And I know that I’ve been moaning on a bit recently about things getting a bit too brutal in the world of Who – but I do think that this has been so well set up, it’s justified. The Doctor has spent five episodes marching about telling people that there would be atrocities. And the story doesn’t shirk whatsoever from demonstrating that he was absolutely right. It makes the Daleks more powerful than ever before – they’re cunning and sly, but because they’ve also been playing against their true natures, to see them as they really are depicts their evil more vividly than we’ve yet seen. And it does its job and makes the Doctor someone we can believe in. He may wear a silly hat, he might do irritating things with a recorder – but he has stayed his ground and warned a community that his voice is the only authority, and if he’s ignored they will die. The brilliance of all this is, of course, that his moment of victory plays against that – he appears so delighted that he’s done something clever that he makes the audience suspect it may all be accidental. No other Doctor would assume power so easily, and then fritter it away once the crisis is over, to the point that the colony suddenly turn on him and complain about the damage he’s caused.
As I say, a bloodbath is all it needed to be. But it keeps the power games between the humans going so well – Janley changes allegiances so often in this one episode alone that by the time she’s killed, even she probably doesn’t know which side she’s on. The depiction of Bragen as governor of colonists who can’t respond to his orders because they’ve all been killed is very clever. The best bit, though? Lesterson trying to imitate the same sing-song refrain to a Dalek, “I am your servant,” quite amiably believing that they are the higher order and that mankind’s time has passed. He tells a Dalek it wouldn’t want to shoot him, because he gave it life. “Yes,” considers a Dalek. “You gave us life.” And then, without a word, as nonchalantly as you please, kills him anyway.
T: I’ve been waiting for this story to let me down, to run out of steam, to cop out or to just get a bit messy – and it hasn’t. As ever, I know it’s difficult to tell because we can’t actually see it, but it sounds fantastic. The whole thing has rumbled along menacingly, and – as advertised – now really kicks off with horrible, bloody consequences. The sound of gunfire permeates the action throughout – which works, because automatic weaponry always seems more believable and dangerous than lasers. Towards the end, there’s what seems to be a lingering pan over all of the dead bodies, replete with funereal music. Make no mistake, the goodies may win, but the cost has been unpleasantly high. The use of the Dalek POV has been consistently well employed in this story, and is again here, as one of them surveys the carnage, finally resting on Janley’s prone corpse.
It helps immensely that we’ve been able to invest so much in the inhabitants of Vulcan – even minor characters such as Janley’s associate Kebble do enough to arouse our interest. Prior to Janley’s demise, we’re never quite sure whether we should like her or not, but she does seem convincing as someone with wavering morals and loyalties. At the very least, she’s not a one-note baddie, and her close personal relationship with the rebel Valmar seems as textured as her mendacious behaviour – even the way she addresses him as “Val” lends a pleasing note of casual realism. Bragen also seems very humanistic as he keeps using the word “governor” in the scenes where he loses control of both the colony and the Daleks; it’s as if he pathetically believes that by affirming his title often enough, it will somehow maintain his command of a situation that’s now completely beyond him. And Robert James, whom I’ve praised before, adds a beautifully wistful note to Lesterson’s insane assertion that Man has had his day and is “finished now”. His appeal to the Daleks with the phrase “I am your servant” is amazingly done, and (despite his actions having caused all of this carnage) makes you cheer for him a little. It’s this act of distracting the Daleks – the last thing Lesterson ever does, as they gun him down – that allows the Doctor to succeed in defeating them.
The Troughton Doctor isn’t yet the version we’ve all grown accustomed to, but that’s only to be expected at this early stage. Still, it’s a bit alarming that when the Doctor is confronted with the question, “You did know what you were doing?”, we’re by no means certain that the answer is affirmative, especially when he oddly responds with, “What d’I do, what d’I do?” Even allowing for the stories made under John Wiles, there hasn’t been an adventure that’s climaxed with quite so much destruction before, but it somehow seems appropriate to this new phase of the show. The Doctor sorts things out, but he doesn’t do it tidily. He’s like The Cat in the (Stove Pipe) Hat.
