Temeraire by Naomi Novik

This novel was such a brilliant surprise. I bought it for 99p from a bargain bin and I've no idea how it ended up there because it's brilliant. The idea is simple: it's the Napoleonic Wars but with dragons! How amazing is that?

The novel starts in pure Patrick O'Brian territory with British sea-captain William Laurence capturing a French ship. When I say “Patrick O'Brian” I mean it, the style of writing is perfectly in keeping with that sort of dead straight historical saga. The language is spot-on in that overly formal, restrictive and buttoned up Regency way. The period feel is so perfect that I almost forgot I was expecting them to find a dragon's egg in the French hold.

Since dragons bond with a handler at the moment of birth once the dragon takes a shine to Captain Laurence and accepts the name Temeraire from him Laurence's fate is sealed and he becomes an aviator, a dragon rider. Novik has obviously put a lot of thought into how both history and warfare would change if aerial tactics had entered the equation centuries early. There are different breeds of dragon, some with quirks (the Longwing breed, for instance, will accept only female riders so there are women in the air service). The dragons are even crewed by gunners and officers.

The level of detail to this world is astonishing and I hope some of the little drop mentions gets followed up on such as the suggestion that because they had dragons the Incans were never wiped out. Plus, the concept of Elizabeth I as the very first Longwing handler is just too brilliant an image.

And you know who else likes this novel? Stephen King, Terry Brooks and Anne McCaffrey (and if there's anyone who knows dragons...) all contributed quotes to the dust jacket. That's three of the most celebrated fantasy writers alive lining up to praise this woman's first novel.

Read this book, it's great fun.

TAGS: books

Army Theming. A Game Legal Kislev Ice Wizard

Kislev is one of those armies I wish Games Workshop would get around to again. In the meantime if you want a Kislev army you have to do some improvising because there are no rules and all the miniatures have been taken out of production.

So, if you want to slip a game-legal Kislev contingent into your Empire army here's the recipe for a bonafide Ice Wizard:

Take one Empire Battle Wizard, making the miniature look as haggard as possible (I think the Empire General head with the eye patch or something from the Flagellant set would serve). Keep him as a Level 1 Wizard and give him the Lore Of Heavens, swapping whatever spell you roll for the Iceshard Blizzard signature spell. And if you fancy giving him a cold-themed magic item there's always the Biting Blade.

My BBC Crossover Concept

I had an idea. A very silly idea actually but I think it would be funny. It would be a bit of a long game and would have to involve the co-operation of two production teams, one in London and one in Cardiff.

You see, first a new character has to be introduced in Eastenders. This character, let's call her Beatrice, would be introduced and developed over the course of several months and then she would disappear without explanation. THEN the Saturday after her final episode of Eastenders airs the actress turns up as a new companion in Doctor Who AS THE SAME CHARACTER!

Wouldn't that be great? To exploit the BBC's wholesale ownership of both programmes to create the sense of a shared universe.

Back to the Future. The Ark In Space Ramble

4 episodes featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor with Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane and Ian Marter as Harry
written by Robert Holmes
directed by Rodney Bennett

“Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species.”
- the Doctor

Story Review
Looking at Season Twelve in the abstract The Ark In Space is the only entirely fresh thing on the menu. With a new Doctor to establish the production team played it safe, starting with a UNIT story and rounding of the season with a trilogy of returning monsters: Sontarans, Daleks, Cybermen all in a row. However, watching The Ark In Space right after Tomb Of The Cybermen I found myself viewing this story rather differently. The whole story feels a bit of throwback to those black-and-white years.

The Ark In Space is classic base-under-siege stuff and the first episode feels like it comes straight out of those early years. The Doctor and his two companions materialise in a mysterious, abandoned space station, proceed to explore and in short order end up separated and in all sorts of trouble. There are no other characters in the first episode, just like the early Hartnells. The sense of exploring the unfamiliar makes a tangible difference from the more comfortable set-up of the Pertwee years.

When other actors eventually appear it turns out that Space Station Nerva is the last repository of the human race, a cryogenic lifeboat sent out from Earth before the world was devastated by solar flares. Unfortunately a giant space wasp has broken in and eaten the alarm clock. The space wasps want to take the last humans and use them to incubate a master race of space wasps with human knowledge built in. So as much as it might feel like a throwback to the old days we still get the foundations of Baker-era body horror.

As monsters the Wirrn look okay standing still and looming but not so good they walk around. Their spindly insect legs aren't articulated so it looks as if they're scooting along the floor on their bums. Oddly the most effective part of their life cycle is represented by Ark commander Noah being consumed by ever-expanding layers of green bubble wrap. It might not be the most amazing special effect but it's really sold by Kenton Moore's erratic performance, slipping from confident to confused to frightened between breaths as he fights the transformation.

The humanity in question aren't an instantly sympathetic bunch. It seems their society is very prescriptive and regimented, people play one role and only one role in life. There are even lines that suggest (whether just as part of the Ark project or in general) that this society actively practices eugenics. Two of the characters are even a married couple, a fact that is acknowledged in maybe two lines. They talk in percentages and are single-minded in their duties (a doctor doesn't think to stop strangers from wandering around because that sort of thing is an “executive problem”) but over time you start to warm to them. It helps that the last man to be thawed out is Richardson Morgan's working class technician Rogin whose bitching and moaning humanises the Nerva survivors no end.

Robert Holmes is as dependable as ever, giving us interesting characters in a logically thought-out setting. This is a world you can imagine both before and after the story and the progress of the Wirrn invasion ramps up the pressure as the humans become more and more desperate. The all-studio filming helps with the claustrophobia, making everything confined and closed in with nowhere to run to. It's all brilliantly atmospheric.

Moments of Charm
This is my favourite Harry Sullivan story because he has rather more to do than his usual slapstick pratfalls. Ian Marter was a wonderful straight man and never more so than when Sarah glimpses the Wirrn corpse on the floor and asks Ian what it is. His answer? A perfectly deadpan: “Don't know, we found it in the cupboard.”

DVD Extras
Things are starting to hot up in the VAM stakes now (that's what extras are called by the people who make them, by the way, Value Added Material). There's a brilliant little CGI tour of the Ark complete with annotations on what everything is and what it all does including the names of fictional companies that made the parts. There is also the option to watch the serial with new CGI effects rather than the old model shots which are nice enough but I'm an old-fashioned fellow and I honestly think the model work is better. They are very well-made, though.

Two interviews are included on the disc. One is with designer Roger Murray-Leech which is full of interesting little facts, not least of which is the fact that designers always had to fight to have their sets lit properly, as in not glaringly bright. This, coincidentally, is the man who designed the alien jungle in Planet Of Evil so basically one of the greatest designers in Who history so he's well worth listening to. The other, more humorous, interview is with Tom Baker on the set of Revenge of the Cybermen to tease the new series and the new Doctor. It's odd to think of a time when Baker wasn't the archetypal Doctor Who. Baker's always a pleasure to hear speak on the subject of the Doctor so it's interesting to see him from that point of view of the untested newcomer rather than the nation's favourite.

A BBC Fictionlab TARDIS-Cam show shows off a Cyber-Head and a natty model shot of a downed spacecraft. I forget why these were made but they are brilliant little mood pieces. In the “blink and you'll miss it” category is an unused title sequence.

Commentary duties are handled by Tom Baker (who admits he barely remembers the story), Elisabeth Sladen and producer Philip Hinchcliffe. Much deserved praise is heaped on designer Murray-Leech, of course, and Hinchcliffe has a great deal of love for his first story as producer. Sladen dwe#lls on how little Sarah Jane has to do in this story, which is a fair point, yet more evidence that the character of Harry Sullivan was a mistake.

LGBT History Month. Sir Isaac Newton

It's LGBT History Month and to kick off I thought I'd spotlight the man who is, to my mind, possibly the most influential LGBT figure in British history. He is, of course, Sir Isaac Newton. You really learn nothing interesting about history at school, all the really cool stuff they keep from you.

I'm not joking. Really, seriously, Newton was gay. This fact comes from the brilliant Radio 4 series The Mark Steel Lectures, in which the socialist comedian examines historical figures from the perspective of their “passions” rather than the boring facts. Check it out if you have a chance, the lectures on Napolean and Billie Holiday are particular highlights. This lecture showed me what a surprisingly interesting figure Newton was.

