Before I begin this review proper I’ll first point out that what I’m reviewing here is the 1993 video release, and not the original 1988 broadcast version. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, being five years old at the time of broadcast, it would be impossible for me to review that version (until a special edition DVD is released, containing the original and extended versions a la ‘The Curse of Fenric’). Secondly, the video release is one mostly likely seen by most fans more than fifteen years after broadcast. Not that it would make a whole lot of difference, as I gather the added footage doesn’t change the story a great deal. Anyway, on with the review… 

I’ll get straight to the point with this one. ‘Silver Nemesis’ has a reputation for being utter tripe, without a single redeeming feature. Many would have you believe that ‘Silver Nemesis’ is in fact one of the worst Doctor Who stories of all time. And, in many respects they are right. But for some reason, I can’t help but enjoy watching it. Shoot me. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, you’ll understand why I’ll spend the next four paragraphs ripping into the story, only to recommend it as an entertaining diversion at the end. And rip into it I shall.

Let me first deal with the similarities in plot this has with ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. It has to be said that the two are basically the same story told in slightly different ways. To summarise the plot, various groups are fighting over a super weapon, with one of these groups being one of the Doctors oldest adversaries, the Cybermen. The Doctor manipulates the various factions into wiping each other out, until only the orbiting Cyber fleet is left. He then uses the weapon against the Cyber fleet, completely obliterating them. Replace Cybermen with Daleks and Cyber fleet with Skaro and you have the basic plot outline for ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. This might have been excusable if these two stories were spread out over different seasons or if ‘Silver Nemesis’ actually tried to hide these similarities, but they were broadcast far too close to each other and at one point during ‘Silver Nemesis’ Ace says, “Just like you nailed the Daleks.” It’s almost as if the production team were proud in some way to be recycling plot lines.

‘Silver Nemesis’ is full of some of the most obvious padding of any Doctor Who story. The encounter with the skin heads and the limo ride with Delores Grey add absolutely nothing to the story and are, please forgive me for lowering the tone, shite. These are two prime examples, but one could also mention all that nonsense with the queen and her security guards. These scenes are so excruciatingly bad they border on the cringe worthy. If these pointless little diversions (which are clearly meant to be humorous, but aren’t) were removed then you’d have a half decent story. McCoy and Aldred are both a joy to watch, from their first scene enjoying a jazz session, where Courtney Pine guests as himself, to the scene where the pair jam the Cybermen signal for reinforcements with one of Pines cassettes. The battle scenes are well handled and the English countryside is well used as an exceptionally pretty backdrop. Furthermore, the supporting cast, which includes Anton Diffring and Fiona Walker as Her De Flores and Lady Peinforte respectively, all give decent performances, despite being poorly served by the script. But even with these plus points, ‘Silver Nemesis’ seems more than able to shoot itself in the foot and back all at the same time with one element to the story they really should have tried harder to get right. I am, of course, referring to the Cybermen.

Now, no review of ‘Silver Nemesis’ would be complete without commenting on these ‘deadly adversaries’. For a monster or creature to work and be scary within the confines of an early evening family show, then it should all be taken deadly serious by the cast and crew. It shouldn’t be played for laughs. But laugh at the Cybermen I did. You see these buffoons are so weak, stupid and incompetent that half of their number is wiped out by gold tipped arrows, and the other half by a teenage girl with a slingshot and some gold coins. I do realise that gold is to these creatures what garlic is to vampires, but here it is taken to ludicrous extremes, with them fleeing in terror at the slightest hint there may be some gold nearby. Yes, the costumes look great and the effect on the end of the Cyber guns is rather nifty, but they appear unable to shoot straight and are easily defeated. I’m also confused as to why the Cyber fleet only sent down one small group to retrieve the Nemesis, when in orbit we are told they have “thousands of ships”. 

It has to be said that it doesn’t start off too bad. In fact, episode one is quite promising. It’s only when all of the main players are involved does it begin to fall apart. And that is perhaps the biggest flaw with ‘Silver Nemesis’. Far too many things are happening, and the whole thing jumps around far too much.

I said I would recommend it, and I shall. You see, for all its flaws and shortcomings as a piece of TV Sci-fi and as a Doctor Whostory, I always enjoy the experience of watching ‘Silver Nemesis’. Maybe it’s the ‘so bad its good’ element. Perhaps ‘Silver Nemesis’ is really a classic Doctor Who adventure, it’s only when you attempt to pull it apart and analyse it does it transform into the polished turd that most think it is, I’m not sure. But what I am sure about is that every time I watch ‘Silver Nemesis’ and come away from it knowing it was pap and knowing there are far more productive ways to spend my free time, I’m also aware that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

And isn’t that the point?

Season twenty-six of Doctor Who threw up some great stories. ‘Survival’ and ‘Ghostlight’ are widely recognised as beingDoctor Who of the highest order, and rightly so. OK, so ‘Battlefield’ was pants, but every season contains at least one shocker. Out of the four stories broadcast that season was a Doctor Who story that I consider to be the best of the best, ‘The Curse of Fenric’. 

It can be difficult to review this story as there are really three different versions floating around. There is of course the 1989 original broadcast, which is also included on the DVD release. Then there is the early nineties video release, which contains new material not originally broadcast, and finally the special edition DVD release, including even more new footage, a new 5.1 Dolby soundtrack and new CG special effects. Scenes are also rearranged so that the whole thing plays much more smoothly, as the director Nicholas Mallet originally intended. In my opinion, all of the things that make this story so great were already in the original broadcast, so that is what gets reviewed here. The special edition is just icing to the already delicious cake underneath. Also, it is probably unfair to review the special edition alongside episodic televised stories, as the thing has had a lot of extra care taken with it (outlined above). 

In fact reviewing ‘The Curse of Fenric’ isn’t only made difficult by the various versions of it that exist. It’s made more difficult by the fact that it’s a near impossible task trying to nail down just what the story is all about. Is it a), an anti-war story, b), a vampire story, c), a character study of Ace as she grows into a woman, d), a story about ecological disaster or e), a WW2 war story. It’s all of these things and more.

