I know no more than a couple of things
about this one. It was rediscovered a couple of years ago, at the same time as
our next story, “The Web of Fear”. So this one now exists complete – yay. As
for the story itself, well, I know that it was written by David Whitaker, so I
expect something a little bit from left field. I know that there was a Target
novelization but I never read it, and I don’t know that much about it other
than it uses that tried and trusted chestnut, the Doctor is a dead ringer for a
villain. Yes, I remember the Massacre (and very good it was too.) In this one
the Doctor is the spitting image of Salamander, who is the chief villain of the
piece. Other than that this is a complete voyage of discovery for me.
After
Watching
Eh, ma freend, eef you know what ees good
for you, you read ma review, huh? Yes, let’s get Patrick Troughton’s Mexican
accent out of the way first. Basically, the villain, Salamander, whom the
Doctor resembles so much, is a Mexican. Now, the thing is this. If you make at least
one of the characters in a family drama a Mexican, specifically a Mexican
villain, then the audience are going to expect the full Eli Wallach (if you
haven’t seen “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, then
please go and do so now. I shall wait until you get back.) So that’s what
Patrick Troughton gives us. It is rather more caricature than character, but,
eh, zat ees life, ma freends, huh? It’s a testament to Patrick Troughton that
the Doctor, posing as Salamander, manages to speak slightly – and only slightly
– differently to Salamander.
I think in all honesty that this story, for
me, benefits from coming in the middle of Season 5, since it is so different to
what has come before, and what is likely to come afterwards. Salamander, after
all, is a very human enemy – in fact there are no aliens or inhuman monsters in
the story at all, unless I blinked and missed them all. In brief, Salamander at
the start of the story is posing as Humanity’s great benefactor. He has
developed the technology to control weather and climate throughout the world,
and will thus use this technology to defeat poverty and hunger. Yay. Control of
weather and climate is something of a recurring theme in this series – prior to
this story it was a theme explored in both “The Moonbase” and “The Ice
Warriors”. Of course, Salamander is an amoral megalomaniac, who seeks to use
his position of humanity’s great benefactor to establish a world dictatorship
for himself.
Of course, it
isn’t quite as simple as all that. Well, it is a David Whitaker story, after
all. The Doctor spends a lot of time umming and ahhing about whether the rebels
against Salamander can be trusted, and whether Salamander is as evil as they
say he is. Eventually it becomes clear that Salamander is using technology to
create natural disasters, which create the political vacuum into which he can
step. Also, he has a group of technicians living underground, whom he has
convinced that there has been a disastrous nuclear war on the surface. They must
stay below, and carry out Salamander’s instructions if the Earth is to be
saved, he tells them. They, alas, are mostly dull enough to believe him.
The Doctor foils
Salamander’s plans by exposing them, after convincing Bruce, Salamander’s hard-nosed
Security Chief. It turns out that Swann, the former Security Chief, who was the
one who came up with the plan for the Doctor to pose as Salamander, is just as
bad as Salamander himself, and exposed as the mastermind behind Salamander’s
plans all along at the end of the story, before getting his comeuppance. A
typical David Whitaker twist, that one.
I’ll be honest, 6
episodes of this sort of 60s action thriller would normally be more than enough
for me. But as I said earlier, it is such a contrast to what we’ve had so far
this season that it gets by pleasantly enough, and it certainly helps to have a
whole story of live action. In this season alone, 5 episodes of The Abominable
Snowmen are missing, 2 of the Ice Warriors, 1 of the Web of Fear, all of Fury
from the Deep, and all bar one of The Wheel in Space. I know that things
improve next season, since we’ve complete stories in The Dominators, The Mind
Robber, The War Games, and only one or two episodes of Invasion are missing –
so there is light at the end of the tunnel, but I do find a consistent diet of
recons, and animations when they exist, is really starting to grind me down.
The first episode
starts with a bang. After the TARDIS lands on a beach, and the Doctor has gone
for a dip wearing nowt but his long johns, the three travellers are chased
along a beach by a hovercraft. Now here’s a funny thing. The hovercraft looks
for all the world like a van which has had a tail and propeller stuck on the
back, and a superstructure built around it to resemble a hovercraft. So when it
pulled away I fully expected to see tyre tracks in the sand. But there weren’t
any. I do wonder how they managed that.
The first person
that they encounter is a rebel, well played by Mary Peach. I have to say that
the cast all give a pretty good account of themselves again in this story –
aided and abetted by a script which gives all the main characters the chance to
display at least a little depth. Bill Kerr plays Swann very well, and I didn’t
see him turning in the last episode until it actually happened. I noticed an
early appearance for Milton Johns. If you don’t know the name, you certainly
know the face. During the 1970s he practically cornered the market in slimy
weasels, in fact his appearance was a helpful shorthand. If Milton Johns
appeared in a show, he either was the baddie, or he was in league with the
baddie, however the script might suggest differently. He’s just great.
If I’m being
critical, I would say that you do need all your main actors in a story like
this to give good performances, because at 6 parts in length there’s not enough
real story here to keep it going otherwise. In some ways it seems like a step
into Avengers territory, and the thing about The Avengers was that that
particular show had self-contained adventures which didn’t need developing and
sustaining over 6 episodes. Well, what the hell. One of Doctor Who’s strengths
over the years is the willingness of production teams to take a gamble and try
something different.
What have
we learned?
Eh, ma freends, you jus’ cannot trust anyone zese days,
huh?
You don’t have to be alien, or indeed, a monster, to
be a monster
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