jameson. I like Leela quite a lot. She is another strong female companion but with the right amount of vulnerability to be believable. Unlike Sarah Jane Smith, Leela remains a strong figure throughout her tenure on the show. I think she was included, skimpy outfit and all, to keep the dad's watching after the Saturday afternoon football.

Leela is quite a violent character for an afternoon tea time family show. She kills two members of her own tribe very early on in the story. It is kind of nice to have such a character as normally the Doctor and companion are so nice - not counting the amount of Venusian Akido that the third Doctor used to do. It's just a very different approach.

As I said earlier, this isn't a bad story but at the same time it is missing a little something to give it that push towards a good story. It floats along at a nice pace with some good character interaction and humour but I am sure there is something that could have made it a better story.

Episode #88 : The Deadly Assassin

"Through the millennia, the Time Lords of Gallifrey led a life of ordered calm, protected against all threats from lesser civilisations by their great power. But this was to change. Suddenly, and terribly, the Time Lords faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history..."

Episode 88:   The Deadly Assassin.
Companions: 4th Doctor.
Air Date:       Four episodes. 30th October to 20th November 1976.

The Doctor arrives on Gallifrey, where he is accused of the assassination of the Time Lord President. Investigating with the aid of Co-ordinator Engin and Castellan Spandrell, he discovers that this is part of a plot hatched by his old adversary the Master.

The Deadly Assassin is the story that sets out exactly how the Time Lords would be presented from here on out. This story sets up their appearance, politics, culture and gives us the first reference to a twelve regeneration limit. At the time of original broadcast it appears to have upset a number of fans because of the depiction of Time Lord society. Specifically that prior to this the Time Lords are set up on a high pedestal as a race of super powerful beings with master over time itself, can make entire planets vanish and whatever else they choose to do. Following this story they seem to be no different to mankind in pretty much every way. Personally I like this portrayal as it makes them easier to identify with. Plus, I like the costumes.

With this story we have the return of the Doctor's arch nemesis the Master. This time round though he has reached the end of his regenerations and his living purely by force of will alone in his own corpse. Following the events of this story he achieves some sense of renewal, though not a fresh regeneration, and escapes as always to fight the Doctor another day.

There is, for me at least, a small problem with the flow of this tale and that is that a good chunk of it takes place inside the Matrix - the Time Lord's computer system. This gives us a very surreal engagement between the Doctor's mental self and that of the Master's minion (a traitorous Time Lords). Filmed entirely on location somewhere we have the Doctor facing a biplane, a train, a big game hunter and other aspects of the first World War. It just doesn't quite work very well. It looks out of place with everything else.

Though not a great story it is enjoyable and gets bonus thumbs up for giving us our first proper look at Time Lord society.

Episode #87 : The Hand of Fear

"I must be mad. I'm sick of being cold and wet and hypnotised left, right and centre. I'm sick of being shot at, savaged by bug eyed monsters, never knowing if I'm coming or going... or been... I want a bath, I want my hair washed, I just want to feel human again... and, boy, am I sick of that sonic screwdriver. I'm going to pack my goodies and I'm going home."

Episode 87:   The Hand of Fear.
Companions: 4th Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.
Air Date:        Four episodes. 2nd to 23rd October 1976.

The TARDIS arrives on contemporary Earth, where Sarah comes into contact with what appears to be a fossilised human hand. This is in fact the last surviving fragment of a Kastrian called Eldrad, who was blown up in space as a punishment for attempting to wipe out his own people.

The Hand of Fear is another tale that upon first watch seems rather bland, but upon repeated viewings has a lot of potential. The story deals with an exiled Kastrian scientist believed destroyed by his own people for perceived sabotage. Sarah becomes possessed by the surviving hand, forced to go around repeating "Eldrad must live" and seeking a way to restore Eldrad. When the Doctor and Sarah take Eldrad home they find that he isn't the well meaning scientist they think he is.

This story is especially noteworthy for being the farewell story for Sarah Jane Smith. She has come a long way from the feisty no-nonsense woman she first appeared. She ends her run as a typical female companion who frequently gets captured/hypnotised/possessed and screams a lot. She is still by far my favourite companion. She leaves the series having grown annoyed at what happens to her in recent adventures. Goodbye for now, Sarah Jane.

At the end of this story the Doctor receives a summons from Gallifrey. Since outsiders are not allowed on the home world of the Time Lords he is forced to leave Sarah behind. It then runs on to the next story, The Deadly Assassin.

The Hand of Fear is a fair story but could have been better.