Remembrance of the Daleks Review

Remembrance of the Daleks

Imperial Daleks under fire

Story 148, Episodes 668-671, Season 25 Episodes 1-4

Doctor: Seventh Doctor

Companions: Ace McShane

Doctor Who‘s drought of great stories finally ends with a taught, well-paced return to 1963 for one final showdown with the Daleks.

The Review

The girl and the black Dalek

It’s hard to believe this is the same show that only two stories ago gave us the silliness of Delta and the Bannermen. After a season of just being a rather generic silly guy, the Seventh Doctor snaps into focus as a sharp manipulator who carries an air of bored superiority. Several plot points seem to be missing, the Daleks have followed the Doctor back to Coal Hill School in 1963, we scarcely remember why there are two factions, and suddenly the First Doctor had this Hand of Omega thing lying around? Still, it absolutely works due to the confidence of the script, directing, and acting. The Doctor is suddenly unknowable, not just an arrogant git like the Sixth Doctor, but he’s playing a game we barely understand and don’t quite approve of. Still, the Doctor isn’t sure himself, he tells a deli clerk about the ripples decision makes, and wonders at the end of the story if he did do good.

Ace is gorgeous and beats up Daleks with bats and RPGs, what more could you want?

Ace immediately makes the best impression of a companion in years, no more being annoyed at the Doctor or terrified, Ace is bold and confident and it rules. She falls for an Agent Smith, who turns out to be fascist working with the Renegade Daleks. Setting side that she’s only 16, it’s cute until it’s heartbreaking. The simple discovery of a ‘no coloreds’ sign in Smith’s house is a dark moment. We have a tall not-Brigadier and two capable female physicists which is a delight, making a well-rounded (white) cast. Davros shows up late as the Dalek Emperor, but much more interesting is the brainwashed young girl at the heart of the Renegade faction. She has force lightning! Ultimately, the Doctor tricks the Daleks into destroying Skaro, which is a surprisingly dark. Although failed by the Daleks sometimes wobbling and bland sets, it’s a great adventure story and reminds me that, yes, the classic series can be good.

There are a few too many cheap references, and it feels like we’re missing some backstory, but Remembrance gives us a new mysterious Doctor and a young but capable companion with a smashing supporting cast. Will stories improve from here? Time will tell, it always does.

9.25/10 Seriously, the Dalek props look cool but are very unconvincing trundling along uneven roads.

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Season 24 Review

Season 24

Season 24

Doctor: Seventh Doctor

Companions: Mel Bush, Ace McShane

Season 24 marks a slight recovery as the show continues to work itself out of its late 80s hole, but offers nothing special.

The Review

Here’s the scores for the stories

Dragonfire: 8/10

Delta and the Bannermen: 8/10

Paradise Towers: 8/10

Time and the Rani: 7/10

Sylvester McCoy proves to be maybe the most understated of the classic Doctors, at least in this season. Understandable considering his late casting, the Doctor often feels rather generic but there’s a sort of warmth that emanates from the Seventh Doctor. The show has been reduced to four story seasons, and the first three are varying levels of silly. Where the Sixth Doctor was often just plain unlikable, with the Seventh Doctor they’re just wacky space adventures. Delta and the Bannermen gets the furthest off the path with a wild story that I can barely classify as Doctor Who about aliens going on holiday to a Welsh summer camp. Really, ‘camp’ is the prime word for this season, and in all honesty, it’s all perfectly watchable. Still, it’s been a long time since anyone has written something truly spectacular, and the classic series is running out of time. Ace does seem to be more dynamic than Mel, whose character arc basically got slashed when Colin Baker was fired, so let’s see how that turns out.

7.75/10 No serious misfires, but nothing interesting going on either

Dragonfire Review

Dragonfire

Sabalom Glitz wines and dines the Doctor

Story 147, Episodes 665-667, Season 24 Episodes 12-14

Doctor: Seventh Doctor

Companions: Mel Bush, Ace McShane

We get a rare recurring character and a unique well-realized setting which helps buoy a relatively straightforward plot.

