Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO STORY ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN: NIGHTMARE OF EDEN (1979)

"Raaaahr!  Were's monstas!"

"I shall be charging you with gross neglect of duty. The passengers should be your first concern, yet I find you drunkenly looking on as they are attacked and killed. Well?"
"They're only economy class; what's all the fuss about?"

1) This is the last serial written by Bob Baker, the writing partner of David Martin....and if I wrote this, it'd be my last serial as well because it's thoroughly and absolutely wretched.  Even if we have to assume that the story was, like others in this season, heavily rewritten by Douglas Adams, Baker's tale is so messed up I can't imagine anyone salvaging it.

2) I am absolutely convinced that Lewis Fiander was doing an imitation of Peter Sellers' Dr. Strangelove when assaying the role of Tryst....so much so that between the weird 'vest-with-John-Lennon-specs' outfit and that bizarro accent, Tryst stops the story dead every single time he opens his mouth.

3) What the Hell is Lalla Ward wearing throughout this story--a maternity dress?  That thing is so loose-fitting and so volumous that Romana looks positively lost in that ugly violet thing.

4) You know how I'm convinced that Adams rewrote this script?  There are a whole slew of ideas--the whole crux of the drug running storyline revolves around a matter storage/projection machine--that are given, ummmm, less-than-solid scientific rationalization.  The one quality of the matter projector, namely the way people are able to move back and forth into the projected window, is never explained at all.  We just see The Doctor and Romana jump into the projection of Eden and are asked to accept this.

Monsta Hug!  Monsta Hug!

5) And then there's the monsters....grumblemutter...or should I say 'da monstas.'  The Mandrils are amazingly bad designs, not the least because they sport what looks like big-ass black sausages for a mouth (which, I guess, means they're related in some way to those dorky sea creatures from The Horror Of Party Beach....).  It doesn't help that the cumbersome outfits make moving difficult, and that the zipper and the odd flash of side-flesh when the shirt pulls out from the pants can be clearly seen at points.

6) I will give this one small thing to the serial--there are some tiny moments where the Doctor and Romana actually act like, you know, The Doctor and Romana.  I particularly liked the moment where the Doctor is told he has to traverse a stretch of space liner rife with Mandrils sans K-9 and guns, and Tom Baker grins happily and says, 'I'll have to use my wits.'

7) And while we're on the subject of K-9....David Brierly assays the voice of the little tin dog and as such, this iteration does.  not. work.  The character is actively annoying from the moment it opens its 'mouth.'  And since its co-creator is writing this script, K-9 gets loads to do--most of it embarassing (particularly the moment where K-9 'sniffs' a character when the Doctor introduces him as a friend).

8) Okay, so you want to make this story about the dangers of drugs; I get that.  But do you have to do the Full Reefer Madness to depict how terrible a drug this vraxion is?  I mean, David Daker's Captain Rigg downs just one spiked drink and becomes this lazy, giggling numbnuts instantly.  The choice Daker makes to play this, which all campiness and Adams-esque 'comedy,' detracts from the supposed seriousness of the vraxion threat.

"....and I anticipate a ratio of 10 women for every man...."

9) For a series known for lame and tatty micro-budget designs, this serial hits a new low.  For a supposed luxury liner, the scenes of people in foil jumpsuits in a cardboard corridor manages to break the suspension of disbelief.  There is nothing--not the corridors, not the labs, not the engine rooms--that look like anything other than hastily designed sets.  Usually there's enough interesting things going on we can overlook the cheapness, but given how awful the story is....well.....

10) On the whole, the cliffhangers are subpar.  However, the third episode cliffhanger, where the Doctor seems to evaporate into nothingness when he successfully separates the two ships is pretty good thanks to some really good optical effect.  It doesn't convince us for a second, but at least it's neat.

Overall...One of the worst stories during one of the worst seasons in Classic Who, this serial fails on almost every level.  Avoid at all cost.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO STORY ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR: DESTINY OF THE DALEKS (1979)

Tom Baker and Lalla Ward try to run away
from a heavily rewritten script....

"Dead?  I do not die.  Mark this moment, Doctor.  In the history of the universe, this moment is unique.  Davros lives!"
"Yes, well I can see your long rest hasn't done anything to cure your meglomania.  Have a jelly baby."

