"Mad as a box of frogs and a bit loose at the ego..."
Tachyon TV present an alternative DVD commentary to The Three Doctors Part 1
Topics up for discussion include: the Brigadier's self-esteem, UNIT secrecy, Barry Lett's CSO postcard home, Pertwee's script locations, man jelly, renegade Time Lord claw fixations, Gallifrey call centers, and Oliver Postgate.
The podcast is available from the usual place
I suppose there's no point in being smug, getting ahead of the game by writing your reviews in advance and then, er, forgetting to actually post them. Just for that, you're going to have to read my reviews a few weeks too late. Like it's your fault...
The other problem is that this seemed funny at the time. I'm not sure it is now:
Loyd Grossman: Who would live in a lair like this?
This week we're in the home of yet another super-villain - only this one seems to be blazing a trail away from the under-the-volcano base we're used to. There are no female guards in skin-tight Lycra (more's the pity) or thickset stooges standing precariously near to walkways over shark-infested pools.
Today's mystery guest is a true child of the 70s which is ironic because - and this may be your first clue - he's been exiled here since the dawn of creation. So either the big glass bauble look is coming round again (after several millennia), or he's got a keen eye for current trends.
If you're watching in colour, you're certainly getting your money's worth here with all the R, G and B your set could possibly produce. If your eyes aren't watering then either you need to upgrade to a colour TV or simply dust the screen.
Our guest this week has a large staff to take care of his every need, and quite an imagination - though clearly not the will to finish any of the projects he undertakes. This is someone whom ladies might be attracted to for the obvious wealth and universal domination aspects, but if you want some shelves putting up I'd get a professional in.
Given the obvious wasteland look, the lack of visitors and the large jelly-shaped creatures and their strange guttural utterances, you may be forgiven for thinking that our mystery guest is in fact Noel Edmonds and that this is the ill-fated Crinkly Bottom theme park, but you'd be wrong. Nor, indeed, as one contestant speculated, is this Cromer. It's not the end of the universe, simply another one all together.
Here's a picture of a mystery woman: is it his *aunty*? It doesn't *matter*. And that's another clue.
Taking a look at the decor, the obvious ego on display and the lack of any nostalgic ephemera you might think this was the lair of your average alpha male - well think again. We're at the opposite end of the scale.
So it's back to the studio for our guests to decide who lives behind the keyhole - I mean, black hole. Is it evil scientist and genetic engineer, Davros? Or could it be The Great Intelligence? Perhaps you think it's The Celestial Toymaker? Or is it creator of the Time Lords themselves, the maniacal Omega?
I can't help watching this episode without thinking how bittersweet it must have been for the 1973 version of the disenchanted fan. A mere four years earlier he would have been cheerfully ensconced in front of The Krotons, happy in the knowledge that since Doctor Who was on virtually all year a better adventure would soon be along. Life was good. And then the bombshell, that bloke from The Navy Lark and Carry on Screaming is taking over, and it's only going to be on six months in every year! I don't care who they have in the role, he thought, but why on earth don't they pick an actor rather than a comedian? Bloody stunt casting.
Episode two starts by banishing Pertwee and some girl to the gravel pit, thus leaving Troughton to assume his rightful place at the console. And what a console room! Our disgruntled fan has had to put up with various TARDIS indignities in the intervening years, not least that sodding scanner botched into the roundel via the Letts Patented CSO-Matic from Ronco. Now there is a proper monitor, the weird transporter things are back, and Troughton is at the wheel again. It's just like the old days. Except hang on, the Brigadier has had a lobotomy, and for some reason cannot accept the obvious truth of the situation (despite two witnesses) and swiftly retreats into a fantasy world. Would the sharply intelligent military man of late Troughton and season seven have behaved like this?
And it's downhill all the way from there. Pertwee is so unsympathetic it beggars belief - just listen to the way he hisses "Up! Up!" at the hapless Tyler after the world's most tedious escape attempt. He sucks the joy out of a room more effectively than Maureen O'Brien. It's hard to believe that this is the same story as the novelisation, and it's increasingly clear that the Target range existed solely so that Terrance Dicks could infect the brains of a generation by conning them into thinking that all Pertwee stories were made on a budget equivalent to Ben Hur or Cleopatra. I applaud his actions in some ways, but he is entirely responsibe for that horrible feeling in my 13-year old belly when I realised that the Doctor's duel with Omega's dark side was not quite the same as the novelisation, i.e. rather than a massive arena with a scorching hot sun and a savage beast, there was a black BBC studio with an opponent that would not have been out of place on ITV with a Kent Walton commentary. Shame on you Terrance.