As a scientist alone Newton would rank as one of the nation's most notable historical icons but that wasn't the only side to his character. He was also an alchemist, he pursued the concept of magic with the same dedication as he pursued his scientific studies. He was Master of the Royal Mint where he invented almost every counterfeit prevention measure we use on physical currency today, a particular highlight being the little crinkles on the side of pound coins. He was a member of parliament for several years though he made one and only one address, the content of which was to ask for someone to close the window as he had a draft on his back.

He was also, as I mentioned earlier, gay. Rather, as my historian friends would insist I say, his only known romantic relationship was a homosexual one. His lover was a young Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier who himself originated the idea that the colour we see are the reflections of light coming off particles. Some of their correspondence survives, including this extract used by Steel in his lecture:

“Yesterday I had a sudden sense as might be caused by the breaking of an ulcer. As yet I have no doctor who could save my life. I thank God that my soul is quiet, in which you have had the chief hand.”

As Steel points out, the tragic romance of this letter is deflated rather by the fact Nicolas then lived for another 61 years. Don't worry, tragedy fans, this relationship does have a sad ending. After four years together Newton ended the relationship, worried that Nicolas was leaving papers lying around that would have outed Newton. Not as a homosexual, you understand, but as an alchemist.

This just goes to show that no one gets taught anything interesting in school history classes.

The Ramble

This week I have been mostly readin' Secret Avengers #21.1 and Justice League #5; listen' to Doctor Who: Recorded Time And Other Stories; and watchin' Sherlock Series Two. So, on with the motley...

READIN'

Secret Avengers #21.1
Red Light Nation (writer Rick Remender; artist Patrick Zircher; colour art Andy Troy)

Having picked up a few of the wonderful single issue stories in Warren Ellis' run I thought I'd give the new guy a try. Rick Remender (oh, how auto-correct hates his name) seems to occupy a Chris Yost-like position in the Marvel stable. He's already writing Uncanny X-Force and Venom and now he's got a third black ops title under his belt. As a preview, as all the Point 1 issues are, this gives with one hand and takes with the other.

The give: The thing I love about Secret Avengers, having picked up the trades from Brubaker and Spencer's runs, is that even though it's had four creative teams it's still following the same storyline. This issue continues the secret war with the Shadow Council and Life Model Decoy gone rogue Max Fury. I like this story, I don't think it's the sort of thing that could be solved quickly and I like that the fight has to continue over multiple writers.

The take: The issue is a sort of extended job interview as Steve Rogers (once more Captain America) is seeing if Hawkeye is right to take over the reins of the Secret squad while Cap returns to leading the public team. Its interesting stuff that goes to the very heart of these two mens' relationship but it tells me little about the tone of this run. The next issue image has a mix of old and new faces but this is more of a passing of the torch than the set-up to a new era. Still, I'm interested enough in how this'll develop that I'm on board for the next issue.

Justice League #5
Chapter Five (writer Geoff Johns; pencils Jim Lee; inks Williams, Hope, Irwin and Weems; colours Alex Sinclair with Gabe Eltaeb and Tony Avina)

I thought this was a 5-parter. I have this odd thing about time so I kept wondering how Johns was going to end his story when he was spending so much of the issue on just running around and hitting things.

That said there are some brilliant character moments as the team begins to bond. I still feel Cyborg is a bit of an odd man out but you can see the inner strength (I will not say iron will) that'll make him a hero. Batman and Hal have a brilliant bit of business between them as Bruce reveals his identity and shows that there might actually be some difference between the character before and after the New 52.

I really want this story to end, though, because origins are all well and good but I want to see the Justice League of the present. I know the present of the New 52 now so I want to see how things have changed from the strange martial law of these early days.

LISTENIN'

Every year Big Finish does a short story collection: four single episode stories in one release. Last year it was Colin Baker's turn and thus Recorded Time And Other Stories which is a nice, eclectic selection of tales.

Titular story Recorded Time by Catherine Harvey starts off as a historical and then moves into more surreal territory. It's a nice switch because when Henry VIII gets tired of Anne Boleyn and settles on Peri you think you're in for a “history must be served” kind of story but then the court historian starts acting strangely. Paradoxicide by Richard Dinnick is an easy to follow bit of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey that gives Peri a nice share of the spotlight. Question Marks by Philip Lawrence takes that old sci-fi standard of a group of characters with no memories locked in an isolated environment. It might not sound innovative but it has a very good twist.

The jewel of the collection is Matt Fitton's A Most Excellent Match which casts Peri in the role of Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennett and the Sixth Doctor as one of her suitors. It's a nice opening mystery but Fitton doesn't rest on his laurels, bringing in elements of Bronte and Defoe as layer after layer of the mystery comes clear. This is also the most well-paced of the four stories and I certainly hope Fitton gets more work from BFP.

WATCHIN'

We waited too long for this but it was so worth it. That frustrating yet wonderful cliffhanger to Series One which left us all waiting to see how John and Sherlock would escape from Moriarty and all those snipers. The answer is completely unexpected and brilliant.

As with the last series this is a trilogy of 90 minute stories: A Scandal In Belgravia written by Steven Moffat, The Hounds Of Baskerville by Mark Gatiss and The Reichenbach Fall by Steve Thompson. In the full flush of confidence after the first season's success Sherlock is tackling the three biggest stories: Irene Adler, Baskerville and the Final Problem. All three are modernised and played with in that strange Sherlock way where they become both a new story but strangely faithful to the source material. Baskerville here isn't the name of a landed family but a weapons research base on Dartmoor but we still have a hound, a Henry Knight and Lestrade turns up for no reason just like in the book.

The series has become more of an ensemble piece in this series: Mrs Hudson has more to do, Lestrade is in each episode, Mycroft meets John for coffee, Molly even turns up for he Baker Street Christmas party. The focus is still the spot-on chemistry of Cumberbatch and Freeman as Sherlock and John (not Holmes and Watson, never Holmes and Watson) but the world of the series is beginning to come together all over. The two principals have learnt to live with each other since the last series and they're completely bonded as partners though they still get on each others' nerves.

The three individuals films (it seems churlish somehow to call them episodes) offer great variety. A Scandal In Belgravia is incredibly fun and you can't bring yourself to see Irene Adler as the villain because she's so spectacularly naughty. The Hounds Of Baskerville is tense and leaves you uncertain at times whether there will be a rational explanation as the plot veers more and more towards science fiction so you begin to feel some of Sherlock's unease in this irrational situation. The Reichenbach Fall rounds the series off on a very dark note, taking the most hopeless story in the canon and making it a downright horrific psychological experience for the two main characters.

Frustratingly there's no commentary on the final episode which is a pity because of all of them that's the one I would have wanted to hear a creative discussion about. The other commentaries are fun and informative even if Russell Tovey seems to be under the impression he's moderating the commentary rather than contributing to it.

I'm told Series Three has already been commissioned, I just hope we don't have to wait until 2014 to see it.

A Thought About Internet Piracy

With SOPA and PIPA (both of which are rather poorly written Bills open to abuse) being in the news I thought I'd say something about piracy. You see, I wonder if when the history of entertainment is written that account will tackle the fact that piracy has improved our experience of things.

Here's my point: I remember how long it took for a film to come out on video when I was a child. Take a Hollywood film, Jurassic Park for instance. The film would be released in America, a couple of months down the line it would be released in the UK after we all knew what was going to happen from reviews, then it'd be on television on some bank holiday a year or so later and ONLY THEN would there be a video.

I bought the DVD of Sherlock Series Two one week after the final episode aired. Films take a couple of months to come out on DVD to deny pirates their chance. DVD extras are a way of making the professional product more desirable than someone's digital copy TIVOed off telly. Special Editions offer a different experience from the cinema edition or a cinema viewing taped from the back row. Free shipping from Amazon removes one of the barriers of inconvenience between you and the products in their warehouses. Sketchbook and creator commentaries in trade paperbacks offer a similar enhanced reading experience to DVD extras.

It’s interesting how crime adapts to business and business adapts to crime.

However, it has to be said that I don't understand the assertion on the FACT adverts you get on films that digital piracy supports organised crime and terrorism. Unless O2 and T-Mobile and other internet service providers have a paramilitary wing I don't know about.

