Destiny of the Daleks

I'm starting to get very, very bored with this.


Why is such a soul given to me? Why such generosity of spirit? Why such critical ignorance? Is everyone else too picky, or am I just wrong? I'm starting to get nervous here - it almost doesn't matter what the consensus of Who-fans is, because I'm almost certain to disagree with it.


I'm going to a convention in April. What am I going to do? Print out cards saying "I like Tom Baker best, Hinchcliffe'n'Holmes were fantastic and Caves of Androzani is the only episode ever?". I'm just going to have to keep my mouth shut about Adric, the Master, Trial, Warriors of the Deep and King's Demons. As a fan, I feel a failure!



So almost inevitably, I loved Destiny of the Daleks, but to see the vicious job most internet reviewers give it I am AGAIN in the position of going against the consensus and defending as enjoyable an episode much criticised.


Where to start?


First observation - does the TARDIS really land at the Cave of Caer-Bannoch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail?


Aside from this bizzare image, the location was the thing that really gripped me for the first two episodes. Yes, I know the words "...of the Daleks" should have given it away, but I spent the time thinking "are we on Skaro?" Again, the radiation tablets, the destroyed city, the bunker. More importantly, I was waiting for the Utopia moment - "when will the Doctor work out we are on Skaro?" - and when it came it wasn't disappointing. There was something quite special and very cool in revisiting that same planet yet again (The Daleks was set there too) and seeing it at a different stage of history. Especially returning to those iconic bunkers.

I'm starting to appreciate that the Doctor has always had it in for robots. He abuses the Movellans as "as bad as the Daleks", which isn;t remotely fair considering how sneaky the pepperpots are; but tallied up with Drathro and Kameleon, it makes you wonder. The Movellan costumes are awful if you think about them too hard. But that goes for most Doctor Who, so I tend to not think at all. Except sometimes you can't help it - the Daleks? Robots? This grated every time someone used it. And while there are a thousand ways to retcon it - he meant "robotic" not actually "robot", the Dalek casings are robotic etcetc - I'd just rather presume it was a massive continuity error.



I found the Daleks quite scary in this. One thing you can say is that for the most iconic story, Genesis of the Daleks doesn't really have all that many in. For example, Romana has always shown a quick tongue and a lot of mettle but it's obvious they terrify her - true, she's just regenerated, but it's still a hard scene to watch. I still haven't got a handle on Miss mk. II - nice outfits, but time will tell if I ever like her as much as her predecessor.



The plot is very solid. The digression with Romana and the rocks is no longer than it needs to be, and for once, the Daleks have good cause to bring Davros back. Having watched them out of order, and been thoroghly confused by Lytton's Movellan war exposition, it was great fun to see the Doctor post Davros off to Resurrection of the Daleks.

The Doctor - this is what Tom Baker's Doc is all about. Other actors, for sure, did silly, serious, crotchety, poetic or affectionate better than he did. His skill is to do all of them, at the same time, one after another, so fast you can't keep up, not to mention anticipate. "Mercurial" - that's the word they keep applying to David Tennant, but in comparison he doesn't deserve it because this is the Doctor you just can't nail down.


Is he scared of Davros? Is he not scared? Is he laughing at him, or is that a front; is his willingness to kill him a front, or does the Doctor actually genuinely want to do it? I found myself wondering, because at times boy did he look tempted - God I want to give him a hug - um, when was the last time I declared a definite favourite Doctor? Because obviously, he's always been the best. And always will be.


One thing I have noticed, however, is Four's fondness for the humble explosive. It's still incongruous with my idea of the Doctor.


Of course, the highlight of any episode willo always be the confrontation with the villain - and I so, so wanted to see the Doctor's reaction to finding Davros again. It was not disappointing. I loved the Doctor holing himself up in the room with him. The point is beautifully made that Davros and the Doctor are both the advantage of their relative sides, and they can't beat one another either. Suddenly, I understand this Doctor-Davros duality that people always go on about.


