Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

"Arrest The Scarf Then!"

I still don't like Tom Baker.

I also don't like stories that make no sense.

Add in the fact that it's been a long, tiring week for me and I just wanted an enjoyable romp through time & space... you end up with me disliking Neil for a good few days. Bad Neil! No soup for you!

Of all the Tom Baker stories released, we have to go with this one. Well okay, I'm game. After a brief stop of Brighton (!) beach where K9 blows up (easily the best bit of the story, I f**king hate that dog), we end up in a Science Center, or what looks like one anyway. What follows next can only be fully understood if you have a couple of Science degrees, and even then you'll be stumped in places. Highlights include Tom Baker having his arms, legs and head pulled off, Tom Baker becoming really old in a matter of seconds and Tom Baker dying a bunch due to being unstable. (I REALLY don't like the guy). But I digress.

This is, without a doubt, the most insane pile of rubbish I have seen in years, bar Dimensions in Time. Can anyone honestly claim they understood half of what was said? There's more techno-twaddle then a nuclear reactor's user manual, the music gave me a headache and writer must have been on LSD when he wrote this trash.

I really hated this one. Thank god I never have to watch it again. Next week - K9. Oh dear, it never gets any easier, does it?

On my activities during the break: a roughly devised running order follows as a comment. If it helps to calm you people down, I'm actually watching some of them in advance and just plan on putting up the reviews on the relevant days. Cheating? Not necessarily...

Lovett and Loathe It

The Leisure Hive Part 4

M=Mo/Ö 1-(v2/c2)

Where M is the calculated final mass

Mo is the original mass

V is the velocity accelerated to

C is the speed of light in a vacuum

It can be seen that to reach c: (v2/c2 ) could be written as (12/12 ) = (1) now Ö (1-1) = 0.

Now this leaves a finite number, the original mass divided by 0. For the purposes of this conversation and because we are not interested in the mathematics of 1/0 we will assume this leaves the mass as ¥ . Simple examinations of the kinetic energy needed to move such a particle to any speed v would cause the energy to tend towards infinity

E=1/2 mv²

As m is infinite on the RHS then E must also be infinite on the LHS.

Gerald Feinberg was the first to use the term tachyon, and he named it for the Greek 'tachys,' meaning swift. Tachyons have never been observed in nature or in high energy artificial collisions and thus remain a debated hypothetical particle. One feature of these particles is that they would appear to travel back in time. One of the easiest ways we can examine how time changes for none inertial bodies in relative motion is by applying the very simple Fitzgerald Lorentz equation for time contraction. For simplicities sake we will examine a basic time dilation equation to see how c effects time. Given that:

T=To/Ö 1-(v2/c2)

Where To is time length according to a stationary clock against a moving clock T.

If we put in a speed in excess of c, lets say 10 times c (warp 2) then we get:

T=To/Ö 1-(102/12)

T=To/Ö 1-(100)

T=To/Ö 99

T=To/9.95 (2 d.p.)

T = 0.1 To the opposite of a normal time contraction in that time is shorter for the clock on the moving frame of reference as observed by the outside observer. Try inputting subluminal speeds and see what you get. As speeds increase towards c the time dilation gets greater as you go past c it gets less and the implication is that a particle travels backwards in time.

Now pan off me. Slowly.

That's how much fun The Leisure Hive is.

The Taboo and Irn Bru's are on me.

Pangol's Barmy Army

D’you know what? I reckon the Restoration Team missed a trick when they did the DVD release of this one. Because they could have easily fashioned a fifth episode out of all those interminable recaps, a la ‘Earthshock’ but without the plasticine. Episode four is perhaps the longest yet - in fact, you could have missed episode three altogether and still have a decent grasp of what’s going on.

So, Brock - at least the real Brock - never left Earth. With his impostor and accomplice safely wrapped up in the Foamasi version of cling film, it seems as if everything’s been resolved with most of the final episode yet to go. But fear not, because that most war-hungry of Argolins Pangol is bringing a whole new definition to the word paranoia. And he’s got the helmet of Theron to prove it.

There’s a lot of earnest running about and important-sounding technobabblick discourse in this final twenty-five (sorry, better make that twenty) minutes, but very little drama. As Russell T Davies would no doubt say, it’s difficult to relate to the peril of these characters when you don’t actually care about any of them. Even Lovett Bickford appears to have given up the ghost, resorting to the more traditional ‘point-and-shoot’ directing that he had gamely avoided so far (either that or the budget’s finally run out. Evens on both, I’d say). But at least Tom’s still trying his best, resorting to some pre-Season 18 visual humour (using one of those curiously pointless Argolin sculptures to hide from sight) in order to keep both himself and the audience entertained. Shame that such moments are too few and far between.

