Wednesday, September 04, 2002

 

Cora's comments on Doctor Who:

As I've got both time and a good connection at the moment, I had the opportunity to watch yet another Doctor Who episode yesterday. This time around, it was Castrovalva, Peter Davison's first episode from 1982.

This story begins just where Logopolis left off, the final few minutes of Logopolis are even repeated at the beginning (where Peter Davison has notably darker and shorter hair than in the main story). Now I didn't particularily like Logopolis, it only got interesting in the last two episodes while the first two episodes were just one long pointless TARDIS runaround. So what do they do in Castrovalva? They make episodes one and two one big TARDIS runaround and wait until episode three to start with the actual story. Now I'm sure that the extensive TARDIS set was very expensive and used up a lot of the available budget. But is that a reason to have two stories in a row with large parts set inside the TARDIS? Especially if the TARDIS runarounds are rather boring? To be fair, the reason for all the TARDIS runarounds in Castrovalva is more valid than that in Logopolis. But on the other hand, in Logopolis we had at least a fully functioning Doctor running around the TARDIS. In Castrovalva we have an invalid Doctor, still suffering from the aftereffects of his regeneration.

As regenerations go, this one seems to have been rougher than usual, because the Doctor is incapacitated for much longer than in any of the other post-regeneration stories I have seen (which is most of them, the only ones I'm missing are first to second and fifth to sixth Doctor). He suffers the usual side effects, amnesia, erratic behaviour and the like. But this time around, the Doctor is in much worse shape than usual and desperately needs to find something called the zero room to recover. Which is a perfect excuse for the grand TARDIS runaround. Of course, the Doctor has never needed a zero room before, he has recovered just fine in various hospital beds after previous regenerations.

To be fair, Davison is great in these early TARDIS scenes. In fact, he is the only thing that kept me from switching off during the first two episodes. The way he keeps switching from almost normal to very confused, unravelling the Fourth Doctor's scarf to find his way around the TARDIS, while doing impressions of all his previous selves is a joy to watch. He also does the usual look in the mirror and find new clothes routine that all Doctors went through immediately after regeneration. Though I wonder why he is so displeased with his new appearance. After all, he is now younger and more handsome than ever. Davison really gives his all in this story. A very impressive and he certainly didn't have an easy start, considering he had to erase both the memory of Tom Baker and Tristam Farnam. It's impossible to know what the original viewers thought about his performance, but in my opinion he did great.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the three companions. In post-regeneration stories with the Doctor incapacitated, it's up to the companions to carry the plot. In all other instances I've seen (even the one with the Rani), the companions managed to rise to the challenge. These three don't. I don't know why these three actors were ever casted; they were probably sons, daughters, nieces or nephews of the production team or they had slept with the producer or something. It cannot have had anything to do with talent, because none of them has any.

In the first two episodes, the focus is largely on Tegan and Nyssa as they're struggling to control the TARDIS. I hated Tegan in the other episodes I've seen her in, but here she's actually the best of the three companions. She tries to cope with the situation as best as she can, she shows initiative (e.g. by stealing the ambulance at the beginning) and she doesn't once say that she has to get back to Heathrow. The idea that Tegan of all people would be able to fly the TARDIS is a little ridiculous. But then she didn't actually fly it.

Nyssa, on the other hand, was okay in the two or three Davison episodes I've seen her in and nearly non-existant in Logopolis. But here she's little more than a walking computer that explains complicated words and scientific concepts on cue. And she's not nearly as entertaining as K9. The worst bit is where Nyssa actually turns to the camera in the middle of a scene to explain to the viewer what hydrogen is. Was the production team told to make the show more educational or what? The bits that could have been good, e.g. Nyssa's confrontation with the Master (who after all killed her father and took over his body) are dealt with much too quickly. Does Nyssa have a personality? Does she have emotions? Does it matter?

