The Ood Couple

Because of where the three episodes, that comprise the two stories on this DVD release, are placed in the second series run, it is a little unfortunate that they have ended up on the same disc! Perhaps there is truth in the old adage “opposites attract”. What we have here, in the two-part black hole tale, is not only the best story of the second series but the best of both last year’s and the most recent combined, coupled with, in “Love & Monsters”, not only the worst story of the second series but also the worst of both series together. A marriage made in heaven then!

And BBC THREE have also managed to pull off the same remarkable feat, over the Bank Holiday weekend, with their recent season of repeats. On Sunday night they ran the opening episode of the two-parter, “The Impossible Planet”, concluding the story, with “The Satan Pit”, the following evening as part of a double bill with the previously disclosed offending episode! What a shame their schedules didn’t allow a better combination. Or maybe it was a ruse to get us to watch Marc Warren battling Peter Kay all over again. If it was, it didn’t work. This viewer’s viewing terminated at 8:10pm precisely. Though, I have nothing against the Electric Light Orchestra! And even Elton wrote some good songs, back in the early Seventies, before giving up rock ‘n’ roll for showbiz!!

Many “Doctor Who” fans are no doubt waiting for the box set of the second series but, putting that to one side, I would be more inclined to buy this release if it only contained the first two episodes. It’s such an odd pairing of stories that here I am actually asking for less for my money! Imagine buying a box set containing both “The Caves of Androzani” and “The Twin Dilemma”!! If I watch “Love & Monsters”, especially after “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit”, I end up feeling depressed over the state my favourite show is in after 43 years but if I switch off at the end of the two-parter I leave the experience on a high.

With this in mind, there’s no point in the Abzorbaloff episode being on the disc. I long for incompleteness! Well, at least in this instance. I have in mind a scene missing from the original omnibus video release of that other story featuring Gabriel Woolf, “Pyramids of Mars”, to do with getting in and out the Priory, which made little sense until the repeats on BBC2, early 1994, when something illogical suddenly became completely clear! A DVD without “Love & Monsters” would still be the length of many classic releases, such as the aforementioned Sutekh story, and I, for one, would be happier if this artistically Ood coupling went their separate ways!

Charlie Salutes t.A.T.u.

This picture brought a smile to my face when I found it earlier in the week. Russian rockers meet British Royalty shock! Actually, Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina, better known as pop duo t.A.T.u., look really chuffed at meeting HRH the Prince of Wales. What I want to know though is how long does it take to get your handkerchief looking so perfectly poised?!! Charles seems to be enjoying himself, however, getting down with the kids, as a certain Doctor Tennant once put it. Usually dark-haired but here blonde, Yulia is drinking white while Lena is also drinking wine to match the colour of her hair.

The occasion is to celebrate the work of pop producer Trevor Horn. He was the man behind Buggles, giving us the immortal “Video Killed the Radio Star”, but is perhaps best known for producing Frankie Goes to Hollywood and their notorious number one hit single “Relax”. As is usually the case with me, I prefer some of his lesser known output. In particular, Propaganda’s “A Secret Wish” is one of my three favourite pop albums of all-time (the others being Siouxsie and the Banshee’s “The Scream” and Magazine’s “Real Life”). This LP spawned the hit single “Duel” and before that the equally excellent “Dr. Mabuse”. Trevor also produced a single by a little known French singer called Anne Pigalle, “Hey Stranger”, which is also worth a listen. And, bringing us into the 21st Century, he has applied his skill to bringing the Russian duo to a British audience. Including Prince Charles it would seem!

Psycho Killers!

Last Tuesday, on ITV4 at 6pm, there was another opportunity to see what is, in my opinion, the finest episode of perhaps the most consistently excellent SF series ever made... the series is Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's "UFO" and the episode... "The Psychobombs". Originally shown twelfth, on 30 December 1970, in a run of twenty-six, the story pits the operatives of SHADO against three human agents of the aliens, bent on destroying first a SHADO tracking station then a Skydiver submarine and finally SHADO HQ itself unless they cease operations immediately!

