Series:
3
Episodes:
4
(Sadly, from this serial
onwards, the episodes are no longer named! Just “Episode 1,”
“Episode 2,” etc. I miss them already!!!)
Doctor:
William Hartnell
Companions:
Steven Taylor (Peter Purves), Dodo Chaplet (Jackie Lane)
Synopsis:
The TARDIS arrives in…
the future, at an unspecified date (aggravating for a blog-writer
that likes to track these things) on an unspecified, un-named planet.
(What the HECK?!?!?) The Doctor announces it to be an era on
unparalleled peace, shortly before they are attacked by
spear-wielding cavemen. They escape, and are taken by futuristic guards to a techno-utopia city (I smell class warfare! Sci-fi is
unerringly communist in that way- if not everyone on the planet has
the exact same conditions, warfare, social upheaval, and overturning
are sure to follow by story’s end!) where the Doctor is greeted by
the city elders, who have been monitoring his travels (How meta! They
are a Doctor Who audience! Sliders did that somewhat better for its
finale, I hear…) and were expecting his arrival. Gifts – a dagger
and a mirror- are bestowed upon the companions, who are sent off to
play while the grown-ups talk.
The Eloquent Jano |
While the Doctor and the
elders- led by the eloquent Jano- convene in long discussion, Steven
and Dodo are given a tour of the city. During this, Dodo sees a
captured and terrified cave-person being hauled into the city by the
guards, but is dismissed as having imagined it. (This scenario,
called Susan Syndrome, is a particularly malicious malady in which
the group’s junior member, despite having never been wrong before,
is instantly doubted- often over the word of strangers- as having
imagined or made up what they have seen. Barbara Wright, early
companion, was a particularly virulent victim, twice (An Unearthly
Child, Keys of Marinus) accusing Susan of imagining things that SHE
HERSELF SAW OR WAS CURRENTLY SEEING AS WELL. However, if one looks
throughout sci-fi and films in general, Susan Syndrome is widespread.
The command staff of the Enterprise-D was particularly hard hit
during TNG’s first season, towards Wesley Crusher. It is especially
prevalent in the Disney universe and children’s fantasy films,
infecting those surrounding nearly every child exposed to the
supernatural. In addition, a mutated offshoot known as
Monk-Cadfael-Marple Disease has been known to cause local police and
authorities to repeatedly doubt, question, and mock the observations
of a sleuth possessing a 100% accuracy rate in all past deductions,
every single time. …Okay, no more putting it off. Back to the
mediocrity.)
Dodo slips out and
encounters a half-dead caveman stumbling out of a laboratory. Here,
the Utopian society receives its great benefits- and not from Solar
Flares, as originally believed- using paralysis/obedience-compelling
Light Guns, the cave-men are captured and brought to the city, where
their life force is drained (never to the point of death) which is
used to power the city and invigorate its citizens. The half-dead
cave-men are released back into the wild to recuperate so that they
can be re-captured and ‘harvested’ again.
Dodo attempts to help
Nanina, a female cave-person, but is mistaken for one of the victims,
and nearly life-drained… but her fighting back reveals her as an
outsider (the cave-people have long-since been drained of the will to
resist) and she is escorted back to the Doctor. His delight at this
enlightened society turns to disgust when the life-draining
methodology of the citizens’ prosperity is revealed. (NFS (Note from Sarah): I have to say...this episode sounds really weird but...I cannot remember a single second of it!!!!)
The group departs for the
TARDIS, but the Doctor stops to help the half-dead savage (having
come a long way from wanting to brain the last one he encountered
with a rock), giving him medicine from the TARDIS, but is taken
hostage by Edal, leader of the guards. Back in the city, leader Jano
decides to drain the Doctor’s life energy- ‘nobly’ having it
all transferred into him to test its safety. The Doctor’s half-dead
body is released, but Jano himself has begun to take on an oddly
Doctorish personality, set of mannerisms, and, most difficultly for
him, morality.
