Hoo-kay

So, episode five.  Everyone’s arguing, and it comes down to Ian vs. Everyone Else.  They need the damn link back, Doctor Oldy McOldington can’t make one without MERCURY!, so Ian decides, dagnabbit, he’s gonna mosey into town and rustle himself up some Hg-80.  Which, because it’s a liquid AND a metal AND it can make you loopy-doo if you play with it for too long… is obviously made of magic.  Like the Tardis.  Scientific accuracy is booo-ring.

So Ian rustles himself up a posse by threatening to – I’m not kidding – kidnap a cute Thal girl.  It gets him punched in the face, which is apparently what Ian wanted because he was trying to prove a point about how stupid pacifists are.  The Thals are like “oh, wow, we sure were wrong, with that whole living-in-the-forest-not-hurting-anybody thing we were doing for thousands of years.  Thank you, Guy We Just Met An Hour Ago, for showing us the error of our ways.”

MEANWHILE… the Daleks are dealin’ with some heavy shit.  Seems that they’re so accustomed to radiation that the anti-radiation drug is messing with their heads.   Some Dalek suggests DROPPIN DA BOMB again… you know, so the air will smell nice and fallout-y like a Skaro summertime.  Which I am sure they will try to do.

MEANWHILE… back at Thal HQ, Barbara and one of the Thals are having a nice romantic moment by the glowing lake.  He mentions that the lake is full of gross stuff that killed his brother or something, and that “only a fool would attack the Dalek city through the lake.”  Which I am sure they will try to do.

MEANWHILE…. the Daleks are dropping like flies on level 3.  The rest of the Daleks decide they will make like Chris Cornell and Blow Up The Outside World, which they will “adapt to fit their needs.”  Early strains of the “conform or be killed” nature of the Daleks that shows up later on.

MEANWHILE…. Big Gay Thal makes a Big Gay Speech about how every turkey dies, but not every turkey truly lives, which is why we all need to give up the whole pacifism thing and essentially instigate a war with a bloodthirsty race of robotic mutants so that the Doctor can get his fucking thingamajig back.

MEANWHILE…. the author of this blog realizes that he just made at least two pop culture references that are at least 12 years old, and that he should really get out more.

The Thals, Ian, and the Doctor decide to attack the city from both sides, in order to confuse and distract the Daleks.   Weirdly enough, it seems to work.   There are, by the way, hideous mutant things in the swamp, and watching our heroes deal with these monstrosities pretty much pads out the rest of the episode.  Except… at one point, it’s revealed that the Daleks get their water from this big glowing lake.  Unless it’s a fresh source of necessary radiation, I can’t see why, unless the Daleks firmly believe that you need eight glasses a day.   The Thals seem to live by this golden rule of hydration, which is why Elyon is filling the water bags when, all of a sudden, he’s sucked into this horrendous vortex thing and, apparently, snuffs it.

Oh my God, they killed Elyon.  You bastards.

Oh yes, I went there!

(Show me the money!)

Terry Nation’s titles weren’t so much delightfully utilitarian as they were, um, boring.  I think, to be fair to him, he was thinking Flash Gordon, but still, man…

Anyway, little Susan Who has just left the Tardis with the Doctor’s medical equipment, when all of a sudden, she spies – EEK! – a Gay!  No no no, it’s just your friendly neighborhood Thal… the very one who groped her earlier, in fact.

Supposedly, this guy’s supposed to be the hideous mutation, and it’s all very ironic because he’s tall and blonde and handsome and ha ha, mutation, can’t judge a book by its cover, Hitler bad, and so on.  He gives her the drugs her friends really need, and they head back to the cell, apparently swappin’ notes, because when Susan gets back, she’s able to tell Ian and Barbara the whole story about the Thals.

Which is, more or less, blah blah two races blah nuclear war blah Daleks are blobby things in armor now and the Thals are tall and pretty.  The Thals, as it turns out, are also somewhat naifish, or at least their leader is.  When we meet him, he insists the Daleks must have devoted their lives to science and philosophy, and just can’t wait to meet ‘em!   Well, sure, buddy, if by “science” you mean “they got the killing people who aren’t like ‘em thing down to a science”, and by “philosophy” you mean “also, their voices are annoying.”   Having said that, these Daleks aren’t quite like the Daleks we know and love today – my God, they’re making sandwiches and letting their prisoners live instead of incinerating them on the spot.  And then, it dawns on us: they’re the Daleks from the Kit Kat commercial!

PEACE – AND – LOVE!!!

The chief Thal could be William Hartnell’s long lost brother – they’re really similar looking dudes.

