Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Kylie in a Forklift

The Voyage of the Damned, or The Christmas Inferno, or Kylie in a Forklift

Here are some of my thoughts on the 2007 Christmas special Voyage of Damned.

It’s The Poseiden Adventure meets Enlightenment meets Robots of Death meets Douglas Adams’ Starship Titanic.

It was completely, totally and utterly bonkers, but in a good way. It is unlikely that you will see anything quite like it ever again. You may never want to see anything quite like it ever again but I quite liked it. I mean where else will you see Kylie Minogue dressed in a waitress outfit driving a forklift truck? Only in something as bonkers as this, or perhaps in an alternative history where Kylie’s career is on the skids, and she is forced to appear in adverts for B&Q or Homebase.

The new theme. I am not sure what to think of the new version of theme. It’s the same theme, but it just sounds like Murray Gold has let Buckethead into his studio and let him jam along with the theme. I didn’t mind it after I had watched it again and, boy, it sounds good loud! It’s the heavy metal version of the theme! Still it could have been worse Murray Gold could have written some lyrics to the theme and had Kylie sing them. Imagine the furore if that had happened!

The end credits were a bit quick, but with these new fangled videos and dvd’s they have today with a pause function they can easily be read after the event. It could have been worse they could have squeezed them into a little box in the corner of the screen thus not even giving you the chance to pause them to read them. I wouldn’t imagine that they would be any quicker when they are released on DVD either.

There was some brilliant work from the Mill on display here most notably the external shot of the Titanic drifting through space and the vastness of the Titanic’s engines. That really did give a sense of the scale of ship.

I thought that Kylie did a good job in her rather limited role of Astrid. She was sweet and looks damn good for a woman nearing 40. She was almost perfect companion material for the old series: humanoid but not human, no friends or family, actually wanted to travel with the Doctor, even though she just wanted to jump his bones, which is not traditional companion behaviour but is par for the course in this new version of the show and it was quite sad that her character died. Well she sort of died anyway. She might as well have died but perhaps they felt that it would be slightly too grim to actually kill her off properly. I am not sure.

I always thought that no matter who Kylie played she was never going to be any more than a single story companion (although I thought the same of Donna and look who is returning in series four so what do I know!)I have no doubt though that there will be an Astrid 5” figure very soon. It will be the only one to be a scale model of the actress herself!

Banakaffalata was another interesting character and another great part for the mighty Jimmy Vee. Just like the Moxx of Balhoon he might have been a baddie but turned out to be nothing of the sort and he also died. I have no doubt that there will be a figure of him out very soon as well.

The last ten minutes did seem a little bit tacked on and the sudden change from the grimness of the previous 45 minutes or so to the high camp comedy of the last ten minutes did seem to jar a little bit it was almost as if they didn’t fancy ending it on such a grim note at Christmas (as with Astrid), but look at the average Christmas episodes of Eastenders. For me they could have cut from the bit before the Doctor flew with the angels to the last scenes on board of the Titanic before the Doctor and Mr Copper went back to Earth and it would have made it a little bit tighter as I am sure the silliness of the last ten minutes was not necessary.

The final scene between the Doctor and Mr Copper was a nice little scene. I liked the joke about the snow not being real snow. As we all know it never snows on Christmas day and hasn’t for some years now. At least Mr Copper will be able to find a room for the night, as even though its Christmas the whole population of England has buggered off except for the Queen and Bernard Cribbins

On the subject of Bernard Cribbins wasn’t he good in his little role of Wilfrid Mott, the newspaper seller. I never noticed till it was pointed out to me that he had a U.N.I.T. insignia badge on his bobble hat perhaps he is the Brigadier fallen on hard times and under some sort of witness protection programme? We know that he is coming back in the new series, and the fact that U.N.I.T. are set to return so perhaps that is not as insignificant as it might appear to be at first.

