In a prolonged lull between jobs, I've had plenty of opportunity to watch TV. There's been a mix of DVDs and electronic copies of stuff handed to us by friends, and far be it from me to say which is which on this blog. In between marathon viewings of the old Twilight Zone, the old Outer Limits and the Ray Bradbury Theater, I've taken in these items of note.
Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World
Doctor Who: The Web of Fear
Well, let's not get off the subject of DW just yet. The rediscovery of a complete Patrick Troughton story and another almost complete one was pretty exciting news in DW's jubilee year. One episode of each already existed in the BBC archives and had been made available, and I'd seen those, but otherwise I came to these stories completely fresh since I don't have the patience for slideshow reconstructions of otherwise missing stories. We've now seen a friend's copies of these, and bought our own copy of The Enemy of the World.
Enemy has a lot going for it. It doesn't have any "missing episode" gaps, for one thing. It takes the show in an unusual direction at a time when almost every story revolved around monsters laying siege to an isolated human community - there are no monsters here, and the whole world is this story's stage. It makes fuller than normal use of its sensational leading man, with the Mighty Trout gamely mugging and accenting his way through a side role as Mexican villain Salamander. It twists and turns, with a reveal in episode 4 that upends the whole story. A flawless split-screen shot of the two Troughtons facing off in the final episode is the cherry on the cake. It's a lot of fun.
Web has none of these points in its favour. Episode 1 was and is brilliant, but the rest of the story doesn't live up to its promise - most of the middle four episodes is spent running up and down replica London Underground tunnels, with occasional eruptions from the BBC's foam machine. The replica tunnels are, of course, beautiful, but we already knew that from episode 1. Two or three episodes could have been cut from this story at the scripting stage and no one would have lost any sleep over it (apart from the producer, I suppose). The standard critical line on this story is that we cannot appreciate the introduction of Colonel (later Brigadier) Lethbridge-Stewart as viewers at the time were meant to, since we know he's going to be a mainstay of the show in decades to come and they only knew he was a potential Great Intelligence zombie; as far as I can see, though, he's already being played and filmed here as if he were the biggest thing to happen to the show all year. Even with the visuals, the denouement is a bit of a mess. It's nice to have it back and be able to watch it, but I'm not itching to buy a copy.
Takin' Over the Asylum
A blast from the past, this. Ken Stott stars as a failing salesman and wannabe DJ who starts up a life-changing patient-run radio station at his local mental institution. Notable for featuring some young fellow by the name of David Tennant as Stott's number one loony protege - we'll have to watch out for that lad, I'm sure he's destined for great things. Certainly not a comedy, although it has its light-hearted moments. Its downfall is that it tends to treat its characters as puzzles to be solved, which I suppose is true of a lot of shows about the mentally ill; but for all that, it's respectful of its institutionalised characters, and never hesitant to show aberrant behaviour in its supposedly sane characters. Good viewing.
Sherlock, series 3
Great stuff. Seems like Sherlock allows Steven Moffat even more opportunity than Doctor Who to experiment with scenes that exteriorise the characters' thoughts, which have gone from supertitles showing Sherlock's deductions to entire non-literal environments standing in for the inside of a character's head. In Series 3 this is taken to such an extreme that it actually sets up the big denouement of the final episode. Meanwhile "I Married a Psychopath" becomes the theme of yet another Moffat TV show, following in the footsteps of Jekyll ("Love is a psychopath") and DW (River Bloody Song, of course) - I'm not sure what we should all be reading into this, but it looks worrying. Season highlight must be the scene of Sherlock deducing while drunk in episode 2, although the "What to do when you've been shot in the chest" sequence in episode 3 is also pretty spectacular. It's hard to fault this series.
Fringe, series 1
Silly. I already know second hand that later seasons focus largely (perhaps even exclusively) on the parallel universe, but barring some material in the last couple or three episodes that sets that up, the first season is pretty much an X-Files knock-off. And I was prepared to allow the series plenty of latitude on that basis, but what broke my suspended disbelief wasn't any of the weird phenomena but the behaviour of the characters, particularly in the pilot episode. The whole series is being carried by John Noble's performance as Dr Walter Bishop, literally mad scientist, but there's just no believable way the other characters would have brought him in in the first place. I might watch season 2, but it's not a priority.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, series 1
Australian detective series, based on a popular string of books, set in the ever-popular Roaring Twenties. This is moderately entertaining fluff, but Phryne Fisher is such an extreme wish fulfilment figure that it pretty much breaks the show. She's decades ahead of her time, an independently wealthy liberal (and libertine) polyamorous feminist, dead shot with a gun, speaks a dozen more languages than are required in any given episode, shelters and benefacts the worthy poor, has the Detective Inspector eating out of her hand (and his one and only constable - except where the episode requires the inclusion of a second, corrupt copper - eating out of her maid's hand), knits her own Faberge eggs, and you get the general picture. Not enough interest or novelty in the mysteries themselves to distract from the all-consuming Miss Fisher herself. Passes an idle hour, but not what I'd consider a must-see.
Gravity
Oblivion
Elysium
The three Big Serious SF films of last year, as far as I can tell. Gravity is pretty good, very artfully executed but essentially just Sandra Bullock in a room surrounded by visual effects. Oblivion was better than I was expecting given the prominent Tom Cruise content - probably the prettiest Big Serious SF film of 2013. Elysium is a story I feel I probably would have enjoyed reading, but watching it was a bit trying, not least thanks to scenes of Sharlto Copley with the front of his head missing. Notably, Gravity is the only one of these that's made it onto the Hugo Award shortlist alongside several not-so-serious films.
Pacific Rim
Also on the Hugo shortlist, not at all serious. This was a must-see simply because it was very obviously made as a tribute to - and with real knowledge and love of - Japanese monster movies. It thus puts the 1998 Godzilla film firmly in its place. Highly conventional adventure fare, but look, it's got giant mecha and big weird animals all over it. I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.
23/04/14: And almost immediately, I was reminded of other things I'd watched that deserve a mention but that completely slipped my mind. Proof again that it's important for me to actually write stuff down. Oz the Great and Powerful can be dealt with quickly enough - it's a lovely film, a nice modern take and yet also a good fit for the old Judy Garland film. Sundry superhero films and the ongoing TV series Agents of SHIELD might be better handled in a separate post.
Showing posts with label Old Who. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Old Who. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Then October adds a gale, wind and slush and rain and hail
Why, it's nearly summer!
Doctor Who - The Myth Makers, Donald Cotton
The Iliad, DW remix, told in the style of a 1920s English socialite - yes, Donald "Whodehouse" Cotton is back. A compare-and-contrast between this and The Gunfighters, below, offers one or two interesting points. This book suits Cotton's overall style better, largely because no one expects the characters in a story set in ancient Troy to speak with Trojan or Greek accents or in an appropriate idiom - it's essentially a blank slate that Cotton can fill in as he sees fit. So Homer flits about the Plain of Scamander as though he were darting semi-soberly between two cocktail parties, occasionally making decidedly un-Greek (but definitely reactionary early 20th century) observations on the proceedings.
This is only a problem if you come to this book expecting a serious work of historical fiction. And quite frankly, etc etc. No, my dears, if it's authenticity you want, better stick to the definitive works - Tony Robinson's Odysseus books. This is another lively and entertaining novelisation from Cotton, and again I suggest that the DW range could have been improved enormously by having him take a few off Terrance Dicks' prolific hands.
Doctor Who - The Ark, Paul Erickson
This is probably the "outer space" Hartnell DW novelisation that's stood the test of time the best. It has its problems, but the scope of the basic story is so grand, and its key moments of spectacle so great on paper as well as on screen, that it has an immediate advantage over its competitors. The embellishments that Erickson makes to his own script thus improve its strengths rather than compensate for its shortcomings.
As an SF examination of race relations - the dark-skinned Monoids, second-class citizens on humanity's Ark, prove to be even more despotic rulers when they overthrow the (as it turned out in 1966) white-skinned humans - it's not likely to win any awards, but as plain old skiffy entertainment it holds its own.
Doctor Who - The Gunfighters, Donald Cotton
Or "Whoopee, we're in a Western!". Cotton makes a valiant effort to add some high-falutin' Wild Westese to his prose, but the old Cotton style shows through the same. The other point of comparison with The Myth Makers is that in both books Cotton unfortunately uses the phrase "a coon's age" - in this book, coming from a turn-of-the-century deep Southern narrator, it at least fits the context.
It's been a... an age since I saw the TV episodes, which have survived where better-loved '60s episodes failed to, so I don't honestly recall whether the humour in the script carried the story along, or whether the infamous Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon that served for an incidental score really was as annoying as others think, but I dare say the book is better for having the former and not the latter. Unrestrained by script editors and producers, Cotton is able to push the comedy even further, having the Doctor take down vicious sharp-shooting hoodlums with every accidental discharge of his shotgun, and giving self-important gunman Johnny Ringo a taste for the Classics that extends to fully-fledged joke references to Caesar's Gallic Wars. Nice.
Apparently the only other book Cotton wrote, or at least the only one that I can find any information on, was a children's book about a parrot called The Bodkin Papers. Heigh-ho.
This seemed an opportune point at which to put the DW books on pause - I just had to read something else. The something else was going to be a Maori coursebook called Te Matapuna, which a work colleague had lent me, but that turned out not to be very reader-friendly - clearly designed more for classwork than for home tuition - so I'm back on the novels instead. The DW reading is likely to resume some time in December.
