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
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.
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.
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