March 13th
The Highlanders episode one
R: It’s the last historical adventure until Season Nineteen! (It’s so hard, watching these stories, not to be hit by all the facts you learned by rote as a young fan.) Yes, this is the last gasp of a type of story that wasn’t much good and nobody enjoyed. (Ha.) Considering just how bloodthirsty these forays back into the past usually are, it seems terribly apt that the TARDIS at last plunges our heroes right into a famous battle. The Ship has been very well-behaved so far, always arriving just a few days before Hastings or the fall of Troy – but now here we are, picking our way through the wounded and the dying. I love the way that the title music is cut off by the roaring of cannons and the groans of soldiers. And by dealing with a historical event from the wrong side of the action, we’re looking, for once, not at the build-up to something the Doctor needs to escape from, but its aftermath; we’re seeing the consequences of war, not the politics behind it. I find that very refreshing. It’d be the equivalent of the TARDIS pitching up and finding all the Huguenots in the street after the massacre – it’s another way of looking at the butchery of war altogether. It’s very telling that Troughton’s first reaction upon seeing a cannonball is to get back into the TARDIS and take off; “You don’t want to seem as if you’re frightened, do you?” asks Polly. “Why not?” is his surprisingly honest reply.
And it’s very funny, Gerry Davis’ script – but never funny at the expense of the carnage. Instead, there’s a comedy to this blacker than any we’ve really ever seen in the series before. The mercenary solicitor Grey and his obsequious clerk Perkins make a fantastic double act, but the way they’re trading in human lives is genuinely repulsive. Grey’s languid appreciation of Culloden as a battle connoisseur contrasts well with how appalled he is to find that his wine has been corked. And the cynicism of the English is so pronounced, it’s safer to treat it all as a sick joke: the sergeant’s recognition that his lieutenant turns a blind eye to the executions on account of his weak stomach, and the soldiers’ eagerness to interpret anything the Doctor says as a reason to hang him. Both Ben and Polly make the faux pas of assuming the English must be the good guys – and just like in The Power of the Daleks last week, where the humans characters were turned into unsympathetic gits only worthy of extermination, so they find that their fellow countrymen are not their friends.
And Polly’s great! She spends her time impatiently telling the Laird’s daughter, Kirsty, to stop snivelling, and is all full of determination and plans to rescue her friends. You go, girl.
T: We’re certainly in grim territory – we open with a slaying, and before long, we’re regaled with bleak reports of prisoners being hanged, children being slaughtered and soldiers plundering corpses. There’s something tough and gritty about angry rebellious Scotsmen, so that even a potentially daft line like “Sassenach dragoons” sounds pretty fierce. It’s a bit of a pity, then, that against all of this drama, it’s Ben’s carelessness with a pistol that results in our heroes being discovered by the Redcoats; it makes him come across as both cack-handed and responsible for Alexander’s subsequent death.
Certain bits of dialogue strike me as interesting... not even Troughton can get away with the line, “You’ll give us your word you won’t molest us?”, but I do find the line “Rebels aren’t prisoners of war” very telling. I’m always rather cynical about semant
ics being used to justify atrocities; it’s this sort of behaviour that enables governments to get away with detaining people without trial or torturing them in the name of liberty. If you call your enemies “soldiers”, you’re expected to treat them a bit more honourably than if they’re (insert the current acceptable euphemism for baddie, be it “rebel”, “terrorist” or “insurgent”).
But the most notable line of all? The Doctor declaring, “I would like a hat like this!” He also said that in the last story, didn’t he? Is this the sign of an intended but abandoned catchphrase? Hmm, to look at the other ones that have cropped up in recent years – “Fantastic!” “I’m so very, very sorry...”, etc. – I suppose it’s understandable why the hat-talk didn’t last. Still, it would’ve been nice had they continued the tradition – it’s very amusing to think of the nation’s schoolchildren running about the playground, harmlessly declaring “I would like a hat like this!”, and putting on whatever headwear they could find.
Oh, and did you notice how the Doctor calls himself Doctor Who, albeit in German? In days gone by, I’d have passed this off as a joke, but in the current climate I’m not so sure!