Funniest moment, though, has to be the ‘Go West’ style marching of the innumerable Pangols as they make their way from the generator (with no more than five, helmeted extras constantly walking past the camera). Soon Romana’s being seized by a bunch of Pangol/Doctor clones, whose instability is down to the fact that Tachyon images - as no doubt our Neil can testify - are likely to pop off at any moment. Bandwidth problems are universal it seems…

Hardin saving Mena’s life is rather touching (it must have been love, after all) but I can’t even begin to get my head round the Doctor’s explanation for being the ‘first’ Pangol/Doctor out of the generator. Does this mean that he’s no longer the real article - especially as he’s ‘outwardly’ Pangol, but ‘inwardly’ the Doctor? And even so, how does that explain where he’s been keeping his coat, shirt and other burgundy accoutrements (they can’t all, like the scarf, be stuffed in that helmet).

And rather like the story itself, everything’s resolved in a rather flat and incomprehensible manner; with Mena rejuvenated to her younger self and Pangol turned into a rather upset-looking baby (replete with its own Mr Whippy barnet) to be given a ‘Margaret’ Slitheen-style second chance. And just before the light and frothy tone threatens to overdose you on forced jollity (even the Foamasi aren’t really dead, or at least the good ones aren‘t) the Doctor and Romana are buggering off without even a cheerio; with Romana bemoaning the Doctor’s casual loss of the Randomiser (lord knows why - it’s not like they ever used it or anything, is it?)

In conclusion then, a rather tepid start to what was a bold and brave new era of the show’s history. The much-derided Lovett Bickford’s direction aside, this is about as exciting as an edition of Open University crossed with Doomwtach. And to think, ‘Meglos’ was the next story on the horizon.

It’s no wonder that Buck Rogers looked so enticing in comparison, was it?

(The ‘Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about ‘The Leisure Hive’ episode four: Tom Baker remained in the ‘aged Doctor’ make-up in order to get free sympathy drinks during his nightly sojourns in Soho).

The Ar-go-lins....

A vision in yellow. Just like an episode of The Simpsons, sans the realistic intellectual story lines and the belly laughs so big, you're almost on the verge of soiling yourself. I'm just about past caring about any of these people. For all I care they could all be sucked into a quantum singularity as a result of Tom Baker's ego going supernova and I wouldn't even bat an eyelid. I'd just take a sip of my Taboo and Irn Bru, turn the page of the latest edition of Marie Clare, and just continue ignoring everything that was happening in front of me.

I'd even resorted to thinking about reviewing the extras on the DVD. And have this impassioned plea to make to Phil Collinson:

Dear Phil,

You should be made to watch every single media whoring excursion made be JN-T as aversion therapy just so you aren't tempted down that particularly slippery slope. I don't think you will be. But should you ever go onto Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow and talk up a series of Doctor Who using the line, "Who knows what's in store for the Doctor", then you should be locked in a darkened room with naught but JN-T's "Cringe Curdling Worst TV Appearances Ever" collection (DVD coming soon from Tachyon TV, just in time for Christmas).

Yours,

etc...

Even my screen capture software's decided to sue me for mental torture in contravention of the Geneva Convention.

The Leisure Hive - Episode 4 Thank the good lord...

Amazingly enough this one's not so much broken the record of the shortest running episode as completely shattered it then pissed all over the shattered remains. It comes to something when the first thing I look forward to is a short running time. There's something approaching a Formasi version of the Full Monty as they're all seen stripping off down to the buff. Strange how all their clothes appear to have Velcro fastenings for quick removal. Once they get naked they don't even have a thong to remove. Ever thought about how many aliens, that appear in Doctor Who, are actually stark bollock naked? Surprised that every single show doesn't receive an 18 certificate.

Sorry, I've become momentarily distracted by the thought of Mandril porn. So the rest of this is going to be a little rambling as I attempt to hold it together.

Following the Formasi strip one of them lobs what appears to be an explosive cabbage in the direction of the baddies and they end up swaddled in cotton candy. Why don't they just eat their way out through these filaments? It's not as if they were watching their figures.

Then there's a bit of talk about "we the army", and a cut away into the Top of the Pops studio as Status Quo are performing their hit "In the Army Now". But an army of Pangols isn't enough and they've got to engage the Guides of Argolis, to be followed by the Cubs of Argolis and the Beavers of Argolis.

And it all ends rather pointlessly with multiple Doctors, who's back to a mere 750 years old, and Mena ending up being rejuvenated with baby Pangol. Why am I thinking that Baby Pangol sounds like one of those small, round, rubbery cheeses that come in a red waxy coating?

I wonder how many souls we lost during the last week? You can't move now for bodies littering the Blog and a rather sinister sound in the background of a man tolling a bell crying, "Bring out your dead".