Tomb It May Concern. The Tomb of the Cybermen Ramble

4 episodes featuring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor with Frazer Hines as Jamie and Deborah Watling as Victoria
written by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis
directed by Morris Barry

“... frozen forever, all their evil locked away with them and so it must remain.”
- the Doctor

Story Review
The set up for Tomb Of The Cybermen is classic horror flick stuff. After a short establishing scene in the TARDIS we are whisked off to the scenic if strangely quarry-like planet Telos where a group of archaeologists are trying to uncover the lost city of the Cybermen. Thinking the Cybermen are extinct they therefore don't realise what a bloody stupid idea this is but where would horror scripts be without people being bloody stupid? Would any halfway sensible man ever visit Castle Dracula? Would they walk into the dark woods where a serial killer is absolutely certainly lurking?

The archaeology team is the also the classic horror cast pick-and-mix: the professor, the coward, the working class muscle and a pair of traitors with unsubtle Eastern European accents. It's no spoiler to say Kaftan and Kleig are villains because their every line is arrogant and sinister and they're followed around by their own almost-mute black slave man. Ah yes, Toberman, our racially problematic character du jour. Surprisingly this doesn't happen too often in Doctor Who considering its age but Toberman is a difficult one. He hardly speaks and even then seems incapable of constructing complete sentences, he exists only as muscle and... oh grief it's horrible and barely (if that) saved by the character's final scene in which he manages to bravely save the day thus gaining agency and importance.

Of course this large cast exists mainly for the purpose of being picked off one by one: by traps, by circumstance, by poking things they should leave well alone. Having all these characters wandering around means that Pedler and Davis can take their own sweet time before introducing the titular bad guys. They even play with our expectations as viewers, putting an interesting twist on the traditional end of part one reveal monsters always make.

This is a beautifully designed story, it has to be said. The tall tomb set is magnificent and not just in a “considering the times” sense, it certainly beats the hell out of the tombs we'll see twenty years later in Attack Of The Cybermen. The various rooms in the Cyber-city are adorned with stylised Cybermen faces all over the place like some South American temple uncovered after centuries. It has to be be said I honestly think the Moonbase/Tomb Cybermen were the best design they ever had. Its the hands, I think, just the two thick fingers and a chunky thumb, makes them look more inhuman.

The trappings of old style sci-fi as well as horror abound. Victoria is offered “food pills” for lunch and people use the phrase “rocket ship”. I like rocket ships, there's something charmingly quaint about the idea.

Even surrounded by a large cast Patrick Troughton shines as the definitive Doctor: throwing out one-liners and put downs left, right and centre. He has such presence and such a wonderful voice for exposition because it never seems dry, really keeping your interest. His Doctor here is a manipulative old sod, nudging the archaeologists along so that he'll be on hand when the metal meanies make their eventual appearance. He's also a paternal figure, comforting Victoria as she mourns her father. No wonder Troughton more than any other Doctor gets cited by later actors as a touchstone for the role.

Moments of Charm
Any Who fan who has seen this story knows what scene I'm going to pick. Recently orphaned Victoria Waterfield needs cheering up and the Doctor talks to her about his own family. Thought it's brief and vague it's one of the few scenes we ever get of the Doctor talking about his personal past. It's also a lovely scene about memory and mourning.

DVD Presentation
It's an actors-only commentary this time round with Fraser Hines and Deborah Watling, remembering old friends and having a laugh with one another, teasing gently the way very old mates do even if some of the material is duplicated later on in the Tombwatch feature. An interesting collection of odds and sods make up the other extras for this. With so few Troughton stories surviving to get the DVD treatment this isn't surprising as relevance comes second to getting the material out there somehow.

First up are a series of test sequences from when the Troughton title sequence was being composed. Nice enough and interesting to see some of the effects that didn't make it in (some of them frankly superior to the finished product). Clips from a programme called Late Night Line-Up gives us a man with very a boring voice explaining how the BBC Special Effects department works, a segment linked to Tomb only by a small musical number featuring a pair of balletic Cybermats.

The Final End gives us as close as we'll ever get to watching the climax of Evil Of The Daleks, marrying amateur 8mm film taken during filming with the original soundtrack. It's jerky and wobbly but the best recreation we'll probably ever see. Of somewhat more relevance is a piece comparing the original recovered film prints of Tomb with the remastered DVD-quality stuff. What can I say: the DVD is better, of course it is better and I didn't really need this to know that but the Restoration Team are the great unsung heroes of Doctor Who so giving them a chance to toot their own horns is more than justified.

Tombwatch presents a panel hosted by the Doctor Who Appreciation Society featuring Frazer Hines, Deborah Watling, producer Peter Bryant, script editor Victor Pemberton, Michael Kilgarriff (the Cyber-Controller) and Shirley Cooklin (Kaftan) with clips of others. There are, of course, stories, there are always brilliant stories when Doctor Who actors and producers get together. Director Morris Barry hosts a short introduction (recorded for the 1992 VHS release) which has more, if less lively stories.

Christians and Bells and Ow...

I woke up this morning with a headache and because of it I ended up wondering about a certain bit of Christian architecture.

You see, I went for a walk because I once lived with a rabid straight-edger and so painkillers are an absolute last resort. In fairness, I do find that a bit of fresh air does me a power of good when I've got a headache. Anyway, I end up walking through the graveyard by the Minster (yes, we have a Minster, yet another reason Reading was cheated out of that city charter). It was lovely and peaceful and relaxing but I forgot that it was 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning.

Can you guess why, dear reader?

“Bells, my dear, bells!” as old Sixie once said, grabbing Peri by the shoulders (probably the only bit of her the BBC would let him touch for fear of complaints). It's a wonderful sort of sound when you're in the mood for it, rising crescendos and peals and different bells running through at different speeds, but when you already have a force ten headache it loses its beauty rather.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is I'm now wondering what the bells are actually about. Are they a doctrinal thing? Is there some religious significance to bells? Or is it simply a relic of a time when there were no digital watches and just an extension of the hourly bongs, an extra special sort of bonging to declare “Put the primitive farming equipment down, lads, it's time for God now!”.

My family were Sunday Christians when they weren't too busy being bitter agnostics (my father went to a Catholic school, institutions which I swear are God's gift to the atheists to prove He still loves them) so I don't know nearly enough about the actual workings of churches. This is a pity because the art and architecture of them is beautiful, there's a Polish Catholic church by the King's Road that has spectacular stained glass windows.

Video Nastiness. The Vengeance on Varos Ramble

2 episodes featuring Colin Baker as the Doctor with Nicola Bryant as Peri
written by Philip Martin
directed by Ron Jones

“Close-up on death throes, please.”
- the Governor

Story Review
You could call Season Twenty-Two a love it or hate it part of Doctor Who history... if you could find just one person who legitimately loved it. It was a season with a lot of problems not least of which was being rather crap all round. Vengeance On Varos is generally considered the exception that proves the rule. Vengeance is a bit good, you see.

In the TARDIS the Doctor and Peri have their bickering interrupted by a power failure and, following a short therapeutic sulk, the Doctor uses the last of the power to land on the mining planet Varos. Hoping to pop in, buy some of Varos' unique Zeiton-7 and get back to their argument the pair are frustrated when they materialise in a torture chamber. It seems Varos has two exports: Zeiton-7 and “video nasty” tapes of their political dissidents being tortured to death. So most of the story involves the Doctor and Peri running through corridors encountering acid baths, marauding guards, poisonous plants, cannibals and vicious stock footage. Thus we come to one of the big problems of Season Twenty-Two...

It takes forever for the Doctor to get involved in the story. It isn't until Part Two that the Doctor comes face to face with anyone of importance on Varos rather than just random guards and ineffectual rebels Jondar and Areta. In some ways the story even resolves without the Doctor's involvement, which isn't a unique problem that year (take a bow, Revelation Of The Daleks).

But let's concentrate for a few moments on the positive. Big guest star of the story is Martin Jarvis as the Governor, who seems to have been teleported in from a better production. He's one of British acting's grand pantheon so it isn't surprising that he adds a sense of gravity to every scene he's in. His turn as the Governor, condemned to literally live or die by public vote, is beautifully melancholy and subtle at a time when over-acting was the norm in Doctor Who. Sadly he gets rather over-shadowed by Nabil Shaban's grotesque turn as Sil.

Sil is a brilliant creation, grotesque and sadistic as he enjoys the tortures of Varos' Punishment Dome. And that horrible gurgling laugh is awesome. As Shaban points out on the commentary it's a distinctive sound that really makes a Doctor Who monster.

What is debatable with Vengeance is the violence. As a satire of the video nasty craze of its day Vengeance shows us a society where torture is the only entertainment. We even have a window on the lives of the Varosian citizens in Arak and Etta, a bickering middle-aged couple (no one gets on in the Colin Baker era) who never meet anyone else on screen, simply watching events on their TV and discussing death and torture the way normal people discuss soap operas. “When was the last time we saw a decent execution?” asks Arak at one point.

