Peter Davison in 'Time Crash' - the hard stats!

There are so many reviews around for 'Time Crash', many of which cover the same ground & many of which have already covered in blushing detail the ground I would cover, so I think it would be painfully redundant at this point to add another generic review to the slew!

What I have decided to do instead is crunch some numbers relating to Time Crash & Peter Davison in particular, hopefully in a fabulously insightful & didactic manner that will contextualise Davison's return to Dr Who & his performance in Time Crash in a fresh & enlightening fashion...Then I will loudly sigh, smoke a cigarette, roll over & go to sleep with my stuffed yeti...

Anyway,

Peter Davison returns to the role 23 years after his last regular appearance in 1984's 'Caves of Androzani' (no I'm not counting his 90 seconds of inane running around in that dog's dinner 'Dimensions In Time'). I also don't count the 'Big Finish' stuff; not because it's not great or because I contest its canon status (actually I do - but another time!), but because the voice is only half the performance, maybe even less. Davison slots his voice AND his body into the canon, as the 5th Doctor, for the first time in 23 years.

Why am I harping on about 23 years??. Well, it is by far the longest gap between drinks from the furry gallifreyan cup??!! (both as it were AND so to speak) for a returning Doctor. Believe it or not, in the case of Patrick Troughton, the previous record span holder, there was (only) a span of 16 years!! between his last regular appearance in 'War Games' (1969) & his third & final return in 'Two Doctors' (1985). Seven years short of Peter's mammoth 23 years & broken up twice. Pat's gap was divided thus, 3 years forward to the 'Three Doctors', ten hence to 'Five Doctors' & finally a brief 2 years to the 'Two Doctors'. In terms of 'keeping his eye in' as the Doctor, Pat's longest break without dusting off his giddy aunt & stroking his recorder was just 10 years.

The only other returning Doctors, Hartnell & Pertwee, had relatively brief spans of 7 years ('Tenth Planet' in '66 to Three Doctors in '73) & 9 years ('Planet of Spiders' in '74 to 'Five Doctors' in '83) respectively. This seems really quite bizarre to me. At the time of Pertwee's return in 'Five Doctors', it must have seemed aeons since he was the incumbent (let alone Troughton!), years stretching back through the two seasons of Davison & the entire Tom Baker era. 9 years is but a blink compared to Peter Davison's 23 year span. Whoops, I forgot the return of Sylv (a mere 7 years: Survival '89 to 'The Movie''96)...but who cares? The movie was shizen & after watching 'Silver Nemesis' last night, I don't want to think about Sly McCoy at the mo anyway.

Where is all this going? Well I guess I'm saying that for Pat & Jon to have been wonderful & effortlessly slip back into the role was not really such a feat. They were both superb of course, but it really shouldn't have been any other way. They had much shorter times away from the role & were always 'older' Doctors, so the change was never going to be too jarring. Davison however, who through his era embodied youth, vitality & often naive innocence in a refreshing slant on the character, is stuck with the problem of trying to authentically capture the same youthful spirit, 23 years on, lumbered with a (albiet well kept) 56 year old body. The tough question is how to pitch it? By far the youngest Doctor cast in the role in the original series (29 years in 1981), he is now one year older than William Hartnell was when Hartnell, the all-time oldest doctor at the time of his casting, was originally cast in the role. Considering all this, Peter does pretty well with the help of a mostly pretty tidy bit of fanboy fluff from S Moffatt.

The 'time differential' explanation was deftly tossed off so that it didn't seem too pointedly the fix up the 'older doctors' solution that it was. Perhaps with the 'time differential-ed' older body & older voice came the (somewhat out of character) grumpiness as well. I feel Davison's vibe was more 'impotent frustration' than 'stern grumpiness' when under stress during his tenure. However, considering his newly flagging middle aged hormones & 'greying' cells, Maybe the 5th Dr couldn't help being crabby & cantakerous when thrown into a desperate paradox situation with Tennant's charming (in this instance at least) boggle-eyed geek blabbing at him. It was also good to see the character stretched & developed just a little, rather than having it stunted by continuity fascism & the variable & limited writing of the 5th Doctor's own era. Such things should never be allowed to get in the way of good TV & more importantly, good Dr Who. Apart from having to say 'TARDIS' about five times too many for a 7 minute vignette & his first few technobabble lines seeming a bit forced through his smokers husk (not sure if he does?), Peter settles nicely & I smiled broadly watching Dr's 5 & 10 huddle over the console together in feverish Doctorisheness!

