One of my favourite dramatic themes are those where something apparently perfectly normal then gives rise to something mysterious and alien to what one originally expected. However, this revelation is often blown away by advertising or an 'irregular' scene before you even get started. Two of my favourite films uses that kind of approach, The Thing and Predator, and both fell foul of their advertising campaigns and opening scenes clearly setting the sci-fi theme, even though that element doesn't rear up until later in the films. Similarly, Doctor Who was no exception, with the blurb for the new show informing the potential audience that it was going to be sci-fi from the outset, and kicking off with a mysterious opening scene involving a humming police box in a junk yard - but did that have the potential to completely ruin the surprise in the story?

With An Unearthly Child, however, I think it gets away with it. Perhaps that's because it broadcast long before my time which means I've always looked at it in retrospect (and already familiar with what Doctor Who is about), and this means that my expectations are already set and so cannot be disappointed in that regard. Then again, friends who did see it on original broadcast didn't feel they were "spoilt" either, so this might be an unfounded worry.

Mind you, there's more mystery and suspense in the opening moments of "An Unearthly Child" than in many complete dramas - it's easy to see how potential fans would become immediately hooked by that haunting music that melts into a foggy backstreet of East London, a policeman slowly pacing his beat, and as he passes by a scrap merchants he misses the thrumming tone of a commonplace Police Box ...

If you'd tuned in a minute late you'd have missed that, of course, and so you'd be in the territory of familiar drama - a typical high school at the end of lessons, with a couple of teachers discussing a problematic student. It's the music that accompanies those scenes of Susan that alert us to there being something odd about her (though her comment of "That's not right" on opening a book on The French Revolution" should already have raised alarm bells!).

Even the encounter with a strange old man in a junkyard, though intriguing, is not something to spiral us off into sci-fi territory ... then, Barbara enters those police box doors and ...

"It's Alive!"

That moment is just as impressive now as it must have been back in 1963. The way in which the teachers' cosy world is suddenly thrown into scientific chaos must have been echoed in viewers as they try to get to grips with what just happened on screen. A murky junkyard transformed into a brightly lit stark white room, and within it a pupil they both know totally at ease and somewhat surprised to see them. "Is this where you live?" they wonder, as do we.

Then another revelation: Doctor Foreman ("Who?!!") and Susan are not from Earth at all, but have come from another planet entirely, and not only that they are also wanderers in the fourth dimension, too, in their Ship the TARDIS. And then, as the Doctor decides to kidnap the two teachers rather than lose his granddaughter we are flung through a whirling vortex to a stange, new "alien" world. (Okay we know that isn't the case by the following week, but you know what I mean!)

Well ... I'm hooked for the next 49 years ... :)

Trivial Bits

• I thought my mobile had gone off at one point ... being I have John Smith and the Common Men as my ringtone at the moment!
• I still think the mention of the decimal system is a great moment with hindsight, even if it was a safe bet even in the 1960s
• We never seem to get such "good" foggy days any more, though thank goodness the smoggy daze is long gone!
• Is Susan's comment on The French Revolution to become the first continuity of the series?
• "If I thought I was just being a busy body I'd go straight home" ... thank goodness Barbara didn't else where would we be now?!!
• So what does the girl whisper into the ear of the other one ... ?!!
• I'm not entirely sure why Susan had such a problem with D and E - why couldn't she just use them as constants (like the rest of us)?!?!
• "It would be so wonderfully normal" if Susan had been meeting a boy - would she have been shocked/outraged if she'd been meeting another girl in that junkyard!
• "Not quite clear is it?" - nor to me either, I'm still not sure how the skyscraper in TV analogy matches the dimensional transition from the outer plasmic shell into the interior!
• Time And Relative DIMENSION in Space, it's definitive, dontcha know!
• Another subtle difference in the early days is mentioned here, where the Doctor says they are cut off from their own planet, and then wistfully says to Susan that they'll get back one day. Later, it transpires he was effectively a fugitive from his people. I suppose these don't actually contradict each other though.
• And why was the Doctor seemingly initially worried that Ian and Barbara were the police? What had he been up to?!!!
• Shame we never had the long version of the dematerialisation/travel sequence sound in the TARDIS again in the series.
• Finally, wouldn't it have been strange if we were celebrating the 16th November as the anniversary, had the show gone out on its original schedule? And would it have lasted as long because of it [we have the pilot to compare against, would it have been so successful as the polished version we finally saw?]

In hindsight, this turned out to be quite an apt quote, as The Five Doctors was to be the first Doctor Who story that I recorded (and still have on the shelf some nigh-on 29 years later). It had been a toss-up between recording this and watching The A-Team (I think), or the other way around, but in the end I both watched and recorded it, phew! so, this story still holds a fond memory for me, and is quite possibly the one Doctor Who story I've watched the most!

If that wasn't enough, with next year (probably) seeing the final few episodes left to be released, this story happened to mark another first in being the premier release of the then newly-emerging DVD market some thirteen years ago (boy, how to feel old!)

"It's like a person ..."

For a story which is inevitably an indulgence in nostalgia, there's actually quite a lot of new ideas present. Immediately post-titles, we have a brand new TARDIS! As a kid I could only vaguely remember the "brown" one (Season 14), so the functioning "white" room was the one that was more-or-less permanently etched in my mind. So, to see a whole new-looking console room was quite something back then - already the story seems special.

Then we're treated to a 'new' First Doctor. I was enough of a fan by this point to know what the original (you might say) looked like, but the general viewing public might not have picked up on it being a different actor when watching... except the game had been given away with the opening speech by Hartnell at the start. Ah, well...

"Goodness me so there are five of me now"

Of course this is what we tuned in for! As mentioned above, Hartnell's death in the 1970s meant that he was recast for this story, and Hurndall did a pretty good job I think - he certainly worked for me as the First Doctor (who I'd only ever seen from The Five Faces repeat season a couple of years before). Actually, having seen all the Hartnell material that exists now he still stands up as a worthy successor to the role - it's a shame he died shortly afterwards, too, it could have been interesting range of adventures for Big Finish.

Of the other 'oldies', Troughton and Pertwee fall easily into their old roles, and are paired up with the show's two best-loved companions the Brigadier and Sarah respectively, with both Courtney and Sladen more than able to share the limelight with 'their' Doctor (though of course had Baker been present the dynamics would have been a lot different).

Ah yes, Baker. I think JNT did a good job in working around the actor's decision not to participate, all things considered, and the use of unseen scenes from Shada to at least feature the Fourth Doctor was quite inspired.

"That's my best enemy"

At this point, the Master was a common occurrence in the series again (indeed he was in the preceding The King's Demons - if a few months gap on television), and though it was also inevitable that he'd be popping up in the story I still groaned at his appearance (I've never been a big fan of Ainley's portrayal). Quite why the High Council would bother calling him in rather than send in a crack team of chancellery guards remains a mystery ... perhaps Maxil would have none of that (though with his absence in the story maybe he was the first to be dumped-I-mean-sent to the Death Zone!)

Also, the fact that the Doctor and the Master are sworn enemies seems to be another limiter on the latter's success in his mission, as immediately seen when he encounters the Third incarnation who doesn't believe him and promptly takes away his proof! Which of course then means he can't get the Fiith incarnation to believe him until it's much too late!

Still, *my* best enemy is in the story, too, which was good news! The Cybermen get a great deal of screen time in the story (I'm really glad it wasn't just the one wall scene early on), and have scenes with all four of the Doctors (albeit the First is hiding at the time!). They also of course feature in the highlight of the special, their demise at the hands of the Raston Robot.

Actually, in terms of enemies that's about it - there's the cameo by a Dalek and a Yeti, but not much else to speak of until Borusa turns out to be the big-bad for the show.

Borusa's turn "to the dark side" does seem a bit contrived for the story, and perhaps also needs the audience to understand his full history with the Doctor to appreciate why this should be considered a big deal (the preceding season's Arc of Infinity didn't really do much to establish enough sympathy with him - though I suppose it's John Arnatt that really engendered the relationship with his old pupil). The revelation certainly didn't inspire me at the time, nor now, come to that! [with hindsight, Season 23 could have done with something like this story, when we discover that it was the Valeyard/dark Doctor behind it all ...]

