Dr Who @ UEA, 07/05/2008, lesson the third
May. 8th, 2008 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethMy class notes. I share.
HANDOUT - Episode Guide NH made: Only goes up to the xmas special with Kylie, because there’s an episode title they haven’t given out.
Typed version of that handout I couldn’t read.
Something with a big claw hand on it.
1901 all here
Currently screening is Quatermass II. 1955. Scheduled around the same time ITV started. Big hitter. It’s one of those programs you read about where people emptied the pubs when it was on. (I think he said)
Time And Relative Dimension/s In Space
Which works better, singular or plural? Dimensions. Only one vote for singular.
Plural sounds better NH thinks. Grander. But singular is mysterious.
New series had Dimensions in the script and Eccleston said Dimension. Became plural later on.
Time and relative Dissertations in space = a book.
Saturday… quiet thumbs up.
NH thinks it’s the most generic 2 episodes ever. No great surprises, no great plot twists, but it worked.
Chief Sontaran was good, he reckons.
There’s more references towards the old classic series than there was at the start.
Moved away from 6 parters cause that’s the way TV is now. Self contained 45 minutes – so they can show it in the states with adverts in.
Cliffhangers. I said they go before the commercial breaks. He said it’s good they don’t put ‘next week’ things immediately after.
RTD said they won’t do stunt casting… but there is next week.
Handouts
Unknown Forest was handed out already but Be (me!) said it’s not readable. NH looked and agreed. Designers put a color background in so it doesn’t photocopy. More readable version.
Episode Guide – had a few late nights doing this. Coming from various sources. Couple of things he meant to put in but forgot.
Story titles – especially for the first few stories there’s been quibbles over the years as to what the actual story titles are. Decided to plump for what’s on the videos or books and the ones commonly known. Unearthly Child / 100,000 BC / Tribe of Gum. First Dalek story was originally called the mutants but there’s a Pertwee called the Mutants. Edge of Destruction has been through so many titles in its time – Inside the Spaceship, another rubbish title. When we get to season 23 Trial of a Time Lord every episode was numbered 1-14. This is part of the reason why now we have one off episodes or two parters and the two parters in the new series are not called I and II. Because… RTD had a notion that if you had something part I then the casual viewer has to make a commitment next week and if its Part II they have to have watched I. That’s the big flaw with Trial of a Time Lord. Up to episode 9? Not going to attract new viewers.
So, story titles, whats been on the videos and books.
Letters beside each title, A, 5X, they’re the production codes for the story. Put in as well when they were shown, average audience for each story, brief plot description from the Pocket Essential books, the reviews are actually co-written by Paul Cornell who has written episodes for the new series. Can probably tell which are his cause they gush like mad.
That’s the episode guide.
Only goes up to Voyage of the Damned at the end cause he didn’t want to pre-empt the new series and one title isn’t there.
The Pertwee stuff is basically an analysis of the Pertwee era which brings out the plus points and minus points of it. Back in the early 90s and the article on Who anxiety there was a big Pertwee backlash in fandom and that was the article that brought it about. They decided the Doctor was part of the establishment and that’s not right. Even though the same fans would go to conventions and absolutely eulogise (producers and stuff).
Then there’s an article about season 7, and why it’s so different from every other season. It’s the one season where they always draw contemporary references. Fits into some weird zeitgeist of the time.
Then the last article he tried to find a better one but it’s a view of Quatermass on the TV.
Last week we looked at production methods in the 1960s, the fact that they had an hour and a quarter to record a 25 minute episode and went from the start to the end in order of the story.
Forgot to mention – coming to the theatre royal next month is Gerald Harper, Adam Adamant himself. Some eps of AA were actually directed by Ridley Scott. RS was in the design department and had he not been assigned to another program chances are he’d have been the bloke who designed the Daleks. If you get the DVD box set of AA there’s one ep directed by him. It’s full of big directorial flourishes at the start which lessen as the ep goes on, until it’s really pedestrian at the end. Doing big set ups to start… Clock is ticking towards 10pm where the lights go out. It’s fascinating to watch.
December 64 the percent of audience 5-14 was 46% and adults 54%.
Later, 65, interesting – from 5-14 is down to 37% but adults up to 63%.
It’s almost like there’s 2/3 more people over 15 than youngsters.
If you look at the ep guide and stories in season 2 and 3 there is a difference. Season 3 is more adult orientated.
Then we looked at the Daleks and reasons for their success. In the early days they were Nazis. Also tapping into cold war nuclear fears. Second Dalek story being what would have happened if Germany invaded England. Similar film ‘It happened here’ really cheap budget shot over years, England if the Nazis had invaded. One thing about monster is… and always within academia when there are monsters in programs or films the monsters are always seen to symbolise
The Other
The something else. The Other is signifier of cultural anxieties of the time.
With the Daleks cultural anxieties could be fascism, or if we’d lost the war, or nuclear problems. Other readings can be race, immigration, technology, tech going bad we’ll be looking at later on.
But, what if your monsters happen to be giant ants.
Zarbi.
The Zarbi were promoted as the next big monster in DW after the Daleks, and, well… from early 1965 here are the Zarbi.
Clip from The Web Planet – the really big ants with human legs shuffling around. “Now it is their turn to receive instructions.”
… Zarbi runs into the camera to much cheering.
And a glimpse of Menoptra.
Enough.
… what cultural anxieties did the Zarbi represent?
- big silence –
When you actually come to something like the Zarbi you have to go to the standby of Marxist crit and look at it as a class based struggle.
Often on DW the Doctor sides with the oppressed overcoming their fascist dictators. Happens again and again. Space Museum, fantastic opening episode, then goes to dominating and oppressed people war of the haircuts and the Doctor helps them fight back.
So in that article The Unknown Forest there is a bit from The Socialist Worker that does apply some Marxist crit to DW and Doctor Who is on the side of the revolution.
Problem is once the revolution’s happened he’s off, so does the class system perpetuate itself once he’s done his bit and changed things.
Is it an analysis after or intention of author?
Depends on the author.
Malcolm Hulke, card carrying communist, wrote for Troughton and after. Invasion of the Dinosaur, really good story if you can get past the FX. Might make a compilation of the really bad moments of DW.
MH is putting it into the script.
The Pertwee era is one of the most socially aware eras. By allegory they’re doing things like England entering the common market, the miners strike, postcolonial oppression.
Others are very much read into after.
With the Zarbi it’s the only terms you can read that story on, if you want to read it you use Marxist approach and read it on class.
Other times its just writers turning out hack work, no names mentioned but a certain script editor, NH lets us decide which one.
In the present series, Daleks fundamentalist, clear point. Same social anxieties thing. Technophobia. Will be looking at Technophobia tonight.
Also Planet of the Ood, that’s a story about slavery.
There’s always a problem when DW does issues. PoO weakest ep from this series so far.
RTD says he wasn’t thinking Blair and the Iraq War when he wrote Christmas Invasion, he was thinking the end of The Silurians.
WWIII weapons of destruction – clearly put in there.
Tonight is going to be how DW went from being rebel of the universe to part of the establishment.
Was going to show a clip from the last Troughton story. Might watch the whole episode. It’s on the top ten most important episodes.
Because we saw the first one from the 60s is interesting to see the last from the 60s and compare how much is different.
Might have to drop CSO special effects from next week, move much from this week over.
Introduction of the Time Lords was important in (neutering?) DW and travels in time and space.
Tonight – Earth invasion scenarios. Chapman calls them from the threat and disaster school. Alien Invasion, the Other coming to take us over. Not with clear motives, just for conquest.