Geoffrey Palmer was another one who had a nice cameo in the special although his character wasn’t particularly sympathetic was he? Even though he wasn’t able to bring himself to kill young Midshipman Frame, he wasn’t exactly bothered about either the rest of the ships crew, passengers and the population of the Earth.

The direction by James Strong was very good and it certainly looked very cinematic, which all of the episodes he had directed, so far, have done.

The Heavenly Hosts were a quite good invention for this episode far better than the robot santas that we have had in the previous two Christmas specials. I am, though, a little disappointed that they were not in face Axons. They were however a lot like the Voc Robots in Robots of Death (even down to one of them having their hand trapped in a door) but without the personality that they managed to muster.

Clive Swift was also very good in his role as Mr Copper and I just loved his little speeches about the Christmas customs on the planet Earth. Great stuff.

Wasn’t Rickston Slade the single most unpleasant character ever to be seen in the new series? Killing him off wouldn’t have been at all dramatic as most people would have been happy if he were one of the first ones to die!

I think that the main problem with the story is the fact that you don’t really care if any of the characters in the story live or die. Apart from Rickston who is the only character you actually want to die the others don’t really register as anything other than ciphers who we don’t really know enough about to care.

If Astrid had been played by anyone other than Kylie I don’t think that her demise would have been that noteworthy either because her character is rather one-note but perfect for an original series companion as I noted earlier.

The characters of Morvin and Foon who are reasonable comic relief characters in the story who, only have the fact that Rickston is being mean to them because they are both big people, as a reason that you want them to survive rather than him.

I enjoyed Voyage of the Damned. It wasn’t perfect, but then what is?; it wouldn’t win any awards for originality, but then neither did the entire Hinchliffe era. It won’t stand up to close scrutiny, granted, but I found it enjoyable which, at the end of the day, is the one thing that is really important.

In fact I would say that it was the most enjoyable of the three Christmas specials to date.

Poll

I am going to compare my responses to the 2007 Doctor Who series poll to the actual results to see if there are any similarities and thought that I would post it on here to see if people agree with either what I thought, or what the readers of DWM thought.

BEST STORY
My choice: Blink
The Winner: Blink

Now I was surprised that this one won the best story of the series poll. I was sure that it would have been the Human Nature/Family of Blood two parter which would have won (it did come a very close second though), as Blink didn’t really feature a great deal of Tennant as the Doctor, one of the reasons why it made the top spot in my list, apart from the superb script, fantastic direction and the acting of all concerned. It was in a word fantastic and deserves all of the plaudits it gets.

BEST WRITER
My choice: Steven Moffat
The winner: Steven Moffat

Again I guessed the winner. To be honest Steven Moffat is always going to win the best writer of any series that he contributes too, so I am not surprised in the slightest.

BEST DIRECTOR
My choice: Hettie MacDonald
The winner: Charles Palmer

I chose Hettie MacDonald soley on her work on Blink, which was astounding. I think she would have won hands down if she had worked on more than one episode. The actual winner, Charles Palmer, did some great work on the series over the four episodes that he directed and would have been my second choice.

BEST GUEST ACTOR
My choice: John Simm
The winner: John Simm

I think that it had to be Simm after his amazing portrayal as the Master in the final two episodes. He was the best thing in the final two parts and was most definitely the star of the show there. I think he should even have appeared in the credit. For a moment I was half expecting him to be. Everyone else seemed to be in agreement with me as well.


BEST GUEST ACTRESS
My choice: Carey Mulligan
The winner: Carey Mulligan

The best companion the Doctor never had was what Steven Moffat likened Sally Sparrow too and boy was he right. Everyone else agreed also.

BEST MONSTER
My choice: The Weeping Angels
The winner: The Weeping Angels

We will never see statues and gargoyles in the same light ever again thanks to these creations which were worthy winners in this category.

BEST VILLAIN
My choice: The Master (John Simm)
The winner: The Master (John Simm)

A close fought battle between Simm and Harry Lloyd but Simm edged it with his manic performance as the Master, kind of like an uncontrolled version of the Tennant Doctor.

