Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

"Elementary, my dear Litefoot..."

I don't like Tom Baker.

There. I said it. And since the world hasn't imploded, I guess I'm not alone in feeling that two of his adventures is just plain not fair. Damn you Neil, you accursed cad!

And yet, considering I'm no Tom Baker fan, this was actually pretty good. Huzzah. I won't bother going through the plot, since this wee page here does that job for me. Instead, I'm going to have a look at the characters, who were all quite excellent.

Totally ignoring the Doctor (for the reason given in my first sentance) and moving onto Leela, she's a more then suitable companion for the Doctor that questioned whether he needed a companion at all. I believe the only time she screamed was when a giant creature-which-Indiana-Jones'-father-hates was attacking her leg, so that's definate plus points there. She's fiesty, eager to kill and delights in being shown a different time. Everything you could want from a companion, really.

Litefoot and Jago... what an interesting team they make. We only really saw them team up in about 1.5 episodes, but it was still entertaining and I can fully understand why a spin-off was considered. Seperately they're a good pair, with Litefoot being the more scientific and daring, and Jago being the bold but bit of a softy really. In some ways they're almost like a Sherlock and Holmes - no points for guessing which is which. I could quite happily watch them a great deal.

Li H'sen Chang... an excellent performance by John Bennett. If I hadn't known better I would have sworn he really was Chinese (a testament to how good his make-up is). He clearly loves playing the role and puts an intriguing twist to his character. You almost feel sorry for him when his character SPOILERsnuffs itEND SPOILER. Almost. Let's not forget he's a bad, bad man. Not as bad as his master, but still pretty nasty. Deserved his fate with the short-brown-furry-things-with-whiskers-and-a-tail -that-women-are-frightened-of.

Mr Sin... kinda hard to take him totally seriously, what with him reminding me of Nick-Nack, but he still managed to convey some small terror, so I guess it's not a total loss. Interesting origin - basically a pig gone mad - and it's a lovely way to explain why he/she/it hates humans. And he was hilarious as a puppet! Which begs the question... how the hell did Li H'sen manage to hold him with one arm? He must have weighed a ton...

Weng-Chiang... pretty menacing. Nice to meet a villain who doesn't kill and main for the hell of it. A more scientificly-sound version of a vampire, if you will. One suspects that if he hadn't arrived disfigured, he may well have become a peaceful member of society, but I guess that wouldn't have made for a good Doctor Who story. And rightly so. So he's killing innocent women to stay alive. Boo, hiss, etc. I actually felt sorry for his servant Li H'sen when this guy cruelly dismissed him, which is pretty damn impressive, so good show all round there.

So overall I enjoyed the thing, but am not really looking forward to next week's episode because it's also got Tom Baker in it. And, on a side note, I went through the entire review without mentioning ra-things-that-people-keep-as-pets-and-make-run-around-in-wheels -which-aren't-mice-or-gerbils. Ha!

And regarding my activities during the week-long break - I've got a list of proposed stuff which I'm going to post as a comment since I don't want to make the review too long. Kindly let me know your thoughts about it, and feel free to make suggestions. I value your input, or something.

The Once and Future Foe

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part 6

You know those moments during DVD commentaries when the participants stop saying anything remotely interesting as they involuntarily get caught up in the action unfolding on screen? Well, that's how I felt watching this episode. Instead of making notes for jokes (I got as far as trionic soap for dirty fingernails) I was so transfixed that my initial review went something like this:

"That was bloomin' fantastic, guv'nor!"

I realised that probably wouldn't cut the mustard so I cobbled this together instead:

The 4th Doctor is never better than when he's going toe-to-toe with the main villain, especially when said villain is a deranged, egotistical maniac who loves the sound of his own voice. If we're really, really lucky we usually get a couple of minutes of this in every story, but in Talons we are treated to approximately 20 minutes of the Doctor haranguing the hell out of this hideous, hateful, hell-beast (Henry Gordon Jago has a lot to answer for).

The Doctor employs all of his usual tricks against the enemy, which makes him the unique hero he really is: jelly babies, name-calling, feigning ignorance, psychological baiting, grim warnings, and even a spot of chess. It's only when push literally comes to shove that he even considers putting it about a bit.

We also learn that Weng-Chiang is actually a war criminal from the 51st century called Magnus Greel (and with a surname like that he didn't have much of a choice, really). The Doctor kindly fills us in on Greel's fantastical backstory which takes place during World War 5, a conflict which saw the Philippines, Iceland and Australia kicking the shit out of each other. To be perfectly honest, the rest of the planet hardly noticed. Mr. Sin almost started World War 6 between The Shetland Islands and Venezuela a few years later, but, thankfully, his batteries ran out.

Greel is, in actual fact, the Butcher of Brisbane. A man so twisted and evil he actually tried to fuel his time travel experiments with Australians. There's a colonial metaphor in there somewhere, I'm sure. Or maybe Robert Holmes wrote this episode by sticking pins randomly into a map?

The problem is that Greel is too 'one-note'. He's constantly in a state of panic or distress, even when he's supposed to be gloating, and you just want to slip him a Valium. OK, so his face is melting off and that's enough to put anyone in a bad mood, but there simply isn't any shading to him. He's the quintessential pantomime villain who is upstaged by his own, far more interesting, henchmen.

A good example is when Greel really lets rip with the classic line 'Let the Talons of Weng-Chiang shred your fle-ESHHHHH!' He's got the spring onions and sliced cucumber all set and ready to go. The fiend.

And speaking of ham, Mr. Sin goes suddenly piggy on Greel's ass. That's what you get when you employ a malfunctioning toy as a henchman, I suppose. I wonder if he's still under warranty? And if I were Greel I'd work on my micro-management skills.

When the Doctor finally throws the madman into his own distillation chamber (who saw that one coming?) you can also see him thinking 'sod this for a game of soldiers!', and who can blame him?

The episode ends with a charming debate on the nature of tea, and then Leela and the Doctor head off for more adventures, leaving Jago and Litefoot to their spin-off negotiations. Meanwhile, off-screen, someone is eaten by a giant rat that everyone has conveniently forgotten about. Oh well, leave it to Sherlock to sort out.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about episode six: the House of the Dragon was a production in-joke - it was actually the name of the Chinese restaurant where Hinchcliffe commissioned Holmes to write this story.

"I say, I say, I say..."

Part the Sixth.

This episode flashes by – it only seemed to have been on for about ten minutes before the final credits were rolling, and for once it wasn’t my DVD player going south again. No, it’s an enjoyable slice of Who – not perhaps quite as masterfully crafted as some of the previous episodes of this serial, but it brings everything to a pleasing conclusion and has some more great dialogue and just an all-round feeling of warmth and enthusiasm.

Admittedly the laser beams are a bit dodgy, and there’s a boom mic in shot for some of the final street scene, but again these are quibbles with the dressing of the thing, rather than with the substance of Holmes’s script and the performances. Although yet again I’m wondering just what exactly is a Jackanapes, anyway?

It’s intriguing that Mr Sin is the one who saves the day, in the end – the close-up of his eyes shows that he’s taking in what the Doctor’s saying about them all dying if Greel activates the Zigma Beam, and as soon as the Time Lord has explained this then the little pig brain has turned on his erstwhile master and gunned down him and his cabinet. You wonder how the Doctor would have coped if Sin hadn’t so suddenly and conveniently turned.

Anyone who utters a line like “The talons of Green will shred your fleeessshhh!” deserves to be lasered to death by his own little pygmy pig toy, mind you. Greel does speak a hell of a lot of crap throughout this episode, even for a Robert Holmes script, with all his nonsense pseudo-scientific gobbledegook about the Zigma beam and his time travel experiments.

There remains little else to tell. Jago and Litefoot survive to fight another day and have a fantastic story to tell their friends, and they all trot out for early morning muffins before the final trick of all, the magical disappearance of the TARDIS which everyone else is pretty much used to by now.

Fantastic stuff, great fun, and a classic example of the original series doing brilliantly.

You're Twisting my Muffin Man

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Episode 6

I'd not picked up on this  before: Leela tells the Doctor that in a house of this size there must be protection. If she's looking for a prophylactic she might not be in luck, Litefoot doesn't seem like that short of chap. It's not long before Weng-Chiang appears and, well, it the same old story. He's like a badly melted, broken record. He's still after the soap-like Trionic Lattice key that'll get him into the Time Cabinet. But really it is a posh soap and he just needs to clean his dirty fingernails.

Jago and Litefoot, doing their best Beirut hostage impressions start talking about what might happen at dawn. Jago's absolutely caking it that the Chinese are about to do unspeakable things to their limp and still twitching corpses. Perhaps they could fight over his sideburns as wear them as trophies. Perhaps they're seen as a Chinese delicacy?

