Post by kieran on Sept 23, 2021 8:50:46 GMT
Series 9 was definitely a mixed bag with some stories that were great and others... less so. The most noteworthy thing about it though is how much more likeable Pertwee's Doctor becomes, perhaps because the UNIT folk are largely absent this time so he spends less time butting heads. He has some great interactions with Jo (who is fast becoming my favourite companion thus far despite my initial misgivings) that really show the warmth and humour that he's been a bit lacking up till now.
Day of the Daleks
Hey, the Daleks are back - it's been a while, Anyway, there's a lot crammed into four episodes here, but it just about works. It might have been more fun to play up the ghost angle at the start (of course that would have required changing the story title as well so as not to give the game away), but I have no issues with the direction it took. The dystopian nature of the future manages to come across despite the tiny amount of screen time devoted to it and the guerillas make the most of their limited character development. The most interesting character however is the Controller, someone who has given up any hope in defeating the Daleks and has resigned himself to trying to mitigate their harsher impulses - his turnabout and self sacrifice were very convincing. The Ogrons are quite cool too - reminded me of the Uruk Hai from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. Of course, there are problems with the plot - the story implies you cannot change history until it turns out you can, the guerillas' absolute certainty that Styles is a villain is odd given how little is known about the incident, and wouldn't an attempted murder of delegates be almost as damaging to international relations as a successful one? But all in all, a good start to the series.
The Curse of Peladon
This had the potential to be an interesting mystery if the writers hadn't decided to make the villains so obvious. As it is, it's more the tedious "we know who the villains are and are just waiting for the Doctor to work it all out and foil them" approach of Series 7's Ambassadors of Death. There's some good stuff - Jo impersonating a princess raises the odd chuckle, there's a decent arena combat, the Doctor actually gets to show a bit of his tender side and having the Ice Warriors as good guys was a nice twist even if it was revealed a bit too early. But the "wet fish" king (who looks like Christoper Walken playing David Bowie), a fairly leaden pace despite being only four episodes, a half-hearted attempt at making Hepesh seem somewhat well-intentioned, nonsensical plot points (Hepesh is worried about the Federation taking the planet's resources so makes a deal with Arcturus which allows the latter to take the planet's resources) a disappointing monster and the supremely annoying Alpha Centauri mean this is the worst story in a while.
The Sea Devils
The Silurians have had a bit of a redesign, waved away by these Silurians being a different subspecies from those that appeared in Series 7 (though oddly the Doctor is confident that these will have the exact same personalities and goals as their distant cousins - and to be fair to him, they pretty much do). Even though it was pretty rubbery, I quite liked their old "Creature from the Black Lagoon" look. This new design, coupled with them being seemingly amphibious, makes them come across even less reptilian. Anyway, this story was very good - up to a point. I liked the early scenes in the prison, the banter between the Doctor and the Master (though I don't really buy this new frenemy angle - doesn't really fit with the Master wanting to eradicate humanity out of spite), Jo's rescue attempt, Trenchard and Walker's exaggerated "Good Old Boy" characters, little humorous touches like the Doctor stealing Jo's sandwiches and the Master watching The Clangers, and the Doctor's attempts to broker a peace between the Silurians where he failed before. There's some interesting questions raised here: even though he has his own ulterior motives, is the Master actually right to say the Silurians cannot trust humanity? After all, both in this story and the previous, humans repeatedly choose aggression over peace. Maybe the Doctor should be siding with the Silurians? Unfortunately, this interesting question is largely ignored in the last episode. In fact, everything pretty much falls apart in this episode. The Doctor and the Master both forget everything they know about each other, the Silurians go from formidable foes to pushovers, there's a pointless speedboat chase and the Doctor just gives up on a peaceful solution to side with the more aggressive humans. It's also a pity Jo was barely used in the second half of the story, after being so capable in the first. Pity as up until the last episode, this was shaping up to be my favourite Pertwee story thus far.