Moving on:  the creepiest thing a Dalek does – and this was as true in 1963 as it was in the 2005 episode “Dalek”, is to swivel its eyestalk at you.   There’s something really unnerving about that.

The head Thal decides to drop some peacemaker shit on the Daleks, which ain’t happenin’.  Ian, once again, only escapes being exterminated because he’s a lead character by announcing “oh noes! A trap!”, which gets everyone else killed.  Good job, buddy.

Thal women – who must sort of feel like Smurfette, or at least Katie Holmes – all look like waitresses at the Playboy club, and Skaro is near Betelgeuse, in case you’re keeping track.  Ian’s the only person here who believes the Daleks are bad, and pretty much calls ‘em stone cold racists, pointing out the subtext so we don’t have to.  The Doctor – remember him? – does show up and act proactive at one point, and tells us that the Daleks used to be called Dals.  Not Kaleds.  Dals.  This actually makes slightly more sense linguistically, I suppose: Dalek implies a Dal with something added to it, whereas Kaled implies something turned inside out.  Like after they drop the big one, we’ll all call ourselves Muhan Eebings or something.

Anyway, the Doctor very uncharacteristically wants to run home to the Tardis now, but he can’t.  Ian had the key.  Now the Daleks have the key.  The key to the Tardis.  Which would mean something, if they could fit through the fucking door.

The Doctor admits he broke the ship, and Ian lays down the law, and they’re just about to get into a huge pissing contest again when ZOMG Daleks!

What’s the first thing ever said by a Dalek on television?  “You will move ahead of us and follow directions.”  That’s probably not very important information to have, but you never know.  Ian runs, and the Daleks hit him with their rhythm stick.  All it does it paralyze him, because he’s a main character.

They throw the gang into the same cell as Barbara, who notes the lack of furniture.  They talk about these new creatures, and what might be controlling them.  Susan thinks it’s really funny that Babs thinks there might be something inside a Dalek.  Does she know herself?  Is she laughing at the idea, or at the stupid humans?  Also: the Doctor hasn’t heard of them, when supposedly they’re the scourge of the galaxy and any well-read Time Lord should know about them.  Either the Doctor himself is responsible in some way for the Daleks leaving Skaro and conquering the universe or, more realistically, the writers just hadn’t thought of it yet.

Everyone has radiation poisoning.  Now, in the FUTURE, we all know that the only way to cure radiation poisoning is a healthy mixture of direct sunlight, mercury, asbestos, and chewing tobacco, but the Doctor claims to have anti-radiation drugs on the Tardis.  The Daleks let Susan go get them, which is really weird.  These Daleks are sort of… well, sans mojo, if you will.  Susan gets to the Tardis, gets the drugs, and the episode just sort of ends.

The radiation probably accounts for why everyone – Ian, Barbara, Susan, and the Doctor – seems slightly stoned today.  As a matter of fact, the whole planet’s stoned.  The plants are stoned, the trees are stoned, the art deco geckos are stoned.  This planet, in short, is petrified.

The Doctor calls Ian “Chesterfield”, which is either a hilarious “Billy fluff” or a prelude to the 9th Doctor’s Mickey/Ricky routine.  Perhaps there’s an alternate universe where Ian ChesterFIELD is leading a big gay rebelion against the Cybermen.  FANFIC!

Barbara’s totally freaking out, man, and doesn’t think she’ll ever make it home alive.   Susan gets groped by a tree person, and no one believes her.  The Doctor totally wants to go see this here city,  and has no time for her nonsense.  That’s right, kids – if someone touches you inappropriately, don’t bother telling the grown-ups, because they won’t believe you.

Luckilly, Barbara listens, because sisters gotta stick together.  Babs also has a headache, from all the radiation, so Susan fixes Mummy a cocktail.  The Doctor also gets to show everyone his Food-Cube-O-Matic machine, because in the FUTURE we will all eat gelatinous cubes that taste like stuff.  This scene is totally irrelevant to the plot, but it’s fun to watch anyway.

Anyway, everyone wants to leave except the Doctor, who sabotages his own ship.  He tells the Stoopid Humans that the Tardis is out of mercury, because they’ll believe anything.  Everyone splits up to search for it, and we notice that the city has been designed for little squat people and not tall Barbara shaped people.  She gets lost in a maze of stuff, when suddenly a GIANT POKEY THING menaces her.  Yes, it’s the eye stalk of a Dalek, and it’s first appearence – attacking a woman in a short skirt – is not entirely un-hentai like.

Just sayin’.

It’s a little phallic.

‘Specially after Susan got groped by a tree person.