Dodo and Steven,
meanwhile, have returned with the injured cave-man, Wylda- there
encountering Nanina, the female from before, as well as tribe leader
Chal, and traditional “I don’t like their face, boss… let me
kill ‘em!” second-in-command Tor (or Gaston-Zentos-Tor, to his
friends. Of which there aren’t any…)- an antagonistic brute who
wants to kill Steven and Dodo, and is rebuffed by Chal. So, he…
demands to do so again. In fact, for the remainder of the review,
mentally insert “Tor says that they should kill Steven and Vicki”
after every sentence, and it will come out about right. Tor says that
they should kill Steven and Vicki. That will be quicker than me
typing it every time. Tor says that they should kill Steven and
Vicki. The cavemen lead them into the… well, caves- their home
base, and the one place that the city-dwellers fear to go. Tor says
that they should kill Steven and Vicki. Chal shows them the wounded
recovering. Tor says that they should kill Steven and Vicki. Okay, I
think that’s got you started… ready to take over on your own? Tor
says that they should… you finish the sentence on your own this
time. And don’t forget- after EVERY SENTENCE for complete accuracy
to this story. (Yes, I’m doing whatever I can to make this story
entertaining, and mostly, that means talking about something OTHER
THAN THIS STORY.) Meanwhile, Exorse, a chief guard, arrives outside
and demands their surrender.
Eventually, Exorse comes
in after them (Tor insisting they be killed for causing this trouble
the entire way), initiating a cat-and-mouse in the dark that ends
when Steven turns one of the city’s gifts, a small mirror, back on
them- reflecting the Light Gun rays back at Exorse long enough to
overtake him and steal his weapon. Exorse is made a captive (guess
what Tor wants done to him? Go on, I’ll give you three tries…)
and Steven takes his new weapon to break into the city. There, Steven
and Dodo find the Doctor’s wandering body, but in trying to escape,
are trapped. However, the Doctor’s persona again overtakes Jano and
he manipulates the trap at the last moment to allow their escape- in
secret, of course. Back at the caves, Tor urges the other to try and
kill the captive guard Exorse, and even tries to do so himself, but
the guard- the same one that had captured Nanina- is defended by her,
much to his gratitude. She treats her captive as a human, something
he failed to do when their positions were reversed.
The Doctor’s body is
brought to the caves, and a dose of the TARDIS-medicine helps him to
recover… meanwhile, a group of guards led by Edal, and accompanied
by Jano, pursue them into the foothills. Jano dispatches his guards
back to the city, announcing that he will handle the prisoners-
suspicious, Edal leaves under protest. Under cover of darkness, Jano
slips into the cave- laboring under the Doctor’s conscience, he
agrees with the now-recovered Doctor’s plan- the life-transference
equipment must be destroyed and the practice abolished.
Exorse manages to escape,
but Nanina pursues him- intercepting him before he reaches the city,
and pleading with him on the evidence of his own eyes not to
interfere- he has seen that the savages are people, and he owes her
his life; he should also know that the life-transference incidents must end.
He runs off without
answering.
In the city, Edal claims
command in the absence of Jano, whom he believes (rightly so) to be
compromised, and the testimony of the scientist who performed the
transference and noted Jano’s odd behavior seems to corroborate
this. Exorse, however, freshly arrived, provides a counter-testimony,
claiming Jano’s competence and not revealing the savages’ plan.
The Doctor and Jano lead
a raiding party composed of Steven, Dodo, and the cave-people into
the city. Encountering the coup-in-progress, Jano re-asserts his
authority by claiming that he has captured the group he leads as
prisoners. He wrests power back from Edal and orders the laboratory
sealed… than allows all within it to run amuck, smashing the
equipment and trashing the instruments of oppression, as Edal- proved
right- and the guards, sealed out of the laboratory, can only watch
helplessly. Even Exorse joins in to smash the equipment. Edal breaks
in and attempts to intervene, attacking the leadership- but Steven
saves all present by disabling him with a Light Gun.