Weng-Chiang finally reveals himself as Magnus Greel, the infamous Minister of Justice, the Butcher of Brisbane. Now, having just witnessed the 20th anniversary of Neighbours I say that Magnus should be celebrated. Why? Cos whenever people left the cast they always seemed to go to Brissy and by the 51st century, if Neighbours is still running, and I've not seen an evidence to disabuse me of that hypothesis, Brissy must be choc full of ex-Neighbours characters. Bit of bad-soap character clensing might actually go down well but would have decimated the Panto business for years after. Actually, now here's a thing. Greel started rattling on about Time Agents earlier and he's from the same time period as Capt'n Jack. Coincidence? Probably. But like Bastic Bullets there's probably lots of milage in some fan-wank-fic about how Greel and Jack used to hang out before Greel turned bad and started to melt.

The Doctor starts wittering on about there being a one-eyed little idol, to the north of Milton Keynes. Or some such idiocy. That might be the next vehicle for the loathsome Cowell, "One-Eyed Idol", in which optically challenged people compete for an expensive medical procedure to restore 20-20 vision. You could have a vision-impaired Dalek fronting the whole shebang with a partially mutated Kate Thornton fronting the companion show over on ITV37. Hell! I think I might as well pitch that to the next alcohol-sodden entertainment exec next time I'm in Soho. Last time I was outside the Tiger Aspect studios it smelt as if the drains had gone, but it was probably just a direct result of The Catherine Tate Show.

Note to self: Stop listening to Charlotte Church, it's not helping. I think I need some therapy.

Where were we? Ah yes, the Doctor's turned into MacGuyver as he plots his escape using only the things around him. Wonder if Patty and Selma would covert locks of Tom Baker's hair with the same starry eyed insanity? Actually, there's the distinct possibility that there probably already exists a thin vein of fandom that does exactly that and goes around collecting the bodily clippings of our heros. It's certainly a rich and infinitely strange bunch of people. The Doctor's master plan is almost stumped by dodgy Lucifers and an obviously large number of retakes.

Greel start talking in riddles now, about preparing his two partridges. A-ha.

Leela's basically doing the Doctor Who equivalent of being tied to the train tracks ahead of an oncoming steam train. Our plucky heros are now pinned down behind a very flimsy table. Just why is Greel hiding too? Surely he has the upper hand here? He needn't continue hiding. Sin goes a little trigger happy and roasts Greel's chinese cohort. It's just like an episode of campy Batman where the story always climaxes in the villain's hideout and the enemy of the week sends in his lackeys first, usually with comedy names written on their tunics. Tang, Wang, Jang, Bang and Pang. Apologies, the opener for the latest series of Curb Your Enthusiasm is still fresh in my mind.

This is mutiny, Mr Sin! And it all ends in bread-based produce. Still a cracking story, marred only slightly by the printing error on the DVD. Doctor Who reaching the heights it always was capable of reaching (but more often than not, didn't).

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part six: the dragon's head laser gun, that Mr Sin is seen operating towards the climax of the story, is now to be found in the club house of the Stoke Newington Municipal Golf Course.

'Beware the Eye of the Dragon'

Bless her; Leela certainly puts up a brave fight, both against the chloroform that Weng-Chiang is trying to impart on her and with the sight of that half-melted face. Sarah-Jane would have been away with the fairies by now…

Tom’s on fine form at the start of this episode - his deadpan reaction to the villain sitting in Leela’s place and resultant frivolity in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds being the very quintessence of the Doctor’s character. It’s this mix of the manic and the menacing that really sells his Doctor as the definitive article - and as I’ve said before, it’s the very tone that Baker brings to proceedings that makes this era so unforgettable. Things really never would be quite the same again following this episode.

Jago and Litefoot - charming and poignant though their banter is - have become pretty superfluous by this point. And ‘Talons’ 6 is largely concerned with acting out the traditional ‘Mexican stand-off’ so representative of a Hinchcliffe/Holmes production. There’s some real steel to the Doctor and ‘Weng-Chiang’s confrontations - because the villain with the dirty fingernails is in reality a time-travelling war criminal called Magnus Greel, whom the Doctor is familiar with having ‘walked with the Philippino army’ in the 51^st Century. As the first man to travel in time - and proponent of the dangerously unstable Zigma experiments - Greel is very much a Saddam Hussein of his day; ranting about how history is always written by the winning side and standing by his convictions to the bitter end. Apparently Holmes originally had the Master earmarked to be the real villain beneath the mask; and it’s to no detriment of the story that such a shocking - though, even then, clichéd - denouement is shelved in favour of something more original.

Unfortunately for the Doctor, he fails to heed Chang’s warning about ‘the eye of the Dragon’ and is soon sharing Jago and Litefoot’s cell with a couple of nubile lovelies, ready for Chang’s latest life-force top-up. Following some DIY bomb-making lessons (who needed the Internet to become a would-be terrorist in those days?) the Doctor is back in the nick of time to save Leela from Greel’s life-sucking machine (Leela having, not for the first time, decided to take on the villain mano-a-mano) Is it just me, or would she and Greel have made an ideal married couple - constantly bickering in a can’t-live-with, can’t-live-without kinda way? And why doesn’t Greel insist on first stripping Leela to her flowery undergarments this time before inflicting the machine on her (but then you’ve already heard enough from me about that particular obsession, haven’t you?)

But just as Greel sees the time cabinet-aided end to his suffering in sight, that pesky homunculus Mr Sin goes all trigger-happy, resulting in the former Weng-Chiang literally falling to pieces at the hands of his own devilish machine. And following some rather frenetic midget-hurling from the Doctor, everything’s resolved and it’s muffins all round. If only a typical episode of Eastenders ended so happily-ever-after…

And you can’t help agreeing with the Doctor’s parting words to Litefoot - ‘It’s been such fun’ - as the time-travellers head off to their 1977 summer break. Because these last six episodes really have been Doctor Who at its very height: atmospheric, scary and with a leading man who was never better, whether it be before or after this watershed story. And a perfect end to three faultless years of halcyon Who.

China Crisis

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part 5

Mr. Sin is revealed to be nothing less than the fabled Peking Homunculus™: an augmented toy pig from the future (bacon not included)! We're firmly in Chucky territory now, and it's nice to be treated to a plot device that another writer will steal later on. Let's see how Hinchcliffe and Holmes like them apples!

Weng-Chiang has the mother of all dickie-fits as he suddenly realises (you won't believe this next bit) that he's successfully stolen the time cabinet BUT the key that was already in his possession has been left behind in the confusion of their recent move! Chiang is livid and he decides to punish one of his minions:

Chiang: You know the penalty for failing me?
Lee: A P45 and no back-pay?
Chiang: Muwhahahaha! Oh.

But Chiang's really, really pissed and a poor reference just isn't going to cut it this time - it's time to employ the gobstoppers of doom!

Meanwhile, Jago is planning for the inevitable tours of the theatre's basement; there's nothing like some mutilated prostitutes for drumming up some trade. He also seems to have forgotten that poor Casey is dead as he yaks to himself about his grand schemes, but he does stumble across the key to the time cabinet and this leads to the moment that we've all been waiting for.

Forget Torchwood, the Jago and Litefoot spin-off would have been fantastic! Tachyon TV even managed to its hands on the original pitch (with apologies to MST3K):

Robert Holmes: So, Jago and Litefoot: The Series -
Head of Drama: The name goes. Never liked the name. It's banal.
RH: But if you're hoping to connect the new series with the original -
HoD: We need something like Sparky and the Lieutenant or Night Mistress. Something that will really seduce people. We can work on it.
RH: OK. So you've got Professor Litefoot and he roams through Victorian London with his little cowardly helper, Jago, and they get into all kind of scrapes against the chinks and the paddies and the blacks -
HoD: Birmingham
RH: What?
HoD: Birmingham, Coventry, Weston Super Mare! No, I like Birmingham. You like Birmingham? It's your show.
RH: Well, to me London is the essence -
HoD: Liverpool. We'll do it in Liverpool.
RH: Well, I suppose if you actually film it in Liverpool -
HoD: No, no, no. We'll film it in Cardiff. Have to.

It's a shame that nothing came of The Amazing Adventures of Jago and Litefoot. Oh, I can see the flaw now - they're rubbish. Each episode would start with them being caught by the villain of the week and... well, where can you possibly go from there? Unless, like Hong-Kong Phooey, Mrs Hudson was the brains of the operation.

Meanwhile, in one of the scabbier parts of London, the Doctor and Leela infiltrate the Victorian equivalent of a crack house. First prostitutes and now this! Mary Whitehouse must have been chewing her own legs off a this point.