If Davison's 5th Doctor was a few yards of scarf & a few teeth & curls short of iconic prior to Time Crash (pretty much only Tom is truly iconic in the role, with the 'twee a distant second) he is now, at least in Britain. The biggest small-screen star in Britain, David Tennant (although I'd listen to you if you argued Davison himself is, or perhaps 'best loved' is more his mantle?), deliciously fetishised the 5th Doctor before the eyes of a mammoth 11 million viewers. He reminded us of Davison's very own 'teeth & curls'; "the hat, the coat, the crickety-cricket stuff, the stick of celery". This was done very pointedly. Moffat (ably helped by Mr Harper) has now lovingly established the 5th Doctor, his own favourite, as the charming british flavoured small screen sci-fi icon that he wasn't quite. Probably I didn't need quite so many qualifiers, 'Iconic' is perhaps enough on its own now when it comes to Davison's 5th. All done in just over 7 minutes.

Well done loves. The Doctor AND the TARDIS!! Congratulations & well played!!

5 & 10! - Davison & Tennant have a 'Time Crash'

So we now know that Peter Davison will be appearing in the special 'Children In Need' Dr Who episode as has long been rumoured...

Firstly, Peter looks pretty damn good for 56. Unlike Tom & Colin, he will get away with the extra years as Pat & Jon did in their anniversary returns. Remarkable considering he was by far the youngest Doctor in the original series & that changes from early 30's to early 50's are much more noticeable than say mid 40's to mid 60's.

Of all the previous Doctors, Tennant is really more like Davison than any other (albeit with more gurning & manic moments) It will be fascinating to see Moffatt play out the differences & find a dynamic between them.

Hopes/ Fears etc....

I hope we get a 25 minute story ala 'Curse Of The Fatal Death' & not just a 3-5 minute insubstantial bit of fluff like the 9-10 post regen scene & the excerable 'Dimensions In Time'. I'm betting we will get 8-10 minutes, 15 at the very most. If they've got Peter in & shoehorned him back into his costume, they should let him get his feet wet. I don't want him to get settled then see the credits roll.

A special Davison era influenced title sequence would be nice. I'm sure they'll just bung his name on the existing credits as happened with Tate/ Barrowman etc.

A few salty Troughton/ Pertwee style barbs would be fun, as long as they don't degenerate into RTD Cyber/ Dalek Doomsday-esque 'don't go there girlfriend' clunkers. I wouldn't mind a bit of...

5th Dr (with sighing disdain) 'oh dear, a cockatoos crest & chatter to match'

10th Dr (cutting & dry with a smirk) 'still a vision in beige I see'


or perhaps this...

5th Dr (flabbergasted) 'What's with all the tics?, you're like a hormonal teen on
uppers'.

10th Dr (gurning & scruffing hair) 'Weeeelllll!, we finally hit puberty at 956 & get interested in chicks. I can't seem to focus sometimes'


I fear that my dialouge, although patently fabulous & fun on paper will actually be close to the truth!

Hmmm, let me digress for a moment. Presumably Davison will emerge just after the Titanic crashes into the TARDIS & just before Tennant runs off to step back in time with Ms Minogue. What will happen? Or unless, oh my god!, could they?, no!, they couldn't!, OMG!!!, maybe the scene will be unto itself, maybe it WON'T have a clear point in chronology, AAAHHHH, gulp, maybe it won't even really be CANON. Could it be another DIM? Grimace, gurn, scratch, gurn, gurn, grimace. I think it will be canon & will be taken seriously with Moffatt writing. Let's pray daily to RTD to make it so.

Fabbo then!, bring on Nov 16th.

Lucozer.

Lucozers' DVD release wish-list

Doctor Who stories that should be released on DVD asap (with asterisks to indicate pressing urgency of release!!)


** Decent story. A worthy addition to the DVD shelf
*** Good story. slightly surprising it has been passed over thus far
**** Get it the #%&* out on DVD already!!! &*^%# to the wall classic!