As tame as the violence is too me, a man used to HBO levels of blood spatter, it does seem horrendous by Doctor Who standards. We actually see the Doctor gloat after two guards fall into an acid bath and die, firing off a pithy one-liner in the direction of their disintegrating corpses. It really is obscene, all of Mary Whitehouse's Christmases come at once. It is perhaps too direct in its satire, pushing the Doctor into a sort of wilful killing that just doesn't work for the character.

Moments of Charm
Nabil Shaban's every scene is a belter but the prize has to go to Martin Jarvis' understated, melancholic speech as he waits for what he knows will be the final vote against him, the one that will see him killed. He's resigned to his fate, noting that death is now an old friend to him, a constant companion. As I said before, it's like he was teleported in from a better production like Ricardo Montalban in The Wrath Of Khan.

DVD Presentation
On my second watch-through of these DVDs I switch on the commentary and the information text which means going through the Special Features menu several times and each time the clip on one side of the screen is Sil gurgling like a pervert. Could have done without that, frankly.

There is a behind the scenes piece, a couple of different takes of Peri's interrogation by the Governor and Chief Guard complete with fluffs and comments from the director off-screen. It's just the one scene three or four times but interesting if you like to take a peek behind the curtain. There's also a small selection of extended and deleted scenes, best of which are some extra bits with Arak and Etta. There's also more Doctor/Peri bickering and I can't express how glad I am that got cut, their relationship didn't need more of that even if it involves the ever hilarious verbal mannerism. Verbal mannerism? VERBAL MANNERISM!!!!! Call me a bluff old traditionalist but I think the Doctor and his companions should get along otherwise it begs the question of why he would keep them around. There is a moment of tenderness between the two that would have been the final scene, the very sort of scene that would have softened the relationship and Colin Baker's character, the very sort of moment that was desperately needed in Season Twenty-Two.

Talking of Doctor and companion getting along, the commentary sees Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Nabil Shaban raconteur their way through the story. Baker is clearly in charge of things, directing his fellow actors in their reminiscence (when he isn't perving on 1980s Nicola Bryant, that is). Actor commentaries are usually funny and this one doesn't disappoint, decades of conventions have honed these actors' skills as storytellers and best of all is Nabil Shaban recounting a “compliment” paid to him by the late Mary Whitehouse.

Dr Who Ramble. What has the TV Movie ever done for us?

featuring Paul McGann and Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor with Daphne Ashbrook as Grace, Yee Jee Tso as Chang Lee and Eric Roberts as the Master
written by Mathew Jacobs
directed by Geoffrey Sax

“I love humans: always seeing patterns in things that aren't there.”
- the Doctor

Story Review
So here it is: the great failure, the one night stand that constitutes 1990s Doctor Who. For a single Monday evening in May 1996 he was back... and then he wasn't. If not for spin-off media the Eighth Doctor would be a footnote, a latter day Peter Cushing to be forgotten in pub quizzes, his canonicity forever suspect. Yes, the film was a failure in what it set out to achieve but what has the TV Movie ever done for us?

Let's go back to that one night stand metaphor. Hungover the morning after the collective consciousness of fandom blinked its bleary eyes, looked at the other side of the bed and learnt some valuable lessons. I say “fandom” because it would be fans (Mssrs. Davies, Moffatt and Cornell amongst others) who would bring the series back to much critical acclaim nine years later. First and most important, they learnt that bringing Sylvester McCoy back was a mistake.

Now, I like Sylvester McCoy, I like his Doctor and I applaud his commitment to film a regeneration because he felt fans were short changed by the half-arsed way he assumed the role. However, it was a bad idea. About a third of this film is wasted introducing a character that will die, asking the audience to invest in someone they will never see again. It takes valuable time away from making McGann a distinct character worthy of heading his own series. Worse, McGann never has that moment of revelation most Doctors get, that moment when their personality solidifies and they're there. There isn't a “No more second chances, I'm that sort of a man.”, no “Basically, run.”, not even a “Whether you like it or not.”. I love the Eighth Doctor but it has to be said that more than a decade of Big Finish has rendered the character here unrecognisable. It's a damn shame that for most people this is his only appearance.

This isn't to say that the TV Movie gave RTD nothing more than mistakes to learn from, it piloted a few innovations. Where would the revived series be without the work done here to make the Doctor a sexual being? True, the kisses here seem more meaningful to Grace than the Doctor but they do add a splash of romance to the character which would inform his relationships with Charley, Rose, Martha and River.

There's also the more action-based approach this story takes, having the Doctor steal a motorcycle, threaten to shoot himself and, yes, the kissing again. He's attractive and the story is allowed to play that up.

Finally, of course, it gave us an Eighth Doctor, it gave us Paul McGann. It took far too long but once Big Finish got their hands on him we got stuff like Invaders From Mars, Human Resources, Zagreus and Neverland, the story where the Doctor would finally tell a human woman he loved her.

As any scientist will tell you, even failed experiments can have unforeseen positive consequences.

Moments of Charm
There is a scene of real genius as the Doctor, Grace and the Master (still disguised as paramedic Bruce) chat in the back of an ambulance: the Doctor declaring he knew Madame Curie “intimately”, Grace's sudden jealousy, the Master correcting her grammar. In that one scene McGann nails a character, not just an amalgam of the writer's fond memories but a Doctor all his own, a hint of the name dropper he'll become; Daphne Ashbrook shows some fire; and Eric Roberts resurrects the urbane wit of the Master's better incarnations.

DVD Presentation
Coming to this after watching the two UNIT Files DVDs last week you realise just how spoilt we've become when it comes to extras. The main feature here is a series of interviews from when the Movie was being produced. The best of the crop is Sylvester McCoy waxing lyrical about the series but they're all very light promo pieces. Only one interview, with Seagal, is from after the movie had failed and in spite of this he's still enthusiastic about the show.

The selection of trailers show how badly this film was marketed. They actually put “I always drezz for the occasion” in the bloody BBC trailer, for goodness sake.

There are a few other odds and sods, some alternate scenes which aren't mind blowing but far more interesting is producer Philip Seagal giving a tour of the TARDIS set. It really is a wonderful TARDIS and bringing the “bigger” back into “bigger on the inside than out” is one of the enduring legacies of the movie. There are whole areas of the set including a conservatory with potted plans and a piano that I don't think you even glimpse in the film. A behind the scenes compilation shows a few different bits of business from the recording but it isn't narrated or ordered to any great degree.

Just playing with my new camera

Couldn’t think of anything to post today so I thought I’d see if my digital camera was good enough to take photos of some of my miniatures. After all, one of my big resolutions for the year is to finish an army ad it’d help if I had more of a medium to show them of… *ahem*… a way of documenting my progress, ordering my thoughts, a sort of production diary, I suppose.

So, just some test shots of my current Skaven army and one very lost Agitator/Officer from my Lost And The Damned.

I think I need to invest in some scenery before I take any more pictures.

The Unreal Deal. The Android Invasion Ramble

4 episodes featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor, Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah and Ian Marter as Harry
written by Terry Nation
directed by Barry Letts

“... it's not real wood and you're not the real Sarah.”
- the Doctor

Story Review
The second instalment of the UNIT Files boxset takes us as far from UNIT's heyday as it's possible to get. The Fourth Doctor and Sarah set down in the woods just outside picturesque Devesham. Going exploring they get shot at by men in space suits, watch a UNIT corporal throw himself off a cliff and wander into a deserted village only to see more space suited men driving a truck full of silent, immobile villagers into the square. It' all very off-kilter, unexplained weirdness and odd little clues like every coin being newly minted and the same date. UNIT might not be at full strength in this story but the feel of it is, this is a pure Avengers set-up straight from the early-70s.

Terry Nation was a writer of staples and there's a lot of Nation-isms here: the story opens with a man walking to his death; weapons of mass destruction; radioactivity; dopplegangers; sprained ankles; the end of part one monster reveal. He gets lot of stick in our production literate world but he was always brilliant for action and little bits of mystery to generate a world. Yes, there's a formula to his stories even when the Daleks aren't around but more often than not his stuff is great fun.

The initial mystery is what makes this story so involving as the Doctor and Sarah wander the streets in utter confusion. For once the dead giveaway of the story title even wrongfoots us because the invasion isn't at the stage we initially think it is.

