The Seeds of Doom

The Doctor: It's more serious than death, Mr. Stevenson.  He's changing form.

The Android Invasion

The Android Invasion has problems.  Serious, gigantic problems.  Plot problems.  Character problems.  Structural problems.  It wastes good recurring characters and gives beloved performers lousy exits.  Above all, in a season of astounding ambition, it's the one story that isn't even trying to be interesting.  It's a by-the-numbers Terry Nation yarn that only looks all the worse for coming in between Pyramids of Mars and Brain of Morbius.  By any objective standard, it kinda sucks.

I like this one. 

Planet of Evil

The Doctor: Here on Zeta Minor is the boundary between existence as you know it and the other universe which you just don't understand. From the beginning of time it has existed side by side with the known universe. Each is the antithesis of the other. You call it "nothing", a word to cover ignorance. And centuries ago scientists invented another word for it. "Antimatter", they called it. And you, by coming here, have crossed the boundary into that other universe to plunder it. Dangerous.

Terror of the Zygons

Terror of the Zygons is one of those serials that has a reputation. There are a few of these, the stories that are generally considered classics (or the opposite). Usually, even if the story is flawed, it's clear what makes it great.

But Zygons' popularity seems somewhat inexplicable to me. It's a fun yarn, but the idea that it's one of the all-time-greats of Who - particularly in a season including Pyramids, Morbius, and Seeds of Doom is strange.

Pyramids of Mars

"Something's going on, something very contrary to the laws of the Universe.  I must find out what..."

The Hand of Fear

[1976, Season 14, Serial 2]

Eldrad must live!

The TARDIS lands in a quarry.

No, really a quarry, not a quarry pretending to be a distant planet.  Awesome.

The Hand of Fear is the final regular adventure for Sarah Jane Smith.  It's clear right from the beginning how far she's come.  Her relationship with the Doctor is totally smooth and relaxed; their jokes flow completely out of affection, not confict; and even when they do argue angrily, it comes from the depth of their relationship.  But more telling is Sarah's costume:

She's been traveling with the Doctor so long that she has completely lost touch with reality.  No more smart business suits or pretty dresses; it's pure self-expression - and the self-expression of a devil-may-care wanderer out for nothing in the universe except fun.

Sladen was wonderful from the very beginning, but her performances have actually improved over the years.  For comparison, look at the scene in The Time Warrior when she's hypnotized.  It's a solid, convincing portrayal.  Then look at her similar scenes in Hand of Fear: her possession scenes are genuinely unnerving and creepy.

Sladen gives Sarah such boundless joy, mirth, and humanity that only a grinch could fail to love her.

The relationship between the Doctor and Sarah is the best Doctor/companion relationship ever, and will remain so.  Even though she's a human, he treats her as a total equal - and she earns it.  There are unacknowledged hints of love here, but they remain unrequited.  Still, their friendship is simply wonderful.  Her sense of humor and adventure match his perfectly; she also shares his eternal sense of wonder at the universe.  When he needs to be taken down a notch for his smugness or immaturity, she does so with great humor.  Of course, they argue like any friends do, but deep down is pure affection.  There's a lovely moment when the Doctor walks by Sarah's hospital room and flips around the "Do Not Disturb" sign to face out, and smiles at his friend getting rest and peace.

One of their finest scenes comes in episode three, when the Doctor, characteristically, tell her to stay behind for her safety, and she, equally characteristically, totally ignores him and catches up.

Sarah: I worry about you.  Anyway, who found that thing?
Doctor: You did.
Sarah: Right.  So, I'm involved...  And besides, I'm from Earth, and you're not.
Doctor: That's true.
Sarah: Exactly.
Doctor: Yes, but...
Sarah: Ah, but what?
Doctor: I worry about you!
Sarah: So, be careful!
Doctor: We'll both be careful.
Sarah: Fine.


At the end of the serial, after the story has been wrapped up, they have an argument, which I imagine happens quite regularly, and she pretends she's going to get off immediately, while he ignores her various insults and threats (which I also imagine happens quite regularly).  But then he gets something he didn't expect - a summons to Gallifrey, his homeworld.  Outsiders aren't allowed there; he can't take her with him.  So he tells her he has to leave her.  Sladen and Baker play this scene brilliantly; it's incredibly sad and moving, all the more so because neither of them cry; in character, they try to come to terms with their separation, and really can't, but go through with it anyway.

Even here, there are moments of gentle humor, coming from these two characters trying to deal with this.  It's a wonderful finale and as good an exit as any companion could ever get.

There's also a hint that there's something more to the Doctor leaving her behind, which Sarah Jane's reappearance in School Reunion thirty years later confirms: the summons to Gallifrey isn't alone what makes him leave her behind.  He leaves her behind because he loves her, and he can't stand what that means: he's a Time Lord who, as he once said, "walks in eternity," and doesn't really die; he simply regenerates and moves on.  Even here, he's over 700 years old, and will live for hundreds or thousands more years.  Sarah has less than a single century.  She'll grow old and die, while he remains the same.  It's something he can't bear, with her more than anyone else.  When he leaves her behind, it's his final expression of both love and a sort of selfishness.  He says he'll return for her, but he never really does.  They meet again, of course, but not because he was looking for her; she was looking for him, and after thirty years, managed to find him.  But that's another story, another quite wonderful story to follow up this lovely yarn.