BEST SPECIAL EFFECT
My choice: Landing of the Judoon spaceship on the moon
The winner: The Master regenerating

Personally I prefer my choice as the Master regenerating was pretty much the same as the effect used in the regeneration between Eccleston and Tennant but a bit more colourful.

BEST MUSICAL SCORE
The Winner: Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords

I couldn’t chose between any of the episode but I would have to agree with the masses on this one as the music was pretty good in the last three episodes.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
My choice:Human Nature/The Family of Blood
The winner: The Shakespeare Code

This was a no brainer really. The BBC are the best as period costume design in the world and in The Shakespeare Code they excelled themselves as they always do. I think that the right story won here.

BEST SET DESIGN
The winner: The Shakespeare Code

I couldn’t chose here either but the design for the Shakespeare episode was very impressive. I also quite liked the design for Gridlock too.

BEST PROSTHETIC
My choice: Chantho
The winner: Chantho

I would have to agree with the masses that the Chantho prosthetic was the best of the bunch from the last series.

GREATEST CONTRIBUTION
The winner: David Tennant

I couldn’t really answer this question, as I don’t think anyone’s contribution is more important than anyone else’s and I just couldn’t bring my self to choose one person over another. Predictably David Tennant won.

MOST LIKE TO GET RID OF
The winner: Nothing

I was tempted to put the Tenth Doctor down for my choice as that is the one thing that I really don’t like about the current series but decided against it. Predictably the majority of people would like to see nothing got rid of obviously believing the maxim if it aint broke don’t fix it. The Daleks were the second choice and I can kind of see what they are getting at. Perhaps now that we only have one Dalek left in our universe then maybe it is time to give them a break for a year at least. Companions’ families are quite high on the list as well which didn’t surprise me but I can never see that going away ever, at least while RTD is in charge at least. Spoilers/Next time trailers came third on the list. Now you can never get rid of spoilers because that would be impossible unless they filmed it behind closed doors and then wiped the memory of everyone who worked on it afterwards. I quite like the next time trailers as they give you a glimpse of what to expect the next week but it is a bit annoying if they give away something in the next time trailer like the fact that the Doctor was going to be fine the next episode in Aliens of London which sort of diluted the whole cliffhanger. I think they are fine as long as they don’t give away important plot points and the ending.

MOST LIKE TO RETURN
The winner: Davros

I couldn’t think of one thing in particular that I would like to return to the series so I left this one blank. Davros won this and I am half and half about this one. One the one hand it would be nice to see Davros again as this would be the one way they could carry on using the Daleks but on the other hand I would like see the Daleks take a break for a year at least and quite a lot of people would have like to see the back of the Daleks according to the poll for what you wanted to get rid of! The Zygons came second and I would second then but as they have featured in a bbc novel then I can’t see them returning to the television series anytime soon. The Brigadier and UNIT were next but I would have to disagree with this one entirely. I think the best place for them would be on the Sarah Jane Adventures and not on the main series it worked with Sarah but I don’t think it would work if the Brig returned at all. The Master was fourth on the list and I would like to see the Master return as well but I would prefer if he came back as John Simm but it looks like the next Master might very well be female and might even be Lucy Saxon. Fifth on the list was the Silurians and Sea Devils. Now these would be an interesting choice to come back and would be good for the prosthetic team as well. I’d quite like to see them return as well, as would my wife, who loves the sea devils (she thinks they look sad). The Ice Warriors and Sontarans were also on the list and as the Sontarans are returning in the fourth series then why not bring back The Ice Warriors as well. Past Doctors were on the list and I would have said no before Time Crash but now I actually think that it might work providing it was Davison as he was simply superb in Time Crash. I am not sure enough people would remember McGann being the Doctor, apart from Who fans, for it to work, as he only played the Doctor once over ten years ago now, for the general public.

Time-S*ite

Fasten your seatbelt it’s going to be a rough ride.