There are a couple of bum notes in the production: swaddled under layers of wrinkly latex the Kraals were never destined to become great Who villains. The actors' voices are distorted by the masks so they can't really project any emotion other than vague grumpiness. The “eye patch” reveal has value as a shock moment but it doesn't stand up to a second's scrutiny. It might be tempting to call it a misunderstanding of disability by an abled writer but you can't even go there because it is so mind numbingly impossible. That said, Crayford is a brilliantly sympathetic villain and one of the more convincing cases of brainwashing the series had ever attempted. Pity about the patch.

Another pity is the very light roles Ian Marter and Ian Levene get as Harry and Benton. For both of them this would be the last hurrah but both spend most of the story playing very flat android versions of their characters. Harry and Benton are great characters and it's sad to see them so reduced in their last appearance.

But I'm being too had on this one because there's so much to love. Though they scowl and grumble their way through the story the Kraals are entertaining baddies in cod-Shakespearian sort of way. Tom Baker and Lis Sladen sparkle their way through four episodes with Baker showing a real hard edge at times, especially when he has reason to suspect Sarah might have been harmed. The atmosphere of the opening episodes is fantastic in its creepiness. This story hits more often than it misses, it's just that the misses are so big.

Moments of Charm
Doctor Who has always been a show on a shoestring, whatever the era, and this show has the greatest free special effect ever. Tom Baker, coming to realise the situation he's in, pulls down a branch from the tree next to him and simply declares that it's plastic, not wood. It's simple, it cost not a penny and Baker's delivery makes it utterly convincing.

DVD Presentation
Nick Briggs presents The Village That Came To Life, a combined “making of” and “then and now” documentary. Briggs wanders around the village and space defence centre locations, he even visits the real Fleur De Lys pub where he, naturally, re-enacts the pint of ginger pop scene with the genuine landlord. The talking heads are all interesting: producer Philip Hinchcliffe, late director Barry Letts and actors Martin Friend (Styggron) and Milton Johns (Guy Crayford). Letts and Hinchcliffe obviously have very different views of how the show should work, as evidenced by their differing eras as producer, and here is a rare chance to see them discuss the same serial. The clashes between their approaches might not be huge but it's interesting because neither of them are wrong, they both presided over very popular eras.

Friend and Johns' memories of the recording are of a happy time with a generous star, so we're in Friendly Tom territory rather than Difficult Tom. Both actors are frank about the difficulties of their characters; Friend about his prosthetics and Johns about the infamous eye patch scene.

Life After Who: Philip Hinchcliffe, presented by his daughter Celina Hinchciffe, examines the man's twenty year career after he left the show. First off is cop show Target, which shows that his taste for controversial violence wasn't confined to Who. He also discusses the difference between working for the BBC and independent companies, the principal one being that outside the BBC no one pays for development. It's also a brilliant potted history of BBC production over twenty years. Being interviewed by his daughter means that there's someone to jog his memory from actual experience rather than a set of notes. In particular I have to see if Friday On My Mind has ever been released on DVD, it looks amazing and it stars Christopher Ecclestone.

Finally, a Dalek presents a Weetabix advert featuring cardboard cutouts of Doctor Who characters. It's actually quite shaming that this Dalek looks better than the ones used by the series at this time.

Once again Toby Hadoke is our commentary wrangler corraling Milton Johns, Martin Friend, production assistant Marion McDougal and Philip Hinchcliffe. It's a good mix of producers and actors, technical anecdotes and location stories. It's interesting but rather upstaged by the Information Text which swing wildly between what's on screen and brilliant little asides such as explaining that the word “android” was first coined in the 13th century or reporting the opinions, of all people, of Kenneth Williams on the story (he wasn't impressed). The IT also dwells on the exceedingly eccentric actions of Styggron.

If I wrote a sitcom

I know what the theme tune would be. I heard it on a Goon Show CD a few years ago and it just feels right. You can just imagine it being the song for a romantic comedy series, probably about a long distance relationship. The version I heard was sung by regular Goon Show crooner Ray (not the Duke) Ellington. The song itself is by Louis Prima.

(The beeping is performed by the pianist)

My baby’s going on a trip to the moon
And she won’t be back too soon
She doesn’t write me and I can’t sleep
All I hear from her is beep beep beep

My baby’s up in a rocket machine
Since she left, she ain’t been seen
She doesn’t call me and I can’t sleep
All I hear from her is beep beep beep

I wonder if beep beep means ‘I miss you’
Or maybe beep boop means ‘I want to kiss you’
I’m hoping that beep beep means ‘I love you’
And she’s comin’ down to Earth again

My baby’s high in the stratosphere
I’m so low ‘cause I’m down here
My love for her is gonna keep
Till she comes back and whispers beep beep beep

I wonder if beep beep means ‘I miss you’
Or maybe beep boop means ‘I want to kiss you’
I’m hoping that beep beep means ‘I love you’
And she’s comin’ down to Earth again

My baby’s foolin’ ‘round with a satellite
Now you know that, that ain’t right
My love for her is gonna keep
Till she comes back and whispers beep beep beep

The Comics Ramble... Reborn

Not necessarily relevant, concise, well-ordered, objective or fully spell-checked, the Comics Ramble has regenerated. If you're wondering, its last words before death were “Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice...” Still, if SallyP's This Weeks Comics can be young and strong, so can I... the Comics Ramble… reborn!!!!!

Charles M. Schulz Peanuts #1
(new stories by Vicki Scott and Shane Houghton; art by Vicki Scott, Paige Braddock and Matt Whitcock; colours Lisa Moore, Bob Scott, Justin Thompson and Alexis E. Fajardo; classic material by Charles M. Schulz)

I picked this one up off the shelf in sheer bafflement and fully prepared to cry “Heresy!” in this review. However, this was a fine showing because in spite of that title this comic doesn't try to be the old Peanuts. There are a couple of old Schulz's Sunday page comics to prove the point. Rather, the new stories invoke the spirit of the Charlie Brown And Snoopy Show.

This issue mainly focuses on Lucy Van Pelt who was always one of Schulz's (if I'm not pluralising that right, I'm sorry, funny name) better characters but the whole gang gets in on the act: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Schroeder, even some little-remembered characters like Frieda and her cat. There's a lovely feeling of nostalgia in it all that takes me back to Sunday mornings in the late 1980s when the cartoon was on Channel 4. Whatever this book misses by not being a perfect re-creation of Schulz's style it gains from pure nostalgia.

I defy anyone with even the slightest fond memory of Snoopy not to smile when the Psychiatric Help 5 cents booth turns up.

Scarlet Spider #1
Life After Death (writer Christopher Yost; pencils Ryan Stegman; inks Michael Babinski; colours Marte Garcia)

If you'd told me in 1996 that some day I'd pick up an ongoing starring a Spider-Clone, let alone Kaine...

Some writers just find their niche and when you pick up a Chris Yost book you know it's going to be an edgy, morally ambiguous affair. This man resurrected X-Force, slaughtered his way through the New X-Men, enrolled Red Robin in the League of Assassins and wrote X-23 a life of physical and psychological abuse. You know where you are with this man and when Kaine drops down on gang of human traffickers not to bust the deal but to steal their duffelbag of cash I wasn't disappointed.

The premise is simple: Kaine was an imperfect clone of Spider-Man who went mad and became a murderous villain. He had a bunch of weird powers that made no sense and a disfiguring genetic illness but that was the Clone Saga for you. Strange days. In the fallout from Spider-Island Yost has taken the miracle cure his character was handed and simplified things wonderfully. Now Kaine is Peter Parker but meaner, scruffier, on the run and without a spider-sense or functional moral compass.

What interests me about the angle is that Kaine has always been “not Peter Parker”, the vision of how bloody evil the hero could be is he spent his entire life being shit on. Now he's running as fast as he can from New York and not just from the authorities, there's a suggestion he's running from the very idea of Peter Parker. The scene where he takes his stolen money and books himself into an expensive hotel is a brilliant way to show that Kaine just wants to be alive again.

Oh, and there's a reddhead bartender and an illegal immigrant and a policeman and a doctor and a villain: all the ingredients for a supporting cast right there. Damn, but I'm looking forward to seeing how this one's going to play out.

I think Bart is still Bart

You see, I just read Teen Titans #4 (I know, I'm a bit behind) and the team is starting to come together. Whilst in the A-Plot we have Cassie and Con flirting outrageously as they pound on one another over in the B-plot we have the team getting to know one another in Tim's apartment. The “getting to know you” bit for Bart piques my interest because he's lost his memory.