The episode boasts an excellent guest cast in the roles of "The Psychobombs". Deborah Grant plays Linda Simmonds who, whilst under the influence of the aliens, falls for series regular Michael Billington as Colonel Paul Foster. He is sent to investigate her after she strangles a policeman with superhuman strength given to her by the UFO which has landed in England. Deborah is perhaps best known to television viewers for playing the ex-wife of Eighties' cop "Bergerac".

David Collings plays Daniel Clark, the man who, again under alien influence, attacks Commander Straker (Ed Bishop) in his car and presents him with the written ultimatum. David is well known to "Doctor Who" fans for three guest appearances, as Vorus in "Revenge of the Cybermen", Poul in "The Robots of Death" and Mawdryn in "Mawdryn Undead". He also guested as Deva in "Blake", the last-ever episode of "Blake's 7" recently released on DVD. He is familiar to fans of "Sapphire and Steel" as Silver in eight episodes of that series.

The remaining human bomb, Clem Mason, is played by Mike Pratt, best known to viewers as Jeff Randall in cult late-Sixties paranormal comedy drama "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", which has also recently enjoyed a reshowing on ITV4. Eagle-eyed viewers will have spotted Christopher Timothy in this episode of "UFO", as the navigator of Skydiver 3, who, having recently starred in "Doctors", weekday afternoons on BBC ONE, is still perhaps best known as James Herriot opposite fifth Doctor Peter Davison and Robert Hardy in "All Creatures Great and Small".

The episode may have modern resonances in the light of suicide bombings but was produced in undeniably more innocent times. It is stylishly made, especially the close-ups of teardrops on Deborah Grant's cheeks, who incidentally looks stunning throughout, with some great explosion sequences but "UFO" was an attempt to populate a science fiction drama with real people with real emotions. "The Psychobombs" is one of two episodes that does not begin with the regular opening title sequence and the terrific Barry Gray theme tune.

(Revised Post)

Time to Order

It might seem hard to believe now but there was a time, back in the early Nineties, when I thought Russell T Davies would be good for “Doctor Who”! Following on from the excellent children’s serial “Moondial”, he was commissioned to write his first television drama “Dark Season”. Essentially two three-part serials, comprising 25-minute episodes, the lead character Marcie, played by Victoria Lambert, became thought of as a kind of female teenage Fourth Doctor figure with a slight nod to Sophie Aldred’s Ace. Some have said since that this serial inspired Joss Whedon’s “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” in that there is a school, where much of the action takes place, under which is a Behemoth, brought to life in the second story by none other than Servalan herself, Jacqueline Pearce. For Behemoth read Hellmouth. The serial is also notable in featuring an early performance by a young Kate Winslet.

“Dark Season”, like “Moondial” before it, was directed by Colin Cant and lucky enough to have a music score by David Ferguson. David is probably best known for sending shivers up the spine in the second season of “Cracker” as well as having the same effect in the BBC adaptations of several Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell) mysteries (“A Fatal Inversion”, “Gallowglass”, “A Dark Adapted Eye”), again in the early Nineties. Trained as a composer myself, it’s inevitable I’ll regard incidental music of the utmost importance in a drama’s success. I believe one of the reasons Graeme Harper’s two “Doctor Who” serials of the mid Eighties (“The Caves of Androzani” and “Revelation of the Daleks”) were so successful was because of the Roger Limb scores. Anyway, together with RTD, this talented triumvirate went on to produce a further six-part children’s serial, a couple of years later, in the much more adult themed “Century Falls”. Again centring around the activities of three teenagers, the story concerns the inability of the women in a village to conceive, and the possibly paranormal reasons as to why they should remain barren. Sterility being quite a heady subject for teatime possibly explains why this serial has never been repeated. A small point of interest is the inclusion of sisters with the surname Harkness, seemingly popular with RTD and no doubt distant relatives of a certain space-faring Captain.