Daleks are basically racist, anything not Dalek they just want to conquer.
Interesting in the new series a lot of the reason people want to take over is profit.
Not in the last story, the Sontarans (mumble)
But the contemporary Earth Invasion stories already had a template. That was a BBC series from a few years earlier, Quatermass.
Quatermass, 1953, Quatermass Experiment, only the first two episode exist now. Astronauts coming back and mutating into a creature which takes over Westminster Abbey – year before coronation was in abbey and people knew it.
1955, try and take audience from ITV. That’s one where the invasion has already happened, there’s a conspiracy that has gone to the top, they’re building new towns but part of the town they’re building is a feeding and processing plant for the invasion.
Quatermass and the Pit – up there with 1st ep DW and last ep Prisoner.
What they think is a bomb is a spaceship from Mars, there’s traces in humanity, it comes awake and chaos breaks loose.
4th one is Quatermass, often shown on ITV 4, Kneale wrote it in the late 60s, wanted the BBC to make it but they didn’t have the budget, so it held on for a few years and came out in 1980. Sadly was out of date by that time.
Watched it again recently and it doesn’t seem to hold up.
Clip from Quatermass and the Pit.
“Strongly recommend this program is not for children or people of a nervous disposition” the BBC announcer would say.
Clip is from the end of the 3rd ep of Quatermass where they finally get into the spaceship.
“My god, it looks like an eye. It’s not moving.” Inside a spaceship with circles pattern on it.
Pauses: crashed capsule: Does that look like a Dalek on its side? Sort of similarity to it. Has no idea if it had any influence whatsoever.
NH warns us it gets scary now.
Big bugs!
Oh, Zarbi! Er, but these are much cooler big bugs with a whole Mantis thing.
And that falling down bit makes a jump.
… these are way cooler than in the color thing I saw.
BBC tape put a Intermission in half way through cause it’s three hours long.
Quatermass – always uneasy relationship between Q and military/authority. Strain that runs throughout all the TV series.
In this one he’s the head of the British Rocket Group. Lovely thought that we had a Rocket Group at some point. DW does pick that up = Britain is sending rockets into space.
Rocket Group is taken over by the military. All the while the one with Colonel Breen is the one with the military mind thinking it’s not real it’s a hoax left by Nazis. Q is saying it’s not. The ones who follow Q survive. It’s like a template which DW later took on.
The person who does fit in to the establishment but is a bit of a loose canon, but he’s the one with the technical knowhow, often combined with good old British military might. The Army. Any invasions can be offset.
It is the template for most of the original invasion stories set on Earth that DW took up.
For the first 2, nearly 3, years there were no contemporary invasion stories. For the first 2 years there was the ongoing thing of getting I and B back to Earth. But if they did, end of series. So it wasn’t until mid 1966 they attempted the first contemporary Earth stories.
Broadcast… England won the world cup.
Story called The War Machines. And it’s interesting for a lot of reasons.
Do you remember the Doctor as we first met him? How was he then?
Cantankerous…
What was the last thing he wanted people to find out?
He was from elsewhere, didn’t want to become a public spectacle, didn’t want to get involved with what was going on around him. Not a member of the establishment at all.
When The War Games happens… it’s… well… if there’d been major DW fandom at the time to the analytical degree it is today the fans would have been up in arms about this story for quite a few reasons. (I think he still means War Machines)
Clips – opening, then 4th episode
The
War
Mach
Ines
Opening titles, then a really high up shot of … is it London? Er, probably, just really fuzzy black and white London.
TARDIS materialises.
Dodo. Huh. So that’s what she looks like.
Doctor hangs an ‘out of order’ on the police box.
“The TARDIS is often mistaken for the real police box.”
View of the newly finished telecom tower. Which looks “There’s something alien about that tower. I can sense it.” Believable.
Doctor is all hat and cloak again.
Room of big flashing lights and tape machines ie a big computer.
… the Doctor being pulled to trouble would explain a lot.
Dodo the secretary. I’m slightly distracted with how he feels free to grab her by the arm and lead her around.
Polly… makes faces.
WOTAN. But it sounds like Voltan.
“Types faster.” “Fraid so, and it never makes mistakes” Machine that can think and never makes mistakes.
Doctor looking incredulous.
1966
… page missing in the Episode guide? No, round the wrong way. Numbering mess. And therefore episode order.
NH – is the Doctor different? How?
Mellower. From someone who didn’t want to get involved with anything – straight out the TARDIS, ‘danger!’, lets go.
As a plot point to get the Doctor involved it’s a bit weak.
And he just strides in.
And it’s obviously like… “Major Green said” He’s just walked in, introduced himself and he’s in there.
That does happen a lot.
“I’m the Doctor” and they let him in.
Happens later, but this is the first time it’s done like that.
After a while he’ll happily barge in anywhere. At this point it’s all “I’m going to go in and investigate”.
1966 seems a world away from 1963 and foggy evenings and policemen.
Entered a new technological age now. Harold Wilson’s White heat of technology – technical paradise, great new things. It being DW, technological paranoia.
Computers on the whole tend to be bad, especially if you’ve invented a computer that can think for itself.
This prefigures the WWW – Wotan links up with other computers… and decides humanity isn’t the way forwards. So it constructs War Machines and decides to wipe out humanity.
Polly is going to be the next companion. Shift from Ian and Barbara the teachers, to Polly who is, to use the phrase of the time, a Dolly Bird, or in the 70s Crumpet. She’s the first DW girl who is there with Glamour. Up to that point there’s been Barbara, schoolmistress, and a succession of young teenage girls cut from the same mould, Susan, Vicki, Dodo. Dodo didn’t last very long.
The WOTAN ends up hypnotising people. And the end of this episode has… one of those things that drive DW fans wild. It ends up with WOTAN saying “Doctor Who is required bring him here” It’s the only time in the series he’s ever been referred to as Doctor Who.
(name) who wrote this wrote for the Avengers. There’s a degree of Avengers in it too. The background reading of what DW was about was probably the DW annual, where everyone does call him Doctor Who all the time.
War Machines go on the rampage and the Doctor confronts one at the end of episode 3. This is the start of episode 4 when it picks up.
Military is there – running away while the Doctor stays still and stares at it.
War Machine makes those really slow modem noises one might have heard from spectrum cassettes. Only slower.
The Doctor seems to be dancing with it.
Cut to a bar where they’re watching TV behind the beer pumps. Emergency about the War Machines, response calm, emergency cabinet meeting. Some TV guy doing announcing. Goes from the bar to the set to the bar again. Warns of further attacks.
Then back to the Doctor talking to the Minister.
War Machine put into operation before it was ready.
“I hope we’re just as lucky next time”
“Destroy any further machines before there is a next time”
So of course there’s another location with another war machine.
(I’m blinky tired. Huh? I sleeped all day.)
Bloke with working class accent being “My dear young man” to the Doctor and looking for Polly.
The Doctor gets him to hold his cloak. (Is I think Ben the other new companion?)
The War Machines have a number on the front. So you can tell there’s more than one of them.
They’re… huh, kind of like the cleaner bots from Paradise Towers? I haven’t seen that for years so I’m not sure.
Just killed someone with a fire extinguisher again.
“They seem like people who’ve been brainwashed.”
Doctor bangs head on machine. To laughing from NH who said “Mind your head”. Yes, the clever fun of those with memorised episodes.
Amnesia and needs medical attention. As you do.
Truth? Of course – the Doctor says so!
Doctor yelling about strongarm methods. And doing the lapels of superiority.
War Machine vs red phone box. And small cars very slowly.