And speaking of lacerated limbs, Chang isn't dead! Hurrah! But he's really pissed off (and as stoned as a herring). Having decided that suicide isn't painless after all, he quickly turns on his old boss and spills the beans to the Doctor. Unfortunately, he doesn't get very far and he succumbs to the hoary old cliche of croaking just as he's about to spill the most important bean of all. If he'd kept the poetic eulogising in check this mystery could have been wrapped up in no time at all.

The Doctor and Leela head back to the Professor's house just in time to bump into Chiang, who has finally realised that if something evil is really worth doing then you'd best do it yourself. However, instead of keeping his eye on the prize, he can't help but indulge in a quick fondle with Leela and before you can say 'velcro' -

Bloomin' heck! It's Sharaz Jek!

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part five: if you listen really carefully during the scene in the opium den you can hear Melyvn Bragg blowing his nose.

"I'm a tiger when my gander's up!"

Part the Fifth.

Litefoot is, of course, still alive and well and coming back to fight another day, although you have to wonder whether his explanation that “dozens” of Chinese attacked him isn’t a bit of an exaggeration. After all, Weng-Chiang only seems to have about six followers back at headquarters. Perhaps, in the best Doctor Who tradition, the rest of them are all staying in the next room.

One wonders why Mr Sin, or to give him his full title as revealed here “The Peking Homunculus”, couldn’t have taken Litefoot all on his own without needing others to burst in and give the Professor a good kicking too. Then again, I suppose he would hardly have been able to carry that cabinet out to the carriage all by himself. Speaking of Sin, does anybody else find the Doctor’s explanations of his origins a bit odd? Advanced technology being tied in with the cerebral cortex of a pig is a pleasingly grotesque image – and one echoed twenty-eight years later in Aliens of London – but the Doctor claims that the pig part became dominant, creating a creature that “revels in carnage.” Excuse me? Pigs notorious serial killers now, are they? Perhaps they undergo some drastic change in their nature by the 51^st century. Must be all that molesting they suffer at the hands of randy Time Agents by then.

Mr Sin’s owner, Weng-Chiang himself, seems to be indulging in a bit of a lunatic puppet act with the creature when he asks him at a later point “Did you hear that Mr Sin?” Bizarre. He’s also still absolutely shocking in the field of employee relations, as Slartibartfast might say, as no sooner has he managed to replace former right-hand man Chang with one-episode-wonder Lee (hmmm, did Philip Segal ever see this story, do you think?), then he’s gone and killed him off with more of that scorpion venom. He really needs to go on some sort of management training course, perhaps one of those with the amusing John Cleese videos.

Chang himself is rather surprisingly still alive, albeit with a leg gnawed off by the giant rats. The scenes of him dying and happily puffing on an opium pipe to dull the pain, and the explicit outlining of all this, is really rather shocking in its way, and you wonder why more of a fuss doesn’t seem to have been made about it at the time. Certainly you can’t really imagine the current series getting away with this – although then again you could probably say that of several elements in Talons, not least all the colourful stereotypes on display! Chang’s reflections as he dies are touching, particularly his now lost dreams of performing for the Queen at Buckingham Palace, which he was due to do next month. He really did care about that magic act after all.

Jago and Litefoot finally get to team up in this episode, and you can see why Robert Holmes was keen on the idea of the spin-off. Did he ever get around to writing a script for them? I’m sure I heard that he did pen one when trying to pitch the idea, but that might be hearsay. Answers on a postcard please. In any case, you do have to wonder how long such a venture could have lasted before it ran out of steam, although it is a shame we never got a return visit from the Doctor to this time and place so he could bump into them again. (And no, I’m not counting The Bodysnatchers). Leela has less to do in this episode, although she does get a great – and very self-aware, for the series – line: “You ask me so that you can tell me,” she points out to the Doctor, neatly summing up one of the main roles of any Doctor Who companion.

As we come to an end, again as with the unconvincing monster costume, Robert Holmes seems to be doing scenes from The Caves of Androzani seven years early, as the mask is ripped from the disfigured villain’s face. The cliffhanger works extremely well this time around, with the brief glimpse we’re given of Weng-Chiang’s face being enough to make you think you’ve seen something horrific, but not lingered on long enough to be able to pick out any detail, and more importantly any faults, before the end credits come crashing in. It also, of course, leaves you wanting to see more, and I’m sure the vast majority of those watching back in 1977 were very eager indeed to tune in next week and see the full detail of what lay behind the mask…

Look Who's Oinking

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Episode 5

There's plum sauce everywhere as the Doctor and Leela arrive at Litefoot's house well outside the nick of time. Litefoot's been knocked up and the cabinet is nowhere to be seen. The Doctor smells a rat. And given the unconvincing nature of the damn thing it's probably quite some stench. But then he starts putting the pieces of this Chinese puzzle together and deduces that the midget who attacked Litefoot is actually from the year 5000 and is called the Peking Homunculus. Where on earth did Holmes (Robert) pull that one from?

The Peking Homunculus - part toy - part Chinese takeaway menu number 37. A play thing. This Christmas' must have toy. A series of magnetic fields, on a printed circuit operating on a small computer with one organic component - the cerebral cortex of a pig. Batteries not included, obviously. Why did they feel the need to ram the cerebral cortex of a pig in there? It comes from the year 5000, so surely they've got something more sophisticated by way of artificial intelligence that would mean they didn't have to loiter outside abattoirs to get their hands on some pig innards? Or perhaps they were just that kind of scientist. Still, at least it explains why he keeps oinking. The swinish instinct has taken over. Just where would the Peking Homunculus come in a pack of Who Top Trumps? Somewhere between The Kandyman and a Nimon? We might never know. How many people lay awake at night trying to workout an ordering for Who monsters? Could Mr Sin have an Orgron? Could a Drashig pulp a Kroton? The possibilities are infinite.

Whilst we're all salivating over a pack of Who Top Trumps, Weng-Chiang's getting antsy, and just a little Lady Bracknell, and is looking for a lost handbag. He rewards the stupidity of his oriental minions by offering them the sweet of a thousand toothaches. One bite and it instantly gives you cavities so large that they swallow you up. He could keep dental practices in filling work for decades

Litefoot then indulges the Doctor in his detailed knowledge of the dodgier places of Victorian London. He's a sly one, I bet he's been around the houses a few times himself. The one thing that amazed me is that it's not until half way through this episode that Jago and Litefoot meet. I could have sworn it was much, much earlier that they teamed up. But they waste no time getting down to business and jamming themselves into a Dumb Waiter for a little fumble in the dark.

Chang's re-appearance from the sewers is a little of a surprise. And boy he could do with taking more care of his skin. But he soon ends up doped out of his tiny mind in an opium den, sucking on what appears to be a school recorder. You know the type, the one you faked playing in music classes by holding it low enough so that the holes over which your fingers were supposed to dance, musically, were hidden beneath the lip of the desk. He's also lost a leg. A bit careless, but I guess the drugs are working.

And then the traditional Bobby Holmes "rip the mask from the grotesquely deformed mad man" scene. Weng-Chiang looks like a man slowly returning to a gelatinous state. Pretty effective make up job too.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part five: The part of Mr Sin was recast at the very last minute as the original actor contracted, Little Jimmy Krankie, was unable to take the role after becoming stuck in her husband.

'I may have had a bang on the head, but this is a dashed queer story'

…and you didn’t even get to see the giant rat, Professor.

That has to be one of Who’s shortest ever cliff-hanger reprises, hasn’t it? As ‘Weng-Chiang’ and Mr Sin make their laughing way from Litefoot’s house (time cabinet well and truly in hand) the Doctor and Leela find the Professor in his usual position: lying on the floor, sporting a Chinese-inflicted bruise. Even Sarah-Jane didn’t get overcome by the villains of the week that often, surely.

But as the saying goes, it’s all ‘elementary, my dear Litefoot’ (or should that be alimentary, following episode two’s discourse on table manners between the Professor and Leela?). And it’s fair to say that Tom’s on the exposition ball, as he quickly deduces the inside man was Mr Sin (or rather the ‘Peking Homunculus’, some cross between a robot and a pig’s spine that almost caused the sixth World War around the year 5000...apparently.) It’s another example of how this story peels the layers off its respective villains one at a time; with each of their supernatural facades revealing a scientific underbelly.

Meanwhile, the yet-to-be fully-peeled ‘Weng-Chiang‘ is busy settling into his new, rather more esoteric hideout; already planning more than a few decorative changes starting with the time cabinet. Sadly, however, the quality of staff following Li H’sen’s sudden departure have not improved; with the lugubrious Lee becoming the latest to feel the wrath of Weng-Chiang’s Alan Sugar-style management methods. Played by the rather implausibly named ‘Tony Then’, Lee takes his punishment like any good down-trodden peasant, cracking down on ‘the sting of the scorpion’ as though he’s just broken a filling (but then if you’re a peasant the expense of replacing such things must make you crave suicide, given the lack of decent NHS care these days). And so Tony Then ends up just like his name: an embarrassing example of the past-tense.