In the aftermath, Jano
and his new conscience agrees with Chal that it is time for both
peoples to live in harmony, and for the technological benefits of the
city to be shared with the savages. However, for the two people to
become one, there will need to be a mediator, a neutral party that
both sides trust to arbitrate and guide them through what will
undoubtedly be a rocky and difficult process. Steven, seen as a hero
by both sides (for saving the savages from Exorse in the caves, and
for saving Jano and the elders in the laboratory) is chosen as that
man. Though he initially protests, the Doctor encourages him, knowing
that Steven can handle this… and the 23rd
Century ex-pilot accepts, lead off half-boldly and half-haplessly to
begin his new life as leader, and healer, of the planet. (NFS: Seriously? This episode was Steven's last and I didn't even remember it? Must have been a really boring story then...)
Review:
In making my notes for
this blog, I typed a single sentence- "Trite, a bit predictable, maybe stretched."
Yep, that's about it.
The first
episode-title-less wonder is about as forgettable as can be, save for
the finale- don't get me wrong; it's no Sensorites or Galaxy 4... but
it just doesn't have all that much to recommend it.
The story is very
predictable. Were it not for a few scattered gems, and Steven's
departure, this would probably be almost forgotten by the public at
large. Plus, it's all missing- so 100% reconstruction (minus a few
little clips). Is it just me, or are Edal and Tor essentially
counterparts of each-other… leadership-usurping, closed-minded
kill-the-strangers archetypes in the mold of Gaston, Zentos, and a
thousand others- while I am especially irked by, and tired of, this
archetype… it is interesting how they parallel each other by having
one on each opposing side in this story… both rendered irrelevant
and unheeded by peace at the ending of the story, spinning them into
Cold-War allegory models reminiscent of Star Trek VI… long before
Cold War reconciliation was a palatable concept!
The aforementioned gems
are: The excellent impression of the Doctor performed by Fredrick
Jaeger, which really steals the show and is an absolute highlight (NFS: Probably would have been even more a highlight if you could have actually seen him moving! Even so I think it's a testament to his talent that him acting like the Doctor was conveyed just through sound.),
and the 'smashing' ending in which the life-force-draining laboratory
was smashed (I hope the life-forces didn't just fade away then, and
could be restored to their original hosts)- not only cathartic, but
also amusing, as several characters stand there in the midst of the
chaos having a calm, simple discussion in the eye of the storm, as if
they were standing in a lounge, as the lab is torn apart around them. (NFS: ...Now I want to watch "The Great Race"! :-D)
Other than that, the only
other noteworthy item- Steven's departure, seemed rushed, uninspired,
and un-foreshadowed- while not necessarily an unpleasant fate, it felt
dreamed-up-at-the-last-moment and meaningless- unlike his departure
in The Massacre, which carried some real dramatic weight. This one
had no weight, no meaning, no motivation, no tie-in to the character,
no connection, no emotion- nothing! While I'd like to have kept Steven
around a while longer (I'd be interested to see how he'd respond to
the Second Doctor), if he was going to depart, The Massacre's scene
was the equivalent of the first episode of Space Museum, or The Rescue, or the Keys of
Marinus- and the departure scene here is Galaxy-Freakin'-4. (And both
are in bloody stills!)
I will also say that I
liked the sympathy-for-the-captured-guard bit- it was well done
(genuine sympathy showing these to be good people, minus the
blockheaded Tor), but not over-the-top ("We are to be wed next
week- the first union of our two peoples!" as the ending scene,
as some shows like the original Star Trek might have done.) And Nanina
rightly leverages on that sympathy to try and prevent a genocide- we
tend not to think of "You owe me!" as an especially heroic
behavior in our characters- but it felt especially realistic as it
was justified, crucial, and everything hung in the balance of this guard's decision. This little Androcles-and-the-Lion subplot was more
compelling than the by-the-numbers, cliched, predictable plot it was
enmeshed in. And Nanina was the strongest female character Who had
seen since Barbara ascended the Aztec throne (a shot, her first
seating in Yetaxa's judgement chair, which was so iconic that it remains clearly in my head as Barbara's 'head shot' default image to
this day, over a year after last seeing it.)