People warned to stay in their homes, via radio.
/clip
Interesting relationship with those in power.
It’s odd because the Doctor becomes part of the establishment but also critiques the establishment there.
Sir Charles there, Doctor ends up staying at his house. See him getting out a taxi, odd for Hartnell era to have contemporary references.
Technique used there also used on Saturday night’s program. Newsreader. Verisimilitude. Get someone who’s a contemporary newscaster it adds credence to the threat that’s happening. There is a difference though between the newscaster then and now. Basically an editorial edict. In this one you get him full screen as if he’s reading the news thing. On Saturday’s episode it was a closeup of the screen and pixelated. Now if they’re reading false news you have to differentiate it just in case someone turns on and thinks the world is being invaded by Sontarans.
It’s one of those things now they’re very careful about.
The radio broadcast at the end was done by a big newsreader of the time.
It’s interesting because… one thing he noticed is one of the music stings was used from Quatermass.
The Doctor working within the establishment, completely different to how we’d imagined him before. Somehow he comes back to contemporary London and it seems he was part of clubs and stuff. Slightly changing what we knew before.
First attempt at doing contemporary invasion story, though it’s not an alien invasion, it’s technology running wild.
Just got a scientific advisor, Dr Kit Peddler. Classic SF story used plenty of times, computer that thinks and tries to take over the world.
Doesn’t know what the GPO thought of it at the time. Has their new gleaming building up, the epitome of white heat of tech, and it’s the center of a world takeover.
One of the things DW does, especially in the new series – have a big landmark and use it.
Probably wont use post office tower in the new series cause its already been done.
Contemporary invasion stories were still a rarity throughout the 60s. If Earth was being invaded it would probably take place in the future / somewhere remote.
Program started to become formulaic.
Innes Lloyd phased out the historicals, more SF, more monsters, cause that’s what the children wanted. Also as an economy he’d have a story based around one large set. Spend a lot on the one set. This led to ‘the base under siege story’. What it basically was , you’d have an isolated confined outpost where a small group of people battle alien invades.
Moonbase, threatened by cybermen. Tibetan monastery, threatened by yetis. Future, second ice age, Ice Warriors. Polar base, cybermen.
10th planet is the one that set the template for it. Hartnell’s last story.
Hartnell’s last moments as Doctor Who.
Clip – episode 4 of the 10th planet.
It’s one of those reconstructed with telesnaps things.
With lots of flickery filmy bits.
Doctor wants to get back to the TARDIS.
Doctor regenerates! In bright white light. With TARDIS sound effect.
10th planet ep 4 is an ep that no longer exists. Which is really annoying because the other 3 do. So they had to make a restoration job for when they brought it out on video.
So that was a mixture of telesnaps - there was a guy at the BBC paid to photo a show while on air so the director had a record – 8mm footage someone took pointing at a screen, and that clip at the end which survives because they used it on Blue Peter.
One episode of missing DW that everyone wanted to find. The other three exist, that one doesn’t.
It’s not for Hartnell such a big sendoff. Final words ‘keep warm’! It’s not a great finish. Not like ‘fantastic’ / boom.
Gave up – various reasons. They’d tried to get rid of him before. Celestial Toymaker – invisible- come back different / too fantasy land.
Partly, ill health. Didn’t know at the time but starting to suffer from arteriosclerosis. He’s not in ep 3 of 10th planet, written out of that, only in last ten minutes of ep 4.
Starting to not remember lines etc (because health).
Partly, new producer, make his mark.
And towards the end of Hartnell the viewing figures had dropped down.
There isn’t a clear cut answer as to why WH left. By all accounts he didn’t really want to go. And if you read the biography, the autobiography Whos There, his career afterwards just dwindled, slightly depressing, mostly due to illness though.
Even two stories earlier in the War Machines he’s still got it at times, there’s still great moments with him, which belies the fact his health was so bad he couldn’t carry on.
The one thing Innes Lloyd new producer did with the health of Sydney Newman, still at BBC, was new Doctor, Pat Troughton. They realised people wanted from the show was monsters. Seen as an SF show, not quasi educational. Thrills adventures monsters, and possibly to be a bit scared.
It did start to get progressively scarier.
Clip – only surviving ep from The Web of Fear, another base under siege story. Yeti take over the London Underground.
A bit from early on in the 1st episode. Which almost contends as possibly the scariest moment of 1960s Doctor Who.
He’s taped a lot from DVD after it wouldn’t play last week.
Moment – Travers vs Yeti?
Spooky music / grave trouble / Yeti.
Control unit / sphere gone
Museum guy thinks it’s about money and won’t believe in danger. Guess he’s dead then.
She’s talking to him like he’s daft, that horribly condescending voice.
Candles going out… he’s using candles? Thought it was modern.
Yeti eyes light up. It’s behind you… and splat.
/clip
Okay, may not have the same effect on a sunny may evening, but watching in Feb and you’re about 7 that’s pretty scary stuff.
And technically there’s something very different about it – shot on film. For some reason that entire sequence is on film, probably because they couldn’t do it in the studio. (See 'About Time' for this ep - I think it had a whole section on that) It’s like watching a Hammer movie. And it won’t be the last time DW treads into Hammer territory.
Trivia fans – first appearance? The Brigadier. (I knew that :-) )
Can't watch clip, doesn’t exist any more.
One of those things where NC wasn’t originally cast for the role, was going to (someone else who got a job elsewhere) so NC got the role and the rest is history.
By the end of 68… the producers were planning to bring DW down to Earth. Basically they’d overspent on season 5. Season 6 they’d had real problems with scripts. PT was getting really unhappy, specially having to work 42 weeks a year. They thought if they bring the Doctor down to contemporary Earth it would save budget.
Also, color TV – season 7 would be color. Quibbles about if they could do alien planets in color.
So there’s the notion of bringing the Doctor back to contemporary Earth.
Template they went for is Quatermass. Contemporary Doctor, quasi military type situation. To which they had a few months later a story called Invasion which introduces UNIT, then the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, now the UNified Intelligence Taskforce.
First intro of the Brig in Invasion.
Intro to UNIT – big plane. Picked up on in recent eps, UNIT have a base, a mobile base.
Probably couldn’t afford a plane this time.
Nifty wall of globe map on glass.
“Yes, the Brigadier’s introduced by his backside” as he climbs down a ladder.
4 years since the Yeti “Time is relative”
TARDIS “Miss Travers told me all about it”
Brig reckons he’s not as sceptical as he was.
“Pattycake biscuit” NH: Ad Lib.
Not secret police, can’t arrest people. “What about us, you arrested us” “Not really”
/clip
Couple of things to note – International Electromatics was a cover used in the Cybermen stories in the new series. It’s owned by prototype Alan Sugar releasing tech with a chip that causes humans to get hypnotised, leading to an invasion. Includes some of the most iconic moments in DW ever.
So basically got the Doctor working with the military establishment and that’s the new format. Had PT not left he would have carried on, would have been Pertwee in the first season. See the first Pertwee season and imagine Troughton – some of them you just can’t quite see him in.
But somehow we’ve got to get the Doctor on contemporary Earth, stranded there. Got to find a big enough reason to do it.
So out of desperation, like so much DW…
PT’s last story was called The War Games, lasts ten episodes, basically what happens is… a bunch of… aliens have kidnapped various soldiers from various time periods of Earth and getting them to fight one another, so they get the best soldiers to (invade/conquer universe). That takes up 9 episodes, of capture and escape. It does actually hold up quite well. The Doctor eventually defeats them, but faces the problem of getting all these soldiers back – millions of them, though you see 24 at most.
