More Delphonic delights from the Co-P!

The eyebrows are blazing again....


20 Superb Scores

The Daleks
Dalek's Materplan
Evil Of The Daleks
The Invasion
Seeds Of Death
Sea Devils
The Silurians
Death To The Daleks
Terror Of The Zygons
Pyramids Of Mars
Seeds of Doom
Deadly Assassin
Ribos Operation
City Of Death
Leisure Hive
Earthshock
Enlightenment
Five Doctors
Resurrection Of The Daleks
Caves Of Androzani


5 Best Music Makers

Tristram Carey
Dudley Simpson
Geoffrey Burgen
Malcolm Clarke
Peter Howell

hon mentions: Roger Limb, Jonathon Gibbs, Carey Blyton

dishon mentions: Murray Gold (90% of the time) & Keff McCulloch (without exception)
(Dishons interjected by the Lucozer :) )


12 Fantastic Directors

Dougie Camfield
David Maloney
Lovett Bickford
Paul Joyce
Micheal E. Briant
Paddy Russell
Derek Martinus
Graeme Harper
Peter Grimwade
Timothy Combe
Rodney Bennett
Joe Aherne


Stay tuned for part three where the Co-Pilot, 'All Creatures Great & Small' style, sticks his arm up the 'new' series & pulls out, among other things, a tiramisu, soggy chips, an anchovie pie & goulash!! Intrigued?, so am I!!!


Lucozer.

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.

The Co-Pilot's message from the Vasmasphere (as told to the Lucozer in Delphon) Part One!

People's of Aneth, please attend carefully, the message that follows is vital the future of you all....


5 Best Dalek Stories...

1. Evil Of The Daleks
2. Dalek's Masterplan
3. Genesis Of The Daleks
4. Power Of The Daleks
5. The Daleks


Best Stories Not Yet Released on DVD...

Deadly Assassin (Oh Lucothther!, 9 out of 10!!)
Seeds of Doom
The War Games
Terror Of The Zygons
The Daemons
Silurians (next year!!! - ed)
Enlightenment
Sea Devils (next year w/ Silurians - ed)
Kinda


21 Wonderful Story Titles...

Talons Of Weng-Chiang
Pyramids Of Mars
Inferno
Fury From The Deep
Horror Of Fang Rock
Green Death
Masque Of Mandragora
Mawdryn Undead
Ribos Operation
Vengeance On Varos
Leisure Hive
Snakedance
Faceless Ones
Edge Of Destruction
Nightmare Of Eden
Claws Of Axos
Terminus
Keys Of Marinus
Armageddon Factor
Arc Of Infinity
King's Demons


25 Woeful Story Titles...

Deadly Assassin
City Of Death
Robots Of Death
Seeds of Death
Seeds of Doom
Mysterious Planet
Planet Of The Daleks
Planet Of Evil
Mind Of Evil
Mindwarp
Time Monster
Time-Flight
Time & The Rani
Invasion Of Time
Hand Of Fear
Enemy Of The World
Invisible Enemy
Attack Of The Cybermen
Revenge Of The Cybermen
Terror Of The Vervoids
The Rescue
The Chase
Colony In Space
Silver Nemesis
Delta & The Bannermen (the all-time clanger? - ed.)


Elocution!!!!!!!!(?)

Gilbert M "I was EGG-ziled from Vas-il-yip" "You need me & I need me!!"
Valentine Dyall "You wretched BOOUUUYYY!!" "rasp, cough, burn, melt, rasp, cough"
Soldeed "Lord Nimon, Lord NIIImmon"
Garron "Don't let me lose faith in you my boOOUUUyyy"
4th Doctor "You're a very beautiful woman..probably"
Borusa #1 "Runthible The Fatuouth" "Oh Doctor!...9 out of 10!"
David Collings
Kevin Stoney "MmmmmPppaacker"
Borusa #2 "The teacher..learns..from the student!!!"
Borusa #4 "it was a game, within a game"

And the winner is!!!!.......Gilbert M...."You don't know his mOOOOOds!"