Shame that, with the exception of Susan and the cameo of K9, all the other guest companion appearances were handled as 'phantoms', so we really didn't get to see enough of them. Mind you, at the time I would have been hard-pressed to remember Liz except by Target novelisation, as only Jamie and Zoe had been on recently in The Krotons - even Yates was only vaguely remembered from the Spiders incident ...

You have to feel sympathy for Terrance Dicks with the number of rewrites he had to do, juggling the various "they're in, they're out" moments as the cast was being assembled/disassembled due to schedules etc. - I could just imagine Robert Holmes with his rictus grin lurking behind him whispering "I told you so"!

"I may not be breaking the laws of continuity, but I am bending them a bit"

Okay, so that is a slight cheat with the quote, but there are a number of elements that push what we'd consider the 'canon' - if the ramifications of out-of-sequence Doctors was complex enough in The Three Doctors, here it is just as convoluted in continuity pitfalls exacerbated by the former story.

The second Doctor's arrival at UNIT HQ sets the tone, with him pointing out he shouldn't really be there at all. But his later comments about Jamie and Zoe having had their memories wiped in their last adventure together were very out of place - how would he have known that being it was just before his change of appearance [cue the Season 6b advocates!].

Then we have the Master: it's established that Time Lords always seem able to recognise each other, but of course the Master is actually within Tremas's body and so is no longer 'Time Lord' ... this seems to be confirmed by the way in which the Fifth Doctor can never recognise him in disguise in any of their encounters, and also by the way in which the First Doctor is seemingly completely unaware of his former academy-mate's identity. But then the Third Doctor recognises him outright. Oops!

Not a continuity point per-se, but one that always niggles me whenever I hear it - why did the First Doctor assume that there were five Doctors, rather than "at least" five? There's no reason for him to know that the Fifth is the latest one he'd encountered! I'm also not sure why "Liz" would know there are five, either, being she is a phantom being cast from the Third Doctor's mind (well that's how I interpreted it at any rate!).

"To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose"

And so ends a rather relaxed run-around of a special, with nothing too painful to tax the mind - it wouldn't have done too badly as a Christmas special in a modern series environment. There's no real menace to speak of, either (Raston Robot excepted) - it was more of a mild stroll to the Black Tower rather than an epic struggle to overcome the machinations of the Death Zone, and ultimately only Borusa was ever in any peril, as the inverse-ABBA resolution sees him turned into a living statue (this was quite a horrific scene, actually, seeing all those faces moving behind their facades - it certainly haunted me for a while afterwards).

The Time Lords themselves were pretty wasted, and their scenes were rather bland in general. Perhaps that's more down to what we'd really consider the main event, though, the banter between the Doctors, and with their respective companion partnerships during the course of the story - for them, the script really shines, and returning to my opening comments, watching them on the very first DVD would be a good taster to perhaps entice prospective fans into the infant DVD range.

I've recently had a lot of misgivings over the idea of juggling multiple Doctors into next year's anniversary adventure, but having just re-watched this story perhaps my worries are misplaced ... but the script writer, the director and the actors will ultimately make and break such a project should it happen.


The quote above could also be seen metaphorically to sum up Doctor Who itself - the Doctor effectively evading his responsibilities to roam around the universe, 'losing' his privileged title to 'win' his vocation in life. You could also say that, once he would had gained access to all knowledge (via the Matrix) he'd then lose his sense of adventure - okay, maybe this is overloading the meaning too much!

Trivial Bits

• UNIT HQ was also having its own anniversary - it's the same location as seen in The Three Doctors.
• Is it just me, but when the Brigadier says "I'm too old for this sort of thing", after so many Lethal Weapon films I'm expecting that sentence to end rather differently!
• Zodin? Zodin? Where for art thou, Zodin?
• Exactly what was the relationship between Flavia and the Master?
• No................... not the mind probe - Paul Jerricho will never live that down!
• Why does everybody seem to know about the Death Zone but not where on Gallifrey it is! Or indeed where it's control room is - did nobody decorating the High Council Chamber notice a panel when they were working there? Or did they tell Borusa and he bumped them off as his grand plan began to unfold? [I sense a short story coming along... :)]
• Turlough was in this story too, apparently!

(with thanks to Sheldon Collins)

Having recently extolled the virtues of UNIT family in The Claws of Axos, it seems as good a time as any to watch the following story, Colony in Space ... which after several adventures is not only UNIT-absent but also Earth-invasion absent too!

Colony is one of those stories that has often been dismissed as plodding and uneventful, but actually there's quite a lot going on to maintain interest, if you accept the early 1970s style of dramatic story-telling. After what starts off as a seemingly simple base-attacked-by-monsters plot, it rapidly splits into a number of parallel subplots, with various IMC schemes to acquire the planet from the colonists, through the initial disguise of 'Charlie' the robot as a lizard, infiltration by Norton to cause disruption within the colonist camp, and then the capture of Jo and Winton to manipulate the Doctor into supporting their side of the story. The TARDIS is taken away for the Doctor to have to track down. There is the history of Exarius (or Uxaerius) and how the Doomsday Weapon brought a great culture to ruin. And, of course, the Master's plans to seize the weapon for himself!

Being that this is the first time the Doctor travels to an alien world since his exile on Earth began, there is a fair bit of exposition over what the TARDIS is and what it can do, as much to re-introduce the audience to the concept as well as Jo. However, as I mentioned in my Claws review, this actually conflicts with the running order of the series, with Jo already familiar with the TARDIS's ability to dematerialise and rematerialise elsewhere. Furthermore, the Brigadier's exchange with the Doctor over the Master's whereabouts clearly sounds like he's only just escaped Earth, with even the Doctor saying "his TARDIS is working now, he could be anywhere in space and time", tying in with the ending of The Mind of Evil. Agents are still looking for him, and that also ties in with Filer's arrival to discuss the 'master criminal' in Claws as well. having rewatched the So, I still think that the season eight running order should be Mind, Colony, Claws in spite of Terrance's recollections!

"A world where people can live as human beings and not battery hens"

This is also the first time the audience will see an alien planet in glorious colour, too ... so we get a lovely muddy gray clay pit in Cornwall to celebrate! This is typical Doctor Who territory, of course, alien planets always looked like that back then, though one has to wonder how any life manages to exist in these places at all?

This lack of food is a major plot element for the story, with the colonists that have settled on Exarius on the verge of complete starvation. It does seem odd that the Doctor needs to point this out to their leader Ashe (John Ringham), but then the colonists' leader does have a lot on his mind, especially with the recent lizard attacks. Mind you, the Doctor also points out about how could the "20 feet tall" lizards get through normal-sized doors, too, so maybe 25th Century IQ levels aren't as high - certainly, it sounds like Dent's wheeze works well on other colony worlds too. Imaginary giant lizards aside, though, how do the planet's natural inhabitants survive with the lack of a sustainable food source? Hmm, perhaps Jo should have been nominated for sacrifice a lot earlier for her indiscriminate picking of local flora upon arrival!

It is clear that Dent (Morris Perry) believes colonists are somewhat ignorant, and his initial attitude with the Doctor reflects that until he realises he is dealing with someone able to see through his version of what is happening on the planet - so he decides to arrange an accident straight away. Here is a man who clearly doesn't like anyone or anything that could potentially throw his plans into disarray, and it seems works for a company that is quite happy to look the other way too as long as profits are good, even paying off officials when they need to ...

... which leads us to the Master, who doesn't appear until the latter half of the story, turning up as an Adjudicator from Earth in a Joe 90 plane to (allegedly) resolve the colonists/IMC dispute over the rights to the planet. His appearance would perhaps have been more of a surprise had the story not opened with the Time Lord discussion over him stealing the Doomsday Weapon files in the first place - oh well!

You'd have thought by now the Master would think a little more carefully about his nefarious schemes. First he has to switch sides at the last minute as he realises the Nestenes have no use for him after their invasion succeeds. Then he bites off more than he can chew with the mind parasite becoming too powerful to control. And then he brings the Axons to Earth but nearly finds himself a victim as their insatiable appetite for time travel builds up. Here he goes after the greatest weapon to have been devised only to be judged "you're not fit to be a God" and have the weapon destroyed in front of him! What next, re-awaken ancient powers that could erradicate him with a thought in a bid to take control of a planet he isn't actually that bothered about?