The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall
Eric Sanderson wakes up with amnesia and discovers the contact details of a psychiatrist on his hall table. He also starts to receive post-dated letters from himself. His psychiatrist believes his relapse - the eleventh so far - is part of an extended post-traumatic fugue caused by the death of his girlfriend; his past self believes he's being hunted by an abstract predator that feeds on his sense of identity. The letters lead him into a conflict between a strange community of conceptual biologists that wants to help him destroy his shark and a 150-year-old viral personality that wants to use him as bait.
This is one of those novels that sits on the borderline between SF and yer regular fiction. It's been carefully not marketed as SF, and the first chapter (but only the first) has been written with enough pretention to put it in with a chance of winning a literary award or two (on which front, it's succeeded), but there's no doubting the author's SF fan credentials. This is one of the novels I've been waiting for, the sort of novel China Mieville might write if his prose were less ornate and his tendency more towards the action thriller, or perhaps the sort that a mainstream thriller writer (I don't know... Alex Garland??) might write if he spent a month beforehand reading nothing but Jorge Luis Borges. It's about the narrator's loss and grief, but it's also very much about the narrator being chased through semi-real urban spaces by a lethal shark-shaped idea. A new addition to the list of favourites.
Doctor Who - The Myth Makers, Donald Cotton
The Iliad, DW remix, told in the style of a 1920s English socialite - yes, Donald "Whodehouse" Cotton is back. A compare-and-contrast between this and The Gunfighters, below, offers one or two interesting points. This book suits Cotton's overall style better, largely because no one expects the characters in a story set in ancient Troy to speak with Trojan or Greek accents or in an appropriate idiom - it's essentially a blank slate that Cotton can fill in as he sees fit. So Homer flits about the Plain of Scamander as though he were darting semi-soberly between two cocktail parties, occasionally making decidedly un-Greek (but definitely reactionary early 20th century) observations on the proceedings.
This is only a problem if you come to this book expecting a serious work of historical fiction. And quite frankly, etc etc. No, my dears, if it's authenticity you want, better stick to the definitive works - Tony Robinson's Odysseus books. This is another lively and entertaining novelisation from Cotton, and again I suggest that the DW range could have been improved enormously by having him take a few off Terrance Dicks' prolific hands.
Doctor Who - The Ark, Paul Erickson
This is probably the "outer space" Hartnell DW novelisation that's stood the test of time the best. It has its problems, but the scope of the basic story is so grand, and its key moments of spectacle so great on paper as well as on screen, that it has an immediate advantage over its competitors. The embellishments that Erickson makes to his own script thus improve its strengths rather than compensate for its shortcomings.
As an SF examination of race relations - the dark-skinned Monoids, second-class citizens on humanity's Ark, prove to be even more despotic rulers when they overthrow the (as it turned out in 1966) white-skinned humans - it's not likely to win any awards, but as plain old skiffy entertainment it holds its own.
Doctor Who - The Gunfighters, Donald Cotton
Or "Whoopee, we're in a Western!". Cotton makes a valiant effort to add some high-falutin' Wild Westese to his prose, but the old Cotton style shows through the same. The other point of comparison with The Myth Makers is that in both books Cotton unfortunately uses the phrase "a coon's age" - in this book, coming from a turn-of-the-century deep Southern narrator, it at least fits the context.
It's been a... an age since I saw the TV episodes, which have survived where better-loved '60s episodes failed to, so I don't honestly recall whether the humour in the script carried the story along, or whether the infamous Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon that served for an incidental score really was as annoying as others think, but I dare say the book is better for having the former and not the latter. Unrestrained by script editors and producers, Cotton is able to push the comedy even further, having the Doctor take down vicious sharp-shooting hoodlums with every accidental discharge of his shotgun, and giving self-important gunman Johnny Ringo a taste for the Classics that extends to fully-fledged joke references to Caesar's Gallic Wars. Nice.
Apparently the only other book Cotton wrote, or at least the only one that I can find any information on, was a children's book about a parrot called The Bodkin Papers. Heigh-ho.
This seemed an opportune point at which to put the DW books on pause - I just had to read something else. The something else was going to be a Maori coursebook called Te Matapuna, which a work colleague had lent me, but that turned out not to be very reader-friendly - clearly designed more for classwork than for home tuition - so I'm back on the novels instead. The DW reading is likely to resume some time in December.
The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall
Eric Sanderson wakes up with amnesia and discovers the contact details of a psychiatrist on his hall table. He also starts to receive post-dated letters from himself. His psychiatrist believes his relapse - the eleventh so far - is part of an extended post-traumatic fugue caused by the death of his girlfriend; his past self believes he's being hunted by an abstract predator that feeds on his sense of identity. The letters lead him into a conflict between a strange community of conceptual biologists that wants to help him destroy his shark and a 150-year-old viral personality that wants to use him as bait.
This is one of those novels that sits on the borderline between SF and yer regular fiction. It's been carefully not marketed as SF, and the first chapter (but only the first) has been written with enough pretention to put it in with a chance of winning a literary award or two (on which front, it's succeeded), but there's no doubting the author's SF fan credentials. This is one of the novels I've been waiting for, the sort of novel China Mieville might write if his prose were less ornate and his tendency more towards the action thriller, or perhaps the sort that a mainstream thriller writer (I don't know... Alex Garland??) might write if he spent a month beforehand reading nothing but Jorge Luis Borges. It's about the narrator's loss and grief, but it's also very much about the narrator being chased through semi-real urban spaces by a lethal shark-shaped idea. A new addition to the list of favourites.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Bleak September's mist and mud
What? Busy. Shush, you.
Doctor Who - The Reign of Terror, Ian Marter
Let us not think of it as "DW does the French Revolution" - as has been said before, Who's writers and producers didn't waste a whole lot of time on accuracy in their historical stories, even in the show's earliest days as a semi-educational drama serial, whereas they did (knowingly or not) spend a fair bit of time mimicking other popular shows and films, and in the 1960s we can add books as well. So let's instead think of The Reign of Terror as "DW does The Scarlet Pimpernel", which is what's really going on here. The debonair double agent running dignified toffs out from under the noses of the lazy, drunken, brawling, farting and scratching proles - call it tribute, call it send-up, but don't show it to your history teacher and call it homework.
Ian Marter played one of Tom Baker's companions and subsequently novelised several DW stories from various eras of the show. He earned acclaim for his ability to beef up even the wateriest of stories (see below), and some notoriety for his tendency to labour the gore and violence. Know, then, that this book is 160 pages long - about 35 pages past the DW average at time of publication - and printed in a font much smaller than that normally used, and although the story is surprisingly gore-free, it doesn't stint on the violence. One notable detail that Marter includes - believed to be historically accurate, but understandably not shown on TV - is that of Robespierre being shot in the jaw. (He was cured of his toothache shortly thereafter.)
Barbara, now widely recognised as the Greatest Companion Ever, gets a brief speech (really more of an outburst) in which she takes Ian Chesterton to task for simplistically viewing 18th century France in terms of "good" aristos and "bad" revolutionaries, but it's soon glossed over and the book as a whole doesn't exactly echo the sentiment. If you approach The Reign of Terror simply as an Orczy pastiche, or can bite your tongue against the stereotyping, it's a rich and engaging read.
Amusing side detail: Marter compares both Susan in this book and Vicki in The Rescue to Joan of Arc. The reference might be considered appropriate here, but it's a bit odd in the latter context. Either St Joan just had one of those faces, or Marter had a bit of an obsession with France's most iconic schizophrenic.
Doctor Who - The Rescue, Ian Marter
Here Marter takes a two-part story whose entire purpose was to introduce a new companion - a story that might be described as a whodunnit with only one suspect, at that - and turns it into a textured, well-paced, standard-length DW novelisation. It was old-style pulp on TV and it still is on paper, but it's an enjoyable read.
Reading two of Marter's novelisations consecutively, I'm inclined to think that the New Adventures series of novels that kept DW going during the '90s owes more to him than is generally acknowledged. Fans tend to point to late '80s scriptwriters like Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt as the range's chief heralds - the fact that they went on to write some of those novels may be a factor - but in terms of adding depth to the novelisations, not to mention pushing the violence more towards the PG-13 end of the scale and sneaking in the occasional discreet sexual reference, I think Marter got the drop on them all. It's most evident in a space opera such as The Rescue, which also includes sly references to pop-culturally named planets and an alloy with military applications known as "reaganium" - very New Adventures touches.
I say "adding depth" - I should perhaps give a nod to David Whitaker at this point. But I don't think anyone would suggest that David Whitaker was the unsung pioneer of the New Adventures.
Doctor Who - The Romans, Donald Cotton
And so we make our first encounter with Donald Cotton, the PG Wodehouse of DW writers. I don't make the statement lightly - Wodehouse's influence on Cotton is pretty obvious, admittedly more so in his other two novelisations, which we'll come to in the October book post. But Cotton's also a stylist, and this is the book in which he shows it. It's quite slim compared to other DW novelisations, but that's what happens when you relate the events of a frothy four-part historical farce as a series of letters and journal entries written by various major and secondary characters.
It's a unique experiment in the DW novelisation range, and a resounding success as far as I'm concerned. A bit more variation in format and tone would have done the range a power of good, especially where the Tom Baker stories are concerned. Cotton would have been just the person to write up Tom's penultimate season, if Terrance Dicks hadn't already been through it like a dose of salts. As it is, this book stands alone, although it could just be that the other novelisations don't want to get too close to that radioactively pink cover...
Doctor Who and the Zarbi, Bill Strutton
Who was it who said that the memory cheats? This book's appalling! It actually outdoes Pip and Jane Baker for bad prose, a feat I hoped never to witness. To think, I actually cut the DVD some slack because I remembered the book so fondly - it should have been the other way around! (It should, if only the TV version had more to recommend it than drunken comedy value.)
