Time is Relative - Season Five

Season Five of Doctor Who is really good. As a result I've taken rather more photos than normal. So I'm splitting this Season in two.


Here's part one of Season Five. "The One with All the Monsters."



1. The Tomb of the Cybermen

Doctor Who goes to the planet where the Cybermen are all sleeping underground for some reason. He meets a bunch of guys who want to wake the Cybermen up, so they can get killed by them.


Doctor Who is not sure this is a great idea, but he is also quite interested to see what it will look like, so he lets them do it.

The Cybermen all sleep in these exciting space bunks. They wake up. It is a quite convincing depiction of people waking up after a big sleep, as they all stumble around for a bit, looking confused and horrified and like they don't even know who they are.

This guy with the massive head is the Cyber Controller. He is the best Cyberman, even though he looks like the worst. The one at the front is thinking "How did this guy get to be controller? He never shows up for meetings and his head looks like a penis!"

Raar! This Cyberman is doing a pounce, like a metal leopard. Pretty much everyone in the story gets killed by the Cybermen. Which makes the story quite effective - they're mostly quite interesting characters, so you're a bit sad when they all die horribly to satisfy Doctor Who's curiousity.




2. The Abominable Snowmen

This story is great. Jamie - in the skirt - and Victoria - in the trousers - run away from a robot Yeti - in the fur coat, in the background.


"Jamie is saying, "Let's not run directly away from the monster - let's go quite near it." This is because the monster is really slow, and Jamie doesn't want it to get dispirited.

Why are there robot Yeti? You may as well ask "Why did the Cybermen in the last story have tiny robot mice as pets?" Just accept that they are here, and that we will now spend six weeks wandering around Wales,  being scared of them. Or finding them delightfully fluffy. Whichever.




3. The Ice Warriors

The Ice Warriors are a bunch of Mars lizards who wake up in some ice and are unreasonably cross with everyone as a result. It's not anyone else fault you fell asleep in ice, you idiots! What is it with you aliens and falling asleep in ice, this season?


Anyway. Victoria - not one of my favourites, but cute enough - soon realises that the Mars lizards are total jerks, and runs away from them. This is the latest in a long line of rejections for the guy in the background. "What's wrong with me?" he's thinking. "Is it the glasses?"


It is, at the very least, the glasses.

Ice Warriors are a pretty good design, I think. This is a really stylish shot, too. They look all menacing and exciting. Compare to the guy in the last photo. What happened? Did he get to choose his costume last? Is he on work experience?

Doctor Who looks sort of worried by the Ice Warriors, here. But I think the Ice Warrior guy is just saying "Why won't you look at me when I'm talking? It's really rude!"


People never look at each other in early Doctor Who. They all just look at the camera. It's a stylistic thing, I think, so we can see everyone's faces. But it just looks like no-one is really listening to each other. No wonder they're all so angry.


I bet all the aliens go back to their home planets and the Emperor goes "What was Earth like?" and they say, "Awful. No-one will maintain eye contact!" and the Emperor goes "I hate people like that, let's invade them loads of times!"






4. The Enemy of the World

Look! A helicopter! This story looks really expensive and exciting. And it is, indeed, really good. And there are strong, interesting women in it. And no embarrassing monsters that look stupid.


There must be something wrong with it, surely?

Doctor Who is in it twice, this week. Because there's an evil dictator called Salamander, who looks just like him. It's not like that time when the Daleks tried to make a robot of Doctor Who.

It's just a massive, implausible co-incidence.

Here, Salamander is having a cigar. He might be evil, but he's also really cool. Evil people are cool, aren't they?
I don't know why anyone ever bothers being good.

This guy is also evil, but he is definitely not cool. He's a complete dickhead to everyone. Look at his face. He's saying, "I'm enjoying the evil that I'm doing right now."


Victoria is meant to be scared. I think her performance is closer to 'extreme sexual excitement.' It's a bold choice.




That's half way through Season Five. See you soon for part two!



Click here for Season 5, part two

Go back to Season 4