The Mutants
This kind of reminded me of Series 2's The Space Museum where 4 or 5 people are subjugating a planet of another 4 or 5 people. I know this is a budget limitation, but it always makes it hard to get into stories like this. It also suffers from a leaden pace, a textbook villain, unconvincing action scenes and some of the worst acting I've seen so far in the show. Jo is also once again barely used here, a pity as I feel her character has gone from strength to strength since her introduction. It's not all bad, there's some interesting points about colonisation and brutality being excused as 'civilising', and the initial episode has some good cynicism in Earth presenting its abandonment of an unprofitable colony as 'liberating' it. I also quite liked the idea of an alien race that cycles through higher lifeforms and environmental experiments messing with this process though it just wasn't all that engaging a story as told here. Also if the cycle is only 500 years (and the process had actually been sped up in this instance), you would think the Solonians would have some sort of oral tradition about it rather than viewing it as a sickness. The investigators being quite fair-minded also seemed at odds with the callous way humans viewed the colony in the earlier episodes. And to top it all off, it's another of these stories resolved by the Doctor twiddling with a wire while no-one is looking which is fast becoming my least favourite Dr Who trope. All in all, it's neither particularly fun nor particularly interesting and I found myself struggling to find anything much to say about it.
The Time Monster
This is more like it! The early stages reminded me of Series 8's The Daemons with the Master trying to summon a powerful entity, but I think it feels more in character here, as it's more like a scientific experiment than an occult ritual. I also enjoyed the Master's interactions with the faculty staff and the UNIT people. It does feel like Stuart and Dr Ingram are being set up to be major players in this story and they then kinda fall by the wayside later on - also maybe I misheard, but I could have sworn the first episode said they were brother and sister and yet they appear to be unrelated later on. Probably my misunderstanding and I don't suppose it matters anyway! The middle chunk of the story is great fun with the Doctor and the Master trying to out-think each other in temporal mechanics. Not sure any of it made any sense but it was highly enjoyable nonetheless. And then the final parts of the story were my favourite, where they end up in Atlantis. The costumes and set design are astonishing considering they're only really used in just two episodes and the script does a great job of displaying a lot of political depth in Atlantean society in so short a time. And although it was silly, I loved the Doctor fighting the minotaur like a matador. The resolution in the end is a complete deus ex machina, but I thought it was quite a cool one at least, Kronos appearing very different from the flappy birdman of earlier. I also like how little she cares about the Master escaping in the end - you really get a sense that she is beyond normal concerns. My favourite moment though is when the Doctor and Jo have their conversation about daisies, it really made the Doctor seem so much more human. If I was to pick up on any negatives to the story, Krasis was quite annoying and didn't really add all that much to the story anyway and I didn't like Kronos' flappy birdman design. Also if I were to be really nitpicky, the story confuses Cronus the Titan with Chronos the personification of time who were two different figures in Greek mythology. But these are minor points and this is easily one of my favourite Doctor Who stories thus far.
Series 9 ranking:
1. The Time Monster
2. The Sea Devils
3. Day of the Daleks
4. The Curse of Peladon
5. The Mutants
Day of the Daleks
Hey, the Daleks are back - it's been a while, Anyway, there's a lot crammed into four episodes here, but it just about works. It might have been more fun to play up the ghost angle at the start (of course that would have required changing the story title as well so as not to give the game away), but I have no issues with the direction it took. The dystopian nature of the future manages to come across despite the tiny amount of screen time devoted to it and the guerillas make the most of their limited character development. The most interesting character however is the Controller, someone who has given up any hope in defeating the Daleks and has resigned himself to trying to mitigate their harsher impulses - his turnabout and self sacrifice were very convincing. The Ogrons are quite cool too - reminded me of the Uruk Hai from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. Of course, there are problems with the plot - the story implies you cannot change history until it turns out you can, the guerillas' absolute certainty that Styles is a villain is odd given how little is known about the incident, and wouldn't an attempted murder of delegates be almost as damaging to international relations as a successful one? But all in all, a good start to the series.
The Curse of Peladon
This had the potential to be an interesting mystery if the writers hadn't decided to make the villains so obvious. As it is, it's more the tedious "we know who the villains are and are just waiting for the Doctor to work it all out and foil them" approach of Series 7's Ambassadors of Death. There's some good stuff - Jo impersonating a princess raises the odd chuckle, there's a decent arena combat, the Doctor actually gets to show a bit of his tender side and having the Ice Warriors as good guys was a nice twist even if it was revealed a bit too early. But the "wet fish" king (who looks like Christoper Walken playing David Bowie), a fairly leaden pace despite being only four episodes, a half-hearted attempt at making Hepesh seem somewhat well-intentioned, nonsensical plot points (Hepesh is worried about the Federation taking the planet's resources so makes a deal with Arcturus which allows the latter to take the planet's resources) a disappointing monster and the supremely annoying Alpha Centauri mean this is the worst story in a while.