Six months previously he turns up at an orphanage, amnesiac. This interests me because of Bart's unique past in the old DCU: he was the only character aside from Barry Allen to go through Flashpoint unchanged. He's also a time traveller and we know (from Flashpoint and from the old Teen Titans ongoing) that time travel can alter memories to prevent the paradox of foreknowledge. He also spent Flashpoint not on wibbly Earth but in a wibbly future, possibly isolated from the moment of chance the Legion Of Super-Heroes now has down as "The Flashpoint Barrier".

So my theory: after Kid Flash Lost, Bart emerges into the world of the New 52 and the process of rewriting his memories to accommodate the new continuity overloads his unique mental processes. Bart's brain is fast, his speed force powers affect its processing speed, so perhaps complete burn out was the only solution?

It's a bit slim, I know, but I was right about Excoristos in Demon Knights being an Amazon and I'm feeling a bit punch drunk.

Scary Monsters. The Invasion of the Dinosaurs

“You mustn't say such things!”
- Ruth

6 episodes featuring Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah and Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier
written by Malcolm Hulke
directed by Paddy Russell

Story Review
Invasion Of The Dinosaurs has a special place in Doctor Who history, its special effects are legendarily for being worst in the canon. To quote Edmund Blackadder: “as you can imagine, that's up against some pretty stiff competition.” In fairness the dinosaurs are utterly rubbish, that's not debatable so I won't even try. The absolute worst comes in the final episode as a T-Rex and a Brontosaurus come to blows. Well, I say blows, what I mean is that since the sock puppets can't walk and they can't bite they end up nuzzling each others' necks in lieu of combat, it's almost bizarrely romantic: a Tyrannosaurus and a herbivore, that's love across the barricades for you.

The story opens with a montage of deserted London streets and landmarks, silent until the TARDIS wheezes and groans into existence. Invaded by (you'll never guess) dinosaurs, London has been evacuated by the super star tag team of UNIT and the regular army who are having all sorts of fun shooting looters and less fun shooting impervious dinosaurs. UNIT are led as ever by the trusty Brigadier and the regulars are commanded by General Finch, who could not be more sinister if he tried. They're basically treating the symptoms of the problem rather than the cause with the Brig assuring his untrustworthy superior that once the scientific advisor turns up they'll be able to get to the bottom of things.

Said scientific advisor has by this time been attacked by a pterosaur, stolen a car, been arrested as a looter and sentenced to a detention camp under martial law. Throughout it all Pertwee is utterly charming, butting heads with by-the-book military men and bonding with a captured looter. Beside him through all this is Sarah Jane Smith in a position I'm not used to seeing her, you see, no one really trusts her. The Doctor likes and respects her but she's not as deep in his confidence as Jo was, not this early in her time on the show. The Brigadier doesn't know her, only tolerates her because the Doctor insists on her as his assistant, brushing off her request to photograph the dinosaurs. I'm so used to Lis Sladen as an established, venerable part of the universe, here she's new and no one knows her. Still, she gets the best storyline in the serial, being kidnapped by the baddies and waking up on a spaceship populated by left-wing extremists intent on reaching a new world and guiding its inhabitants into a Golden Age, avoiding the mistakes this world has made. It's so imperialist it isn't true.

There's something genuinely chilling when these lefties react to Sarah questioning their morals with forced re-education and the threat of death. They lock her in the Reminder Room where she's bombarded with filmic evidence of how shit mankind is. Lis Sladen may never have liked the journalist angle she was handed but it gives Sarah the deductive skills to explore this spaceship and uncover exactly what's going on. It's actually the better part of the story, not let down by dodgy rubber dinosaurs and actually bringing her closer to the heart of the mystery than the Doctor will get for an episode or so.

The other thing about this story is that it is really the last UNIT story. After this Mike Yates becomes a civilian, then disappears, then we lose the Brig until UNIT is represented purely by Harry and Benton (in the other half of this box set, actually) before they all fade away. This story is a hell of a valedictory lap for the UNIT family. The Brig is as stoic and deadpan funny as ever, Nick Courtney giving it his all, quietly loyal to his men and the Doctor to the bitter end. Ian Levene's Sergeant Benton gets few better moments than when apologising to a traitorous senior officer as he clobbers the man. Finally, of course, there's Richard Franklin as Captain Yates, whose idealism proves his downfall in an utterly unprecedented bit of character development for the show. This was the beginning of the end for UNIT but it couldn't have had a better story to go out on.

Pity there were a few others to go, really.

Moments of Charm
Part Two shows the truth in the age old adage that you can choose your friends but not your family, even the UNIT family. The Doctor, having finally managed to get rid of Sarah and Mike Yates so he can work in peace almost jumps towards the door in a rush to lock it. The door locked, silence achieved, the Brig comes in through the other door and Pertwee literally growls and reaches to tear his hair out. Not often you see the Doctor get utterly peeved.

There's also the moment when the Doctor is preparing to karate chop the first soldier through the door and has to turn the chop into a friendly wave when he realises it's the Brigadier. Utterly charming.

DVD Presentation
For the first time since 1974 the first episode of this story is available in colour... sort... of... For some reason no one can explain the colour restoration process that worked so magnificently on Planet Of The Daleks didn't work anywhere near as well on this one: colours fade in and out, Sarah Jane's hair has a green tinge, everything looks bleached. As a consequence you have the option to watch the episode in colour or in black and white but as much as I complain about the finished product it is better in colour, limited as it might be.

The big feature on the second disc is People, Power And Puppetry which largely shies away from the obvious angle of rubbishing the effects and concentrates on the ideas of the story. Terrance Dicks is on hand to remember the politics of Malcolm Hulke and how they influenced the environmental themes of his work. I never knew Hulke was a communist and that his own problems with the British Communist Party influenced his creation of the New Earth loonies. Actor Peter Miles has some good points to make about fascism and how otherwise reasonable people becoming collaborators in evil regimes. It makes a compelling case for this story's brilliance and it is certainly one of Hulke's better scripts.

There's a deleted scenes package, mainly tiny chops and changes but a mute Part One scene shows a slightly different view to the opening sequence that would have had a lone looter being seen to die rather than the “deserted streets” montage of the finished product. The Now And Then series takes us through the locations used in the opening montage in and other places. It has to be said that the London landmarks haven't changed that much because they've been there since the Victorian era at the very earliest.

Doctor Who Stories: Elisabeth Sladen Part 1 gives us the lady herself looking back on her time in the show. There are some funny chapter titles like “The Feminist Ukelele” where she discusses the audience identification nature of the companion role. It's a long interview, moving from story to story at a fast pace, a big compilation of reminiscences. There's even a natty animated intro that references the stuffed owl. This set covers her season with Jon Pertwee, some stories are funny and some are sad but the humour with which she delivers them reminds you of what a talent the world of acting lost that day in 2011.

Tobey Hadoke moderates commentaries featuring Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), Peter Miles (Professor Whitaker) Terence Wilton (semi-reasonable New Earth colonist Mark), Richard Morris (production designer), Terrance Dicks (script editor) and Paddy Russell (director) in varying combinations. Paddy Russell's commentary on Parts One, Four and Five are really extended interviews less concerned than usual with what's happening on screen. Still, it's a wonderfully focussed interview and there's more to keep your interest on screen than a talking head. Recorded the day after Nick Courtney's funeral the other commentary track dwells greatly on memories of the man, heartfelt tributes all.

The Rill Deal

That's a Rill. Always wondered what one looked like. Now I know and so do you.

That is all.

The Death of Innocence. The Caves of Androzani Ramble

4 episodes featuring Peter Davison as the Doctor with Nicola Bryant as Peri
written by Robert Holmes
directed by Graeme Harper

“You have the mouth of a prattling jackanapes but your eyes... they tell a different story.”
- Sharaz Jek

Story Review
In 2009's Mighty 200 poll this serial was voted the greatest Doctor Who story of all time beating the likes of Blink, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang and previous title holder Genesis Of The Daleks to the top. So what did it do to deserve the honour?

For Peri's first trip in the TARDIS the Doctor chooses to take her to the incredibly unimpressive world of Androzani Minor. A little light snooping later and local government troops have condemned our heroes to death as gun runners. So begins four episodes of events and agendas running away from the Doctor as he and Peri slowly die, poisoned by the very wonder drug the locals are warring over. Spectrox matches its planet of origin by being a very unimpressive fountain of youth, a restorative that makes Androzani Major's 80-something President appear a mere spring chicken of 65. That's not a knock on the casting, by the way, everything about the world of Caves is a just a touch... well, petty.

