Silver Nemesis

After being really impressed by The Curse of Fenric yesterday, I decided to delve deeper into the Seventh Doctor's era, this time to another story to feature The Seventh Doctor and Ace. Silver Nemesis is the Twenty Fifth Anniversary Special and unfortunately that is its problem. It does not feel like a special. There are Cybermen, they needed to be there for the Silver anniversary, but apart from that there is little tribute to the shows history. This is a real shame as JNT put so much effort into The Five Doctors and possibly something similar would have given the show the publicity it needed to support the show during its darkest hours.

The other thing is that the story is not that original. It is the exact same story as in Remembrance of the Daleks but with Cybermen not Daleks (some ancient Timelord object being hidden by The Doctor that lots of people are chasing after The Hand of Omega and Nemesis). Other problems include the American tourist, the social worker hating people and the Cybermen's allergy to gold.

Now that was all that was bad about Silver Nemesis now the good. It is action packed from the beginning and the action scenes are very gripping. The Cybermen look brilliant, the best looking version of them in colour. Lady Peinforte is a very intriguing character and The Doctor and Ace are electric together. It is a very fun story and thus enjoyable. The Doctor is so mysterious in this story and I love the time travel element.

This is a fun enjoyable story with a couple of flaws in the writing but the main problem is that it is such a missed opportunity and it is clear that it is a missed opportunity by the constant subtle references to the past but nothing there to really celebrate (but The Doctor and the Cybermen).

7/10

The Curse of Fenric

Alongside Remembrance of the Daleks, this story marks the peak of the renaissance Doctor Who experienced in the late 1980s with the Andrew Cartmel Masterplan coming to fruition. It also serves as probably the darkest Doctor Who story of all time. Additionally it is a major story as all of The Seventh Doctor adventures which would follow on in the Virgin New Adventures and Big Finish Doctor Who Monthly Range which featured The Seventh Doctor used this story as the foundations of the new direction they would later on take the show.

This is a great story but also a clever story. Having seen this a few times now I can really appreciate the amount of work that was put into the writing of the story. It is not you bog standard good solid Doctor Who of the sixties and seventies. A lot of work has gone into this script by the writer. The story is rife with symbolism (baptism, undercurrents, chess...) all adding to the effect the writer is trying to have.

I must turn to Ace, the most important character of the whole story. Sophie Aldred gives the performance of a lifetime. The production team have created this revolutionary character, someone all the companions of the modern era would later follow. This is the story where the character grows up. She is no longer the pyromaniac teenage mess ('social misfit' one might say) but now an adult who has gone through significant change when she is forced to face up to her past in a more subtle and effective way than they had tried to achieve in Ghostlight. This change is symbolised by her baptism at the end. Initially this story was to come first in the season but I am glad that they changed the order as season twenty six works brilliantly in this way. Battlefield and Ghostlight foreshadow the great changes to come for the lives of the main characters, Curse of Fenric is the big change and Survival is when The Doctor puts Ace back in her home setting to emphasise how far she as a character has come. If the original order had been the way it was released, I do not believe the effectiveness of either this or Survival would have been as present as they are like this.

Speaking of The Doctor, this is one of Sylvester McCoy's finest outings. He is dark, Machiavellian and manipulative. He is playing the game of chess against Fenric from the beginning, moving characters into place at the right time. This is the darkest we have ever seen The Doctor, when he emotionally cripples his companion just to defeat Fenric. The Seventh Doctor is so different from his successor whose morals would prevent him from doing anything (Dark Eyes Two - The Traitor) but The Seventh Doctor is ready to do anything to get the job done.

The darkness of The Doctor is reflected in the darkness of the story. The production team could have just set this in Nazi occupied Europe or Nazi Germany itself but by having it set in Britain. Having the secondary villains of the story to be the British adds a whole new dimension to the story. They emphasise how powerful and evil Fenric is, as if Millington who would drop disastrous chemical bombs to incinerate Dresden or Moscow is just the secondary villain, how evil must the main villain (Fenric) possibly be?

