TV Series Review: Doctor Who (The Curse of Fenric)

Hah, you guys thought this would be on season six didn't you? Well I haven't actually had time to watch the last episode yet plus I like to give myself more than a day to reflect on things before I write a review, the timing here is actually just a coincidence. But why did I go back to Classic Who now when I have so much else to watch you might ask, it was actually because of one of the new episodes. Some of my friends on facebook had seen the episode before I had a chance to and were half freaking out half saddened by it so naturally I start speculating what happened. I guessed, from their comments, that something happened to a companion (I guessed it was probably to Amy) came up with a few theories, discarded an obvious one and then thought of something that I had only heard about happening once in Doctor Who and lo and behold that's what happened. I remembered what serial it came from, asked a friend of mine who loves Classic Who if they happened to have the DVDs for it (and they realized immediately why I was asking for them) and it turns out this was one of their favorites as well so I was in luck. And now, back to the Seventh Doctor and amazing companion Ace for a very satisfying serial.

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric

Summary: The Doctor and Ace have landed in Northern UK in World War II and the Doctor is intrigued by one of the scientists who is using a code cracking machine to try and translate centuries old Viking runes in the local church crypt. The runes don't tell a happy story though and with mysterious Russian soldiers showing up on the beach will this story end unhappily as well?

The Good: On the advice of my friend I watched the special edition of this serial which had edited together all the episodes into one movie and, going by what my friend said, rearranged some scenes to better match the order they were in the originals script (apparently the order had to be changed to fit in the broadcast times). I liked not having to fast-forward through the opening and ending credits each time so this was a nice feature, although I'm curious which parts were switched around for the tv version. Regardless, Ace is now one of my favorite companions after this episode (partially because she is one of the few to really yell at the Doctor when he's keeping her in the dark) for how resourceful and capable she is. She's a fully recognized character and, something I've pointed out before as a difference between Class and Nu companions, it feels like she's traveling with the Doctor for her own reasons and expects to have some fun and adventures without him, unlike all the current companions who travel with the Doctor just because of the Doctor.

The Bad: Part of the reason I'm so curious about the change in order of events in this serial is because there were several points when I didn't understand why there was a scene change from one to another one, why that second one was so important at that moment, and had a little bit of trouble figuring out what was going on at a few points. The head of the English forces also seemed mad for no reason (was he paranoid? possessed? just plain crazy?) and I was completely confused by his motivations for the entire story, it felt like the writers needed someone to cause problems and that he was the man for the job. Honestly there were a number of little bits about this serial that I either didn't pick up or that confused me, perhaps they would make more sense on a second watch-though but I already knew all the major plot points of this episode and that didn't seem to help much.

The Audio: One thing that I didn't even notice while I was watching is how absolutely none of the English characters sound like they're in northern UK and apparently it was even in the script that some of the actors accents should change but that certainly didn't happen here. The opening theme still sounds incredibly 80s (which for me isn't a good thing) but other than that I was paying more attention to the visuals on screen than any of the background music, background music from live action shows just doesn't stick with me as well for some reason.

The Visuals: My friend mentioned that the special edition included some touch-ups to the special effects and either they were wrong or the touch-ups were really good since none of the special effects jumped out at me in a jarring manner (they still weren't the best but they were regular, Doctor Who level, looking decent effects). The prosthetics on some of the creatures still looked rather silly however (and I wanted to burst out laughing each time the two girls-turned-monsters appeared on screen, such 80s hair) but again, Doctor Who has never had the budget needed to do a lot of really quality special effects.

So a good character episode but I didn't think the actual plot was so great, or at least that it was execute in the past manner it could have been. But oh well, I like the Seventh Doctor and Ace pretty well so I did enjoy this serial pretty well, now let's see how I enjoy the current stuff!