But even without that wistful, moving coda, The Hand of Fear would be an excellent addition to the series.  It's a beautifully-structured story, opening with a bang as the quarry literally explodes.

Buried in the rubble, Sarah grabs onto a strange hand, at which point she screams and falls unconscious.

The Doctor, along with a fellow scientist, Dr. Carter (Rex Robinson), examine the hand and find that despite being buried in the strata for 150 million years, it's alive - but it's not a carbon-based lifeform: it's silicone-based.  I should make a sidenote here about just how great Tom is throughout this story.  When he plays things seriously, it's truly dead serious, and absolutely riveting.  When he has comic moments, he plays them perfectly.  This is the Fourth Doctor at his zenith.

Meanwhile, a possessed Sarah flees the hospital and heads to the nearest nuclear power plant, where she places the hand near the radioactive core, exposing both her and the hand to the radiation.  And the hand starts using the radiation to renew itself into a complete body, while Sarah sits quietly by the core and the station begins to go into shutdown from the interference.  The Doctor rushes to the hospital, desperate to save her... and figure out just what that hand really is.

 Besides the hand and its eventual body, there are only two major supporting characters - Dr. Carter and Professor Watson (Glyn Houston), the head of the nuclear plant.  Fortunately, both of them are superb.  Robinson makes Carter an intelligent and likable character in only a few minute of screentime, making his possession and eventual fate far more gripping than it would otherwise have been.

But it's Houston who really stands out.  The role could have come across as a total cliche - the authority figure stupidly standing in the way of the hero.  The writers, Bob Baker and Dave Martin, avoid this: while Professor Watson doesn't always help the Doctor, he's intelligent enough to work with him when it makes sense, and when he does work against the Doctor, it's understandable from his point of view.  But the character's centerpiece is a moment in the second episode where, believing the reactor is soon to meltdown and that he will very likely die soon, he calls his wife to say goodbye.  Touchingly, he doesn't tell her what's happening, just calls as though it's a casual conversation saying he'll be late for work.  Houston plays the scene perfectly, resisting the urge to play it for melodrama and underplaying the scene beautifully.  It's a genuinely moving sequence.  He's every bit as good in his final scene, where he has to some extent snapped from the pressures of all the insane things going on around him, and yet holds it somewhat together, entirely in character.  It's a really terrific performance.

It's also a very well-produced serial.  During the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, many of the stories look and feel more like modestly-budgeted films rather than a low-budget TV show, and this is no exception.  The location filming in the power plant adds tremendous scale to the story:

But the studio sets are excellent as well, completely convincing as both a hospital and as the smaller rooms of the plant.  The otherworldly sets of Kastria are atmospheric and work well, though they aren't quite as strong as the earthbound scenes.

The structure and pacing are superb.  The first episode builds its mysteries and ideas carefully, interweaving the intriguing notions like a silicon-based lifeform with the creepy possession scenes.  The second episode doubles the pace as the danger increases.  And then, ten minutes into the third episode and 2/3 of the way through the story, we finally meet the antagonist, Edrad.

"Can this be the form of the creatures who have found me and now seek to destroy me?"

Judith Paris' performance as Eldrad is astonishing: she seems truly, completely alien in every aspect, yet elegant and even somehow seductive.  Her voice is unforgettable.  But she also has a lot to work with.  It helps that we have to wait an hour to actually meet her, of course, but she absolutely pays off the build-up.  Further, Baker and Martin make her a genuinely interesting character; though she's certainly the antagonist and her actions do result in a pair of deaths, it's highly ambiguous just how evil she actually is.  She may be more oblivious than malevolent; after all, she also spares lives and doesn't seem to desire the killing of the human race.  It makes her all the more mysterious and creepy, and Paris plays all this to the hilt.  And the makeup and costuming finishes the character, making her one of the finest villains of the entire series, and maybe the best one to only appear once.

Or at least she is until the climax, when everything falls apart.  They return Eldrad to Kastria, the Doctor reasoning that whatever her moral position, she's better there than on Earth, and it'll be far easier to deal with her in that environment.  They find, however, that their pathway has been booby-trapped, and Eldrad is badly wounded.  They bring her to a chamber where she is apparently to be renewed again, but the Doctor appears to kill her.

Up until this point, it's a brilliant story, and it's really too bad the next ten minutes sink so low.  Bob Baker and Dave Martin come up with probably the least interesting and least satisfying way to wrap up the story that could conceivably have worked in any way.  More importantly, Eldrad returns to her regular form, which is apparently that of a male.  Unfortunately, despite his stunning voice, Stephen Thorne isn't anywhere near as interesting as the male Edrad.  Much of that is Baker and Martin, though, who reduce her/him from a complex, morally ambiguous, and eerily intelligent antagonist to a ranting, monologuing bad guy who's just evil without anything resembling shading or even interest.  The finale is a dull, disappointing conclusion to an otherwise great yarn.