1)  And here we begin Lalla Ward's two and a half season tenure as Romana....and we begin it in typical Graham Williams/Douglas Adams fashion with a comedy sequence which shows Romana being very cavilier in her usage of her regenerations to convince the Doctor she should just mimick Princess Astra's form.  It's a tiresome scene that takes up too much time in the first episode of this serial, and it's a definite harbinger of the the way the Williams era will spiral out of control.

2) That being said, I rather like the visual appearance of Romana in this story.  With the long white scarf and the pink suit, she serves as a sort of female mirror image of the Doctor while also retaining her own identity.

3) This is the first of the Dalek stories that begins the devaluation of the characters as villains, primarily because they are subservient to Davros.  As of this moment, they're pepperpot-shaped henchmen to a man in a bad mask.

4) You know, after the series spends a chunk of the last serial devoted to setting up the new status quo of The Randomizer shifting the Tardis, ummmm, randomly with the Doctor having control of where they will end up....they pretty much crap on that by having them show up on Skaro, a place The Doctor has shown up on several times before.

It's the invasion of the cosplaying rasta fashion models!

5) The problem with the Movellans is simply that outside of being another race of robots, they've got nothing going for them.  They're just robots who are pure-d-evil, and that's that.  There's nothing that makes them interesting or scary or even notable, which means the tension the story is counting on never develops.  It doesn't help that those mopheads make them look like a bunch of people going trick-or-treating as a rasta disco band.  

6) This is the beginning of the year where the highly overrated Douglas Adams takes over as script editor (who heavily rewrote the script)...which means that Graham Williams' tendency to treat the show as a comedy runs rampant.  The forced humor begins with that regeneration sequence at the top of the story and continues throughout, the low point being the Doctor mocking a Dalek for not being able to climb up a steep incline--which absolutely invalidates the Daleks (already becoming a bit naff due to their subservience to Davros) as scary threats.

7) You know, while there is a legitimate germ of a good idea as to why the Daleks are seeking Davros out....the moment Davros shows up, that germ is discarded save for some stray mentions in dialogue and that endless 'rock/paper/scissors' scene that is supposed to explain why the Daleks need what Davros is supposed to provide them so much.  For that matter....

"I am ready for my close-up, Mr. DeVille...."

8) Is it just me, or does the whole plot disappear thoroughly around the end of episode three?  The second we get the introduction of that atmosphere-burning bomb, the whole thing just degenerates into a lot of silliness with Daleks running around with bombs strapped to their bodies and these two dull alien races getting caught in the crossfire.

9) I think I understand the decision to raid the BBC Wardrobe of all the old Who costumes to kit out the Dalek slave force....but seeing all these recognizable and obviously tatty outfits--some of which are very ill-fitting--only emphasizes the cheapness of this production.  I really have to wonder if the slave force would have been better served by showing up in simple, nondescript outfits because....

10) ...when all is said and done, the slave force and Tim Barlow's Tysson are just there to muddy the waters.  There's so little done with them that they come off as a whole big bunch o' filler....which is sad, because Barlow is generally really good, and plays off of The Doctor well.

Overall...the beginning of one of the darkest era of the series, where canonical elements are treated with contempt by Adams and Williams.  While it may not be the worst Dalek story ever (Russell T. Davies saw to that), it is amongst the worst.  Avoid.

(And speaking of avoid...wait until we get to the next story...)

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO STORY ONE HUNDRED AND ONE: THE ANDROIDS OF TARA (1978)

When I Googled images for 'Androids Of Tara', this is the
first thing that came up...Sigh...

"You can't trust androids, you know."
"That's funny, you know. That's what some androids say about people."

1) I think it's indicative of the Graham Williams era that one of its greatest serials is one which pretty much slavishly follows The Prisoner of Zenda, only with science fiction trappings like androids interposed within it. Hell, when one of your major actors seems to have been cast solely because of his resemblance to Ronald Coleman is uncanny and The Doctor tells another character that their plan has been done before...well, they're not even bothering to hide it.