Set during WW2 Ace and the Doctor travel to a secret military intelligence installation on the English coast, where base Commander Millington and Dr Judson are cracking Nazi codes. They also appear slightly preoccupied with Viking rune stones, for reasons that are made more apparent later. Thrown into this mix are Russian Spetznatz commandoes who arrive to steal the computer that is cracking the codes. Unknown to them, the computer contains a chemical bomb that will detonate when a certain word is decoded back in Russia. As if all this wasn’t enough, vampire hordes (Haemovores) rise from the sea and summon the ‘ancient one’. As the story unfolds we learn that this is all a backdrop to an ancient game played out between Fenric and the Doctor.

All of these elements could have made ‘The Curse of Fenric’ an unfocused mess, but I feel the chaotic narrative structure (which is more apparent in the broadcast version) is suited to one of the themes that Ian Briggs was writing about; Chaos. The story is essentially an anti-war piece, with Fenric representing war and chaos. As the story unfolds more and more people die senselessly either at the hands of the Haemovores or the soldiers, who spend the final episode dying in their droves. The Reverend Wainwright is actually one of the more important characters in this regard, as he has lost his faith because of the horrors of war and ends up losing his life as a result. On the DVD, Briggs talks about sex being an important part of the story also, but this is alluded to far less in his scripts, (it is primarily a children’s show after all!).

Moving away from the plot and themes, it has to be said that ‘The Curse of Fenric’ looks superb. Entirely shot on location, the story contains an atmosphere that very few late eighties Doctor Who stories ever did. Mallet directs superbly, especially considering the time constraints. As Briggs points out on the DVD, ‘The Curse of Fenric’ was recorded on a fourteen day shoot, which is very little time when what they filmed was essentially a feature film. 

Mark Ayres’ score is haunting, creepy and a pleasant move away from the horrible Keff McCulloch synth-rock music we got during the majority of the McCoy era. 

Performance wise, ‘The Curse of Fenric’ can’t really be faulted. McCoy gives one of his best performances as a much darker Doctor. Now, many people have a problem with the idea of a ‘dark Doctor’. I’ve never really understood this, as in my opinion it makes the character of the Doctor far more interesting. He doesn’t just wander into situations, bumbling around finding solutions by accident. Now he has a plan, he often knows what is going to happen and doesn’t mind using the people around him like pawns. Ace, at the end of episode four, has to broken down in order for the Doctor to defeat Fenric, and to do this he has to destroy her faith in him.

Speaking of Ace, this has to be one of Aldreds finest hours in the show. She plays the part with a maturity not often seen before. This story, like other season twenty-six stories sees Ace being a pivotal feature of the action, so it was important she performed well.

The supporting cast are all excellent, especially Nicholas Parsons as Wainwright, even if he didn’t have a clue what was going on (on the DVD commentary he sound absolutely bewildered and completely confused!). Perhaps the only criticisms of the performances that could be made would be of the two young evacuees, Phyllis and Jean. They act as if they are appearing in a dodgy sixth-form production, and actually have quite substantial roles in the story.

If you haven’t seen ‘The Curse of Fenric’, then you really ought to. Any preconceived notion about the McCoy era ‘all being a silly pantomime’ will be blown away by the best Doctor Who story ever.

‘The Curse of Fenric’ is an unusual story in that the version most widely accepted by Doctor Who fans is not the version originally broadcast. Whereas extended versions of both ‘Silver Nemesis’ and ‘Battlefield’ have been released on video, neither really gained anything that was missing from the original broadcast version; ‘The Curse of Fenric’ however benefited enormously from the few extra minutes of material incorporated into the video release. More recently, the original televised version has been released on DVD, but with an impressive extra in the form of an even longer cut that has been fully reedited and includes even more footage than the previous video release. The actual story isn’t significantly altered, but both extended versions flow more smoothly than the comparatively truncated original, with the extended DVD version apparently closest to the vision of director Nicholas Mallett. None of which is massively important here, except in that it is the extended DVD release that I have watched on this occasion, which doesn’t significantly affect this review but might be of interest to the more curious reader.

Anyway, turning to ‘The Curse of Fenric’ itself, it is a story that is more difficult for me to review than might be expected. As with any Doctor Who story often described by fans of the series as a classic, there is very little that hasn’t been said about ‘The Curse of Fenric’. Partly this is because it can retrospectively be seen as the archetypal Cartmel story, the culmination of all the finest qualities that he strove to bring to the series during his tenure as script-editor and because it arguably had a far greater impact on the New Adventures than more obvious candidates such as ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. My reasoning for this is that here we see the Doctor at his most manipulative, as he uses Ace as a pawn in a game that started long ago with an ancient evil from the dawn of time. It also sees Ace starting to grow up and develop as a character, more so than any previous story, as she confronts her feelings for her Mother, has her faith in the Doctor shattered and also starts to obviously become aware of her sexuality. ‘The Curse of Fenric’ also seems to be aimed at an older audience than that which Doctor Whois traditionally perceived to have aimed for, with doses of horror including vampires, corpses, and chemical warfare. ‘The Curse of Fenric’ is a grim and gritty story in which almost every supporting character dies and puts Ace through emotional hell. Finally, ‘The Curse of Fenric’ is also riddled with subtext, much of which writer Ian Briggs discusses in the DVD extra Shattering the Chains, and which generally concerns sex and faith. Most of this is obvious, such as the “seductive” appeal of Jean and Phyllis and Ace’s later distraction of the guard, Wainwright’s wrestling with his faith, Sorin’s faith in the Russian Revolution, and Ace’s faith in the Doctor, some less so; I’d never made the connection for example between Doctor Judson’s physical disability and Alan Turing’s homosexuality. For fans who dislike such blatant subtext in Doctor Who, ‘The Curse of Fenric’ is probably an especially bad example of all that was wrong with the Cartmel era, but for better or for worse, it signposts the direction in which Doctor Who would go in the New Adventures more clearly than any other story from the period, as a whole new generation of young writers would bring their politics and opinions to the good Doctor’s adventures. 

An exploration of the subtext within ‘The Curse of Fenric’ should not detract from appreciation of the story at its most basic level however; it is a very good slice of Doctor Who, which for the most part has aged extremely well. The plot is well structured so that suspense builds throughout the first half of the story, as questions are raised about the mission of the Russian commandoes, Commander Millington’s agenda, and the significance of the Viking curse. Once what was originally the cliffhanger to Episode Two is reached, the story shifts gear; once the Haemovores emerge onto land the remainder of the story is a fast-paced thriller, with explanations coming thick and fast as both Fenric’s and the Doctor’s plans become clear. This structure works highly effectively; there are no reprieves once the Haemovores attack as the Doctor and Ace find themselves facing threat after threat as the endgame draws near and bystanders die one by one. 