Sorta creepy.

So guess what: Ian was a Boy Scout, which means we can rub his legs together to make fire.  (I’m not sure where that line actually came from.  I had an ex-girlfriend who insisted it came from some book she read, but she was an odd person to begin with.)  Luckilly, he never saw Castaway, so he doesn’t know how hard it is to start a fire with two sticks and a bunch of tinder.

I again should point out that, at this point, the Doctor ain’t doing crap.  Ian’s doing all the heroic stuff, and the Doctor refuses to get involved.  I’m not sure at what point he decides to help instead of hinder.

Anyway, long story short (too late), Ian makes fire, Za kills Kal over it, brings fire to his people, and now everyone can go home.  Oh, wait, no.  Because, see, Za apparently never heard the old adage about setting a man on fire and he’s warm for the rest of his life, and therefore wants Ian to stay around, join his tribe, and make fire for him.  And I’m sure Za wants to take all the credit.  Politicians.

So, they all get locked up in the Cave of Skulls again.  With the skulls.  And the fire.  Suddenly, Susan gets the bright idea to light a skull on fire.  (Apparently, before arriving in London, her and the Doctor spent some time up at Bike Week in Laconia, NH, where she may have seen a tattoo along these lines.)   They use the skulls on fire as a clever decoy to escape the tribe, who chases after them, but everyone makes it back to the TARDIS in time.  Which the Doctor didn’t even lock.

Well, everyone’s all safe and sound now, and the Tardis takes off for unknown destinations.  One problem, though: it seems the radiation level on their new planet is a bit high.  Gosh, I hope there aren’t any naughty bug eyed robots here….

This is a very scary tree. Boogy boo.

The Forest of Fear is one of those awesome haunted hayride things in Udall, KS, apparently.  I know this because I used the Google.   It is also the third episode of Doctor Who.

I gotta say this sometime, and it might as well be now:  for the first couple-three years of the series, each episode had its own title.  After that, it was “Title Of Serial – Episode X”  (i.e. “The Deadly Cave of Death” – Episode Six).  This leads to all sorts of fantastically boring discussions on various web forums and convention panels about what the older stories are “really” called.  Most people call the first story of Doctor Who An Unearthly Child, but that really only describes the first episode, when the rest of the story is about cavemen with posh accents.  So, some people call it The Tribe of Gum, even though we never learn the name of the tribe and no one chews any gum.  Others call it 100,000 BC, even though no one knows what year it’s supposed to be and everyone knows the Earth was created 4,000 years ago and dinosaur bones were put here by the Lord to test our faith.  (That’s a little shout out to our friends in Udall, KS.)

So, anyway, we’re all trapped in a pit with some busted skulls.  The scene cuts to what looks like the aftermath of a massive drunken caveman orgy.  Eileen Way wakes up, picks up a threatening looking stone, and holds it in front of the camera for a really long time for some reason.

It should be noted that this episode features the very first “Doctor and companions get locked up in jail and escape” scene.  There are many.  It’s also the first time the Doctor refers to his companions as “companions”, when he says “fear makes companions of us all.”  Doesn’t help too much, though, considering he later tries to convince Susan to leave them stranded in 10,000/100,000/whatever BC just because he’s feeling pissy.  Again, cute n’ floppy David Tennant he ain’t.

The interesting thing about the Tribe of Juicy Fruit is that, for all the cock-posturing, the women appear to wield the real power.  Eileen Way’s all like “You will not make fire!”, thus verbalizing the conservative position better than anyone else, and Vaguely Attractive Cave Chick sweet talks Za into doing what she wants by telling him “leaders are awake while others are asleep,” which should probably be the title of a chapter in some dubious How To Get Ahead In Business-style book you picked up at Staples once.

The fake forests look better in black and white than they ever would in color/HD.  Black and white distances the viewer just enough to force a certain suspension of disbelief, and the brain accepts it more than, say, certain other dubious special effects in certain other episodes of this program.  The forest just looks cool, which is the sort of pedantic and uninformative thing I’ll be saying a lot during the first Dalek story when/if we ever get to it.

The Doctor and Ian, by the way, are fighting already, sort of like Za and his rival Kal.  It underlines the theme of the whole story, that we’re not too far removed from our caveman ancestors.   Za’s gotten himself mauled by Pumba from The Lion King, and this gives Ian a chance to invent modern medicine and show the Doctor who’s boss.  The Doctor’s all like “I don’t want to interfere, let’s go back to the ship where it’s safe,” and Ian’s all like “No! Can’t you help him?” and the Doctor’s all like “Dammit, Ian, I’m a Doctor, not a Doctor.”  His reasoning, again, is that people are stupid, especially cave people, and that helping them will just get us killed.  Compare this to his attitude later on – especially when he looks like Peter Davison – and it’s obvious he’s really not the Doctor we know yet.  He even tries to kill Za, apparently because he’s not getting his own way.  Even Colin Baker would have just stormed off in a huff.