The government forces in this war are commanded by a weak man who takes his orders from a corporate leader and the rebels are one masked madman who has pressed machine guns into the hands of the spectrox mine's robot workforce. Said madman's motivation isn't political, it isn't even an avaricious desire to control this fountain of youth, the whole war is just to set an old enemy's head on a spike. This is all set against a subplot of war profiteering with a businessman playing both sides against the middle for his own personal gain, a theme that never gets old because it never stops happening in real life.

This petty and sordid little war is the perfect backdrop for Peter Davison's uniquely passive Doctor because there are literally no good guys to side with, no moral high ground to take. Even when madman du jour Sharaz Jek takes him prisoner and we're introduced to fellow captive Salateen our sympathy lasts a grand total of two minutes. Salateen, who any other day would be the plucky one-story audience identification figure is made instantly heartless when he discovers our heroes are dying and bursts out laughing, the sallow goit.

Perhaps uniquely for Season Twenty-One this story even looks good, all power to legendary director Graeme Harper, me thinks. Location filming for the planet surface might be good old quarry land but since Minor is meant to be a shithole it works. A conspiracy between writer and director makes the caves themselves look more convincing than they probably should: the dim lighting (again, are we sure this was the 1984 season?) softens angles and a line about superheated mudflows scouring the surfaces smooth backs up the illusion. Perpetual but subtle billows of smoke cross the camera to lend a hot, oppressive atmosphere to this shitty little world. But there's a but, of course there is, this is Doctor Who.

Our “but” is the Magma Beast, a marauding nasty that has been eating government troops who venture too far from base. With a masked maniac, faceless robots, gun runners and John Normington's villainous asides to camera you'd think this story had enough monsters but BBC Special Effects have done themselves proud on this baby. With a waddling gait, a gormless mouth stuck open and stubby little arms pinned under what seems meant to be a shell but looks more like a crocodile skin cape, the Magma Beast is a hugger. Huggers are a monster unique to Doctor Who: creatures so slow and immobile that their only method of attack is to cuddle their victims to death. Oddly, the Davison era once gave us an effective hugger in The Visitation's Terileptils where somehow the same ingredients (plus an animatronic mouth) conspired to create a brilliant baddie. The Magma Beast is not in the Terileptils' league, however.

The beastliness of the Beast and the worst cliffhanger solution ever (it turns and waddles away from the Doctor in the opening moments of Part Three) might be reason for some to not view this as the best Who ever but it's still impressive work. Even the hokey asides to camera John Normington performs as Morgus seem strangely effective, like Harper is trying to invoke Shakespeare even if it seems bizarrely unnatural for a Holmes script.

Me? I don't think it's the best ever, my love still resides with The Robots Of Death in that regard but it's certainly up there and definitely the best of Davison's time.

Moments of Charm
Can a story as dark and dour as this have moments of charm? This story is probably Davison's best performance in the role, the death and horror of Androzani Minor acting as a perfect backdrop to his Doctor's basic moral decency and gentleness. Whether it's curiously wondering about what spectrox is as he awaits execution or the moment he turns manic at the end of Part Three, willing to crash a spaceship on the off-chance he'll survive to save Peri, Davison delivers a belter for his final performance.

DVD Presentation
This story more than any other tempts me towards the Revisitations box sets. It isn't the possibility of more and higher quality extras that have me leaning in that direction, nor the hope of an academic discussion of the serial's themes and production but rather the hope that they've remastered away those God awful horizontal lines that mar the picture every time someone shoots a gun. Yes, having the soldiers armed with machine guns rather than lasers adds an extra level of tension to the action since there's no “stun option” cop out but every time they let loose with the things the picture goes to shit.

That gripe besides we're starting to get some halfway decent featurettes. One is a behind the scenes view of the regeneration scenes complete with muted directorial chatter and people stopping every few seconds to find their marks. More interesting and a taste of things to come is Creating Sharaz Jek, an interview with Christopher Gable set to clips of him in action as Jek. Mostly it concerns the well-known budgetary limitations of the show at the time but greater things are yet to come.

Oooooh, that's quite shiny. New Vampire Counts

* sighs *... I had a plan. It was a simple plan with but one objective: I was going to finish an army. I was going to power through my Skaven with single-minded determination. Then Workshop only goes and announces a new Vampire Counts range coming out next weekend. What's more it involves this:

Doesn't that look magnificent? All those layers of swirling ghosties holding the thing aloft. This is the Coven Throne, a Vampire Lord (well, Lady) mount and it's so bloody pretty. I particularly like how the spectral knights flow from the pillar of ghosts. There's such a sense of movement, as well, with the skirts and the curtains flowing out behind it. Plus, three lady vampires makes me think of all those versions of Dracula where the sisters speak in synch with one another.

Apart from that are the Vargheists, flying monstrous infantry representing Vampires that have gone feral. There are even Black Knights that don't look shit, finally replacing the ancient plastic-metal hybrids. The Black Knight kit also makes some sort of spectral cavalry called Hexwraiths, though I'm not sold on the look of them, to be perfectly honest. Might be the paint scheme, though, I'll see what I think of them when I see the sprues.

In a similar vein (I‘m so, so sorry for that…) to the Black Knights is a new Finecast version of Isabella Von Carstein, a character who has been languishing under a most inferior model since her husband got redone with the last edition. It seemed so unfair when you fielded them together, brilliantly sculpted seventh edition Vlad standing next to his horribly clunky fifth edition wife.

Plus, with Isabella, the three ladies on the Coven Throne and the existing Female Vampire model I'm really tempted to theme this new army (and it is inevitable) after the Lahmians. Should probably have a look at Nathan Long’s Ulrika the Vampire novels…

Birthday Treats. The Remembrance of the Daleks Ramble

featuring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor with Sophie Aldred as Ace
written by Ben Aaronovitch
directed by Andrew Morgan

“Frightening, isn't it? To find that there are others better versed in death than human beings.”
- the Doctor

Story Review
What surprised me about this story was how fresh it seemed. This was one of two celebratory stories from the show's 25th anniversary and it is steeped in that history: it's a Dalek story, it's a sequel to the series' very first episode from 1963, it even features IM Foreman's junkyard in Totters Lane and there's a big wodge of Time Lord backstory lumped in for good measure. This kind of continuity mish-mash has killed more than one story before yet here it works.

Long story short: it's 1963 and the Daleks have come to Earth chasing a Time Lord McGuffin of incredible power the Doctor dropped off ten minutes before the title sequence of An Unearthly Child. The Daleks come in two flavours: Imperial (white with gold bits) and renegade (grey with black bits). In the middle are a small military unit soon to star in their own Big Finish spin-off. Strange how that's become a gold standard, hasn't it? A Big Finish spin-off elevates a cast of characters into exalted status, equal with Iris Wildthyme or Jago and Litefoot, the cream of the crop.

Not that it's undeserved, the Counter Measures crew are a vivid bunch: no nonsense Group Captain “Chunky” Gilmore, scientific advisors Rachel Jensen and Alison, manly man Sergeant Mike and a six pack of cockney NCOs. They've often been derided as an ersatz UNIT but that's doing them a disservice because I honestly think that as a group they're better written than UNIT ever was. Not that I don't love the Brig and his boys but you can actually see Gilmore's unit working as a professional operation in a way the Sergeant Benton tea delivery service never did. For the first time ever a Dalek story is entirely set in a real place and time, no space stations in the future, no mad alien jungles or post-apocalyptic Earth, just London in the easily recognisable past.

As a fan you tend to see the whole McCoy era as a death march, you know the end is nigh and the BBC is just waiting for the right moment but you really wouldn't guess it from watching this story. This story is the work of a confident production crew, a stylish product that looks polished to a shine. Now, I love the gold-and-white Dalek design, I think it trumps the old grey fellas any day but it only gets better when the beast that is the Special Weapons Dalek trundles into view. True, the Daleks all wobble during location filming like they popped to the boozer between takes but they look great, even the old Renegade props have had a fresh coat of paint. The effects are almost universally good, most especially the massive Dalek shuttle prop landing in the school playground.