In terms of other main characters, the IMC contingent are by far the most interesting. We have Caldwell (Bernard Kay), whose conscience finally catches up with him over his employers' activities (though one has to wonder why he hadn't come to this conclusion on previous missions). Norton (Roy Skelton in a rare on-screen role) excels in his role as the supposed sole survivor of a previous colony and causing dissent behind the scenes, though he got his comeuppance in the end as his duplicity is revealed. Then there's the rather nasty Morgan (Tony Caunter) who relishes in doing his duty in the innoble style of other henchmen like Packer (The Invasion) and Hinks (The Green Death). In comparison, the colonists are a bit wimpy really! Winton (Nicholas Pennell) is about the best of the bunch, portraying the physical half of the colonists, with the intellectual half being Ashe (which as I said earlier isn't quite as intellectual as he ought to be) - he does at least get to play "the noble sacrifice" role by flying the doomed spacecraft. Mary (Helen Worth) is 'nice', but that's about it, nobody else is really memorable - except for Alec Leeson (John Tordoff) who perhaps stands out for entirely the wrong reasons!

The primitives and the priests are well-realised, though the zips in the former's costumes are a bit obvious at times. It's hard to imagine quite how their society actually works though, and as I mentioned previously food must be quite an issue ... though it is possible that they had food dispensers as a regular power supply was in evidence! The guardian of the Weapon is also well-realised, and gives a good account of how their great invention brought their planet to ruin, but its logic as to why now is the time to destroy the weapon eluded me somewhat, especially as it didn't explain how this might restore life to the planet - and probably destroyed whatever the primitives were feeding upon as well!

"What have you got in there, a policeman?"

There's always been a bit of experimentation with how the TARDIS dematerialises, and here we have an immediate 'popping' dematerialisation - this ties in with the way in which we see the Time Lord that visits the Doctor in Terror of the Autons travel, so it isn't a precedent in that regard, being that the Time Lords are the ones navigating the TARDIS. (mind you, the Master's TARDIS also disappears the same way at the end of the story, so maybe we shouldn't rationalise it into continuity - especially as then new director Michael E Briant says on the documentary he made it up being he didn't know previous approaches!).

The Brigadier was taking a chance, standing in the very place the TARDIS was when he demands that the Doctor "come back at once". Though, would he have been squashed or would the TARDIS materialise around him as seen in a number of modern stories (not to mention Logopolis!).

Speaking of the Fourth Doctor, Christopher H Bidmead added a lot to the Doctor Who lore regarding the various TARDIS functions, but it is nice to see that Malcolm Hulke was 'first in the door' with the Doctor's home being "dimensionally transcendental"!

There's also a nice nod back to the early days of TARDIS travel, with the outside surface of wherever they landed being visible through the doors of the TARDIS when they open. It isn't used that often (even recently), so is a genuine thrill to see!

Another bit of ammunition in my Colony/Claws argument is when the subject of the Master's TARDIS comes up and Jo mentions she hadn't seen his horsebox around (from Terror of the Autons) - okay, so perhaps she wasn't quite aware of how its shape can be altered in Claws, but when the Doctor mentions the Master's key it still feels as if it should have been an earlier story. [Okay, I've hammered this theory enough, now!]

It's nice to see the Master's TARDIS is full of paraphenalia too, and I especially like row of cabinets he keeps handy for his files.

"Don't try and explain"

A few little factoids and observations during the story:

• At the beginning, the Doctor jokes about the the Spanish Ambassador being mistaken for the Master. At the time it was an 'in-joke' with regard to Roger Delgado's appearance and various roles he'd undertaken in the past, but would that ever be allowed now in our politically correct world?
• ... speaking of which, would Mary's 'in-joke' about Jim fixing it find itself excised in future releases after the recent scandal regarding that show's presenter - the production notes would most certainly get revised if nothing else (there's already been talk of a Jim'll Fix It clip with Tom Baker being dropped for The Ark in Space special edition, and A Fix With Sontarans might also fall foul of the censor should The Two Doctors also be re-released).
• Third-Doctor-Moments: The Doctor watches a video of apparent mindless violence, followed later by a propaganda report on overcrowding on Earth; this is something of a Hulke favourite, with the same method popping up in Frontier in Space and Invasion of the Dinosaurs too!
• A calendar shows Monday 2 March 2472, though this won't actually be a Monday it'll be a Wednesday [assuming we don't start adding Leap Days!]. The month happens to reflect the time the first episode was recorded, too, in March 1971 - but why 501 years into the future ...
• Geodesic domes - they might have been a good shape for futuristic (and Antarctic) habitats, but they made for great climbing frames in the 1970s too!
• Jon Pertwee's This Is Your Life was recorded during this story. It's strange to think that he had already had a long career by this point, but was yet to find even more fame a few years little bringing a tatty scarecrow to life.
• Third-Doctor-Moments: The Doctor's engages in conjuring tricks during episode four, and it's easy to see why Vorg thought him a showman in Carnival of Monsters - not to mention the flower-antics in The Three Doctors. About the only thing missing is the Doctor trying out something different to wear ... oh hang on, whose that new IMC recruit?!!
• During the 1980s we had no end of episode cliffhangers featuring a close-up of the Doctor or other star's face - it's nice to see that this isn't a 'crime' to be laid at JNT's feet, Michael E Briant is perfectly able to achieve this, too, with a very obliging Pertwee expression! He gets three of the five cliffhanger close-ups, with Katy Manning receiving the episode three treatment ... at least episode five is dedicated to the Master's finger!
• Speaking of which, this story marks only the third credit for "John Turner" in the series thus far, doing F.A. (floor assistant!) ... and the premiere production role of assistant floor manager for a chap called Graeme Harper, wonder what happened to him ...
• Third-Doctor-Moments: The Pertwee era is well known for 'some kind' of speech - and it isn't just an impediment of the Doctor, Caldwell uses it too!
• Third-Doctor-Moments: there's three stunt battles between IMC and the colonists to enjoy during the course of the story!
• Shame we lost the female Morgan, that would have been interesting character, if a bit daring for the time. It certainly would have evened things out a bit, stories of these times are very male-oriented - here we only have one main female role (Katy excepted) with Helen Worth's Mary Ashe, plus a couple of supporting colonists in episode one (Sheila Grant and Mitzi McKenzie), and thinking about it there's only Corporal Bell in Claws (unless you want to include the 'female' Axon of course!)
• There are female extras of course, including Antonia Moss who's grown up a bit since her other appearance right at the start of the series as a child from the Tribe of Gum ... not that you'd recognise her in her alien priest costume!

via Emma Young on Twitter

‎"What a man will do for what he truly believes in"

With A Town Called Mercy featuring the Doctor on a romp in the Wild West, it's time to settle down his other major dabbling in the genre with The Gunfighters. Fan Mythology has long held this story to propped up in the Boot Hill of Doctor Who, the worst the show could get and the nadir of ratings. Fortunately, a lot of this mistaken mystique has now been corralled into the past where it should be!

That's not to say some of the criticism isn't jusified. Considering the show's original remit to educate, the depiction of the Clantons, Earps, and the legendary gun fight would seem unlikely to grace history lessons of the day. But, of course, never let a few facts get in the way of a good story ...

And to be honest it is an entertaining romp. Historical inaccuracies aside, the plot unfolds at a leisurely but not lethargic pace, and the gradual change in ambience from a 'comedy' into something really dark can still catch you by surprise. Laurence Payne in particular is exceptional as Johnny Ringo, portraying convincing psychopath that you really wouldn't want to encounter in real life, much like Hannibal! And those final scenes of the actual fight are played totally straight with the portrayal of the gritty reality of "playing with guns".

Mind you, some of the accents were to be desired - what is it with this genre that when you go to the "wild west" you have to put on such an approximation - after all, "The Masque of Mandragora" didn't go all Italian on us! Perhaps they shouldn't have bothered and just played it straight through in 'normal' unaccented English, it wouldn't have affected the story. Shane Rimmer can perhaps be forgiven, however, for not trying to sound too much like Scott Tracey! (He's fresh in my mind having seen him pop up in The Spy Who Loved Me just before writing this review!).

Talking about Thunderbirds we also have David Graham here playing the fated barman, Charlie. Considering he doesn't actually have much to do in the story he does come across as one of the more competent characters, and of course gets to perform a death scene in a way that Ken Dodd should take lessons from!