In chronological order...


TIME MEDDLER **
A snappy little 4 parter & it would be the first full Steven/ Vicki release

WAR MACHINES **
A modest charmer & the only complete Ben/ Polly adventure

ICE WARRIORS ***
With animation (or preferably CGI) for the missing episodes 2 & 3

WAR GAMES ****
The extra star for the lavish packaging & bonus feature possibilities. The story perhaps only worthy of 3 & a half

THE SILURIANS ****
!!!!! My most anticipated release at the moment

TERROR OF THE AUTONS/ MIND OF EVIL/ CLAWS OF AXOS/ COLONY IN SPACE/ DAEMONS ****
A masterful Master box set. He appeared in every story in Season 8 so it makes perfect sense. A fitting tribute to wonderful Rog. This is really the only way I would buy Axos & the best way to flog off the dreary Colony

FRONTIER IN SPACE/ PLANET OF THE DALEKS ***
As the double header it really is, this 12 part space opera would be a superb anorak filler

DEATH TO THE DALEKS ***
Can't wait to hear the striking incidental music restored!

TERROR OF THE ZYGONS/ ANDROID INVASION ****
Linked by being the final two appearances for both Benton & Harry & also the final UNIT story proper (not including the brief scenes in 'Seeds Of Doom'). Zygons contains some of the finest incidental music in the shows history, as does the wonderful...

SEEDS OF DOOM ****
All hail Geoffrey Burgen! Best TB story not out on DVD as yet

FULL CIRCLE/ STATE OF DECAY/ WARRIOR'S GATE ***
A superb set that would be more than the sum of it's parts. The only way I would buy Full Circle

MAWDRYN UNDEAD/ TERMINUS/ ENLIGHTENMENT ***
A fab triple set of the Guardian trilogy. Enlightenment is the only individual story I'd rush out for, but together they are almost a match for the E-Space trilogy

PLANET OF FIRE **
A modest story. A polished production if a little bland. Certainly one of Ainley's best showings

TRIAL OF A TIME LORD ***
The bonus features & packaging will lift this one above its station

HAPPINESS PATROL ***
This should be considered the 'Rocky Horror' of the Who canon. People should have dress up parties to watch it & lay on hors d'oerves & champers!


Cheers, The 'Cozer

Oh..and as for the Animated/CGI Hartnell/ Troughton missing story reconstructions. GET MOVING BEEB!!!!PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

Power, Evil, Masterplan, Fury, Web...the palette waters!!!

Peter Davison Returns!!!!!!!!! (?)

I'm just a little bit excited if this is all true. I'm biting my fist & salivating fan boy saliva by the bucketload.

Thoughts that are making me salivate:

- The thought of Dr's 5 & 10 meeting & interacting
- Steven Moffat warming up his typewriter/ keyboard/ quill/ scribing tool of choice
for said meeting
- A companion with Dr 5?
- The (unlikely it seems) potential of a grand multi-Doctor 2 parter in Series 4.

Thoughts that are making my saliva dry up:

- If this is for 'Children in Need' it will be 15 minutes? at best? Probably chopped
into two 6-8 minute 'blink & you'll miss them' 'fun-sized' chunks. This would be a
cruel tease surely?; a sexy wink across a crowded fan convention without a
follow through of some heavy petting...
- 'Dimensions In Time'
- Frothy 'specials' in general
- 'Dimensions In Time'
- A School Reunion/ Sarah-Jane Adventures-esque out-of-character 'sassying up' of the
5th Doctor. Unlikely from Mr Moffatt though thankfully.

But really, I'm just very excited. Peter was 'my Doctor' as I was first hooked back in 1983.

Bring on the bells & whistles.....

Lucozer

A little spelunking in 'The Caves of Androzani'

Oh wondrous Caves! How deep & dark thine are!

I watched the DVD of Androzani a couple of days ago while I was in bed with a heavy cold (or perhaps lite-flu would be a more apt description). It was a first time viewing of the story on DVD for me & the first time I've watched it in several years. I was impressed at how well it held up. I was worried that its high standing in fan esteem was largely due to the ho-hum quality of many of the stories surrounding it. Thankfully, it seems, not so.