Crucial to the success of this plot is the characterisation, which allows the actions of the supporting characters, the dangers they face, and their deaths, carry real impact. The Rev. Mr. Wainwright is a case in point; he’s a tortured soul desperate to believe in the essential goodness of humanity but increasingly unable to do so against the backdrop of World War II. The scene in which he reads from the Bible is crucial to his character as it illustrates his crumbling faith far more effectively than the taunts of Jean and Phyllis, but all of this would just be so much subtext were it not for the fact that Wainwright is thoroughly likeable. The massively underrated Nicholas Parsons conveys Wainwright’s uncertainty and fear very convincingly; his bravery in facing his terror is admirable and it makes the fact that his faith ultimately proves too weak to save his life all the more poignant. Basically, all of Briggs’ characters are human; Mrs. Hardaker is an old battleaxe whose strict attitude towards her charges automatically predisposes any young (or just liberal!) members of the audience to dislike her. She throws words like sin around very easily, and shows an unshakable faith in the “good book” whilst Wainwright expresses doubt about the morality of war, which is the blind faith of somebody who unthinkingly follows doctrine rather than attempting to understand what it is they actually believe in. Janet Henfrey captures all of this perfectly, looking and sounding every inch the strict governess, and yet when Jean and Phyllis actually kill her, we briefly get to see her smiling and relaxing as she listens to music rather than the severe and apparently cold person that she has been portrayed at up until that point. Which is important, because it means she isn’t just another corpse to boost the story’s body count in a way that possibly appeals to fans that think that ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ is “adult”, it means that she is a human victim whose death feels like a loss. 

Perception of death is very important in ‘The Curse of Fenric’. The Russian commandoes, Sorin included, are prepared to kill to succeed in their mission, but again Briggs and director Nicholas Mallett make sure that the deaths that they cause are not lightly forgotten. The home guard soldiers killed on the beach are laughing and joking as they go out on patrol and Prozorov is deeply troubled at having killed them; it doesn’t make it any easier to excuse the actions of him and his fellows, but it does explore the horrors of war in a quiet way that is rare in Doctor Who on television. Sorin is a particularly interesting character in this respect, because of what he believes in and what he does, and the way Ace responds to him. Some fans have expressed a serious misgiving about the fact that Ace is attracted to a man that embraces a regime that killed millions of people; I think this misses the point however. It’s very easy to think of Stalin and forget that originally, the Russian Revolution succeeded because Lenin had the support of many of the ordinary people. It is easy, but foolish I think to dismiss such people as “evil” out of hand; we don’t know why Sorin has such faith in the Revolution and we don’t know whether or not he is aware of the atrocities that Stalin was committing at this time. Because we don’t know these things, and because Sorin is portrayed as a man prepared to kill for what he sees as the greater good, the character becomes more powerful because the script encourages us, largely via Ace, to see him as a person and grow to like him. He is portrayed as a man of conviction and courage and Tomek Bork brings a warmth and charisma to the role, all of which helps to create conflict in the viewer. In a story in which the principle villain is “pure evil”, such muddying of moral waters makes for fascinating characterisation.

A rather less likeable character is Alfred Lynch’s Commander Millington. Like Sorin, Millington is a man prepared to kill for what he thinks is the greater good, but unlike Sorin these actions are harder to justify. Juxtaposed with Wainwright’s angst at the thought of British bombs falling on German cities and killing German children is Millington’s willingness to use a chemical weapon on a Russian city at such time as they cease to be Britain’s allies, a stance that he explains by telling the Doctor, “It could end the war”. Millington is a man who has stared too long into the abyss, whose obsession with tapping into the Nazi psyche has made him a monster; his speech about the men trapped behind a bulkhead on a burning ship is terrifying, not because it is impossible to understand, but because he uses it to excuse the deaths of the two Russians sealed in the mine shaft with the haemovores. The men who died on board the ship might well have been sacrificed to save the rest of the crew, but there is plenty of time to save let the Russians out before the haemovores reach the end of the tunnel. The deaths of the crewmen on board his old ship is uncomfortable too; there may be logic behind it but it is given an all too human perspective shortly afterwards in the shape of Kathleen Dudman’s grief over the news of her husband Frank’s death. 

‘The Curse of Fenric’ is also notable for the characterisation of the regulars; this is Ace’s best story, as she grows up noticeably, and Aldred puts in her first real decent performance. Her concern for the baby is convincing, and she manages to convey fury at the Doctor when she realises that he knows what is going on. Ace thus works as somebody to whom the audience can relate for the first time, and she gets some nice scenes; critics of the Cartmel era often dismiss her faux pasover the fact that Kathleen is married as a just another piece of the social commentary that they argue unnecessarily clutters the era, but whatever else it may be it is also a nice reminder of the period in which ‘The Curse of Fenric’ is set. I wouldn’t give a second thought to the possibility that Kathleen might be single mother any more than Ace does, but it is a reminder that this is set in an era when it was a real stigma that people were ashamed of. Having said of all this in praise of both actress and character, the scene in which Ace distracts the guard is woefully overrated; it is a self-conscious and self-satisfied piece of dialogue that doesn’t really convince and is delivered in a horribly unnatural manner by Aldred. Nevertheless, considering how bad Ace’s dialogue was in Briggs’ previous ‘Dragonfire’, her only truly appalling line here is “Who do you think you are, armpit?”

