God bless Terry Nation, as the creator of Blake's 7, Survivors, co-creator of the Daleks(1) and writer of The House In Nightmare Park his influence on television science fiction can still be felt today. It would however not be unfair to say that Terry had certain plot points that he liked to make repeated use of. But fear not, for we can turn these quirks of writing to our advantage and ensure that a knowledge of his works will make us a whiz at parties, because ladies and gentleman I present:
The Terry Nation Drinking Game.
Now obviously some of these will apply to certain programmes more than others but there should be enough to make sure that no matter what your choice of viewing you'll end up pleasantly tipsy(2). The rules are exceptionally simple, every time you see one of the following on-screen take a shot of your favourite alcohol beverage
A character called Tarrant.
The story takes place in a hostile jungle.
There are parallels between the villains and Nazis.
Every time plague or disease is mentioned.
A Dalek make a 'surprise'(3) appearance at the end of episode 1.
There an exciting countdown at the end.
A character make a heroic sacrifice.
The story take place in a post apocalyptic wasteland.
A race been reduced to savagery because of technological failure.
There is a traitor in the heroes' midst.
The Daleks subdued the local population and forced them into slavery.
A villain have a physical deformity.
The story takes place in a domed city.
There a race of invisible creatures.
There are mutants(4).
Every time the word 'space' is inserted in front of a normal job title, for example Space Captain, Space Security Agent or Space Gynaecologist.
A seemingly villainous/sinister character actually turn out to be heroic.
Feel free to add any other suggestions in the comments below and please remember that 50 freedom fighters die every year from drunken teleportation accidents, so be safe.
1 I'm sorry but if you don't think Raymond Cusick deserves equal credit ask yourself why we're not demanding that the Voord come back for Doctor Who's 50th anniversary. 2 I deny all legal responsibility if you should attempt this while watching the entire first series of Blake's 7. 3 It counts as a surprise even if the story has the word Dalek in the title or even in the case of Planet Of The Daleks when the Doctor is expecting to find them. 4 You can also count the mutoids from Blake's 7 if you really want more liver damage.
Time And The Rani starts with the TARDIS being knocked off course(1), crashing into a quarry with a dirty pink sky while being guided by
what looks suspiciously like a rainbow. Then Kate O’Mara walks in and declares
‘Leave the girl it’s the man I want’(2) only for Harpo Marx to regenerate into Sylvester McCoy due to tumultuous buffeting.
Lets be honest, as a start to a brand new era it doesn't immediately fill you with an overriding sense of confidence.
Here’s the thing, Time
And The Rani it’s nobodies favourite and with pretty good reason, however as much as I understand the larger fan consensus I personally have a certain amount of fondness for it. As I explained in a previous post it's the first story I
actually brought so I'm perhaps slightly more forgiving than some. I genuinely enjoyed it at the time and even though exposure to more Who made me realise that it wasn’t
exactly a shining example of the shows strengths it's still a story I can watch. Given the circumstances behind the story it's amazing it doesn't just end up being 4 episodes of the production team sitting down and crying.
Following the
monumental behind the scenes cluster-fuck that was The Trial Of A Time Lord,
long time producer and fandom punching-bag John Nathan Turner was forced by the
BBC to fire Colin Baker, this combined with the fact that script editor Eric
Saward had quit to start a career as a hard bitten cliché ridden mercenary(3), meant that Doctor Who as a programme was pretty much screwed. But as far as JNT
was concerned at least he would be allowed to leave the programme. Imagine his
surprise when after returning from holiday(4) he was told he wouldn't be leaving and could he please start work on the next series despite the
fact that he had no Doctor, no script editor and no scripts. Under these
desperate circumstances he made two surprisingly good decisions, he hired the
incredibly inexperienced Andrew Cartmel to be script edit and the relatively
unknown Sylvester McCoy to be Doctor number 7, however because no one is perfect he also commissioned a script by Pip and Jane
Baker.
Now as much as a lot
of people might not, quite justifiably, like Pip and Jane there is a definite
logic to hiring them. They’d already proved that they could knock out a script
in double quick time when they had had to write Trial part 14 pretty much over
a weekend and when taken into consideration that episode holds up remarkably
well. And it’s not like the BBC where going to give Doctor Who any more time as the official management position on it was not to give a toss. So Pip and Jane wrote Time And The
Rani without even knowing whether it would be Colin Baker’s last or Sylvester’s
first, an important point we’ll get back too later.
Now I don’t want to
talk about Cartmel’s strengths and weaknesses in this entry because he
had so little influence over this story that it really wouldn’t be fair,
however there is one interesting tale that arose from the making of documentary
on the DVD. Pip and Jane talk about how the story originally opened with King
Soloman, who the Rani would kidnap for his wisdom, and Cartmel asked them to
change it to Albert Enstien. Now this may seem like a minor detail but I think
it’s especially interesting when you take into account one of Cartmel’s biggest
influences when he started on Who where comics(5). Put it
this way, while Eisten was obviously one of the great scientific minds of the 20th century, he’s also been used in various works of fiction, his image
appears on t-shirts and posters and E=Mc2 is probably the most well known and quoted scientific formula, in other words he’s a genuine part of pop culture and
Cartmel will slowly reconnect Doctor Who to pop culture in a fashion that would continue when it returned in 2005.