Thinking about this story in context also adds another dimension to it as the story may be set in The Second World War but is more about The Cold War. The beginning and the end of the war are both shown in this story. It is important to remember that this came out in late 1989 - the end of The Cold War. Most of the people watching this story would not know why there had been so much international tension between the USA and USSR. The Curse of Fenric is an allegory for all wars but especially The Cold War. The soldiers are the pawns who fight for their political leaders. It is only when the pawns work together can such a conflict end. Gorbachev came from a rural background, he at the beginning was no longer a pawn in Stalin or Khrushchev's chess matches against Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon, but by people working together conflict can end. This happens here when Bates and Sorin stop fighting and work together.

Fenric himself is a strong villain and the haemovores were the last great monster of the classic series. The Eighties were so over reliant on returning monsters that there were very few great new monsters coming about - the haemovores sadly would not make a televised return but were absolutely great monsters.

The Curse of Fenric is an allegorical, character driven, great story. The care and attention that went into both script and production is monumental and as a result produced one of the finest stories of the 1980s rivaling The Caves of Androzani and Remembrance of the Daleks. It is a shame that the show did not continue on television into the 1990s as this dark approach worked brilliantly here. The problem with the whole story though is that it does take a couple of watches to understand as it is very complex and needs some thinking. The fuel for the end of the original run of Doctor Who had been laid ages ago but stories such as this and Ghostlight are so complex that the casual viewer just did not know what was going and thus turned off. If the show had never come back in 2005 my opinion of this story may have been tainted by that fact; but it did come back. The Curse of Fenric burned away the old order and set up the new so we can have a new series. The show at this point had to go away but this is definitely the right way to let it go...

10/10

Destroy the Infinite

The Eminence has been introduced to us in The Seeds of War, Dark Eyes Two and will return in Dark Eyes Three but Destroy the Infinite brings about the long awaited story where The Doctor first encounters The Eminence. The Fourth Doctor Adventures (as mentioned in the previous review of Last of the Colophon) are meant to be nostalgic but this one breaks this idea completely. This does not feel like it came from 1977 at all. The space opera genre is a terribly underused genre in Doctor Who; I would not say there was a single space opera in the entire of the Tom Baker era (the only stories I can personally say are space operas to any extent are The Dalek's Master Plan, The Space Pirates, Frontier in Space, A Good Man Goes to War). This is why it is so strange, BUT that is no problem here as the story is excellent.

This story is really a story of two halves. The first half is the desperate struggle for survival, the resistance movements, the reign of the Eminence. The second half is a war story. In the extra features Nick Briggs (writer) talks about a series of war films which inspired the plot but he did not mention Star Wars at all - surely people could see the similarities between the small fighter ships attacking The Infinite here and the small fighter ships attacking The Death Star. The various references to war stories in here add a new layer of scope to the entire story.

This story feels epic, the scale of the adventure is huge - surprising for such a small cast. The writing, direction, performances and soundscape are responsible for this. The performances are strong all round and like what I am becoming accustomed to with these recent Fourth Doctor Adventures it ends with The Doctor giving a moral speech about victory and celebrations in a war. In the words of Captain America (Avengers Assemble) "When I woke up they told me that we won, they never said what we lost", such ideas are prominent in this memorable closing speech.

Overall a brilliant story. Big Finish have been excellent at developing brilliant new characters (Charley, Lucie, Klein...) but until very recently never developed a successful recurring villain - The Eminence is the great Big Finish alien that we have been waiting for!

9/10

Last of the Colophon

One of my biggest problems with the third season of Tom Baker audios is that, unlike the first season with Leela, it did not feel that authentic to the time. It felt too modern. The Seventh Doctor is for dark, complicated stories about The Doctor taking on Gods and Monsters, The Eight Doctor's era is about the chaos which makes a good man go to war but I want the Fourth Doctor Adventures to be authentic. Last of the Colophon does not disappoint.