So, Strutton takes a story - his own story, mind you - about intelligent insect people and turns it into a tale of mundane people dressed up as insects. Gone are any suggestions of distinctive movement, of the alien manglings of the human characters' names, of the imagery of opening "mouths" in a rock face to "make it speak more light" - in short, all the elements of The Web Planet that are held up as fragments of a bold and ambitious attempt to create a truly alien environment in Television Centre, all the little details that are supposed to mitigate the shabby production in which they appear. Here the Menoptra simply wander around chattering like they're holding a union meeting somewhere in the Midlands. Some fans complain of this book that Strutton keeps referring to the Doctor as "Doctor Who", but that's really the least of its faults. The characterisation is badly off all round - Ian seems to be constantly on the brink of murderous rage! And prose and dialogue are peppered with... the most infuriating... never-bloody-ending... stream of... ellipses... Seriously, I could happily read Time and the Rani right about now.
There's only one thing worthy of note here, and that's the Animus. (This may be the sole reason why I had such positive memories of the book.) On screen, it's a flapping, talking arrangement of white cloth; here, it's a pulsing, growing, all-consuming beast from another universe, and the description of a giant bladder spinning in mid-air at its heart is highly suggestive of something more than three-dimensional. But it won't draw me into its web again.
Doctor Who and the Crusaders, David Whitaker
Ah, David Whitaker, you've done it again. DW and the Crusaders opens with an amusing prologue that suggests that Ian and Barbara have been bronzed and buffed to the stature of Greek heroes by their adventures, their reactions honed to ninja perfection thanks to all the scrapping they've been caught up in. If only the TV series could have pulled this off. The TARDIS crew recline around the console room, bantering like aloof gods on the topics of morality and war; as the TARDIS comes in to land, the Doctor voices his hope that they will find themselves in the middle of a situation that will allow him to illustrate his argument to his Olympian companions. He had to tempt fate, didn't he?
This book got some stick from tabloid reviewers back in the mid-'60s for including a "kinky" scene of Saracen baddie El Akir flogging Barbara with a whip, which tells us something about tabloid book reviewers in the mid-'60s. It may live in the shadow of DW and the Daleks, but it's a fine adventure yarn in its own right, and the fact that Whitaker is here novelising his own script may count for something. (Although there's some speculation over just how much work he did as editor on Terry Nation's Dalek scripts...) The characters are well-defined throughout, with plenty of background detail, and the highly acclaimed dialogue is just as good in print as it is on screen (or on audio, as it happens). The Ian/Barbara romance introduced in the Dalek novelisation is also present - in fact, claims Whitaker, by this point they're officially an item. Yes, David Whitaker gives us Who's first in-print companion kiss. You dog, Whitaker.
Oh yes: the other thing to note is that original companion Susan has left the TARDIS in an earlier adventure unnovelised at the time Whitaker wrote this book. According to Whitaker, she's been married off to David Cameron. Let minds boggle.
Doctor Who - The Space Museum, Glyn Jones
Here's another one that I remembered quite fondly - one of my early Who readings, although it can't have been that early given the publication date. The story isn't that well-loved by DW fans, and in one of the extras on the DVD, one of the new series writers tries to defend it by suggesting that it's DW's first self-parody. "Has to resort to" is the phrase I'm toying with. It's not actually all that bad, it's just nothing special beyond the first episode, and if I'm brutally honest the first episode takes about twice as long as necessary to do what it does.
The screen-to-book adaptation is pretty direct, with a few embellishments here and there to try to suggest something more alien than the men in (you could barely call them) costumes seen in the TV version. The Xerons have no sense of smell (although they still have noses)! The Moroks are rubbish at chasing because their knees are more primitive! And so on. There's a little extra subplot of a Morok who sees which way things are going and discreetly helps the Xerons, which also helps to smooth over one or two small fluffs in the TV production. But all in all, it lacks lustre.
One interesting thing to come out of the DVD commentary is that the writer originally intended for the first episode shennanigans to be explained by something in the Space Museum itself, and not by yet another bit of the TARDIS going wrong. The book retains the "bit of the TARDIS going wrong" ending, sadly. Still, I suppose if it was meant to be a parody of DW's first couple of years, that wouldn't be out of place.
Doctor Who - The Reign of Terror, Ian Marter
Let us not think of it as "DW does the French Revolution" - as has been said before, Who's writers and producers didn't waste a whole lot of time on accuracy in their historical stories, even in the show's earliest days as a semi-educational drama serial, whereas they did (knowingly or not) spend a fair bit of time mimicking other popular shows and films, and in the 1960s we can add books as well. So let's instead think of The Reign of Terror as "DW does The Scarlet Pimpernel", which is what's really going on here. The debonair double agent running dignified toffs out from under the noses of the lazy, drunken, brawling, farting and scratching proles - call it tribute, call it send-up, but don't show it to your history teacher and call it homework.
Ian Marter played one of Tom Baker's companions and subsequently novelised several DW stories from various eras of the show. He earned acclaim for his ability to beef up even the wateriest of stories (see below), and some notoriety for his tendency to labour the gore and violence. Know, then, that this book is 160 pages long - about 35 pages past the DW average at time of publication - and printed in a font much smaller than that normally used, and although the story is surprisingly gore-free, it doesn't stint on the violence. One notable detail that Marter includes - believed to be historically accurate, but understandably not shown on TV - is that of Robespierre being shot in the jaw. (He was cured of his toothache shortly thereafter.)
Barbara, now widely recognised as the Greatest Companion Ever, gets a brief speech (really more of an outburst) in which she takes Ian Chesterton to task for simplistically viewing 18th century France in terms of "good" aristos and "bad" revolutionaries, but it's soon glossed over and the book as a whole doesn't exactly echo the sentiment. If you approach The Reign of Terror simply as an Orczy pastiche, or can bite your tongue against the stereotyping, it's a rich and engaging read.
Amusing side detail: Marter compares both Susan in this book and Vicki in The Rescue to Joan of Arc. The reference might be considered appropriate here, but it's a bit odd in the latter context. Either St Joan just had one of those faces, or Marter had a bit of an obsession with France's most iconic schizophrenic.
Doctor Who - The Rescue, Ian Marter
Here Marter takes a two-part story whose entire purpose was to introduce a new companion - a story that might be described as a whodunnit with only one suspect, at that - and turns it into a textured, well-paced, standard-length DW novelisation. It was old-style pulp on TV and it still is on paper, but it's an enjoyable read.
Reading two of Marter's novelisations consecutively, I'm inclined to think that the New Adventures series of novels that kept DW going during the '90s owes more to him than is generally acknowledged. Fans tend to point to late '80s scriptwriters like Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt as the range's chief heralds - the fact that they went on to write some of those novels may be a factor - but in terms of adding depth to the novelisations, not to mention pushing the violence more towards the PG-13 end of the scale and sneaking in the occasional discreet sexual reference, I think Marter got the drop on them all. It's most evident in a space opera such as The Rescue, which also includes sly references to pop-culturally named planets and an alloy with military applications known as "reaganium" - very New Adventures touches.
I say "adding depth" - I should perhaps give a nod to David Whitaker at this point. But I don't think anyone would suggest that David Whitaker was the unsung pioneer of the New Adventures.
Doctor Who - The Romans, Donald Cotton
And so we make our first encounter with Donald Cotton, the PG Wodehouse of DW writers. I don't make the statement lightly - Wodehouse's influence on Cotton is pretty obvious, admittedly more so in his other two novelisations, which we'll come to in the October book post. But Cotton's also a stylist, and this is the book in which he shows it. It's quite slim compared to other DW novelisations, but that's what happens when you relate the events of a frothy four-part historical farce as a series of letters and journal entries written by various major and secondary characters.
It's a unique experiment in the DW novelisation range, and a resounding success as far as I'm concerned. A bit more variation in format and tone would have done the range a power of good, especially where the Tom Baker stories are concerned. Cotton would have been just the person to write up Tom's penultimate season, if Terrance Dicks hadn't already been through it like a dose of salts. As it is, this book stands alone, although it could just be that the other novelisations don't want to get too close to that radioactively pink cover...
Doctor Who and the Zarbi, Bill Strutton
Who was it who said that the memory cheats? This book's appalling! It actually outdoes Pip and Jane Baker for bad prose, a feat I hoped never to witness. To think, I actually cut the DVD some slack because I remembered the book so fondly - it should have been the other way around! (It should, if only the TV version had more to recommend it than drunken comedy value.)
So, Strutton takes a story - his own story, mind you - about intelligent insect people and turns it into a tale of mundane people dressed up as insects. Gone are any suggestions of distinctive movement, of the alien manglings of the human characters' names, of the imagery of opening "mouths" in a rock face to "make it speak more light" - in short, all the elements of The Web Planet that are held up as fragments of a bold and ambitious attempt to create a truly alien environment in Television Centre, all the little details that are supposed to mitigate the shabby production in which they appear. Here the Menoptra simply wander around chattering like they're holding a union meeting somewhere in the Midlands. Some fans complain of this book that Strutton keeps referring to the Doctor as "Doctor Who", but that's really the least of its faults. The characterisation is badly off all round - Ian seems to be constantly on the brink of murderous rage! And prose and dialogue are peppered with... the most infuriating... never-bloody-ending... stream of... ellipses... Seriously, I could happily read Time and the Rani right about now.
There's only one thing worthy of note here, and that's the Animus. (This may be the sole reason why I had such positive memories of the book.) On screen, it's a flapping, talking arrangement of white cloth; here, it's a pulsing, growing, all-consuming beast from another universe, and the description of a giant bladder spinning in mid-air at its heart is highly suggestive of something more than three-dimensional. But it won't draw me into its web again.
