Gerry Anderson 1: Supercar

Gerry Anderson’s first marionette TV series certainly wasn’t “Supercar”, but you could be forgiven for thinking that it was, for “Supercar” was the first of the classic Anderson shows which would span the 60s. Supercar was the first series he made with a recognisably sci fi slant to it, and it would be followed during the 70s by Fireball XL5, Stingray, the immortal Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, the short lived Secret Service, and Joe 90. It could be argued that Anderson lost his way as the 60s becam the 70s and he switched over to live action with firstly UFO, then Space 1999. Well, we’ll get to those when we come to them. For now, let’s take a closer look at “Supercar”

“Supercar” was Anderson’s most ambitious series to date. It was his first with a half hour format. The original idea was Anderson and Reg Hill’s, and fanderson lore has it that the idea was that using the vehicle would cut down the amount of walking that the marionettes would be needed to do, which had been a drawback with Anderson’s previous series, the wild west based Four Feather Falls.

Basically the idea was that the show was about Supercar, a vehicle that can fly, go undersea, and act like a hovercraft on land, and the adventures of its pilot, Mike Mercury. When Granada TV decided that they’d had enough of “Four Feather Falls”, Anderson approached Lew grade of ATV, the ITV company running the Midlands franchise. Grade apparently liked the idea, but wanted the budget halved. Anderson worked to reduce it by a third, and Grade commissioned the series. In the end 2 series, or 39 episodes in total were made, and the series was sold for syndication in the USA, the first Anderson show to be shown there, in 1962.

“Supercar” has the distinction of being the only Anderson series from the 60s of which I had never watched so much as a single episode. Even “Fireball XL5”, the series’ successor, which was also made before I was born, was repeated in mornings in the 80s, and also in evenings the wake of the great Thunderbirds revival of the 90s. I will admit that, for the purposes of this post, I only watched the first episode, “Rescue”. Hmm. I think that in order to be fair to the show, when you watch it you should keep reminding yourself that this was early days for Anderson. He had to go through this before he would be ready for Stingray and Thunderbirds. Bearing that in mind then, here are a few random observations: -

·       The theme song is the worst I’ve ever heard in an Anderson series. The lyrics – where it seems every other word is ‘Supercar’ – means that listening to it is rather like being beaten over the head with a blunt instrument: -

“SUPERCAR! SUPERCAR! It can go anywhere SUPERCAR! Etc. ad nauseam.” It’s a long way from the naïve charm of “Fireball” from Fireball XL5, and “Aqua Marina” from Stingray.

·       The puppets are cruder and less realistic than in the succeeding series.

·       The plot was frankly extremely rudimentary and slow moving. The rescue idea may just be a foreshadowing of Thunderbirds, but virtually nothing happens for the first 20 minutes or so of the show. A pilot, taking his kid brother and their monkey friend (!) for a spin has to ditch in the sea. It’s too foggy for the rescue plane to find them. Supercar could do it, but its inventors, Popkiss and Beaker don’t want it go until it has been tested. So only when they are actually in danger of dying can they be rescued. Kid and monkey are allowed to join the team.

·       Even in an early series such as this, certain hallmarks of the Anderson formula are in place – namely, a focus on the hardware of the show (the car) – brilliant but eccentric inventors – unusual, non-human sidekicks – success against nearly impossible odds.

Still, as I did say, we have to remember that this is where Gerry Anderson began the 60s, not where he finished it. So, having watched one, would I consider watching others? Only in the cause of the blog, certainly not for enjoyment.

Essential Doctor Who: First Doctor: The Aztecs

Before Watching

“Doctor Who” was originally conceived by Sydney Newman as a show where stories involving the Doctor travelling back to witness and to an extent participate in some of the great events of Earth History would be just as important as those featuring Science fiction elements. It’s a matter of public record that he hated “The Daleks”, even though the success of this second story dictated the eventual path that the series would take. Still, the so-called Historicals were very much a part of the William Hartnell era of the show, and even if they have proven to be an evolutionary cul de sac in the show’s development.

As we’ve already seen, the first, and possibly greatest , of the Historicals, John Lucarotti’s “Marco Polo” doesn’t exist in the archives. This four parter, then , is my first chance to accurately assess what I’ve been missing with my previously dismissive attitude towards them. I really enjoyed “Marco Polo”, so this story has a lot to live up to.

After Watching

I’m glad that this isn’t the first Hartnell era story that I’ve watched. If it had been I might have spent so much time concentrating on what wasn’t in it, that I would have missed out on what is so good about what is in it.

I think that it’s a very good example of what Doctor Who could do well. I don’t think that you would ever see a story like this in the new series, or really in any other era. For one thing, the main motivation for all of the characters except Barbara is to find a way to open the tomb in which they left the TARDIS to enable them to leave. This is totally in keeping with what we’ve seen so far in this first season. It’s only Barbara who wants to do something else, to improve a situation, and right a wrong. She wants to persuade the Aztecs to abandon their custom of blood sacrifice. She is mistaken for the reincarnation of the Goddess Yetaxa since she is wearing Yetaxa’s bracelet that she picked up from inside the tomb. Barbara uses this mistake to try to impose her will upon them. Not only does she fail, she has to endure the Doctor telling her that she is doomed to fail, and that she is utterly powerless to change their doomed destiny. In case we didn’t get that point, the last we see of any of the Aztecs themselves is a close up of the manic face of Tlotoxl, the High Priest of the Blood Sacrifice, just as he is in the process of carrying out said sacrifice.

This sounds rather bleak, but it actually isn’t; rather it raises some interesting, almost philosophical questions. For example – what right do the Doctor and his companions actually have to go about changing the course of events? What right do they have to challenge the Aztecs sincerely held beliefs, however abhorrent those beliefs might actually be to us today? Answers on a postcard, please.