The only things that let this sory down are a few minor quibbles. The main one is that they should have had the creepy child sing more. You see this little kid has a very menacing look when she's silent and a creepy tone when delivering her lines in a singsong voice but just speaking... no, I won't, the kid's a kid and I'm not going to be that churlish.

Moments of Charm
In a moment of doubt late on night the Doctor retreats to Harry's Café in Part Two and has a portentous discussion about decisions and consequences with Geoffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. In the rest of the story the racial themes are laid on with a trowel but here it's a lot better with Geoffrey (the character goes unnamed) musing about how in a world without sugar “I'da bin a African.”. Actually, the whole café location is an inspired idea, you don't often get to see Doctor Who characters doing something as human as digging into sausage, egg and chips.

Similarly there's also Ace's speech in Part Four, explaining the racial themes of the plot to Rachel and Alison in terms of Dalek “blobiness”.

DVD Presentation
We're starting to get to some halfway decent extras now. There isn't much here, just some BBC trailers and a set of extended/deleted scenes. I was actually surprised by the extended scenes package but apparently at this point the BBC was predicting the rise of a DVD-style medium. More surprising still these are actually very good scenes. Two of them really stand out in my mind: a charming exchange between the Doctor and Ace where she jokingly threatens him with her upgraded baseball bat and an extended version of the “decisions” scene where Geoffrey from Fresh Prince of Bel Air gets to be even more down to earth in his wisdom.

There are also some “alternate angle” scenes which are less illuminating than the deleted ones and some out-takes, which are always fun to watch.

The problem with Star Wars novels

I'm reading this book at the moment, Coruscant Nights: Jedi Twilight, a sort of noir thriller set just after Revenge Of The Sith and I have to say I have the problem I always have with Star Wars novels.

Star Wars novels are the only books where I have to supplement the reading experience with Google Image Search. The thing is I'm not sure if this is anyone's fault. The problem is that there are so many aliens in the Star Wars films that never get named. I know the pig men guys in Jabba's Palace are Gamorreans (helps that there's a Gamorrean called Piggy in the X-Wing novels) and that Twi'leks are the ones with the tentacles on their head where all the males are fuck ugly and all the females are amazing hot. Green but hot.

But then there's guys like this. This is a Sullustan and there's a Sullustan character in Jedi Twilight, a journalist called Den Dhur and, as ever, the description of the guy is quite minimalist. This is the problem, there is a Sullustan in the films, he's Lando's co-pilot on the Falcon in Return Of The Jedi but he's not named as such so from the original source material I don't know he's a Sullustan. Bothans appear everywhere in these novels, as well, and I thought I knew what they looked like. I had this image in my head of a sort of cross between a Wookie and a border collie but it turns out that was dead wrong.

In many ways the fault lies with me, I'm not a fan. These sorts of novels are made very much for fans, I don't know who Star Wars aliens are in the same way that I do know what Star Trek aliens look like. Take the crew of the USS Aventine in the Star Trek novels, I know with similarly minimalist description what the Zakdorn science officer Helkara looks like in spite of the Zakdorn appearing in only one TNG episode.

It is kind of strange how fans retain this information and writers come to rely upon it.

World Building. The Robots of Death Ramble

4 episodes featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor with Louise Jameson as Leela
written by Chris Boucher
directed by Michael E. Briant

“Please do not throw hands at me.”
- D84

Story Review
One thing that so often destroys a Doctor Who story is the exposition, people wandering around reminding each other of their names, jobs and self-evident facts of life. The Awakening has a line “Why, Miss Hampden, you of all people, our schoolteacher, must appreciate the value of re-enacting actual events.”. Now, I don't have children but if I did I'd like if the woman educating them didn't need to be reminded of her name and profession on a regular basis. “My God, where am I? Who am I? Why am I surrounded by small children and covered in chalk dust?” “Please, Miss Hampden, you are our schoolteacher.” Oh yes, thank you for reminding me.”

The Robots Of Death is a masterclass in exposition. The first episode keeps the TARDIS crew and the guest cast separate so every time we see the guest characters they're saying or doing something that contributes to our knowledge in a perfectly natural, unhurried way. Facts are slipped naturally into the dialogue, such as lucanol. Lucanol does not exist, Chris Boucher created it and doesn't explain to us what it is but when the Sandminer sensors detect it Pamela Salem's face lights up and thus we know it's valuable. Context is the key to creating a world. Who exactly “the Founding Families”, let “the Twenty”, are is never explained but the specifics don't matter, what matters is that they're a big deal and Commander Uvanov has a grudge against them.

Even Episode Three isn't bad, Boucher uses it to bring out a bunch of revelations before moving into an all-action Episode Four. In my Five Doctors review I bemoaned the episode format as a disruption to pacing but Boucher works it really well.

This story also looks brilliant, the sets and costumes are fantastic. The script calls for a decadent, robot-dependant society and so the Sandminer is decorated in an art deco style with art deco robots and stained glass artwork hanging on random walls. The crew walk around on duty in elaborate colourful costumes and complicated make-up is the style regardless of gender. Even the most sympathetic characters act like slave-owners in the presence of robots. You can see how devastating it would be for them if their robots turned killer not only on the personal level but on a societal one.

The guest cast is universally good with even the early victims getting well-rounded characters. Russell Hunter's Commander Uvanov really stand out: snide and sarcastic and only even sightly lovable once events have descended to the level of utter desperation. Plus, he has one of the most hilarious accent slips in Doctor Who history. David Collings' Poul as the Doctor's initial ally is the most sympathetic of the cast but even he has a sinister edge to him. But better than all of these is Gregory de Polnay as undercover robot D84, one of of the great almost-companions, a service robot with a dry sense of humour and a friendly nature. Certainly superior to the bloody dog that'd join the TARDIS crew a few stories down the line.

Now, received fan wisdom calls this “Doctor Who does Agatha Christie” which, apart from being the sort of pornographic fanfic I never want to read, is really not accurate. Christie never wrote a novel called The Vicar Did It With Poison, the identity of the killers is there in this story's title. The only element of mystery is in the identity of the robots' controller but if you pay any attention to the costumes that's spoilt by an ill-judged glimpse of trouser early in the story.

This is not classic murder mystery but it is absolutely classic Doctor Who.

Moments of Charm
When imprisoned in a room with comfy chairs, Leela's first reaction is to jump on the over-stuffed sofa and bounce up and down a few times because it represents the greatest comfort she has ever seen. This story is actually full of little moments to remind us that she isn't from a modern society, such as her description of Poul as a hunter. Written by her creator this isn't really surprising and Louise Jameson would rarely be as well served again.

DVD Presentation
Still early days so the sole featurette (imaginatively titled “Featurette”) is a jumble of bonus material: a BBC1 continuity announcement from the serial's original transmission; a “comparison scene” with the robot's voice untreated; a set of black and white test shots of the Sandminder model; and a BBC title card featuring Baker and Jameson.

10 minutes of Tom

Big Finish have posted the opening ten minutes of Tom Baker's first audio drama as a podcast. I have to say it ticked all the boxes.

This isn't, of course, the first Doctor Who audio Baker has done, the third season of BBC Audio's “Nest Cottage” series just finished. I like the Nest Cottage stuff, it's good, but it has to be said that the Fourth Doctor there is closer to Tom Baker as he is now than as his Doctor was in the Seventies. Judging by this preview BFP are having Baker pitch his performance somewhat more faithfully to the TV version. Whilst his voice has changed a lot with age this still feels more authentically like the Fourth Doctor than the BBC stuff does.

Where the performance does differ from the source material is the one place I hoped it would: Leela. Back in the day Tom Baker and Louise Jameson didn't get on, he thought her character was too violent for the series and that dislike came out in his performance. Just look at stories like The Sun Makers where he can't seem to look at her. Here, as in real life, the two are far friendlier, resurrecting the teacher/student relationship the two had in their first few stories together.

There are also a few trailers tagged onto the end for good measure promising various delights such as Ian McNiece, Daleks and Boudicca. All in all I'm looking forward to these and I hope they have a nice, long run.

Martin Freeman's Bingo Card

After watching A Scandal In Belgravia on Sunday my friend Matt and I got talking about Martin Freeman's sinister plot to become every everyman in the canon of English literature.

In all seriousness he's got a hell of a bingo card so far: Arthur Dent, Doctor Watson and Bilbo Baggins in the last few years. That's a hell of a list for someone who not long ago was one of Ricky Gervais' straightmen. Don't get me wrong I think he's a fantastic actor and deserves all the success in the world.

Bet you he's the Twelfth Doctor.