But after that, of course, is Sarah's goodbye, and the story not only returns to greatness, but elevates itself to another level entirely.  The involving science fiction mystery has become the gripping thriller, which has become the moving drama of the pain of goodbye, tempered by the memories of joy and happiness.

Farewell, Sarah Jane Smith.

RATING:

* * * ½

The Brain of Morbius

[1976 – Season 14, Serial 5]

One issue with science fiction, fantasy, and horror is that while it opens up every door possible to the imagination, there is a very fine line between compellingly imaginative and hilariously silly.  The Brain of Morbius takes that line, laughs at it, and dances all over and around it with unrestrained glee.  It’s dark, and tragic, and powerful, and intense, and goofy, and ridiculous, and wildly over-the-top, and horrific, all at the same time.  And somehow, it not only works, but transcends itself into something brilliant and special.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive on Karn, a planet not far from the Doctor’s home planet of Gallifry.  They soon encounter not only the Sisterhood, a mystical band of women guarding the secret of immortality, but also an ingenius but warped scientist named Dr. Victor Frankenstein Dr. Solon and his hunchbacked, hook-handed assistant Fritz Condo.  Solon has in his possession the brain of the evil Time Lord Morbius, and is rebuilding a body for him.  And he thinks the Doctor has the perfect head…

The original script was written by Terrance Dicks, then overhauled by script editor Robert Holmes, and the result is a script from two of the greatest writers in the history of Doctor Who.  The characters are terrific.  Dr. Solon and Morbius are both an incredibly rare breed of villain: wildly overblown caricatures with “take over the universe” sorts of ambitions who are also complex, well-shaded characters.  There’s just enough element of tragedy to make them interesting, but not so much that we regret their fates.  Condo is, of course, a dumb brute, but he’s a dumb brute with emotional depth.  The Sisterhood is a fascinating group whose obsession with immortality has frozen their culture in time.  Without death and birth, they can never move forward.

But the highlights are the two regulars.  Tom Baker’s Doctor is at his peak.  He is, of course, hysterically funny.  I love the scene when they first march up to Solon’s castle in the rain.  When Solon opens the door, they’re absolutely drenched as it practically monsoons outside.  The Doctor’s greeting: “Can you spare a glass of water?”  But he’s also very serious when called on, and with his deep voice and large frame, Baker has an unbeatable presence when solemn.  His concern for Sarah Jane, his solving of the dying flame with science, and his climactic showdown with Morbius knowing he’ll probably die in the process are all fantastic moments.

Sarah has plenty to do herself.  I love her cleverness when Solon gives them drinks.  But even more than that I love her bravery throughout; even though she’s blinded through most of the story, she shows incredible courage, even wandering outside on an unfamiliar planet to try to warn the Doctor of what’s coming.

And their relationship is beautifully portrayed.  Even though Sarah is just a human to the Doctor’s Time Lord, he treats her as a genuine equal.  Further, they’re just fun to watch.  There’s a great dialogue between them early on as the Doctor yells at the skies, convinced that the Time Lords are manipulated events and trying to get him to do their dirty work for them (though I love that it’s never stated for certain whether or not they did, implied as it may be), while Sarah teases him for being so childish about it.

Meanwhile, this is all set in a wonderful atmosphere.  The sets are stunning; Solon’s laboratory is a masterpiece.  Director Christopher Barry shoots it brilliantly throughout; it’s a tremendously well-lit, well-shot story.  He also plays the suspense for all it’s worth and layers in plenty of eerie horror and violence.

So it’s a compelling, dramatically sound character-driven adventure with great touches of horror, but there are also strong elements of satire, black comedy, and just outright silliness.  Probably one of the best examples of this oddness comes when Solon and Condo fight, during which Morbius’s brain is knocked to the ground.  Solon tries desperately to save it by putting it in a plastic case with long eyestalks.  However, the brain is damaged, and for a while, it runs around in a highly primitive fashion, wanted nothing but to kill.  The incredibly intelligent Time Lord reduced to his savage nature.

It’s also a brain sliding around on the floor, then put in a plastic head on top of a body that looks like this:

The first time I watched this episode, I was thrown by the last third, starting with the brain going on the ground, because while it worked, it couldn’t be taken totally seriously.  But rewatching I realized that it could be taken very seriously.  It's played straight enough and with enough depth to work as horror adventure.  It just has to be taken humourously as well.  

This is a brilliant episode, and one I love more each time I watch it.  It’s great fun, layered with intelligent, wit, and wonderful characters.  And it’s all that in ways uniquely Doctor Who.

RATING: 

* * * *

SIDENOTES

• [Added: 6/27/11] I just finally watched Bride of Frankenstein.  That description of it as simultaneously funny, dramatic, and scary?  Very much like Bride, albeit leaning a bit more on the drama and horror scales than its '30s forebear.