The Time Meddler

So the Doctor has a new companion, Steven Taylor. He starts off being kind of bossy (no good when that happens around the Doctor). I like the character of the Monk, he’s pretty well imagined and is a decent adversary, if only because he’s so feisty when dealing with the Doctor. He’s also the owner of another TARDIS, which is rather cool! We haven’t seen a different TARDIS yet. It’s also another time-sensitive story; I’m glad to see time travel topics being taken advantage of. The Doctor ends the serial being a bit mean towards his fellow Time Lord and maroons him on Earth in 1066.

 

The Chase

Watched The Chase. Like the Tenth doctor’s travels, the first episode shows Shakespeare. Unlike the later story, this gives quite an uninspired explanation for the authoring of Hamlet. Also the episode manages to pander to the fan base by including a video of The Beatles’ television appearance (the song being played, Ticket to Ride, was released just a month prior to the show’s airing date). It really is a good thing that The Beatles ended up being a long-term success with enduring popularity; otherwise, this would have been a reference to a long-forgotten band.

The TARDIS finds its way to the top of the Empire State Building, along with some Daleks. Later in Tenth Doctor times we’ll be seeing some Daleks working on the very same building. After Manhattan, the crew lands on a moving ship (the Mary Celeste); this would probably be the first time they’ve landed on a moving object, so far. The ship moves on to a haunted mansion exhibit (note: the writers could have known about the Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion since it was already under construction and had been publicized).

I really liked the fact that the Daleks’ time machine is much like the TARDIS, i.e. bigger on the outside, and the Doctor vs. Robot Doctor fight. Very nifty.

Finally, we say farewell to the original companions — Barbara and Ian. I don’t know yet what the other companions will bring: when I started watching the old series my only frame of reference for companions was Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, who are quite different in attitude (and age) from Barbara and Ian. I didn’t really know what to expect, and thus was surprised by the somewhat formal style of Ian and the fear often exhibited by Barbara, plus by the patronizing relationship the Doctor had with Barbara. Some things were the same: the Doctor needs his companions, just as they need him, and he depends on them thinking on their feet and never really losing hope. Over the course of the first two seasons our Barbara and Ian matured and became more fun, more interested in their travels, more inclined to get involved in local affairs in the places they visited. I have high hopes for the upcoming companions.

 

Moving on for now; The Crusade; The Space Museum

I still haven’t watched the Netflix DVDs that I have out (incidentally, they are Labyrinth and Xanadu), and so decided to just move on to the next serials and to watch The Web Planet when I get to it.

I successfully watched the parts of The Crusade that were available on YouTube. This happens to be episodes 1 and 3, with 2 and 4 being available as photo montages and the original audio track plus a narrator to connect what was happening to the audio track (i.e. explain what’s in between the photos). It’s a palace intrigue serial, but a rather good one at that. It was rather hard to follow, since I wasn’t in the mood to watch the photo montage and thus missed vital parts of the serial. Basically, since our crew (Vicki, Barbara, Ian, and the Doctor) is still alive and well at the end of the last episode, all is well.

The Space Museum is continuing a trend from the episode that introduced us to Vicki (namely, “The Rescue“) — that is, a world with 60s-looking rocket ships. The whole theme of the Doctor visiting (being stuck in?) a museum of alien stuff, only to be surprised by a Dalek being kept in the exhibit, will be repeated in the episode “Dalek” in the New Series’ Season 1.

The show itself is built on a somewhat non-linear basis, taking advantage of the time-traveling aspect of the overall premise for once. At one point the Doctor gets frozen in a scene vividly similar to Han Solo being frozen in carbonite…  The serial ends on a great cliff-hanger, a set up for the next show.  Overall, it’s actually been a pretty interesting story!

 

The Romans

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.

 

The Rescue

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.

 

Planet of Giants

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.

 

The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Just finished the 6-episode series from Season 2.  Apparently it exists as a two-disk set that Netflix was going to send me, but the second disk just contains the extras.  With 700 episodes, I don’t think I want to jump into watching all the extras just yet: if the time comes and I’m still interested in more Doctor Who things, I can always go back and re-rent the disks to watch all the extras.

I’m immediately facing a dilemma: go with the next chronologically available DVD on Netflix (something from the second doctor), or try to track down another few of the First Doctor episodes.  My watching plan needs further study.