Greeting, humans.
I'm trying to watch all of Doctor Who, in order, from the start. It's taking ages. There's no end in sight. I might die before I finish.
I've taken some pictures of the screen, during my viewings. I present you to them here, in an effort to share a little of the highs and lows of my experience.
Here are links to my thoughts on:
Season One
Season Two
Season Three
And now, as sure as maths is maths, comes Season Four.
1. The Smugglers
The Smugglers is a story about some smugglers. There's one, trying to kill Doctor Who in the chin. He wouldn't have tried that with Matt Smith. He'd have done himself a mischief.
Actually, is that one of the smugglers? The plot's actually quite tricksy and not as simple as its "can't be arsed" title suggests. But I wasn't paying proper attention because it's
a) in black and white,
b) in history and therefore boring and
c) missing on video, so I was watching still photographs again. Sorry.
This photo delights me. Look at the guy in the background. He's so excited to be in Doctor Who! Maybe it's because he's a non white actor in 1960s television. There weren't a great many of them. Though this season has a few, making it a strong contender for the 'Almost Least Racist' era of the show.
2. The Tenth Planet
In this story, Doctor Who meets the Cybermen, who are ace. There's one, standing in the background. I think he looks terrific, even if he doesn't really have a nose.
Doctor Who and Polly look like they're both deeply embarrassed by the Cyberman, like he's being really homophobic.
He's not. He's saying "Weeeeeeeeee arrrrrrrrrrrrr Cyyyyyyyyyyy-Berrrrrrrrr-Meeeeeen".
I'm not kidding. They sound like idiots.
This is yet another of those stories with episodes missing. In this case, though, I can only applaud the BBC's foresight. This animated version of the episode looks great and much more impressive than the original episode probably looked. Well done, BBC, for throwing this one on a fire.
I have one issue, though. The Cyberman in the foreground looks really scary, like he's telling the humans that he won't put up with any dicking around. The one in the background, however, just looks distraught. I think maybe he's done a wee in his Cyber-suit, because he didn't want to interrupt the other one by asking if he could go to the toilet. Now he's sad.
Good thing he doesn't have a nose after all.
This looks great, though, doesn't it? Kaboom! This happens when the humans think they've killed all the Cybermen but, ha, in your face humans, because here are some more! So awesome is this entrance that I temporarily forgot whose side I was on and clapped as the Cybermen killed everyone.
3. Power of the Daleks
Doctor Who is quite tired after his adventure with the Cybermen, so he turns into someone else for a bit. See that guy there, with the dark hair? That's Doctor Who now.
What's great is, the programme makers didn't even bother to explain this astonishing development. They just went "Doctor Who is this guy now. Get used to it. Look, Daleks!"
And everyone went "Ooh! Daleks!" Because Daleks are fun.
The Dalek here is pretending to be nice. "I'm fine!" he's saying. "I like humans and being nice and not killing humans."
Doctor Who doesn't believe the Dalek at all. "Shut your lying whore mouth!" he shouts. The Dalek is quite taken aback at this. "What's got into Doctor Who?" he thinks, "And why is he wearing that hat?"
Look at Doctor Who's stupid hat. That's another way they tried to stop us worrying that it was a different guy. People just looked at the hat and went "Why is that hat happening?"
4. The Highlanders
Doctor Who goes mad in a hat. A different hat.
Polly and Ben are looking at him, thinking "This must be a nightmare."
I didn't enjoy The Highlanders much. They spent most of it on a boat. That's not "the Highlands". It's not even "the land".
5. The Underwater Menace
This is a fish person, doing a swim. This bit goes on for ages. It's like they forgot they were making Doctor Who and said "Let's just do anything for a bit." It's quite fun. You watch it, and you think, "Maybe nothing matters. Maybe this is just how things are."
Here Doctor Who is experimenting with yet another hat. This is his least successful, I think, and I reckon he knows it is.
The guy in the background has an awesome head garment though, doesn't he? But he's wearing it as if it's just normal practice to do so. It's not. This is why, in a bit, their whole civilisation will collapse and everyone will drown.