There’s a great deal to enjoy about this story. It’s all set in the studio, and although the painted backdrops are a little too obviously painted in some shots, the fact is that the designer has done a marvelous job with the sets. They get full value out of them too – I’m sure that every penny that was spent here is shown on the screen.

The regular and supporting cast are very good here too. Starting with the guests, John Ringham, a man best known probably for playing stuffy businessmen and civil servants, and Jan Francis’ character Penny’s well meaning father in “Just Good Friends”  puts in a wonderfully sly and oleaginous performance as Tlotoxl. Tlotoxl is the chief villain in the story, and yet such is the complexity of the plot that when you break down his actions and his motivations, you can’t help seeing another side to him. To whit, while Tlotoxl is a nasty bit of work, he does what he does because -

* He suspects that Barbara is not Yetaxa – he’s right! She isn’t!

* He fears that she means to try to get them to change their whole way of life and belief system – he’s right! She does!

In that light, his actions are totally understandable, and, if we judge his actions by the standards of his own society, then they are justifiable as well.

There’s a nicely observed portrayal of the High Priest of Knowledge, Autloc, by Keith Pyott as a counterpoint to Tlotoxl. Autloc is unswervingly loyal to Yetaxa, yet his doubt as she asks him to overturn his whole belief system is there in every word he utters and every expression on his face. In the end he accepts what Barbara tells him, and as a result he elects to leave behind his status, his family and all his worldly possessions and go out into the wilderness. Now, the Doctor at the end tells Barbara that if she didn’t save a civilization – which she didn’t – then at least she saved one man. Now surely the audience are expected to take this as irony, for its hard not to draw the conclusion that Autloc would have been far better off had she never appeared in the first place.

I’ve known a few meatheads like Ian Cullen’s Ixta in my time as well. I’ll be honest, I haven’t known many Science teachers who would have been able to defeat him in a fight to the death the way that Ian does, but William Russell has enough credit in the bank with me by this time that I’m perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief.

I absolutely loved the sub plot of the Doctor’s ‘romance’ with Cameca, played beautifully by Margot Van der Burgh. She would return to the series in one of my favourite Tom Baker stories , “The Keeper of Traken”. The Doctor, not understanding enough of Aztec customs, ends up proposing marriage to Cameca, and you get the idea that he is not totally dismayed when he finds out what he has done. The romance is of course doomed, for the Travellers have to leave, and more than that, they need Cameca’s help to do so. She knows that they must leave, and that she will not be marrying the Doctor, yet she helps them anyway, and shows true nobility of spirit. There’s a touching little Hartnell scene where he considers discarding the keepsake that she has given him before entering the TARDIS, but cannot quite bring himself to do so. He has never seemed more human at any earlier time in this series.

“The Aztecs” is certainly very much a Barbara show. How fortunate the team were to cast Jacqueline Hill in the role. In every story we’ve seen so far, and practically in every scene in which she is given something meaningful to do she is compelling, and a very good actress indeed. So a Barbaracentric show is usually going to be a winner. If they’d renamed the Aztecs something alien – like the Dorgs or something, and set this on a different planet, it would probably rightly be remembered as one of the classic ‘alien’ stories.

It’s a terrific story, and difficult to fault. For the first time we, the audience, are asked to seriously consider the effects that contact with the Travellers has on the people that they meet. It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that two good people have had their lives made worse – Cameca through heartbreak, and Autloc through losing everything. This is not the same as the Thals who made the decision of their own free will to join the fight against the Daleks and were killed during the attack on the city – they at least had something to gain.

It also tries to deal with the question of changing History, and this is more problematical. You’ll have to give me time for a little digression with this one.

“You can’t change History – not one line!” thunders the Doctor. Now, as wonderful as this line is, and as well as it does fit this story, it doesn’t actually bear close analysis.  It doesn’t even work when you consider what has already happened in this first season. Work with me on this one. Let me give you an example: -

In “The Daleks”, it is crystal clear that the Thals would never have attacked the Dalek city had Ian not made the threat towards Alydon’s lady friend, and shaken them out of their pacifism. Therefore, Ian has changed the history of Skaro, QED.

So . . . either you CAN change History . . . or the Travellers’ actions are actually part of History, and are meant to happen. If that is the case, then this introduces the vexed question of predestination. This basically says that what is going to happen has already been decided, and whatever we might think about free will, we have none, and are acting according to a script from which we can never deviate, even if we have no awareness of it whatsoever. In which case nobody is good, nobody is evil, and nothing has any point. This is certainly not what Doctor Who has ever said.

It’s only really since the 2005 revival that this issue has been attacked head on. What we’ve ended up with is the only sensible model of History in which Doctor Who can work. The current attitude towards changing History in the show is that you can change SOME of History, but there are fixed points in Time which cannot be changed without the whole of reality falling part, as was articulated during the Tenth Doctor’s tenure in several stories. This gives the Doctor the leeway to change events on Skaro, for instance.

So, in terms of retrospective continuity, you can suggest that maybe the Doctor knows that this is a fixed point in Time, and so rather than having to go into long, involved and complicated explanations uses the simplified line of argument that you can’t change any of History, knowing full well that Barbara should not be able to change this point, and probably confident that he can counteract anything she achieves if he needs to.

Of course, the real reason why he said this is that we know that Barbara can’t make the Aztecs give up blood sacrifice, because they didn’t. Which is the real reason why changing or not changing history only really matters in the Historicals – for who knows what the history of Skaro was going to be anyway?

My Favourite Star Trek Original Series Episodes: The Doomsday Machine

What’s It All About?

Having received a faint distress message the Enterprise proceeds to a star system where it finds nothing but rubble, and the hulk of its sister ship, the USS Constellation. Subspace interference prevents them from sending a message to Star Fleet.