Doctor Who and the Crusaders, David Whitaker
Ah, David Whitaker, you've done it again. DW and the Crusaders opens with an amusing prologue that suggests that Ian and Barbara have been bronzed and buffed to the stature of Greek heroes by their adventures, their reactions honed to ninja perfection thanks to all the scrapping they've been caught up in. If only the TV series could have pulled this off. The TARDIS crew recline around the console room, bantering like aloof gods on the topics of morality and war; as the TARDIS comes in to land, the Doctor voices his hope that they will find themselves in the middle of a situation that will allow him to illustrate his argument to his Olympian companions. He had to tempt fate, didn't he?
This book got some stick from tabloid reviewers back in the mid-'60s for including a "kinky" scene of Saracen baddie El Akir flogging Barbara with a whip, which tells us something about tabloid book reviewers in the mid-'60s. It may live in the shadow of DW and the Daleks, but it's a fine adventure yarn in its own right, and the fact that Whitaker is here novelising his own script may count for something. (Although there's some speculation over just how much work he did as editor on Terry Nation's Dalek scripts...) The characters are well-defined throughout, with plenty of background detail, and the highly acclaimed dialogue is just as good in print as it is on screen (or on audio, as it happens). The Ian/Barbara romance introduced in the Dalek novelisation is also present - in fact, claims Whitaker, by this point they're officially an item. Yes, David Whitaker gives us Who's first in-print companion kiss. You dog, Whitaker.
Oh yes: the other thing to note is that original companion Susan has left the TARDIS in an earlier adventure unnovelised at the time Whitaker wrote this book. According to Whitaker, she's been married off to David Cameron. Let minds boggle.
Doctor Who - The Space Museum, Glyn Jones
Here's another one that I remembered quite fondly - one of my early Who readings, although it can't have been that early given the publication date. The story isn't that well-loved by DW fans, and in one of the extras on the DVD, one of the new series writers tries to defend it by suggesting that it's DW's first self-parody. "Has to resort to" is the phrase I'm toying with. It's not actually all that bad, it's just nothing special beyond the first episode, and if I'm brutally honest the first episode takes about twice as long as necessary to do what it does.
The screen-to-book adaptation is pretty direct, with a few embellishments here and there to try to suggest something more alien than the men in (you could barely call them) costumes seen in the TV version. The Xerons have no sense of smell (although they still have noses)! The Moroks are rubbish at chasing because their knees are more primitive! And so on. There's a little extra subplot of a Morok who sees which way things are going and discreetly helps the Xerons, which also helps to smooth over one or two small fluffs in the TV production. But all in all, it lacks lustre.
One interesting thing to come out of the DVD commentary is that the writer originally intended for the first episode shennanigans to be explained by something in the Space Museum itself, and not by yet another bit of the TARDIS going wrong. The book retains the "bit of the TARDIS going wrong" ending, sadly. Still, I suppose if it was meant to be a parody of DW's first couple of years, that wouldn't be out of place.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
August, cold and dank and wet
Right again, Flanders and Swann! You're getting good at this meteorology lark.
It's all kicked off this last couple of weeks - I've finally found a recruitment agency who's got me some (temporary) work, and I've volunteered myself as a columnist for our SF group's monthly 'zine. Currently still in the time management adjustment zone. The book blogs are likely to get shorter from here on in.
The Man Who Knew Too Much, GK Chesterton
The Trees of Pride, GK Chesterton
Tales of the Long Bow, GK Chesterton
An omnibus edition of some of Chesterton's less well-known works, brought on by my previous enjoyment of other GKC books. This American small press edition is overtly marketed as a collection of detective stories, but the contents lean much more towards the "mystery" end of the spectrum. In its favour, the proofreading, while not perfect, is much better than that of the Wordsworth editions of GKC books I've read, and it doesn't have an annoying preface that gives away all the endings. Or indeed any kind of preface. Probably better off without.
The Man Who Knew Too Much is not to be confused with the Hitchcock film, and concerns a string of crimes in high places, solved by a well-connected man who isn't able to reveal the ghastly truth to anyone except his naive sidekick. Some good material, but it hasn't particularly stuck in my mind since reading.
The Trees of Pride is actually a single story of roughly novella length, which revolves around the supposedly baleful influence of a trio of exotic trees in a landowner's grounds and the disappearance of the landowner when he tries to prove that the trees are perfectly harmless. This one was really good, with a definite sinister air in the early parts and some brilliant twists at the end. Well worth a re-read at some point.
Tales of the Long Bow is another series of connected stories, much lighter in tone than the other pieces included here, although it does veer into politics towards the end. The title is a reference to a now archaic turn of phrase - to shoot a long bow = to tell a tall tale. Through various bits of trickery, characters literally eat their hat, make pigs fly, set the Thames on fire or otherwise act out figures of speech. They band together as the "Long Bowmen" and campaign for political power on the basis that they deliver on impossible promises, whereas traditional politicians fail even to deliver the possible. Entertaining and more than a little pointed.
The Child Thief, Brom
A dark modern retelling of Peter Pan. Peter, the eponymous Child Thief, haunts the less pleasant neighbourhoods of New York, looking for "lost" children that he can lure away to the Isle of Avalon, where he's building an army to drive out a destructive community of Puritan settlers. This book stubbornly refused to do what I expected it to do, instead serving up a string of plot twists in the final chapters. The only thing I successfully predicted was the revelation about Peter's parentage. A good read.
Doctor Who and the Daleks (formerly Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks), David Whitaker
I've spent the last few months gradually acquiring a select handful of the old DW novelisations, partly because Jo's been buying and reading second-hand copies of her childhood favourites, and partly because I spotted this first item in pristine condition in a local bookshop for a mere five bucks, and it seemed a shame not to. I initially planned to restrict myself to the original three novelisations - Daleks, Zarbi and Crusaders - and Donald Cotton's trio of historical romps, but seized by nostalgia, I ended up getting twenty or so. They're a mix of the very early titles - quite a few Pertwees - a number of Hartnell stories that were among the first DW books I owned, and a few later worthies. I've managed not to spend more than ten bucks (about £4.50) getting hold of any of them, which I'm pleased about.
I had planned to spend a happy month reading through them, but what with work and the like, it's looking more like two months or longer. Well, here goes.
DW and the Daleks was actually my first Who novelisation, as well as the first Who novelisation back in 1965 (possibly even the first TV novelisation in Britain, although I'm unable to find out for sure). It's been written with love, compressing the Dalek story into the available space while hugely expanding the characters and completely rewriting the series' origins. (I was astounded when I later discovered that there'd been another TV story before this one...) It's still one of the very best books in the series, and a great children's book in its own right.
Fans of the post-2005 series might be amused to learn that Whitaker includes a romantic sub-plot between Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright barely even hinted at in the TV series - the show's first script editor, also the show's first 'shipper.
Doctor Who - Marco Polo, John Lucarotti
This was another of the first Who books I read, although it doesn't stand up so well to mature scrutiny. There's a good story in here trying to get out, but it's held back by Lucarotti's complete inability to inject a single hint of action into even the most dramatic scenes. I'd be tempted to get hold of the audio CD and give that a try instead (no DVD as the episodes were wiped and remain lost), but it's seven episodes long. What Lucarotti is good at is description, and there's plenty of scope for that in the story of a months-long journey from Pamir to Peking in the company of Marco Polo. I just think it might have benefited from being perhaps 40 or 50 pages longer, and having an editor go through and liven it up a bit(/lot) in places.
It's all kicked off this last couple of weeks - I've finally found a recruitment agency who's got me some (temporary) work, and I've volunteered myself as a columnist for our SF group's monthly 'zine. Currently still in the time management adjustment zone. The book blogs are likely to get shorter from here on in.
The Man Who Knew Too Much, GK Chesterton
The Trees of Pride, GK Chesterton
Tales of the Long Bow, GK Chesterton
An omnibus edition of some of Chesterton's less well-known works, brought on by my previous enjoyment of other GKC books. This American small press edition is overtly marketed as a collection of detective stories, but the contents lean much more towards the "mystery" end of the spectrum. In its favour, the proofreading, while not perfect, is much better than that of the Wordsworth editions of GKC books I've read, and it doesn't have an annoying preface that gives away all the endings. Or indeed any kind of preface. Probably better off without.
The Man Who Knew Too Much is not to be confused with the Hitchcock film, and concerns a string of crimes in high places, solved by a well-connected man who isn't able to reveal the ghastly truth to anyone except his naive sidekick. Some good material, but it hasn't particularly stuck in my mind since reading.
The Trees of Pride is actually a single story of roughly novella length, which revolves around the supposedly baleful influence of a trio of exotic trees in a landowner's grounds and the disappearance of the landowner when he tries to prove that the trees are perfectly harmless. This one was really good, with a definite sinister air in the early parts and some brilliant twists at the end. Well worth a re-read at some point.
Tales of the Long Bow is another series of connected stories, much lighter in tone than the other pieces included here, although it does veer into politics towards the end. The title is a reference to a now archaic turn of phrase - to shoot a long bow = to tell a tall tale. Through various bits of trickery, characters literally eat their hat, make pigs fly, set the Thames on fire or otherwise act out figures of speech. They band together as the "Long Bowmen" and campaign for political power on the basis that they deliver on impossible promises, whereas traditional politicians fail even to deliver the possible. Entertaining and more than a little pointed.
The Child Thief, Brom
A dark modern retelling of Peter Pan. Peter, the eponymous Child Thief, haunts the less pleasant neighbourhoods of New York, looking for "lost" children that he can lure away to the Isle of Avalon, where he's building an army to drive out a destructive community of Puritan settlers. This book stubbornly refused to do what I expected it to do, instead serving up a string of plot twists in the final chapters. The only thing I successfully predicted was the revelation about Peter's parentage. A good read.