6. The Moonbase
Ben and Polly seem to have adopted a strategy of hiding from Doctor Who. He's wondering where they've gone. They're very pleased with themselves. What are you going to do if he leaves without you, Ben and Polly? Live on the moon forever? (They're on the moon).
No hat this week. Good. It was becoming tiresome.
More animated Cybermen. And look - the one in the back looks freaked out again. Maybe these are the same ones from The Tenth Planet. They've got different costumes, but I think they look like the same ones. The one at the back is thinking "I hope he doesn't ask me to explain the plan, because I wasn't listening when he explained the plan, and I won't be able to explain the plan."
I took lots of pictures of the Cybermen in this story. I think they're great. This one is just hanging out in space. I'd be scared if I met him. He looks like he doesn't take any shit.
Another fine Cyber- Pic. This one has stayed back in the spaceship to have a disco. I know their masks are just blank, but he looks happy, don't you think? Not ecstatic. Just really content. It's nice when everyone else goes out, isn't it?
In this story, the Cybermen poison everyone's coffee, and they get this disease on their face. It looks like that bit from The Evil Dead, where everyone gets spidery faces. I don't think it can be the same thing, though. That would make Evil Dead part of Doctor Who, which seems unlikely, tonally speaking.
I think this guy looks like David Tennant, a bit. It's probably not, though. He's got the space disease on his face, that I mentioned earlier. He's glum about it. And I think it means he does whatever the Cybermen tell him to do. But I don't know how that would work. It's just a space disease, done with coffee. How do you control people with that?
Sometimes Doctor Who doesn't really make sense.
Zap! Another black actor. Hurrah! Except he's been shot in the brain by the Cybermen. He looks startled, but not as startled as I think I'd be. He looks less like "Oh no, a huge silver robot man is in the cupboard!" and more like "I came in here for something and I've forgotten what it was."
7. The Macra Terror
Polly gets her hair cut in this one. It looks rather fetching. Also there are some evil space crabs that control everyone. With gas or something.
This is yet another story that doesn't exist any more, so it's very hard to tell what is going on. There's a lot of singing and I think there's a guy who goes "Stop singing, everyone - we're being controlled by evil space crabs!" No-one listens, because they like the singing, and because evil space crabs sound implausible.
This guy is being eaten by one of the crabs. I can't tell who he's meant to be, though. I think he might be the guy who is in charge of the colony, who suddenly decides to betray the evil space crabs. That's why they're eating him. "Don't betray us," they seem to be suggesting.
I don't know. I think I took this picture because Polly's face looks nice. But there's clearly something urgent happening. That guy in the middle looks like he's singing. Maybe they make a music video to appease the crabs.
It's not that unlikely. This era of the show is nuts.
8. The Faceless Ones
Doctor Who and his friends go to an airport, where they are attacked by this guy. He's an alien, but he's pretending not to be. That space gun is a giveaway, though. Idiot.
Later, the guy catches Polly. Here she is, being terrified of his space pencil. She leaves the show in this story. I think having to pretend to be scared of 'space pencils' was the final straw.
Look! A faceless one. He's really gross looking. Literally no face. That's why he wants to kidnap people who have got faces. Or as he calls them, "the face-y ones".
9. Evil of the Daleks
This one is awesome. The Daleks go to Victorian England for a bit, and harass this guy here into doing experiments for them. He's not scared, though, is he? He's shouting at the Dalek. "No experiments for you!"
You can't see from this angle, but the Dalek is sad. He wants to do the experiments.
Here, the Daleks stroke Doctor Who. He's enjoying it. The man with the beard wants a go, but they won't let him. He wishes he'd let them do experiments now.
This is the Emperor of the Daleks. He hangs from a ceiling all day, and is experimenting with nudity. The other Daleks don't know where to look. Later, they will all shoot each other to death. This is what happens when you abandon social convention.
That's all for Series Four. One of the weirdest series, and also one where hardly any of the episodes still exist. Sorry for the slightly odd series of pictures. But don't blame me. Blame the people in the 1960s who took the pictures in the first place.
They didn't even do a blog about it. Lazy.
No comments:
Post a Comment