I guess the brief to the writer must have been 'think of a classic science fiction or horror film that Doctor Who did not cover in the 1970s (an idea eluded to in the behind the scene features) - The Invisible Man. This story is so authentic, using different themes and ideas from the mid 1970s, I spent most of the release wondering which story this part reflected (Hand of Fear, Planet of Evil...) as well as enjoying this release.

The main problem with the story is that a few elements are quite predictable. From the beginning we can infer that Morax has something to do with the end of his species and that he is not entirely good, just from his relationship with the sadistic nurse.

The characters are good in this, nothing special, nothing memorable but good enough to keep the story flowing. Overall I really enjoyed this release, mainly due to how authentic it is. I may not have been able to have watched Doctor Who in 1977 but it brought my mind back to that era, hopefully there are more stories like this to come.

8/10

The Power of Three

This is Matt Smith's final happy adventure with Amy and Rory before the end and it is filled with great characters, a lot of fun and the return of one of Doctor Who's biggest allies - UNIT.

Amy and Rory are very strong in this story, we learn a lot about them as characters - fitting since it is the penultimate episode for the companion who has featured in the most episodes. The story highlights how alien The Doctor is and Matt Smith is totally faultless (as usual) here. We have two new characters who have only just been introduced recently and they are amazing. Firstly we have Brian, returning from Dinosaurs on a Space Ship. He is brilliant in this story, who has some very emotional scenes with The Doctor, when he is concerned with the safety of his son and daughter in law. They are so sad when you have the hindsight of the following weeks story. I wish we had more adventures with Brian, Mark Williams is extraordinary in this.

The other new character is Kate Stewart, who I hope will become a recurring character in The Twelfth Doctor's era. She just steals every scene from Matt Smith, which is a huge achievement knowing how great Matt Smith is in this story.

UNIT return in this story under Kate Stewart and I do hope we see a modern day UNIT family develop under Steven Moffat. My main complaint of RTD era UNIT was that there was never a consistent UNIT leadership. UNIT Captains changed every week. I hope when UNIT does return again, this does not happen.

This is a fun story but unfortunately does not end as well as I had hoped. It is very rushed with lots of different ideas unexplored - who were those nurses and why were they taking people to their ship. The problem with the monster is despite the fact the Shakari is very intriguing, this story seems to be a missed opportunity for the return of the Kraals (a scientific experiment to investigate the best way to take over the Earth - the same as The Android Invasion). This story really could have done with being a bit longer, just to have more time to work on the ending.

Enough with complaints a very strong story with just a lackluster ending. It is a shame that Rory is gone as I suspect we will not be seeing anymore of Brian but I do hope that Kate Stewart does continue on through Doctor Who (she has appeared twice now, but I hope for more).

7.5/10

Doctor Who Legacy - Season Five

We did a review of the game in general but it is a topic too large to cover in a small review. Furthermore the Doctor Who Legacy content has been by far the most viewed content on the site, so I decided that it a review of Doctor Who Legacy Season Five would be the best thing to do. We are going to continue reviewing the game, as more additions take place.

The season begins very much where Season Six left off. We venture through a series of Christmas based levels which lead to The Time of the Doctor (which was included despite the fact that it is actually in season seven). There is some impressive artwork in these levels (The Forest of Death levels especially). The characters which drop in these levels had come from the advent calender series last December.

The story itself is very good and I am looking forward to see how it progresses in future levels. The designers recently stated that they 'look for the episodes which provide the best opportunities for varied gameplay (i.e. with lots of potential threats to deal with).'. It is a shame therefore that The Pandorica Opens was not included with this but they have chosen a good selection of levels: The Beast Below, Victory of the Daleks, The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, Vincent and the Doctor. I really liked the Vincent and The Doctor level, this episode highlights the amount of effort the creators put into making this game (the gems have extra skins). 