To do that he has to call on his own people, the Time Lords.
First time ever his people are referred to. Up to this point we had no idea who he is or where he comes from.
10th episode of The War Games.
The last 60s episode of Doctor Who. By this time changed the opening titles. (Turns lights down) (so I turn screen down)
Episode =
Can’t get to the TARDIS cause of forcefield. Slow motion of doom. Trying to turn the key. Breaks it by concentrating.
TARDIS trying to get away. About Time says the chase bits are from previous episodes.
Ran away “I was bored.” “Time Lords are an immensely civilised race. We control our environment. We can live forever, barring accidents.”
He sounds all excited about travel.
“It is a fact Jamie I do tend to get involved in things.”
Helping people no excuse in their eyes.
“Can’t be landing already” is a bit different than new series?
“We’re perfectly safe in the TARDIS” until it starts leaking.
Announcer voice is the first intro to the Time Lords. Tells him to return for trial. Then TARDIS controls moving by themselves.
“Your travels are over.”
Time Lord robes with a split up the front. No big collars yet. Still a neat costume.
“Brutal methods of mental processing” / “galactic laws”
Doctor explaining they don’t usually intervene but had to when he called them.
Oooh, scary stare of “You must speak” torture.
War Chief was a Time Lord. Accuses the Doctor of collaboration.
Techs in the TARDIS! Fiddle with the console much.
… oh dear, lycra suits of doom? Er, this doesn’t really work as a costume of scary. Also, it might be rubber.
Back to the trial.
“Sense of justice still prevails, even though they’ve lost their sense of humour.”
Rubber dudes of doom break in and arrest the Doctor some more.
“We shall not endanger innocent lives” decide the Time Lords.
… bad guy doesn’t believe the perfectly truthful ‘can’t even steer it’.
One of the dials visibly broken.
They tell him to work the machine, so he makes the lights flashy and they run away.
Then the Time Lords show up and tell him the planet has a forcefield so they’ll be prisoners forever. (whole planet? forever? um, extreme much?) Murderous associates dematerialised as if they’d never existed. (probably not erased from the timeline, though the phrasing sounds like it, right?)
Cool circles effect of force fieldy doom.
Jamie tries to leave and walks into the forcefield.
Doctor says they’re not going to let them go.
Doctor on trial on his own.
Most important law, non interference. Doctor is proud to have been fighting evil.
says to Time Lords “Of course, you’re above criticism.”
… the evils he’s been fighting are all in one season, and not very impressive. Yeti I’ve only heard of cause of the Brigadier.
Ice Warriors are pretty cool but sound like a bike pump.
Cybermen, yaay! And Daleks!
… heh, time war
“All these evils I have fought, while you have done nothing but observe. True, I am guilty of interference. But you are guilty of failing to use your great powers” etc etc.
Is very dramatic.
Jamie and Zoe won’t go home, not without the Doctor. “Become attached” / “Been through a lot.”
Doctor playing patience… less dramatic ;-)
“Can’t say goodbye through a forcefield” because? Well, they just touch hands. And try and persuade him to try and escape.
Doctor goes with. Ooh, scary escape sequence of pointlessness! Heh.
“There is no escape Doctor.”
Caught at the TARDIS.
Doctor says goodbye.
“I won’t forget you, you know.” “I won’t forget you.” … the Doctor is telling true.
Meet again / Time is relative.
Waves.
“They’ll forget me won’t they.” “Not entirely. They’ll remember their first adventure with you but nothing more.”
I like the look on his face right there.
We see Zoe back on her wheel.
“I thought I’d forgotten something important, but it’s nothing.” :-(
“She’ll be all right won’t she?” Doctor checks.
And then Jamie… getting shot? Nope, ducks, and attacks. Doctor seems amused. Urgh.
“They will both continue their lives as if nothing happened.”
“We have accepted your plea that there is evil in the universe that must be fought”
He looks so hopeful about ‘free’.
Frequent visits to Earth… “Earth seems more vulnerable than others.”
Sent to exile in 20th century.
Secret of the TARDIS taken from him. “One primitive planet in one century in time.”
And change his appearance. Note lack of 'regeneration' as a word/idea. He objects to having his face changed, not his life shortened.
About appearance - They take decision for him. He wants to decide cause it’s important. Instead we get silly faces on a screen. Er, this a bit difficult to take serious.
Swirly faces.
“You’re making me giddy” of seriousness clearly. But he’s all “no no no” which is more serious.
… but we don’t get to see the new guy.
That’s for Spearhead from Space.
2054, good timing.
NH comments on credits speed being like today.
Okay, impressions, who hasn’t seen it before.
(I liked it plenty. sure, there's moments I was :eyeroll: at, but in my head it will be brilliant.)
It’s like a stage play. Not helped by the sets. Like a cut rate version of Shakespeare. End of season budgets run low. Sets for what they are aren’t bad. Better than Peter Davison no money- Concorde on prehistoric Earth.
Naratively – capture escape capture.
Time Lords - Meet three of them and a couple of technicians.
How do we know they’re important? Low angle shots / tall. Organ music. Time *Lords*. Sounds important. Prior to this point we’ve no idea what Time Lords are. Finally meet them, only heard about in the previous episode.
Miles away from the first episode, completely. Unearthly Child, degree of realism that suddenly goes into something amazing. This? Trying to be awe inspiring but the budget isn’t quite there. Touches a lot of bases. Parade of monsters.
Basically the ep is there to get the Doctor to Earth, exile him.
Bit psychedelic in places; 69. War Chief, and Henchmen in leather. Danger Diabolique, those costumes.
Good sendoff for the three of them.
Get a nice bookend…
Little muted, not big hugs or anything. Actually went back and got the actress back from that story (Wheel in Space) as continuity.
Henchmen a bit Flash Gordon.
Didn’t make enough of the morality issue of must not interfere?
Interesting because both the War Chief and the Doctor… the War Lord says the end justifies the means, which is what the Doctor says. One evaporated, the other survives, exiled to Earth.
Could have been the last ever episode. Or Pertwee first season could have been. Fortunately they couldn’t think of anything better to put in its place.
When it finished, following Saturday they showed Star Trek, new glossy import from America. Poles apart there.
Pertwee does actually leave Earth. First series he’s stuck. Second, one adventure off. Reason? Time Lords sent him on missions. Missions are sometimes a bit rubbish. The Mutants, he has to deliver a message to someone. Why the Time Lords couldn’t just send it, don’t know, but they wouldn’t have had a story.
It’s worth mentioning…
At the same time there was a comic called TV Comic, had a Dr Who strip in it. It’s really weird because after this finished the TV Comic had the Doctor living on Earth in a hotel having adventures until the last story where he hears about walking scarecrows, goes to investigate, and they’re the Time Lords who say he’s escaped them for far too long and *zap* change his appearance.
That’s our farewell to the 60s. Next week, Doctor’s relationship to the UNIT and how UNIT is untenable once Baker is involved.
Closing clip – forward to find it.
One thing mention next week = probably playing it as we come in… demonstrating CSO.
Dr Who had competition from an ITV show in 70s – The Tomorrow People. A certain DW star made his debut on this program. See if you can spot the future Dr Who.
… well it’s the opening credits so no.
… whatever this is it’s rather disturbing peculiar. Boots and shorts.
That was Peter Davison.
… with the commentary. Contestants strapped to their chairs… Peter Davison.
… they’re good boots actually. It’s just the rest of the shot that’s … “I think every actor should undergo a truly humiliating experience like this.” says PD.
More of episode later? Unbelievable.
