Sunday, February 9, 2014

Doctor Who Season Six: Bye bye to black and white

Like the legendary “troubled” third album by a any number of classic rock bands, Patrick Troughton’s third season threatened to run off the rails at any moment. There are collapsed commissions, truncated pieces and an emergency episode that had no budget beyond the three main actors, the standing Tardis set and enough paint to make the whole studio a white void. There are also some absolutely classic stories, and the first revelation of the Doctor’s origins.

The Dominators

This isn’t one of the classics. It’s a strut-a-thon in the opener, which was such a mess of a piece that they took away an episode and made it a five-part story. The five episodes basically break down to this: The titular invaders wander around a quarry – one tries to kill everyone he meets; the other reprimands him for trying to kill everyone he meets. There are cute little robots called Quarks that are supposed to be replacements for Daleks, but look about as threatening as a Rock-‘Em-Sock-‘Em Robot after being punched. The inhabitants of the planet – committed pacifists – debate endlessly on what to do, while the Doctor and crew shuttle endlessly between different locations before the show mercifully comes to a close.

The Mind Robber

This one is just mad – The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe travel beyond the normal universe into the Land of Fiction. Along the way, they run into Gulliver; a superhero from a future comic strip (from the far off year… 2000); and a gaggle of riddle-telling story. The tone is light and fantastical throughout, with Fraiser Hines and especially Patrick Troughton having a ball throughout. The serial even has one of the oddest episodes ever on the show. After The Dominators was truncated by an episode, that left the show with an empty episode to fill with no budget at all. The resulting episode is an interesting bit. It’s more than filler, but it only includes the three core members, the Tardis set and lots of white paint. It works, like most of the shows this season, because of the skills and chemistry among our leads.

The Invasion

Who is invading? Who? Who? We don’t actually get confirmation until about halfway through this eight-episode adventure, when the Cybermen start to terrorize London the way the Daleks did a few season’s earlier in the Dalek Invasion of Earth. Up to that point, it’s been an adventure through swinging London as the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe team up with another young lady (Isobel Watkins) and get to meet the United Nations Intellegence Task Force (good ole UNIT, we’ll see a lot of them in the seasons to come) for the first time with the new promoted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The tale is missing two episodes, but those have been recently animated, allowing auidiences to see the show for the first time (officially, at least) in many years. It’s one of the stand-outs for the season, which will be heading downhill very fast.

The Krotons

That would be this turkey, which is the rather inauspicious debut by Robert Holmes, who would become a key contributor in years to come. Here, his signature wit and playful storytelling are largely absent. There’s some potential in the tale – which has some echoes of The Time Machine and its bifurcated society – in it, but that gets pushed aside by some clunky storytelling, static staging and absolutely horrible monsters (the titular Krotons, quickly dubbed “Croutons” by the staff) undercut it all.

The Seeds of Death

Here’s the other highlight from the season, with the Ice Warriors coming back and Patrick Troughton having plenty of fun running around in what looks to be a set full of laundry suds. The story makes pretty much solid sense from beginning to end, and while the action is confined to a pair of bases (on Earth and the Moon this time) there’s enough variety (and tension, especially in the moonbase) to keep it going.

The Space Pirates

And know we’re back to the grind, with a largely uninteresting six-parter that – apart from more touches of Robert Holmes’ wit – doesn’t have much to recommend it. It’s also almost completely missing from the archives, so it’s largely been forgotten over the decades.

The War Games

Patrick Troughton goes out in a story that – despite being stretched well beyond its breaking point to an ungodly 10 episodes – manages to be largely entertaining and provide a number of landmark changes for the series. The plot of the aliens – stealing human soldiers from different time periods and having them fight it out to find perfect soldiers for an invasion – is pretty silly, but it does provide for enough structure to keep the story from completely collapsing.

The key here is that the aliens are aided by one of the Doctor’s own race. This isn’t a congenial trickster like the Meddling Monk. Instead The War Chief is cold, calculating and willing to murder thousands for the ends of his clients. And while the Doctor is able to mostly sort out the troubles, he needs the help of his own people to set things right. Enter, for the first time, the Time Lords.

Most Time Lord lore would come later on, but the basics are here: they don’t like to interfere, so the Doctor ran away to see the Universe; they can “live forever, baring accidents”; and they have dominion over time. In saving the Earthlings, the Doctor has put himself back in their clutches. After a short trial, he gets his money-saving sentence: an exile to his favorite planet, Earth, along with a new regeneration.


In a touching scene, he has to say goodbye to Jamie and Zoe. Then its down a spinning tunnel and into color.


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