This is one of those adventures where the plot ambles along quite happily in spite of the TARDIS travellers being there; like "The Romans" and other historical-based tales, their actions hover more around the edges of the main 'real conspiracies' that are revealed over the course of the story, rather than being integral to the plot. Dodo and Steven are unaware that they are both to leave the show in a matter of weeks (grin), and instead display their naivety over the potential dangers they put themselves in with their wild-west antics. Dodo's innocence around Doc Holliday is a wonder to behold, and Steven's ability to continually team up with the wrong crowd is a far cry from the astronaut from the year before. Still, we did get to see the Regret and Dupont double act entering "Tombstone's Got Talent"! Meanwhile, "Doc" ambles between sitting in a dentist's, sitting in jail, and sitting in a bar, and general making Mr. Wearp's life a misery - and what a joy it is, too!

The story is also one of those rarities where the underlying soundtrack is a unique experience. Had Lynda Baron been spotted in Cardiff earlier this year rather than last year I'd have been mighty suspicious about what we'd get in A Town Called Mercy, but it would seem that we're probably safe with Gold's usual fare tonight ... of course she's prevalent throughout The Gunfighters, and could almost be classed a narrator with the way the plot is reflected in the lyrics of The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon. For some reason I used to find it quite grating a couple of decades ago, but nowadays it slots in seamlessly with the story. But please don't do it again, no matter what Barrowman pleads!

Random musings:

"I never touch alcohol" ... well maybe not in this incarnation but a couple down the line and he's swigging his wine like a goodun! Actually, we don't see the Doctor drink that often in the series, with only the Fourth coming to mind as another distinct tea-non-totaller!

If the Doctor is a practitioner of never inflicting violence unless under threat, why does he have a collection of favourite guns?

Doctor Caligari ... Doctor Who? Ho hum, we are of course into the Innes Lloyd era of the show, where Who was treated more as a title than a question (thank you Dorium for reminding us of that!) - this one is more subtle than WOTAN's proclamation in The War Machines and Doctor von Wer in The Highlanders.

One has to wonder why - even though at this point he has little control over the TARDIS - he didn't just get back in and travel somewhere else rather than risk his health in a known bacteria-rife environment!

Interesting factoid on the production notes, there was plenty of real food and drink on hand for the cast to eat during the story - lamb chops and beans, such luxury!

This was the last story to feature individual episode titles up to Aliens of London/World War Three, which in some ways is a shame as it meant a clear end to the concept of a continuously evolving adventure. Sadly, however, this story a candidate for fandom to argue endlessly over what it should really be called :)

Having threatened Susan with a jolly good smacked bottom, he actually does the business with Dodo - albeit light-heartedly with the poster Holliday just gave him (grin).

And finally, so what exactly happened to the Doctor's tooth after Halliday extracted it? I wonder if it has disappeared into obscurity only to return next year as a major plot point for the 50th Anniversary as Time-Lord DNA is recovered in an unexpected place...

Conclusion

In conclusion this story is not half bad at all, and certainly didn't warrant all the 'hatred' it accrued over the years. Historically accurate it ain't, but then the multitude of films out of Hollywood don't exactly tell the true story, either.

Back in ye ancient days of 1984, there was I with my shiny video tapes that I could just afford in order to record a mere three stories of the new season just about to start. Of course back then we didn't really know that these would all be available on VHS let alone shiny DVD as now, so it was crucial to decide what to go for. Having pored over the descriptions of what to expect from the Anniversary Special, I ended up with "the dalek story", "the regeneration story" and "the new doctor story". With hindsight, I would actually have recorded Resurrection and Androzani as before, but my other choice would have been Frontios!

The story still stands up well today as one of the better stories of the Davison era. With Chris Bidmead at the helm the script was going to be sound, Paddy Kingsland to provide his usual atmospheric scores, a competent director in Ron Jones, and great design by David Buckingham, what could go wrong. Well, all-in-all, nothing at all - if anything its the confines of the studio that perhaps let it down, with cave-setting always quite tricky to realise - Androzani had similar issues - but in both cases lighting was actually used to great advantage, but one wonders how it might have seen in real caves on film ...

This is also one of those rare stories that enabled Mark Strickson to act and Turlough to have some measure of character. It was a real shame he hadn't been used better during his tenure on the show, and it's only his creator Peter Grimwade and Bidmead that really brought Turlough to life. The scenes of his dribbling race-memory-recall are excellent, though it's a bit handy that his home planet just happens to be one that the Tractators invaded in the past!

Ah, yes, the Tractators ... why is it the "monster" can make and break a story, in spite of how great a script it has. Fortunately they don't get too much "in the way" in the story, and it's a shame that in a typical lack of communication between departments we have dancers contracted to move the "lithe" creatures, and the designers created an "intractable" (ahem) costume that fails to provide any grace whatsoever!

The Gravis was an interesting idea, but its threats did seem a little easy to ignore -the novelisation does much to address this so you could really feel the unease of whether he'd grasp that Tegan was not a Gallifreyan serving machine after all. Hmm, actually, he is a bit thick not to realise the Doctor's little tricks even down to his eventual defeat by his own hands!

Also, the minimal visual effects used do seem a little basic, and it's a shame that the DVD producers didn't take the time (or rather, given the budget) to upgrade the effects to a more modern look rather than fuzzy red blurs illustrating the Tractator kinetic abilities. Not that this detracts from the story itself.

"The TARDIS has been destroyed"

Even back at broadcast I thought it strange that the Doctor would be going on about his hatstand, not knowing how much of a mcguffin that would be (or even what the word meant back then :)). It's later poingnancy as being the only remaining part of the ship was a real impact back then, even if I knew we had several more stories to go so the TARDIS couldn't really be gone. Actually, at the time I suspected the chameleon circuit had worked ... but no it was actually dispelled into separate components within our own natural dimensions instead and providing a magical moment when Tegan comes across roundels in the tunnels - still highly effective even now!

Still not sure how the Gravis knew of the Doctor by reputation, TARDISes and Time Lords when this was meant to be so far into the future they weren't meant to be there - if he were just a legend by then I'd have thought there'd be more excitement over him being there (a Tractator equivalent of an autograph wanted?!!). But then as we established earlier he is thick, and can't add up too well either - he'd been stranded for millennia but was on Frontios 500 years ... [actually a deleted scene clarifies this so maybe I should cut him some slack :)]

"The people of my planet"

As I said earlier, Turlough is used well in the story, but it seems weird now how he goes on about his planet without actually saying it. Unknown at this time, of course, but Trion is mentioned just three weeks later!

Plenty of bits to catch the eye in the story, but quite a lot cut out too it seems (which you can see in the deleted scenes bit). I must say the episode pace is pretty good so the extra to-ing and fro-ing cut helps the broadcast version keep running well. And it wasn't until just now watching it that I realised that episode three is essentially just "running around corridors!". Speaking of which, a good "revere-lation" (sorry!) at the end of the ep with Ron Jones choosing not to use a "crash-in to the Doctor's face" for once - hoorah! - especially with the nasty-looking excavation machine turning up (which again the novelisation makes even nastier than on screen).

Always good to see the Doctor's glasses in use (another Bidmeadism).

The restored picture looks great and some great camerawork (like looking up out of the tunnels to the ship), but the clean-up does also show up the Tractators a bit, and also where the scene was speeded up in order to make them look like they could move faster! There's also the unintentionally funny scene of the guards beating up a Tractator with their battons to watch out for!

The production notes also point out some of the inevitable continuity errors: I clearly remember the incident with the metal bar blocking the doors "moving" higher to enable the escape back at broadcast, but never noticed things like Turlough's blazer switching from buttoned up to open, Norna crouching to look in the tunnel (from below) but then standing (from above), or a boom shadow (though this doesn't detract and looks 'natural' anyway).

"A risk shared is a risk doubled"

All in all, a great story and also a great cliffhanger ending too, harking back to the old Hartnell story-telling days (not that I knew this at the time) - it's a shame they didn't retain the Resurrection trailer that immediately followed the end titles when it was broadcast just to maintain that flow :)

Hard to imagine now of course, but us midling-youngsters of the early eighties were well and truly Pertwee-starved, relying on dim and distant memories of the elegant Third Doctor, and of course the ever-increasing chronicles recorded by Target. Then JNT became a hero by bringing three full adventures to our screens! After the previous Five Faces outings for The Three Doctors and Carnival of Monsters, over the summer of 1982 we were then treated to a monster cornucopia in the form of The Curse of Peladon.