/lesson
HANDOUT - Episode Guide NH made: Only goes up to the xmas special with Kylie, because there’s an episode title they haven’t given out.
Typed version of that handout I couldn’t read.
Something with a big claw hand on it.
1901 all here
Currently screening is Quatermass II. 1955. Scheduled around the same time ITV started. Big hitter. It’s one of those programs you read about where people emptied the pubs when it was on. (I think he said)
Time And Relative Dimension/s In Space
Which works better, singular or plural? Dimensions. Only one vote for singular.
Plural sounds better NH thinks. Grander. But singular is mysterious.
New series had Dimensions in the script and Eccleston said Dimension. Became plural later on.
Time and relative Dissertations in space = a book.
Saturday… quiet thumbs up.
NH thinks it’s the most generic 2 episodes ever. No great surprises, no great plot twists, but it worked.
Chief Sontaran was good, he reckons.
There’s more references towards the old classic series than there was at the start.
Moved away from 6 parters cause that’s the way TV is now. Self contained 45 minutes – so they can show it in the states with adverts in.
Cliffhangers. I said they go before the commercial breaks. He said it’s good they don’t put ‘next week’ things immediately after.
RTD said they won’t do stunt casting… but there is next week.
Handouts
Unknown Forest was handed out already but Be (me!) said it’s not readable. NH looked and agreed. Designers put a color background in so it doesn’t photocopy. More readable version.
Episode Guide – had a few late nights doing this. Coming from various sources. Couple of things he meant to put in but forgot.
Story titles – especially for the first few stories there’s been quibbles over the years as to what the actual story titles are. Decided to plump for what’s on the videos or books and the ones commonly known. Unearthly Child / 100,000 BC / Tribe of Gum. First Dalek story was originally called the mutants but there’s a Pertwee called the Mutants. Edge of Destruction has been through so many titles in its time – Inside the Spaceship, another rubbish title. When we get to season 23 Trial of a Time Lord every episode was numbered 1-14. This is part of the reason why now we have one off episodes or two parters and the two parters in the new series are not called I and II. Because… RTD had a notion that if you had something part I then the casual viewer has to make a commitment next week and if its Part II they have to have watched I. That’s the big flaw with Trial of a Time Lord. Up to episode 9? Not going to attract new viewers.
So, story titles, whats been on the videos and books.
Letters beside each title, A, 5X, they’re the production codes for the story. Put in as well when they were shown, average audience for each story, brief plot description from the Pocket Essential books, the reviews are actually co-written by Paul Cornell who has written episodes for the new series. Can probably tell which are his cause they gush like mad.
That’s the episode guide.
Only goes up to Voyage of the Damned at the end cause he didn’t want to pre-empt the new series and one title isn’t there.
The Pertwee stuff is basically an analysis of the Pertwee era which brings out the plus points and minus points of it. Back in the early 90s and the article on Who anxiety there was a big Pertwee backlash in fandom and that was the article that brought it about. They decided the Doctor was part of the establishment and that’s not right. Even though the same fans would go to conventions and absolutely eulogise (producers and stuff).
Then there’s an article about season 7, and why it’s so different from every other season. It’s the one season where they always draw contemporary references. Fits into some weird zeitgeist of the time.
Then the last article he tried to find a better one but it’s a view of Quatermass on the TV.
Last week we looked at production methods in the 1960s, the fact that they had an hour and a quarter to record a 25 minute episode and went from the start to the end in order of the story.
Forgot to mention – coming to the theatre royal next month is Gerald Harper, Adam Adamant himself. Some eps of AA were actually directed by Ridley Scott. RS was in the design department and had he not been assigned to another program chances are he’d have been the bloke who designed the Daleks. If you get the DVD box set of AA there’s one ep directed by him. It’s full of big directorial flourishes at the start which lessen as the ep goes on, until it’s really pedestrian at the end. Doing big set ups to start… Clock is ticking towards 10pm where the lights go out. It’s fascinating to watch.
December 64 the percent of audience 5-14 was 46% and adults 54%.
Later, 65, interesting – from 5-14 is down to 37% but adults up to 63%.
It’s almost like there’s 2/3 more people over 15 than youngsters.
If you look at the ep guide and stories in season 2 and 3 there is a difference. Season 3 is more adult orientated.
Then we looked at the Daleks and reasons for their success. In the early days they were Nazis. Also tapping into cold war nuclear fears. Second Dalek story being what would have happened if Germany invaded England. Similar film ‘It happened here’ really cheap budget shot over years, England if the Nazis had invaded. One thing about monster is… and always within academia when there are monsters in programs or films the monsters are always seen to symbolise
The Other
The something else. The Other is signifier of cultural anxieties of the time.
With the Daleks cultural anxieties could be fascism, or if we’d lost the war, or nuclear problems. Other readings can be race, immigration, technology, tech going bad we’ll be looking at later on.
But, what if your monsters happen to be giant ants.
Zarbi.
The Zarbi were promoted as the next big monster in DW after the Daleks, and, well… from early 1965 here are the Zarbi.
Clip from The Web Planet – the really big ants with human legs shuffling around. “Now it is their turn to receive instructions.”
… Zarbi runs into the camera to much cheering.
And a glimpse of Menoptra.
Enough.
… what cultural anxieties did the Zarbi represent?
- big silence –
When you actually come to something like the Zarbi you have to go to the standby of Marxist crit and look at it as a class based struggle.
Often on DW the Doctor sides with the oppressed overcoming their fascist dictators. Happens again and again. Space Museum, fantastic opening episode, then goes to dominating and oppressed people war of the haircuts and the Doctor helps them fight back.
So in that article The Unknown Forest there is a bit from The Socialist Worker that does apply some Marxist crit to DW and Doctor Who is on the side of the revolution.
Problem is once the revolution’s happened he’s off, so does the class system perpetuate itself once he’s done his bit and changed things.
Is it an analysis after or intention of author?
Depends on the author.
Malcolm Hulke, card carrying communist, wrote for Troughton and after. Invasion of the Dinosaur, really good story if you can get past the FX. Might make a compilation of the really bad moments of DW.
MH is putting it into the script.
The Pertwee era is one of the most socially aware eras. By allegory they’re doing things like England entering the common market, the miners strike, postcolonial oppression.
Others are very much read into after.
With the Zarbi it’s the only terms you can read that story on, if you want to read it you use Marxist approach and read it on class.
Other times its just writers turning out hack work, no names mentioned but a certain script editor, NH lets us decide which one.
In the present series, Daleks fundamentalist, clear point. Same social anxieties thing. Technophobia. Will be looking at Technophobia tonight.
Also Planet of the Ood, that’s a story about slavery.
There’s always a problem when DW does issues. PoO weakest ep from this series so far.
RTD says he wasn’t thinking Blair and the Iraq War when he wrote Christmas Invasion, he was thinking the end of The Silurians.
WWIII weapons of destruction – clearly put in there.
Tonight is going to be how DW went from being rebel of the universe to part of the establishment.
Was going to show a clip from the last Troughton story. Might watch the whole episode. It’s on the top ten most important episodes.
Because we saw the first one from the 60s is interesting to see the last from the 60s and compare how much is different.
Might have to drop CSO special effects from next week, move much from this week over.
Introduction of the Time Lords was important in (neutering?) DW and travels in time and space.
Tonight – Earth invasion scenarios. Chapman calls them from the threat and disaster school. Alien Invasion, the Other coming to take us over. Not with clear motives, just for conquest.
Daleks are basically racist, anything not Dalek they just want to conquer.
Interesting in the new series a lot of the reason people want to take over is profit.