Those of us scarred by novelisations (and our numbers are legion) should perhaps avoid watching the programmes in future. I'd like to propose that we form a Target Book Club with groups of four or five meeting once a month in nice city-centre restaurants. There we can discuss the Terrance Dicks' deconstruction of syndicalism in Doctor Who and The Monster of Peladon, Malcolm Hulke's technological slant on Fanon's anti-colonialism in Doctor Who and The Doomsday Weapon, and finally come to terms with Ian Marter's random "bastard" in Doctor Who and the Enemy of the World. Anything to avoid more stuff like Omega's palace.
In fact, I got much more pleasure from inserting this Gellguard into my Weetabix alien landscape than I ever did from watching the programme. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dust off the box, pile up four Weetabix from the 1970s, and pour Day Nurse all over them. Let the insertion commence, just as soon as I find my Wirrn.
The Three Doctors Episode 1 (so there!)
Just like John and Damon, I too have succumbed to Avonian Flu (strain H-1, Star-1) and as a result this review is also a little late. Unfortunately, my Web of Fear review was hurriedly scrawled onto a tissue when I was lying in my sick bed, but I had to sacrifice it when my nose gave birth to a semi-sentient globule that will probably find employment as one of Omega's weeble-wobble-but-they-don't-fall-down snot-monsters.
Anyway, I've just got back from seeing a pretty ropey Pink Floyd tribute band at the Hartlepool Town Hall (don't laugh, I was using them as a 'control'; I'm working my way up to the Aussie Floyd in the Newcastle Metro Area next month, and the real Roger Waters in Tuscany in July). This lot were a bit like Roy Chubby Brown meets Rick Wakeman, and the lack of a dry ice machine was alleviated by the fact that all of the band members chain-smoked throughout the entire gig. Anyway, during a stirring (well, people were fidgeting) rendition of 'Wish You Were Here' I was immediately struck by the poignancy of the lyrics and how they relate to The Three Doctors. Forget the line about trading heroes for ghosts, just look at this!:
How I wish, how I wish you were there.
You're just a lost soul sitting in a fish bowl, you poor arthritic dear,
Stumbling over the same old lines.
What have you found? You should be in care.
Wish you were there.
The Three Doctors, my arse! If you thought The Five Doctors was bad with only three Doctors in attendance (are you keeping up?) then the rot starts here with a blink and you'll miss it gathering of the three leads. The next time I would feel so short changed by a distinctive lack of previously advertised Doctors was at Panoptican't in 2003.
Again, I'm struck by the image of Syd Barret turning up at Abbey Road Studios during the 'Wish You Were Here' recording sessions and nobody from the Floyd having the faintest idea of what the hell do to with him. Sticking Hartnell in that intergalactic bath-chair was probably seen as an act of kindness but it's such a sad and undignified exit. Only a disembodied spinning head could have been worse.
So, in an attempt to get over the loss of Syd, I mean Bill, let's turn out attention to the eternal bickering between Gilmour (Troughton) and Waters (Pertwee). It's great, isn't it? To quote that woman from The Armstrong's, Troughton shits on Pertwee's head from a great height. And the Abbey Road metaphors just keep on coming with Beatles references galore, and for a moment you believe that Troughton might launch into an early Genesis recorder solo.
But alas, it isn't to be. There's loads of gubbins about Black Holes and anti-matter and other technononsense to wade through instead.
In a fever-induced nutshell, The Three Doctors was yet another crushing disappointment in that Five Faces Season back in 1981. I had been looking forward to this story like no other - that Target cover with the freaky guy in the tin hat giving all the Doctors an Indian Head Massage promised so much - and yet it delivered so very little. Except a template for plenty of anniversary back-slapping to come...
Anyway, where was I?
Oh yes, all together now: Shine on You Crazy Troughton!
The Bumper Book of Christ We've Got To Find A Publisher Soon Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about The Three Doctors Part 1: The original villain for this story was going to be the evil and mysterious Time Lord called The Master. And then the production team remembered that they did that every other week.
Note: I reviewed episode 3, because everyone else was doing it. And Troughton and Pertwee met up, I guess.
If I could sum up this little tale in one sentance it would be "This must be a blast if you'd had a few." Thankfully it's quite enjoyable even if you're sober, so that's a plus.
I must admit it was quite interesting to see two doctors arguing with themselves, even though I'd already seen it in the Five Doctors, and while it is a shame that William Hartnell wasn't able to appear in person, the story manages to get by even so. Truth be told, there's not a whole lot that bogs the story down for once.