The Highlanders episode two
R: That Troughton’s a bit of a bastard, isn’t he? He’s funny and he dresses up as an old woman, and puts on an outrageous German accent. But there’s a darker edge to this Doctor than anything we’ve seen since the amorality of Hartnell right back in the first stories. When he denounces the highlanders just so he can get an audience with Grey, it may well be the clever ploy Ben says it is – but his sudden turn as traitor is just a little too convincing for comfort. (Even Ben sounds as if he’s trying to persuade himself.) It’s interesting that he’ll only shout out “down with King George” in order to enjoy the echo in the cell, not because he’s going to share the affiliations of anyone else in this conflict. And when he says that he’s rather enjoying himself, amidst the suffering and the fear of real prisoners fearing death, it sounds just as callous as Hartnell’s Doctor contemplating braining a caveman with a rock.
But he really does enjoy himself. His turn as the German doctor, persuading Perkins he has a headache by banging the clerk’s head on a table, is simply glorious. But what gives such power to this scene, when he tells Solicitor Grey he’s only interested in money and his own skin, is that at this stage you really can believe he’s a rogue out for himself. We don’t know this Doctor yet, and although we’re hoping this is just subterfuge, we can’t be sure. He has his own agenda. And as much as Ben might stick up for him to the suspicious Jamie McCrimmon, it clearly doesn’t involve rescuing lots of highlanders from their cell.
Anneke Wills also gets the chance to shine, sparring well with Michael Elwyn’s foppish Lt. Algernon ffinch (sic), and showing a real wit and resourcefulness for the first time in the series. Though it’s curious that this is achieved, in part, by her being a contrast to Hannah Gordon’s Kirsty, who’s as wet as a soggy cabbage and will burst into tears at any opportunity. I’m not sure I like this; it seems a development of that rather dubious suggestion in The Smugglers that people in the past were a bit stupid, and this presentation of savvy sixties girl being tougher than her eighteenth century counterpart is rather overstressed. (Especially when you consider that a Highlander woman in rebellion is likely to be a mite more assured than even the hardiest of Chelsea girls.) But I’ll bless anything that gives Polly a bit more strength. (Anneke Wills phoned me once! She did!... oh, I’ve already told you.)
T: In some way, this is another exercise in extremes. The prison is squalid, with unpleasant water lapping at the feet of the prisoners, some of whom are on death’s door. Human life is pretty cheap, and the Laird sounds genuinely, painfully ill.
But the characters involved in this locale are actually very funny. You’re right to mention how the Doctor is a hilarious protagonist as he trusses up Grey and then tortures Perkins – it gives some murky undertones to his character, but I genuinely don’t see how he could have carried on being this unpredictable or untrustworthy. (It’s bad enough having the villains wanting to kill you, but this Doctor isn’t averse to encouraging the good guys to feel the same.) For now, though, everyone around the Doctor is likewise acting naughty... the Sentry sticks around for a tip that Grey makes Perkins pay (much to the clerk’s world-weary chagrin), and the Sergeant extorts money out of ffinch whilst maintaining a front of civility. Everyone’s a crook, and it’s rather delightful. The only bump in the road here is Dallas Cavell’s performance as Trask the ship-captain – would I be wrong to suggest that he’s not exactly taking this engagement particularly seriously? Oo-ar.
Even if this story isn’t the comic masterpiece that The Myth Makers was (it isn’t as clever or interested in mucking about with form), it’s all good fun, with Gerry Davis displaying aptitude for witty lines – my favourite yet being, “I’ve never seen a silent lawyer before...”
March 14th
R: Thanks for your email this morning, Toby, that invited me to your wedding. Many congratulations – I’m glad a date has been set. But you’ll forgive me if I raise a few concerns.
July 18th. You mean, this year, right? But you are aware that at that stage we’ll be somewhere late Pertwee or early Tom? I know you love K, and she’s great and everything, I’m quite sure you’ll be very happy together. But do you think your priorities are quite in order? If she really loved you, don’t you think she might be persuaded to delay the wedding? If not until we’ve finished the book, at least until we’re having to watch Sylvester McCoy?