In the Black Scrolls of Fandom this story is categorised as "an Ice Warrior story", which - though of course being true - does do an injustice to the other memorable alien races we meet on Peladon. We have the Peladonians themselves with their distinctive hair styles (maybe the Golgafrinchans stopped off here at some point!), the big shaggy beastie Aggedor, the shrill-voiced, green-skinned, semi-phallic hermaphrodite hexapod delegate from Alpha Centauri, and the downright disturbing delegate from Arcturus. Having no memory of the story on original broadcast I had only my battered Target version of events to go by, and whilst Aggedor was perhaps a little more cuddly than intended (he worked well in the shadows), and Centauri overly 'feminine', Arcturus was just as creepy as his literary counterpart - the production team had a field day on that creation! Perhaps the only let-down was his laser weapon, which suffered from its seventies effects legacy (oh no, the red blob of doom again!).

It was my first remembered experience with the Martians, too, and they perhaps didn't come across as huge and looming as I had been led to believe. Having seen The Ice Warriors and The Seeds of Death now I can fully appreciate this image of them, but unfortunately the rather taller cast here kind of dilluted their presence a bit. Plus of course there's the twist in which they turn out to be goodies rather than baddies this time around, though the Doctor was still able to instill a sense of threat about them when relating his previous experiences, and Izlyr or Ssorg can still be intimidating in spite of their relative heights!

(An an aside - these days we have the likes of Dan Starkey and Neve McIntosh creating a consistent look to a race, but back in the classic series this seldom happened - we're introduced to Sontarans being a clone race, but with the Martians we're actually treated to creatures that seem to fit the bill more admirably, thanks to the Alan Bennion cornering the market in Ice Lords.)

"The ancient Curse of Peladon will be fulfilled"

The story itself could almost be a Shakespearian play in its opening moment, with the array of characters paraded in front of us and their roles ascertained, through it soon settles down into the more traditional sci-fi trappings of a Doctor Who story. Torbis and Hepesh sound it off in front of their young King, and then the former apparently falls foul of the "curse" as a sign of displeasure of the mythical beast of Peladon over the decision to join the Federation. Here the "mistaken identity" strategy is used to introduce the Doctor and Jo to events, and it doesn't take long to see how the pretty Earth 'princess' has caught the eye of the King (who seems to quickly forget that she was meant to be on a date with Mike Yates - as Katy says on the commentary, "there's something about a prince that is irresistable!"). Then the Martian delegates turn and up the next couple of episodes are spent trying to convince us (and the Doctor) that they are the good guys, only to turn out that they actually are, hoorah! The real villains turn out to be Arcturus in league with Hepesh, and the ensuing revolution looks set to be victorious until the Doctor turns up proving the mythical Aggedor beasts are real, and its representative in the Citadel promptly shows its displeasure on its 'master' Hepesh. Hmm, actually it could have been written by Shakespeare after all!

"Holy flaming cow!"

Lennie Mayne's directorial debut for the series provides us with a competent traversal through the script, ably maintaining the journey through the layers of intrigue and no dud casting to be seen (or under costume!). David Troughton handles his first leading role well, and Gordon Stothard continues to excel in his non-speaking roles, this time visible on-screen as the mute champion Grun (strangely with a name-change as if the actor didn't want people to realise it was him!); plus with barely a minute on-screen Wendy Danvers makes her formidable presence known as the real Earth delegate Amazonia, who had she arrived when she was supposed to might well have been able to take on Izlyr, Hepesh and Aggedor on her own with the fierceness on display!

The sets are well-designed, too, with the mountainous slopes of Peladon superbly realised at Ealing, seamlessly integrating with the excellent modelwork as the TARDIS seemingly plummets to its destruction early on. Stunt-work is also excellent, but you can still play the "see Terry Walsh as the Doctor" drinking game and have a good chance to get sloshed [and of course the Uncle Terry commentary drinking rules might well send you into a stupor at around 22:55 into episode one :)].

The story has some notable firsts and lasts: it's the first time we're told the TARDIS is indestructible (though that had been suggested in stories like The Chase - but then why would we need the HADS in The Krotons?); it's the first story to be shown out of production order, having swapped with The Sea Devils to make the season flow better (though I've always felt that The Claws of Axos/Colony in Space make better continuity when reversed); it's the first story since The Space Pirates to have no location filming (indeed it and Monster are the only Pertwee stories like that) - Barry Letts said on the commentary that this helped finanically with the location-heavier stories in the season; and it's the last time the TARDIS console room appears in this configuration (perhaps the drop down the mountain did more damage than initially thought!).

Probably the best 'fluff' to watch out for is Pertwee muffling his lines under the TARDIS console as a picture of a naked lady comes into his eyeline (*not* Katy Manning!).

In conclusion, a fun story with lots of intrigue, good acting and great sets, plenty of monsters (the biggest gathering of races since The Daleks' Master Plan!); being a four-parter, there's also little of the sluggishness that can occur in the longer stories of this era).

I'll leave you with this thought: how must poor Peladon have felt, having lost both of his father-figures in the space of a couple of days - one initiated by the other and both by his mythical Royal beast - and then having a beautiful woman first turn down his marriage proposal and then turn out to be an imposter!

Crikey it's been a while since I posted on here! Here's my review of Tomb of the Cybermen which I wrote today to kick this off a bit!

---

‎"50 pounds to the first person to open those doors"

Those who remember the days of video-craving that the documentary "Cheque Lies and Videotape" depicts would probably not be surprised to be offered £50 back then if they could open their door and produce "Tomb of the Cybermen". The 1980s were rife with rumours about this particular story still existing, fuelled by the audio soundtrack doing the fan rounds that sounded like it was off a badly tracked video recording! Enter 1991 and some naughty fans (ahem) tried a social experiment about how a rumour of how Season Five had been recovered and would be released one story at a time starting off with Tomb the following year ... only to have it announced that Tomb had been recovered and would be out that following year ...

I think one of the problems with Tomb was that is ended up being an extremely hyped story. Those who had been fortunate to see it on broadcast raved about how great it was, the novelisation was a reasonable effort by Davis, and the soundtrack was atmospheric so we were all geared up for it's release when announced. I remember sitting there at the Tombwatch premiere (now sadly removed from the Special Edition version) and still wondering if this was really real until after those titles ended and the action began (curiously I don't remember the opening scene with Victoria's introduction only from the Telos landscape but it must have been shown!). The anticipation of the audience was electric and it was great to watch ...

That first time. When I came to rewatch it on the video it seemed more lacking in some ways. Suddenly scenes seemed to be much slower, and the Cybermen didn't really seem to actually do anything. Quite boring really, in comparison to The Moonbase before it, and certainly not as good as Evil of the Daleks and The Web Of Fear looked. Fan attitudes were variable too, and of course emphasis shifted to wanting another "undoubted classic" to be recovered - Fury From The Deep. [this has of course not occured - yet - but would we lose our reverence for that too if seen again in all it's onscreen 'glory'?]

But that was the 20th Century. It's now some two decades since those heady days and we have a new fresh remastered DVD version to enjoy. And, as with many of the earlier stories (The Web Planet excepted), these adventures have a lot going for them. The atmosphere perceived on the old soundtrack *is* there on screen, the Cybermen *are* menacing even in their minimal participation in the tale, and the acting is very competent. I still wouldn't rate it a "classic", but it is a strong tale.

"I love to see the experts at work, don't you?"

The Doctor of Production Block Four is witty, intelligent, perceptive, and at times downright dangerous. This had been highlighted in the previous serial Evil of the Daleks as he manipulates his companion to achieve his (benevolent of course) aims [long before the 7th Doctor did so to some fan complaints!], and continues here as he deftly manipulates Parry's team into, well, doing his dirty work for him! A little hint here, a flick of a switch there, and they all progress further into the Tomb's mysterious depths. As he says, they couldn't leave as soon as "Cybermen" are mentioned, but then again if he hadn't have surrepticiously assisted then would there ever have been a threat (or indeed the death of most of the team by the end).

Similarly, the Block Four Jamie is still an intelligent of out-of-his-league Scots lad, perceptive enough to realise the Doctor's line about skirt lengths to reassure Victoria. Victoria herself demonstrates her own strengths: a particular exchange comes to mind when, as Hopper head into the caverns she remarks "Who'd be a woman?" and he responds "How would you know?", but later she gets to give him a cutting response in ""its comforting to know they we've got your superior stength to call on should we need it"!