Time-Flight Part One

Time-Flight isn’t all that bad for the first twenty-minutes. It is actually quite interesting as first we see a Concorde go missing and then later on another Concorde also goes missing after repeating the last known movements of the first concorde. However this time the second Concorde had the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and the TARDIS on board.

Then from the moment they land on prehistoric earth it all goes tits up and starts getting very silly indeed with a rather laughable cliffhanger and a really badly made up Anthony Ainley playing the rather bizarre Kalid.

I can’t see how anybody was fooled by this disguise, it was even worse than the one in Castrovalva, at least that one was a bit more believable, but in this one you could tell it was the Master from the word go. I am not sure that it even fooled me at the time when I would have been 7 years old.

This story was set directly after the events in Earthshock with Tegan and Nyssa both still upset over Adric’s death and demanding that the Doctor go back in time and rescue Adric from the freighter but the Doctor insists that it can’t be done and, luckily for the Doctor, both Nyssa and Tegan buy it and pretty soon they carry on as if nothing had happened, so they can’t have been all that upset, can they?

The problem is we just don’t care.

Time-Flight Part Two

It doesn’t get any better in part two I am afraid. I do find the problem with a lot of Davison stories, particularily the earlier ones is that it takes till the end of the second episode to get to the point of the story and for the most part the majority of the first two episodes are just superfluous padding. About the only time this doesn’t happen is in the two part stories.

I think that the main problem is the writing really. Some of the stories just seem to take an age to get going and this is one of the worst culprits for that.

In this episode a lot of it is spent with Tegan and Nyssa wandering around corridors and the Doctor pretty much doing the same.

At the close of the episode the plot finally arrives and we are supposed to be surprised that Kalid is the Master in disguise. No shit Sherlock. I never would have guessed that in a million years.

The Master? Really?

I don’t believe it!

Lost and Found

Sarah Jane Adventures: The Lost Boy

Well that was a suitably exciting way to end the first series of The Sarah Jane Adventures wasn’t it?

It started off with a fairly interesting plot line that Luke may not be who he thinks he is with an appeal for him to return to his real parents. Of course this turned out to be a ruse by the end of the episode but for the first five minutes or so you could actually believe that it could be true. Well Sarah certainly believed it even though she was well aware that he had in fact been created by the Bane.

Thomas Knight was very good in this episode and he made us believe that he really didn’t trust this people who were claiming to be his real parents and once they locked him in a bedroom that was supposed to be his, he was sure of it.

Even Maria and Clyde saw that something was wrong but not Sarah Jane which seems a little bit out of character when you think of all the things that she was witnessed over the years.

I certainly was not expecting the double twist at the end of the first episode, particularly the Mr Smith twist. I would never have seen that coming and that was a genuine shock to me and made an exciting cliffhanger. It almost made me want to watch the second episode straight after on CBBC but I couldn’t get a signal on my telly upstairs so had to wait till the following week to see it.

The fact that the Slitheen returned in this final story was also a bit of a shock but not as much as the fact that Mr Smith was in face an evil alien intelligence hell bent on destroying the universe and everything that Sarah Jane holds dear.

The second episode as with all the episodes of this series has an awful lot of stuff to do as we never really find out what is going on till the end of the first episode leaving a mere twenty-five minutes to sort out the problem and more often than not save the world.

This story is no different with the moon being dragged from its orbit but there is only one problem the one thing that Sarah Jane knows can move the moon back into its own orbit is also the one thing that has moved it out of its own orbit in the first place.

Luckily Alan Jackson comes to the rescue doing something useful for the first time in ten episodes. The fact that he was a computer programmer who specialises in protecting computers from virus has been mentioned a few times but finally it made him be able to be of some us the story.

Maria’s mum was as annoying as ever but it was interesting that the one person that she called when she thought she was about to die was Alan and not the bloke that she was currently shacked up with.