As for Tor... well, if
Hartnell's First Doctor had still wanted to smash a caveman's head in
with a rock (as he nearly did in a cold-blooded scene in An Unearthly Child, before his character had really been established), I for one
wouldn't object, and I suspect Dodo and Steven could be persuaded to
look the other way for a while... Man, that guy was annoying! (And
also very, VERY cliche- the second-in-command that defies his
superior so often you wonder how he lasted in the position this long,
and who only exists to LITERALLY advocate the wrong position in every
single choice facing the characters, and to drum up false tension as
he tries to turn the people against the visiting main characters and
the leader allied with them. This character had actually been already
used in approximately 3,284 movies by the time that the phonograph
was invented. He was already a tired, cliche character by the time
that the Jazz Singer ushered in the era of talkies. STOP WRITING THIS
CHARACTER INTO STORIES!!! I DON'T LIKE HIM!!!!!)
The Doctor is a bit naive in this one, but otherwise unremarkable- Jano, giving an impression of him, stands out far more than he does. As an interesting note, however, it has been suggested that this life-force drain, along with his hyper-aging exposure to the Dalek Time Destructor in The Daleks Master Plan, each took several hundred years off of his life, and their combined exposure conspired to leave the First Doctor severely weakened, leading to his forthcoming regeneration. Without these events, he might have had another 600-800 years as Hartnell, but as it stands, he was cut short in his prime as cruelly as his successor, Troughton (we'll get there eventually)... cruelly robbed of his life in a manner completely separate from the average consequences-of-life-and-death heroics that caused the regeneration of his later incarnations. Thus, in his extremely frail state- literally hundreds of years older at the end of this serial than he was in Galaxy 4, the Series 3 season premiere, just 'days' before, it didn't take much to push him over the edge, into the regeneration we'll be covering soon. A pity Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor had no such excuse for his pathetic regeneration. (And yes, it will be a LONG time before this blog explains that joke!)
Steven was... practically subliminal here, doing next to nothing... making it all
the more insulting as his departure episode. This serial really gives
him the short straw in so many ways- it would be like Star Trek
having Spock's Brain as Leonard Nimoy's swan song, or Sub Rosa as a
sendoff for Gates McFadden. Or Shades of Grey as a sendoff for Pula-
oh....wait...Well, at least in her case, a lousy character deserved a lousy
sendoff.
I think Steven was anything but a lousy character- I would say he might well be my favorite companion yet (possibly vying with strong candidates Ian and, surprisingly, Vicki, for the role), and definitely in the Top 3 of the First Doctor's companions. He was funny, smart, had the same intellectual/moral peer-of-the-Doctor that was such a refreshing dynamic in New Who with Donna Noble's tenure as companion- a willingness to challenge the Doctor on questionable points, a gung-ho attitude, and a great sense of humor. A great actor and a great role- farewell, Steven; you deserved a far better send-off, and you will be missed!
Dodo, meanwhile, was a
bit more active than usual, but... she really returns to the
background of obscurity here- though at least she's not actively
unlikeable, as she was in The Ark.
As for the
reconstruction... PLEASE TAKE NOTE: WE DID NOT SEE A LOOSE CANNON
RECONSTRUCTION. We are trying to track it down at present. Thus,
while I will rate and discuss the reconstruction, please do not take
this rating in comparison or as a comment towards the other
reconstructions mentioned in this blog- THIS LOUSY RECONSTRUCTION IS
NOT A BLACK MARK AGAINST LOOSE CANNON, AS WE HAVEN'T SEEN THEIRS
YET!!!!
That said... yeah, it was
pretty poor. Grainy, smudgy, blurred telesnaps with a muddy audio
and, essentially, a running transcript. It did it's job of keeping us
in the loop- which is good, as the minimalist images and the terrible
audio quality wouldn't have!
Great moments:
The lab smashing. Jano’s
Hartnell impressions. And the confrontation between Exorse and
Nanina- a small but pivotal, tense, well-written exchange.
Rating:
Overall, 1.5 Time
Destructors out of 5 for an uninspired story, raised from the scrap
heap by a gem of an impersonation and a few good moments. 0.5 out of
5 for the Butterfly Productions reconstruction, about which the
nicest thing that I can say is that it kept us informed. (NFS: Though to be fair, we are thankful to them for even doing it in the first place, otherwise we wouldn't have known what the heck was going on or we just wouldn't have been able to 'watch' this episode in the first place....not everyone can be Loose Canon! :)
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