The main cast excel throughout. Even though she's the new girl, Debbie Watling seems to settle in with the Pat'n'Frazer duo quickly, and they display a genuine affection to each other throughout the serial. As for the supporting cast, generally the acting is okay, if the accents are a little 'eccentric' at times. Also, a little consistency in pronunciation would be handy, e.g. Telos and Teelos, CYBERman and CyberMAN! (Ah well, Matthew Sweet doesn't do much better in the Cybermen documentary on disk two so should we worry?!).

Of particular note is Roy Stewart, who does wonders with Toberman considering the character is mainly treated as "the heavy" and gets about three lines in the entire story(!) - it seems at times that the Doctor is using subtle manipulation upon him (opening the Tomb doors, the Kaftan death aftermath), but there's a certain nuance that suggests there's more to him than meets the eye - quite literally later on with his cyber-arm! And let's not forget it's his sacrifice that wins the day (even if it was him opening the doors that caused the kerfuffle in the first place!).

Of the others, Shirley Cooklin and George Pastell play the Logician fanatics Kaftan and Klieg well, though their character's motivations seems a little woolly at times (why does Kaftan play with the cyberchamber controls, and why is Klieg's logic over the Cybermen's intentions so completely flawed?!?!). The others are unfortunately less memorable, though they have their moments.

"Symbolic logic"

Logic, in theory, is a matter of taking a particular pattern of event and being able to realiably predict what will occur next in that sequence, A will go to B will go to C etc. Here, we have the interesting discourse between the Doctor and the Cybercontroller over the latter knowing all about the former, and then he deducing what the latter was up to. It's quite a revelation to find out that the trap was for him, with the Cyber race logically concluding he'd eventually come to Telos and release them. Was the Doctor really so unwitting? If this was the 7th Doctor, of course, then we'd know it was all a collosal "chess game" of manipulation to achieve the desired result - but here it seems the 2nd was just as good at the game ... or was he? Things could have gone badly wrong if it hadn't been for his companions ... or did he know they would pull through for him? A debate for another time, perhaps!

In principle logic should have no alignment, but Tomb's event do suggest that it is more likely to lead you down the dark path than stay neutral. Being the opener for this series, it's quite poignant that the subject of logic returns in the finale with Zoe's slavish consideration of it in The Wheel in Space - and of course the Doctor's gentle mockery of her over that - how to be wrong with authority indeed!

But where does logic state you should let your enemy get into a recharger, activate it yourself and then wonder why a fully fit version then proceeds to trample over your apparent plan ...

"Now I know you are mad, I just wanted to make sure"

Of course in a production made "as-live" a number of mistakes can creep through. There are lines that would make the First Doctor proud: "curiously lacking in curiousity" and "open that opening mechanism" come to mind. The usual array of boom mike shadows and inadvertent crew in shot crop up (you can see someone inside the closed hatch at one point, though the production notes pointed that out to me!).

The "cyber-chatter" could be a little grating at times, too, making it difficult to understand what they are saying at times.

"Keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut"

It seems sometimes characters can hear the TARDIS arriving and other times they can't - guess it depends on what serves the story best!

The Cybermen look great in the story, even towering above the massive Toberman. I guess casting shorter actors/actresses helped immensely with that, but it is still awe-inspiring, especially with some of the camera angles employed by Morris Barry.

I don't know about you, but I feel the old classic Cybermen used to have some great quotable lines; you could imagine the chants around playgrounds as kids try out their monotone reproductions of "Now You Belong To Us", "We Will Survive" and "You Will Be Like Us" - no namby pamby "DELETE" going on here!

Why was the Cybercontroller doing a Brucie pose when his tomb was opened. And just what was the pow-wow between Parry and the other Cybermen about before they went to release the Controller?

What do sleeping Cybermen dream about? Would they be able to?

It's interesting that the Doctor has an entry on cybermats in his 500 Year Diary - when did he find that out being he only encountered them in The Tenth Planet (or did he? The First Doctor did know that the mysterious planet was Mondas ...). It's also a shame that the diary didn't continue beyond this block ... but then it won't be long before the sonic screwdriver arrived and things wouldn't be the same again!

"Archaeologist written all over him"

To conclude, overall the story does stand up well, more so to me now than it did upon it's recovery. Maybe that's because I'm 20 years older and appreciate the subtleties and nuances more than I did back then.

The story has some eminently quotable lines, too; as well as the ones mentioned throughout the review, there are also the lovely moments between the Doctor and Victoria to enjoy, too The bit when they talk about family memories is wonderful: "I have to really want to to bring them back in front of my eyes. the rest of the time they sleep in my mind and I forget". Similarly, when talking about their adventure: "our lives are different to anybody else's - that's the exciting thing, nobody in the universe can do what we're doing".

The Doctor's final comments are interesting, too; when asked about if this is the end of the Cybermen he cautiously adds: "on the other hand, I never like to make predictions" - but didn't he state that it was the final end of the Daleks just a story before? Considering their return later on perhaps he should have considered what he would say about the metal giants a little later (grin).

The final scene was cut, of course: as the TARDIS dematerialises and the lonely cybermat makes its way across the rocky surface, it is suddenly picked up, examined, and commented upon: "hello, sweetie ..."

The results are in for the BARB timeshifted figures for Torchwood: Miracle Day's finale, The Blood Line, which gives us the overall view of how the series fared this summer:

                           Starz          UK Broadcast           BBC iPlayer
                          Premiere    Overnight/Timeshift  Interim***/Final****
The New World             1.506m *         4.8m/6.59m           0.84m/1.07m
Rendition                 1.4m  **         4.4m/5.75m           0.65m/0.88m
Dead of Night             1.018m           4.2m/5.49m          <0.47m/0.83m
Escape to L.A.            0.935m           4.0m/5.19m           0.78m/0.83m
The Categories of Life    1.024m           4.1m/5.17m           0.71m/0.79m
The Middle Men            0.804m           3.4m/4.60m           0.61m/0.72m
Immortal Sins             0.917m           3.4m/4.48m           0.49m/0.68m
End of the Road           1.172m           3.5m/4.64m                 0.61m
The Gathering             1.024m           3.5m/4.63m                 0.59m
The Blood Line            0.950m           3.9m/5.13m                 0.55m

*    - Starz reported 2.7m viewers for the full week/Live+3 DVR data
**   - This is a weekend figure, with 609,000 viewers for the 10:00pm broadcast
***  - Interim figures from July(1-3) and August(4-7)
**** - All episodes were available on iPlayer until 22nd September

That gives the series in the UK a final average of 5.167m, which isn't exceptional but around average for dramas in this time period (as I mentioned in my previous article on ratings, this is seven days coverage including catching up on recordings). Most episodes put on an additional million viewers on the original night's viewing, which did dip quite drastically when Celebrity Big Brother returned to Channel 5 at the time The Middle Men was broadcast.

The BBC iPlayer results indicate a good half a million chose to watch the series that way, too; it might seem like a steady decline, but as all episodes were up until the 22nd September the earlier ones had more "airtime" of course!


Is this enough for another series? Actually it probably doesn't matter as it is really down to Starz and Russell T Davies as to whether another is made; by all accounts Starz were happy with their ratings for the show, but time is running out for a decision on next year, though (and Starz CEO Chris Albrecht didn't think it would happen straight away anyhow). So it could just be a matter if and when RTD has an idea for a new series and the time to write it.

Just for comparison, Children of Earth in the same timeslot across the week on BBC1/BBCHD in 2009 had an average of 6.604m. Series One on BBC3 on Sunday evenings in 2006 achieved 1.422m, and Series Two on BBC2/BBC3 in 2008 achieved 3.78m.

There seems to be a battle brewing between fans and the media over ratings, highlighted this evening on Twitter when Doctor Who Magazine engaged in an argument with critic Kevin O'Sullivan over how important overnights are versus the consolidated ratings. It went like this:

CameronYardeJunior: @TVKev @DWMtweets In the overnights it did but it won in the official ratings.
Kevin O'Sullivan: @CameronYardeJnr @DWMtweets The official ratings are a distortion. The overnights reflect a programme's true popularity.
DWM: Oh Kevin, you silly man. But we have the consolation that the Doctor will still be on TV long after people stop reading your drivel.
Kevin: @DWMtweets You people are so strange. It's only a TV show. And it's not doing very well.
DWM: @TVKev Being 'strange' is better than being a bad journalist and a liar, in our book. But you live in your little world, we'll live in ours.
Kevin: @theboylatch Those Doctor Who guys are like a cult. Scary.
DWM: @TVKev Be fair mate, we're a magazine about Doctor Who, you're a tabloid. We're about fun sci-fi, you're about lies, tits and phone-hacking.
DWM: Tabloid hacks are a bit easy to wind up, aren't they...? ;)

And so on, with lots of to-ing and thro-ing between the various camps (and that can be read either way!). But what is all this fuss about?