If you haven’t
already guessed, I’m skirting round the actual story itself
but before I get into particular plot details there’s one observation I want to
make that will no doubt upset some Who fans if they don’t give me a chance to
place it in context. Anyway here we go, the story that Time And The Rani
shares the most qualities with is Tom Baker’s own début Robot. Now I can hear a
few gasps of horror but let me explain. Part of the fun of Robot is that it is
a 3rd Doctor UNIT story that is missing the velvet elegance of
Pertwee and has this gangly, wild eyed, curly haired loon in his place. It
makes sense, ease the audience in to the new Doctor by surrounding him with
familiar elements. Of course the Pertwee era was one that launched the programme
into new heights of popularity, the Colin Baker era less so. But that’s what we
get, a 6th Doctor story that’s missing the larger than life(6) operatically theatrical Mr Baker and instead has this small Scottish
clown who does prat falls and plays the spoons. If nothing else it provides an immediate contrast between the two. What we get here is almost
pure clown, something that McCoy has stated he regrets, but given how
last minute this all was he went with his natural instincts and he can't
be blamed for that. He may prat fall and play the spoons but he's also
immensely likeable, even while being grumpy. He's less imposing than Baker but he's still able to bring a real sense of
energy when he's on-screen.
Supporting this new Doctor we have Kate
O’Mara,who, as always, is able to make The Rani work far better than Pip and
Jane’s script deserves. I mean the poor woman must have been more than a little surprised to find that she was going to have to cosplay as Bonnie Langford for the bulk two episodes. I mean don’t get me wrong she
does the best she can and she makes it fun to watch, especially in those
moments where her contempt for the Doctor accidentally shows through, with either
a disgusted facial expression or a muttered aside, but at the same time it’s a
gob smackingly dumb idea(7). Of course the idea of cosplaying isn’t nearly as dumb as her
actual plan, she needs to blow up an asteroid but she has to do it at a certain
time because despite the fact she has time travel she can’t build a missile
platform that can move? And when something breaks she has a whole load of
geniuses to chose from but she decides to kidnap the Doctor, even Mel points out
what a stupid idea this is. Also at one point the Doctor stumbles upon the the device that she used to bring down the TARDIS and it's basically a futuristic hand gun, which does lead to the rather amusing image of The Rani walking out into the open pointing the gun up and just firing it into the empty air(8).
If you’re expecting me to talk about Mel, you’ll have to
wait until I tackle Paradise Towers, all I will say is that for the first time
ever I noticed how pert her bottom was.
So yes this story is
stupid and like nothing else in the McCoy era but here’s the thing, I genuinely
loved it when I was 15 and I still can’t entirely condem it now. Because despite it's script stupidities it moves along at a decent pace and if given a choice between Time And The Rani, The Mutants, The Time Monster or Attack Of The Cybermen I'd chose this every time(9).
1 Seemingly while visiting the galaxy of texture-less CGI. 2 Gay agenda. 3 To
go along with his part time career of whining about his time on Doctor Who. 4 Which one imagines probably involved
burning giant wicker effigies of Saward and Ian Levine. 5 It's pretty well established that Cartmel would often tell his writers to read Alan Moore's The Ballad Of Halo Jones, which was originally published in 2000 AD, while not one of his best works it's an interesting read especially if you look at it through the lens of Series 25. 6 Not a fat joke. 7 She should be lucky the Doctor was no longer travelling with Peri, not only would she have had to put on a unconvincing American accent but perhaps a shockingly ugly top with plunging neck line. 8 Also the Doctor says it would bring down any passing space-ship which means the TARDIS just happened to be near the planet when The Rani wanted him. Going on the Doctor's Wife I suppose the TARDIS took him there because he was needed, which seems to indicate that even the TARDIS didn't like the 6th Doctor. 9. Yes that is what they technically call damning with faint praise.
I have a confession to make, I can quite happily pass an afternoon on YouTube watching the opening credits of various TV shows. Done well they are an genuine art-form that can tell us the back story, tone and atmosphere of a show all with the aid of a tune you can whistle. I'm going to be looking at various decades and picking some of my personal favourites while trying to explain just what makes them so great.
So first of all the 60s. Now obviously there are a lot of iconic openings and themes that come from this time but I've stuck to the first three that came to mind.
Doctor Who (original)
Lets be honest the scariest thing during this era of Doctor Who is still the opening. Delia Derbyshire's truly alien arrangement of Ron Grainer's theme introduces electronic music to a generation, as weird shapes move and swirl round the screen. It tells us nothing about the characters or the setting but it does tell us that whatever we're about to see will have an element of the alien too it. After all you don't go from something so strange to a kitchen sink drama.