2) But one of the reasons this story works so well is the way writer David Fisher finds a way to make the android tech critical to the story. There are certain ways that the plot would not work in this iteration without the presence of androids. And because we accept the use of android tech, the other weird tech aspects--like the electronic crossbows and swords--make a lot more sense

3) A large portion of why this serial is so much fun lies in the performance of Peter Jeffreys as Count Grendel. Especially given the pastiche nature of this episode, there was a need for a larger than life villain, and Jeffreys takes the opportunity to breathe life into a charming cad like the Count. And more importantly, Grendel is smart. He's never made to look the fool by the Doctor--something that will become a problem as we get deeper into Williams' reign--and bases his strategies on logic and a love of cunning. He's so fun that when he's allowed to escape, you almost wish they found a way to bring the Count back.

4) I find it really refreshing that Fischer gets rid of the whole Key To Time aspect of the story within the first ten minutes so he can then dive into the silliness and craziness of the actual tale. Yes, there are moment when the Key fragment becomes the focus of the scene, but usually it's there only to tell us more about the character who's bringing it up, as in the moment where we learn just how intelligent Lois Baxter's Madame Lamia really is.

"I am going to ask you to take your hand off my ass politely..."

5) I think I've mentioned how much I enjoyed it whenever Tom Baker took up a sword and got all Erroll Flynn, right? Well, this is manna for me, as Baker gets to ride a horse, and engages in a climatic sword fight with Jeffreys that is really cool.

6) Since I mentioned her before, I rather liked the way Lois Baxter found a way to infuse Madame Lamia with more nuance than she really needed. One gets the sense that Lamia is clever, maybe even more clever than Grendel, but allows herself to be used due to a combination of Tara's caste system and her own feelings for the Count. It's a pity that she's written out about halfway through the tale, because some of her interactions with the Count and Romana are pretty cool.

7) This is arguably the last time we'll see the Mary Tamm version of Romana being, well, a useful and willful counterpoint to the Baker Doctor. She's the one who sticks to the mission of finding the Key fragment, after all. But there's this tendency to the 'wailing frail' archetype, as she gets kidnapped not once, but twice, and struggles to ride a horse that's a sign of things to come. Hell, when we finally meet her in her dual role as The Princess Strella, we're rather struck by how much more proactive she's in.

"The pellet with the poison is in the vessel with
the pestle--the Hell you say!"

8) God, that freaking pig-midget monster thing. Thankfully, unlike the Shrivenzale of the first Key To Time story,it's only used once and glimpsed very briefly...but it still is an embarassment that points out the chintziness of the show's production at this time.

9) I do wonder if the story wouldn't have been more effective if the serial at the very least moved away from the very Zenda-esque trappings we see here. Because the costuming and sets are all reminiscent of that Ronald Coleman classic, we're constantly reminded of the source material. It's made even more peculiar given the rather fetching outfit Romana produces as 'what all the fashionable Tarans are wearing this year,' which looks nothing like the very Edwardian fashions we see on display here.

10) Even though Williams is very much enamored of K-9--hell, the little monster originated under his reign--it's interesting how they're already finding way to write it out for key scenes. While we do get a lot of K-9 making things easy for Baker, the climax literally dumps him in a boat in the middle of the moat...and it's just an echo of things to come once John Nathan-Turner takes over.

Overall...one of the better stories in the Graham Williams era in spite of its slavishly following the playbook of a classic film.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO STORY NINETY-NINE: THE PIRATE PLANET (1978)

"You're complaining about your scarf?  Look at me, sah.
LOOK.  AT. ME."

"You commit mass destruction and murder on a scale that's inconceivable and you ask me to appreciate it just because you happen to have made a brilliantly concieved toy out of the mummified remains of planets?"
"Have some care, Doctor. It is not a toy!"
"THEN WHAT'S IT FOR?"

1) This, the second serial for the 'Key To Time' season, is the first of two (three if you count 'Shada,' the story that was meant for Season 17 but never finished due to a strike) written by Douglas Adams. And as such, it is all over the place, and features gags being set up just for the sake of gags. I have grown to not appreciate Mr. Adams' brand of humor, although I will admit that it is less intrusive in its cleverness than some of his other works.

2) Like the previous story, this serial features an over-the-top bad guy in Bruce Purchase's Captain. Unlike that previous story, Purchase's over-the-topedness is marginally more entertaining...and when we learn that his bluster is a conscious choice to conceal a deeper motivation, it adds a level of depth that Paul Seed's Graff Vynda K lacked. That being said...