Well, put simply British television ratings are recorded by BARB for the industry, and they provide statistics to broadcasters, journalists, etc. on how programmes fare. You can find all the gory details on their website, but essentially:

Viewing estimates are obtained from a panel of television owning private homes representing the viewing behaviour of the 26 million TV households within the UK. The panel is selected to be representative of each ITV and BBC region, with pre-determined sample sizes. Each home represents, on average, about 5,000 of the UK population.

Now, there are two data sets that are commonly examined; firstly the "overnights" which reflect how people watch television on a daily basis:

Throughout the day the meter system stores all viewing undertaken by the entire household. Every night between 2am and 6am the data is automatically downloaded from every panel home (a process known as ‘polling’). The data is processed to incorporate numerous weighting and grossing variables before being released to the industry as "overnight" minute-by-minute television viewing data at 9.30 each morning. This includes any recorded material played back on the same day as the original transmission, referred to as "VOSDAL" (Viewing-On-Same-Day-As-Live). Broadcasters, amongst others, use overnight data to provide them with an initial idea of how the previous day’s programmes and advertising have performed.

Then there's the report that reflects how people have caught up with the programme since broadcast over the last seven day period:

PVR, DVDR and VCR playback and catch-up VOD viewing via TV set-top boxes is reported if it takes place within 7 days of the original broadcast. This viewing (known as timeshift viewing) is then added to the live data to produce the final, minute-by-minute consolidated audience, available 8 days after the original transmission date. Consolidated data is the ‘BARB Gold Standard’ that is used by the industry to report and trade on.

Right, so that's how it works, so what is the big deal?

Essentially up until recent times the overnights were the dominant indicator of how many people watched a television programme; however, in the last decade there has been a shift in audience perspective as, with the introduction of PVRs (Sky, V+, Freeview+ etc.), the emphasis has changed so that 'modern' people organise their television viewing around their lifestyle rather than the 'old days' when their lifestyle was based around television - you no longer have to be there to watch it otherwise you'd miss it!

What this has meant in real terms is that the overnight figures have steadily declined whereas the weekly figures are remaining more stable - in Doctor Who terms, people may be out at the pub, cinema, etc. on Saturday nights, and so watch on Sunday afternoon instead! These people haven't missed the show, they're just watching when convenient to them - however, the overnight figures do not include them so it seems like a show has less viewers - hence the weekly timeshift figures have become the dominant method of measuring how a programme has performed.

Of course, overnights are still important - they do show who is watching television "live" (within the BARB timeframe) on the day, which is a good indicator on who sat down to tune into a particular show statistically. Of course, combining different programmes at different times of the day into a single "viewing chart" is actually meaningless, except to show perhaps an abnormal event (like a football match, Royal wedding, X-Factor idiot performance, etc.), what is more important is the audience share at the time.

And here we hit the crux of the recent tirade, in that Doctor Who has been knocked off its traditional top spot by All Star Family Fortunes for two weeks in a row, something the media have been bandering about as indicating a decline in Doctor Who viewing. People like Kevin O'Sullivan look at a published chart and go "oh look it's down" - they don't look at other contributing issues, or indeed "Factors" (ahem). Drilling into the data shows that the audiences increase in anticipation for the ITV1 juggernaut and this shears the average into the previous show's favour. So, yes, it looks like Family Fortunes is more popular on the night.

Which it is, of course. That's the way of viewers and we have to live with that.

Now, by the time the weekly figures come out we have a different story, as these show that many more people choose to watch Doctor Who at a later, more convenient time. Which of course makes perfect sense - why would you want to risk your enjoyment of Doctor Who by keeping your eye on the clock in case it overruns and you miss seeing some pratt sing bad karaoke? You wouldn't, of course, you'd record Doctor Who and watch it later. Why not the other way? Good point - but in my view one is a show to sit down, watch, savour, maybe rewind and watch a scene again, and the other is on ITV (tee hee). More seriously, shows like Family Fortunes and X-Factor are "now" shows and don't really have a lifespan beyond their broadcast, whereas shows like Doctor Who do have an extended lifetime far beyond that initial television outing. This can be easily summarised with the last full figures:

Overnights     Timeshifted
The God Complex              5.2m            6.77m
All Star Family Fortunes     5.3m            5.39m

The other thing to consider is advertising revenue - commercial channels are reliant on these to a great extent (adverts, sponsorship, etc.) and likewise the advertisers want to know that the money they spend is going to be seen by the public. Here, the overnights are important as people watching live are more likely to be watching the ads too - as everyone in the video age knows, being able to fast-forward through the ads is a godsend! A show doing badly in the overnights is going to suffer, advertising-wise (we are lucky it isn't quite as cut-throat here in the UK as in US television, but it's still a threat to show's existence). So it matters to ITV, etc. how well their shows perform.

But we are extremely lucky in that we have the BBC, funded completely differently via the license fee and so not subject to advertising whims. It doesn't matter if a show isn't "top dog" on the night as it has no impact on it's success in that respect - the weekly reach will give a better indicator of how a show has done against its opposition. The BBC's remit is to provide balanced entertainment and so it's how a show is received that is more important (the A.I. figures that you hear about, which reflect audience views on enjoyment of a show etc.). Plus, with the advent of the BBC iPlayer, audiences have another way to watch programmes which are not currently included in the BARB statistics (and for Doctor Who these are consistently high, too) - ITV do have their own version which also isn't counted in BARB (but then again I don't know of anyone who willingly sits through those enforced adverts so do they get much revenue that way for it to be truly viable?).


Okay, so you're probably wondering what the point of this post was, now. Well, it is really to say that it is down to the interpretation of statistics at the end of the day. Neither are really wrong, both schools of thought are right in their own way. And arguing from two different perspectives is never going to achieve anything (except fisticuffs and possible slander accusations!).

In terms of Doctor Who, the overall ratings are remaining consistently good and the show is still one of the highest performing programmes on British television - it is still only really beaten by soaps and reality TV shows, there is little competition from most other drama!

And that is why we have nothing to worry about!

A series finale generally takes two forms: the purpose of the first type is to wrap up the threads that make up the ongoing plot of that series; the second is to set up the cliffhanger of an ongoing series. In both cases, the aim is to reach a climax, with the former consolidating into the resolution, whilst the latter building up to leave you with the big reveal "to be continued" ...

So where does Miracle Day fit? The answer is a little unsatisfactory in both camps.

One storyline's solution was inevitable since day one of course - it was clear the Miracle would be resolved and everybody would return to mortality; however, it wasn't so clear how that resolution would be achieved, even by episode nine, and about all we could be certain of was that Jack would be involved in some way. Ultimately this was indeed the case, the Miracle is reversed and everything is back to as normal as it could be.

However, then we have another few minutes to spare, where we discover that the whole Miracle is a "trial run" and the Family are simply off to run their "Plan B". To me, this simply had the effect of cheapening the ten week run, cheapening the deaths of Vera and Esther, and generally ending up with the feeling that the whole plot was a waste of time.

But hey, this has suddenly moved us into cliffhanger territory, and lo and behold we get it in the form of Rex Matheson joining the immortality club courtesy of him actually having a useful purpose for once in the series, as Jack's blood bank earlier in the episode!

Before I go any further, let me just point out that though I found the resolution of Miracle Day generally disappointing, when watching I was perfectly gripped by the climax build-up, the way it was executed, and the ending truly was a WTF moment, so the episode accomplished its task as televisual entertainment in that respect!

