A journey through an American’s addiction to Doctor Who

Ooh, The Web Planet isn’t on YouTube…because it’s out on DVD.  So now I have to quickly watch one of the movies I have at home so that I can receive this DVD in the mail.  Interestingly, Netflix has 1975 listed as the date for this serial, despite the fact that it actually broadcast in early 1965.

Finished the very next serial, The Romans. After watching The Rescue I really started worrying that the production budget has dropped: The Rescue’s monsters and props really left a lot to be desired. The Romans, however, immediately show a much higher quality: mass scenes, good clothes and props, scenery. Immediately the plot starts smelling of being another palace intrigue variation.

The crew, though, appears to have taken a rest, which is probably a good thing: they were go-go-go all along before, and had a rather wretched time in The Dalek Invasion beforehand. And though Vicki spent a lot of time on a stranded ship, in hardship, she seems to already be bored.

As the serial progresses, the crew is getting split up. The Doctor and Vicki are on the way to Rome; Ian is an oarsman on some boat; Barbara is enslaved and is on her way to be sold at an auction. Things aren’t looking too great for them, but of course the serial has to start and end on reasonably similar terms between everyone, so the crew starts coming together over time. Now the Doctor, Vicki, and Barbara are at the same palace (even if they don’t know it yet), and Ian is heading towards gladiatorial combat in front of the caesar.

Finally in the third episode, we enter the land of palace intrigue with an episode called Conspiracy (doesn’t get more obvious, does it?)…

After much additional intrigue — poisons, tricks, fighting, defiance of authority, and crypto-Christians — the crew finds its way back to the TARDIS and gets on its way. Kind of.

Watched “The Rescue” (serial #12). Susan is gone now; too bad, I liked her character. And the Doctor is rather grumpy. However, the monster-man from the first episode is just about as unfetching as the non-bug-eyed crab-like monster that poses a challenge for Ian and the Doctor. The pace is pathetic.

The second episode speeds up somewhat, as it kind of has to in order to resolve the serial in the next 20-odd minutes. It’s interesting that the Doctor once again refers to his past when he mentions that he’s been to this planet — Dido — before. Also, for once, in this science fiction series, we have an honest-to-goodness rocket ship! On the other hand we counter-balance this positive development with the simplicity (may I say near-stupidity?) of the Vicki character. I genuinely hope that she gets better over time, since we’re going to be stuck with her for a little bit, it seems.

Into season two now.

It really seems like I’ve seen this before: an eccentric scientist, an accident, people getting smaller, turning up in a front yard of a house and negotiating their way amongst giant insects.  Sounds like a plot of Honey I Shrunk the Kids?  Sure does to me. Though partially also the plot of “The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya” by Yan Larri, which was published (only in Russian?) many years prior to this serial.  Some borrowing going on?  Or just a very obvious plot device?  Probably the latter…

Either way, this show rapidly turned into a murder mystery.

Unusually, the YouTube videos did not sudivide this serial into episodes.

Susan is being more rebellious and wants to not be treated like a child. I feel really sorry for the people in the Sensorite costumes. Also, are the Mon Calamari inspired by these aliens? I’m also noticing that there is trend in the serials so far to have funky doors to differentiate one culture from another — no doors are normal door-shaped openings so far: the Daleks had weird triangle-shaped doors that recede into the wall, there’ve been circular doors that recede, and the Sensorites have strange semi-circular doors that swing out.

The Doctor is surprised that Susan can read the Sensorites’ minds. And the serial quickly becomes a story about the internal politics of the society being visited… I suppose throughout the series we’ll see quite a bit of this “palace intrigue” genre.

Susan gets to reminisce and describe Gallifrey. Like Earth, burnt orange sky at night; silver leaves on trees. I wonder how this compares to future descriptions of the planet. It appears that Susan also wants to settle down somewhere — she will, of course, in the next season.

Continued watching The Sensorites, getting through Episode 2 despite YouTube trouble. Sensorites are actually shown this time. Susan speaks about her past travel, and proposes a method for fighting the Sensorites — having multiple people think the same thing at the same time, in order to have an effect on the Sensorites. Interestingly, the Tenth Doctor would have Martha use a similar method to give energy to the Doctor to fight the Master.

When the Sensorites decide to communicate with the human crew, they choose to communicate with Susan.  It is interesting that they choose a Time Lord for the communication — of course, the Time Lords have the ability to read minds of some sorts.  Is this just an accidental connection, or is this actually predictive exposition of this ability before it enters the canon?

Interesting to see where the serial is going, though, as Susan surrenders herself in order to save the rest of the crew.

The quality is pretty low, but I’ve started on The Sensorites (serial #7).  The impenetrability of the TARDIS gets tested right in the very beginning, as the Sensorites steal the lock to the front door.  Interestingly this is a refreshingly science-fictiony serial, which comes on the heels of The Aztecs and other historical fiction interspersed with the sci-fi shows, setting the pattern for future seasons.  I’ve only watched the first episode of The Sensorites so far, so this isn’t really a full review just yet.