The Bumper Book of Made-up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part four - the production team were later to be temporally sued by the Xerox Corporation who lodged a writ in the year 2341, and sent it backwards through a wormhole, when, after realising the fun people had at office parties photocopying parts of their anatomy, the perfected the process of bodily duplication.

Tachyon and on and on and on...

The Leisure Hive Part 3

If this episode is so short, why does it feel so long? Is this Tachyonics in action?  Can I pop into a cabinet and reclaim the hours I've lost watching this tripe? Look, let's face facts - the only reason I'm even contemplating episode four is because of this titanic battle of wills between myself and Q. Which one of us will crack and abandon Stripped Down Too first? Will it hold steady at 450?

Gandalf on Valium. It's the only way to describe Tom Baker in this episode. He should (and probably will be) a magnificently obnoxious old crinkly, but instead of ramping up the crotchetiness, they go for D, U, L, L. Anything else would be fun, and we can't be having that now, can we?

And if you want to get all realistic on us, why hasn't the Doctor got a) in-growing toenails and b) the desperate urge to piss (he's been in there for centuries, after all). Normally, I wouldn't bother with pedantic and puerile details such as these but this story is bloody well asking for it!

Meanwhile, Wilma Deering and Buck Rogers are disco-dancing on a day-glo planet and having a whale of a time battling evil. Christ, how I wish I was there with them now. Give me a boogie-ing robotic dwarf over this tedious nonsense any day of the week.

There are approximately 15 minutes of people talking in rooms and walking down corridors. I've watched this episode twice now and I still can't work out what's going on. It's not that it's particularly complicated (I think) I just keep on drifting off into a stupor, or I became permanently distracted by some corrugated part of the set. I'm fairly sure that the plot has something to do with the Masons pretending to be the Mafia and there's something about Oil of Ulay and sterility. Oh, and Tachyons - lots and lots of Tachyons - but I couldn't swear to it.

The Fomasi look like a big bag of shit, don't they? At this point I should probably contrive a clever and complicated gag about shell suits, but I really can't be arsed. And if you thought the Slitheen's human disguises were ridiculous then at least RTD went to the trouble of trying to explain them. Maybe they'll try to do the same in episode four; I bet they blame it on the Tachyon phase shifting manipulator pattern generator. Squared.

I can hardly wait.

The Bumper Book of Blah Blah Blah says this about episode three: the BBC repeated the Leisure Hive as part of their Open University programming. It aired at 4am and was introduced by a twat in a cardigan.

Apathy Rules, O.K.

The Leisure Hive - Episode 3

Disinterest is a terrible thing. When you think that everyone involved in this must have been really earnest and wanting everything to work for this new-look Who but in the end, I don't know about you, but I have no sympathy for any of the characters and no desire to see any of them succeed or overcome whatever it is that they're facing.

In another masterstroke this episode too weights in at around the 18 minutes mark. Pity the poor continuity announcer, having exhausted his supply of emergency backup music has resorted to reading passages from a Gideon bible that was kindly left by the previous announcer who found God then went to become a monk in Swindon.

The Photo-Me booth that is the Tachyon Generator is also malfunctioning as it's completely ignored the true age progression of the 4th Doctor, completely skipped the "Glenbogle" phase and headed straight for the piss-soaked tramp with a 3 litre bottle of Diamond White in a brown bag look. The Doctor is most definitely unwell.

I mean, it's not as if they've injected any interest in the piece yet. Even some thin back story about the Argolin having opened up a chain of catalogue shops called Argos in direct competition with their nearest neighbours, the Indexolin, might have spiced things up a little. Even a price war at this point would be more than gratefully received.

Other missed opportunities include:

 
• Having Romana turning into some sort of Formasi/Gallifreyan hybrid when the generator's turned on with her and a green one inside. Just like in The Fly.
 
• Turning the Formasi into some sort of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo type character as it clicks and chirrups its way through trying to communicate to the Doctor. "What's that Skip? Johnny's stuck in the Tachyon Generator and is about to be aged to death?!"
 
• Just binning the entire production at this stage and replacing it in the schedules with some brightly coloured paint drying and a buzzing neon sign.

The one saving grace is that Lyle Lovett, taking a break from his own brand of relaxed country music, is still pushing the direction above and beyond the usual, including a shot from outside the Hive that moves seamlessly inside the structure. It's a great pity that the incidental music resembles, at times, the sorts of sounds that a pinball machine might make.

I fail to see how I can make it through the final part without incurring some bodily injury to my optic nerve. I'm even beginning to look forward to K9 & Company.