Let's get my biggest gripe out of the way first - just why was Esther killed off? In Children of Earth, Ianto's death was an integral part of the storyline as Jack sees the person closest to him die, with him totally impotent to stop it from happening. But, whilst it is arguably an important part of the plot for Miracle Day to have Vera 'die' (and thus bring to light the true meaning of Category One - not that this mattered by the time we reached last week's episode), with Esther it was simply an arbitrary shooting by a secondary character, had no impact on the conclusion of the Blessing plot at all, and being she did survive after the Miracle ended, there was no actual need to kill her off at all! The funeral scene didn't actually bring anything more to the story, and Rex's discovery of Charlotte's duplicity could have been set anywhere. Instead, it just feels like killing a character off for the sake of it. Some reviewers have commented that this is "the Torchwood way" and that it wouldn't be the show if a main character wasn't killed off ... I don't agree at all - deaths happen, yes, but they should be intrinsic to the plot - there is a difference between someone dying in a noble way and simply being written out lazily like here.

That aside, all of the characters came to life in this episode in a way I wish they'd done so in previous episodes. Rex finally proved why he was in such an important position in the CIA, and the plan concocted by him and Esther to hide Jack's blood within him was inspired (though let's not dwell too much on the actual mechanics of transfusion and why the directors of 28 Days Later abandoned such a plan in that film!). The Family members we saw on screen seemed confident, competent and convinced in their plans, at least until the above revelation ended their grand scheme, and Jilly's mad enthusiasm for their cause and what she sees as salvation was captivating, and after my misgivings over her character in earlier weeks, I am actually happy she did survive the explosion in the end to come back another day.

And then we have Oswald. For a moment there I thought there was going to be a revelation about who/what Susie Cabina really was and why he had to catch and kill her - i.e. a secret that a tortured man had to hide even to his (original) death and had only just found a man from the future that he could confide in. But no, he was exactly how he had been portrayed, a thoroughly despicable child killer with no sense of remorse, and Jack took him down a peg when he said about the universe: "I wish you could see that Oswald ... cause then you'll know how small you've made your life". This later made for a strange juxtaposition between what Oswald might consider 'heroism' in his sacrifice at the end and his seeming wish for redemption through that act, versus his warped sense of purpose in wanted to continue his 'passion' for the hunt of Susie and her ilk echoing on as he is finally engulfed in mortality.

Then the Cooper clan and their loss of Geraint was sensitively handled, with Rhys for once coming across as a sympathetic person and not the "noisy hulk" he normally comes across as. And I was pleased to see Andy Davidson having his role to play, and also that his seemingly prophetic words at the start - "she'll be the death of me" - didn't come to fruition after all - phew!

The "she" of the last sentence was of course Gwen, and once again the interplay between her and Jack as their friendship is put to the limit was portrayed brilliantly by Eve and John; the foreshadowing of this was laid down in Immortal Sins, and seeing Gwen taking the responsibility of what would effectively be the death of her friend was one of the best scenes of the episode, if not the series. And as for that 'death' ... in some ways it would have been a brave move to have actually killed Jack outright, turning this act into a noble sacrifice to save the world (another "Doctor" trait he's picked up over the centuries - could you imagine the young dashing conman from The Empty Child doing such a thing?), but then again I would like to see further adventures with the mysterious time agent (like actually exploring why he has a two-year gap in his memories!) so I'm not so fussed about it!

Reading through the above, you're probably hard-pressed to work out why I wasn't so enamoured of the ending (Esther notwithstanding). Well, it isn't the characterisations that I had a problem with, it's more the actual plot threads and pointlessness of a number of them. Take, for instance, the big fuss in End of the Road as to how the Null Field panels from the Hub seemed to be so important to the resolution of Miracle Day, given their influence in the death of Angelo. Jack taking the alpha plate was seemingly signposted as vital to the resolution - but that's the last we hear of it! I thought the Soulless were to be important in some way (maybe as Oswald's followers) but they were just a one-episode wonder - in fact there are so many of these 'dead-end' signals in the show it could almost have been ten separate episodes with a common thread to lead to the finale (like "Bad Wolf") rather than an integrated progressive storyline leading to the resolution.

And the Blessing itself is still something that almost broke my suspension of disbelief in the series. As a concept it was an interesting idea, but this was basically a re-hash of the Gaia principle (though I suspect the CGI renderers took the idea of "Mother Earth" a little too literally in their representation of the Blessing on screen, ahem!), and the sci-fi trapping of a hole through the diameter of the Earth was written off with a simple "we don't know" when Jilly asks the question we're all wondering at home - where's the lava?!! Jack makes a comment about it being it being "the gap in between" and then off into a load of Doctor Who Silurian/Racnoss pseudo-explanation that Gwen quite rightly says "you don't bloody know, do you?". A clever thing might have been to make this related to the rift in Cardiff and making the end point Campbell Island (that's no worse than Shanghai and Buenos Aires, if a little less glamorous!) and that would have tied in nicely with the Null Field, but alas it was not to be. So we end up with a strange natural phenomenon that was dug up, fed with Jack's immortal blood until it went doo-lally, but fixed with something around just 16 pints of Jack's now mortal blood!

Not wishing to end on a low note, there were other highlights to the episode, like the lovely scene with the shop owner in Shanghai comforting Gwen after she found the Blessing, Oswald calling Gwen magnificent, Gwen and Jilly's fight in the lift, and of course that brilliant moment when Shapiro discovers who the traitor in their midst really is - his singular response is one that almost steals the episode for itself!


All-in-all, this is a series that I haven't actually disliked, but just haven't been able to totally enjoy either. It's had some really good moments, but also some downright boring ones, too (I'll look at the overall series itself in a future post). For The Blood Line itself, though it has some really frustrating plot elements, overall I enjoyed it on viewing and feel this is one of the strongest episodes of the series.

And as the finale, quite right too!


Okay, I confess, I am still frustrated at Esther's wasted opportunity to have further adventures with Jack!!!

With just one episode to go one might expect that the various plot strands would coalesce into a coherent direction leading to a grand finale ... but at the end of The Gathering I'm still not entirely sure what it is all about ...

The Blessing: is it a creation constructed by the Three Families from Jack's essence, a naturally occurring part of the planet that has been discovered and harnessed, a living entity that has been manipulated, or something else entirely? It certainly felt like a nod to Douglas Adams and the Total Perspective Vortex! (Not to mention appearing as a euphemism for Mother Earth?!!)

Why do the Families want Jilly to "write history"? There's already been one reference to such an idea - with the Trickster Brigade subplot from Immortal Sins of altering events in the Second World War - so maybe it's attempt number two (though again what has this to do with Jack, unless he's just the catalyst).

Why was Oswald built up by the Families, just to seemingly be dropped right in it at the turn of a hat (well punch) last week? This week he revealed just how manipulative he can be in the way he handled the Cooper household, so is there a further revelation yet to come? He did have that meeting which hasn't been clarified yet in Dead of Night, after all.

Anyway, I imagine this is all going to resolved in The Blood Line ...

As for the episode itself, like last week it was an unfathomably intriguing and engrossing fifty minutes of television in spite of the lack of momentum exhibited, though some scenes again seemed a bit drawn out (and again only a couple of principal settings). There was a genuine level of fear and frustration over the ruthless and strangely unemotional investigation of Finch, but I really hope that Geraint's fate is resolved positively as otherwise that whole liberation and concealment is just another plot cul-de-sac that has been used simply to exploit the audience's emotions.

Character-wise, it must certainly have preyed on Gwen's mind, otherwise why on earth would she have been so stupid as to pull off her face mask during her ram-raid of the pharmacy? Yes, I know this is to demonstrate that it is her there, but I suspect us viewers would be able to work that out easily enough as she spoke to the passerby and she could easily have dumped the mask as she jogged away afterwards.

Rex was in "intelligent" mode again today, though it seemed to me that Charlotte was blatantly behaving suspiciously - I honestly thought the business with the digital version of the short story was a deliberate trap by Rex as he'd compare versions to see if it was tampered with, but I guess I was giving him too much credit there!

Oswald and Esther continue to be the the focal interest in the show for me. Though I fully expected Bill Pullman to feature strongly, I never suspected that Alexa Havins would be the shining light in the series (I would have placed more money on that being Lauren Ambrose in the lead-up). As I've said previously, I really hope that she outlives Miracle Day - though we're used to the minimal survival rate of popular characters in Torchwood. (My hopes of her and Jack partnering up are still simmering away!)

All-in-all, this episode continues the trend of the better episodes for me, so I have high hopes for the finale. But ... a hole running the diameter of the Earth between Shanghai and Buenos Aires, possibly the biggest piece of hokum this series has ever produced?!!!