Firstly the faults. Nicola Bryant struggles with some awkward & unlikely dialouge. The scene early in episode 1 examining the lumps of fused silica where she fumbles with the terrible 'reticular vector gauge' joke, to which the Doctor replies sarcasm is not her stong point, is particularly cringeworthy. Her accent falters at times too, in that same 'joke', a very English sounding 'glaa-ass' grates in her faux-yank drawl. The characterisation of Peri was a troubling mess from the start really. The production team didn't seem to know what to do with her. There was half-baked botany bollocks, clunky American cliche crap & not much else. That aside, she does quite well in Caves & I much prefer her here than in 'Twin Dilemma' & most of season 22. She is quite sweet & innocent, a far cry from all the dreadful nagging & sarcasm she was lumbered with later.

The greatest fault however is the 'Mire Beast'; an absolutely wretched creation. It serves no important purpose & could just about be excised from the story all together by a nifty re-edit. It wears a cloak too?! What were they thinking? The caves themselves don't quite convince either. Studio floors with a bit of dirt thrown about don't cut it I'm afraid.

The pros? There are a wondrous multitude. Morgus is simply superb. Every deadpan line is a sweetmeat delicacy! Lines to camera almost never work, but Normington not only gets away with it, he leaves me wanting more. He turns the dastardly villian cliche inside out. There is no maniacal laughter or rubbing of hands; just simmering, unblinking malevolence. Stotz, Chellack & Salateen are all suitably shifty & self interested to varying degrees. The scene where Salateen laughingly realises his life will be spared by the Doctor & Peri having contracted Spectrox Toxaemia is particularly striking.

As with 'Resurrection of The Daleks', we have here a very dark story with very few (if any) sympathetic support characters, but Caves is all together more involving. Holmes' characters are more deeply textured & far more fascinating. Resurrection's convoluted nastiness just leaves me cold, but the unrelenting bleakness of Caves draws me in & leaves me breathless at times. Even the smaller parts add further richness to the piece; the icy & viciously efficient Krau Timmin a case in point. Her little side-plot victory over Morgus, dressing him down with her feet on his desk, is a marvellous touch.

Jek, like Morgus, is a masterful villian. Gable's voice & gestures are perfect. He conveys the complex character & its many contradictions using only these things & one eye. Once or twice he teeters on the edge of OTT, but always pulls back just in time. He & Morgus are a formidable duo. It is so rare in the history of the show to behold two classic humanoid villians in one story. Most stories have trouble raising one that is in any way memorable. Jek's love for Peri's innocence & beauty, which in the end almost redeems him, is beautifully played & utterly believable as she lays sweating, suffocating & barely conscious. Gable plays the desperation wonderfully; feverishly mopping her brow & trying to comfort her while the Doctor hunts for the bats milk.

Which brings me to Davison. I hope I haven't exhausted my superlative supply because he deserves to have lots of them shining on his sitting room mantle. The smiling, optimistic & energetic Doctor of early Davison era has been replaced by a stone dry, impatient, dour & no-nonsense demeanour that suits the story perfectly. Davison gives his swansong absolutely everything he has. His ailing Doctor, whether spitting out a very hard to deliver (but stunningly believable) "I'm not going to let you stop me now!", or panting & staggering through endless dunes while being chased & shot at, is compelling to watch.

I was impresssed by the effectiveness of the scenes of the Doctor being chased through the dunes & later carrying Peri back to the TARDIS. The grainy film stock & grey skies combine with the rumbling soundtrack to conjur some of the most striking scenes in the history of the show. This in an era that generally suffered from cheap glossy videotape, garish costumes & ham-fisted overhead lighting. Hats off to (Graeme) Harper! You forget for several minutes at a time this was an early/mid 80's JNT story! The incidental music, although uniformly strong through JNT's first few seasons, is particularly atmospheric & foreboding in Caves.

The Davison/ C. Baker regeneration is probably the greatest in the history of the show. The tension of the moment was never greater before or since. The Doctor saves Peri on the point of death & collapses with the immortal, fearful line that Davison nails; "Is this death? feels different this time". The Master's malicious taunts followed by the 'white noise' cacophany is the stuff of fan boy foam & froth. Stunning. Even Colin's brief moment shows qualified promise. He is immediately arrogant & salty, but with no warning of the mugging, bickering buffoon that would emerge in the worst moments of the following season. So not even the last scene can spoil the grandeur of Caves.

