A Who post!

Another post I think was in order after the latest slogathons, as I've been talking nothing  but tennis, tennis and more tennis.

So here's a bit about something else, Doctor Whooo.  The new series starts in two weeks time just before Ester so I'm rather looking forward to it as I'm all the other fans are, with the quirky (well I guess they all are really!) and excellent Matt Smith returning as the Time Lord, and the foxy Karen Gillan as Amy Pond, along with Arthur Darvill as Rory, Amy's unlikely hubby and the saucy Professor River Song (Alex Kingston).  This series should provide more background info about River and how she knows the Doctor (so intimiately it seems!) and why exactly she has what appears to be his 500 year diary!  So look forward to seeing it unravel and there will be more posts on that soon.

Further to that I also got the Doctor Who Revisitations 1 box set, featuring three very good stories, The Talons of Weng Chiang, The Caves of Androzani and Doctor Who The Movie.  I already own these stories on DVD, but the main draw to the revisitations is of course more extras of which there are plenty for each story.  Talons is of course one of Tom Baker's all time classics and I already watched it quite recently, which is a great story, although it does have that stupid giant rat, and Androzani for that matter has that stupid Magna creature in it (both of them guys in rubber suits, or one furry and one rubber!).  Which was the only shame about the classic TV series, due to its budget even the great stories were marred by the production values at times.  But they are both classics that see the end of two eras, Talons the end of the Peter Hinchcliffe producer era, which was arguably the best of the whole series, and Androzani saw the end of Peter Davison's era, which saw him go out on a major high.  Its just a pity after that Doctor Who took a big dip in quality as Colin Baker's era started, and its not that I don't like Colin as the Doctor, its just the stories were shit, if he had better stories then he would have been just as watchable as the other Doctors.

Talons speaks for itself, minus the giant rat, it features some terrific performances, John Bennett is great as Li  S'Hen Chang (with some great make-up too, you can really believe he looks oriental!).  Christopher Benjamin who is terrific as ever as the flamboyant theatre owner Henry Gordon Jago, and Trevor Baxter as the reserved but game Professor Litefoot, and Michael Spice as the scary Weng Chiang, replete with freaky looking mask covering his twisted features, gives a booming performance.  Of course Tom Baker is on top  form as usual and Louise Jamieson gives quite a spirited powerful performance ("Die bent face!!").  Robert Holmes dialogue is wonderful here as it always is with some terrific lines throughout (the Doctor: never trust a man with dirty finger nails! Jago when he goes to check out his creepy cellor: When I do something I'm a man of character and determination. Casey, after you!") and David Maloney brilliantly directs the story, and the sets and period dress are just great.  Overall it stands as one of the best stories of its time.

The same for Androzani, again written by Robert Holmes, it was one of the last stories he wrote for the show, as he was brought back in for the last Peter Davison story, and it saw the fifth doctor go out on an all time high.  The story also features a really strong cast with Christopher Gable as the masked, twisted yet sympathetic Sharez Jek and Maurice Roeves who is great as Stotz, the mercanary.  The only slight weak link in the cast is John Normington as the megolamaniacal Morgus, who hams it up to the biggest butcher's shop there is, although he's so hammy you could say he was magnificently awful, especially the way he delivers his dialogue, turning to the camera "the spineless cretins!!".  Peter Davison is also very good in his last story, he plays the Doctor with a good mix of humour, seriousness and a great sense of desparation as the clock ticks for his life and Peri's as they have been infected with spectrox toxaemia.  As Matthew Sweeting so aptly puts it in the Androzani DVD documentary, the Doctor for once isn't trying to save the universe, he's trying to save his companion's life.  Which leads me to Nicola Bryant as Peri, while she isn't the best actress in the show (although she has done well since, and she has aged very well indeed!), she is ok, but mainly what we remember is the scene where she props up the Doctor as he collapses in the TARDIS at the end and we can see her impressive cleavage as she leans over!  Anyways it is a great story.       

However moving onto Doctor Who The Movie, which saw the resurgance of the series albeit for a short time, where Paul McGann stepped in and played the Doctor in fine style.  Paul with his scouser accent brought a nice touch to the Doctor, where he also infused it with some of his neurotic character from Withnail and I, and gave the story some romantic overtones.  This in fact proved to be quite controversial at the time, where the Doctor has a romantic attachment to his new and rather fine looking companion Grace (Daphne Ashbrook) and sees the Doctor kissing his companion for a change, and not in a platonic way.   At the time I thought it detracted from the movie, but in retrospect I don't think it did it any harm, as since in the new series, the romantic overtones have always been brought into the show, especially with David Tennant who had to have at least one snog per series!  Another potential contentious issue was having the Doctor's arch villain the Master, be played by an American actor, Eric Roberts (brother of Julia), but from the get go I thought he was excellent as the Master.  He brought a sly charm to his portrayal as well as a real sense of menace and danger, it also saw some rather violent scenes in the show (Bruce the man who's body the Master has taken over, at one point chokes his wife to death (not seen of course), and breaking Chang Lee's neck, the boy whom the Master uses to do his dirty work).  Although a fair criticism raised at the film from some fans was that it took a bit too long for Paul McGann's doctor to come into the show, as its only about 86 minutes long and he doesn't appear for the first 25 minutes!  But it did also feature a nice swansong for Sylvester McCoy's doctor, who I always thought was underrated, and it showed him bow out with dignity, it was also a shrewd move I thought from the producer of the movie Phil Segal to include Sly into the show to justify his reason for regenerating into Paul McGann.  So overall it was a very entertaining TV movie, but sadly I think due to poor ratings the American networks wouldn't take it on for a whole series.  Ultimately a lot of good US series have missed out or been cancelled due to poor ratings (Futurama, Family Guy which were of course brought back, Firefly, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to name a few), which shows the networks know hee haw about quality TV!

Anyway Doctor Who Revisitations 1 is well worth buying and they of course will be "revisiting" future stories as well, the second set features two not so good stories though: Resurrection of the Daleks (crap Peter Davison story replete with some disco death dancing from the dalek victims!) and The Seeds of Death (one of Patrick Troughton's most boring stories) but does have the very entertaining Jon Pertwee story Carnival of Monsters.  So in future there will be further good Revisitation box sets coming out, so worth keeping the eyes peeled for them.

And I'll leave it there, and no tennis mentioned! Wow!!!