And finally there is the Doctor. ‘The Curse of Fenric’ shows the Doctor at his most manipulative, as he plays a game of chess (both literally and metaphorically) with an ancient and powerful foe, in which people die. It is often suggested that his actions here are less damning than those in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’; certainly he doesn’t destroy any planets here, but many people fall along the wayside and whilst it can be argued that he tries to save as many people as possible as he battles Fenric, I should like to point out that there is no reason given why after their last encounter he couldn’t simply have taken the flask that he trapped Fenric in and dumped it in a black hole like he did with the Fendahl skull. In addition to which, the Doctor’s psychological abuse of Ace reaches its peak here, as he destroys her faith in him to defeat Fenric, reducing her to tears; he clearly regrets his actions afterwards as he tries to reassure her that he didn’t mean it when he called her an emotional cripple and told Fenric to kill her, but personally I’d never trust him again. None of which is a problem however, since I like this darker aspect of the Doctor, one that would reach new heights in the New Adventures. I also find it rather amusing that the chess move with which he confuses Fenric is utterly illegal, which means that he won last time by cheating… McCoy’s acting is very good here, even during his “evil from the dawn of time” speech, when he has to convey anger, something that he often has trouble with. McCoy’s Doctor broods throughout, creating the impression that he is weighed down by the choices he hasmade and is forced to make, and it works beautifully. 

Overall, ‘The Curse of Fenric’ is a story in which everything comes together. Mark Ayers’ atmospheric score is crucial to the mood of the piece and has aged very well. Nicholas Mallett does a superb job of directing, and he manages to get the best from his actors, all of whom give excellent performances, with the exceptions of Joann Kenny as Jean and Joanne Bell as Phyllis, both of whom are fine until their characters turn into vampires after which they become a bit hammy, albeit not enough to seriously compromise the production. The sets mesh perfectly with some stunning location work. The special edition benefits ‘The Curse of Fenric’ even more, as it is given a spit and polish and little details like the stakes carried by Sorin can be seen in context for the same time. Andrew Cartmel’s approach to Doctor Who reached its zenith here; ironically, only one story later, it would all come to an end…

The transition from the Sixth to Seventh Doctor feels more jarring when watching the series in sequence than it ever did on television; with no year long gap, the sudden and ignominious departure of Colin Baker means that for the first time a Doctor leaves without a proper regeneration story. Despite the circumstances surrounding Baker’s departure however, the fact remains that his replacement provided the opportunity to usher in a bold new era with a new actor in the title role. Whilst John Nathan-Turner remains as producer, Eric Saward’s replacement with new script-editor Andrew Cartmel also provided the opportunity for a fresh new start, as a new talent arises to make its mark on the series. New Doctor, new script-editor; and a right load of old wank is the result in the shape of ‘Time and the Rani’.

‘Time and the Rani’ does not start well. Since Colin Baker refused to return for a regeneration scene following his sacking, Nathan-Turner unwisely decides to take the ludicrous measure of having Sylvester McCoy lying on the TARDIS floor at the start in Baker’s costume and a wig that makes the Taran Beast from ‘The Androids of Tara’ look convincing. In a staggering display of directorial incompetence, when McCoy rolls over a garish special effect is used to bathe his face in golden light and thus try and disguise the fact that he is wearing a stupid wig. The result is a man with a golden face wearing a stupid wig. To add insult to injury, the best explanation that we get for the regeneration is that the Doctor, who has previously been forced to regenerate due to radiation poisoning, a fall from a great height and spectrox toxaemia is suddenly susceptible to slight blows to the head. Makes you realize how lucky he is not to have regenerated before, given the number of times he’s been knocked out by blows to the head, although I suppose that at least would have made the series end many years earlier and perhaps spared us this drivel. A wiser director would have simply had McCoy lying on the floor in Baker’s costume having already regenerated off camera, but instead we are graced with a sequence that is about as welcome as a turd in a water tank.

I should lay my cards on the table and this point and say that I think Sylverster McCoy is the weakest actor to have played the Doctor in the television series to date; notoriously for example, he has trouble conveying certain emotions convincingly (more on that in future reviews). He does however, have an energy and charisma that I find works tremendously well, and as his era progresses and he settles into the role, he becomes, for the most part, a highly effective Doctor. Unfortunately, however, he is faced with several problems here, the main one being that Pip and Jane Baker were told sod all about how the character was going to be played, and therefore improvised. Improvisation by the Bakers seemingly takes the form of mixed metaphors, one of the few distinguishing features of the Seventh Doctor that is displayed here, and one that only lasts for this story on television. In all fairness, some of them are quite funny; I especially like “A bad workman always blames his fools”, and “Where there’s a will…” “…there’s a beneficiary!”, but the endless string of such uninspired examples as “Absence makes the nose grow longer”, “Here’s a turn-up for the cook”, “There’s none so deaf as those who clutch at straws”, “A bull in a barber-shop” and “Fit as a trombone” quickly become profoundly irritating. Nor does it inspire confidence that McCoy’s first lines when he wakes up in the Rani’s laboratory are delivered in an incredibly over the top manner, and are immediately followed by an unconvincing pratfall.

McCoy however can hardly be blamed for some of his shortcomings here. Were I to assemble the finest actors in the history of theatre, film and television, I doubt very much that even they would be able to cope with the script provided here. Had fate been kinder, the production would, on receiving the Bakers’ scripts, not only have burnt them, they would have sent someone round to the Bakers’ house to impound their typewriter and subsequently taken out a court injunction to prevent them from ever working on the series again (which, mercifully, they never did). As I’ve noted in the past, both ‘The Mark of the Rani and Terror of the Vervoids’ pleasantly surprised me this time around, but by ‘Time and the Rani’ Pip and Jane seem to have decided to take the piss and given free reign to their worst excesses. Some of the most awful lines in the series’ history abound, with many of them falling to Kate O’Mara to deliver; “All you need understand is that these specimens are geniuses”, “Have you managed to procure the means to repair your laboratory equipment?”, “What monstrous experiment are you dabbling in now?”, “Killer insects! Come on Doctor!”, and most painfully of all “I have the loyhargil! Nothing can stop me now!” are just some of the lines that nobody in real life would ever say and that nobody in fiction can get away with.