Doctor Who and the Daleks (formerly Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks), David Whitaker
I've spent the last few months gradually acquiring a select handful of the old DW novelisations, partly because Jo's been buying and reading second-hand copies of her childhood favourites, and partly because I spotted this first item in pristine condition in a local bookshop for a mere five bucks, and it seemed a shame not to. I initially planned to restrict myself to the original three novelisations - Daleks, Zarbi and Crusaders - and Donald Cotton's trio of historical romps, but seized by nostalgia, I ended up getting twenty or so. They're a mix of the very early titles - quite a few Pertwees - a number of Hartnell stories that were among the first DW books I owned, and a few later worthies. I've managed not to spend more than ten bucks (about £4.50) getting hold of any of them, which I'm pleased about.
I had planned to spend a happy month reading through them, but what with work and the like, it's looking more like two months or longer. Well, here goes.
DW and the Daleks was actually my first Who novelisation, as well as the first Who novelisation back in 1965 (possibly even the first TV novelisation in Britain, although I'm unable to find out for sure). It's been written with love, compressing the Dalek story into the available space while hugely expanding the characters and completely rewriting the series' origins. (I was astounded when I later discovered that there'd been another TV story before this one...) It's still one of the very best books in the series, and a great children's book in its own right.
Fans of the post-2005 series might be amused to learn that Whitaker includes a romantic sub-plot between Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright barely even hinted at in the TV series - the show's first script editor, also the show's first 'shipper.
Doctor Who - Marco Polo, John Lucarotti
This was another of the first Who books I read, although it doesn't stand up so well to mature scrutiny. There's a good story in here trying to get out, but it's held back by Lucarotti's complete inability to inject a single hint of action into even the most dramatic scenes. I'd be tempted to get hold of the audio CD and give that a try instead (no DVD as the episodes were wiped and remain lost), but it's seven episodes long. What Lucarotti is good at is description, and there's plenty of scope for that in the story of a months-long journey from Pamir to Peking in the company of Marco Polo. I just think it might have benefited from being perhaps 40 or 50 pages longer, and having an editor go through and liven it up a bit(/lot) in places.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
About Time
The Lovely Jo's default comfort reading (pulled off the shelf during, for example, upheavals of the moving flat variety) is epic fantasy by the likes of Gemmell and Eddings. Mine seems to be reference books, particularly about Doctor Who - I've certainly browsed a few lately.
I've just this month started on what looks to be the ultimate Who reference work – About Time (Miles and Wood, Mad Norwegian Press, six volumes with five currently out and vol 6 to cover 1985-89 plus TV movie, due later this year). In their wisdom, the authors have written the volumes in the order 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, and imminently 6. I started with vol 3, it being the slimmest/cheapest/most immediately available from *m*z*n, but have now acquired vol 1 (reading) and vol 2 (waiting on the shelf).
It's indescribably addictive. It’s like the two or three perfunctory lines of "Roots" for each story in The Discontinuity Guide expanded to page after page of informative essay. I've never before seen a programme guide that analysed Who stories in terms of the political atmosphere at the time, what major events were happening, what the nation's mindset was, etc. It comes across as nothing less than an attempt to document all of British culture using Who as a pretext. Typical allotment per story in yer average programme guide – about a page and a half, and that includes half a page of production notes. Typical allotment per story here – about ten pages. I may never need another programme guide again.
Reading the first volume of this epic work (1963-66, 300-ish pages – woof), I've been struck by a realisation. Who fans, in the main, tend to use the word "classic" (by which we here mean "typical") to refer to stories with a Monster-Of-The-Week, running up and down corridors, capture/recapture (not an issue with the new, faster Who) and the Doctor solving everything by being heroic and/or a know-all. Tom Baker's stories particularly tend to do this, and so I shall dub this the Tom Baker Model. Yet as the very detailed analysis of About Time makes clear, the show was originally meant to be (and was, for a few years at least) experimental, character-driven and as unlike anything else on TV as possible, and not straightforward Monster-Of-The-Week action at all (early indications are that Terry "Daleks" Nation is mostly to blame for the later shift in emphasis). And this sheds light on why I like the Who stories that I like (mostly those thought of as "oddball") and couldn’t give a monkey's about boring old Genesis of the Daleks, which keeps topping fan polls. I've somehow latched onto this idea of experimental, different TV and somehow haven't been seduced by the simple pleasures of the monster runabout. It turns out I'm watching "classic" Who after all, but it's this other kind of "classic" Who – the Experimental Model rather than the Tom Baker Model.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a bit of Tom Baker Model as well, but it has to have something else to recommend it (favourites include The Robots of Death, which has beautiful design and surprisingly good sets and model work; The Talons of Weng-Chiang, which has a living ventriloquist's doll and comedy double-acts; and The Sea Devils, which has the most extraordinary incidental music of any Who story). But the majority of my Who favourites have no monster at all or a decidedly unconventional monster (The Mind Robber, Warriors' Gate, Kinda, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy) or have monsters that were admittedly (and obviously) added in despite the story, because the producer thought the show needed monsters (Inferno, Ghost Light).
And this sheds light on my preferences in the new series as well. Father's Day is clearly Experimental Model (character-driven, monsters added in just to satisfy perceived need for a monster). The Girl in the Fireplace is Experimental Model with very big knobs on. School Reunion doesn't quite do it for me because underneath the nice script it's a conventional runaround with monsters and corridors, and - probably the most Tom Baker Model thing any Who story could ever have - the guest appearance of Sarah Jane Smith. Mark Gatiss' stories are actually wilfully trying to be Tom Baker Model, because that's what Mark Gatiss thinks "classic" Who is. He tried to mask it in The Idiot's Lantern with a stolen bit of Sapphire & Steel imagery, but the graft wasn't entirely successful. Love & Monsters is Experimental Model, but so unlike not only other TV but all other DW as well, that many fans either love it or hate it. I liked Bad Wolf (Experimental, and parodies other TV to boot) slightly more than The Parting of the Ways (moderately Tom Baker, but crucially turns Experimental when the Doctor sends his companion home just before the gripping finale, so that she can sit in a greasy-spoon caff and agonise about missing the gripping finale before using a tow truck to make her return).
What it comes down to, I think, is how easy or difficult the story is to explain. City of Death is hard to explain – it's a kind of romantic, light-hearted French detective film with time travel and an urbane villain who also happens to be an alien who exists in several historical periods at once. The Happiness Patrol is hard to explain – it's an allegory of some sort in which emotional states are elevated to the level of political ideology and enforced by a leader with a pastel-coloured death squad and a chief executioner made out of sweets. Genesis of the Daleks is very easy to explain – it's a Dalek story. It's a war-in-space good-vs-evil story with Daleks in it. There are many such, and they're rarely very complex.
Disclaimer: The above is an over-simplification. I don't automatically like all Experimental Model stories – it's possible for experimental stories to be crap on their own terms (Paradise Towers springs to mind, and I wouldn't want to watch The Web Planet again while sober). The above also doesn't stop Tom Baker from being technically – technically – the best old-series Doctor.
I've just this month started on what looks to be the ultimate Who reference work – About Time (Miles and Wood, Mad Norwegian Press, six volumes with five currently out and vol 6 to cover 1985-89 plus TV movie, due later this year). In their wisdom, the authors have written the volumes in the order 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, and imminently 6. I started with vol 3, it being the slimmest/cheapest/most immediately available from *m*z*n, but have now acquired vol 1 (reading) and vol 2 (waiting on the shelf).
It's indescribably addictive. It’s like the two or three perfunctory lines of "Roots" for each story in The Discontinuity Guide expanded to page after page of informative essay. I've never before seen a programme guide that analysed Who stories in terms of the political atmosphere at the time, what major events were happening, what the nation's mindset was, etc. It comes across as nothing less than an attempt to document all of British culture using Who as a pretext. Typical allotment per story in yer average programme guide – about a page and a half, and that includes half a page of production notes. Typical allotment per story here – about ten pages. I may never need another programme guide again.
Reading the first volume of this epic work (1963-66, 300-ish pages – woof), I've been struck by a realisation. Who fans, in the main, tend to use the word "classic" (by which we here mean "typical") to refer to stories with a Monster-Of-The-Week, running up and down corridors, capture/recapture (not an issue with the new, faster Who) and the Doctor solving everything by being heroic and/or a know-all. Tom Baker's stories particularly tend to do this, and so I shall dub this the Tom Baker Model. Yet as the very detailed analysis of About Time makes clear, the show was originally meant to be (and was, for a few years at least) experimental, character-driven and as unlike anything else on TV as possible, and not straightforward Monster-Of-The-Week action at all (early indications are that Terry "Daleks" Nation is mostly to blame for the later shift in emphasis). And this sheds light on why I like the Who stories that I like (mostly those thought of as "oddball") and couldn’t give a monkey's about boring old Genesis of the Daleks, which keeps topping fan polls. I've somehow latched onto this idea of experimental, different TV and somehow haven't been seduced by the simple pleasures of the monster runabout. It turns out I'm watching "classic" Who after all, but it's this other kind of "classic" Who – the Experimental Model rather than the Tom Baker Model.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a bit of Tom Baker Model as well, but it has to have something else to recommend it (favourites include The Robots of Death, which has beautiful design and surprisingly good sets and model work; The Talons of Weng-Chiang, which has a living ventriloquist's doll and comedy double-acts; and The Sea Devils, which has the most extraordinary incidental music of any Who story). But the majority of my Who favourites have no monster at all or a decidedly unconventional monster (The Mind Robber, Warriors' Gate, Kinda, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy) or have monsters that were admittedly (and obviously) added in despite the story, because the producer thought the show needed monsters (Inferno, Ghost Light).