Kirk, McCoy and Scotty beam aboard the Constellation. Most of the ship’s systems are out. They find a sole survivor, the ship’s captain, Commodore Matt Decker. He starts to come round after McCoy has injected him with some goo. He explains that his ship was attacked and disabled. Rather inexplicably he took the decision to abandon ship and beam the whole crew down to the third planet in the system. Before he could beam himself the ship was attacked again, knocking out the transporter. Then the machine turned upon the third planet, and destroyed it.

Decker describes a machine miles long with a maw that could swallow a dozen starships. Spock works out that it must use antiproton beams to cut up planets, and then ingest material from the planets to give itself fuel and energy – so as long as it keeps killing planets it is self-sustaining. He also plots its course, working out that whatever it is, it has come from outside the galaxy. It appears to be heading for downtown Galaxy central – or the most densely populated sector of the Galaxy at least. Decker at last agrees to go to the sickbay on the Enterprise when Kirk says he will take the Constellation in tow with a tractor beam. No sooner do McCoy and Decker beam up, than the planet killer reappears.

The transporter and communications are knocked out in the first attack, stranding Scotty and Kirk on the Constellation. Scotty gets to work repairing the impulse drive, while the Enterprise breaks away from the machine, which goes back on course or its next target, which appears to be the Rigel system. The inhabited Rigel system.

This is where the main inter-character drama is played out. Spock sees his duty as evading the machine, which he believes the Enterprise cannot harm, and informing and warning Star Fleet once clear of the sub space interference. Decker argues that their duty is to attack and destroy the planet killer. Spock ignores this, which leads Decker to pull rank, and to quote Star Fleet regulations in order to take over command. Spock informs an indignant Doctor McCoy that he can only relieve Commodore Decker of command if he has evidence that he is unfit, which he does not have. Yet.

Decker feels that he made the mistake of trying to attack the machine at long range, and that he will be able to hurt it from close up. Nope. The attack has no effect other than to draw the fire of the planet killer, which does more damage to the Enterprise, and the planet killer grabs it in a tractor beam and starts pulling it inside. Despite Spock’s warning Decker delays trying to break free. Only the fact that, with its impulse engines and phasers now working, the Constellation draws the machine’s attention away from the Enterprise that saves it.

Kirk retreats, but Decker, now only a wibble away from a straightjacket, thinks that two ships ought to be enough to destroy the planet killer. This despite the fact that it will take a day to repair the Enterprise shields and warp drive, and probably months to do the same to the Constellation. At about this point communications are restored, and Kirk assesses the situation and orders Spock to relieve Decker of duty, saying that he will take the responsibility and the flak from Star Fleet himself. Relieved and sent to sick bay, Decker slips his escort, and steals a shuttlecraft. His plan, as he explains to Kirk, is to fly it right down the planet killer’s throat, and blow it to kingdom come. 10/10 for the idea, but 0/10 for execution. Still the readings Spock takes indicates that the killer’s power output decreased after the explosion. So the plan is to ram the Constellation down its throat with a thirty second delayed self-destruct. Despite some transporter issues, they manage to pull first Scotty, then much later Kirk out, and boom bang a bang bang, the machine is killed.

You Probably Already Know That: -

·       Commodore Matt Decker was envisaged as having been the father of Will Decker, the officer from whom Admiral Kirk takes command of The Enterprise in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”. Gene Roddenberry revealed this in “The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture”

·       The power of V’ger in the first movie is similar to that of the Doomsday Machine, and the destructive alien machine in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” seems to have been inspired by the Doomsday Machine.

·       Writer Norman Spinrad based the episode on his unpublished story “The Planet Eater”. He has acknowledged that he was influenced by Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’.

·       The part of Decker was originally written for actor Robert Ryan, who was unavailable for filming.

·       The number of the USS Constellation NCC 1017 was made simply by jumbling the digits of the Enterprise’s number – NCC 1701

·       Decker’s uniform bears a different logo to the Enterprise uniforms, or the star emblem on general star fleet uniforms as seen in episodes like “The Menagerie”. This one seems like a small part of a celtic knot design.

·       As we’ve noted, James Blish based many of his novelisations of stories on original scripts and this probably explains why Matt Decker is actually called Brand Decker in his version.

·       Consciously or subconsciously the comedy series “Red Dwarf” parodied the section where Decker quotes Star Fleet regulations on several occasions, usually with hologram Arnold Rimmer misremembering the regulations and being corrected by Kryten the android.

The Verdict

Classic. This is, in my opinion, an extremely strong episode which is difficult to fault. Let’s start with Decker. Actor William Windom said that when he read the script he thought it was rather silly, and played the character as if it was a cartoon. It was only years later that he came to realise he had played Captain Ahab in space. Yet that’s exactly what he does, and very well too. Decker’s collapse and his desperation to atone for his previous mistakes are compelling. The effect on his career that Spock’s actions in relieving him of command would have is understated, but this is just as effective as beating the audience over the head with it. The fact that Decker achieves a kind of redemption through unwittingly showing the crew the way to defeat the machine is clever and well done.

The story is obviously a take on the threat posed by nuclear weapons, and this may be a little hackneyed now, but was pretty relevant just a few years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This is not the most complicated story we’ll ever see in Star Trek. The one big idea – an unstoppable weapon that the Enterprise must stop really isn’t that original, and this is but one of a number of variations on the idea – you could argue that the same basic idea is at the heart of “The Changeling” as well. But what makes “The Doomsday Weapon” so successful is that for me, it is extremely well executed.