The Sea Devils
The Silurians have had a bit of a redesign, waved away by these Silurians being a different subspecies from those that appeared in Series 7 (though oddly the Doctor is confident that these will have the exact same personalities and goals as their distant cousins - and to be fair to him, they pretty much do). Even though it was pretty rubbery, I quite liked their old "Creature from the Black Lagoon" look. This new design, coupled with them being seemingly amphibious, makes them come across even less reptilian. Anyway, this story was very good - up to a point. I liked the early scenes in the prison, the banter between the Doctor and the Master (though I don't really buy this new frenemy angle - doesn't really fit with the Master wanting to eradicate humanity out of spite), Jo's rescue attempt, Trenchard and Walker's exaggerated "Good Old Boy" characters, little humorous touches like the Doctor stealing Jo's sandwiches and the Master watching The Clangers, and the Doctor's attempts to broker a peace between the Silurians where he failed before. There's some interesting questions raised here: even though he has his own ulterior motives, is the Master actually right to say the Silurians cannot trust humanity? After all, both in this story and the previous, humans repeatedly choose aggression over peace. Maybe the Doctor should be siding with the Silurians? Unfortunately, this interesting question is largely ignored in the last episode. In fact, everything pretty much falls apart in this episode. The Doctor and the Master both forget everything they know about each other, the Silurians go from formidable foes to pushovers, there's a pointless speedboat chase and the Doctor just gives up on a peaceful solution to side with the more aggressive humans. It's also a pity Jo was barely used in the second half of the story, after being so capable in the first. Pity as up until the last episode, this was shaping up to be my favourite Pertwee story thus far.
The Mutants
This kind of reminded me of Series 2's The Space Museum where 4 or 5 people are subjugating a planet of another 4 or 5 people. I know this is a budget limitation, but it always makes it hard to get into stories like this. It also suffers from a leaden pace, a textbook villain, unconvincing action scenes and some of the worst acting I've seen so far in the show. Jo is also once again barely used here, a pity as I feel her character has gone from strength to strength since her introduction. It's not all bad, there's some interesting points about colonisation and brutality being excused as 'civilising', and the initial episode has some good cynicism in Earth presenting its abandonment of an unprofitable colony as 'liberating' it. I also quite liked the idea of an alien race that cycles through higher lifeforms and environmental experiments messing with this process though it just wasn't all that engaging a story as told here. Also if the cycle is only 500 years (and the process had actually been sped up in this instance), you would think the Solonians would have some sort of oral tradition about it rather than viewing it as a sickness. The investigators being quite fair-minded also seemed at odds with the callous way humans viewed the colony in the earlier episodes. And to top it all off, it's another of these stories resolved by the Doctor twiddling with a wire while no-one is looking which is fast becoming my least favourite Dr Who trope. All in all, it's neither particularly fun nor particularly interesting and I found myself struggling to find anything much to say about it.
The Time Monster
This is more like it! The early stages reminded me of Series 8's The Daemons with the Master trying to summon a powerful entity, but I think it feels more in character here, as it's more like a scientific experiment than an occult ritual. I also enjoyed the Master's interactions with the faculty staff and the UNIT people. It does feel like Stuart and Dr Ingram are being set up to be major players in this story and they then kinda fall by the wayside later on - also maybe I misheard, but I could have sworn the first episode said they were brother and sister and yet they appear to be unrelated later on. Probably my misunderstanding and I don't suppose it matters anyway! The middle chunk of the story is great fun with the Doctor and the Master trying to out-think each other in temporal mechanics. Not sure any of it made any sense but it was highly enjoyable nonetheless. And then the final parts of the story were my favourite, where they end up in Atlantis. The costumes and set design are astonishing considering they're only really used in just two episodes and the script does a great job of displaying a lot of political depth in Atlantean society in so short a time. And although it was silly, I loved the Doctor fighting the minotaur like a matador. The resolution in the end is a complete deus ex machina, but I thought it was quite a cool one at least, Kronos appearing very different from the flappy birdman of earlier. I also like how little she cares about the Master escaping in the end - you really get a sense that she is beyond normal concerns. My favourite moment though is when the Doctor and Jo have their conversation about daisies, it really made the Doctor seem so much more human. If I was to pick up on any negatives to the story, Krasis was quite annoying and didn't really add all that much to the story anyway and I didn't like Kronos' flappy birdman design. Also if I were to be really nitpicky, the story confuses Cronus the Titan with Chronos the personification of time who were two different figures in Greek mythology. But these are minor points and this is easily one of my favourite Doctor Who stories thus far.
Series 9 ranking:
1. The Time Monster
2. The Sea Devils
3. Day of the Daleks
4. The Curse of Peladon
5. The Mutants