I don’t know, mate. You signed up for this task of watching Doctor Who with me perfectly enthusiastically a couple of months ago. We’ve seen off the Sensorites, we made it through episode three of The bloody Ark. I just hate to see you falter now. Yes, you want to get married, I understand, and marriage is a terrific thing. But I have to ask – what about Doctor Who? (And what about me?)
T: I understand where you’re coming from, but to be honest, it’s taken K 20-odd years to think that nuptials are a good idea, so I’m not holding them off for anything. Frankly, the poor woman is already set to be a Doctor Who widow – she came to Gallifrey, she knows who Robert Holmes is, and she’s even agreed for the dinner tables at the reception to be named after the Doctors. I think postponing the big day so that I can concentrate on our magnum opus might be pushing things a little too far!
R: Fair enough. That’s up to you. Be selfish. It’s your big day, I suppose.
But can you at least guarantee that at some point during the wedding, we can leave the reception and nip off somewhere to watch Genesis of the Daleks episode four?
T: Perhaps we could show the episodes in-between the speeches...
The Highlanders episode three
R: This is a by far more sombre affair altogether. Troughton recognises this by underplaying his performance significantly – which is quite an achievement when he spends much of the episode in a skirt. The scene in which he gently convinces Kirsty to give him the Prince’s ring so that they can save her father is perhaps the most persuasive he has yet been as the Doctor. Contrast this with the truly menacing scene where he warns Perkins at gunpoint not to raise the alarm. His Doctor is a wonderful mix of calculation and breezy indifference – he accepts Polly’s compliments that he’s wonderful – and then, all of a sudden, loses interest in the complications of the plot and wants to have a sleep. If this were an eighties story, there’d be muttering at this point about a regeneration crisis; because such a term hasn’t been invented yet, instead the Doctor gives the impression that he’s barking mad. Michael Craze does very well too, making the most of the fine set piece in the scene in which Grey attempts to convince the captive highlanders to sell themselves into slavery. Indeed, what is on display here time and time again are scenes in which bravery and camaraderie are pitted against basic inhumanity. Even Grey seems to admire that juxtaposition, in a brilliantly callous scene where he tells Trask that the highlanders are not to be whipped, because it will
only make these honourable men resist him the stronger. (But once they’re enslaved and working in the plantations, as far as he’s concerned they can be beaten to death.)
Most striking of all, perhaps, is when Polly and Kirsty entrap Algernon ffinch. He’s the perfect comic foil to the girls, but it is quite clear that he is also a man who thinks nothing of committing bureaucratic murder. In all the comedy there is a real edge of something quite unpleasant to the taste – as Kirsty shows when Polly and herself adopt disguises that quite clearly set them apart as prostitutes.
T: The Doctor reminds me of a small child. He’s playful, but can turn sharply and loses interest in events when he decides to have a kip. He’s actually rather bewildering, and because of this, his two companions get the best opportunities the series has yet given them – Ben gets to do all the heroic stuff, and Polly is allowed to be independent and feisty. It’s telling that the audience needs the moment where the Doctor has to demonstrate that the gun he’s holding is unloaded. With most of the Doctor’s other incarnations, we’d probably have little doubt that this was the case, but when the Troughton one wields a pistol (even when dressed as a woman!), it’s genuinely disconcerting.
This story continues to be a bit grim, but it’s done with an elegant lightness. Grey is a fantastic baddie, and in that great scene with Trask he’s cruel, clever and wily, but also has such poise and intelligence that you can’t help rather admiring him despite yourself. The ending is a bit of a puzzler, though – there’s no dialogue to accompany Ben being thrown off the deck of the Annabelle, so it’s difficult to discern exactly how dramatic or exciting it’s supposed to be. Normally, if the hero is sent to his doom, he gets something defiant or brave to spout – but Ben is here dispatched without ceremony, with little fuss. But, that seems to be par for the course if you’re a Doctor Who companion under Innes Lloyd...
Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) Page 42