If I’m honest, I don’t generally like the remastered effects in my boxed set DVDs of the original series. It’s not that they’re bad – although if we’re honest they’re really not THAT good. But I had no problem with the effects in the originals, and given the opportunity I’d rather have seen them as they were originally, as I remember them. I feel this very much about this particular story. But that’s a very small criticism. Maybe “The Doomsday Machine” is maybe not the greatest Original Series episode – although I think it’s certainly a candidate for the title. But whichever way you look at it, it’s pretty darn good.

Timeslip 1: The Wrong End Of Time

ITV in the early 70s had a problem. They would dearly have loved to have had a successful and popular mainstream sci fi series of their own. The options before them were to either a) import one, or b) make one.

Let’s examine what they did with option A first. The problem was that the best, and certainly most popular import was already showing on BBC, and it was called “Star Trek”. “Star Trek” was never popular enough when its three original series were shown on NBC in the USA, but quickly went on to become probably the most successful TV show in syndication history. “Star Trek” was a phenomenon, and it would have been asking a lot to expect any other show to have the same appeal. ITV bought up the rights to the 4 Irwin Allen shows – “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”, “Lost in Space”, “The Time Tunnel” and “Land of the Giants”. While at least the first two of these were popular, they weren’t really popular enough, or arguably sophisticated enough to sustain a prime time slot in the schedules, and throughout the late 60s and early 70s were relegated to children’s TV time slots.

Which highlights the ITV attitude towards home grown sci fi product as well. It’s difficult to argue that the most successful ever British sci fi TV series is “Doctor Who”. If we think about the original 1963-89 series, some people make the mistake of thinking that it was a children’s TV show. Yet it never was. Doctor Who was always specifically made as a family TV show, and there’s a difference. There was always an understanding that there had to be a level at which it must be enjoyable to adults as well. If we compare this with ITV, the attitude with ITV is that sci fi shows were children’s television. While this approach had notable successes – one thinks particular of the work of Gerry Anderson – it also had notable drawbacks. For one thing, budgets are much smaller for children’s TV shows. Bearing in mind that sci fi as a genre tends to demand more special effects than any other this is a serious problem. Also it tends to encourage, not exactly laziness in terms of writing, but it discourages any real depth or complexity.

All of which militated against ITV producing any decent homegrown sci fi shows, and yet during the early and mid 70s they did produce some genuinely interesting and original shows – one thinks of “The Tomorrow People”, “Ace of Wands”, and this show, “Timeslip”.

I was only about 7 when “Timeslip” first showed on ITV. Yet even over 40 years later I can clearly remember watching it regularly, and I could remember episodes taking place in what seemed to be an arctic setting, then a jungle setting, and a futuristic setting where they kept talking about clones.

Timeslip, although a series of 26 episodes, is actually divided into 4 distinct stories, each of which links in as part of the overall narrative. They are: -

The Wrong End of Time

The Time of the Ice Box

The Year of the Burn-Up

The Day of the Clone

I’ve watched all 6 episodes of “The Wrong End of Time” again and this is basically what happens in it. The first episode of the first story began with a rather po-faced introduction from ITV’s tame Science ‘expert’ of the time, Peter Fairey. This is fiction, but it’s very close to Science Fact, being the gist of what he said. In fact, the introduction is probably the most dated thing about the whole episode.  Then we get the theme music, which actually sounds like it should belong to a 1950s Hollywood Roman epic like Ben Hur.

The first episode starts with a girl disappearing without a trace. Then it establishes that Frank Skinner (no, honestly, that’s his name), his wife and daughter Liz, and the nerdy son of his best friend, Simon Randall, are all just about to leave the village of St. Oswald in a gypsy caravan for a touring holiday. He tells the kids to go off for a walk in the hills. Hmm. A parent telling two teens of that age to go off into the hills 30 years later would be asking for grandkids, if you know what I mean. They walk over to a disused Ministry of Defence outpost. They find a strange invisible barrier, with a small, kid sized hole, and they crawl through. Although it’s broad daylight when they go through, they emerge in pitch darkness. They find out that they have in fact gone back in time to the second world war, when it was a navy base. Meanwhile, Frank has been talking with Mr. Traynor from the nearby hotel. The two have reminisced over their time in the naval base during the war, where we learn something happened to Frank which he just can’t remember. In the base, back in time, Liz and Simon meet the young Mr. Traynor, and swotty knowall Simon suggests that the hole in the fence through which they came was probably made by the people he heard speaking German. They also meet the young Frank Skinner.

In an unintentionally funny piece of dialogue, young Frank calls Liz and Simon village people! Back in the 1970s, Mrs. Skinner has a wee psychic incident and starts speaking in German. Liz and Simon establish that young Frank Skinner is definitely the same man who will later become her Dad. They meet Sarah, the girl who disappeared before they did. Old Traynor tells old Skinner that he was his commanding officer during the time he can’t remember, and that the naval base was taken over by Germans for a while during world war II. Back in the past, the Germans, under Helmut Gottfried, seize the base. Gottfried has a very 70s hairstyle and sideburns. Young Traynor gives Young Skinner a job to do under the pretence of making coffee. He is amazed when Simon suggests that the base is working on radar – which it obviously is. The oint is that back in 1940 a teenage boy, even a nerdy one, shouldn’t ever have even heard of the word. Young Frank, under the subterfuge of making coffee, activates some secret equipment, which renders him unconscious. In 1970, Old Traynor, who it seems was dispatched to the area after Sarah disappeared, persuades old Frank not to call the police, but to come and look at the base. When they do, Liz and Simon can see the pair of them, but nobody else can, and they can’t see Liz and Simon.

Further developments are that modern day Traynor and Skinner work out what has happened, that the kids have slipped back in time. Mrs. S. has another psychic episode, in a nightmare in which she sees Liz with young Frank. Modern day Mr. T. says that he believes that Liz and Simon can’t be hurt in 1940. Meanwhile, Simon and Liz come up with a strategy to escape, by saying that poor stupid Sarah saw the men from the base burying machinery by the fence. They manage to get Sarah away, but Liz gets herself stuck on the wire.