By the end of the episode though the one thing that most of us had forgotten about (well I had anyway) was the thing that saved the day. Yes you have guessed it K9 returned. Now I know there was a reason why he was actually locked in a cupboard for the whole of the series, he was just there to save the universe from the machinations of an evil computer. Hooray for K9!

Surely The Sarah Jane Adventures has done enough to get a second series? We can but hope.

Whatever Happened to...

The Sarah Jane Adventure: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane Smith? Episode One

The episode started of normally with Maria, Luke, Clyde, Sarah and Maria’s dad at the park watching Clyde teach Luke how to skateboard, and then Maria’s dad having a go and totally embarrassing his daughter and her friends. Now Maria’s dad probably isn’t much older than I am, so if I had a teenage daughter would I be that embarrassing? Very probably. Never mind I am digressing.

What would the world be like without Sarah Jane Smith? That was the premise behind this story. What if no one had even heard of her? What would the world be like?

This premise was fine but there were some questions that were not answered in this first part such as what about all of the things that Sarah had stopped happening on the Earth during her time with the Doctor? Did any of these things happen?

I suppose this means that K9 & Company never happened, which cannot be a bad thing and there is also all of the adventures they have had in this series such as the Slitheen and the Gorgon and Kudlak, none of these seem to have happened apart from in Maria’s head.

Not even Maria’s dad knew who Sarah Jane was, or Clyde who just thought that she fancied him. There was no sign of Luke either, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as for the majority of this episode Maria was allowed to take centre stage as she was the only person who remembered Sarah Jane.

Everyone else seemed to be convinced that this Andrea who was living in Sarah Jane’s house had always been there and they even had photos to prove it. It was up to Maria to discover the truth and she was determined that she would prove that she was right and everyone else was wrong.

What I like about this episode is that we find out a lot more about Sarah’s past in these twenty five minutes than we ever did in her entire run of episodes in the original series and it is refreshing that the character had a past and it just made her character more rounded and believable than probably any other Doctor Who companion (even Ace) until Rose came along.

Yasmin Paige was particularly good in this episode, which has been Maria’s best episode to date, and you could feel the tension she felt when nobody believed her that there was a Sarah Jane Smith as was Jane Asher as Andrea, the Sarah Jane substitute for the episode, who has a secret to hide.

This has been the strongest episode of the series to date and I am looking forward to seeing the conclusion of the tale. Will Maria be able to convince people that there was a Sarah Jane?; Who, or what is, Andrea? And will the Earth be destroyed by the approaching meteorite?

Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane Smith episode Two

In this episode we discover a lot more about what the hell is going on in this episode about who Andrea actually is and why the Graske is running around taking people away.

Previously we discover that Andrea is actually an old school friend of Sarah Jane’s who had actually died over forty years ago in an accident when they were school girls and were wandering around a disused pier but that she had in her frightened state, about to plunge to her death, was able to save her life but only if Sarah died instead.

Of course she had been tricked by the mysterious Trickster (quite a frightening character for a children’s programme), who just wanted Sarah Jane out of the way because of the meteorite, which was about to hit the Earth that Sarah discovered in the previous episode and which Mr Smith was going to move out of the Earth’s orbit, leaving the Earth a sitting duck which he would then be able to come back to, simply because he likes causing chaos and that is what he does.

This is quite a dark plotline compared to the other episode’s, as if Sarah Jane doesn’t get back then the Earth has, to put it mildly, had it. Blimey!

Even Maria gets taken by the Graske at the close of the last episode and ends up back in 1963 and meets up with a young Sarah Jane Smith and Andrea so it is left up to Maria’s dad Alan who is suddenly the only person who knows who Maria to help save the day.

Andrea meanwhile starts to remember what had happened and what she did and it is her self-sacrifice is what saves the day she takes back the offer to survive in place of Sarah and asks one simple thing of Sarah that she remembered her, which is all that anyone can ever hope to be in the long run

That’s a bit deep for a children’s programme isn’t it? Perhaps it isn’t and that is just me thinking that it is a bit too deep for children’s telly. I mean not all childrens television should be like the Chuckle Brothers which is about as deep as a stonebaked pizza!.