As we progress further into the games we see the games true aims and ambitions come to fruition. Season Seven is effectively a line up three game, it is there to introduce you to the game. Season Six just powers up your characters ready for Season Five. Your characters do not level up any more (they will begin to level up in update 2.2 coming soon). This really is a strategy game. The gameplay has been made so complex that you can no longer pass levels through just lining anything up.You need to think, you need to choose characters with the correct abilities, you need to choose perks wisely. The perk system is the only thing that allows you to get through Season Five, since the enemies become increasingly powerful whereas you cannot level your characters up anymore.

There are also a few extra features in Season Five which are really nice touches. March of the Adipose just makes you smile; the Roger Delgado Master is met in Tarminster - setting of parts of Terror of the Autons, that is a really nice touch. I do wonder if the Autons themselves will be added to the game in the future. John Simm's Master has the Toclofane, what if the other Masters have allies of their own (I do not think The Master's Adipose army will probably cut it).

Speaking of Timelords, we have four new Doctors in Season Five. John Hurt's Doctor drops early and his abilities are very good, but the best one of all is my personal favourite - THE SECOND DOCTOR - his abilities make him a very powerful Doctor (a massive help when fighting the reapers in the final level Paradox of the Zygons).

In summary this is a very strong addition to the game, and I do hope that the future looks as bright as it seems here.

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks

Another poorly regarded story that I have personal affection for (mainly as this was the story that turned me into a doctor who fan).

Trying to work out why this story is poorly regarded I must point the finger at the acting. Miranda Raison's attempt to do an American accent is not brilliant and unfortunately becomes a bit over the top. Personally I can stand it, thus the character is not much of a problem.

Despite her failed attempt at an accent, I do like the character of Tallulah. I think her acting is fine (it really is just the accent). All the other characters I really liked Solomon is very good as well as Frank (Andrew Garfield has done well since) is very good, Lazlo is also very enjoyable.

The production of this is very good and it felt more like a real representation of New York than Angel's Take Manhatten which was filmed there. It looks brilliant. The Tenth Doctor and Martha are both especially strong. Personally Martha beats Rose and Donna hands down. The main thing I did not like was the reference to Rose in part two. Having watched series three recently I have noted that with only two exceptions (42 and Blink [it is inferred in The Lazarus Experiment - she is very much referenced in the subtext]) Rose is referenced in every story.

Finally we move onto the Daleks themselves. Victory of the Daleks is Power of the Daleks and this is Evil of the Daleks, several key elements cross over from that story into this - humans being given The Dalek Factor, humans being given Dalek genes and ideas. This story does feature two of the all time three greatest Daleks. The best is The Special Weapons Dalek (Remembrance of the Daleks and Asylum of the Daleks) but coming runners up are Dalek Caan and Dalek Jast - two Daleks who have to swivel their eye stalks around in the sewers to check they are not being watched so they can have a conversation about Dalek Sec in Evolution of the Daleks. The attack of Hooverville is very good (I feel so sorry for the actors who had to stand in the cold and the rain to film this sequence). The murder of Solomon highlight how cold and emotionless the Daleks are, further emphasised by Dalek Sec Hybrid. Again I do not have much of a problem with Dalek Sec Hybrid. It did not go beyond the story and I liked the idea how there were experiments and the Daleks chose purity over survival - it emphasised the racial ideas of the Daleks, something which the new series has hardly touched upon: these things are allegories of Nazis after all. The Pig Slaves serve their purpose, they are not memorable but they seem to be like robomen but these Daleks do not have the technology to build an army of robomen. The only problem I have with the Daleks are that everytime we see them in the new series The Doctor says for one reason or another 'That makes them deadlier than ever'. If they are deadlier than ever why can't you just show it? The attack of Hovoerville did showcase this, but can Daleks stop just shouting EXTERMINATE on the spot and not firing.