Liz extricates herself, and sees Sarah home to her folks. By the morning, Traynor is insisting that Liz goes back through the barrier to find out whether the Germans discovered the plans which he had hidden. Once she gets back home, Traynor basically takes control, insisting that Liz goes back through the barrier. He needs to know, you see, whether Gottfried ever got a look at the special papers that he had hidden. He reiterates that he cannot be heard, and also says that nothing can possibly go wrong because of the psychic link between Liz and her mum. So she goes back, determined to help her dad get his memory back of what has happened on the base in time to get involved in some argy bargy in the base, and at the end of episode 5 it seems that she has been shot and killed by one of the heavily bearded Germans.

Liz turns out not to be injured by the gunshot from Herman the German , so modern day Traynor’s theory turns out to be right. Old Traynor realises that the traitor who helped the Germans into the base back in the day was Mr. Bradley, who now owns the hotel. When he hints as much to Bradley, the moustachioed git makes sure his revolver is loaded. Simon manages to get a gun to young Traynor, who uses it to stop Gottfried from taking him back to the Fatherland, although he can’t stop Gottfried from going. Frank remembers that he himself kept the papers away from prying eyes, which is excellent news for modern day Traynor when he is told by Liz’s mum. Time for the kids to leave, and they do. Unfortunately when they emerge from the barrier it is into an arctic wasteland, not home where they were expecting to be.

 So, here’s the question. If you trawl the internet, and search for lists of fondly remembered kids shows of the 70s, or fondly remembered sci fi shows of the 70s, “Timeslip” often features on them. Is this popularity and reputation deserved?

Several things struck me just from watching the first episode. Firstly, this is very leisurely paced storytelling. This is not automatically a bad thing, but it’s certainly a approach to storytelling that has gone out of fashion. Episode One opens with a sequence in which a character of the species commonly known as bumpkin ne’erdowell watches a girl walk slowly up to the entrance to the base, then disappear as she enters. That’s honestly all there is to it, but it takes over 6 minutes of the less than 25 minute running time of the entire episode. What this scene does, though, is to establish atmosphere. In fact I would say that the creation of atmosphere is probably the best thing about this first story. For it is continually hinting that there are important revelations which will come, but so far, very little actually has. Back in 1940 the Germans invade a secret naval base. They work out that there is something interesting going on with experiments there. It is hinted that this may involve lasers, but this is never stated explicitly. They don’t get what they want, they try to take Traynor home to Germany, but they don’t. As regards Simon and Liz, well, they slip through a time portal. There is a half hearted attempt to explain it, but there is no real conviction to it. The man who seems to have all of the answers is Traynor, but he’s giving them out in very small doses.

Now, that may sound like a lot going on when you write it all down in one paragraph. However, it doesn’t seem like anything like as much when you spread it out over 6 episodes of 25 minutes. I will concede it’s quite possible that the tempo speeds up in the stories and episodes yet to come, in fact I’d say that it has to. But for these first 6 episodes the pace is almost funereal.

I’d say that the show gets away with it in this first story for a number of reasons. Firstly, even though the story is ostensibly about the two teenagers, Simon and Liz, a lot of the dialogue passes between Dennis Quilley’s Traynor and Sandor Eles’ Gottfried. And this is all to the good, because they are both good, experienced actors who know to play it as naturally as possible and not overegg the pudding. We can compare this with Cheryl Burchill’s contributions as Liz. She’s trying, by crikey, she’s trying, and I’m not saying that she’s any worse than any typical TV child actor of the same era. It’s very difficult for a child actor to be convincingly natural. As for Spencer Banks, well, my memory is that Simon becomes more important in the stories I can remember at all, but as for this first outing through the barrier, well, for all that the character contributes to this story he needn’t be here in the first place.

So does “Timeslip” not deserve its good rep then? Well, no, I’m not saying that. Considering that it was probably made on a shoestring budget, the production values aren’t that bad. There is only ever the one special effect, when Liz and Simon pass through the barrier, but you wouldn’t say that the effect is noticeably worse than late 60s/ early 70s Doctor Who. Where it gets interesting is in what it says about Time itself. For Traynor tells us that even when Liz and Simon are in 1940, they still belong to 1970, and therefore cannot be hurt in the past. This proves to be true when Liz is shot at pint blank range. Yet if this is the case, how can they affect the past? They clearly do, when Simon gives Traynor the gun which enables him to say nein when offered a one way trip to Deutschland. Which in a way seems to be arguing for pre-destination. I also find it remarkable that a series made in 1970 would have such a sympathetic German ‘villain’ as Gottfried – the show is actually decades before its time on this score.

I’m interested enough to want to watch “The Time of the Ice Box”, although. I think having a fictional future setting should mean there’s less obvious padding, since the show is going to have to work harder to make it convincing to an audience, compared with the very familiar world war II setting of this story.