Then there’s the plot. I say plot, but I really mean cack. The Rani worked in ‘The Mark of the Rani’ because she existed to lampoon the relationship between the Doctor and the Master; here, she is relegated to the status of a female Master, with a ludicrous and unnecessarily complex plan, which she kindly explains in Episode Four so that the Doctor can work out how to defeat her. Stupidity abounds; how does the Rani casually patch the scanner into Urak’s view? Why don’t the Lakertyans piss off out of the Centre of Leisure since it’s got a big ball of killer insects in it and move away? The Rani’s operation does, after all, seem to be confined to one small quarry (and a round of applause for that hoary old clichй, the planet of about a dozen people). Mention of the Lakertyans brings me to the production itself, in terms of acting, sets and direction. There are times when director Andrew Morgan seems to be polishing a turd; despite obviously being filmed in a quarry of some kind, the location filming works well, as does the model work and some of the sets. The realization of the bubble traps is quite good, and provides an effective cliffhanger to Episode One, and although they have their detractors, I rather like the Tetrap costumes even if the forked tongues are a mistake. Then at other times, Morgan proves that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear; the interior of the Rani’s TARDIS looks like an afterthought and makes one wish for the impressive set used in ‘The Mark of the Rani’. It also regresses Doctor Who’s effects back to the Letts era, with CSO woefully evident. And when the Rani’s giant rubber brain comes up with the formula for loyhargil, the word “LOYHARGIL” flashes on a BBC micro just to add a bit of subtlety.

Then there are the alien races, ill served both by script and direction (although, incredibly, none of the guest cast are noticeably bad here). The Tetraps have four eyes, granting them a three-hundred and sixty degree view, which is a nice idea but utterly wasted as they turn their heads when looking for things and people manage to sneak up on them. They are obviously based on vampire bats, which is another nice idea, and I do like the fact that the Rani’s callousness proves her undoing, as Urak realises that he is dispensable and promptly orders his Tetraps into her TARDIS and takes her captive at the end. As for the Lakertyans, they come off less well. Mark Greenstreet is quite good as Ikona, as are Donald Pickering as Beaus and Wanda Ventham as Faroon, but sadly make-up artist Lesley Rawstorne unwisely chooses to make them look like rejects from a New Romantics group. Beaus and Faroon’s grief over Sarn’s death is a nice (if incredibly surprising) attempt to show the emotional impact of the Rani’s callousness on others, but then at the end Ikona pours away the antidote to the insect venom, which is meant to be noble and courageous, but is instead so utterly stupid that had he done it earlier, the Doctor might have been forgiven for thinking “Sod ‘em, then” and buggering off without bothering to stop the Rani. Oh and the Lakertyans strange way of running, with arms held stiffly behind them, is an admirable attempt to convey a sense of something alien, but which nonetheless makes them look like they’ve had something forcibly inserted into them, or possibly just have haemorrhoids. I was also going to criticize the fact that Beaus is badly stunned by a very gentle fall, but as that sort of thing can even make Time Lords regenerate, I suppose it’s fair enough.

So far, so bad. But there is one last vomit stain to blight the bed sheets of entertainment, and that stain is Keff McCulloch. It is a truism that an opinion cannot, by definition, be wrong, and I should point out that some people like Keff’s work. Keff himself for example. Possibly. And yet, in this case, I am prepared to go out on a limb and say to these people, “NO! You’re QUITE, QUITE mistaken!” For Keff McCulloch is not just the worst composer of incidental music to have worked on Doctor Who, he’s also possibly the worst composer of incidental music to have worked. This man knows no restraint; from the start of Episode One, he perpetrates a brash and inappropriate score that is so intrusive it makes open heart surgery seem like a scratch. Sinister scores accompany scenes in which nothing sinister happens, and keyboards pound merrily away in the background like Emerson, Lake and Palmer on crack. The background music used in the Centre of Leisure is the epitome of bad, a plinkety-plonkety knob-rash of music subverting any tension that might otherwise exist. So diabolical is this man’s music in fact that I can’t bear to write about it any further. Until I get to ‘Paradise Towers’ of course, at which point I’ll continue to whinge about it.

So in the midst of all this effluence, is there anything at all good about ‘Time and the Rani’? Mercifully, there is. For one thing, whilst McCoy’s dodgy performance in Episode One seems like a very bad sign, he gradually starts to settle in to the role as the story progresses. There are scattered examples of this throughout; when the Rani, disguised as Mel, offers him a drugged glass of water, he despondently replies “Oh I don’t want it, you drink it, leave me alone” and he really sounds like he means it, as though the line arose naturally during filming. Blighted though he is with a script that lacks characterisation for the Doctor and provides him with lines like “I want all mirrors removed from the TARDIS henceforth!”, he still manages to convey, at several points, both the charm and authority associated with the Doctor. The scene in which the Doctor tells Mel about Strange Matter is a sign of how good McCoy can be, as the Doctor enters lecturer mode and he makes it seem entirely natural, rather than a performance. It is the first time that the Doctor settles down after his regeneration and enforced amnesia, and it feels as though McCoy has settled down too. It helps too that for all that I’ve criticized them, Pip and Jane Baker captures the Doctor’s ego perfectly, as tries on a new costume and announces, “[it] lacks my natural humility”. In fact, the wardrobe scene is one of my favourites of the story; its daft, but it stays just the right side silly and when the Doctor tries on the Fourth Doctor’s clothes he shakes his head an remarks “Old hat”, a rare example here of a genuinely amusing pun. I also find it rather amusing that in Episode Four, after the Rani has connected the Doctor to the brain, his constant stream of garbled metaphors and bad puns induces schizophrenia in the brain; suddenly, the verbal diarrhoea that the Baker’s have scripted serves a purpose and almost makes it seems as though they knew what they were doing.

Bonnie Langford is also passable here; I’ve never had any issues with her acting, and her success or lack thereof in her Doctor Who tends to wax and wane with Mel’s characterisation. Mel is OK here; her faith in the Doctor both old and new is unshakeable, and she works well with McCoy. The scenes in which she meets the new Doctor and they have to convince each other of their identities is tiresome, although I do like the bit when the Doctor criticizes her wig and pulls Mel’s hair. Mel also gets a nice character moment, as she seems genuinely upset by Sarn’s death and Ikona’s accusations. My main criticism is that Langford is given far too much screaming to do; she’s ear piercing to the point that I’m tempted to mute the television.

And finally, there is the Rani. Some ham is cringe-worthy and some is entertaining, and for me at least, Kate O’Mara’s is the latter. Apparently deciding that her only sensible course of action is to go over the top, O’Mara seems to enjoy herself enormously as the Rani, and she plays against McCoy rather well. I’m loath to admit it, but although the Rani’s impersonation of Mel in Episodes One and Two is incredibly silly, I do find it quite amusing. For all her supposed lack of emotion, she clearly can’t resist winding the newly regenerated Doctor up, as he bemoans his new appearance and she innocently asks him, “You mean you’re going to look like this permanently?” And she obviously enjoys slapping him in the TARDIS wardrobe in Episode One.