Oh, man, Eileen Way’s dead now.  Her last words: something that sounds like “Naaaagrrahh FIIIIIYAH!” which I think means “YOU WILL NOT MAKE FIRE!” cuz that’s all she’s said this whole time.  Still, Eileen Way says “YOU WILL NOT MAKE FIRE!” better than anyone ever.

Vaguely Attractive Cave Chick shows our heroes back to the Tardis, after Barbara manages to get through to her, but it turns out Kal’s already found it, and so have his friends, and boy do they look cranky….

The next time I have to come in here, I'm cracking skulls

So, here we are in Year One, and Jack Black and Michael Cera are nowhere to be found.  Some cavemen are upset because they forgot how to make fire.  This goes on for a while.  Our heroes stumble out of their feedback-loop haze and behold the vast and barren soundstage in front of them.  Susan’s upset because the TARDIS didn’t change into a sedan chair or whatever, and the Doctor gets hit over the head for smoking.

Sure, the idea of Doctor Who lighting up breaks my brain too. It makes sense, though, because he had to be shown setting fire to something in order for the plot to occur, and as much of an old assbag as he’s being, he’s still not going to give Ian Chesterton a hotfoot or anything.  Point is, a certain caveman with daddy issues spies him making flame from his fingers, and decides that the best way to prove to everyone that he’s a worthy leader is to whack some mostly innocent (if morally dubious) bystander.  I believe the Bush family works this way today.

Without fire, the tribe has resorted to eating buffalo sushi and whining to each other about how cold it is.  Za, the caveman in question, drags the Doctor back to his cave and decides he’s going to force him to make fire.  The Doctor wakes up and tries to be all Tom Baker-prankster Doctor, but he’s not quite there yet.  His new companions show up and try to rescue him, and they throw everyone in the pit until fire is made.  Ian points out that the cave is full of skulls, and they’re all smashed in.  Hell of a way to go.

Along the way, we meet Eileen Way as Old Mother, who plays this part better than anyone ever; Kal, who’s trying to usurp Za’s leader position; Reasonably Attractive Cave Chick, who’s been promised to the leader of the tribe, and her father, who’s sort of the voice of reason here.  He points out that neither Kal and Za really have the right idea here – one says “old man make fire from fingers” and that can’t be right, and the other says “there was no fire!”, and that probably isn’t right either.  It’s reasonable thought and discourse like that, that usually winds up with people getting killed.  Someone whack that commie punk with a hatchet already.

Meanwhile, our heroes are still getting to know each other.  Ian and Barbara react like people really would in this situation, with a mixture of disbelief and terror.  Problem is, so does Susan, who really should be old hat at this.  Oh well, there goes another perfectly good female role model.  Seriously, though, Barbara will start kicking ass, taking names, and not even mussing up her bouffant any day now.   Stay tuned.

Hartnell ain't got time for your jibber-jabber.

Ah, that original opening sequence.  How much cultural mileage the BBC effects wizards got out of really simple stuff, like, say, putting a video camera in front of a monitor and recording the feedback.  That’s how you got that awesome trippy, smoky, woobly original opening sequence – the “howl-around.”  Or, say, messing around with an oscilator – that’s how you got the original theme song.  When these folks did it, they did it right.

The long, lingering opening take of the first episode, too, is something that just wouldn’t work in HD full color digital.  The fact that it’s black-and-white, and distinctively low-res, makes it creepy.  Why are we in a junkyard?  What are we looking for?  Is something going to jump out at us?  It’s coming closer, whatever it is.  It’s… it’s… a police box.   AND IT’S HUMMING!  WTF!?!?

Here in the 21st century, we’ve seen them introduce Doctor Who to us twice properly and once… less so.  There’s this episode and “Rose” – both of which approach the subject with the proper awe and mystery, and then there’s the TV movie, which doesn’t.   The whole idea of this first episode is to make the audience go “what the hell is happening?”  Why does that oddly cute girl know about metaphysics, but not about how many shillings go into a pound?  Why is that old man being so evasive and cold?  Why is there a humming police box in a junkyard, and how did they fit that big room inside it?