Adric is absent for most of the story, as he gets kidnapped by the Master at the very beginning. Afterwards we mostly see him tied up in a web (which he seems to enjoy a little too much - check his crotch), though occasionally Adric (or projections of him - I'm not entirely sure) shows up in the TARDIS to sabotage things. And what's up with the projections anyway or the fact that Adric can control the TARDIS (which not even long time companions like Sarah Jane could) or the fact that he can create a whole world by calculations? Maybe this was explained when the character was introduced, but the Adric I've seen in Logopolis and two other Davison stories didn't seem to have any special powers. As a character Adric isn't so bad, it's just so actor who is utterly awful. I actually feel sorry for the poor kid. All he wants is help and get some recognition by the Doctor. Yet he keeps messing up and getting used for evil purposes. And the Doctor completely forgets about him until the final episode.

Talking of which, who ever thought that it would be a good idea to give the Fifth Doctor a companion (or two, Nyssa is very much a dependant as well) who needs a surrogate father? No wonder that this set-up doesn't work, as the Fifth Doctor is about the last person I can imagine as a father figure. Maybe it's a female thing, but Peter Davison has always inspired a certain mothering instinct in me, ever since I first saw him in All Creatures Great and Small (and I must have been about ten at the time). Hence I believe that an older woman like Evelyn from Real Time would have worked well with Davison. Alternatively, a single young female companion would have worked, too, considering that the Fifth Doctor is the youngest and most handsome incarnation yet. That's probably what they were aiming for with the last female companion of the Fifth Doctor, the one I haven't seen yet. But this three-people setup doesn't work. Nor does partnering the Fifth Doctor with young men.

The weaknesses of the companions could probably be forgiven, if the story itself was good. Unfortunately, Castrovalva isn't very good. Most of the time, it doesn't even make sense. The Master obviously isn't contented with just having cost the Doctor a regeneration and immediately sets up another trap. And then a trap behind the trap. Why even have a backup plan to kill the Doctor if the first one fails? Doesn't the Master have any other hobbies besides trying to kill the Doctor? For some reason, the Master needs Adric's previously unseen abilities to execute his plans. And he tries to convince Adric to join him, though what he wants to do with Adric once he's finished the Doctor off is anybody's guess. I mean, I can certainly understand the Master's interest in Jo Grant or even Nyssa. But Adric? Though we're talking of the Master here, so one shouldn't expect rationality.

That aside, the guy who plays the Master is actually quite good. Not quite as good as the original, but I don't know why so many people don't seem to like this incarnation. Okay, he chuckles a lot, but then he seems to enjoy being evil. Besides, the Master is obviously insane. And the revelation that the Master had been posing as the mayor (or whatever it was) of Castrovalva came as a real surprise. I had actually been suspecting the librarian.

The two plans of the Master are convoluted and needlessly complicated as always. The first trap was pretty obvious. As soon as Tegan and Nyssa read out the destination "Event One" in the TARDIS computer, I knew what was going to come. "Event One" is probably the usual Doctor Who term for what we would call the Big Bang (which created the universe not the galaxy, as Nyssa claims), at any rate I knew at once what it meant and was wondering why Tegan and Nyssa didn't try to do something about it. And I'm not really sure how jettisoning parts of the TARDIS helped, except that it got rid of the zero room and gave them a reason to go to Castrovalva. But then why introduce the zero room at all, if I'm not mistaken it's never been mentioned in any other story?

The Castrovalva plot strand is actually quite good and the designs and sets for the city are very good. But it takes us two episodes to get there. The science behind it all is utter bullshit, of course, but this isn't a show one watches for scientific accuracy. Though apparently this story and Logopolis (which was by the same writer) tried to introduce hard science into Doctor Who. Maybe that's why there is some really bad techno-babble in this episode (I usually don't midn techno-babble, but this is truly horrendous)? There's just one problem. A lot of talk about recursion and block computation and what not doesn't make a story scientific. And anybody who claims that Castrovalva is scientifically accurate is suffering from the 2001 syndrome: Bad science in SF so bad that it fails to make sense altogether combined with some philosophical mumbo-jumbo is suddenly mistaken for something deep and meaningful.

posted by Cora link 02:37