So it’s a start. It isn’t a very good one, and for the most part, ‘Time and the Rani’ is astonishingly bad. McCoy however shows promise and if nothing else, that bodes well for the rest of the season.

After the diabolical ‘Time and the Rani’, ‘Paradise Towers’ sees a considerable increase in the quality of scripts, as Stephen Wyatt delivers a dystopian tale of a society in decay. As such, ‘Paradise Towers’ is in some ways more disappointing than its immediate predecessor, as a combination of poor production and bad acting several dents its credibility.

The premise of ‘Paradise Towers’ is highly effective. The concept of a luxury apartment building that has degenerated into barbarism and savagery with residents who have turned to cannibalism and warring gangs of teenagers is a sound one, as is the addition to the mix of the Caretakers, whose response to the situation is to cling obsessively to outdated and pedantic rules in an attempt to cope with their disintegrating world. Wyatt exploits this premise in various ways; the degenerative language used by the Kangs is vaguely reminiscent of the “Nadsat” of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, and clearly some thought has gone into the dialogue. Kang vernacular includes such phrases as “Cowardly cutlet”, “Carrydors”, “Brain quarters”, “Taken to the cleaners” and “How you do”, and although the older characters use such terms as “Rezzies” and “Wall-scrawlers”, the fact that for the most part they speak normally demonstrates the impact of a lack of education and any obvious parental figures on the younger generation. It is also relatively unusual to see gangs composed entirely of girls, but whether their reluctance to actually “make unalive” (a reluctance sadly not shared by real life gang culture) is meant as a slightly sexist attempt to show a gentle feminine nature or merely a constraint of Doctor Who’s traditional target audience is unclear. The Kangs’ names further hint at the state of their lives, including as they do Bin Liner and Fire Escape; it is possible that these are nicknames gained on joining a particular gang, but it also raises the possibility that they were abandoned at such a young age that any real names they once had are long forgotten, and this would be consistent with their seeming lack of education.

The activities of the Rezzies are also rather interesting. On the one hand, they maintain the cosiness of their past lives, knitting table cloths and keeping neat and tidy flats that contrast sharply with the grimy, dilapidated corridors, whilst on the other hand they have resorted to murdering and eating Kangs. What is interesting about this is that is clearly a situation brought about not by an inherent evil in their nature, but by sheer desperation, and their desire to cling on to a semblance of normality throws this dark pastime into stark relief. The Caretakers too are well scripted; their adherence to the rule book boarders on the absurd, and clearly exacerbates the division between the groups within the Towers that the Doctor strives so hard to overcome. Like the Rezzies, they are obviously attempting to cling on to some semblance of normality: the Deputy Chief Caretakers’ moaning about the graffiti in the corridors is an example of him dwelling on what is in the larger scheme of things an utterly trivial issue. Rather than trying to reach out to the disaffected youth within the Towers, they prefer to punish them, although since they never actually manage to capture any Kangs during the course of the story, the question of what they would actually do to them is never made clear. Ironically of course, this fragmenting of society is precisely what the Chief Caretaker exploits as he feeds morsels to his “pet”; since the Kangs have nobody they can report the disappearances to, they are not highlighted, and likewise the disappearance of Caretakers can easily be dealt with by careful manipulation of the rule book. It is significant that when the Cleaners take two Rezzies however, it is reported and the Chief is forced to address the issue, albeit by bribing Maddy with the chance to move into a larger apartment; the Rezzies, clinging on their semblance of normality, clearly feel that the Caretakers should deal with such issues.

The addition to the plot of Kroagnon is also potentially interesting. The presence of a threat that is hostile to everyone within Paradise Towers forces the residents to unite against the common threat, offering hope for the future as a result. It is also worth noting that whilst Kroagnon is on one hand a typical megalomaniac, his motivation is novel; an obsessive architect whose opinion of his work is so great that he doesn’t want it to spoiled by tenants is one that has not previously appeared in the series. It gradually becomes clear that Kroagnon’s legacy has contributed to the dire state of the Towers, albeit as a minor aside rather than the main cause; the presence of the robotic crab in the swimming pool prompts the Doctor to note that this is how the Towers would have been had Kroagnon had his way: “a killer in every corner”. The script even gives a knowing wink to the clichйs of the Doctor Who format: there is scene in which Mel hopes that the lift won’t malfunction, only for the lights to start flashing on and off and for the gears to stall. When Pex asks her what she said, she repeats her worry, and the lift grinds to a halt. It could easily be a very silly moment, but the script handles it in such a way that there is a knowing irony to the scene.

‘Paradise Towers’ also works well because it is the first story in which Sylvester McCoy really shines as the Doctor. During the early TARDIS scenes, he looks on glumly as Mel looks forward to a holiday, and complains, “That’s the trouble with young people today – no sense of adventure”, a line which McCoy delivers with an impressive air of weariness. It is also rather interesting just how much the Doctor perks up when he finds the Towers in a state of obvious neglect, which does rather highlight just how much he thrives on the misfortune of others; it is a slightly disturbing aspect of the Doctor’s character, and one that McCoy (and the script) suddenly emphasizes. McCoy suddenly seems to have settled into the role, and it clearly shows; the Doctor’s doffing of his hat at the advancing Cleaner as the lift doors close is a supremely confident moment. McCoy is conveys a sense of authority with ease when he confronts the Chief Caretaker and snaps that since the Chief is going to kill him anyway, so he might as well listen to him first. He delivers the line in such a way that death threats seem like a minor inconvenience to the Doctor, which of course they often are. His subsequent contemptuous dismissal of the Deputy is another case in point, as the Deputy pleads with him for no further tricks with the rulebook, only to be told in no uncertain terms that the Doctor has far more important things to worry about than him. Suddenly, the Seventh Doctor is a man who can quickly set his mind to defeating monsters, but who can also charm his way into the Kangs’ affections. McCoy’s Doctor switches moods in an instant here, and his apology to Mel for making her jump in Episode Four sounds just as sincere as his contempt for the Deputy an episode earlier. Mention of the rule book brings me to the Doctor’s initial escape from the Caretakers, as he exploits their blind obedience to rules, and persuades his captors to close their eyes and walk away form him so that he can sneak out of the door; the Deputy eventually realises that “rules should always make sense”, but he’s so used to blind obedience that it takes him too long to realize this. Unfortunately, where McCoy’s acting does fall down is at the climax, as the Doctor has to confront Kroagnon sooner than he expected and is forced to improvise; he immediately resorts to the sort of pratfall clowning that marred his first scenes in ‘Time and the Rani’, the Doctor’s bluster and anger sounding purely like lines learnt hurriedly by an actor, rather than words flowing natural from the mouth of a character. For the most part though, McCoy is very good here, and it shows him starting to cement his portrayal of the Doctor.