The Bumper Book of Made-up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part three - a big song and dance number was to have been added into this episode, playing on Pangol's revelation that he is a child of the generator, but the estate of the late Mark Bolan refused to allow them to change the lyrics to the T-Rex classic Children of the Revolution.

The Generator Game

God, that’s another long recap - did JNT find Lovett Bickford spending so much on this story that he had to deliberately shorten the episodes just so as to make ends meet?

In a poignant piece of foreshadowing, we get to see what Tom Baker will look like for the talking-heads documentary 100 Years of Doctor Who - a bit hairier (not to mention a bit smellier-looking) and he still gets to say ‘Aaaahhh’ an awful lot. Just be thankful this wasn’t a Colin story, as no doubt Marlon Brando would have made some sort of Superman-esque cameo.

Talking of aging, apparently here the Doctor is 750 years old (rather a common quoted age during this era, I seem to remember) and is aged 500 years by the Tachyon generator. Now, does this mean that each incarnation is capable of such long life (which would tally with how old Hartnell’s Doctor appears to be) or is this just some side-effect of Romana’s temporal experiment accident? Or am I just trying to rationalise all this in a pointless ‘Matrix Data Bank’ kinda way? And is anyone still awake after reading this paragraph?

There’s an awful lot of walking up-and-down corridors in this episode (typically for this story, as the traditional running would be far too kinetic, now wouldn’t it?). But dear old couldn’t-give-a-f**k-about-the-budget Lovett Bickford’s still trying to keep us visually stimulated; with a rather neat segue through one of the Leisure Hive’s windows onto Mena and Hardin being this episode’s stand-out shot (and even the colour changes as we move from external to internal, which is nice).

Meanwhile, David Haig is at least still trying to bring some gravitas to proceedings, acting his little yellow socks off as though this was all Shakespeare or something (and ‘Leisure’ does to be fair have a half-decent plot - with Argolis’ financial dilemma foreshadowing Russia’s own ‘Glasnost’ approach following Chernobyl - amidst all the scientific claptrap). And the fact that Pangol is in fact the first Argolin of this new order is a neat - if somewhat expected - trick. By the way, all that ‘West Lodge’ business reminds me of a letter in DWM a few years ago, claming that the director David Lynch was somehow inspired by this story to write Twin Peaks; which also had a ‘West Lodge’ and characters called Brock and Hardin (though I may be mistaken about this last bit). And David Lynch would have been in this country around the time ‘The Leisure Hive’ was first transmitted (filming The Elephant Man). Could be garbage, but it’s a nice theory nonetheless.

But I must agree with my fellow Tachyon bloggers and say that - despite the stylish and expensive-looking visuals and there-if-you-can-be-bothered-looking plot - this is all getting a bit dull by now. Even the Doctor’s taken to saying ‘I’m sick of being old’ and writing graffiti on the TARDIS exterior (though whether the words ‘Bad Wolf’ are present remains tantalisingly unknown…) And so much for the Doctor’s legendary ability to understand any and all alien species, as the Foamasi’s attempts to explain the plot to him leave him somewhat non-plussed (though arguably this could be as much down to 1250-year-old senile dementia as poor continuity).

And dare I say it, that’s again a decent cliff-hanger, with Brock’s Foamasi-hiding suit ripped from his body and a mask not even Delgado would wear coming off to reveal yet another set of green net-curtains beneath. Even the Slitheen would be impressed by how he managed to conceal all that beneath his waistband!

Must have been the Blue Velvet suit he wore, of course…

(‘The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about ‘The Leisure Hive’ episode three: the actor playing Klout was paid by the word, allowing JNT to compensate for Lovett Bickford thinking he was filming ‘Lawrence of Arabia’)

Tachyonics for beginners

(Please note: there will be a short theory test in temporal mechanics following this episode)

They must have been proud of that shuttle-docking model shot, seeing as we get it every bleeding time someone new arrives at the hive. This time it’s Hedin - who, if you’ll remember, is the Earth scientist that the Doctor was mistaken for last time out. Monsters in the shadows, the Doctor being mistaken for an expected guest…who said that this story was all just a case of ‘out with the old, in with the neon’, eh?

The resolution to the cliff-hanger’s an inevitable cop-out (besides, why does the Doctor make his Tachyon double scream, except for the sake of a poor-taste joke about the late Loman?). Though I do like Tom’s line about the previously hole-less cabinet now having a hole in its back; as in the last episode, Baker’s on fine form here…and apparently even enjoying himself for a change.

Hardin and Mena appear to have a history, don’t they? It’s a refreshingly subtle piece of characterisation from the show, with just a hint that the two of them might have had some sort of ‘relationship’ previously. But Hardin has a secret to hide - his revolutionary time travel experiments are little more than a fake, financed by the curiously more scientific-looking Stimpson! Well, what with all this talk of Tachyons and something called a ’wafer-wave inducer’ (episode two reaches some sort of Who record for technobabblick gobbledegook, by the way) it’s easy to make the odd scientific error. And the resultant temporal instability - with not a Time Scoop in sight, I care to add - at least makes for another above-par cliff-hanger.