Essential Doctor Who: First Doctor: An Unearthly Child

Before watching

The received wisdom about this story is that the first episode is absolutely brilliant, and the other three are a bit of a bore. I will come clean and admit that I have watched this story once before, when it was shown as part of the BBC’s “Five Faces of Doctor Who” series of reruns in late 1981. Basically there was an unusually long gap between the 18^th series – Tom Baker’s last – and the 19^th series – Peter Davison’s first. The reruns series, which was the first time that the BBC had repeated stories featuring previous doctors was aimed at keeping interest in the show, getting people used to watching Doctor Who on a weekday evening, and hopefully handing over a decent audience to Peter Davison. The stories chosen were: -

An Unearthly Child

The Krotons

The Three Doctors

Carnival of Monsters

Logopolis

The Three Doctors was an obvious choice, as was the very first story, and the latest, Logopolis. Carnival of Monsters was an interesting choice, since it really wasn’t very representative of the Pertwee era as a whole. It is not set on Earth, there’s no UNIT, and no Master. Having said that there is Jo Grant, and its written by Robert Holmes, which is all to the good. Robert Holmes also wrote “The Krotons”, and this unfortunately is not even close to being as good a story as “Carnival of Monsters”. In 1981, then producer John Nathan Turner had little or not choice for his Troughton serial. Fewer Troughton stories existed complete in the BBC archives than any other Doctor, and of those that did exist, most were of more than 4 parts, while only 4 parters would fit the format of the Five Faces. If it were to happen now, the obvious choice for most people would be “The Tomb of the Cybermen”. In 1981, though, the story was missing presumed wiped. Since its recovery this story has undergone a critical reappraisal, and is no longer generally regarded as an all time classic, but it’s entertaining, and miles better than “The Krotons”.

Still, we’ll come back to those Troughton stories in the fullness of time. All I can remember at this time is that I thought that the first episode was terrific, although I was surprised by just how angry and nasty the Hartnell Doctor was. As for the actual Stone Age part of the story – nothing beside remains.

After Watching

Well, there’s no doubt that I was right that the first episode was very different from the other three. I think that what I’m coming to realise is that in this story at least, and maybe all the other stories of this first series, the idea isn’t to make the Doctor particularly likeable – in fact you’re allowed to dislike him as long as you accept his strangeness, the fact that he is different from us. Before the time that I started watching in the later part of the Troughton era, the Doctor had long since become the fixed point of normality around which the whole series was hung. You might not ever be quite sure exactly what he was going to do or say next, but you knew his essential values, and that he would always be one of the good guys. I can imagine that when the series started in November 1963, the original audience didn’t know this, and the writers and directors were quite happy to take their time letting you in on it.

Watch “An Unearthly Child” and you’ll not be left in any doubt that the heroes of the show, and the characters with whom the audience is supposed to identify are the companions, Ian and Barbara, and not the Doctor. This is interesting, since as the show develops I’d argue that while you might like the companions – you identified with the Doctor, because he was the real hero. I once read a book about the golden age of American superhero comic strips in the late 30s and the 40s, and this made the point that Bob Kane’s Batman was originally given a sidekick, Robin, so that younger readers could identify with this younger character. Pretty soon everyone else was getting in on the act, and almost every superhero had a teenage sidekick. And the whole rationale was a fallacy anyway, since younger readers as a whole identified with the hero, not the sidekick. Thus with Doctor Who – while you might really like some of the companions, it was always the Doctor himself that you were far more interested in – but not in this story. It seems like William Hartnell goes out of his way to make the Doctor unlikeable, apart from a few isolated moments. There’s just glimpses of what I think of as the real Doctor when he turns the tribe against Kal for the killing of Old Mother, and also when he apologises to the others for getting them into danger. As I say, though, although Hartnell makes the most of them moments like these are like jockey’s legs – few and far between.

As for the companions though, I was surprised by the way that Susan fades out of the story after the first episode. We’re left in no doubt that Ian and Barbara are the ones we’re rooting for, and any heroism nobility and decency is going to come from them. Susan, bless her, is excess baggage once the TARDIS lands. It’s clear already that Ian is going to be the square jawed action hero, while Barbara is going to be the crew’s conscience. I will come clean here. Over the last few years I have actually read some reviews of early Hartnell stories, and one consistent feature of these is praise for Jacqueline Hill’s acting. I can see why.

The first episode is extraordinary. You get the use of flashbacks, which is a very rare occurrence in Doctor Who, to point out to us just how unearthly Susan Foreman really is. As a teacher I find watching this episode unintentionally funny. I can’t believe that even back in the 60s trailing a pupil home to find out why they’d given a few stupid answers in class was really the done thing. If I did it today every time a pupil gave a stupid answer. . . well, let’s put it this way. If this episode was set in 2013 then in order to make it realistic you’d probably have to have Susan come out of the TARDIS in full rant, shouting “Wha’choo doin’ followin’ me home - you a pair of paedos or what?” After watching this I checked up on Wikipedia, and I was surprised to see that Carole Ann Ford was actually 23 when she made this, since she passes as 15 quite well. When I first watched this back in 1981 I didn’t notice that Susan gives us the information that she’s been attending Coal Hill School for five months. I can’t help wondering exactly what she was getting out of it. Kudos to Anthony Coburn for having Susan make the mistake that Britain used decimal currency in 1963, then correct herself saying that we hadn’t gone over to decimal yet.

What was all that business with the TARDIS console about? First of all Ian gets a mild electric shock when he touches one of the controls – I say mild because a) he didn’t die and b) recovered almost instantaneously.  Then you get the Doctor practically taunting him to use the control to open the doors, surely knowing that the clumsy oaf is going to set the TARDIS off. Also surely knowing that he can’t control the TARDIS well enough to bring them back. Irresponsible isn’t the word.

I suppose it’s inevitable that the next three episodes would be something of an anticlimax to the first. I don’t want to be horrible, but the stone age Tribe of Gum with whom they become involved – the Tribe of Dirty Faces but Clean Furs – are, well, a little cardboard, to be honest. I doubt that I’m the first person to wonder why it is that they can speak perfect English, but have yet to crack polysyllabic names, being stuck with ones like Kal and Za. Basically, it’s all about fire. Za’s father had the stupidity to die before teaching him the secret of making fire. He sounds like a right pillock. The trouble all stems from the fact that would-be tribe leader Kal watches as the Doctor comes out of the TARDIS, and lights up his pipe for a crafty smoke. D’you know, I don’t know what shocked me most, the fact that the Doctor seriously considered killing the comatose Za in episode 3, or the fact that he’s a smoker. Probably the latter. The Doctor is knocked out, dragged unconscious in front of the tribe, and ordered to make fire appear from his fingertips.