Back at the theatre Jago (whilst not busy thinking of the ‘Alton Towers’ style theme-park he’s going to make out of the Palace’s grisly goings-on) has found a rather handily discarded carpet bag, containing no end of items from the BBC special effects workshop (think Matt Irvine’s life in microcosm). And like the budding detective that he’ll never be, he’s quickly hot-footing it to Litefoot’s residence, first mistaking the Professor for his own servant, and then extolling him with a cavalcade of Leonard Sachs dialogue. As a result, the ‘peerless premier professor of pathology’ suggests they help out the absent Doctor with a quick visit to the theatre, where no doubt the ‘blaggard’ in question will be too tempted not to return. But so clueless are the pair that it’s not long before Chinese ruffians are once again beating them up, leaving the viewer wondering how such a duo ever attracted thoughts of their own spin-off show (and besides, who’d ever commission a Doctor Who spin-off, anyway?)

Back with the Doctor and Leela once more, and their search for the source of the laundry thieves has brought them to a positive hive of scum and villainy; also know as the local launderette (Pauline Fowler’s presence, unknown). There the somehow rat-immune Chang is on his death-bunk, having apparently survived death-by-Giant-Rat with only a missing leg to show for it. Drunk on the opium pipe he’s smoking (prostitution, drugs…will the level of debauchery in this story ever end?) Chang gives arguably one of the series’ most lyrical death scenes, hallucinating of his forefathers coming to greet him and lamenting the fact that - next month - his show would have attracted the attention of no less than Queen Victoria herself. Your really do feel for Chang in this scene, with the late John Bennett’s ability to elicit great pity in the otherwise ruthlessly sinister master magician showcasing great skill behind those (somewhat misguided) prosthetic eyes.

And as we head to the climax, Jago and Litefoot have managed to escape their prison with the aid of a dumb waiter (no, not Fawlty Towers’ Manuel) only to be inevitably captured again; and the Doctor and Leela have returned to Litefoot’s to gather weapons for the final battle ahead. But while Leela is mistaking a golf club for some kind of Victorian spear, look at just who’s poking his cowled head through the curtains - yes, it’s Weng-Chiang, back for his trionic lattice. As he and Leela struggle, she finally manages to pull the mask away to see the face of the enemy, only to find that it’s a dry-run for later Holmes villain Sharaz Jek.

But I’m sure that it’s a face that still gave me the willies back in 1977!

Footsteps in the Fog

Part the Fourth.

Why does the rat sound like a mad parrot? I’m sure rats don’t actually sound like that. Mind you, if you did amplify a rat’s squeak in an attempt to replicate what it may sound like were it to be enlarged to fifty times its regular size, it would probably sound faintly pathetic, so it’s probably for the best they just made up a completely random noise for it. Not that anything much about the rest of the idea and execution of the rat can be said to be for the best, however.

Just how does Leela managed to get changes so quickly? Mrs Hudson seems to have managed to get her out of that wet underwear and into her new togs in about thirty seconds flat. Most impressive. Perhaps more notable, however, is the Doctor’s intervening line in response to Litefoot’s assertion that “clothes matter to women.” “They do?” the Doctor replies, in apparent or humorously feigned ignorance of the fact. The “you’re a very beautiful woman… probably,” line in City of Death is often remarked upon, and they come out of a very similar viewpoint and performance, which shows a nice piece of consistency across the Fourth Doctor’s character.

Just why is Leela so excited about the prospect of going to the theatre, however? At the beginning of the serial she didn’t even know what the theatre was, so she must have been brought up to speed very quickly somewhere along the line. Everything seems to be happening to her terribly quickly in this story. It must be such a disappointment.

Holmes keeps giving Chang very good dialogue, none more so than during his performance scenes here as his characters spars with the Doctor. “Chang shoot fifteen peasants learning this trick,” is a nice little gem, but particularly noteworthy perhaps is the well-taken “One of us is yellow,” line. Admittedly it might seem rather more authentic were it actually played by a Chinese actor, but you can’t have everything in life.

Chang is increasingly beginning to come across as a sympathetic, and perhaps rather pathetic figure here, rather than the apparently obvious villain of the earlier episodes. His desperate attempts to get back into Weng-Chiang’s good books by killing the Doctor, and his story of how he was a “simple peasant” who took in the ravaged time traveller thinking he was a God is affecting. He might actually be the most well-rounded henchman in the show’s history, and he does actually seem to care about his magic tricks as well, being shocked and perhaps a little hurt when the dead Casey turns up in his box of knives rather than his assistant.

It’s an odd sort of a cliffhanger to this episode, in Doctor Who terms. Usually episodes end – unless they’re the final one, of course – with a specific character under threat of injury or death, but the climax here is a far more general threat, Weng-Chiang riding off in his carriage with the recaptured Time Cabinet, his funny little pig friend in tow. And again we’re not left with any indication as to whether Litefoot is alive or dead, although you’d have to suspect he’s probably still alive. Even if in reality being knocked out twice in such a short space of time can’t be all that good for you.

Chinese Whispers

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Episode 4

The fourth episode gets off to quite a start. I'm far too much of a gentleman to do a screen shot of a dripping wet Leela. But aside from that, what exactly's happening?

Well, there's plenty of cabinet talk for starters. Seemingly, everyone is traveling by cabinet these days. It's as if MFI went into the trans-dimensional cabinet business and this infomercial was the result. I often think that it would be cool if Doctor Who were sponsored by that purveyor of fine sofas, DFS, then the bumper ad breaks could be a blood curdling build up to a shattering climax as Linda Barker was disemboweled week after week by the villain of that particular episode. I'd certainly watch, again and again and again...

Professor Litefoot's attempting, and failing, to give the impression that he just got these "ladies things" from a nearby shop instead of where he actually got them, from his own cross dressing wardrobe. You can just see him in fishnets and heels, popping down to Whitechapel of an evening, for a little cobblestone action. All these repressed Victorian types where at it constantly. Later on he even demonstrates detailed knowledge of the more seedier areas of London. Caught red handed (and red knickered too).

Ahhh, poor Li H'sen. He's been dissed by Weng-Chiang so starts cracking onto the Doctor by way of some shoddy card tricks. Chang even asks the Doctor to "catchee" as he throws the pack up to the Doctor. This has to be the most blatant bad taste oriental accent since the "Japanese" bad guys in the latest Star Wars trilogy. The thought has occurred to me that it's actually period authenticity, as I guess there weren't many non-white Anglo Saxon peoples in Victorian London. But I don't know, still feels a little strange. Never mind, we're soon back in cabinet country, but this time it's the cabinet of death.

There's another dodgy oriental prosthetic job on the chap who embeds the axe into the policeman's back. And Weng-Chiang, with Mr Sin, are last seen carrying a cabinet into the London fog laughing, of course, maniacally...

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part four: half way through the recording of this episode, the title of the story changed to the one actually broadcast from Two Gottles of Gear and a Bag of Flied Lice

Mystery Science Theater 1889

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part 4

It's official - the raving loony in the gimp mask really is the Chinese God Weng-Chiang, even though he doesn't possess anything even remotely close to a Chinese accent. Still, who does in this story?

Weng does have his fans, though, especially Chang who desperately tries to get back into his master's good books. He's like a love-sick puppy who's been caught chewing on the skirting boards. It's quite touching, really, and the scene where Chang begs Weng to take him back has the faint whiff of a lover's tiff about it, with Chiang packing his stuff and threatening to leave their flat forever.  It just seems weird that a super-villain would let his disgraced right-hand man go back to his day job instead of feeding him to the piranhas or the "you-know-what". Perhaps Weng is just trying to cut down on his overheads and maybe he'll even give his former employee a reference: "Very obedient, but has a tendency to shit on his own doorstep".

Tom Baker is having a wonderful time in this episode and his enthusiasm is infectious. I love how he toys mercilessly with Jago's inflated ego, and his draughts match with Leela is lovely (she's civilised enough to play the game but she still sits on the table!). Sometimes you can see Baker desperately trying to rein in his grin, he's loving it so much.

But the centrepiece of the episode has to be the night at the theatre and Chang's marvellous magical mayhem; an act so impressive it takes Jago 12 minutes to introduce it. Chang is a terrible comedian, though, even if his "the bird has flown and one of us is yellow" routine does brings the house down. It must be the way he tells 'em.

Chang could easily have killed the Doctor during the tense card game, but Chang is obviously thinking very seriously about his long-term career, now that he's been sacked, and doing a 'Richard and Judy' would probably have ruined his reviews. And isn't the moment where the Doctor brings the pack closer to his face one of the cockiest acts of arrogance ever displayed by our hero?