The Review

Kane the Snow Miser

Iceworld seems set right out of Bioshock, an ultra-cold trading post home to the icy Kane who rules it from its depths. Though obviously using a ton of plastic, this is one of my favorite sets in the classic series. It is instantly unique, lived-in, and very much not a quarry. The aforementioned Kane played with straight laced evil by Edward Peel is a millennia old criminal whose body temperature needs to be so cold he kills with a touch. The plot is mainly a lot of wandering around Iceworld encountering a robotic dragon with a power cell ‘the dragon fire’ in its head, but thanks to the return of Sabalom Glitz and new companion Ace we are never bored. Tony Selby is back as the pathetic but charismatic scoundrel Glitz, and we’re very glad to see him return. There’s also a tiny plot thread of a young girl blissfully avoiding the chaos and getting to see the TARDIS dematerialize which is sweet.

Ace!

Sophie Aldred is the big addition here, as new companion ace. Mel is still around, and screams less while being just generally competent and liking to take the piss out of Glitz. Ace is only 16 years old, and acts like it despite Aldred being much older. A rebellious orphan removed from the 80s and sent to this colony is a stretch, but you can’t helped but be charmed by Ace. I wasn’t expecting her to be immature, but it’s charming. Mel eventually decides to go off with Glitz and be independent, which makes sense in the invisible Mel story arc we never got to actually see. Mel was independent but is still typically feminine, Ace very much isn’t so I’m excited to see her chemistry with McCoy, who is a cool confident center of this story. It’s a fine story, nothing special, but hopefully bodes well for next season.

It’s no better or worse than previous stories, but props for that setting! We do get to revisit the infamous cliffhanger in The Name of the Doctor too.

8/10 I wish Glitz would pop up again, he’s such a charming rogue

Very bizarre graphic death for Kane

Delta and the Bannermen Review

Delta and the Bannermen

The gang’s all here

Story 146, Episodes 662-664, Season 24 Episodes 9-11

Doctor: Seventh Doctor

Companions: Mel Bush

Is this show even Doctor Who anymore? I’m not sure, but it’s not completely terrible as we get a weird 50s romp out of nowhere.

The Review

Weird beings flying to space

I really don’t know what to make of this story. Essentially, it’s a complete send-up of 50s weird B-movies, but in a way that actually feels intentional as it’s jam-packed with era-appropriate music and everything. There are characters on characters, from a bus full of space tourists and their amusing captain who all get shockingly murdered to a pair of old bumbling American intelligence agents. Not to mention the proprietor and staff of a Welsh holiday camp called Shangri-la. The titular Delta as an austere queen of the Chimerons, a race that is sort of like bees but if bees were humanoid. The Bannermen do often have lots of banners with them and are led by a pretty uninteresting villain Gavrok. All this, in only three episodes, but honestly, three was plenty for this story.

Ray, the companion that almost was

The repeated usage of 50s hits plays very much to this story’s credit, and it’s anchored by a usually low-key but completely in control Sylvester McCoy. He does have one great moment ripping Gavrok which is impressive, and although there are few character traits so far other than metaphor mix-ups, I like his character. Mel benefits from less being more in this story, which works out well. Most intriguing is Ray, a handy mechanic who fails to draw the love of her childhood friend Billy who ends up joining the Queen. Written as a potential companion, it’s sad that she just has to ride off into the sunset alone. Often Doctor Who becomes a sci-fi B-movie on accident, rarely does it lean into it, it does so here saving the story but it’s still a little far removed from the show proper for me.

Even wackier than the previous story, but full of charm, Delta and the Bannermen has its place as one of the most out there stories in Doctor Who.

8/10 The American characters actually feel like real people for once!

The alien tourists deserved better than a shock death

Paradise Towers Review

Paradise Towers

Meeting the Red Kangs

Story 145, Episodes 658-661, Season 24 Episodes 5-8

Doctor: Seventh Doctor

Companions: Mel Bush

Life on the 304th floor isn’t everything its cracked up to be as Season 24 improves the bizarre but unique Paradise Towers.