Ian, Barbara and Susan stage an unsuccessful rescue operation, and so the three of them and the Doctor are sent to spend the night in the Cave of Skulls before being sacrificed to Orb – presumably the Sun. At this stage the Doctor apologises for getting them into this mess. Ah – thought I – this is where he starts to actually become The Doctor as we know him. Think again. An old woman, who is imaginatively called Old Mother, frees them on the understanding that they will not make fire, as she is highly suspicious of this new fangled innovation. They head back for the TARDIS, and lo and behold, it is the Doctor who buggers up their escape. The grumpy old git insists they keep stopping for a rest, ensuring that they get caught by Za. Being as it’s nighttime, Za is attacked and savaged by a big cat, and it’s Barbara who insists they treat him. He has terrible claw wounds across his chest, but never fear, Barbara has Ian’s wet hankie, so all will be well. This is the point where Ian just prevents the Doctor from knocking his brains out with a rock.

Back with the tribe, the Doctor gets to actually be the Doctor for a few moments, enough to turn the whole tribe on Kal. This, and the fact that they saved his life cuts little ice with Za who decides that rules is rules and so they can go back into the Cave of Skulls – so called because it’s  a cave and it’s full of skulls. I wonder if he’s the ancestor of all OFSTED Inspectors? Eventually they escape and hot foot it back to the TARDIS being followed by angry stone throwing natives.

OK, it’s easy to mock. This is not by any means a great Doctor Who story, and the show would do similar things with ‘savage’ people a lot better in time to come. For all that, though, it’s done the job, and you can actually see one of the series’ key values – namely – what progress the travelers actually make is made through showing kindness and decency, and not through being vicious and aggressive when other living creatures are at their mercy.

Here’s an interesting thing too. Even the last episode actually had a cliffhanger. For as long as I can remember, the last part of a story would end with the Doctor and companion(s) either accepting grateful thanks and explaining that they can’t stay, or just quietly slipping away. Occasionally there might be a hint that the villain/monster could return on some unspecified future occasions – I think of The Deadly Assassin – but that would be as far as it goes. Here, though, we have the TARDIS landing on an alien world – which we know is Skaro, but the original audience didn’t. Susan checks the radiation gauge, which is reading a safe level. Thus satisfied they open the doors ready to go and explore, and as the familiar strains of the theme music begin, the needle of the gauge rises into the danger level, and the danger light comes on. It’s a very clever and rather subtle cliffhanger.

Marine Boy - Japanese Anime from the late 60s

Question:- Which was the first Japanese anime cartoon series to be shown on British TV? Answer – I don’t know for certain, but I’d be really surprised if it wasn’t Marine Boy. This anime series began being broadcast in the UK on the BBC in 1969 – when I was 5 years old, as it happens. The shoe was set in the ‘near future’. The title character, Marine Boy, is the son of one Professor Mariner. Mariner heads up the Ocean Patrol. At this time in the future the ocean beds are being settled and cultivated by mankind, and it’s the job of the Ocean Patrol to keep them safe from various threats. I recall That he ate chewing gum called Oxy Gum to enable him to breathe underwater, and that he had an armful of what seemed to be electric boomerangs to help him.

The series featured the adventures of a small submarine craft the Ocean Patrol’s P-1. The pilots were Bolton and Piper, whom I remember as being vaguely reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy, and Marine Boy himself. Marine Boy’s friends included a white dolphin called Splasher, and a young mermaid called Neptina (look, it was for kids, right?). His wetsuit seemed to be bulletproof, and the heels of his boots had propulsion units in them, and retractable flippers.

Marine Boy was actually cancelled before it was originally shown on British television, but each episode was repeated several times during the 1970s. I remember really liking “Marine Boy”, probably because it had all the action you could ever hope to get from a children’s cartoon series in the early 1970s, and because it was just so different from what studios such as Hanna-Barbera, and a little bit later, Filmation, were coming out with at the same time. There was nothing quite like it seen on British TV until “Battle of the Planets” came along towards the end of the decade.

My Favourite Star Trek Original Series episodes: Season 2: Episode 1: Amok Time

Amok Time

What’s It All About?

So here we are, season 2, and it starts with one of THE iconic Star Trek original series episodes. The focus on Spock is probably a reflection of the production team’s awareness of the popularity of Spock throughout the first season, and generally episodes which foreground Spock are often better than episodes that don’t.

With each episode having little more than 50 minutes actual ‘story’ time as such, once you’ve accounted for ad breaks and opening and closing titles, when you’ve got a real story it can be difficult to make sure that you cram the whole story in. This may be the reason why “Amok Time” has such a relatively abrupt start. If you had all the time in the world then you could very slowly build up what is happening to Spock. We don’t have that luxury, so right from the pre-title sequence Spock is behaving oddly and causing concern. One of the tell-tale signs is the fact that Nurse Chappell makes him some Vulcan plomeek soup, which he throws all over the walls. Later on in the episode McCoy sardonically observes to her – you never give up, do you?! – No, matey she doesn’t, and she’ll still be around in the franchise after you’ve hung up your stethoscope.  

Spock requests the ship divert to Vulcan, and give him shore leave, but he will not tell Kirk why it is so urgent for him. Kirk agrees, but then a request for StarFleet for the Enterprise to take part in some ceremony in Altair 6 comes through. Spock changes the course back to Vulcan, and cannot explain to Kirk why he has done it, in fact, he wasn’t even aware that he had done it. Finally, in his quarters, he explains to Kirk what it’s all about. 