TV Series REview: Doctor Who (Earthshock)

Wow, sorry for forgetting to post yesterday guys, was moving back into my dorm so I completely forgot to get this up. Hopefully once I get used to the new schedule that won't happen again (but then again, not sure when tomorrow's review will be up, hmmmmm).

Since Doctor Who is starting up again next Saturday it's only appropriate that I review yet another classic serial now. This one is from the Fifth Doctor's era, Peter Davidson who is actually an actor my mom was familiar with since he also did Tristan in All Creatures Great and Small (she was unhappy to see how he's aged over the years when I showed her a screenshot from Time Crash clip though). This serial is well-known in the Who fandom for doing something which has happened surprisingly infrequently (I won't say what for the few who don't know it) but I was sadly spoiled in advance thanks to tvtropes, oh well.


Doctor Who: Earthshock

Summary: The Doctor continues his travels through time and space with the various companions he has picked up along the way, this time with Adric, Nyssa and Tegan (the lone human of the group, definitely an oddity for NuWho fans). They become involved with a military group of people inthe 26th century who are investigating why a bunch of paleontologists have gone missing and uncover a sinister plot by some of the Doctor's old enemies. 

The Good: Once again it's nice to see a serial where the Doctor has more than one companion (especially since it's a mixed gender group) and, despite the fact that the serial was only four episodes, Nyssa and Teagan both got enough screentime to show off what they were like (with Adric getting more since this episode was meant to focus on him). Also nice is how there is a good mix of male and female secondary characters, both in the military group the Doctor and co run into but on the spaceship as well. I'm so used to seeing large male casts with a couple of token female characters that I'm always pleasantly surprised when a series bucks the trend and Doctor Who seems to do it rather consistently. David Tennant, the actor who played the tenth Doctor, says that Peter Davidson was his Doctor growing up and it's very easy to see why in this episode. Early on Adric and the Doctor are talking and the way he reacts, even the way he moves his head are very reminiscent of how the tenth Doctor acted, a neat little detail (on Tennants part). 


The Bad: As mentioned earlier, the two good twists in this serial have already been completely spoiled for the modern viewer which is rather unfortunate since neither of them were leaked before the original broadcast. Another problem for a viewer like myself, who isn't very familiar with the classic Doctors and their companions/reoccurring characters is that sometimes you just don't connect to them the way you're meant to which was a little bit of a problem as well. As for the episode itself, the ending feels a bit forced, as if the writers knew what they wanted to end the serial on but didn't exactly figure out how to make things progress to that point. It works but it's not as good as it could be which seems to sum up this whole serial.

The Audio: Once again the theme song has slightly changed (although sadly not the slightly creepy opening credits that go along with it) and the cybermen's voices also sound a bit different from their NuWho counterparts. Nothing else caught my ear when I was watching so onto the visuals.


The Visuals: It's not a Doctor Who episode without aliens and this time around it's the cybermen. Their designs here are certainly better than their earlier incarnations but compared to the NuWho designs it's hard not to wince. The costume department really needed to make the outfits out of thicker/less form-fitting material (it's hard to take them seriously when all the contours look like the shape of a regular human) and someone needed to coach the actors into walking more like robots (again, it's hard to take them seriously when they move the way a human does instead of the way a less mobile robot would). Other than that, the settings seemed fine (not perfect but certainly passable) and not overly ambitious.

While I would recommend this serial over all, it's got pretty good writing and pacing, I don't think I would recommend it if you're completely unfamiliar with the Fifth Doctor like I was. I just feel like this serial would have worked better if I was a bit more emotionally connected to the characters, although considering how shrill Tegan was in these four episodes alone I'm not sure how much more of her I want to see.....  