And at the last minute as the meteorite starts to enter the Earth’s atmosphere Mr Smith makes an appearance and saves the day. Hooray!

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and it is a great shame that there is only two more episodes to go before the end of the second series. Please make a second series BBC Wales?

This is about the best thing on television at the moment, even if it isn’t aimed at a thirty something bloke like myself, and fully deserves another run.

Hair Crash

Children in Need in Doctor Who seem to go together very nicely. Back in 1983 The Five Doctors was shown as part of the proceedings. Then 10 years later we had Dimensions in Time another multi-Doctor story but not as auspicious.

A couple of years ago we had the first Tennant scene and now this year we have yet another multi-Doctor story, well a scene anyway.

This scene was the best we have seen in Children in Need since The Five Doctors. It might not have been as long as The Five Doctors, but it had more heart, and more laughs per minute than the twentieth anniversary special.

It also made more sense even though there wasn’t any plot to speak off. What this little scene did do though is make sense of the end of series 3 and explains how on Earth the Titanic managed to crash into the TARDIS, it also proved that just maybe a multi-Doctor might work in this new series as long as they chose a previous Doctor who still looks like they did when they were in the series and who the general public will actually remember playing the part.

It was great to see Davison running around the console like he was twenty-five years younger and getting right back into the part as though he had never stopped playing it.

I know he has had plenty of practice over the last few years in Big Finish, but this is telly and is the real thing, and it was almost like he had never stopped playing the part. He was still the Doctor and in my mind at least showed Tennant a few things about being a proper Doctor.

I loved it when he shouted at Tennant and called him a fan, which is basically how Tennant played the Doctor in this scene, particularly in the presence of another Doctor. I half expected Tennant to pull out his entire collection of Davison Target novels for him to sign both the original photo covers and the reprints.

The script was typical Steven Moffat and there were plenty of great and highly quotable lines. I loved the gentle ribbing of the fifth Doctor such as about his costume and the celery which we can all accept were a bit rubbish but it was also interesting to see how much of the fifth Doctor’s character is present in the tenth Doctor: the breathless enthusiasm; the high pitched squeaky voice when they get excited or are on to something; the trainers and the glasses that they don’t actually need.

It is just a shame then that Tennant seems to find the need to play the part like Tom Baker rather than be his own version of the Doctor which is something that Davison never felt the need to do and is one thing that has always galled me about Tennant’s portrayal of the Doctor.

One thing that Tennant did do that wasn’t acting was his exclamation at the end of the scene when he said that Davison was his Doctor because for most fans of a certain age he was their Doctor and we believed him.

It was nice the way they linked the classic and the new series together with a mention of Linda from Love & Monsters and I loved Davison’s line about the new look console. I never knew that the TARDIS ran on Windows.

They also managed to explain why the Doctor’s always look older than they did originally in a simple throwaway line which is a shame, such is the genius of Mr Moffat just like the other throwaway line about why the TARDIS looks different to how it did in Davison’s era! Sheer class.

It is actually difficult to find fault with Time Crash because there is little wrong with it: it is acted well by the two actors concerned, it is well written, it is well directed, it is enjoyable and it makes you smile.

There are some episodes of the new series (and the classic series) that aren’t as good as this particular seven minutes of television. What better recommendation is there than that?

Bye, Bye Sarah Jane

The Hand of Fear episode four

After the intriguing nature of the first two episodes set mostly on modern day Earth this last episode set on Kastria is a bit of a damp squib to be honest and is probably only worthy because of the last five minutes when Sarah takes her leave of the Doctor.

In fact that is really the only thing worth mentioning in this review as the previous twenty minutes were not actually all that good. Basically Eldrad is taken to a regeneration chamber and ends up turning into Stephen Thorne in a repeat of his rather shouty performance of Omega a few years previous. That’s about it really.

was a very touching moment despite Sarah looking a bit like Andy Pandy.