Here we get a healthy slice of new Vulcan lore – and also some of the worst dialogue which poor old William Shatner was ever given to say as Kirk.  Spock tells him that it is the Pon Farr, but finds it difficult to cut to the chase. So we get: -

“It is to do with biology.”

“Biology?”

“Biology.”

“Vulcan biology?”

“Yes.”

“The biology of Vulcans?”

I mean, how thick is Kirk in this scene? I have to say, though, I do like it when Spock turns to Kirk and asks how he imagines Vulcans mate, and he choose his words, saying that he imagines that they do it . . . logically. Of course, the whole point of the story is that they don’t. They go crazy – well, I’ll be honest, you’ll see worse outside any town centre pub on a Friday night, but it’s as crazy as you can expect a Vulcan to get. When the Pon Farr comes on them, they either mate . . . or die. After trying his luck with the Admiral who told him to divert to Altair VI, Kirk mutinies, and goes to Vulcan to save his best bud. Spock asks Kirk and McCoy to accompany him to the ceremony, which upsets the Vulcan matriarch T’Pau, but is actually permitted, providing that they never speak of what they see. Right, at this point I have to speak of T’Pau. This is childish of me, but I couldn’t quite get over her rather heavy central European accent. Rather less childishly, I found myself exceptionally irritated by her continual and incorrect use of the word ‘thee’. What follows is a short grammar lesson, so please feel free to look down to the next paragraph. Basically, ‘thee’ is the object form of the archaic word ‘thou’ which means ‘you’. So you can grammatically say : -

I will marry thee
I will give my word to thee

I have heard good things of thee.

What you CANNOT do is use it as the subject of a verb. So you can’t say –

Thee has agreed to marry T’Pring.

You have to say Thou.

Ah yes, Dave – you may well be saying – but this is Vulcan. Surely they can use thee how they like. I accept that you can have this point of view, yes, but the trouble is it sounds like cod-Shakespearian dialogue done extremely badly, and it detracts from what is going on. Especially when bloody Spock starts doing it as well!

So, Spock’s intended, T’Pring makes a challenge to stop the ceremony going ahead, as is her right. She likes Stonn, who will be a lot easier to dominate than Spock will. Their plan is for Stonn to challenge Spock, but that goes out of the window, when she picks Kirk. Her thinking is that if Spock kills Kirk, he won’t want her because he will be so mortified, and if Kirk kills Spock, Kirk won’t want her. Either way, she wins. Kirk makes the schoolboy error of not actually asking the details of the combat. So, after he agrees, he gives a great double take as T’Pau observes as she passes on her way out – “This combat is to de dett.” If you don’t speak Vulcan, well it means a fight to the death.

You know what happens I’m sure – wily old McCoy asks permission to give Kirk an injection to combat the effects of the heat and the thin atmosphere, and then slips Kirk a mickey finn. As soon as it takes effect he announces that Kirk is dead, and has him beamed up to the Enterprise before anyone notices that he’s still breathing. Spock interrogates T’Pring, and gives her the freedom to marry Stonn, warning him that wanting is not the same as having. Good line.

Not quite over yet, Spock presents himself to McCoy on the Enterprise, ordering him to lock him up for murdering Kirk, then has about half a second’s unrestrained joy as Kirk appears from the doorway behind him. Ahhhhhh.

You Probably Already Know That: -

·       This was scripted by Theodore Sturgeon. Theodore ‘Ted’ Sturgeon was among the first rank of American Science Fiction writers of the middle of the 20^th century, and award winning writer of a large number of short stories and successful novels

·       The Vulcan matriarch presiding over the ceremony is called T’Pau. Her name was used by a British 1980s band fronted by singer Carol Decker. Although their success was shortlived they scored a massive hit with the single “China In Your Hand”.

·       Pavel Chekov, played by Walter Koenig, makes his first appearance in this story. The youngest member of the regular cast, Koenig was hired to appeal to younger female viewers, hence the Beatle/Monkee haircut. For his first few stories until his own hair grew long enough he was forced to wear a ‘monkees’ wig, which he hated. To be fair he does look ridiculous in it.

·       Gerald Fried’s piece of iconic incidental music played during the fight scene became the standard piece of Star Trek hand to hand fight music. It has been used in a number of parodies, including scenes in Futurama and films such as Jim Carrey’s “The Cable Guy”

·       Celia Lovsky, the Austrian American actress who played T’Pau, made her final screen appearance in the sci fi film “Soylent Green”, which incidentally also saw the last screen appearance of Edward G. Robinson.

·       Lawrence Montaigne, who plays Stonn was seen in the series 1 episode “Balance of Terror” playing the Romulan second in command. He’s in good company. Mark Lenard, who played the Romulan commander in “Balance of Terror”, will reappear as Spock’s father, Sarek.

Verdict

In all seriousness, daft dialogue to one side, what’s not to like? I don’t kid myself that we all like the episodes that we like for the same reasons, but I think “Amok Time” is pretty great, even allowing for the faults with dialogue that I’ve already mentioned. It as the archetypal Star Trek hand to hand combat scene, with the fight between Kirk and Spock. It fills in a little background on the most consistently interesting member of the Enterprise crew, without necessarily totally deunding him of mystery. Where, for example, are his family while this ceremony is going on? Does he in fact have any family members still on Vulcan? These are questions which will be answered later on in the season, but for now it’s enough that the viewer asks the questions in the first place.

Not enough? Well, I also like the little more depth that is added to the understated Nurse Chapel/Spock unrequited love story. Spock, it appears does not reject Christine because he is totally unfeeling towards her, but because his biology means that he cannot love her, or at least not in any way which would satisfy her.

It’s not quite my favourite episode of the whole season, but I have to say, it’s right up there with the best of them.