And this sheds light on my preferences in the new series as well. Father's Day is clearly Experimental Model (character-driven, monsters added in just to satisfy perceived need for a monster). The Girl in the Fireplace is Experimental Model with very big knobs on. School Reunion doesn't quite do it for me because underneath the nice script it's a conventional runaround with monsters and corridors, and - probably the most Tom Baker Model thing any Who story could ever have - the guest appearance of Sarah Jane Smith. Mark Gatiss' stories are actually wilfully trying to be Tom Baker Model, because that's what Mark Gatiss thinks "classic" Who is. He tried to mask it in The Idiot's Lantern with a stolen bit of Sapphire & Steel imagery, but the graft wasn't entirely successful. Love & Monsters is Experimental Model, but so unlike not only other TV but all other DW as well, that many fans either love it or hate it. I liked Bad Wolf (Experimental, and parodies other TV to boot) slightly more than The Parting of the Ways (moderately Tom Baker, but crucially turns Experimental when the Doctor sends his companion home just before the gripping finale, so that she can sit in a greasy-spoon caff and agonise about missing the gripping finale before using a tow truck to make her return).
What it comes down to, I think, is how easy or difficult the story is to explain. City of Death is hard to explain – it's a kind of romantic, light-hearted French detective film with time travel and an urbane villain who also happens to be an alien who exists in several historical periods at once. The Happiness Patrol is hard to explain – it's an allegory of some sort in which emotional states are elevated to the level of political ideology and enforced by a leader with a pastel-coloured death squad and a chief executioner made out of sweets. Genesis of the Daleks is very easy to explain – it's a Dalek story. It's a war-in-space good-vs-evil story with Daleks in it. There are many such, and they're rarely very complex.
Disclaimer: The above is an over-simplification. I don't automatically like all Experimental Model stories – it's possible for experimental stories to be crap on their own terms (Paradise Towers springs to mind, and I wouldn't want to watch The Web Planet again while sober). The above also doesn't stop Tom Baker from being technically – technically – the best old-series Doctor.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The Move Has Begun
This is, in fact, the last hurrah of broadband at the old flat, since they're meant to be turning it off tomorrow. No broadband at the new flat until Friday - yikes! It'll be a bit of a giveaway if I blog again between now and then that I'm sneaking it in at the office...
1. Moving is like metamorphosis. We always seem to leave some part of our worldly presence behind us, and no, I'm not talking about poetic, metaphysical, slightly pretentious stuff here, I'm talking about genuine physical detritus. It does feel a bit like shedding a skin or a cocoon to leave some familiar thing behind in a move. I'm still not 100% certain that we left anything behind in the first Bristol flat, but without a stepladder that day we could easily have missed something in the attic.
The second flat saw a lengthy period of consolidation, i.e. More Stuff, so in the mad panic of trying to get everything out and clean that flat before the estate agent's office closed we left quite a few things behind (in our generosity) for the benefit of future tenants, not least Jo's old stereo. But it was a very old stereo, and we have a nicer one now - that's my excuse. It was one of those items that just wouldn't fit into the car, which at 5.30pm that day was stuffed like an automotive Mr Creosote.
By then we'd also gained three bookcases, including a Very Big Bookcase. Alas, the Very Big Bookcase has fallen in this move - mould claimed the back panel somehow, possibly during the last move, and was starting to take one of the side planks. Amazingly lucky for us that it a) hadn't broken through to the books, and b) hadn't crossed to the wall behind. So with none of the due ceremony, the Very Big Bookcase was jumped on by me until broken into manageable lengths, and thrown onto the tip. Eh well. Very Big Bookcases are all well and good, but a bugger to move between flats in a small car. This weekend therefore also saw a visit to...
2. Ikea. Dante's Mall. I don't think I've ever seen a plain, simple catalogue for Ikea - do they exist? As I wander around the seventh circle of show "rooms", I find myself jotting down not only the warehouse references for the bookcases I see, but brief field notes too, so that if something similar should catch my eye later on I won't have to go all the way back again to compare. It doesn't work, of course.
(It's turning into a bit of a guilty pleasure, though. The obvious good reason for using Ikea is that you, muggins, take the flat-packed goodies away yourself, whereas with Argos et al you have to agree to be indoors all day when they claim they'll deliver your big, heavy bookcase. Will they, my arse. The less obvious, less good reason is that now I've done it more than once, it's becoming more familiar - I'm starting to build a rapport with the building. The first visit was complete sensory overload, and I think I spent ten minutes just staring at a twenty-foot-high wall with sofas bolted onto it all the way up, muttering to myself. Today was a much more clinical affair.)
And then, of course, "Bargain Corner". The torture here being that all the discounted items (or what Ikea laughingly call "discounted") are already built, so unless you're an opportunist with a van already waiting in the car park, I don't imagine they'll be of much use to you. I still wander by to laugh at the prices. Ha, paid that for my new bookcase. Wait a minute - is my bookcase rubbish, or was that bookcase overpriced...?
(Fresh horror creeping in now as I realise I'm a fanzine writer blogging about Ikea. Oh, dammit. The virus is catching.)
3. Oops, I did it again, I got up at six, to watch Doctor Who, etc etc. This would have been the antepenultimate hurrah of broadband at the old flat. This week's obscenely early viewing was another Pertwee that I hadn't seen before but wanted to, and this time it wasn't one that was already available for hire on DVD. It was...
The Mind of Evil. Very good - I'd give that a High Good, in fact, just on the border of the DVD wishlist. Slightly marred by the nonsensical ending, in which the threat of a nuclear-powered missile with a nerve gas warhead is neutralised by... blowing it up. Plus the very, very ending - "Oh, Doctor? Phone call for you. It's the Master. He says, 'Ha ha ha'." All in all, though, good solid fare.
(And hey, the Master does listen to King Crimson! Sadly, one of the dull and indistinguishable bits from their second or third album (I think), neither of which I have any more on account of them being dull and indistinguishable. I was really hoping for "Easy Money", perhaps while the Master cruised along in his limo and chomped a fat cigar, but the story was two years too early for that one.)
On balance, though, I'm not sure any TV show really deserves to get me out of bed at the weekend as early as 6am - certainly not a weekend as busy as this one - so I may not oops, do it again. But we'll see.
4. Primeval. Well, that wasn't too bad, despite the early reports. Admittedly I was shredding old bank statements during most of the first half, and so may have missed vital gaffes, but it didn't look at all bad. Fairly transparently a knock-off of Torchwood, even down to the directing (as The Lovely Jo was quick to point out), but without endless gratuitous shootin' 'n' shaggin' this felt better than Torchwood. In fact, what with this and Dancing on Ice we spent most of Saturday evening watching ITV. Shocker. That must be the first time that's happened. I think we know which channel we'll be watching when the Who starts up again, though.
1. Moving is like metamorphosis. We always seem to leave some part of our worldly presence behind us, and no, I'm not talking about poetic, metaphysical, slightly pretentious stuff here, I'm talking about genuine physical detritus. It does feel a bit like shedding a skin or a cocoon to leave some familiar thing behind in a move. I'm still not 100% certain that we left anything behind in the first Bristol flat, but without a stepladder that day we could easily have missed something in the attic.
The second flat saw a lengthy period of consolidation, i.e. More Stuff, so in the mad panic of trying to get everything out and clean that flat before the estate agent's office closed we left quite a few things behind (in our generosity) for the benefit of future tenants, not least Jo's old stereo. But it was a very old stereo, and we have a nicer one now - that's my excuse. It was one of those items that just wouldn't fit into the car, which at 5.30pm that day was stuffed like an automotive Mr Creosote.
By then we'd also gained three bookcases, including a Very Big Bookcase. Alas, the Very Big Bookcase has fallen in this move - mould claimed the back panel somehow, possibly during the last move, and was starting to take one of the side planks. Amazingly lucky for us that it a) hadn't broken through to the books, and b) hadn't crossed to the wall behind. So with none of the due ceremony, the Very Big Bookcase was jumped on by me until broken into manageable lengths, and thrown onto the tip. Eh well. Very Big Bookcases are all well and good, but a bugger to move between flats in a small car. This weekend therefore also saw a visit to...
2. Ikea. Dante's Mall. I don't think I've ever seen a plain, simple catalogue for Ikea - do they exist? As I wander around the seventh circle of show "rooms", I find myself jotting down not only the warehouse references for the bookcases I see, but brief field notes too, so that if something similar should catch my eye later on I won't have to go all the way back again to compare. It doesn't work, of course.
(It's turning into a bit of a guilty pleasure, though. The obvious good reason for using Ikea is that you, muggins, take the flat-packed goodies away yourself, whereas with Argos et al you have to agree to be indoors all day when they claim they'll deliver your big, heavy bookcase. Will they, my arse. The less obvious, less good reason is that now I've done it more than once, it's becoming more familiar - I'm starting to build a rapport with the building. The first visit was complete sensory overload, and I think I spent ten minutes just staring at a twenty-foot-high wall with sofas bolted onto it all the way up, muttering to myself. Today was a much more clinical affair.)
And then, of course, "Bargain Corner". The torture here being that all the discounted items (or what Ikea laughingly call "discounted") are already built, so unless you're an opportunist with a van already waiting in the car park, I don't imagine they'll be of much use to you. I still wander by to laugh at the prices. Ha, paid that for my new bookcase. Wait a minute - is my bookcase rubbish, or was that bookcase overpriced...?
(Fresh horror creeping in now as I realise I'm a fanzine writer blogging about Ikea. Oh, dammit. The virus is catching.)