Doctor Who's 20 Golden Greats (out now on Dino Beta Video? - Ed)

The Daleks
Dalek's Masterplan
Power Of The Daleks
Evil Of The Daleks
Tomb Of The Cybermen
Abominable Snowmen
Web Of Fear
Fury From The Deep
Invasion
The War Games
Spearhead From Space
The Silurians
Inferno
The Daemons
Genesis Of The Daleks
Terror Of The Zygons
Pyramids Of Mars
Seeds Of Doom
Deadly Assassin
Robots Of Death
Talons Of Weng-Chiang
Horror Of Fang Rock
City Of Death
Leisure Hive
Logopolis
Kinda
Earthshock
En....zzzzzzzzzzz...gurgle...zzzzzzzzz!


At that point the Co-Pilot's eyebrows fell silent. Nothing like impending contemplation of latter-day JNT-era fare to send you to sleep....

When he wakes up & transmits further, you will all collectively be the first to know...

Night night Co-Pilot, sweet dreams...Lucozer

A radar blip from Vasilip!!!

Loveys!!!! It seems that the Co-Pilot has re-stablished contact with Wuundanoogoo HQ!!! For the past several weeks he has been on a desperately dangerous covert mission to return Gilbert M from exile to his home planet of Vasilip & help him to rouse a 'revel-you-shhnn' & seize power. Nothing has been heard from the Co-Pilot since he was 7 days out from our HQ on Aneth. Until now!!

The message we have recieved has no sound & the picture is badly affected by astral static & solar flares, but we believe it is indeed the Co-Pilot trying to communicate with us. Luckily the Co-Pilot is fluent in at least 58 alien dialects & body languages; including Delphon!. The lack of sound is therefore only a minor hindrance. Our translators are reading The Co-Pilot's feverish eyebrow undulations as I write.

It seems that the mission was thrown into chaos & disarray when The Co-Pilot's Skonnon Star-Cruiser crash landed on entry into the Vasmasphere. Sadly, from the early part of the message we have assertained that Gilbert M's own long time & long in the tooth """Co-Pilot""", Joseph C, perished in the crash.

The Co-Pilot's Delphon message is hardly revealing what would be expected. No detailed damage reports, no escape plan. His eyebrow elocution is also proving erratic. He seems to be reeling off blushingly nerdy cum exquistely wondrous "top" lists with head spinning speed! Has the crash affected his mind? Or is it a masterfully disguised code? Has he in fact been captured, & not want wanting his true identity to be discovered, been forced to encrypt his true message in the frothiest of fan boy foam. Stay tuned folks........

'Last of the Time Lords' Oh my giddy aunt, oh crumbs!!

I have held off on reviewing 'Last Of The Time Lords' for several weeks. I have now seen it twice & have had several weeks to sit with it & ruminate over it. My considered opinion? An inept, embarrasing & deeply frustrating travesty!

Here's why...Firstly; the casual off-handed nastiness of it. The Doctor has a dog bowl & lives in a tent with hay on the floor...Fabulous darlings!!...thought the Production Office! How wonderfully degrading! Oh! I know!... let's chuck a plastic pop song over it & have a whole glitzy montage of the Doctor's miseries inflicted by the Master. If you have to show the Doctor suffering (which is fine because it creates drama & makes his final victory sweeter) don't be so damned flip about it Russell & Co! Also, the shrinking Doctor looked utterly ridiculous. He was shrunk basically to make the Master seem more intimdating by comparison. This is lazy writing. Make the Master seem more intimidating by his deeds, his words & by the acting performance. As if the Doctor would shrink with age anyway? This is just arrant silliness. A chance to create a second rate Yoda/ Lord of the Rings type of gimp. And what was with the big eyes? "Oh we have to make him look REALLY sad because the viewers won't be able to just imagine that or draw their own conclusions". Why the oversize head? "oh we have to make him look tragic yet also strangely cute of course!"