Poor, poor Chang. His suicide (can it really be suicide when you decide to leg it at the last moment?) is achingly sad (I haven't feel this sorry for a bad guy since Scoby bought it in The Seeds of Doom) and at least he had a half-decent motivation for his mischievous machinations; saving a wounded God is far more altruistic than simply taking over the known universe.

And the story could very well have ended right here. As a child I expected it to resolve itself in part 4, and it certainly points to a swift (if gloriously padded) resolution: Chang gets his just deserts, Weng-Chiang's lair is exposed and they've even killed the comic relief. In any other story the last five minutes would have been spent with the Doctor and Weng-Chiang's stunt-doubles wrestling on the floor for a bit, before the villain is hoisted on his own petard and everyone goes out for oranges.

I distinctly remember being shocked when I first saw this episode back in '77. When Chiang runs away with his precious cabinet, muhahaha-ing like a cat who's got the cream, my jaw was on the floor. It has to be one of the most disturbing cliffhangers ever, as you suddenly realise that the Doctor's completely blown it.

And, just this once, I'm actually glad there's still two episodes left to go...

Almost forgot - The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about episode four: Christopher Benjamin was paid by the syllable

Machiavellian Machinations

(Warning: the following review contains gratuitous descriptions of Louise Jameson’s underwear)

Considering how long that rat got to have a nibble at Leela (and didn’t we all secretly envy him back in 1977), there’s very little damage done by the time the Doctor blows his load into the giant rodent (sorry, that was an innuendo too far). And notice how Tom goes all boggly-eyed when he finally sees the creature in all its glory; while the rat, on the other hand, seems to leave him unimpressed…

Back at Litefoot’s, Leela has a hot toddy and a fresh set of clothes - although the previously sodden underwear (sorry, I really must get a grip…Aaargh, innuendo overload approaching!) has yet to be removed - perhaps the unseen Mrs Hudson (‘Talons’ version of Mrs Columbo) hasn’t got a spare pair. And we all hope to God that Litefoot hasn’t, though judging by that ice-pack-come-novelty-hat he was sporting in the last episode, anything’s possible. There’s then a very charming look from Tom as Leela appears in her new togs for a night at the theatre - and it’s a battle royale between him and Litefoot as to who’s the most Henry Higgins out of the pair of them. Perhaps they’ll both buy her an orange if she’s very good.

Meanwhile that loveable combo of employer-employee Jago and Casey are preparing for a very special night at the Palace Theatre; with Master Magician Chang set to literally leave one of them speechless with his grand finale. Notice how of all the characters, Holmes seems to love Henry Jago the most - effortlessly giving the self-effacing raconteur a charming mix of pathos and bonhomie that makes you simply love him to bits. And Christopher Benjamin’s performance is note perfect from start to finish; giving one of those turns oh-so common to this period that lingers in the mind long after its solitary outing.

Leaving Litefoot (finally given a Christian name, George) to a night in with a good book and a homicidal mannequin, the Doctor and Leela take their places in the Gods at the Palace. Compere Jago is somewhat shocked to find the Doctor’s lack of back-up means that he and the Doctor are alone to ‘face their destinies’, but still manages to out-Leonard Sachs Leonard Sachs with his mellifluous meanderings about the Mater Magician. And before you can say ‘oh look, there’s Dudley Simpson again’, Chang is moving through the gears of his Ali Bongo routine, getting the Doctor to hold up a pack of cards through which he will somehow fire a bullet and leave only one with a hole in it (the likelihood of which leaves the Doctor somewhat dubious; going all Deer Hunter on him in the process).

Clearly impressed by the man’s willingness to be a Victorian version of Debbie McGhee, Chang invites the Doctor down to the stage to ‘assist’ him in his next trick; inserting swords through a Chinese peasant. But unbeknownst to him, the vengeful ‘Weng-Chiang’ has swapped the peasant for luckless Irishman Casey, his lifeless body collapsing out of Chang’s cabinet to much clichéd Cockney shrieking and ruffling of feather scarves. Poor Casey - he died as he lived; a complete stiff.

And while Litefoot’s nodding off over a pamphlet, we suddenly realise the significance of that scene in part three of the Chinese rickshaw drivers delivering a laundry basket to the Professor’s residence - Mr Sin has been inside it all the time! And while he’s oinking with anticipation at finally delivering his Master the time cabinet, Chang’s completely lost it at the theatre; attempting suicide first with one of his ring-held capsules, and when that fails going for a dip with the Giant Rat. And he’s having rather more of a nibble at the Chinaman than he ever did at Leela (but then, taste isn’t everything). So is this the last we’ll see of the great Li H’sen?

What a way to end things - the time cabinet’s been ‘alf-inched (while their procurers laugh like twats on a weed-bender) and the Giant Rat’s enjoying his first Chinese takeaway.

I just hope he’s left room for dessert…

How to Speak Cock-err-nee

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Episode 3

Cracking opening - with an absolutely superb knife throw from Leela, to the neck of Mr Sin. She really could have embarked on a novelty act in the circus instead of hanging around with this 900 year old chap in a scarf. But why does Mr Sin keep oinking? And why is the Doctor is singing about Mr Hitler only having one ball?

The action girl gets back into the swing of things with a jump out through a window and hitching a ride on a fleeing carriage. In all these action shots her arse appears to have, at least, doubled in size.

Versatile chap this one in the fetish mask - first he and Chang talk about starting some sort of prog-rock outfit called "The Band of Death", he's even gone to the expense of buying a great big gong for the occasion, then he turns towards the grand old art of butchery as he hangs out a vast slab of fairly convincing meat for the unconvincing, as ever, giant rat. This chap could actually have a very comfortable life creating giant creatures for theme parks. Or at the very least super-sizing chickens for Victorian fast food outlets.

Food continues to be a theme as the Doctor takes to drawing on the good Prof's best table cloth. Perhaps he's ran out of the Little Chef kiddies place mat puzzles and has had to resort to drawing on the cloth.

With Chang on the prowl his Cockney-o-meter homes in on the nearest Londoner spouting Cockney-cods-wallop. Here we see a genuine Cockney sparra condensing every single stereotype, not to mention 8 years worth of Eastenders dialogue, into a few seconds rhyming slang. A new idea following on from The Bumper Book of Made-up Doctor Who Facts, The Doctor Who Book of Cockney Rhyming Slang:

 
• Gwen Stefani - Time and the Rani
 
• Lenny and Carl - Image of the Fendahl
 
• Positive Protons - Doctor Who and the Krotons

etc... I think I'm loosing the will to live.

Chang needs more female flesh and he locates a right dopey one too. Tho that's no where near as dopey as he actually is because he fails to spot that Leela has swapped places with the original victim. From the brief glimpses we see that could easily be a man in drag, or a pile of manure covering a Tall Boy.

Weng-Chiang, or whatever his name is, has a marvelous comedy magnifying glass. And he complains that Leela has mussels like a horse. And scallops like a motorway service station seafood platter. From here on in it all dissolves into a mild version of Tipping the Velvet with plenty of Victorian underclothes action. Then some arseing around with Leela and gimpy followed by two comedy Chinamen from the Limehouse Laundry and that rodent again, looking about as convincing as the giant Dougall from The Goodies. And it all ends rather messily as Leela bids to be the first victor in the Doctor Who wet t-shirt contest by collapsing in fetid sewer water with her ankle being nibbled by a giant rat...

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part three: to prepare for the part of Li H'sen Chang, John Bennett contracted a nasty case of Venezuelan mumps to make his eye-lids puff up and a rare form of kidney disease to give his skin a yellow tint..

"It was made in Birmingham." No Tom, that's the next one.

Part the Third

Do you know, I get the distinct impression that some of you people aren’t watching these stories day by day at all, but are cheating and are watching them all or several episodes in one go, and leaving time-delayed reviews of each episode… ;-) Spoilsports!

Anyhow, I don’t feel there’s a very great deal I can really add to what has been said, partly because there’s so many of us reviewing these episodes but mainly because I’m afraid I’m not very funny. Still, it is interesting watching this story episode by episode once per day, as it’s the first time I’ve ever watched it in such a format. It’s one of the few six-parters that I can quite happily sit and watch all in one go usually, but it’s nice to have the enjoyment spread out a little. Good things come to those who wait, and so on and so forth.

Not much good is about to come of poor Leela, however, being threatened as she is by a bizarre pig dummy creature wielding a knife. And incidentally, isn’t Deep Roy the closest you can get to having a porn star name in mainstream entertainment? Speaking of which, there always used to be a rumour that seventies British porn star Mary Millington turns up as an extra in this serial. Oft-repeated on message boards and the like, but seemingly debunked by those with actual knowledge such as Richard Bignell. Knowledge of Doctor Who, I hasten to add. I’m not casting any aspersions on Mr Bignell’s character by suggesting he’s the Andrew Pixley of British pornography!