3. Oops, I did it again, I got up at six, to watch Doctor Who, etc etc. This would have been the antepenultimate hurrah of broadband at the old flat. This week's obscenely early viewing was another Pertwee that I hadn't seen before but wanted to, and this time it wasn't one that was already available for hire on DVD. It was...
The Mind of Evil. Very good - I'd give that a High Good, in fact, just on the border of the DVD wishlist. Slightly marred by the nonsensical ending, in which the threat of a nuclear-powered missile with a nerve gas warhead is neutralised by... blowing it up. Plus the very, very ending - "Oh, Doctor? Phone call for you. It's the Master. He says, 'Ha ha ha'." All in all, though, good solid fare.
(And hey, the Master does listen to King Crimson! Sadly, one of the dull and indistinguishable bits from their second or third album (I think), neither of which I have any more on account of them being dull and indistinguishable. I was really hoping for "Easy Money", perhaps while the Master cruised along in his limo and chomped a fat cigar, but the story was two years too early for that one.)
On balance, though, I'm not sure any TV show really deserves to get me out of bed at the weekend as early as 6am - certainly not a weekend as busy as this one - so I may not oops, do it again. But we'll see.
4. Primeval. Well, that wasn't too bad, despite the early reports. Admittedly I was shredding old bank statements during most of the first half, and so may have missed vital gaffes, but it didn't look at all bad. Fairly transparently a knock-off of Torchwood, even down to the directing (as The Lovely Jo was quick to point out), but without endless gratuitous shootin' 'n' shaggin' this felt better than Torchwood. In fact, what with this and Dancing on Ice we spent most of Saturday evening watching ITV. Shocker. That must be the first time that's happened. I think we know which channel we'll be watching when the Who starts up again, though.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
The Geordie Moths of Interpretative Mime
Well, now Ulrika-ka-ka-ka's been dropped from Dancing on Ice, I don't know who any of the contestants are. That's three out of three for the celebrities I actually recognise being voted off. Anyway.
Come back, Doctor Who!!
The latest DVD rental is black-and-white DW adventure The Web Planet. I had actually had second thoughts about even renting this one after seeing quite a long clip somewhere (probably in a documentary on another DW DVD), but what the hell?
I think approaching this story while slightly drunk and looking for laughs was probably the right decision. Billy Hartnell certainly thought so, if his "happy pills" performance in the first episode is anything to go by. Also starring: the Welsh/Geordie Moths of Interpretative Mime (their accents keep changing, but I think I've got them pinned down to those two), the Zarbi, alien ants who look large, fake and plastic (Jo: "They should have called them the Barbi"), and a race of underground woodlouse-people whose leader speaks with the voice of Ray Ellington. Well, on balance it's better than I expected - I was expecting it to be near unwatchable. It's actually a pretty fair Mid Average, with allowance for low budget. We particularly admired the painted backdrop. Might be jumping the gun a bit, though, as we've only made it through four episodes so far, and the full splendour of Martin Jarvis' moth performance is yet to come.
(Edit: no, it held up well, although the sixth episode is actually an episode of the Tellytubbies in monochrome. I stand by it: The Web Planet was better than Carnival of Monsters. Wotta shocker.)
Also recently rented: Earthshock, yet another '80s Who that really does look better with the CGI effects switched on. I don't know why they should only work with the '80s stories. Perhaps the production crew at the time were trying too hard (and failing) to make the show look like a big-budget film instead of a cosy TV show. Figging awful dialogue though. "It is a word like any other. As is 'destruction'. Which is what we are going to do to that planet." Oh for fig's sake, Saward, just resign now and let Pip and Jane Baker write it!
But wait, yet more Who! For the first time ever I intentionally watched one of UKTV Gold's stupidly early repeats! (Having previously caught the last hour of psychedelic Pertwee escapade The Mutants unexpectedly while kipping at a friend's house in London some years ago.) I'd like to fill in more of the gaps in my Who awareness, but y'know, waking up at 6am at the weekend just doesn't seem right. But what the hell? The really terrible thing is, it's one that I could've rented on DVD if I'd been a little more patient - but it's on the TV, we've got the magic set-top box, it seems a shame not to use it once at least. It was...
Carnival of Monsters. Low Average. Touched by the curse of the Completely Inexpressive Floppy Full-Face Rubber Mask (a curse that has touched at least one other Pertwee story I've seen) - I speak of course of the Functionaries. Not sure why they and their political oppression were included at all (one gets shot for daring to climb some stairs) when the Doctor didn't even notice them, and so their oppression continues. A little bit of world-building, undoubtedly, but wasted on a world solely represented by one plaza, when the main action of the story is happening elsewhere. Lucky they didn't overspend on the masks, then. The Drashigs were pretty good though - as giant screaming flesh-eating sock-puppet caterpillars go, they came across well.
It has been said by others that Katy Manning's acting can curdle milk, and this was beyond all competition her most milk-curdling performance that I've seen - easily on a par with the worst of Bonnie Langford. Most likely thing to deter me from ever watching this story again. My other gripe is that so many Who fans who criticise anything post-Tom Baker claim that the '80s stories are just set pieces cobbled together, yet Carnival of Monsters strikes me as a prime example of just that.
The funny thing is, my opinion of the story was bad at the time of watching, but improved afterwards. I know a lot of Who fans rate it very highly, so there's kind of a sense that I ought to like it (but then I could say the same about Genesis of the Daleks, lord and master of the overrated stories). I chuckled at the first cliffhanger, where a giant hand reaches down and plucks up an obvious model TARDIS, all badly superimposed over the main shot, yet on reflection this became a tremendous post-modern coup in my mind. Actually having someone reach in and adjust the model shots while the Doctor stares aghast - that beats Vengeance on Varos' cliffhanger into a cocked hat! On yet more reflection I'm not sure what to think of it. The Who Fan Code demands that I not laugh at the effects and look at what the story's trying to say - which seems to be "Zoos are bad", and that's about it. No real substance underneath. That's why I've left it at Low Average.
(Edit: Well, there is also the self-referentiality of the Doctor being stuck inside a kind of futuristic telly for the entertainment of naive punters. It's also been pointed out that the outlandish showpeople who own the Miniscope nicely parallel the Doctor and his companion. All of this, I agree, should make me love this story. And yet. I'm used to seeing referential bits like this turn up as bonus moments in DW, but I'm not entirely used to seeing them carry the entire story on their own. Vengeance on Varos offers a critique of the "video nasty" furore, and more broadly of the media's influence on politics and vice versa - it's not just self-referential. Carnival of Monsters looks like it might be nothing but. I'll have to keep trying at it, I think.)
News that actually relates to the real world - the flat move looms on the horizon, and is due to take place over most of the rest of February, starting next weekend.
Funeral of The Lovely Jo's great-grandmother last week. The two surprising things I learned about her: her first name was Marguerita (which initially made me think of Bulgakov, although the second thing I thought of was the alcoholic drink), and she was name-checked in one of Kenneth Horne's sketches. The third surprising thing, which I had already heard from Jo, was that her earliest memory was of being taken up onto the roof to watch the Kaiser's Zeppelins gliding overhead. Beats my donkey ride.
Come back, Doctor Who!!
The latest DVD rental is black-and-white DW adventure The Web Planet. I had actually had second thoughts about even renting this one after seeing quite a long clip somewhere (probably in a documentary on another DW DVD), but what the hell?
I think approaching this story while slightly drunk and looking for laughs was probably the right decision. Billy Hartnell certainly thought so, if his "happy pills" performance in the first episode is anything to go by. Also starring: the Welsh/Geordie Moths of Interpretative Mime (their accents keep changing, but I think I've got them pinned down to those two), the Zarbi, alien ants who look large, fake and plastic (Jo: "They should have called them the Barbi"), and a race of underground woodlouse-people whose leader speaks with the voice of Ray Ellington. Well, on balance it's better than I expected - I was expecting it to be near unwatchable. It's actually a pretty fair Mid Average, with allowance for low budget. We particularly admired the painted backdrop. Might be jumping the gun a bit, though, as we've only made it through four episodes so far, and the full splendour of Martin Jarvis' moth performance is yet to come.
(Edit: no, it held up well, although the sixth episode is actually an episode of the Tellytubbies in monochrome. I stand by it: The Web Planet was better than Carnival of Monsters. Wotta shocker.)
Also recently rented: Earthshock, yet another '80s Who that really does look better with the CGI effects switched on. I don't know why they should only work with the '80s stories. Perhaps the production crew at the time were trying too hard (and failing) to make the show look like a big-budget film instead of a cosy TV show. Figging awful dialogue though. "It is a word like any other. As is 'destruction'. Which is what we are going to do to that planet." Oh for fig's sake, Saward, just resign now and let Pip and Jane Baker write it!
But wait, yet more Who! For the first time ever I intentionally watched one of UKTV Gold's stupidly early repeats! (Having previously caught the last hour of psychedelic Pertwee escapade The Mutants unexpectedly while kipping at a friend's house in London some years ago.) I'd like to fill in more of the gaps in my Who awareness, but y'know, waking up at 6am at the weekend just doesn't seem right. But what the hell? The really terrible thing is, it's one that I could've rented on DVD if I'd been a little more patient - but it's on the TV, we've got the magic set-top box, it seems a shame not to use it once at least. It was...
Carnival of Monsters. Low Average. Touched by the curse of the Completely Inexpressive Floppy Full-Face Rubber Mask (a curse that has touched at least one other Pertwee story I've seen) - I speak of course of the Functionaries. Not sure why they and their political oppression were included at all (one gets shot for daring to climb some stairs) when the Doctor didn't even notice them, and so their oppression continues. A little bit of world-building, undoubtedly, but wasted on a world solely represented by one plaza, when the main action of the story is happening elsewhere. Lucky they didn't overspend on the masks, then. The Drashigs were pretty good though - as giant screaming flesh-eating sock-puppet caterpillars go, they came across well.