In summary a good solid, heavily underrated story. Can Doctor Who Fans just overcome small problems in production such as accents (British people are never going to pull of the best American accents, they are credible enough to get away with it so accept it) or CSO in Underworld, and ignoring the story that they are in. This story is a fight for survival. The Daleks are more like Daleks in this story than any other story in the new series. They are remorseless, clever, manipulative, Nazis - like they were back in the 1960s. Ironic really when the main Dalek wanted to change all that. Overall a solid:

7.5/10

The Caves of Androzani

Robert Holmes rewrites a few of his old scripts, enhanced by Graeme Harper's revolutionary direction, creates something beautiful. Falling from first in the top 200 to fourth in The Fifty Years Poll, I decided that it was the right time to have another look at this classic story.

From the beginning the set up is great, an endless bitter war, a society that has been corrupted by greed so now (apart from The Doctor and Peri) there are no truly good characters. We have Sharaz Jek - a man who has been warped by the cruel treatment he received Morgus that he has been forced to isolate himself from beauty in the caves and carry the scars; we have Morgus - a greedy manipulative egocentric man who is prepared to kill in order to ensure his own prosperity; General Chellak - a man who will follow all orders, even if they go against his own opinions, and use that as an excuse for his actions (reflecting the Nazis at the Nuremburg Trials); Selateen - a man who may appear good but rejoices in Peri's misfortune as it ensures his own survival; and the gunrunners - who fire upon their own men and are just after the money. Even the secretary is evil, discrediting Morgus so she can take over the company and become more powerful. Holmes creates a hopeless world, populated by some of the most egocentric characters ever to be depicted in Doctor Who.

Along with the cast we have the revolutionary direction used by Graeme Harper. The direction here, goes against all the camera work norms enabling the story to have a fast pace which revels Douglas Campfield himself. This revolutionary directing shows how the show is evolving and foreshadows what it will become.

The tension is brought to breaking point and the only thing which could have made the situation The Doctor faced worse would of been to have had the queen bat's chamber to have been filled with the gas which The Fifth Doctor is allergic to.

In a story where only Peri survives (not even The Doctor makes it out of this one), it becomes a disaster move from the outset - not just any action adventure serial. Holmes' rich script enabled Peter Davison to really showcase his acting at it is faultless in this story. I have many problems with parts of The Fifth Doctor era but this story is truly a classic. It further highlights the benefit of having a single companion with The Fifth Doctor, this is the only story in his era to do so - possibly this inspired Big Finish later. Not forgetting Peri here who goes beyond the atypical screaming companion with Nicola Bryant's exceptional performance in the scenes with Sharaz Jek.

This story is truly a classic. The greatest Doctor Who story of all time? No. There are others which have something else, this is just a faultless story but it is just missing something to elevate it to that position in my opinion. The best regeneration story of all time? Possibly. It will always be between The Caves of Androzani and The War Games. Personally it is The War Games but that is probably because I am a Second Doctor fan. Despite all this, it is a classic. A fitting end to The Fifth Doctor's era.

10/10

The First Fifty Years Poll

Recently Doctor Who Magazine has done it's First Fifty Years Poll and I personally like how this one went more than I did the Top 200 Poll. Now we are not going to publish a full list since you should all get the magazine and read it but we are going to compare the top fifteen of this poll and others.

First Fifty Years
1 The Day of the Doctor              
2 Blink                                    
3 Genesis of the Daleks     
4 The Caves of Androzani            
5 City of Death                    
6 The Talons of Weng Chiang  
7     The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances    
8 Pyramids of Mars
9 Human Nature/Family of Blood  
10 Remembrance of the Daleks 
11 The Robots of Death        
12 The War Games                      
13 Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways      
14 Terror of the Zygons                  
15 Dalek              

Top 200                                  
1 The Caves of Androzani            
2 Blink                                      
3 Genesis of the Daleks              
4 The Talons of Weng Chiang
5 The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
6 Human Nature/Family of Blood    
7      Pyramids of Mars  
8 City of Death                  
9 The Robots of Death          
10 Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways
11 The Girl in the Fireplace      
12 Turn Left                                    
13 The Stolen Earth/Journey's End  
14 Remembrance of the Daleks    
15 Dalek        