I feel at this point it is time to state the defence for one Lovett Bickford’s direction. As despite all the excessive panning shots - with the revelation of the Doctor’s scarf garrotting Stimpson’s neck being this episode’s prime example - Bickford shows a real eye for detail and upholding of the show’s horror traditions which often gets overlooked. Take the section where Stimpson discovers Klout literally ‘hanging up’ in Brock’s quarters; followed by a menacing sequence where the self-serving financier is hunted by a Foamasi through the creepily-lit hall of the Tachyon generator. It’s just a shame that the Foamasi themselves reinforce the great Who tradition of better-heard-than-seen; with their net-curtain bodies and boggle-eyes being about the only cheap-looking aspect of the whole production.

Meanwhile, Mena’s filling the Doctor and Romana in on the twenty-minute war which devastated her planet (the length of which can’t have failed to have struck a chord with discerning, cold-war-aware viewers of the day) only to find that she too is shedding her hair-balls with indecent regularity. And before you can say ‘the Doctor’s been mistakenly arrested…again’, he’s facing trial-by-Tachyon-regenerator, with Romana’s scientific know-how the only thing between him and the prospect of smelling of wee for the rest of his natural. Perhaps they should have arrested the scarf after all?

And the cliff-hanger finally shows us what we knew all along - Romana is exactly the same as the Doctor, even down to the scientific carelessness. That effect shot of the glass reforming as it goes back in time is very nice as well, though it doesn’t make sense given what happens to the Doctor.

Because, blimey, he’s only gone and turned into Peter Ustinov from Logan’s Run, hasn’t he?

(The ‘Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about ‘The Leisure Hive’ episode two: Jeremy Irons gave an un-credited performance as the doomed Stimpson during a week’s leave from ‘Play Away’)

Hive of Inactivity

The Leisure Hive Part 2

The recap from episode one is twice as long as Lovett's opening pan! Methinks the episode is running a little short! Which is hilarious when you consider that the director isn't in a rush to tell his tale (the leisurely leisure hive, anyone?) which clearly implies to me this story was actually designed to be a two-parter. We can but dream. In fact, this episode is shorter than the Argolis war!

I wish I could get into the plot to this story (or even summarise it for you) but the gratuitous appliance of science really does my head in. Just look at this menu of technoguff: tachyonic instabilities, warp matrix engineering, negative displacement, waifer-wave inducers, locked-phases, wave equations, and lots and lots of numbers. At one point Hardin even admits that it's not real science. But who cares? It's still as thrilling as a double-maths class. Will it stabilise at 450?? Who gives a shit!

Oh look, yet another tedious scene of something docking with something else. All together now - der der der der der, dum dum, der der. But instead of successfully aping 2001's grandeur, we get a docking scene which, thanks to no sense of scale whatsoever, just looks like a couple of washing-up liquid bottles heading for a kitchen roll-holder painted black. And it goes on FOREVER.

Q is right - this is really is Babylon 5 set in Center Parcs. And just look at all that Minbari science scattered liberally about the place. Who knew that JMS would steal from both The Lord of the Rings and The Leisure Hive?

Did I mention that there are some nasty aliens shambling about the place as well? You can tell they are nasty because they've got claws, they're green, and they stomp on people's glasses. They also go to the same shop as the Master for unconvincing plastic face masks. But more on that hilarious plot development tomorrow...

Oh look, the fourth Doctor has been framed for a crime he hasn't committed. AGAIN. No wonder Baker looks bored and dismissive. There's only one teeny, weeny sparkle of old-time joy in this episode: when Baker suggests that they arrest his scarf there's a twinkle in his eye - a snapshot of what it used to be like before JNT decided it was time for us to throw away childish things.

And speaking of growing old, the Doctor suddenly regenerates into Catweazle!

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part two: Gil Gerard's jumpsuit was made from a special experimental latex. Biddy. Biddy. Biddy.
 

When's Wife Swap on?

The Leisure Hive - Episode 2

Please give me the strength to get through this. The one saving grace is that this has to be the shortest episode of Who on record (Dimensions in Time aside). Weighing in at a paltry 18 minutes, from cliff-hanger resolution to Howell sting, what on earth were they doing with their time? Knocking off early to get down to the boozer? Without a care in the world for the poor continuity announcer who, surprise by the shortness of the episode said:

"Well. We appear to have a few moments to spare on BBC1, due to the recent episode of Doctor Who ending earlier than expected. So he's some music."