This is a lovely episode to look at. There's something to be said, of course, for a colour scheme - Genesis and Terminus all in grey, Planet of Fire all in red. But the range of pretties. It's nicely directed too - especially when the Doctor goes to rescue Romana from the Nerva device, I like the silent walk. The combination of location shooting and well realised soundstages is completely fluid.

I suppose it has the misfortune to be compared to Genesis, always a hard act to follow, but where Genesis was a superb bit of one-off telly, Destiny is simply a bog standard episode done very well. You do have to remember, there are only two or three stories that can stand firm when compared to Genesis of the Daleks, making this approach strictly unfair.


In other words, a good solid story overly criticised.

The Power of Kroll

Viewing recommendation: actually, this isn't bad watched all in one go


It's Tom'n'Mary again, doing screwball comedy in space for The Power of Kroll.

At it's heart, this is actually Caves of Androzani with tentacles. Doctor accidentally finds himself stuck between a warring faction or four, and as both sides panic as they assume he's working for the enemy, he continues work on a completely disconnected motive. Here, rescuing Romana and finding another piece of the Key to Time - which doesn't have quite the same emotional punch, but the theory is the same.

Obviously, that comparison is far from insulting, and this is a pretty decent muddy romp. The plot's nothing new - it's Stahlmann Inferno vs. Timanov Planet of Fire, but it's nicely done and far from dull.

Yes, I just admitted to liking Power of Kroll. Deal with it. Having a lookie on the internet, no one will give the episode a break, which seems quite unfair. It might be bad Robert Holmes - oh the betrayal, that Saint Holmes has only produced a 4/5 star episode - but it's still pretty good by the standards of the rest of us. The sets are really nice - those lovely swamps! - the dialogue ain't bad, and it's not like Holmes was the first person to reuse a hackneyed plot on this show.

It's also got my new favourite cliffhanger ever - oh no! Romana is being attacked by an unconvincing man in a monster suit! The resolution? Don't worry, Romana - that isn't Kroll. It's a Swampie in an...unconvincing monster suit...

That's taking post, post, post irony a bit too far. And it must be said, as soon as I worked out that Kroll was a giant squid, that other famous bit of Caves sprung to mind, with the ill-advised magma monster. Have they outstretched themselves, I asked myself?

Well, yes, but they do their best. And I didn't mind it too badly. It was at its best when confined in the refinery, with the four most sympathetic extras of the week putting up with a bit of slow burning terror. Their dialogue was great - particularly enjoyed it when they tried estimating its size. You do get a sense of their situation, as they get picked off one at a time. There's something uniquely terrifying too about classic-Who's approach to special effects when compared to the glossy CGI of a modern movie. Obviously, overlaying Kroll on the marsh images didn't work brilliantly - but I found it quite creepy, and the quality of the effect was part of the creepiness. Had it been a perfectly rendered 3D creation, it wouldn't have been as good.

I'm starting to really appreciate Romana - look at her reaction to being kidnapped and sacrificed! She's smart, witty and very stylish indeed. Maybe Emma Watson, if they bring the character back in a few years.

All in all? Normally, you can kinda tell while watching an episode what the internet is going to say. I expected this to be fairly highly praised. Wrong, very wrong. But I enjoyed it.

"Eternity, as you understand it..."

Human nature is thus that there will never be an agreed criterion for what makes a good episode of Doctor Who - except maybe the words "written by Robert Holmes/Steve Moffat".

Here's mine: it has to retain my interest while the Doctor, and preferably the companions too, are off screen.

Simple, but terribly rare as well. Every week, we are introduced to a cast of extras, with whom we are expected to sympathise, purely because the regulars can't be killed off. The chump who screams before the title sequence. The arrogant, angry character who learns the error of his ways and dies heroically. Grunt after unnamed UNIT grunt.

The old series in particular, with a less Doctor-centric approach and also a longer running time to fill, always has side plots going - the romance in Inferno, the saboteurs in Warriors of the Deep, everything in Caves of Androzani. More often than not, they're a case of "yawn - can we get back to the heroes now?".