In the light of the two recent only-moderately-successful (for me at least) seasons of “Doctor Who”, I wonder if I will enjoy “Dark Season” and “Century Falls” quite as much when rewatching them, now that they have become available on DVD? I actually viewed “Century Falls” just before “Doctor Who” returned to our screens last year, from a Beta tape made at the time of transmission, to help get in the right frame of mind for the new series! I hadn’t actually seen any of RTD’s other work since these two productions, not even the most notorious and best known of them “Queer as Folk”, simply because the subject matter didn’t particularly appeal. I do regret still not having seen “The Second Coming” however. “Dark Season” I remember as fun but lightweight with much more meat on the bones of “Century Falls”. I was disappointed RTD didn’t continue to write for this genre and now I’m disappointed that he has! Had he shown us his version of the Time Lord before the advent of “Buffy” I believe his “Doctor Who” would’ve been a completely different proposition. It might’ve been partly directed by Colin Cant with music by David Ferguson! Ironically, if Davies hadn’t influenced Whedon, with his most “Doctor Who”-like serial, who in turn influenced him to create “Rosie, the Alien Ex-Terminator”, we might have actually got a new series of “Doctor Who”!

Revelations and Reservations!

The final two episodes of the second season of new “Doctor Who”, “Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday”, followed a similar path to the concluding two-part story of last year’s opening season. Although not as pronounced as last year, it was still really a case of two single episode stories tenuously linked together. “Army of Ghosts” was protracted padding up to the supposedly big reveal. I’d already guessed the Daleks were in the sphere, just from watching the trailer, despite the script’s desperate attempts to wrong foot us into thinking the void ship contained more Cybermen! It had to be something bigger otherwise the episode would simply have been replicating the climax of “Rise of the Cybermen”. I was more surprised, though only slightly, knowing these concluding episodes were shot back-to-back with the earlier Cybermen episodes, by the reappearance of Mickey towards the end of “Army of Ghosts”!! After that, it was only to be expected that Pete would put in an appearance in “Doomsday” and, surprise surprise, not to leave anyone out, up pops resistance-leader Jake, restraint being an unknown concept to RTD!!!

Everything RTD does is so obvious. I wonder how many children actually got the “Ghostbusters” reference in “Army of Ghosts”? Only those whose parents own a copy of the film on DVD I suspect, or have seen it by chance on TV. He seems to have a checklist of things “Doctor Who” has never done and wants to be the first to do them. Three examples spring immediately to mind. Firstly, a Dalek had never appeared inside the TARDIS until “The Parting of the Ways”; secondly, a Dalek and Cyberman hadn’t appeared in the same frame until “Doomsday”… One question that occurred to me, before “Doomsday” aired, was how well would the Daleks and Cybermen look together, bearing in mind their difference in size? It would obviously have to be shot quite carefully to avoid making the Cybermen seem ridiculously tall or, conversely, the Daleks too short; and finally, Martha Jones, to be played by Freema Agyeman, will be the first black female companion. There is nothing wrong with any of these ideas as long as they evolve naturally out of a good script.

Good scripts are currently very scarce in “Doctor Who”. Matt Jones wrote the strongest story this year, with “The Impossible Planet” and ”The Satan Pit”. You could argue even those episodes are highly derivative but when has that not been the case in “Doctor Who”? Jon Pertwee’s first two seasons borrowed unashamedly from “The Avengers”, “Adam Adamant Lives!” and especially the Fifties’ “Quatermass” trilogy, for example. There’s nothing wrong with borrowing intelligently from the best! Tellingly, Matt is the one writer who won’t talk about his work on the show. Could that be because it was tampered with too much by a certain Executive Producer? It didn’t need jokes about Walford, just as the plot of “Army of Ghosts” wasn’t advanced with the inclusion of Peggy Mitchell. Not all of us are slaves to “EastEnders”. Could it be RTD wants us to think of “Doctor Who” as “EastEnders” in space?!! I’ve only ever watched one episode of “EastEnders” and that was because, ironically, it was directed by Graeme Harper, the man at the helm of these closing Cybermen episodes!!!