So what exactly happens to fill these 18 massive minutes? Well, not a vast amount really. The Doctor's OK. Quelle surprise. We learn that the Hive was built to keep the atmosphere of the planet out, and presumable the same construction material keeps the fun in. It's like some sort of pink-tinged version of Babylon 5 with it's multicultural environment. And weird looking aliens with dodgy looking hair.  I remember when I first saw B5 thinking that Londo's hair must have been a massive joke. How wrong I was.

There's more intrigue and suspense with partial shots of some reptiles that are stalking the Hive. Although by now it's all getting a little tedious and has more in common with the mystery guest round in A Question of Sport. My money's on it being Fatima Whitbred in a kagool of some description.

We seem fixated by a quite frankly shoddy shots of shuttles arriving at the Hive. One of them contains the Earth scientist, Hardin, who appears to be the Johnny Ball of his day. And boy does he have his work cut out as all the control panels resemble kiddies block puzzles where you've got the put the right shaped solid into the right shaped hole. Perhaps there's even a little mallet lurking around that he can use to tap in the unruly shapes that just won't fit neatly. Hardin's chum, Stimson, has curiously accentuated eye moment when talking to people close up, swivelling left and right all the time, as if he was the original model for the Eagle-Eyed Action Man figure. Thank goodness he'll be dead soon, I was starting to get quite dizzy watching him.

Some of the actual sets are lit appallingly badly considering the rest of the piece resembles a chip shop. Lots of shadows being cast across faces of the actors as they speak. And we're not talking good shadows, like those in Film Noir epics or Hank Marvin. Cheap gags abound thanks to swearing innocence before the Helmet of Theron, which actually looks like one of the Easter Island Moai Statues.

More cherry stones fall off the Mr Whippy heads of the Argolin, the Doctor's scarf is accused of murder and Hardin appears to have perfected a replacement for anti-wrinkle cream. Big shitting deal.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part two: the first draft of The Leisure Hive was set in a council leisure centre with an officious manager, an idea that would later kill off Chris Barrie's career.

In Xanadu did JN-T a stately leisure-hive decree

The Leisure Hive - Episode 1

Good lord, is it the 80s already? It has to be, we've all gone neon. It's already been mentioned, so I won't dwell upon it, but that is one looooooong tracking shot. What did Bickford think he was doing? Making this for IMAX? Or Really-Really-Really-Widescreen? Not for the first time, the programme undergoes bodily regeneration, and this time Tom's wearing the costume that, I'm sure I recall him saying, made him look like a twat. A vision in burgundy. Gone is all the charm and character of the previous slightly ramshackle appearance and in comes this coordinated look. Looks like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy have been asked in to completely tool the show for the crapest decade to date...

...I'm surprise that K-9 hasn't been dyed pink, turned into a robotic poodle and re-christened with a poncey show dog name like Lady Jerusalem Ostrich Blender. The poor sod, I actually thought that he was handling the shingle manfully (well, dogfully) then I spotted the cable guiding him along. I know they often tried to sideline the metal mutt, because of unsuitable studio sets etc... but here he is coping with the roughest terrain he's ever seen in his life, only to be rendered a little sodden after running for a beach ball. Just how was he supposed to "fetch"?

K-9's given Romana a list of more suitable leisure alternatives. And the best brochure of the lot is for Argolis, the first of the leisure planets. The second leisure planet was one gigantic inflatable, and on the third everything was made from pork scratchings. As Romana's giving the Doctor the sales pitch, the brand new Quantel box (or whatever they'd half-inched from the Kenny Everett Television Show) takes over, and Brighton Beach diminishes into a star field and the music increases in volume. At which point I was actually waiting for Peter Jones' voice over to come in with something like, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about the planet Argolis....", with some suitable Rod Lord animation.

What we actually get is a sterile looking Butlins style holiday camp with lots of Yellow Coats. Did Lovett Bickford actually blow the entire series budget on this one story? There's an awful lot of interesting direction going on here, lots of low angle shots, ceilings, and pink tinges. It's unfortunate that the majority of people will associate the Tachyon TV empire with this poor story. An awful lot of cod-science going on here from David Fisher (who I always think is one of those pseudonyms that Douglas Adams or Robert Holmes used from time to time). Still, the new technology that the production team a playing with do give us a TARDIS demat tracking shot.

There really is way too much of this bad science which, at the moment, I can't really find any point to. It's as if it's trying to be all big and clever, but it all just comes over as garbage. Even if tachyons are a real branch of physics. And just what is all this about the Tachyon Recreational Generator? It's just annoying pap. The word tachyon derives from the Greek, tachus, meaning "speedy". Unfortunately, that's not going to help us get through this any quicker.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part one: production was almost brought to a standstill by irate union officials as the director had employed non-Equity deckchairs for the opening shots on Brighton Beach.