Not in the last story, the Sontarans (mumble)
But the contemporary Earth Invasion stories already had a template. That was a BBC series from a few years earlier, Quatermass.
Quatermass, 1953, Quatermass Experiment, only the first two episode exist now. Astronauts coming back and mutating into a creature which takes over Westminster Abbey – year before coronation was in abbey and people knew it.
1955, try and take audience from ITV. That’s one where the invasion has already happened, there’s a conspiracy that has gone to the top, they’re building new towns but part of the town they’re building is a feeding and processing plant for the invasion.
Quatermass and the Pit – up there with 1st ep DW and last ep Prisoner.
What they think is a bomb is a spaceship from Mars, there’s traces in humanity, it comes awake and chaos breaks loose.
4th one is Quatermass, often shown on ITV 4, Kneale wrote it in the late 60s, wanted the BBC to make it but they didn’t have the budget, so it held on for a few years and came out in 1980. Sadly was out of date by that time.
Watched it again recently and it doesn’t seem to hold up.
Clip from Quatermass and the Pit.
“Strongly recommend this program is not for children or people of a nervous disposition” the BBC announcer would say.
Clip is from the end of the 3rd ep of Quatermass where they finally get into the spaceship.
“My god, it looks like an eye. It’s not moving.” Inside a spaceship with circles pattern on it.
Pauses: crashed capsule: Does that look like a Dalek on its side? Sort of similarity to it. Has no idea if it had any influence whatsoever.
NH warns us it gets scary now.
Big bugs!
Oh, Zarbi! Er, but these are much cooler big bugs with a whole Mantis thing.
And that falling down bit makes a jump.
… these are way cooler than in the color thing I saw.
BBC tape put a Intermission in half way through cause it’s three hours long.
Quatermass – always uneasy relationship between Q and military/authority. Strain that runs throughout all the TV series.
In this one he’s the head of the British Rocket Group. Lovely thought that we had a Rocket Group at some point. DW does pick that up = Britain is sending rockets into space.
Rocket Group is taken over by the military. All the while the one with Colonel Breen is the one with the military mind thinking it’s not real it’s a hoax left by Nazis. Q is saying it’s not. The ones who follow Q survive. It’s like a template which DW later took on.
The person who does fit in to the establishment but is a bit of a loose canon, but he’s the one with the technical knowhow, often combined with good old British military might. The Army. Any invasions can be offset.
It is the template for most of the original invasion stories set on Earth that DW took up.
For the first 2, nearly 3, years there were no contemporary invasion stories. For the first 2 years there was the ongoing thing of getting I and B back to Earth. But if they did, end of series. So it wasn’t until mid 1966 they attempted the first contemporary Earth stories.
Broadcast… England won the world cup.
Story called The War Machines. And it’s interesting for a lot of reasons.
Do you remember the Doctor as we first met him? How was he then?
Cantankerous…
What was the last thing he wanted people to find out?
He was from elsewhere, didn’t want to become a public spectacle, didn’t want to get involved with what was going on around him. Not a member of the establishment at all.
When The War Games happens… it’s… well… if there’d been major DW fandom at the time to the analytical degree it is today the fans would have been up in arms about this story for quite a few reasons. (I think he still means War Machines)
Clips – opening, then 4th episode
The
War
Mach
Ines
Opening titles, then a really high up shot of … is it London? Er, probably, just really fuzzy black and white London.
TARDIS materialises.
Dodo. Huh. So that’s what she looks like.
Doctor hangs an ‘out of order’ on the police box.
“The TARDIS is often mistaken for the real police box.”
View of the newly finished telecom tower. Which looks “There’s something alien about that tower. I can sense it.” Believable.
Doctor is all hat and cloak again.
Room of big flashing lights and tape machines ie a big computer.
… the Doctor being pulled to trouble would explain a lot.
Dodo the secretary. I’m slightly distracted with how he feels free to grab her by the arm and lead her around.
Polly… makes faces.
WOTAN. But it sounds like Voltan.
“Types faster.” “Fraid so, and it never makes mistakes” Machine that can think and never makes mistakes.
Doctor looking incredulous.
1966
… page missing in the Episode guide? No, round the wrong way. Numbering mess. And therefore episode order.
NH – is the Doctor different? How?
Mellower. From someone who didn’t want to get involved with anything – straight out the TARDIS, ‘danger!’, lets go.
As a plot point to get the Doctor involved it’s a bit weak.
And he just strides in.
And it’s obviously like… “Major Green said” He’s just walked in, introduced himself and he’s in there.
That does happen a lot.
“I’m the Doctor” and they let him in.
Happens later, but this is the first time it’s done like that.
After a while he’ll happily barge in anywhere. At this point it’s all “I’m going to go in and investigate”.
1966 seems a world away from 1963 and foggy evenings and policemen.
Entered a new technological age now. Harold Wilson’s White heat of technology – technical paradise, great new things. It being DW, technological paranoia.
Computers on the whole tend to be bad, especially if you’ve invented a computer that can think for itself.
This prefigures the WWW – Wotan links up with other computers… and decides humanity isn’t the way forwards. So it constructs War Machines and decides to wipe out humanity.
Polly is going to be the next companion. Shift from Ian and Barbara the teachers, to Polly who is, to use the phrase of the time, a Dolly Bird, or in the 70s Crumpet. She’s the first DW girl who is there with Glamour. Up to that point there’s been Barbara, schoolmistress, and a succession of young teenage girls cut from the same mould, Susan, Vicki, Dodo. Dodo didn’t last very long.
The WOTAN ends up hypnotising people. And the end of this episode has… one of those things that drive DW fans wild. It ends up with WOTAN saying “Doctor Who is required bring him here” It’s the only time in the series he’s ever been referred to as Doctor Who.
(name) who wrote this wrote for the Avengers. There’s a degree of Avengers in it too. The background reading of what DW was about was probably the DW annual, where everyone does call him Doctor Who all the time.
War Machines go on the rampage and the Doctor confronts one at the end of episode 3. This is the start of episode 4 when it picks up.
Military is there – running away while the Doctor stays still and stares at it.
War Machine makes those really slow modem noises one might have heard from spectrum cassettes. Only slower.
The Doctor seems to be dancing with it.
Cut to a bar where they’re watching TV behind the beer pumps. Emergency about the War Machines, response calm, emergency cabinet meeting. Some TV guy doing announcing. Goes from the bar to the set to the bar again. Warns of further attacks.
Then back to the Doctor talking to the Minister.
War Machine put into operation before it was ready.
“I hope we’re just as lucky next time”
“Destroy any further machines before there is a next time”
So of course there’s another location with another war machine.
(I’m blinky tired. Huh? I sleeped all day.)
Bloke with working class accent being “My dear young man” to the Doctor and looking for Polly.
The Doctor gets him to hold his cloak. (Is I think Ben the other new companion?)
The War Machines have a number on the front. So you can tell there’s more than one of them.
They’re… huh, kind of like the cleaner bots from Paradise Towers? I haven’t seen that for years so I’m not sure.
Just killed someone with a fire extinguisher again.
“They seem like people who’ve been brainwashed.”
Doctor bangs head on machine. To laughing from NH who said “Mind your head”. Yes, the clever fun of those with memorised episodes.
Amnesia and needs medical attention. As you do.
Truth? Of course – the Doctor says so!
Doctor yelling about strongarm methods. And doing the lapels of superiority.
War Machine vs red phone box. And small cars very slowly.
People warned to stay in their homes, via radio.
/clip
Interesting relationship with those in power.