It has been said by others that Katy Manning's acting can curdle milk, and this was beyond all competition her most milk-curdling performance that I've seen - easily on a par with the worst of Bonnie Langford. Most likely thing to deter me from ever watching this story again. My other gripe is that so many Who fans who criticise anything post-Tom Baker claim that the '80s stories are just set pieces cobbled together, yet Carnival of Monsters strikes me as a prime example of just that.
The funny thing is, my opinion of the story was bad at the time of watching, but improved afterwards. I know a lot of Who fans rate it very highly, so there's kind of a sense that I ought to like it (but then I could say the same about Genesis of the Daleks, lord and master of the overrated stories). I chuckled at the first cliffhanger, where a giant hand reaches down and plucks up an obvious model TARDIS, all badly superimposed over the main shot, yet on reflection this became a tremendous post-modern coup in my mind. Actually having someone reach in and adjust the model shots while the Doctor stares aghast - that beats Vengeance on Varos' cliffhanger into a cocked hat! On yet more reflection I'm not sure what to think of it. The Who Fan Code demands that I not laugh at the effects and look at what the story's trying to say - which seems to be "Zoos are bad", and that's about it. No real substance underneath. That's why I've left it at Low Average.
(Edit: Well, there is also the self-referentiality of the Doctor being stuck inside a kind of futuristic telly for the entertainment of naive punters. It's also been pointed out that the outlandish showpeople who own the Miniscope nicely parallel the Doctor and his companion. All of this, I agree, should make me love this story. And yet. I'm used to seeing referential bits like this turn up as bonus moments in DW, but I'm not entirely used to seeing them carry the entire story on their own. Vengeance on Varos offers a critique of the "video nasty" furore, and more broadly of the media's influence on politics and vice versa - it's not just self-referential. Carnival of Monsters looks like it might be nothing but. I'll have to keep trying at it, I think.)
News that actually relates to the real world - the flat move looms on the horizon, and is due to take place over most of the rest of February, starting next weekend.
Funeral of The Lovely Jo's great-grandmother last week. The two surprising things I learned about her: her first name was Marguerita (which initially made me think of Bulgakov, although the second thing I thought of was the alcoholic drink), and she was name-checked in one of Kenneth Horne's sketches. The third surprising thing, which I had already heard from Jo, was that her earliest memory was of being taken up onto the roof to watch the Kaiser's Zeppelins gliding overhead. Beats my donkey ride.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Extra! Extra!
Christmas vouchers and a tidy win on an office charity quiz (not to mention cheapy shop offers) have furnished me with some nice Doctor Who and Red Dwarf DVDs. A few thoughts on the contents thereof:
1. The Cosgrove Hall animated episodes on The Invasion really are pukkha. They've grown on me on second viewing (with the commentary). There are one or two moments where I get flashes of South Park (Tobias Vaughn's face getting larger when he shouts being the main one), and they haven't really got Vaughn's squint or Jamie's face in profile, but by and large it's top stuff.
And hey, it's better than looking at a black screen (or even looking at a slide show of off-screen photographs, I should imagine). It's even better than having Nicholas Courtney read synopses of the missing episodes, although it's nice that they included that option on the DVD. If only animating those two episodes hadn't (reportedly) cost something like four times as much as remastering the other six episodes and putting the other extras together, it might have been a viable (and entertaining) way of replacing all those missing 1960s stories.
To my mind, though, the best thing of all about the first episode of The Invasion being animated is that the Doctor and his chums come out of the Land of Fiction at the end of the previous story and straight into a cartoon. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Double the delicious irony that this should happen to such a famously gritty and realistic story.
2. The optional CGI effects on Revelation of the Daleks (1985) actually work better than the optional CGI effects on The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964). Odd, no?
The thing is, although I'm a Colin Baker fan, and although this is undeniably his most presentable story (Vengeance on Varos is technically the best, say I, but Revelation is the one you can show to your mother without feeling dirty), I've always disliked those... enthusiastic 1980s video effects. They clutter up the screen and on more than one occasion here, they actually confuse what's meant to be happening. But with the new effects! Why, it's, if you will, a revelation.
(The other thing is that I can hear many of Davros' lines on the DVD that I previously couldn't make out. I don't know if this is down to remastering, or just my cloth ears. I'm hoping the former, because if the Restoration Team have rectified sound balance issues here, there's half a chance they may have done similar with Ghost Light and turned the f***ing incidental music down. Yes, it's beautiful, but it obscures most of the dialogue. When a certain online shop send me my rental copy, I shall find out.)
[EDIT: D'you know, it may just be wishful thinking, but I think perhaps they might. I'm sure I could hear a lot of dialogue at tactful late evening volume that I couldn't previously hear at normal volume or above on the VHS. Then again, there were still a few scenes where I had to lean forward to hear anything (actors mumbling a bit, to be honest). I suspect what may have happened is the Restoration Team guy has tweaked the volume up in the bits without loud incidental music so that we can hear the dialogue, but has had to leave other bits as they are. Sadly full details of the sound restoration for that one are not available on their website.]
The effects on Dalek Invasion, on the other hand, are few and only really concern the Dalek flying saucer, and to be honest it adds a wad of Sixties atmosphere to have the old B-movie model saucers in there.
3. While I'm on the subject of Dalek Invasion, it's funny how it suddenly changes tone after Episode Four. Up until that point, it's been unremittingly grim and utterly compelling. Then you see the Slyther and find out what the Daleks' plan is (to TWOC the Earth, basically, and joyride it round the galaxy - why??), and it becomes rather more comical. Still, as the Lovely Jo justly remarked, the model of the bomb shaft is a lovely piece of work and the addition of a little model Dalek a nice touch. And it's all good clean family fun.
4. Hattie Hayridge is not the best commentator on Red Dwarf. This is understandable, since she tended only to get half a dozen lines a show, if she was lucky (poor woman). But it is a bit wearing to keep hearing Hattie chip in with "Is this the one where [synopsis of an episode in a completely different season]?" Still, now we have the sacred Quarantine on DVD. Mr Flibble can be ours for the viewing at a moment's notice. Sweeeet.
1. The Cosgrove Hall animated episodes on The Invasion really are pukkha. They've grown on me on second viewing (with the commentary). There are one or two moments where I get flashes of South Park (Tobias Vaughn's face getting larger when he shouts being the main one), and they haven't really got Vaughn's squint or Jamie's face in profile, but by and large it's top stuff.
And hey, it's better than looking at a black screen (or even looking at a slide show of off-screen photographs, I should imagine). It's even better than having Nicholas Courtney read synopses of the missing episodes, although it's nice that they included that option on the DVD. If only animating those two episodes hadn't (reportedly) cost something like four times as much as remastering the other six episodes and putting the other extras together, it might have been a viable (and entertaining) way of replacing all those missing 1960s stories.
To my mind, though, the best thing of all about the first episode of The Invasion being animated is that the Doctor and his chums come out of the Land of Fiction at the end of the previous story and straight into a cartoon. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Double the delicious irony that this should happen to such a famously gritty and realistic story.
2. The optional CGI effects on Revelation of the Daleks (1985) actually work better than the optional CGI effects on The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964). Odd, no?
The thing is, although I'm a Colin Baker fan, and although this is undeniably his most presentable story (Vengeance on Varos is technically the best, say I, but Revelation is the one you can show to your mother without feeling dirty), I've always disliked those... enthusiastic 1980s video effects. They clutter up the screen and on more than one occasion here, they actually confuse what's meant to be happening. But with the new effects! Why, it's, if you will, a revelation.
(The other thing is that I can hear many of Davros' lines on the DVD that I previously couldn't make out. I don't know if this is down to remastering, or just my cloth ears. I'm hoping the former, because if the Restoration Team have rectified sound balance issues here, there's half a chance they may have done similar with Ghost Light and turned the f***ing incidental music down. Yes, it's beautiful, but it obscures most of the dialogue. When a certain online shop send me my rental copy, I shall find out.)
[EDIT: D'you know, it may just be wishful thinking, but I think perhaps they might. I'm sure I could hear a lot of dialogue at tactful late evening volume that I couldn't previously hear at normal volume or above on the VHS. Then again, there were still a few scenes where I had to lean forward to hear anything (actors mumbling a bit, to be honest). I suspect what may have happened is the Restoration Team guy has tweaked the volume up in the bits without loud incidental music so that we can hear the dialogue, but has had to leave other bits as they are. Sadly full details of the sound restoration for that one are not available on their website.]
The effects on Dalek Invasion, on the other hand, are few and only really concern the Dalek flying saucer, and to be honest it adds a wad of Sixties atmosphere to have the old B-movie model saucers in there.
3. While I'm on the subject of Dalek Invasion, it's funny how it suddenly changes tone after Episode Four. Up until that point, it's been unremittingly grim and utterly compelling. Then you see the Slyther and find out what the Daleks' plan is (to TWOC the Earth, basically, and joyride it round the galaxy - why??), and it becomes rather more comical. Still, as the Lovely Jo justly remarked, the model of the bomb shaft is a lovely piece of work and the addition of a little model Dalek a nice touch. And it's all good clean family fun.
4. Hattie Hayridge is not the best commentator on Red Dwarf. This is understandable, since she tended only to get half a dozen lines a show, if she was lucky (poor woman). But it is a bit wearing to keep hearing Hattie chip in with "Is this the one where [synopsis of an episode in a completely different season]?" Still, now we have the sacred Quarantine on DVD. Mr Flibble can be ours for the viewing at a moment's notice. Sweeeet.
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