The Avengers (Series 5)
So we now move away from the strange to the sophisticated in what might be the most flirtious opening credits in history. While like Doctor Who it doesn't give us anything in terms of back story it does totally establish the relationship between Steed and Ms Peel, the are they/aren't they flirting and heavy alcohol dependency. We also see them with weapons and pulling some fighting moves so we know that the drama probably doesn't revolve round AA meetings. It totally sets the tone of the whole show, stylish, laid back with just a hint of danger and it makes me proud to be British.
The Prisoner
While the previous two examples have been great in setting tone and atmosphere The Prisoner is a brilliant example of how to tell the audience everything they need to know in terms of back story. In the first part of the sequence we see that Patrick McGoohan/Number 6 is resigning from some high level job in government and he's pissed off about it, he's then followed home by a hearse, gassed and wakes up in a holiday village in Wales. All this without a single word of dialogue. The second half then sets up the basic conflict at the heart of the series, not only do we see the truly weird world of The Village we see Number 6 running round looking defiant all the while arguing with whoever is Number 2 that week and it ends with one of the shows most iconic lines 'I am not a number I am a free man' which is met with sneering laughter week in week out. Even if you've never seen an episode before all it's all set up so beautifully that despite just how unusual the show is you'll still enter an episode with all the knowledge you need.
The next instalment will be the 70s, so we're pretty much assured some funk based themes to look forward too.
Over the following months I’m going to be
posting a series of articles about one of my favourite periods of Doctor Who. Now those reading this who don’t know me will be nodding their head
sagely and muttering ‘Ah yes the Hinchcliffe era no doubt, with it’s wonderful gothic
undertones and brooding performance by Tom Baker.’ Well no I’m afraid not, so
perhaps they're now thinking ‘Well Adam perhaps you’re going to take us through
your own personal journey concerning the master class in base under siege stories that where the Troughton
years.’ again I’m afraid not.1 They may now be furious scratching their heads and saying ‘A look
back at the glory of Pertwee or perhaps yet another spirited defence of the
Graham Williams era?’ Once again dear reader no! The era that I love the most is that of lucky number 7, Sylvester McCoy. Now I’m sure some of you have read that sentence
and just gone ‘Oh....right’ and that’s OK, frankly I’m use to it by now and I bear
no, well very little, resentment. Just the other night I meant a very pleasant
fellow Who lover, who when I mentioned that I was a McCoy fan placed a hand on my
shoulder and just said ‘I’m so sorry’. Now obviously he was joking but it does
underline a certain attitude towards the last 3 years in the original series
run. However the point of these posts will not be to say that people who don’t like McCoy are
wrong, there purpose is to say why I like them and perhaps it’ll provide something of a cathartic exercise for me
personal. That doesn’t mean I’ll be utterly gushing, like every era of Who it
has it has produced its clunkers, but failures can sometimes be more
interesting to examine than success, for such an example you should check out
Tardis Eruditorum’s look back at the 6th Doctor era.
This particular post is too give some personal context as to how I got into Doctor
Who. I was very lucky, I grew up in a Who positive household, my
parents watched the show regularly throughout its original run and I was always aware of its existence.
I was born in 1981 so was around the right age to catch McCoy when he started,
but here’s the thing dear reader I was an overly nervous child so I never properly
watched it. I was aware of McCoy as the Doctor but
never saw him until the first episode of The Curse Of Fenric in 1989,
now in my head I knew it was brilliant but it was also absolutely terrifying so I didn't watch the rest. Who knows perhaps if the original series had gone on for just one more year I’d
have tuned in but could'a should'a would'a is meaningless.3 So Doctor Who was cancelled and that could have been that for me. But
then Doctor Who’s 30th anniversary swung round and they started
showing repeats on BBC 2 and I watched them with my parents and that was how I got to know the
Doctor, by starting with Hartnell and going through to McCoy. Of course I really
liked it but I wasn’t a fan, at least not just yet. Over the next few years I watched a lot
of science fiction and read a lot of comics, sometimes I would go round to
friends and we might watch the occasional video of Who, the Five Doctors for
example, and once I borrowed Silver Nemesis (stop laughing) which I really
enjoyed, especially as it had a cool making of documentary all about Doctor
Who.4 Despite this outrageous flirting I don’t count myself truly becoming a fan until about 1996
when, a few months before the TV Movie, I made a conscious decision to use some
birthday tokens to buy a Doctor Who video, from Boots5, that video was Time And
The Rani and I loved it (no seriously stop laughing!). And that seems as good a
point as any to leave you until the first proper instalment of what I’m going
to be calling Sylvester Sundays.
1. Has anyone ever written
any fan fiction that mashes up series 5 Troughton with the Steven Seagal movie and if not could they do so immediately
please.
2. Though having said that once
I have all the Pertwee on DVD I’ll definitely be doing a similar look back on the era as I
think it’s weirdly misunderstood.
