Doctor Who The Lost TV Episodes Vol 4 review Pt2

Well, we've been away from the blog for a while as we were coming up to and then recovering from the Hi-Ex! weekend, but it's time to get this show on the road again!

We continue our review of the latest Lost TV Episodes collection from AudioGo.
Next up is The Faceless Ones.

This story is a bit of an odd one, or at least it feels like it. It feels very dated in some ways, being that it is set in Gatwick Airport in 1966, which was of course contemporary with the show bring broadcast.
The story itself is a bit of a mix, it feels in places like something that could almost have been in the Avengers (The Steed and Mrs Peel version that is), but then the sci-fi elements give it a Twilight Zone vibe. Between these two elements there is a nice story with a great sense of dread and paranoia, which I suspect would have been even more so at the time because it was using such a well-known location, and was feeding into the whole political atmosphere of the time in doing so.
The whole thing might be an episode too long, but on the whole it moves along well, helped by the always great Troughton and Hines (Michael Craze and Anneke Wills who play Ben and Polly are strangely absent for most of the story, and I suspect it is not unconnected with them leaving at the end of the adventure), as well as guest star (although she wasn't a 'star' at the time) Pauline Collins. Her character is a lot of fun and makes a wonderful foil for Jamie – it’s a pity she didn’t stay on as a companion.

The best thing about this one for me though, was the difference in attitude to airport security. Back then, before we had been trained to be frightened of everything, there seemed to be a more lax attitude to things. The Doctor’s reporting of a dead body in a hanger was met only with a sarcastic, ‘You better call the police then,’ rather than the immediate arrest and detention at Her Majesties pleasure for a few years he would receive today.
And I loved the moment when one character was enquiring about a missing passenger and they were told, ‘We’re dealing with thousands of passengers every week, we can’t keep track of every one.’
Changed times indeed.

Doctor Who The Lost TV Episodes Vol3 review pt3

Next up in our review of the latest box set from AudioGo is The Power of the Daleks.

First impressions are very important. 

Moreso if youre an actor taking over the lead role in a major television series from a well loved incumbent.

Here, half a century later, we are well used to the notion of the Doctor regenerating, but it is hard to imagine what viewers back then must have thought when they saw Hartnell change into Patrick Troughton at the end of The Tenth Planet.

In this respect, Michael Craze and Anneke Wills, playing companions Ben and Polly play and excellent role here as the voice of the viewer. Their cries of, “Who are you?” and “He’s not the Doctor!” are all to obviously echoes of what people would have been saying at home at the time.

But the Doctor he is, and for my money, possible the best, until Matt Smith came along at any rate.

Troughton is never anything less than magnificent. His performance is a whirlwind of manic energy interspersed with bouts of knowing and even sinister lucidity.

It was also a canny idea by the producers to start the second Doctor’s life with a Dalek story, thus giving the disorientated viewer something familiar to hang onto among all the newness.

And what of this story? The first thing that struck me about it was the similarities to the recent WWII set Dalek tale Victory of the Daleks. As with that story, this has Daleks that are apparently subservient to humans, and has the Doctor being the only one who can see them for what they are. This leads to some powerful interchanges between characters, with the Daleks in particular coming out a lot better then they normally do. The repeated Dalek line, “I am your servant” grows with menace and even sarcasm as it is used and used again.

Things build to an inevitable and exciting climax and the viewer/listener is left with no doubt that Troughton is the Doctor and that things will never be the same again.

Doctor Who The Lost TV Episodes Vol 3 review pt1

Audio Go have just released a third boxed set of Lost Episodes on CD. These are stories from the early days of Who where the video has been lost, but the audio track still remains. There are a few stories included in it, so rather than post one big review, as with the previous collection, I’ll be breaking it down and reviewing each story individually.

We will begin with The Smugglers.

One of the things I don’t like about modern Who (and in that I include stories from the late ‘70s onwards) is there treatment of the historical stories.

I like the fact that, in these older tales, the Doctor and his companions would turn up in an historical setting and have an adventure there. There would be no crashed spaceships or mysterious alien visitors to deal with, just a contemporary problem to be solved.

And this is one such story. Here the Doctor, along with new companions Ben and Polly, land in Cornwall in the seventeenth century and quickly become involved in an adventure that sees them encountering pirates and buried treasure in creepy old church yards.

Hartnell is brilliant in this one. There are other episodes when you can sense that his heart is not in it, or that he is too ill to muster the energy to make the effort, but he seems to be enjoying himself in this one. Perhaps it was the fact that they got to do some proper location work that lifted him a bit..?

Companions Ben and Polly, played by Michael Craze and Anneke Wills (who also provides the splendid narration), are a strong addition to the cast, and both are entertaining as they go through the familiar not-quite-believing-they have-travelled-in-time thing at the beginning.

Good as the cast are, and as exciting a premise as this is, the story is not quite up to scratch and does dip in places.

However it ends on a strong note, with the TARDIS heading off on a new adventure, and one that I can only imagine was supremely shocking to the poor unsuspecting public at the time…