The most disappointing thing however was the inexcusable laziness of the """RESOLUTION""" of Martha's character. If the unrequited love storyline was going to prove such an unresolvable problem, why push her character that way all season? We are robbed of the chance of watching her character develop slowly in confidence & wisdom next season by having her turned into a cliche no-nonsense action woman on a quest for "oh I don't know...a year?!, Let's make it seem REALLY dramatic" & writing her out for the lions' share of next season. A one minute montage of Martha sludging through snow & sleet for a year doesn't cut it for character development I'm afraid. Lazy, lazy, lazy. It seems the Production Office believes nothing gives a greater sense of drama than casually upping the scope?! A silly slitheen attack? Let's call it WW3!, Dalek & Cybermen trouble?, it's Doomdsay!!! Also, as the Co-Pilot pointed out, the casual reference to Japan burning after the Toclaphane attacks; show it damn it!! Big words, no action.

I won't delve into the ridiculous religious iconography & "magical" conclusion that 'flipped the bird' to hard science & credibility. Suffice to say it was rubbish. The delicate Paradox machine that the Doctor didn't want to breathe or even think too hard near lest he rattle it & break its concentration? Let's get Captain Jack to shoot from the crotch at it like a bi-sexual John Rambo. Everyone will have forgotten it's so delicate after the fabulous diva like re-birth of the Doctor & Murray Gold laying on the gluggy treacle. Anything's possible with magic! (and when you need to wrap up a ridiculously convoluted plot, a character (Martha) & a whole season in about 4 minutes)

'Sound Of Drums' was flawed, but fun & I really hoped the game would be lifted for this, alas it was an absolute fizzer. :( :( :(


A grumpy Lucozer...

'Sontaron Shit-Sandwich' or 'A Vardan Pardon'? 'Invasion of Time' gets the once over.

The Co-Pilot & I bunkered down to watch 'Invasion of Time' with some take away Indian last night. We've decided to re-appraise some of the Tom Baker stories we have written off as a load of old tosh & try & come at them with open (but lubricatingly alcohol impaired) minds. We'll probably tackle the blandarama 'Underworld' next, but for now... 'Invasion of Time'

We had to start with episode 2 as episode 1 was on another tape & I didn't notice when I hurriedly grabbed it to take to the Co-Pilot's house. We took up the story with the Doctor accessing the Matrix with the coronet on his head....

Despite evidence of a tired & penniless production at this point, even before the revelation of the risible tin-foil Vardans & some other blushing set design disasters, it is actually quite involving & mercifully played pretty straight. I was immediately struck by the powerful performance from Tom & John Arnatt's beautifully underplayed Borusa. They have some wonderful scenes together; the scene where Borusa realises he has learned from his old student & also when Tom bellows at him with shocking intensity come to mind. Sadly, after episode 2, a cheap looking but seemingly worthy story degenerates rapidly into a panto runaround & not even the brilliance of Baker & Arnatt can save it from ho-hum ignominy.

On a brief tangent; Toms' lines to camera have been criticised, but I think they're quite fab. Also, in terms of them damaging the dramatic credibility, you can almost excuse them as part of the Doctor shielding his thoughts by distracting himself with silliness & talking to himself. I might be drawing too long a bow there though? You could almost say this story is the turning point for Tom in terms of his Hinchcliffe-era versus Williams-era performance styles. He seems as if he is valiantly trying to deliver one final 'Hinchcliffe-era-worthy' performance before finally giving in to the seemingly inevitable panto silliness of the Williams era by the end of the story.

Apart from TB & Arnatt & to a lesser extent Milton Johns & Louise, just about everything & everyone is diabolical. Firstly, just how bad is the design? oh let me count the ways! shabby brick wall Tardis corridors, Tardis keys that look like failed year 9 Tech Studies plastics projects, control boards that look like kindergarten play-dough models, 'Gallifreyan' banana lounges on loan from the local pool, The Tech Studies workshop where they found the 'keys' doubling for the Gallifreyan Defence shield control room!? Just a sample of the many breathtaking design wonder-blunders that Invasion of Time has to offer. Only 'Underworld' arguably looks cheaper & this makes 'Nightmare Of Eden' look like it had millions thrown at it. The nadir of drab povvo Dr Who set design? Just maybe.