The Review

The Chief Inspector post-possession by Great Architect

Paradise Towers feels like it’s supposed to be a satire about something nobody has ever heard of. As it stands, it’s a tale about a massive apartment complex (304 floors!) gone wrong. There are the Kangs, red and blue gangs of young women who are spraying graffiti and getting into trouble with names like ‘Fire Escape’. The Caretakers are the police force of the towers, all men, following an absurdly complex byzantine rulebook. Then, there are the Residents, old women who are surviving as cannibals. If anything, the classic series usually has white men and more white men as supporting characters, so two roving gangs of women is a fun difference. This is a story that really goes for it, it’s not great, but it feels fresh and weird and different in a way Time and the Rani failed to. Oh, and Mel screams less so that’s a plus for everyone involved.

A swimming pool robot with killer instinct

The villain is the Chief Caretaker, played by Richard Briers. I’ve seen reviews say is absurdly over the top, to the contrary, I think he’s exaggerated performance is a perfect fit in this story. When he gets possessed by the ‘Great Architect’ who wants humans to not pollute his art, his zombie-like performance is noticeably different. We also get ‘Pex’, an amusingly buff ‘hero’ of the towers who it turns out is a coward, but after flirting with Mel sacrifices himself to save the day. In contrast, McCoy’s Doctor is disappointingly pretty generic in this story, there are some moments of character like his silly rulebook escape and looking bored to tears watching an intro video on the towers but there’s not a lot of unique characterization going on so far. He’s certainly far less obstinate than his predecessor, but nothing has stood out in the first two stories.

Overall, Paradise Towers is a weird wacky adventure that feels like a send-up of…something, I don’t know, but it’s got its place in the charm of weird Who stories.

8/10 A full improvement from the previous story on uniqueness alone

Pex is buff, no dispute there

Time and the Rani Review

Time and the Rani

The Doctor and Mel, nothing to see here

Story 144, Episodes 654-655, Season 24 Episode 1-4

Doctor: Seventh Doctor

Companions: Mel Bush

Sylvester McCoy is thrown into the fire with another uninteresting script, as well as the BBC discovering CGI.

The Review

Kate O’Mara, star of the show

Time and the Rani is a confusing story that makes little sense, the Rani is trying to detonate a strange matter asteroid to get helium-2 to do things like reverse Earth to the Cretaceous. Most of this isn’t explained until the Rani gives us a helpful presentation in part four, for the first two parts she’s conning the Doctor into trying to solve a puzzle that the viewers can’t even see or understand, so fat lot of good that does us. The script is confusing, has a ‘been there done that’ feel as we’re back with aliens who reminded me of The Leisure Hive. The soundtrack has some great unexpected moments of brilliance, but when you see the Rani has created a giant brain it all feels like a 50s B-movie. What keeps it together is McCoy to some extent, but really Kate O’Mara who is much improved from her previous appearance and is a very credible fun villain. She puts on a crazy wig and impersonates Mel for over an episode to trick the Doctor and her frustration at him is hilarious. Few could’ve pulled that off.

Ok I had to do another photo of the Rani’s disguise because it’s wild

After the firing of Colin Baker, this story was always going to struggle. There is no emotional closure to the Sixth Doctor era so it just feels like whiplash, the old Doctor is referenced a bit but this is the Sylvester McCoy show. He spends much of the story in the ‘post-regeneration insanity’ phase making it difficult to get a handle on his Doctor. Still, I can spot moments of brilliance over the jokes of him mixing metaphors which would be funnier if it wasn’t every other thing he said. Mel is the weakest link by far, Bonnie Langford screams to high Heaven like a parody of a companion and is unconvincing. The Lakertyans are pretty boring, but I have to praise the costumes of the weird multi-eyed wolf aliens called Tetraps. Still, this story is just not that interesting, and barely even feels like a new Doctor story other than the amnesia. Here’s hoping McCoy’s era starts to improve.

The ‘Rani’ part of Time and the Rani delivers, everything else doesn’t, from the badly aged Blender-esque CGI to the ‘what is even happening’ plot line.

7/10 Boosted up by Kate O’Mara’s brilliance really. Shame that we’d never get more of her

The Seventh Doctor at last!