Anyway, Leela escapes of course, only to then immediately fling herself into the path of further trouble. It’s interesting to note how later on the Doctor says to Litefoot that he hopes “That girl Leela” isn’t in any trouble, an odd turn of phrase which makes it sound as if he doesn’t really know her that well. Which I suppose he doesn’t really, unless you count all those novels Chris Boucher has inserted in before this point, but it’s a change from the usual run of things in the series when the Doctor and his latest companion are usually shown as being best buddies by the end of their first or maybe at the latest second serial together.

Leela’s mainly gotten herself into bother by substituting herself for the woman of the streets Chang has managed to impress with his street hypnotism show. Was anybody else reminded of Helen Atkinson-Wood’s Mrs Miggins from Blackadder the Third by this character? Mostly on her initial appearance with some more delightfully florid language from Robert Holmes and the manner in which she’s played there.

Neil is right about that giant rat – there really is no need to show it, at least not during the feeding scene with the hunk of meet. A pan back to show the meet has vanished would have been perfectly adequate. It would be difficult to work the rat out of the cliffhanger ending to the episode, admittedly, but you’d have thought that Holmes would have been an experienced enough writer of the series by this point to have realised as soon as the idea popped into his head that the thing could never be made to look good on screen. Mind you, this is a man who seven years later still thought the Magma Beast would be a good idea, so I suppose there really is just no teaching some people.

Why can Chang’s master on feed on women when they’re down to their underwear? The pervy old sod. As if that weren’t enough, once he’s dismissed Chang from his service he immediately starts pleasuring himself with some sort of bizarre 51^st century sex toy. Yes he does. Go and have a look!

Speaking of Chang’s dismissal, it’s an odd turn of events for the villain to suddenly fire his chief henchman halfway through the story, and it’s nice to see a departure from the usual structuring of such things. It leaves you wondering where the character of Chang is going to go next, and what function he can really perform now.

More great stuff all-in-all, and it moves along at a fair old pace as well. But oh dear though. That rat…

Lack the Lipper

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part 3

Mr. Sin gets it in the neck from Leela, but, like every blood-thirsty automaton worth its salt, he just keeps on coming. Just how did they get away with this at tea-time? That little piggy noise he makes is extremely unsettling and Leela takes the only available exit by crashing through a window. However, given the rather languorous speed of Mr. Sin, she really should have opened it first. She then does what every good companion is genetically compelled to do - she hitches a ride to almost certain danger. You go, girl!

Back in the sewer and the villain is ranting and raving like a good 'un. Just in case you haven't pieced it all together yet, he's responsible for the 'you-know-what' currently wading around in shit and inexplicably cawing like a giant crow. I find it hilarious that he goes to all that trouble of putting a giant guard dog in a place where no one in their right mind would come looking, while his front door is just an unguarded paving slab in a theatre frequented by hundreds of people a day. That's just sloppy, surely?

It's feeding time for the 'you-know-what'. Don't do it. Just don't show it! The off-screen growling is fine - just pan back slowly so we can discover that the meat-treat has vanished and let our imaginations do the res... oh bugger...

But the Doctor really bigs-up Weng-Chiang, even though we're still not entirely sure who this Weng-Chiang character actually is. This is because Chang (oh do keep up) doesn't refer to the cabinet of Weng-Chiang as "your cabinet", or "my cabinet", or maybe I'm just hoping that the raving madman in the tin hat isn't going to be the main antagonist after all. Whoever, or whatever, Weng-Chiang is, the Doctor is up to the job of taking the blaggard down, armed with a firing piece made in Birmingham and a rowing boat floating down the Coventry canal.

Our villain is in an ultra-grouchy mood today because he needs the life-force of a nubile young woman to sustain him. Him and every other bloke in the universe, mate. He's basically useless until he's had had his morning cup of freshly squeezed serving wench, and so he orders Chang to do of a spot of body-shopping. Before you can say "painted crab" Chang's putting his best moves on some tart who is just coming "off-shift". When his charm let's him down he reverts to the supernatural equivalent of a date rape drug. "Look into my eyes, not around the eyes. Me so horny, me love you long time. You are back in the, er, street." Again, just how did they get away with this?

And why are the maidens always distilled in their underwear? That's bloomin' terrible, that is (can you see what I did there?).

But Chang has royally screwed up. He's probably led the peelers to the theatre, he's alerted the Doctor and Jago to their nefarious nocturnal nastiness, and he let Leela bitch-slap his master about a bit. He's sacked on the spot and he doesn't even get to work his notice. What will he do now? Summer season in Brighton? Spend a month sitting in a little box suspended high above the Thames? It's at this point that you start to feel a little bit sorry for Chang. He might be evil incarnate but he at least he tries. You try picking up a prostitute at 7 o'clock in the morning. You try holding down three jobs (magician, interpreter and bodysnatcher) and still find the time to groom that beard. Poor Chang.

No! Don't go into the sewer, Leela! Especially when there's less than five minutes left! You're bound to run into the... oh bugger... nibbled to death by a shagpile carpet. How embarrassing is that?

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part three: the special effects team eventually found fame working on Pipkins.

'Sleep is for tortoises'

…but fortunately, there’s no tortoise-like pace to this episode, following the rather turgid part two. Episode threes in four-part stories are usually almost un-reviewable, as the viewer is often little more than manipulated into a position which leaves him ready for the resolution. But given that here we have two extra parts, this episode three really cranks up the action - ending with one of the show’s most notorious cliff-hangers (of which more later). It may be little more than a run-around, but ‘Talons’ 3 still makes for great television.

And no cop-out to Mr Sin’s debatable designs on Leela from the end of the previous episode, either. Although the image of a knife embedded in the neck of an animated mannequin must have caused Mary Whitehouse to reach for her pen and paper back in 1977. And Leela even gets to perform an Ace-style leap through sugared glass to escape his knife-wielding nefariousness.

Does the Doctor whistling ‘Colonel Bogey’ have any significance; or is he just name-dropping again? While Leela foolishly (but somewhat characteristically) hides aboard Chang’s escaping carriage, the Doctor and a somewhat concussed Litefoot get to restart their verbal banter from the last episode; debating the merits of fused molecules over lacquered bronze, while the Doctor needlessly defaces Litefoot’s best tablecloth with a drawing of the Eastenders opening titles. Then, having extolled the virtues of Birmingham-based weapons manufacturers, the Doctor procures a Chinese fowling piece and a small boat for a ‘rather dangerous mission’ down the Thames. I wonder if that rather cuddly looking giant rat (which we keep getting Jaws-style glimpses of) may be making another appearance…

Meanwhile, the great Li H’sen is fast losing favour with his over-demanding master, following yet another flawed attempt to procure the mythical time cabinet. And things soon go from bad to worse, as Greel demands him to - quite literally - take to the streets to find two, nubile females to feed his voracious life-force appetite (from revered magician to weirdo’s pimp in just two episodes; life sure can be cruel sometimes). Which leads to one of original Who’s boldest flirtations with gritty, social reality as Chang courts a local Cockney strumpet (and potential ancestor of Jackie Tyler if ever I saw one) with enigmatic talk of morning dreams. The ‘luvva-duck’ lady-of-the-night soon catches his game however, but falls to Chang’s mesmerising (though still poorly-aligned) eye-beams; drawing a discreet veil over the fact that Doctor Who has just had a full-on prostitution scene. And to think that everyone thought such sordidness only started with Russell T Davies!

But Leela’s intervention - swapping places with the Babs Windsor clone and distracting Greel by stripping down to her underwear and wrapping a feather scarf round her face - means the cockney lass gets to rhyme another day. And once Chang manages to do what all villains do and miss Leela skulking in a corner despite looking right at her, the chase is on as Leela grapples the masked perv Greel to the ground, making her escape into the sewers where some extras from Tales from the Riverbank have grown very, very fat between shows. Now, it would of course be churlish (not to mention, rather sexist) to mention how the sewer’s water reduces Louise Jameson’s garments to somewhat - how shall we say - see-through levels. But then I just have, and you’re a liar if you didn’t notice too…

And then the time has come - just as Roy Scheider recoiled so memorably with a ‘you’re gonna need a bigger boat’ at his first full sight of Jaws’ shark, so the cat’s (rat’s?) out of the bag; with what appears to be a very large, velvet bag with teeth nibbling away at Leela’s ankle.

And frankly, given the sight of that rather sodden underwear, who could blame it?

Abara, abra-cadaver. I wanna reach out and grab ya!