Stand up The Ribos Operation. Ribos is one of the most richly detailed planets in the series - nice production design helps, with a Mongolian-Byzantine thing going on and that atmospheric snow. Yet we hear about it's dotty ecosystem, have a subplot with Binro (read: Gallileo) the Heretic vs. the soothsayer with her bones, and get countless namedrops to worlds, economies, backstories. It feels like a real place, the little Level 2 world which still relies on soothsayers, and was an ex-haven of jethryk - the other most valuable mined substance in the galaxy...

I found myself wondering all sorts of things - Is Metebelis Minor anywhere near Metebelis 3? Garron pronounces it differently to both Planet of the Spiders and Green Death, so I've no doubt it must be the same place. What is the exchange rate between groznits (The Mysterious Planet) and opeks? And how valuable is jethryk, say, compared to spectrox? There are crosses in the decoration of some rooms, items and the soothsayer - is this a Christianised planet, or at least one with a local supersticious variation on Christianity which has spread from illicit travellers? It certainly seems to relate to the iconography of the Greek/Russian Orthodox church. And so on...

It helps that the supporting cast are all a cut above - about 20% more interesting than they should be. Garron is Falstaff in Space, and his relationship with Unstoffe initially appears to be Glitz'n'Dibber mutual abuse. But it's deeper than that - you do get the odd hint of how fond they are of each other. Graff is more inbteresting than he should be. Our show is populated by eeevil tyrants, and he's the nearest the episode has to a "villain" in typical terms" - yet it's Garron who tells us he was despised by his own people, so who really knows? His relationship with Sholak gives him a great deal of humanity - from their double act dialogue, to the reminicences of the labyrinth. I even managed to get choked up at the end. Everyone forgets that even bad guys love their friends. Hitler adored his dogs...

These people are why it fits my definition of "great episode" - because Binro never meets the Doctor, though I'm sure they both would have thought the other was terrific, nor contributes much at all to the plot except pure character for the sake of character. His scenes with Unstoffe are completely pointless, in story terms, yet also the highlights of the episode. The Doctor never really meets Graff either, defying the almost universal rule that the greatest part of any story will be the Doc facing off against the villain. The scene happens, but happens in silence. This is why Ribos feels real - because in a universe where Ancient Evil From the Dawn of Time seeks a Relic of Ultimate Evil, there are little people as well. Yet I really cared for all the extras - and that's probably not a phrase you'll ever hear me use again. Nor are you likely to get a blubber out of me for extras ever again (Sharaz Jek was an exceptional circumstance; here I have no excuse...)

Hell, this is probably the only review on my entire blog which has left the Doc and companions to the end as being less interesting. Not that they're bad, of course. This is one of my favourite Fourth Doctor episodes for his Doc too.

I love the high level of wacky in the first two episodes, and then does a drastic u-turn half way through into seriousness. I like this. It does sum up his Doctor very well, who could be Mr "I walk in eternity..." at one moment, and Mr "would you like a Jelly Baby?" the next. His schoolboy reaction to the White Guardian is adorable, and it's obvious he finds Garron absolutely great. But he can handle the serious stuff too, particularly a very quiet blink-and-you-miss-it admission of terror.

Romana - what can I say? People always bring her up as a romantic candidate, but normally mk.II on the grounds of real-life romance going on behind the scenes. Actually, I was shocked by the large amount of flirting which goes on here. Even very understated things, like the way their hands touch as she reveals the piece of Key. I'm also fond of the Doctor pointing out that if she thinks this is dangerous, she has no idea...

Any criticisms? Not really. I rolled my eyes at the Shrievenzales - people criticise the new series for a "monster of the week" approach, but it's just more obvious nowadays because they are instantly turned into merchandise and flogged to the kids. Actually, Doctor Who has always lazily stuck unecessary beasties into otherwise fine episodes (did somebody say Magma monster? What about that pillowcase that shows up at the end of Frontier in Space? etc), so I don't object to it here more than anywhere else.

A damn fine episode, in pretty much every way. To cap it off, I've a nasty feeling it's going to be very rewatchable...