3) ...there are story elements in this story, especially involving The Captain and his assistant, Andrew Robertson's Mr. Fibuli, that mirrors the previous story so closely there's a fierce sense of deja vu. It makes me wonder if both stories would have benefitted from being separated by another, less similar stories.

4) This is the second story featuring Romana, and we're still at the point where Romana is a Very Good Idea Indeed. This is the first time where the character separates from The Doctor for some scenes, and Mary Tamm's mixture of slight innocence and haughtiness plays well when contrasted with The Captain.

5) And of course we continue to see the kiddification of the series under Graham Williams. For every element that seems kinda horrific and adult (the ultimate fate of these planets that The Captain mines to obsolescence is particularly terrifying, especially given The Captain's intention of using Earth next), there's stuff obviously put in to amuse the children like the electronic parrot that engages in a battle with K-9.

"Tell us more about your affair with Churchill, grammy!"

6) Okay, I know that the big reveal involves who really is the big bad of this serial is supposed to be the main shock....but it's telegraphed . There are so many prominent shots of this person that we know there's something wrong. Plus when that person's true nature is reveal, the actor's performance is pretty, well, bad. It's almost as if you wish The Captain remained the villain of the piece.

7) I truly wonder if David Warwick's Kimus and Primi Townsend's Mula are necessary to the plot. When all is said and done, they don't really do much, as The Doctor and Romana is the one who does the heavy lifting. Kimus in particular seems useless save to spout some anti-Captain rhetoric and provide some mild exposition about Queen Xanxia...but there's no reason not to collapse his character into Mula, who at least has the excuse of being the sister of one of the Mentiads.

8) And speaking of the Mentiads, while I will agree they do have a purpose in the story, they are indicative of one of the many problems I have with Adams as a scriptwriter...namely that he doesn't know when to stop throwing new ideas into the mix. As with pretty much everything he wrote, this serial at times come off as an sausage so overstuffed that it's exploded. There's so many ideas thrown into this pot, a number of these things leak out and just sit there messily.

"Ahhhh, this is boring...let's go watch TWILIGHT:
BREAKING DAWN PART II."

9) While this story has not aged well in my eyes, there is one magnificent moment that almost redeems it all. The scene where The Doctor confronts The Captain over the display case of destroyed planets, debating whether it is a marvel of science or an abomination, stands out. The way Baker tries to rationally explain why he won't applaud the Captain's efforts, then explodes in righteous, overpowering anger when the Captain rebukes him shows us a Doctor we won't be getting much for the bulk of the Williams era.

10) Reasons why I am no longer endeared by the vaunted Douglas Adams humor #42: after three and a half episodes of carefully constructed plotting, or building up the mystery and getting all our ducks in the row, we get this torturous set up so that Adams can spring a play on the phrase 'throwing a spanner in the works.' That the climax is a joke blunts the impact of said threat, and makes the entire story up to that point several gradients of irrelevant.

Overall...a well-constructed story for the most part that frequently gets derailed by Adams' tendency to reach for a laugh. Some good performances redeem it somewhat, but the fact that this is one of the better stories of this season says more about the season and not the story itself.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO STORY NINETY-EIGHT: THE RIBOS OPERATION (1978)

Much like Sarah Jane, this Scottish brunette is not just a
pretty face...

"You want me to volunteer, is that it? And if I don't?"
"Nothing."
"You mean nothing'll happen to me?"
"Nothing. Ever."

1) And here we are at 'The Key To Time,' the 16th Season. And, as with most of the serials for this season, this is a story where moments of brilliance float in the middle of great seas of dullness. We're at the point where Williams seems to treat the show solely as a kid's show, coupled with his constant dancing about in an effort to keep Tom Baker engaged in the show--an action that will lead to one of the worst seasons of the classic series. Luckily, this is not that season.

2) The biggest new development is the introduction of the companion Romana, played by the stunning Scottish actress Mary Tamm. And even though Tamm proved to be...limited as an actress, she does manage to give Baker someone to work off of in a new way. Romana, because she is a Time Lady, is able to be confrontational with this Doctor about his shortcomings and lack of education, creating an interesting 'practical knowledge vs. learned knowledge' tension that isn't played off of enough.

