Reviews:.... of Death!
Aug. 15th, 2009 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafThat is, of Seeds of Death, a Second Doctor story from 1969, in which the Ice Warriors make their second appearance, with a plot to take over the earth and alter its atmospheric conditions to that of their native Mars, by infiltrating T-mat teleportation system (the first use of the term in Who?) via its base station on the moon, and distributing the 'seeds of death' of the title, a fungus which reproduces rapidly, depleting Earth's atmosphere of oxgyen as they do so.
I knew nothing about Seeds of Death, but it's a good story, albeit one that might have worked better as a five parter than a six parter - while the first half of the story is taut and well-paced, the last episodes sometimes drag. That may, however, have something to do with the change in writers (the first three episodes are by Brian Hayes, while the last three are largely the work of an uncredited Terrence Dicks) and an attempt to brighten up the story by introducing more action. However, the earlier episodes were distinguished by excellent secondary characters who feel like real individuals - from the obsessive rocket scientist, Eldred, to the coolly competent T-Mat technical co-ordinator Gia Kelly (another of early Who's skilled women scientists). Then there are the technicians trapped on the moonbase by the Silurians - Phipps, who is ingenious, making an effective anti-Ice Warrior weapon out of spare parts found in a cupboard, and brave, but has to be talked out of a panic attack by Zoe, to the frankly terrified Fewsham, who appears to have been terrorised by the Ice Warriors into becoming their slave, but comes good in the end. All this is rather more interesting than the running round corridor stuff, though I did love the atmospheric control system, which looked rather like an espresso machine, though it can't possibly be. One assumes that the seeds of death's foam effect was chosen as something cheap they knew they could do, given Fury from the Deep the previous year...
The story has a certain amount of irony for today's viewers; the Earth of this future get into a tremendous mess because they have abandoned space exploration technology, giving up rockets as old hat when the T-mat meets their pragmatic needs - and why venture out into space, what good is it? The abandonment of manned space exploration must have seemed both unlikely and obviously wrong in the year of the moon landings, whereas today we seem to have arrived just there, only without the T-mat (to be fair, also without the Ice Warriors, so it's not all bad news). The other striking feature was the manner in which, for all the efforts to look futuristic - including some rather awful costumes - the culture we were presented with was a very deferential, cut-glass British world. There was even a pompous official called Sir James Gregson.
As is often the case with black and white Who, as compared to later efforts in colour, the special effects mostly hold up well; the make-up job on the Ice Warriors stands out as particularly effective.
City of Death, is precisely ten years younger. Who had changed a lot in the intervening years: it's in colour, on location (though trips to Paris were hardly the norm, then or later), and the story itself is the sort of clever mix of intellectual but surreal comedy and low farce familiar to fans of Douglas Adams (thinly disguised, on union grounds, as 'David Agnew') from Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It has the advantage of superb supporting actors, particularly Julian Glover as Scaroth/ Count Scarleoni. Despite the fact that he's playing a disguised one-eyed green alien, his role and costume strangely anticipate his turn as Donovan, another obsessive, ruthless collector in a white suit, in Indiana Jones - though I was distracted by a certain resemblance to Richard Dawkins. Catherine Schell, playing his wife and accomplice/ dupe is good too. Peter Halliday has a surprisingly memorable bit part as a Renaissance mercenary, who refuses to be put out by his employer's multiple personalities and habit of falling into trances ("I don't get paid to think... anyway, I used to work for the Borgias" - which, as the Doctor seems to recognise, probably would tend to raise your weirdness threshold). Tom Chaldon is oddly likable as the impressively dim detective Duggan - possibly it's the sheer infectious joy he takes in hitting things (Duggan: Do you know what I don't understand? Romana: Probably). The real star, though, is the wonderfully, and endlessly quotable script.
"Shall we take the lift, or fly?"
"Let's not be ostentatious."
"All right, let's fly then."
"No, that would look silly."
"I do appreciate the importance of the work. I appreciate lots of things... Walks in the park... Food... Sleep."
"It's quite nice.... But why has she got no eyebrows?" (Romana, on the Mona Lisa)
"What a wonderful butler! He's so violent!"
"I used to do divorce cases. It was never like this."