Personal
1 The Invasion
2 The Sea Devils
3 Remembrance of the Daleks
4 The Daemons
5 The Dalek Master Plan
6 Doctor Who and the Silurians
7      The Web of Fear
8 The Power of the Daleks
9 The Tomb of the Cybermen
10 Human Nature/Family of Blood
11 Genesis of the Daleks
12 Inferno
13 The Evil of the Daleks
14 The Ark in Space
15 The Girl in the Fireplace             

I apologise for the formatting it was a bit difficult to get it all on one page and Doctor Who and the Silurians had to be shortened. The Daleks did very well with one third of the top fifteen featuring Daleks and it is interesting to see where stories from the Tennant era have fallen in favour. The Day of the Doctor came top which I am personally pleased with as it is testament to how strong the story was but I suspect in the future it may struggle to hold onto that spot. 

Stories like Stolen Earth/Journey's End and Turn Left have both dropped by about twenty ranks but as you can see from my review the general hype of Rose's return and all the companions being present have now warn off in some cases and people are beginning to see the stories for what they really are.

My favourite - The Invasion did not come top in the new poll but it was one of the only two stories not to achieve a one (along with Terror of the Zygons) and it has done this twice now making it the Least Disliked Doctor Who Story of all time.

Still think The Dalek Master Plan is too low (how is it worse than The Daleks which is so overlong and dull) but most of all I am pleased with The Second Doctor Era Stories, they did very well. The Second Doctors Era had:

• All of the top six stories of the 1960s
• The two most improved stories
• The least disliked story

It is difficult to do a coherent review of the whole survey without spoiling it any more than I did but you can make your own decisions on what you thought any way. To finish off the main five stories I think were ranked too high and the main five I think were ranked too low:

TOO HIGH

1. Pyramids of Mars (I do not get this story, it is a classic in parts but slow in others IMO)
2. The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
3. The Mutants (AKA The Daleks)
4. An Unearthly Child (Part One is good but parts two - four are tragically bad - despite being the first)
5. Midnight (Cardboard characters, slow, very little happens)

(Sorry if one of these five is your all time favourites these are all my personal opinion and we are all entitled to our opinions)

TOO LOW

1. The Space Pirates (There is a very good story down there just it is all lost along with its reputation)
2. Nightmare in Silver (The Cybermen are now a threat for the first time since Earthshock)
3. Colony in Space (I love this story)
4. The Hungary Earth/Cold Blood (Why do people hate this?)
5. The Invasion (For personal reasons)

Voyage of the Damned

A disaster story that is another that is poorly regarded by Doctor Who fans, but another I believe people should have another look at. It dropped 44 places in the First 50 Years Poll but there is a good story hidden in there.

With a bunch of stereotypical, yet well played and enjoyable characters, The Doctor ventures through the realms of the Titanic (listening to interesting Earth 'trivia') as he attempts to rescue the ship and prevent it from crashing into Earth. Turn Left would later take away some of the threats from this story since it claimed that the crash would wipe out London whereas in here it is the whole planet (continuity disaster!). I really like the character of Astrid, Banakafalata (I think that is right - why does RTD need to have really long alien names [Raxocrociofallapatorius - or there about springs to mind]), Alonso Frame and Mr Copper. They are fun which is what this story is - fun. It is a Christmas special therefore it is not meant to be overly dark. On rewatch I wondered why they did not have Host D84 on board (or a more explicit reference to Robots of Death as practically the host plot was practically the same as the robot plot in The Robots of Death - they could have just been the same design with wings and sprayed gold). The score is very good here and it is just a fun romp. A couple of problems include the second kiss scene and The Doctor flying with the heavenly host.

In summary a fun story it. Now my scoring has not been very clear but this story is to receive a seven which puts in the category of a good solid story.

7/10