3) The actual set-up for this season, written by Anthony Read and Graham Williams, features the Baker Doctor literally humbled in the presence of Cyril Lucking's White Guardian. It's really very well done, both as a change of pace and as a piece of exposition. We get to see Baker trying to exert himself in resisting the Guardian's wishes, but the very subtle threat (see the quote above) seems to put him back in line. Lucking plays the character well, and the scene is expertly done.

As Tom Baker's tenure went longer and longer, he began to
forget things...like turning off the lights in the refrigerator...

4) ...and then we're plunged into the story itself and it's...well, it's not very good. There's a definite sense that writer Robert Holmes really wanted to write a pilot for a show about a pair of intergalactic con-men and forced it into a Who serial. That whiff of back-door pilot never leaves the series even when it's focusing on The Doctor and Romana.

5) That being said, the con-men are responsible for one truly brilliant moment. When Nigel Plaskett's Unstoff reveals to Timothy Bateson's shunned and broken Binro that yes, his theories about the stars are absolutely true is what this show should be about--a great little nugget of wonder in the middle of this sad, plodding little serial.

6) I know there may be people who love Paul Seed's rather, ummm, vigorous performance as the Graff Vinda K, but I'm not one of them. He's so over-the-top, and seems to be proclaiming every line as if he just ate a particularly bitter lime. Plus--he does that weird Holmes trick (we'll see it again in The Caves of The Androzoni) of addressing the camera directly for one of the cliffhangers!

7) Even though they really don't do much with the setting, I do appreciate how the visual designers chose to give the setting a very Russian feel. It's the sort of thing we don't see often in science fictional settings, and it does give the serial a somewhat unique feel.

8) This may be the first serial where The Doctor--who, not three seasons ago, actively refused to kill The Daleks, the greatest source of evil in the galaxy--actively kills someone. I'm not sure if the reason I find this so distasteful is that it's the beginning of a long slippery slope that will end with Peter Davison waving a gun about and Sylvester McCoy, ummm, blowing up Skaro. It's a sign of some very, very bad things to come.

9) ....and then there's the Shrivenzale. This is an example of a creature that maybe--maybe--if it was kept in the shadows might've been effective, but every time we see it straight on looks ridiculous. I particularly like the one shot at the top of episode two where we see the Shrivenzale scrabbling to gain purchase against the stone floor to eat some Romana butt....and we see the rubber claws literally bending back in on itself. Thankfully we see only a little bit of these dopey monsters, but since they're the only real monstrous thing in this story their crapitude sticks out.

"Hello, we're the backdoor pilot people...can you spare a serial
to let us tell the audience our premise?

10) I think when you come down to it, the thing that bugs me the most about this story is how dismissive Holmes is of large chunks of the story he's created. He's obvious way more interested in Garron and Unstoffe than in anything else that's going on that the parts that don't directly involve those two (like, let's say, stuff involving The Seeker and her psychic abilities) are written in a grey, plodding way. Maybe this is because of Williams' interference and forcing the Key To Time framework on it, but it's very, very minor Holmes....and in this case, minor Holmes is not good Holmes.

Overall...there are some good moments in this story, particularly involving the set up for The Key To Time. But ultimately, this is a weird and bland tale that reads like a backdoor pilot that justifiably wasn't picked up.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO STORY NINETY-SIX: UNDERWORLD (1978)

"....maybe if I sit hunched up like this, I won't fall out of my
top so often...."

"But that'd just a myth, a story!"
"Myths often have a grain of truth in them, if you know where to look."

1) You will notice that large portions of this story look very different from previous serials. That's because, due to budget constraints, the bulk of the story was done using a model of a tunnel system chormakeyed in behind the actors. And while it is a unique look, it's not neccesarily a good look. The actors frequently look as if they're floating in space, and it's hard not to notice the sameness of all the rock behind them. Still, I give the production team credit for trying something new.