Despite all of this clever scripting and a generally decent performance from the lead actor however, ‘Paradise Towers’ is nearly ruined by almost everything else. Firstly, this story highlights the reasons why some many fans detest Mel; presumably, the character’s failings here are a result of the otherwise impressive scripts, but she is utterly cloying. Langford is fine; she isn’t noticeable better or worse than usual, and she is good at conveying Mel’s usual optimism, which prompts her to look for the best in people and get upset when she’s disappointed by them. Unfortunately, this largely manifests here in such a way that she just seems mad; in the midst of a tower block filled with lunatics, having been attacked by murderous old ladies and chased by robotic cleaning machines, she decides to strip to her swimming costume and go for a dip. It doesn’t help that Mel is paired for much of the story with Pex, an utterly clichйd character who is a coward given the chance to redeem himself at the very end in a suitably noble sacrifice. Wyatt scripts this stereotype in such a way that he could work (Pex’s delight in Episode Three when he realises that he has actually saved somebody for the first time is rather touching), but the miscast Howard Cooke delivers his lines in such a stilted fashion that the character is thoroughly unconvincing, and his attempts to lie to Kroagnon in Episode Four are deeply embarrassing.

There is a worrying amount of dodgy acting on display here; the Rezzies and the Kangs are adequate if unspectacular, but the Caretakers do nothing for the story’s credibility. It doesn’t really help that costume designer Janet Tharby makes them look (as The Discontinuity Guide puts it) like rejects from the Village People (the Kangs incidentally, also look ludicrous), but this was no excuse to have them salute by putting their hands under their noses in mock-Hitler fashion. Just in case we don’t get the message, the Chief Caretaker actually has a Hitler-style moustache. But to get back to the actual performances, whilst Clive Merrison is at times all right as a petty man with petty powers, he often crosses the line into ham, delivering certain lines in strange nasal falsetto that sounds incredibly strange. This pales into insignificance compared to Richard Briars; defenders of ‘Paradise Towers’ like to point out that Briars is a Shakespearean actor. This is true, but then so is Brian Blessed, but he was still bloody terribly in ‘Mindwarp’. Briars sends his performance as far over the top as is possible, managing to ham it up even over a walkie-talkie in Episode One. For the rest of the first three episodes he confuses psychopath with imbecile and thereby destroys the believability of one the story’s main villains. By Episode Four, he gets even worse; having briefly redeemed himself by conveying terror even through the ham as the Chief is dragged screaming towards Kroagnon (and the Chief’s fate is, on paper at least, quite disturbing), he emerges from a cloud of dry ice in the final episode as a gurning zombie, lurching around as though drunk. Which he perhaps was. Anyone who has read Stephen Wyatt’s novelisation of ‘Paradise Towers’ will know that he imagined Kroagnon in the Chief’s body as a ghastly animated cadaver with a sinister deathly voice, rather than a silver faced tosser who roles his eyes at every opportunity and delivers his lines like he’s gargling

Perhaps more so than any other era of Doctor Who, the McCoy era splits fandom down the middle, and arguably no single story is as divisive as ‘Delta and the Bannermen’. Notorious for featuring comedian Ken Dodd, whom some fans see as the worst excess of John Nathan-Turner’s obsession with casting people from the world of light entertainment, ‘Delta and the Bannermen’ combines green babies, the Welsh, bees and rock and roll; it is also, if the viewer is in the right mood, really quite good fun.

There is a great sense of joy de vivre in ‘Delta and the Bannermen’. Partly, this is because the story doesn’t take itself too seriously, presenting us as it does with toll booths for time travellers, and aliens who holiday in locations such as America during the rock ‘n’ roll nineteen fifties, but who get stranded in Wales by accident. We have a pair of inept American secret service agents who are looking for a lost satellite and briefly mistake Gavrok’s ship for it, since they don’t actually know what a satellite looks like, and we have a bounty hunter whose death reduces him to nothing but a pair of blue suede shoes. This is all very tongue in cheek, and the breaking of the usual conventions of Doctor Who by the fact that everyone seems able to travel in time (The Bannermen and the Navarinos) adds further to the feeling that writer Malcolm Kohll is quite simply doing his best to have fun and not worrying unduly about how atypical his story actually feels as a result. This is a story in which an old man seemingly communicates with his bees and in which a young man who eats Chimeron food turns into an alien prince. It almost has a fairy tale quality to it in places. There is also the fact that the Navarinos go on holiday in time and space in an old bus, which on one level adds greatly to the spirit of things, and on another may be a wry nod to the limitations of the series budget; the BBC might not be able to knock together a convincing spaceship, but an old bus is no problem.

Another great strength of ‘Delta and the Bannermen’ is the character interaction. Refreshingly, this is a story in which nearly everybody the Doctor and Mel meet save for the Bannermen themselves gives their utmost to try and help Delta. What is particularly interesting is the love triangle between Delta, Billy and Ray; confounding audience expectations, this leads not to the jealously and betrayal that one might expect in Doctor Who, but instead follows a different route. Ray response to seeing Billy with Delta is to cry, and the Doctor comforts her. It would trivialize such an issue to say that she gets over it, but she manages to deal with it and continues to help Delta and Billy, and at the end, whilst she loses the man she loves, she does at least get his Vincent. Which isn’t exactly a happy ending as such, but it is a relatively positive outcome. Equally, Delta benefits; with the Bannermen destroyed and Billy transformed into a Chimeron, it is suggested that she can repopulate her planet (incidentally, I’d normally dismiss this as bollocks, but Kohll hints throughout at the insect like nature of the Chimerons, suggesting that one colossal bout of sex later, a green Welshman and his girlfriend might well repopulate a planet. Which is actually quite a scary thought). As for what Billy gets, well his motivation is obvious, but however much he may be driven by lust, he still risks life, limb and humanity to be with Delta.