& then there's the Vardans; crap as shimmering tin foil, arguably worse in humanoid form with their ridiculous space soldier outfits & backpack rocket boosters. The performance of the lead Vardan is excruciatingly stilted & to make things worse his fellow Vardans just stand there looking bored (& don't even pull that off) & then there's the Sontarans!! Everytime I think I've mentioned the shoddiest thing, something even more crap springs to mind. Derek Deadman's Stor is unforgiveably woeful & his lieutenant? is worse... "They seem...to have sealed the door...with some kind of...locking...device!" One of the worst delivered lines in the history of the show. All their lines are stammered out in constipated emphysemic Cockney drawls. Dreadful. The superb Sontaron mask that looked convincingly like creepy alien flesh in 'Time Warrior' looks here like the ill-fitted papier mache travesty it was. Come back John Friedlander!!! Even the helmet that once looked like a tough polished metal now looks like poorly painted foam with eye holes poked through & the 'Sontaron Emblem' seems to have been coloured on with chalk in about 5 seconds. Uugh!

Yet more shizen!..Andred is wobbly when he's not wooden. The Shaboogans are laughable; they've managed to fashion clothes, find food & shave themselves in the barren wasteland? Despite Louise Jameson's best efforts, Leela teeters on charicature of her earlier self & her falling for Andred was not even hinted at. How late was that decided? During the filming of the last scene? Whoops! I suppose she looked into his eyes when putting the bandage on his wounded arm & fell hard for the dorky Gallifreyan guard. Well it was obvious wasn't it! Louise deserved better for her swansong. What else....Run, run, pad, pad, pad. Pretty wretched. But for Tom & John Arnatt; Laurels darling! laurels & wreaths!

To be fair to Graham Williams (who co-wrote it) Tom does have some great lines & the CONCEPT of the Vardans is a good one. It was also made with his tiny production wallet empty & had to be written, designed & played at the 11th hour due to another story falling through. However, excuses don't make good Doctor Who chums &; like wet gun powder, leave a sticky mess in the canon!

"Get out!! Get out!!!!"...Lucozer

Doctor Who & the 'Web of jolly-well-not-very Clear'!!!

Oh that it were true! That 'Web of Fear' could be returned to the BBC vaults from where it was so cruelly cast out back in the late 70's!

Even if this rumour turns out to be a particularly nasty hoax, I am amazed at the timing of it. Reason being that the Co-Pilot & I, a mere 5 nights ago, sat down to watch the two (until now?) remaining Yeti episodes together. We had never watched those episodes paired in a 'Yeti fest' sense. In fact, of the two eps, the only one we'd seen together was Abom 2 & that was about 15 years ago on 'The Troughton Years' VHS. Our little Yeti moment may now be followed by a Yeti bonanza!! Pure chance?, spooky coincidence?, or something much more fabulous?? who knows!!

A few thoughts on:

Abominable Snowmen 2 -

Fairly slow moving but marvellously atmospheric. Well acted, superb set design. The outdoor film shots look superb; so crisp. An underrated, quiet gem.

Web Of Fear 1 -

Some great moments. The Hammer Horror style scenes in the museum are striking. Pat, Frazer & even Deb are all on good form. The tunnel scenes look superb. The letdowns are Jack Watling's wretched 'huffing old man' turn & the stilted scenes in the military base. I'm sad to say the episode overall is a middling effort from the otherwise masterful Mr Camfield. I hope it gets better after the somewhat shaky start & I certainly hope we will soon find out!!

The Lucozer (plugging up his fan boy saliva ducts, but hoping to soon let them flow!)