2) This is the penultimate Leela serial, and it's easy to see why Louise Jameson didn't want to come back the following season. Leela has pretty much become an infantilized child at this point, simpering and acting like a dolt and having tantrums left right and center. None of the insight and intelligence that Leela had under Hinchcliffe survives, leading us to wonder why The Doctor wants to hang with her in the first place. Plus the more modest version of the 'leather' tankini (obviously fashioned out of cloth) that covers up her butt but somehow cannot manage to sit comfortable under her bustline, resulting in many moments where we see Jameson struggling to adjust her outfit to prevent a pop-out moment.

3) Truth be told, there's a fundamental reason why I've been dragging my feet on writing up this 10 Statements is because....well, this serial is relentlessly boring. This is not like some of the later Williams serials (and trust us, we'll get to them down the line) where their awfulness bursts from the story like an overripe piece of fruit; this is a story that just sits there for long stretches and does nothing to distinguish itself one way or another. You're likely to forget it the moment the closing credits roll on the last segment.

It's not easy to float on a fabricated set....

4) Remember how I spent a lot of time talking about how Hinchcliffe frequently utilized horror motifs to liven up his tenure? Well, here we see Williams utilizing one of his favorite motifs--namely, utilizing mythology and classic literature and resetting them in a science fiction setting. There will be times where it works (wait until I sing the praises of The Androids of Tara), frequently, like here, it doesn't. This is because unlike Hinchcliffe, who found ways to obscure and change around his inspiration, Williams just marches out his inspiration aspects and asks us to marvel at how he's doing a riff on Jason and The Argonauts or Damocles or any one of a number of stories. Hell, he frequently has The Doctor pointing out the similies throughout this story.

5) You can see here that Williams has reoriented the series to become more child-oriented, which means that there's a broader sense of humor in effect. And that humor is pretty nonsensical, beginning with the opening scene with The Doctor painting....something. It's something that's still subtle at this point (it'll get reeeeaaaalllly broad once we pass the Key To Time season), but it's real jarring when placed next to Hinchliffe's more mature stories.

6) As much as I blanch at Leela's treatment and debrained status in this story, I do like the way she takes on a mentoring relationship she has with Idas, comforting and advising him much as The Doctor advises her. My favorite moment is a very, very sparse handful of positive moments arise from this mentoring, when Leela tells Idas 'The Doctor has saved many fathers,' when the young man frets over the fate of his father.

Yes, they're ribbed...for her pleasure.

7) Perhaps the oddest thing about this serial is how it carries on the borderline radical political stance that colored the previous serial, The Sun Makers. There's a moment in the third part where the story literally stops for a few minutes so that a random female Trog explains to The Doctor and Leela how they're pawns in a massive capitalist scheme where they're worked to exhuastion, the Seers orchestrating cave-ins that control the population so that the population won't exhaust their resources so that.... It's a dreadfully confusing moment that stops the painfully slow narrative flow of the story dead.

8) With all the pointless bullcrap that goes on in this story, I will say that the cliffhanger for the first part of this story is not only really novel, but plays on William's interest (an interest that is, shall we say, spottily displayed throughout his three year tenure) in hard science. The idea of the spaceship becoming a new planet due to gravity is pretty freaky, but it's very much in keeping with the physics of the situation. Were that the other two cliffhangers were as inventive.

9) Okay, the look of the Guards and the Seers (at least until they take their helmets off) are really intriguing....until you realize they have no reason to have that seven eyelets at each character's sightline. I get that, in keeping with the Jason and The Argonauts' theme of the serial, these costumes are supposed to signify that they're analogs to the Hydra, but still--what's the cultural reason for this change?

10) Even with all the mugging and dismissiveness The Doctor displays--even after he seems invested in the Minyans' quest given the part that race plays in Time Lord history--I do appreciate the way he sticks up for the Trogs and refuses to let them be ejected by arguing how they are the true race banks of the Minyans. It's indicative of these stray moments throughout the Williams stories where The Doctor isn't playing games and behaving like a goof, and is actually revealed as the Smart Crusader we know and love.

Overall...a boring, boring story that's sadly far more indicative of the Williams era that you would think. Hell, it may end up making you angry at how Williams seems to have squandered the set up he inherited from Hinchcliffe.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO STORY NINETY-TWO: THE HORROR OF FANG ROCK (1977)

"I have a bad feeling about this, Leela...it is as if a different,
less competant person is controlling our adventures..."