Of course, Billy and Ray aren’t the only people who help Delta. The bemused agents Hawk and Weismuller, played with perfect bewilderment by Morgan Deare and Stubby Kaye, respectively, also pitch in to help after the Doctor and Ray remove the bonds the Bannermen put them in, with Weismuller getting his revenge at the end as he ties the Bannermen up. Hugh Lloyd’s slightly mysterious Goronwy happily allows the Bannermen to shoot his house to pieces as they wander into the Doctor’s trap, and sits patiently reading a book as he waits for the Bannermen to be defeated as they attack the camp. Richard Davies’ stoic Burton also provides considerable help simply because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, in the process saving Mel’s life. Burton is actually one of the greatest characters in the story, a cheerfully determined man whose response to seeing inside the TARDIS is to ask to go for a spin, his earlier skepticism about aliens quickly forgotten. A scene in Episode Three perhaps best sums up his character, when he swipes at the air with an old sword and steadfastly prepares for the arrival of heavily harmed nutters. Even camp attendant Vinnie wants to stay and help “Major” Burton, who sends him away for his own safety.

Ultimately, all of this characterisation works so well, because the cast give it their all. In particular, Sara Griffiths is great as Ray, who in retrospect I wish had stayed on as replacement for Mel, instead of the replacement that we actually got (much, much more on that in later reviews…). Ray bonds well with the Doctor, and this results in some great moments not only for Griffiths, but also for McCoy. There are some nice scenes in Episode One, as the Doctor is forced not to deal with alien aggressors, but with a heartbroken teenager and tries his best despite his obvious discomfort. When Billy sings to Delta, and this hurts Ray, she dances with the Doctor instead, who looks decidedly uncomfortable, but obliges anyway. He later comforts her, again awkwardly, with the great malapropism “there’s many a slap twixt the cup and the lap”, which is rather more amusing than virtually all of his malapropisms from ‘Time and the Rani’. In those moments, McCoy’s performance finally seems absolutely perfect for the first time in Season Twenty-Four.

Indeed, McCoy is very good here. When the Doctor sits hugging Billy’s Stratocaster, he gloomily notes, “love has never been known for its rationality” and McCoy makes him sound genuinely melancholy about this, as though hinting at things in the Time Lord’s past that we’ve simply never seen before. Equally, McCoy does well with his lines at the end of Episode Two, as Gavrok sits and gnaws at his meat and the Doctor stands and threatens Gavrok with the legal consequences of his actions. McCoy delivers his lines with an air of massive contempt, which works very well, and whilst he is notorious for his inability to portray anger properly, he manages to get real fury into his “Life? What do you know about life?” line. The script helps him enormously of course; this is story in which a rather proactive Doctor single handedly saves the Navarino bus via the TARDIS and later replaces Murray’s Quarb crystal twice. He sets out to save Delta from the Bannermen as soon as he realises that they are in trouble, and defeats his enemy with bees and honey. Bonnie Langford too does well here, in possibly her best Doctor Who television story; she’s far less cloying than in ‘Paradise Towers’, and like McCoy genuinely seems to be having fun. As usual, Mel’s instinct is to help people, and it is this that allows her to gain Delta’s trust. But Langford also gets to portray shock and horror as Gavrok destroys the Nostalgia Tours bus and its passengers, and she conveys it very well.

Whilst I’m on the subject of acting and characterisation, it is worth noting that the much-maligned Ken Dodd is actually OK here, although admittedly he is just playing himself. Nonetheless, this is pretty much the only Doctor Who story in which he wouldn’t actually seem out of place, and whilst I wouldn’t describe his casting as inspired, it by no means deserves the controversy that it has gained. Don Henderson on the other hand is very well cast. The Discontinuity Guide asks the question “But who told Don Henderson to play it so straight?” which I feel slightly misses the point. ‘Delta and the Bannermen’ works in large part because despite the sense of fun it also features some serious issues. The biggest flaw in the story is that we don’t know why the Bannermen, and Gavrok in particular, want the Chimerons dead; we never learn if they are mercenaries, soldiers, or criminals on the run. But despite this shortcoming, Gavrok works as a villain because he is presented as a real threat. Whatever his motivation, he wants Delta dead and has no qualms about killing anyone who gets in his way; he shoots the Tollmaster in the back, he slaughters the Navarinos because he thinks Delta is on the bus, and above all he has proved himself willing to commit genocide. The point of all of this is that were Henderson to send the part up, the whole feel of the story might so easily cross the line into farce. A real threat is needed to give the other characters something to pull together against, and Gavrok provides it, even cutting off the Doctor’s escape route by booby-trapping the TARDIS. Were ‘Delta and the Bannermen’ possessed of a villainous performance as over the top as Kate O’Mara’s in ‘Time and the Rani’ or Richard Briers’ in ‘Paradise Towers’, it simply wouldn’t work. And in keeping with the spirit of the story, it feels entirely appropriate that Gavrok is ultimately hoist by his own petard.

Overall then, ‘Delta and the Bannermen’ is, for me at least, far better than its reputation suggests. It benefits a lot from the extensive location filming, as Doctor Who usually does when it can be bothered to climb out a quarry, and the peaceful Welsh scenery surrounding Shangri La looks fantastic. It’s also nice to hear some real rock n’ roll on the soundtrack, although it is rather less nice to hear Keff McCulloch. This is arguably his best score for the series up until this point, but please understand that choosing Keff McCulloch’s best incidental score for Doctor Who is rather like choosing the least smelly turd. Unpleasantly, he ropes in his girlfriend’s ghastly group to give us the saccharine cack “Here’s to the Future”. McCulloch aside though, the only other real let down of the production is the two lacklustre explosions and frankly they just aren’t enough to spoil the fun.

Next: the final audio interlude before ‘Survival’, as I nip over to the BF board for ‘The Fires of Vulcan’, then back here for the rest of the McCoy television stories!