Nowadays, if you’re a new fan, you aren’t going to watch this episode first.  You just aren’t.  You’re probably going to see “Rose” first (which pulls a lot of the same tricks on you), or you’re going to see something like “The Talons of Weng-Chiang.”  And even before you watch those episodes, your friend who loaned you the video in the first place is probably going to tell you “it’s about a guy who’s 900 years old and travels in time and his ship looks like a phone booth and it’s bigger on the inside and blah blah blah.”  So there’s really no way the modern viewer is ever going to get how awesome and weird this episode must have been at the time.  If you don’t know what’s happening, it’s one intriguing mystery inside another.  Even if you do, it’s still alluring, thanks to Anthony Coburn’s perfectly paced script and Waris Hussein’s brilliant direction.  Neither one of these two would work on the show much after this, and that’s really a pity (Waris comes back to do Marco Polo in a few weeks.)

So, there’s Ian and Barbara.  Ian’s the hip young science teacher who digs the rock and roll music, so long as it ain’t too loud.  Barbara’s the sensible, steely history teacher, and she’ll go on to be just about the best thing about this era of the show.  Then there’s Susan.  Here, in her first appearance, she’s a really wonderful character – definitely an immature teenage girl, but with a certain strange wisdom and slightly off-kilter, like Miranda from The Tempest or a toned down Summer Glau character.  That’ll last like a week before she starts screaming and being generally stupid, so enjoy it while you can.

And then there’s the Doctor, who’s almost nothing like the Doctor we know now.  He openly says he doesn’t enjoy the 20th century, which is odd considering how much he seems to like the early 21st century these days.  He seems to love weird old clocks and other antiques, though, so he has an affinity for Earth even if he thinks we’re all stupid apes (Eccleston pulled off this abrasive Doctor act very well in 2005.)   Once the two schoolteachers are aboard his ship, he refuses to let them go.  Yep, the Doctor forces his first two companions to travel with him against their will.  None of this “I just need a mate” crap, or “you were brilliant” – this guy won’t let you leave because you’re too stupid to deal with it.

The TARDIS takes off for the first time, and again it’s really trippy.  It knocks the humans flat, which is probably what being sucked through the space-time vortex would really do to you the first time, but this is the only time we really see dematerialization as a traumatic incident.  The TARDIS reappears on a dusty wasteland, as a shadow hovers in the distance.

Whoo-ee-ooh, indeed.

and his fate is still unlearned.

He may ride for ever ‘neath the streets of Boston,

he’s the man who never returned.”

-The Kingston Trio, “MTA”

“One day, I shall come back…”

-The Doctor

Yeah, see, it’s not so incongruous, is it?

Something that unites all Bostonians – even more than a shared loathing of the Yankees or a general sense of displeasure at the weather – is our love/hate relationship with the oldest, quirkiest public transportation system in the United States of Whatever, the MBTA, colloquially the “T.”   Whether it’s inexplicable delays, cruddy customer service, the sense that no matter what you do you’re going to be slightly late, or just annoyance at BU kids sharing the intimate details of their personal lives at very high volumes, there’s always something new and fun for riders to complain about.  And yet, we keep riding the thing.  In order to soften the blow, the presense of an iPod or other form of electronic distraction is almost a necessity.

Something that unites all old school Doctor Who fans – even more than our odd dress sense or a general love of camp – is our love/hate relationship with the longest running, quirkiest science fiction series on the planet Earth.  Whether it’s inexplicable plot lines and character development, the sense that no matter who the producer is he’s going to do something to piss you off personally, or just silly monster costumes with zippers and Adidas running shoes, there’s always something new and fun for fans to complain about.  And yet, we keep watching the thing, because as Russell T. Davies has said, it’s the best idea for a show anyone’s ever come up with.

I’ve toyed with the idea of doing an episode-by-episode review blog of Doctor Who for a while now, partly because it’s my favorite thing ever and partly because it would give me an excuse to be snarky.  But, see, I’m one of those people who has a life.  I’m involved in various other pursuits and pastimes, and devoting that kind of time to a project that huge didn’t seem like something I could really do.  And then it occured to me: my iPod played videos, and my job requires me to ride the train for a half-hour each way every day.  So, I thought to myself, why the heck shouldn’t I at least give it a try?

I’m not sure if I’ll get to every episode – there are 753 of them – and I don’t even think I’m going to do it in order, as it’s more fun to jump around a bit.  We’re talking about 46 years of television history here.  It would take me at least a couple of years to cover the whole thing, and it’s very likely I’ll wind up getting distracted by something or other.  But it, like anything, is worth a shot.  Why you gotta write this blog so loud?  Because we want to.  Thanks, Billie.

So: here goes.