"Gentlemen, I've got news for you. This lighthouse is under attack, and by morning we might all be dead. Any worries?"

1) This is the first story of Graham Williams' tenure as the series' producer, and it'll prove to be a dark, dark time in the show's history. A lot of people give Williams a pass because his few highpoints are very, very high (The Key To Time), and because he got Douglas Adams to be script editor and to write a story or two. Since I think of Adams as a man with a very limited repertoire who showed more contempt for Who than affection, and The Key of Time hit and miss...well, I'm not all that impressed.

2) That being said--much like the last time we had a transition between producers, this story feels much more like a product of the previous administration. There's a definite Hinchcliffian Gothic feel to the story thanks to the atmospheric set designs and a clever script by Terence Dicks. In its way, this is the perfect melding between Hinchcliffe's very complex, very adult storytelling and Williams' much more simplistic, more child-oriented way of doing things.

3) The biggest indication of the sea change lies in Leela herself. It's a lot more subtle than it'll be in later serials, but there's a noticeable dumbing down of the character, as well as a general display of ignorance on her part. Louise Jameson does her best to deal with this schizophrenic revision, but it's obvious even when Dicks' script tries to create some continuity (the outburst where the Doctor defends her contention that there's been a drop in temperature is particular stands out) that she's not the person Philip Hinchcliffe intended her to be any more.

"So to review...you're greedy, you're honorable, you're a
screamer, and you're inexperienced....got that, Leela?"

4) While I appreciate that Dicks gives all of the supporting characters some time to define themselves, even inconsequential ones such as Ralph Watson's Ben and Annette Woollet's Adelaide, not all of them are worth it. Adelaide, in particular, is next to useless, being there mainly to sniff about Leela being a savage and screaming. A lot.

5) The weirdest thing about Leela is this story, incidentally, is how much I like her dressed in the slacks and cable-knit sweater she sports for the bulk of this story. The sweater takes away the rather silly leather tankini, which looks more bizarre in each new setting (but then, I'll learn to miss the original leather tankini when Williams introduces his new version later in the season), and seems to emphasize her viciousness. Heaven help me, here is the one time I find her sexy.

6) We should probably address the Rutan. Okay, I appreciate the (apparently spur-of-the-moment) choice to connect this monster to the Sontarans, the fact that it is...well, a giant dayglo green jellyfish with goofy shaky lines for eyes. The story does manage to conceal and obfuscate the appearance of the monster through shooting it through the foggy outsides of the lighthouse...but once it reveals itself to the Doctor on the steps in the fourth part, it's hard to take it seriously at all.

Evil Jello Molds are always a disappointment.

7) ...especially given how gleefully creepy Colin Douglas is when the Rutan sneaks around disguised at Ruben. Not saying a word, his only reaction a wicked grin, Douglas' performance during this sequence is wonderful to watch. It makes up for some of the cliched elements of the character in the earlier parts of the story.

8) That whole last segment of the fourth page seems a bit...gratuitous, innit? I understand the need to repel the Rutan invasion fleet, but the whole 'we're going to convert the lighthouse into a laser weapon using Lord Grubby-Hands' diamonds he happens to keep on hand' development stinks of last minute improvisation designed to take up a few minutes and give Louise Jameson an excuse to ditch those uncomfortable contact lenses.

9) Given where Williams' tenure goes over his next couple of seasons, I have to give the story credit for continuing the fatalism and darkness of the Hinchcliffe era. Outside of The Doctor and Leela, no one really survives. Okay, some of that lack of survival was welcome--I'm looking at you, Adelaide the Screamer--but even the characters who behave in a heroic matter get their asses electrocuted. And this fatalism also leads to a scene where The Doctor admonished Leela for exulting in her killing the Rutan which is brief, but effective.

10) The very end may seem rather innocuous, with the Doctor quoting the poem that partially inspired this story...but this is just the first appearance of a lazy trope Williams uses again and again where he acknowledges his source material at the end. And trust me, it gets tired quickly.

Overall...a fairly good transitionary story that has within the seeds to why I do not care much for Graham Williams' tenure as producer. And while it gets much worse as we delve deeper into this dark time of Classic Who, this tale can be tentatively recommended.