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Episode 2

So here we are, being menaced by something with marginally less in the way of teeth than the off spring of Ester Rantzen and Janet Street-Porter (by the by - Torchwood is described as The X-Files meets This Life, how much more interesting and adventurous would a combination of The X-Files and That's Life be instead? Might go some of the way to explaining what exactly was the rationale behind Doc Cox). The Doctor dismisses Leela's suggestion of informing the Blue Guards as they'd just refer it to the Bottom Inspectors to look into further, although I suspect that the Blue Man Group might have more of an impact investigating oversized rodents in the sewers of That London (by the way, anyone else laughing their noggins off at Arrested Development? No. Only me then). Although the Doctor does start mapping out the interconnecting sewers and the river Fleet. Ah Wikipedia, the font of all knowledge, has, of course, an entry on The River Fleet and makes mention of it's connection with this particular story.

It wasn't going to be long before the services of Messrs Jones and Jones, purveyors of fine gimp masks to the gentry, were required. And here he is. The man in the iron mask. And, quelle surprise, he's got a laboratory deep under ground. Having imbued Li H'sen Chang with special powers, well, at least the power to make his eyes flash, he's beginning to feel a little betrayed by Chang's side of the bargain as he seems to have an unhealthy need for female flesh to keep his pecker up. He also starts muttering about Time Agents. Time Agents! Surely we're not seeing the result of a story, in the new series of Who, that was first seeded over 18 years ago? There's never an enlightened (well, bisexual - or even multisexual) Time Agent around when you want one.

And so we come to my favourite bit of Who trivia, not from The Bumper Book of Made-up Doctor Who Facts (if we say its name often enough it'll come into existence of its own accord). Somewhere in this scene is a car, I believe it's a Porsche, that wasn't moved in time for the production. So what did Roger Murray-Leach do with it? Pulled a tarpaulin over it and dumped an imperial ton of manure over it. That's what. Genius. Of course he's one of many people connected with Who who have gone on to work on major feature films and is now to be found covering things in shit in Hollywood.

Regarding the chap in the gimp mask, as he's doing his Phantom of the Opera bit, swinging from the rigging and gantries in the theatre, I wonder why he's not completely drained of energy as he was on the edge of keeling over earlier unless he got a couple of distilled strumpets into him. There then follows yet more thinly veiled borderline racism as Litefoot's out hunting a Chinese. Why he can't just pop down to the local Victorian Chinese take-away for one I'll never know. But mark my words he'll want another one soon after, it's all ways the way. But it turns out that there's no need to go hunting for one as they deliver, and Mr Sin approaches with his knife erect...

The Bumper Book of Doctor Who Made-Up Facts has this to say about part two: Between recording his scenes, Tom Baker wrestled geese.

Good bike!

The Ideal Holmes Exhibition

Part the Second.

I have never seen Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks’s version of The Hound of the Baskervilles from the early 1980s, but by all accounts Tom Baker’s performance as the great detective in it is not regarded as being particularly good. This is surprising given that he seems to be auditioning for the role at times in episode two of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and doing it rather well too.

The detection of the fact that the police constable has been drinking with the murder victim’s mother-in-law, the casual remembrance of Litefoot’s address and so on and so forth… Just little things, but they add to the general impression of Holmesian atmosphere being created. Things get somewhat less than subtle when Litefoot – still acting as the story’s Watson – makes reference to his housekeeper, Mrs Hudson, who must have been very busy given that she was also taking care of 221B Baker Street at the time.

Speaking of Litefoot, he seems quite taken with Leela, doesn’t he? You get the impression that had they been staying in the time period, he might have asked the Doctor for permission to ask her to marry him. She seems to quite like the Professor too, concerned as she is for his welfare towards the end. It’s surprising to note that as the episode reaches his cliffhanger there’s nothing to suggest that Mr Sin hasn’t actually killed Litefoot, and I’ve no doubt that many viewers watching back in 1977 must have assumed this to be the case. Probably upset some people, I shouldn’t wonder.

No giant rat to blight this episode’s production values, the only slightly dodgy visual aspect being that huge great pile of hay, which is oddly in roughly the shape of a car. The reason being, of course, that it’s concealing a conspicuously twentieth-century vehicle from view – I bet they never had these sorts of problems on the set of The Unquiet Dead…

It’s not only Conan Doyle being ripped off – sorry, paid tribute to – here, however, as the first appearance of the main villain of the story instantly conjures up images of The Phantom of the Opera, as was of course the intention. There are also similarities to the recently-seen Master of The Deadly Assassin, which is also no coincidence as it’s quite well known these days that Holmes – that’s Robert, in case you were wondering – originally intended him to be the villain of the piece before the idea was vetoed by Hinchcliffe.

Overall there’s little more to say – writing, direction, performances and production values are all coming together to create a hugely entertaining piece of television. Can we play this every week?

Magnus Greel is Here, Inside My Mind

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part 2

Phew, the production team have realised just how jaw-droppingly bad last week's cliffhanger was and they've elected not repeat it during the recap. Skirting perilously close to subliminal broadcasting laws, there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse of Roland Rat on steroids, but, with a puff of smoke, it's gone.

I've been giving the rat dilemma a great deal of thought recently (in between running up and down and screaming about Torchwood), and I've come to the conclusion that the production team were screwed either way. If they went for a blue screen and CSO-ed a real rat behind our heroes it would still have looked awful, simply because rats never, ever look scary. They just mooch about and twitch their whiskers a bit. It's only on James Herbert book covers that they look even remotely threatening; and that's a just painting, I think.

Oh well, as long as it doesn't turn up again we'll be fine...

Back at the theatre, Jago is continuing to delve into his 'Bumper Book of Irish Insults' as he showers Casey in an impressive, if politically suspect, series of epithets. At one point he even calls Casey a "pixelated leprechaun" which pre-dates the Crazy Frog by 27 years. But at least the casual racism is genuinely amusing, which is more than you can say about Mind Your Language.

Chang adds hypnotism to his steadily-expanding CV of party tricks. Maybe he's the Master in disguise (which would explain the blatant use of fake tan to "yellow him up" and the lidiculous laccent), but whatever the case, he's bloody terrifying.

"Look into my eyes, not around the eyes, look into the eyes. You'll believe that the giant rat looks like the dog's bollocks and I really am Chinese. And - you're back in the room". Oppps, sorry, Q beat me to that gag last week.

Unfortunately, just when you think that Chang must be the eponymous Chiang (and wouldn't it be great if he was), it turns out that he is nothing more than a toadying lackey! His master had better be good if he's going to beat Chang in the sphincter-clenching stakes.

Sadly, he isn't. Whereas Chang oozed subtle Machiavellian charm, his master is a raving loony with the rant-o-meter turned all the way up to 11. Nothing in zee world could stop him now. Probably. You can't see his face which suggests either a) he's an old villain, b) he's deformed or c) they fancied ripping off the 'Man in the Iron Mask' as well, having decided that pilfering from Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, 'The Phantom of the Opera' and Pygmalion wasn't nearly cheeky enough.

This episode also mentions Time Agents, although anyone waiting for a glimpse of Jack Barrowman's arse are going to be sorely disappointed. Maybe Steven Moffatt will write an episode of new Who where Jack spends his missing two years waylaid in the local opium den when he should have been out looking for the (drum roll) Time Cabinet! Hey, it is the Master!

Leela enjoys some cracking scenes with Professor Higgins, sorry, I mean, Watson. No, sorry, Lightfoot. Or is it Litefoot? Whatever. Do I look bothered?  It really is spin-off central, isn't it? Leela and Litefoot - a bit like The Scarecrow and Mrs King but set in Victorian times and with a lot more sexual tension. And etiquette training.

Meanwhile, the Doctor's investigation into giant rats, scorpion venom and curling tongs leads him to the theatre, where he bamboozles, baffles and befuddles Jago with a magic act that Sylvester McCoy would have been proud of. Tom Baker - the world's greatest children's entertainer, bar none. After exploring the cellar and being subjected to toy spiders and holograms of the Klu Klux Klan you can feel yet another spin-off in the works: Jago and the Doc, a bit like Freebie and the Bean but with less car chases and more sexual tension.

What is really baffling is why the Doctor would recruit a pompous ass like Jago in the first place. Perhaps he just fancied a laugh? Thankfully they manage to track down our new boo-hiss panto-villain and before you can say 'Deadly Dudley' Tom is threatening to bring the curtain down as he rehearses for his own death scene, which is scheduled to occur in a couple of years time.

It's a great cliffhanger opportunity too, but Robert Holmes has one more trick up this sleeve as Mr Sin lumbers menacingly towards Leela armed with a penknife.

And he's... oinking?!

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part two: the dove was actually a pigeon covered in talcum powder.

Even better than the Greel thing

Much like the Doctor and Leela at the beginning of this episode, ‘Talons’ 2 largely treads water compared to the bombastic theatrics of episode one. Given the story’s two-and-a-half-hour duration this is understandable; and certainly such time-marking is nowhere near the likes of Stripped Down’s earlier foray into the six-parter, ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’. Because while the plot may not advance much beyond that already set down - with one or two notable exceptions - this is still eminently quotable television that you simply don’t notice the time passing while watching.