TV Series Review: Doctor Who (The War Games)

And now for something a little different, I've reviewed NuWho and seen all of it but this was my first time seeing any of the Classic Doctor Who. I've been curious about it for a while and found this video by Nash of TGWTG recommending which episodes would be interesting to someone whose familiar with NuWho but not Classic Who. So, after discovering that my library apparently has every Doctor Who DVD ever, I went with the earliest in the bunch which is actually a fairly significant one. It's the longest serial (back in the day, each story took multiple episodes and were called serials) consisting of 10 episodes and clocking in at nearly four hours, it was the 50th serial, the last one shot in black and white, the first time that the Doctor's race is named (the Time Lords, I believe they had already mentioned they were from the planet Gallifrey) and the final one starring the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. So, without knowing anything about this particular Doctor or the companions I charged right in and enjoyed this much more than I expected.

Doctor Who: The War Games

Summary: The Tardis has once again deposited the Doctor and his companions (Zoe from the 21st century and Jamie from the 18th) where they didn't expect to be and it seems that they are in 1917 in the trenches of World War I. However, even the people from this time period aren't entirely sure where they are or how long they've been fighting, the general has everyone under his absolute control and people from other times and places start showing up. If the Doctor and company want to get out of being executed as deserters/spies then they'll need to figure out just whats going on and who is pulling all the strings.

The Good: Now THAT is a plot heavy episode, one that is much bigger and more complex than it originally seems yet makes perfect sense in the end, there was some very strong writing here. The main characters are also interesting, the Tardis crew has great chemistry with each other, and not one sided (with the added bonus that Jamie and Zoe's backgrounds are alluded to, very nice for a new watcher), although the overall motivations of the villains is a little fuzzy, and they're great fun to watch. At times Zoe and Jamie (especially Zoe) seem more capable than many modern day companions, even if everyone gets kidnapped more times in one episode than most companions do in an entire season, and the Doctor seems to be having an awful lot of fun with all the trouble he gets into. It was really easy to get sucked into this serial and sympathize with the characters, despite knowing almost nothing about them, and that seems like the mark of really good writing and acting. 

The Bad: The episodes are well paced but there are some scene changes where it's a bit difficult to tell what just happened, usually when they change between a dimly lit set to another dimly lit set with different characters (if this was in color the scene change would have been more obvious and this probably wouldn't have been a problem). One character does vanish completely around the middle of the serial (the DVD commentary clears that up a bit) and the ending is a bit rushed since it has to send off so many different characters, some with better explanations than others.  

The Audio: The audio, as well as the visuals, have been very well preserved and there are very few instances when someone is miked too low to hear. It does feel a bit strange to hear another Doctor Who intro theme* but most fans have probably heard a compilation of the themes over the years anyway. Some of the sound effects (the special effects in general honestly) were cheesy and dated but that's to be expected from a 42 year old video. Could they have done better? Possibly, I'm not that familiar with video editing techniques from shows twice my age, but Doctor Who has never been a high budget show and the crew doing their best to work with what they have. 

The Visuals: The film quality does vary a bit but by and large the video looks fine (some of the darker scenes might even look a little better than the darker scenes in Buffy). The video seemed to look the worst when the Doctor and company kept running into the Romans (so that was probably all shot at the same time under similar conditions, maybe the lighting that day was strange?) and there is one point where Jamie describes an object as being large and green which seems a bit strange to hear from a character in a black and white show. The frame rate looks normal^ so if someone is holding off watching this serial because they aren't a big fan of black and white really has nothing to worry about, it looks just fine and probably better than you'd expect.




In short, I went into this expecting the episode to be hokey but okay and absolutely fell in love with it (which does make sense, I mean, this was recommended as one of the best Classic episodes). After this I'm really pumped to try more of the episodes on the list and will have to poke around the various Doctor Who communities to see what other Second Doctor stories are worth watching.




*although I was more weirded out by the Classic Doctor Who practice of having a floating head of the Doctor appear in the credits instead of the Tardis. The ending to the serial is even tripper however....
^there was a period in time when British television used a higher frame rate than American television does (I believe it was 60 frames per second instead of 30 frames per second) which made the movements look more realistic but also made the video look like it was being shot by a cheap camcorder/on the set of a Spanish soap-opera.