It’s odd because the Doctor becomes part of the establishment but also critiques the establishment there.
Sir Charles there, Doctor ends up staying at his house. See him getting out a taxi, odd for Hartnell era to have contemporary references.
Technique used there also used on Saturday night’s program. Newsreader. Verisimilitude. Get someone who’s a contemporary newscaster it adds credence to the threat that’s happening. There is a difference though between the newscaster then and now. Basically an editorial edict. In this one you get him full screen as if he’s reading the news thing. On Saturday’s episode it was a closeup of the screen and pixelated. Now if they’re reading false news you have to differentiate it just in case someone turns on and thinks the world is being invaded by Sontarans.
It’s one of those things now they’re very careful about.
The radio broadcast at the end was done by a big newsreader of the time.
It’s interesting because… one thing he noticed is one of the music stings was used from Quatermass.
The Doctor working within the establishment, completely different to how we’d imagined him before. Somehow he comes back to contemporary London and it seems he was part of clubs and stuff. Slightly changing what we knew before.
First attempt at doing contemporary invasion story, though it’s not an alien invasion, it’s technology running wild.
Just got a scientific advisor, Dr Kit Peddler. Classic SF story used plenty of times, computer that thinks and tries to take over the world.
Doesn’t know what the GPO thought of it at the time. Has their new gleaming building up, the epitome of white heat of tech, and it’s the center of a world takeover.
One of the things DW does, especially in the new series – have a big landmark and use it.
Probably wont use post office tower in the new series cause its already been done.
Contemporary invasion stories were still a rarity throughout the 60s. If Earth was being invaded it would probably take place in the future / somewhere remote.
Program started to become formulaic.
Innes Lloyd phased out the historicals, more SF, more monsters, cause that’s what the children wanted. Also as an economy he’d have a story based around one large set. Spend a lot on the one set. This led to ‘the base under siege story’. What it basically was , you’d have an isolated confined outpost where a small group of people battle alien invades.
Moonbase, threatened by cybermen. Tibetan monastery, threatened by yetis. Future, second ice age, Ice Warriors. Polar base, cybermen.
10th planet is the one that set the template for it. Hartnell’s last story.
Hartnell’s last moments as Doctor Who.
Clip – episode 4 of the 10th planet.
It’s one of those reconstructed with telesnaps things.
With lots of flickery filmy bits.
Doctor wants to get back to the TARDIS.
Doctor regenerates! In bright white light. With TARDIS sound effect.
10th planet ep 4 is an ep that no longer exists. Which is really annoying because the other 3 do. So they had to make a restoration job for when they brought it out on video.
So that was a mixture of telesnaps - there was a guy at the BBC paid to photo a show while on air so the director had a record – 8mm footage someone took pointing at a screen, and that clip at the end which survives because they used it on Blue Peter.
One episode of missing DW that everyone wanted to find. The other three exist, that one doesn’t.
It’s not for Hartnell such a big sendoff. Final words ‘keep warm’! It’s not a great finish. Not like ‘fantastic’ / boom.
Gave up – various reasons. They’d tried to get rid of him before. Celestial Toymaker – invisible- come back different / too fantasy land.
Partly, ill health. Didn’t know at the time but starting to suffer from arteriosclerosis. He’s not in ep 3 of 10th planet, written out of that, only in last ten minutes of ep 4.
Starting to not remember lines etc (because health).
Partly, new producer, make his mark.
And towards the end of Hartnell the viewing figures had dropped down.
There isn’t a clear cut answer as to why WH left. By all accounts he didn’t really want to go. And if you read the biography, the autobiography Whos There, his career afterwards just dwindled, slightly depressing, mostly due to illness though.
Even two stories earlier in the War Machines he’s still got it at times, there’s still great moments with him, which belies the fact his health was so bad he couldn’t carry on.
The one thing Innes Lloyd new producer did with the health of Sydney Newman, still at BBC, was new Doctor, Pat Troughton. They realised people wanted from the show was monsters. Seen as an SF show, not quasi educational. Thrills adventures monsters, and possibly to be a bit scared.
It did start to get progressively scarier.
Clip – only surviving ep from The Web of Fear, another base under siege story. Yeti take over the London Underground.
A bit from early on in the 1st episode. Which almost contends as possibly the scariest moment of 1960s Doctor Who.
He’s taped a lot from DVD after it wouldn’t play last week.
Moment – Travers vs Yeti?
Spooky music / grave trouble / Yeti.
Control unit / sphere gone
Museum guy thinks it’s about money and won’t believe in danger. Guess he’s dead then.
She’s talking to him like he’s daft, that horribly condescending voice.
Candles going out… he’s using candles? Thought it was modern.
Yeti eyes light up. It’s behind you… and splat.
/clip
Okay, may not have the same effect on a sunny may evening, but watching in Feb and you’re about 7 that’s pretty scary stuff.
And technically there’s something very different about it – shot on film. For some reason that entire sequence is on film, probably because they couldn’t do it in the studio. (See 'About Time' for this ep - I think it had a whole section on that) It’s like watching a Hammer movie. And it won’t be the last time DW treads into Hammer territory.
Trivia fans – first appearance? The Brigadier. (I knew that :-) )
Can't watch clip, doesn’t exist any more.
One of those things where NC wasn’t originally cast for the role, was going to (someone else who got a job elsewhere) so NC got the role and the rest is history.
By the end of 68… the producers were planning to bring DW down to Earth. Basically they’d overspent on season 5. Season 6 they’d had real problems with scripts. PT was getting really unhappy, specially having to work 42 weeks a year. They thought if they bring the Doctor down to contemporary Earth it would save budget.
Also, color TV – season 7 would be color. Quibbles about if they could do alien planets in color.
So there’s the notion of bringing the Doctor back to contemporary Earth.
Template they went for is Quatermass. Contemporary Doctor, quasi military type situation. To which they had a few months later a story called Invasion which introduces UNIT, then the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, now the UNified Intelligence Taskforce.
First intro of the Brig in Invasion.
Intro to UNIT – big plane. Picked up on in recent eps, UNIT have a base, a mobile base.
Probably couldn’t afford a plane this time.
Nifty wall of globe map on glass.
“Yes, the Brigadier’s introduced by his backside” as he climbs down a ladder.
4 years since the Yeti “Time is relative”
TARDIS “Miss Travers told me all about it”
Brig reckons he’s not as sceptical as he was.
“Pattycake biscuit” NH: Ad Lib.
Not secret police, can’t arrest people. “What about us, you arrested us” “Not really”
/clip
Couple of things to note – International Electromatics was a cover used in the Cybermen stories in the new series. It’s owned by prototype Alan Sugar releasing tech with a chip that causes humans to get hypnotised, leading to an invasion. Includes some of the most iconic moments in DW ever.
So basically got the Doctor working with the military establishment and that’s the new format. Had PT not left he would have carried on, would have been Pertwee in the first season. See the first Pertwee season and imagine Troughton – some of them you just can’t quite see him in.
But somehow we’ve got to get the Doctor on contemporary Earth, stranded there. Got to find a big enough reason to do it.
So out of desperation, like so much DW…
PT’s last story was called The War Games, lasts ten episodes, basically what happens is… a bunch of… aliens have kidnapped various soldiers from various time periods of Earth and getting them to fight one another, so they get the best soldiers to (invade/conquer universe). That takes up 9 episodes, of capture and escape. It does actually hold up quite well. The Doctor eventually defeats them, but faces the problem of getting all these soldiers back – millions of them, though you see 24 at most.
To do that he has to call on his own people, the Time Lords.