Now let’s move on the main point of this episode where Sarah leaves the Doctor. This was rather unexpected even though it may of seemed that the Doctor was trying to get Sarah to South Croydon at the beginning of the story and was a very touching moment despite Sarah looking a bit like Andy Pandy.

It was nice that they both seemed to at cross purposes and while Sarah was having her little rant about always ending up in horrible places and how she want her home comforts back etc.

Then because the Doctor wasn’t trying to shout her down about wanting to leave the TARDIS she goes off in a bit of a huff to pack her things, the Doctor was under the TARDIS and had not heard any of Sarah’s little tirade.

Then the Doctor gets the call from Gallifrey and he realises that he has to let Sarah go, unaware that she was packing her things at that moment thinking that he doesn’t want her around anymore. Tom Baker was great in this last scene as you notice that when he is telling Sarah that she has to leave and that he is not able to take her to Gallifrey with him that he isn’t looking at her, almost as if he can’t bare to say the words to her face, that was a nice little touch, and shows just how strong the bond between the two actually was.

Let’s hope her cash card hadn’t expired as how else would she have got home?

Also Sarah was a little taken aback I think about how cold he appeared to be when saying that she couldn’t go to Gallifrey with him. This was definitely the most emotionally charged leaving scene of a companion for a long time and showed that the original series could do emotions when it wanted to.

And the final scene where Sarah realised that she is probably not even in South Croydon is even more poignant after School Reunion where the Doctor finds out that he had in fact left her in Aberdeen, which is more than just a little bit outside of Croydon.

Let’s hope her cash card hadn’t expired as how else would she have got home?

Come, Nuclear Bomb

The Hand of Fear Part Three

In this episode only Professor Watson is still in the nuclear plant after Driscoll had gone and walked into the core of the plant. When they get there they discover that all the radiation has been absorbed and it is perfectly safe to walk around the core.

a bit like hiding under a curtain or painting the windows black, all things than can apparently repel radiation.

The Doctor advises Watson that the Eldrad creature is only going to get stronger and stronger so Watson does the only thing that he can think off and orders a nuclear strike on the plant.

This happens and we have the Doctor, Watson and Sarah hiding behind a car whilst this happens, which is obviously a safe place to hide when a nuclear explosion has happened, a bit like hiding under a curtain or painting the windows black, all things than can apparently repel radiation.

The strike happens but the plant is not destroyed. The Doctor reasoned that the creature must have absorbed the explosion so they decide to go back to the planet. The Doctor tries to leave Sarah at the gates of the plant but she is having none of it and ends up going with them where they meet the Eldrad creature now fully regenerated and taking a form similar to that of a human female.

Apparently Eldrad has modelled itself on Sarah which Sarah takes as a bit of an insult. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if this had been the cast that Elisabeth Sladen had played the Eldrad creature in this episode as that would have made a bit more sense and would have been good for Elisabeth Sladen in what would turn out to be her final story.

So what does the Doctor decide to do with this entity who absorbs radiation? He decides to take it back to where it came from. I suppose that this was probably the only thing that the Doctor could have done because, as he says, he couldn’t very well leave it on Earth.

I don’t think [Watson] is going to get home anytime soon.

Sarah is not too impressed though with this new addition to the TARDIS crew as well she might considering the fact that it had possessed her a couple of episodes earlier. Professor Watson’s assistant turns up after the Doctor leaves with Eldrad and Sarah where basically Watson is left in the shit and left to clean up and explain to the authorities what actually happened. I don’t think he is going to get home anytime soon.

We then go back to Kastria, which is not a very hospitable place, and Eldrad ends up getting shot due to a booby trap left by the people who had cast Eldrad out of Kastria in the first place, on the assumption that he/she would return someday.