In short, here we have a sequence of scenes all about that most treasured of Robert Holmesian signatures, the double act. Whether it be The Doctor and Leela, Jago and Casey, the Doctor and Litefoot, Litefoot and Leela (you get the picture) this story is all about the vocal sparring that Robert Holmes identified as the key to all great drama - be it light and frothy or dark and serious (and in leading man Baker, you can have pretty much both within the same scene). And it’s not just the likes of the Doctor and Leela or Jago and Casey that bear this out, because in ‘Talons' pretty much everyone is one half of a pair of double acts; and some on more than one occasion.

And though the episode adds little more to the underlying story established in episode one, there’s still some significant developments to be unveiled like layers from an onion. For one, it seems that the great Li H’Sen is not the main big bad, as his deference to yet another masked weirdo of this period of the show makes all too plain. Like Gabriel Woolf before him, Michael Spice is an effective radio actor in a television role; using little more than his pained hissing to establish Magnus Greel (using the same tailor as Liam Neeson’s Darkman, I notice) as a desperate, ruthless villain. Interesting also to note Greel’s familiarity with the concept of ‘Time Agents’ - perhaps something that Russell T Davies picked up on with his creation of the new series’ Captain Jack. It’s just a shame that he seems to be hunting for his elusive time cabinet using what looks like one of those innumerable puzzles from the 1980s that the Rubic cube heralded. And speaking of ‘special’ effects, shouldn’t the glowing light of Chang’s hypnotism ray at least try to cover his eyes?

As for Baker T, well the man is in full Holmesian mode (that’s the other Holmes, by the way - it’s important to remember that the influence of both is constantly present here) with his inquisitive approach and deductive manner being all but an audition for his first TV role post-Doctor Who. Again Baker excels in effortlessly changing the tone of scenes; be it one after another or even in the same scene - his magic act for Jago counteracting with the sinister reversal of the aforementioned man’s brain-washing by Chang. And Chang’s description of him to his master as having ‘hair that curls like a ram’ manages to instil some other-worldly power in the Doctor even Chang seems to respect.

And later - while the Doctor’s off continuing his investigations back at the Theatre (Northampton’s, apparently) - Leela is left to enjoy some beautifully-handled culture-clash comedy with Professor Litefoot (whoops, haven’t mentioned him before, have I? Think Doctor Watson to Baker’s Sherlock Holmes and you’re practically there). Trevor Baxter’s performance - all English manners and ‘dash it’-style outrage -perfectly complements Louise Jameson’s noble innocence. And it’s worth pausing to remind ourselves here just how good she was at portraying Leela’s savage instincts (even down to small touches like when she wipes her mouth clean of food with the back of her hand). The scene where she and Litefoot enjoy a meal together (which one ‘Mrs Hudson’ has prepared, for all you Conan-Doyle buffs) is as witty and poignant a discourse on table manners as it’s possible to see. You’ll never look at a leg of lamb in the same way again…

And as the episode completes its course, we have two potential cliff-hangers vying for attention - will it be the Doctor’s death-defying chase of the ‘cowled’ figure along the theatre’s ramparts (during which Baker gets to dangle precariously over a precipitous drop some four years before he lets go in ‘Logopolis’; and on a completely unrelated note, how come Greel‘s so nimble all of a sudden having been a wheezing geriatric in the earlier scene with Sin in the Hansom cab?) or will it be the unwelcome house-guest that’s just taken the Professor for a post-meal lie-down and now wants to show Leela how he gets his knife edges so sharp?

My money’s on the mannequin with the moves, myself.

"You wouldn't want that served with onions!"

Episode the First.

Here we are then, one of the big ones, the great sacred cows of the Doctor Who canon. And who am I to attempt to be iconoclastic about it? Certainly if that’s what you’re hoping for with this review you’ll be disappointed, as I love this story and re-watching episode one only confirms how good it is in my opinion. I think I’m going to enjoy this week’s stripping down adventures a great deal.

We start off with a Dudley Simpson cameo, conducting the orchestra in the theatre and presumably irritated that there isn’t a saxophone player present. We are then very quickly introduced to two of the main supporting players of the piece, Jago and Chang. Like just about everyone else in the story – such as Casey the Irishman a bit later in the episode – they could be dismissed as cardboard stereotypes, but somehow they seem so much warmer than that. If just one of them was being singled out for stereotype treatment then it wouldn’t work, but everything in this story is so exaggerated and overdrawn – Jago’s constant alliteration, for example – that because it’s all on the same level it never feels derogatory or out of place. It’s just theatre, and dashed entertaining theatre at that.

Jago in particular has some fine lines in a glittering script – “Have you been drinking? … Then it’s time you started!” The best dialogue, however, probably goes to the utterly wonderful old crone who finds the body floating in the river. “You wouldn’t want that served with onions! It’s enough to frighten a horse!” On this day of spin-offs – and indeed, in a serial from which a spin-off was actually considered – I say it’s a crying shame we didn’t get The Adventures of the Old Crone back in 1977. “Enough to frighten a horse!” could have been her catchphrase, perhaps.

The other main supporting character of whom we are given our first glimpse is Litefoot, very much filling in the Doctor Watson role to the Doctor’s Sherlock Holmes here. He even looks a bit like Edward Hardwicke, and the comparison to the Granada Television version of the Holmes stories also comes across in the film location work, which is wonderfully executed by David Maloney. A shame the series was to lose him to Blake’s 7 after this.

Of the regulars, Tom Baker seems to be having a whale of a time as the Doctor, and Leela is as infectiously likeable as ever. She’s a superb character when she’s written well, and the blend of warrior-like savagery and childish enthusiasm Jameson is able to muster – I love the look on her face when she excitedly asks “where are we going?” as the Doctor leaves the morgue – really gives her an edge many if not most of the companions lacked.

There are of course one or two disappointments, mainly on the visual side. As soon as she’s being lifted, Chang’s “most beautiful lady” sadly looked exactly like the rather pathetic doll she has been substituted for. The giant rat doesn’t actually look too bad on its first appearance in the cliffhanger here. Yes, the final shot of the rat prop is rather poor, but mercifully kept mostly in darkness. For the most part, the giant rat is a normal rat in a little sewer model, something they might perhaps have been well-advised to stick with throughout its others appearances later on.

All in all then this is a fantastic little episode of Doctor Who, full of fun, fear and atmosphere. A great series at the peak of its game, setting up a scenario nicely for the episodes of adventure and intrigue ahead.

Sin Something Simple

The Talons of Weng Chiang - Episode 1

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to a veritable vintage vestibule full of violent, vicious villainy and vulgarity! It's testament to how well the opening scenes of this story stand up that you can't help but draw parallels with The Unquiet Dead. If there's one thing the BBC does well it's period drama. And all stops have been pulled out well and truly here. In Li H'sen Chang we have one of Doctor Who's iconic villains, yet just how come the actor chosen to play a Chinaman isn't, well, remotely Chinese? Surely they could have found one Chinese actor to take the part? Bit like harking back to the Charlie Chan films of the 30s where Charlie was played by Warner Oland, a Swede! I mean, wasn't Burt Kwok free? For years he seemed to be the only oriental actor in the business. Wonder what the next story pitch was going to be? Doctor Who and the Minstrels? Where the Doctor and Leela get caught up in nightmarish world where people thought it was entertaining if they blacked-up and pretended to be...., oh, hang on a moment.

Much like Orville's the true evil genius in the double act with Keith Harris so Mr Sin is the puller of strings here. He is that rare thing in Doctor Who, effortlessly scary but dirt cheap at the same time. And behind the mask is Deep Roy, who played the Klute in Blake's 7 and every single Ooompa Loompa in the recent remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Not the only connection to Hollywood in this particular serial (as my favourite bit of trivia during a later episode will show)...

There's an excellent establishing TARDIS arrival shot and out steps our two heros. The one who was in Eastenders for a year and the chap from Little Britain and Symphony advert voiceovers. The whole clothes/vibe thing the Doctor's got going on here is a cross between Henry Higgins, Sherlock Holmes and a deranged stoat. Tom's on fine form here muttering under his breath and shouting at people. And then it goes all Jackie Chan as the Doctor polishes off a gang of Sunday afternoon ninjas. But not before the cabbie gets it in the meter.

Two of the best supporting characters from all of Doctor Who are here. Jago and Litefoot. Not so much from the latter here, but Jago is instantly a fully formed character. Is it any wonder that there was talk, at one point, about a spin-off story with these two chaps? Just imagine what might happen if instead of Torchwood we get the Continuing Adventures of Jago and Litefoot but with the same ideas behind it. They would, obviously, have to be gay lovers - crime fighting by day - show tunes by night. It could run and run.