First time ever his people are referred to. Up to this point we had no idea who he is or where he comes from.
10th episode of The War Games.
The last 60s episode of Doctor Who. By this time changed the opening titles. (Turns lights down) (so I turn screen down)
Episode =
Can’t get to the TARDIS cause of forcefield. Slow motion of doom. Trying to turn the key. Breaks it by concentrating.
TARDIS trying to get away. About Time says the chase bits are from previous episodes.
Ran away “I was bored.” “Time Lords are an immensely civilised race. We control our environment. We can live forever, barring accidents.”
He sounds all excited about travel.
“It is a fact Jamie I do tend to get involved in things.”
Helping people no excuse in their eyes.
“Can’t be landing already” is a bit different than new series?
“We’re perfectly safe in the TARDIS” until it starts leaking.
Announcer voice is the first intro to the Time Lords. Tells him to return for trial. Then TARDIS controls moving by themselves.
“Your travels are over.”
Time Lord robes with a split up the front. No big collars yet. Still a neat costume.
“Brutal methods of mental processing” / “galactic laws”
Doctor explaining they don’t usually intervene but had to when he called them.
Oooh, scary stare of “You must speak” torture.
War Chief was a Time Lord. Accuses the Doctor of collaboration.
Techs in the TARDIS! Fiddle with the console much.
… oh dear, lycra suits of doom? Er, this doesn’t really work as a costume of scary. Also, it might be rubber.
Back to the trial.
“Sense of justice still prevails, even though they’ve lost their sense of humour.”
Rubber dudes of doom break in and arrest the Doctor some more.
“We shall not endanger innocent lives” decide the Time Lords.
… bad guy doesn’t believe the perfectly truthful ‘can’t even steer it’.
One of the dials visibly broken.
They tell him to work the machine, so he makes the lights flashy and they run away.
Then the Time Lords show up and tell him the planet has a forcefield so they’ll be prisoners forever. (whole planet? forever? um, extreme much?) Murderous associates dematerialised as if they’d never existed. (probably not erased from the timeline, though the phrasing sounds like it, right?)
Cool circles effect of force fieldy doom.
Jamie tries to leave and walks into the forcefield.
Doctor says they’re not going to let them go.
Doctor on trial on his own.
Most important law, non interference. Doctor is proud to have been fighting evil.
says to Time Lords “Of course, you’re above criticism.”
… the evils he’s been fighting are all in one season, and not very impressive. Yeti I’ve only heard of cause of the Brigadier.
Ice Warriors are pretty cool but sound like a bike pump.
Cybermen, yaay! And Daleks!
… heh, time war
“All these evils I have fought, while you have done nothing but observe. True, I am guilty of interference. But you are guilty of failing to use your great powers” etc etc.
Is very dramatic.
Jamie and Zoe won’t go home, not without the Doctor. “Become attached” / “Been through a lot.”
Doctor playing patience… less dramatic ;-)
“Can’t say goodbye through a forcefield” because? Well, they just touch hands. And try and persuade him to try and escape.
Doctor goes with. Ooh, scary escape sequence of pointlessness! Heh.
“There is no escape Doctor.”
Caught at the TARDIS.
Doctor says goodbye.
“I won’t forget you, you know.” “I won’t forget you.” … the Doctor is telling true.
Meet again / Time is relative.
Waves.
“They’ll forget me won’t they.” “Not entirely. They’ll remember their first adventure with you but nothing more.”
I like the look on his face right there.
We see Zoe back on her wheel.
“I thought I’d forgotten something important, but it’s nothing.” :-(
“She’ll be all right won’t she?” Doctor checks.
And then Jamie… getting shot? Nope, ducks, and attacks. Doctor seems amused. Urgh.
“They will both continue their lives as if nothing happened.”
“We have accepted your plea that there is evil in the universe that must be fought”
He looks so hopeful about ‘free’.
Frequent visits to Earth… “Earth seems more vulnerable than others.”
Sent to exile in 20th century.
Secret of the TARDIS taken from him. “One primitive planet in one century in time.”
And change his appearance. Note lack of 'regeneration' as a word/idea. He objects to having his face changed, not his life shortened.
About appearance - They take decision for him. He wants to decide cause it’s important. Instead we get silly faces on a screen. Er, this a bit difficult to take serious.
Swirly faces.
“You’re making me giddy” of seriousness clearly. But he’s all “no no no” which is more serious.
… but we don’t get to see the new guy.
That’s for Spearhead from Space.
2054, good timing.
NH comments on credits speed being like today.
Okay, impressions, who hasn’t seen it before.
(I liked it plenty. sure, there's moments I was :eyeroll: at, but in my head it will be brilliant.)
It’s like a stage play. Not helped by the sets. Like a cut rate version of Shakespeare. End of season budgets run low. Sets for what they are aren’t bad. Better than Peter Davison no money- Concorde on prehistoric Earth.
Naratively – capture escape capture.
Time Lords - Meet three of them and a couple of technicians.
How do we know they’re important? Low angle shots / tall. Organ music. Time *Lords*. Sounds important. Prior to this point we’ve no idea what Time Lords are. Finally meet them, only heard about in the previous episode.
Miles away from the first episode, completely. Unearthly Child, degree of realism that suddenly goes into something amazing. This? Trying to be awe inspiring but the budget isn’t quite there. Touches a lot of bases. Parade of monsters.
Basically the ep is there to get the Doctor to Earth, exile him.
Bit psychedelic in places; 69. War Chief, and Henchmen in leather. Danger Diabolique, those costumes.
Good sendoff for the three of them.
Get a nice bookend…
Little muted, not big hugs or anything. Actually went back and got the actress back from that story (Wheel in Space) as continuity.
Henchmen a bit Flash Gordon.
Didn’t make enough of the morality issue of must not interfere?
Interesting because both the War Chief and the Doctor… the War Lord says the end justifies the means, which is what the Doctor says. One evaporated, the other survives, exiled to Earth.
Could have been the last ever episode. Or Pertwee first season could have been. Fortunately they couldn’t think of anything better to put in its place.
When it finished, following Saturday they showed Star Trek, new glossy import from America. Poles apart there.
Pertwee does actually leave Earth. First series he’s stuck. Second, one adventure off. Reason? Time Lords sent him on missions. Missions are sometimes a bit rubbish. The Mutants, he has to deliver a message to someone. Why the Time Lords couldn’t just send it, don’t know, but they wouldn’t have had a story.
It’s worth mentioning…
At the same time there was a comic called TV Comic, had a Dr Who strip in it. It’s really weird because after this finished the TV Comic had the Doctor living on Earth in a hotel having adventures until the last story where he hears about walking scarecrows, goes to investigate, and they’re the Time Lords who say he’s escaped them for far too long and *zap* change his appearance.
That’s our farewell to the 60s. Next week, Doctor’s relationship to the UNIT and how UNIT is untenable once Baker is involved.
Closing clip – forward to find it.
One thing mention next week = probably playing it as we come in… demonstrating CSO.
Dr Who had competition from an ITV show in 70s – The Tomorrow People. A certain DW star made his debut on this program. See if you can spot the future Dr Who.
… well it’s the opening credits so no.
… whatever this is it’s rather disturbing peculiar. Boots and shorts.
That was Peter Davison.
… with the commentary. Contestants strapped to their chairs… Peter Davison.
… they’re good boots actually. It’s just the rest of the shot that’s … “I think every actor should undergo a truly humiliating experience like this.” says PD.
More of episode later? Unbelievable.
/lesson
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Date: 2008-05-08 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-08 03:52 pm (UTC)Which is lucky
;-)