And then there's the wonderful cameo from John Cleese and Eleanor Bron, as critics who mistake the Tardis for art, and the Doctor and Duggan's final debate as to the merit of art, and what makes art art and a fake a fake.
I knew nothing about Seeds of Death, but it's a good story, albeit one that might have worked better as a five parter than a six parter - while the first half of the story is taut and well-paced, the last episodes sometimes drag. That may, however, have something to do with the change in writers (the first three episodes are by Brian Hayes, while the last three are largely the work of an uncredited Terrence Dicks) and an attempt to brighten up the story by introducing more action. However, the earlier episodes were distinguished by excellent secondary characters who feel like real individuals - from the obsessive rocket scientist, Eldred, to the coolly competent T-Mat technical co-ordinator Gia Kelly (another of early Who's skilled women scientists). Then there are the technicians trapped on the moonbase by the Silurians - Phipps, who is ingenious, making an effective anti-Ice Warrior weapon out of spare parts found in a cupboard, and brave, but has to be talked out of a panic attack by Zoe, to the frankly terrified Fewsham, who appears to have been terrorised by the Ice Warriors into becoming their slave, but comes good in the end. All this is rather more interesting than the running round corridor stuff, though I did love the atmospheric control system, which looked rather like an espresso machine, though it can't possibly be. One assumes that the seeds of death's foam effect was chosen as something cheap they knew they could do, given Fury from the Deep the previous year...
The story has a certain amount of irony for today's viewers; the Earth of this future get into a tremendous mess because they have abandoned space exploration technology, giving up rockets as old hat when the T-mat meets their pragmatic needs - and why venture out into space, what good is it? The abandonment of manned space exploration must have seemed both unlikely and obviously wrong in the year of the moon landings, whereas today we seem to have arrived just there, only without the T-mat (to be fair, also without the Ice Warriors, so it's not all bad news). The other striking feature was the manner in which, for all the efforts to look futuristic - including some rather awful costumes - the culture we were presented with was a very deferential, cut-glass British world. There was even a pompous official called Sir James Gregson.
As is often the case with black and white Who, as compared to later efforts in colour, the special effects mostly hold up well; the make-up job on the Ice Warriors stands out as particularly effective.
City of Death, is precisely ten years younger. Who had changed a lot in the intervening years: it's in colour, on location (though trips to Paris were hardly the norm, then or later), and the story itself is the sort of clever mix of intellectual but surreal comedy and low farce familiar to fans of Douglas Adams (thinly disguised, on union grounds, as 'David Agnew') from Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It has the advantage of superb supporting actors, particularly Julian Glover as Scaroth/ Count Scarleoni. Despite the fact that he's playing a disguised one-eyed green alien, his role and costume strangely anticipate his turn as Donovan, another obsessive, ruthless collector in a white suit, in Indiana Jones - though I was distracted by a certain resemblance to Richard Dawkins. Catherine Schell, playing his wife and accomplice/ dupe is good too. Peter Halliday has a surprisingly memorable bit part as a Renaissance mercenary, who refuses to be put out by his employer's multiple personalities and habit of falling into trances ("I don't get paid to think... anyway, I used to work for the Borgias" - which, as the Doctor seems to recognise, probably would tend to raise your weirdness threshold). Tom Chaldon is oddly likable as the impressively dim detective Duggan - possibly it's the sheer infectious joy he takes in hitting things (Duggan: Do you know what I don't understand? Romana: Probably). The real star, though, is the wonderfully, and endlessly quotable script.
"Shall we take the lift, or fly?"
"Let's not be ostentatious."
"All right, let's fly then."
"No, that would look silly."
"I do appreciate the importance of the work. I appreciate lots of things... Walks in the park... Food... Sleep."
"It's quite nice.... But why has she got no eyebrows?" (Romana, on the Mona Lisa)
"What a wonderful butler! He's so violent!"
"I used to do divorce cases. It was never like this."
And then there's the wonderful cameo from John Cleese and Eleanor Bron, as critics who mistake the Tardis for art, and the Doctor and Duggan's final debate as to the merit of art, and what makes art art and a fake a fake.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-15 02:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-15 02:48 pm (UTC)