ckuppe@spock.UUCP (Charles A. Kupperman '87 ) (12/06/85)
I would like to say here and now that Colin Baker is a terrific Doctor. He adds style, flair, and a great unpredictability to a character that might have lost these characteristics. If there is a bone I pick with the first Baker season it is with its scripts, not its actors. Having seen Baker and Nicola Bryant at conventions, I can say with some authority that they are both charming, talented people. Vengeance on Varos, by Philip Martin, was the story most fans were instinctively drawn toward. It was the only story this season that did not feature an old villain (apart from Timelash), and it was very highly praised by all those who saw it. Despite the plot, which in places resembles ever so slightly a remake of the Sunmakers, this is indeed a very good adventure. Colin Baker, once he gets out of the Tardis, is in full swing, and the adventure has a lot of grace to it. The basic plot, about a decadent society entertained by frequent executions and tortures, is greatly enhanced by the framing device of having two characters watching a TV screen throughout the adventure and commenting on everything that happens. They are really the characters that make the whole premise seem believable. Mark of the Rani, by Pip and Jane Baker, is really horrendous. Again, the acting is very good, (Mostly), but the script is simply awful. Not in terms of lines. There are a number of well-written lines, but they fail to save the script. The plot is dreadful, with the Master having no clear intentions other than to generally mess around and get in everyone's way, the Rani wishing only to be left in peace by the Doctor and the Master, and Peri just wanting to go home. To put it bluntly: There is no plot. None of the characters have real motivations, and few of them behave in a realistic fashion. Watching Mark of the Rani is like watching interesting, if idiosyncratic, mice run around a cage in unpredictable, but pointless, circles. And after a while, even the most dedicated mice lover will get bored watching. The Two Doctors, by Robert Holmes, is unjustly the most ignored story of the season. Because it was not publicised at all, unlike The Five Doctors, it plumbed a terrible low of 6 million viewers. This story was criticised by fans who, disillusioned with most of Doctor Who and especially the "returning Doctor" stories, disliked Troughton's performance. The typical attitude of fans I met was to scorn this story as inferior to the great stories of the 60's. Another aspect of this story that disappointed the fans was the inclusion of the Sontarans. Not only had the beasts grown necks, but they also have no relevance whatsoever to the plot. They were included as extra hype, it seemed. Then there were the Androgums, the main villains of the piece. They seemed to be slightly silly, and were rejected by fans as ridiculous. My personal viewpoint is that this story is a potential classic ruined by too many insertions. The Androgums strike me as "another piece of brilliance from the late professor Kettlewell", or another ingenious race from Holmes. Two Doctors succeeds because it has a clear moral point, in favor of vegetarianism. The Androgums are simply exaggerated carnivores who include human beings in their diet. Thus, calling them "cannibals", as Mary Whitehouse, a self-appointed television censor, did, is ridiculous. The story is aided by good acting from all characters and Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines turn out marvellous performances. This story will never be a classic because of the poor way the Sontarans were thrust in and the overfull script, but it will remain one of my favorite stories because of its innovative ideas and strong moral. (Incidentally, when I briefly saw Patrick Troughton at Panopticon VI, he said he had been a vegetarian in real life, but had changed to simply eating chickens and fish, "Because those are things I can kill myself.")
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Kenneth Adam Arromdee) (12/09/85)
In article <312@spock.UUCP> ckuppe@spock.UUCP (Charles A. Kupperman '87 ) writes: >My personal viewpoint is that this story [Two Doctors] is a potential classic >ruined by too many insertions. The Androgums strike me as "another >piece of brilliance from the late professor Kettlewell", or another >ingenious race from Holmes. Two Doctors succeeds because it has a clear >moral point, in favor of vegetarianism. The Androgums are simply >exaggerated carnivores who include human beings in their diet. Thus, >calling them "cannibals", as Mary Whitehouse, a self-appointed >television censor, did, is ridiculous. The story is aided by good >acting from all characters and Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines turn >out marvellous performances. This story will never be a classic because >of the poor way the Sontarans were thrust in and the overfull script, >but it will remain one of my favorite stories because of its innovative >ideas and strong moral. Disclaimer: I have not seen this episode. On our 20-th century Earth, the only real thinking beings are humans. In a SF setting where there are other thinking beings, it would not be too unreasonable to call "cannibalism" the consumption of one thinking being by another, in which case this would indeed be cannibalism. Furthermore, I do not see how this particular show could possibly be a reasonable argument for vegetarianism, because there are no reasons given not to eat animals that don't also apply to plants. (I am not saying there aren't any vegetarian arguments that do provide such reasons, only that the show, as you describe it and as I have read about in other reviews of, does not.) -- If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'. Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaa ...allegra!hopkins!jhunix!ins_akaa