Brighton Beach Memoirs

It’s hard to remember - some twenty-five years after its first transmission - just how much of a shock this first episode of ‘The Leisure Hive’ was. Because in those pre-Internet, pre-media-saturation days we pretty much didn’t know what to expect until we actually saw it. And on one balmy August Saturday, what we saw was rather different from the norm.

Right, where do we begin? Well, the music’s a bit different, isn’t it? And those titles more or less leap out at you from the screen, as opposed to the time tunnel ones that sucked you in for the previous seven years. Nowadays we’d have had some warning, but then it was just the BBC continuity announcer and - BANG! - gone was arguably the most iconic opening to a programme on television. It’s no wonder that the somewhat complicated - not to mention, rather more scientifically-based - plot that was to come took some effort to follow.

But I do like that Brighton Beach opening - with the Doctor characteristically getting not only the wrong time of year, but the wrong century to boot, for the opening of the Pavilion (and having been to Brighton recently, for some reason or another, it’s understandable how someone could get their centuries mixed up whilst there). Furthermore it seems that the trials of the past six years have finally caught up with the fourth Doctor - having given up suggesting talking cabbages and overweight old ladies as companions, he’s decided to sit this story out snoring his head off (despite the fact that ‘sleep is for tortoises’, remember). If Season 18 is all about Tom Baker letting go of the role of Doctor Who, then this opening shot is clearly meant to ape the star’s dissatisfaction with the increasing lack of control he has over events around him.

Soon K-9 is trundling his way into the first of this season’s ‘accidents’, blowing a gasket as his mechanics come up against the Channel’s finest salt water. But at least it wakes up Tom, with him and Lalla bantering away like the married couple they were soon to be (and for fun, try guessing in which scenes during this story were the future Mr & Mrs Baker not communicating…it sure beats the hell out of Tachyonics for entertainment). Then we’re off to Argolis - with a rather expensive-looking crane shot to boot - and the eponymous hive; where the Argolin race have taken to zero-gravity squash and hologrammatic fun ’n’ games to replace an industry left sterile following cataclysmic nuclear war. But all is not well: leader Morix is having something of a bad day, what with human agents Brock and Klout (looking remarkably like a young David Walliams) trying to convince him that Argolis’ only financial future lies in selling out to the very reptilian race that brought about their downfall. And the fact that little balls keep dropping out of his well-coiffed hair rather understandably takes its toll on the poor man.

Meanwhile, Morix’s son Pangol - played rather splendidly, it has to be said, by David Haig - is urging Argolis to return to its war-like ways, using the science of Tachyonics to replicate and rejuvenate its dying and sterile race. Now, it’s nice to see the show get back to some proper scientific roots following some years of pseudo-science and endless mugging by Baker, but a lot of this stuff must have gone straight over the heads of even the ‘intelligent fourteen year-olds’ that Robert Holmes once claimed the show was ideally aimed at. And given that over on ITV, the latest attempt to out-Who the Who was an equally slick (but rather less esoteric) American import called Buck Rogers, then it was no surprise that barely five million viewers originally stayed this episode’s course.

But the lack of clarity aside, there’s much to praise both this episode - and its mandate of re-establishing the show’s dramatic credibility - for. To start, has the show (at least prior to 1996, or 2005) ever looked more expensive? Director Lovett Bickford certainly has an eye for the cinematic, with two panning shots - the establishing one of endless beach-houses and, later, an external crawl across Argolis’ barren surface - being almost Kubrickian in style. Not to mention what was then a very audacious attempt to have the TARDIS materialise in the foreground of an ongoing scene. On the whole this episode is both very glossy and very slick, wearing its badge of ‘first-story-of-the-season-and-a-decent-budget-to-spend’ for all of its twenty-five minutes. And we can’t move on without mentioning the thematic layering this episode establishes - with Argolis the first of several societies from Season 18 to experience change and decay, and mention of ‘cellular rejuvenation’ hinting at what was to await the Doctor twenty-seven episodes later…

And even Baker himself seems to have taken his cue from the new broom of John Nathan-Turner’s producership. Given very little opportunity to play to the crowd, he’s very much back to the witty and restrained Doctor of his first three seasons. Although he does look more swamped by than comfortable in that fetching new burgundy ensemble that June Hudson has knocked up for him (shame about the question marks, though).