Running Up That Hill

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Warriors of Kudlak

We were always told as kids and today that playing too many video games and the like could be hazardous for our health and in this episode that is taken to its logical conclusion as adept players at a laser tag game are being recruited to an interplantery war between old, old foes.

Now I have never played laser tag (it was called Laser Quest when I was a kid), or anything else like that but I can see why it is quite popular even when some people would play it only as an aid to pick up girls. Of course in this episode it is the two lads who get themselves into trouble only for the two girls to come in and rescue them.

poor old Clyde is going to have to have Luke asking him endless questions about girls

Once again Luke shows that he is not just an average, nerdy kid by managing to hack into the onboard computer of an alien vessel. Clyde was quite funny especially in the second episode when he was so obviously trying to impress the girl, Jen, when they were on the Yuvodni spaceship, bigging himself up and basically calling Luke a bit of a nerdy geek, hoping that this would impress a girl by being a jack the lad type.

Unfortunately for Clyde this didn’t work and it was Luke who got a kiss off the girl in the end. The problem is now that poor old Clyde is going to have to have Luke asking him endless questions about girls, the kind of things they like and even how to pull them. Why doesn’t he just ask Maria? She is after all a girl and far more qualified on the subject that Clyde and most teenage lads.

That single shot alone would probably have blown the budgets of every episode of The Chuckle Brothers combined!

There was a nice effects shot in the second episode of the Earth from the Yuvodni spaceship and then the pull back shot from the window of the spacecraft to show the entirety of the spaceship which was a little bit like the shot in the opening titles of some Babylon 5 series.

That single shot alone would probably have blown the budgets of most CBBC dramas and also every episode of The Chuckle Brothers combined!

I also liked the twist at the end where Mr Kudlak just laid down his arms and gave himself up to Sarah Jane after realising he had been duped by a computer programme that just didn’t want the war to end. That gives Mr Kudlak a bit more depth than would normally be afforded to the baddies in a children’s drama and also makes you realise that he wasn’t really a bad sort he was just a solider obeying orders.

If anything the true villain of the piece was the slimy Mr Chadwick who was a fun part and the actor who played him was obviously having a whale of a time playing the part.

Lis Sladen was as good as ever here and she was really quite commanding when she walked straight onto the bridge of the Yuvodni ship and demanded her son back.

I am not too sure about the need for the character of Mr Smith, who is just basically like K9 but not as portable, and with the voice of Alexander Armstrong rather than John Leeson. They do seem to use Mr Smith sparingly, and then only when they need to know what they are up against, so perhaps he is useful as a plot device to explain to the audience all the technical stuff and give them an idea who they are up against, as Sarah is only human after all.

I really enjoyed Warrior of Kudlak it was a fun story, directed with panache by Charles Martin and did not talk down to the children in the audience about the futility, and violence, of war, which was a fairly serious subtext for a children’s television series.

This series is getting better by the story and it would be a great shame if it didn’t get renewed for a second series.

Going Nuclear

The Hand of Fear Part Two

In this episode we see no fewer than three people running amok saying the immortal words Eldrad Must Live! Firstly Sarah, then Dr Carter who tries to cave the Doctor's head in with a wrench and lastly, but by no means least, some bloke called Driscoll.

We are introduced to yet more characters in this episode mainly Professor Watson, the head of the nuclear facility, played by Glyn Houston and his assistant Miss Jackson (played by the directors wife Frances Pidgeon) and Driscoll.

Only Watson has any real character about him as his phone call home to his wife and children shows. Would any one really notice if the rest of the people working in the plant died? Would anybody care? Thanks to the little bit of characterisation afforded him, the audience would care if anything happened to Professor Watson.

Then just when we think everything is alright then poor old Driscoll gets possessed, knocks out one of his colleagues, and takes the hand into the core of the nuclear plant itself.

So just when Professor Watson manages to avert one possible nuclear distaster another one comes along right after, just like buses when you have been waiting at the bus stop for ages in the freezing cold (sorry I'm digressing).