Caves...thou art shining with glowing phosphoresecent glory!....

Lucozer..

Janet 'Fourth Wall' Fielding & the ebullient Malcolm Hulke!

Hi folks,

The Co-Pilot & I failed to produce our long promised Season 3 summary tome last weekend. What we did manage to do was scour youtube for two & a half hours, get some take-away Indian, drink about 15 beers between us & watch episode 1 of 'Resurrection Of The Daleks' with the commentary track on. All of which was fabulous. We are both very partial to a Janet 'Fourth Wall' Fielding commentary. The smoky cackle...the caustic wit...the actor-speak! Marvellous. She is rapidly becoming my favourite companion based on commentaries alone. Now if only BBC Worldwide could have given her a tray of hors d'oeuvres & a bottle of bubbly & let her loose on 'Timelash!' The thought makes me prickle with excitement...yet ultimately sigh at what could have been.

The Co-Pilot slipped the word 'ebullient' into conversation at one point. A favourite word of mine that I don't hear employed all that often. I was surprised to find that Malcolm Hulke sprang to mind when he said it. Why Malc? I feel as if the person I have most heard referred to as ebullient over the years is Mr Hulke. Can anyone enlighten me as to why this should be? Is that the stock-standard phrase used in the Who-niverse to describe the man & his talents? Hmmm!?

Looks like next weekend for our season 3 thoughts...Until then...adieu..


Lucozer..

The Doctor's Favourite Companions! (Davison/ C. Baker/ McCoy eras)

Turlough - Like Leela, Turlough is an odd case. After a striking & memorable debut in the Black Guardian trilogy, he became less interesting as the character progressed. After 'Enlightenment', it felt as if writers were not really sure where to take him. The character had a great exit in 'Planet Of Fire', but it felt like Turlough was treading water & making up the numbers as a generic companion from 'King's Demons' through to 'ROTD'. Although Strickson is energetic & does have a pleasing, 'itchy in his own skin' quality (even after he escapes the Black Guardian's control) Turlough feels like a promising but ultimately fumbled opportunity to do something really different...7.5/10

Perpugilliam Brown - Initially quite likeable in her brief time with Peter (& also briefly forming the foxiest of all Dr/ companion couplings - Pat/Frazer aside of course), the lame 'mouthy American' stereotype was wound up several notches by the writers during Colin's reign & the constant bickering was painful & embarrassing. Just as the character was finally showing potential & Nicola was able to show some subtlety & depth in 'Mysterious Planet', along came the ghastly 'Mindwarp' & that was that. I really like Nicola & I was starting to like Peri again for the first time since 'COA'. Unlike her bosoms, Nicola herself was constricted by bad scripts & poor characterisation & never had the chance to really impress, but then again, look at the shizen season 24 had in store for her had she stayed!...7/10

Melanie Bush - Rather than retread all the usual criticisms of the most maligned companion in the history of the show, I will try to find something to praise. I thought she was quite sweet in the scenes with Tabby & Tilda in 'Paradise Towers'. I did feel sorry for her. She had a couple of ok bits in the awful 'Delta & The Bannermen' too. The character was so poorly written & uninspired that Bonnie had buckleys!. I think she's probably a somewhat better actress than the part ever allowed, I mean, come on!...Carrot juice quoffing, fattie-troubling, computer-programming bundle of sickly sweet in frilly polka dots. You try & work with that! Not really any worse than Jo or Susan for mine & with a far more wretched character brief...5/10

Ace - The thing that annoys me about Ace is that after years of companions being very definitely 'also rans' with little back story or character exploration, these things were laid on really thick with Ace & I didn't find her that interesting. The 'Ace Who' bent of season 26 was not a good move, even though the story quality was generally pretty good. Aldred played her well though & made her sympathetic & highly watchable. A vast improvement on Mel, & though her popularity may have been aided by such severe relativity, Aldred & McCoy were probabaly the best team since Tom & Lalla by the end of season 26...8/10


Next up....the McGann moment, the Eccleston months & the Tennant (hallelujah) ERA....

Love minus zero, The Lucozer...