Soon the Doctor and Romana are once more being mistaken for people who they’re not, and confusing the local populace in order to make their escape (which, rather like the ‘monsters lurking in the shadows’ shots, help emphasise how this story’s house-style is very much a mixture of the very new with the very traditional). And that’s a more-than-decent cliff-hanger, trailed neatly by a scene earlier in the episode where the hapless Loman has all his limbs torn off by the Tachyonic generator (eliciting a rather dead-pan ‘he’s terribly hurt’ from Tom)

Colourful and demanding of one’s attention, this - unlike the Argolins themselves - has really aged rather well.

(The ‘Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about part one of ‘The Leisure Hive’: Lovett Bickford’s opening pan across Brighton beach was

so

long that the whole season had to be extended by two episodes as a result.)

Panned

The Leisure Hive Part One

I'm not a big fan of Season 18. It's just so po-faced. It really is hard to believe that we are watching the same programme we enjoyed last week, even if it does feature the same lead actor playing the same lead character. The differences are so striking, in fact, I distinctly remember that it felt like a slap in the face back in 1980. Sadly, while Doctor Who has always changed and adapted to keep up with the times, sometimes it ends up with its arse stuck up an evolutionary cul-de-sac.

And it all begins here with a story so dull they had to over-light it so it could be detectable to the human eye.

The new star field titles are blander than a Girl's Aloud B-side. And my, how it's dated; chrome is just soooo 1980s, isn't it? Tom's sombre face on the old titles used to scare the crap out of me; here, he looks like he's in some kind of pain. It's rather sad, really. And losing the shoulders is a bad move too, as disembodied floating heads always, without fail, look silly. This is a shame because this episode is full of them.

The opening shot immediately informs us that we are no longer watching Doctor Who as we know it. It must be the longest, most boring and ultimately pointless pan in the history of television. And as the director Stanley Kubrick, sorry, Lovett Bickford, prods the camera towards his rather poor visual "joke" you can't help but imagine millions of remote controls around the country switching over to Buck Rodgers in the 25 Century, a show that knew it was disposable eye candy and not some pretentious art-house homage to Alfred Hitchcock.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if the pan wasn't so relentlessly grim. This misery-en-scene is so hypnotically depressing it's the televisual equivalent of dozing off on the sofa. No wonder the Doctor is fast asleep when we finally join him (he was awake when they shouted 'Action!'), and I'm left wondering if the bad weather was intentional, in order to beef up the Doctor's alieness, or maybe they just had bad luck on the day? There's sod all else to think about!

This pan lasts for 87 seconds. That doesn't seem like a lot, but stop reading this review and count to 87. Go on, I dare you.

Now, how tedious was that?

K9 does what every real dog does - it goes chasing anything you throw at it, even if it happens to land in the middle of a mine-field, some broken glass or, in this case, an ocean. What would he have done if it he'd actually caught up with the beach-ball remains a mystery, though. Perhaps he would have analysed the plasticity of its component molecules? Either way, K9 is out of action for the foreseeable. All together now... Ahhhhhhhhh.

Don't worry, we'll get to analyse the nuts off this metal mutt next week, but suffice to say that Season 18 is so grown-up and self-conscious it simply hasn't got any time for anything even remotely approaching 'fun'.

This is very odd when you discover that the story is supposed to take place on the most fun-packed planet in the galaxy. Argolis - crispy nuclear devastation on the outside, anti-gravity dance machines on the inside. To be honest I've seen more excitement in a Job Centre, but this is probably because the place is run by the Argolins, a miserable bunch of neurotic bureaucrats who are distracted by a bunch of reptiles called the Foamasi who are trying to buy them out. At the same time they are desperately trying to figure out a way to stop their hairpieces from falling to bits while simultaneously hosting squash tournaments. Or something.

The Leisure Hive also introduces us to yet another new companion for the Doctor - Quantel. Now, don't get me wrong, Quantel are the world's leader when it comes to cutting-edge visual effects, but back in 1980 it was best known for providing Top of the Pops with such trickery as turning Kid Jensen's face into a bouncing ping pong ball as he introduced Hazel O'Connor. These effects were undoubtedly groundbreaking at the time but they've dated even quicker than the soundtrack which, while admittedly sounding more alien, is about as frightening as an advert for a Zanussi washing machine.

However, at the time I do remember being terrified by the cliffhanger where the Doctor literally gets torn apart. The only memorable image in a thoroughly forgettable episode. But - and here's the clincher - it wasn't good enough to drag me back to the TV next week, and I spent the next twelve weeks completely Doctor-free. And you can't get anymore damning than that.

Finally, The Leisure Hive spouts lots of technoguff about Tachyonics, but, as if you hadn't already guessed, the title of my website is not inspired by this story (it is derived from John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, which actually features a bona fide Tachyon TV, fact fans). If I'd named a website after this story I'd probably have come up with www.shitsandwich.com

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part one: Lovett wanted to film this episode in one single 24-minute take until JNT managed to talk him down.