Okay, so the monsters are a little dodgy. Okay, so it's another bloody gravel pit. Okay, so the guy with the moustache and glasses is an annoying little prick. All minor issues, and easily forgivable when compared to the grand scheme of things. It's Omega, for cryin' out loud! He made the Time Lords! Give him some respect! Except when he takes his helmet off, that we could have done without. The whole flipping each other over scene is kind of an embarassment.
But overall, this is quite an enjoyable tale and I feel like watching the whole tale. At some point. In the future.
Second episodes’s of four part stories (or of any length story except two parter’s) do nothing else but advance the plot along a little bit further. Hence, there is not always a lot that happens in a second episode.
The Three Doctor’s is no different. What you do have here when viewed on its own really makes very little sense. You have lots of long TARDIS scenes, mainly between Troughton and Benton, and you have lots of scenes in a quarry with Pertwee and Manning. Of course there are some nice camera angles used by the director, Lennie Mayne, in these scenes to make them look interesting, and Katie Manning is also nice to look.
There are some bad bits in the episode such as the CSO of the anti-matter (or big blobby thing as it could also be called); the gell guards (which always raise a laugh when they appear wobbling away to themselves) and the cliffhanger ending where you see UNIT headquarters disappearing into a black hole.
It is also strange that the episode is actually better when it is just Troughton in the scenes than it when Pertwee is present. The Brigadier is on fine blustering form in this episode his expression when entering the TARDIS for the first time is priceless, especially when Benton is just taking it in his stride (though having said that Benton had his moment in the first episode) with the old if it moves shoot it maxim that he always seemed to favour.
Jo has very little to do in the episode except to look pretty and to ask the questions for the audiences benefit.
Troughton is very good in this episode and there are times when you wish that he were still the current Doctor rather than Pertwee. Sadly William Hartnell does get a lot to do. Indeed in this episode he has only scene and when he does appear he really doesn’t look well.
Plotwise this story is pretty ridiculous but when you consider it has to contrive a situation where all three of the Doctor appears together then it is hardly surprising that it doesn’t actually hold together that well is it?
It did make me laugh when they discover that not only were they transported over, but also that Bessie has been transported too. Now that was very convenient wasn’t it?
As a whole this episode isn’t really up to much but in its entirety The Three Doctor’s is a bit of entertaining fluff. Not one of Mr Pertwee’s best hours but certainly enjoyable enough.
A multiple Doctor adventure. A psychotic Timelord with a grudge. A character from annals of Gallifreyan history. A Doctor whose participation is limited to pre-filmed inserts. Multiple companions. It could only be… well, any number of things really.
The Three Doctors - Episode Two
As the Third Doctor and Jo take it to the bridge, the are absorbed by the fizzing ball of anti-matter. This thing seems to love absorbing things. It’s consumed a lot, in fact, you could even call it Absorb-a-lot.
Benton, his keen military mind on full display, wants to blow the bally thing to ruddy bits. And as he, and the Second Doctor, creep towards it the Brig encounters the Second Doctor for the first time during this adventure. It is, at this point, that he might as well have committed that oldest of comedy standbys, a double-take, whilst taking a swig from a bottle from a brown paper bag, spitting it out all over the floor of the lab then throwing it away whilst accompanied by regulation comedy parp-parp music and a little "wha-wha-whaaaaa".
For inexplicable reasons, the pulsating beam into the black hole of anti-matter, reminds me of one of those Eastern European cartoons that thousands of kids used to turn off in their droves in the 1970's, when their usual dose of feline and rodent killing spree wasn't been shown in it's regular slot (except for viewers in Scotland who had their own programmes).
Timelord HQ looks like the set from a Johnny Ball programme, and they too are expending vital energy on these Eastern European cartoons. Where are all their big collars? They seem to have the collars flopped around their robes. Perhaps, like Peacocks, they have the ability to "erect" their collars to attract members of the opposite, or same, sex?
The Third Doctor and Jo awaken on a barren plain of an alien world in an alien dimension. Planet of the burns victims, as the Gel Guards should be called. It is at this point I get the vaguest inkling that some of the rigorous scientific fact that’s underpinning this text are, how shall we say, somewhat suspect. The then stumble across the openest of open plan offices. I don't believe that that is the Brig's computer. What would be want to be doing with one of those new fangled devices anyway? I think it's his hi-fi and on the reel-to-reel tape is his entire Roger Whitaker collection. At least when they see Bessie it's not as stupid as in The Five Doctors when Susan and the First Doctor's cataracts appear to get in the way of a perfectly clear view of the TARDIS, on a flat plain, that any myopic fool could have seen from miles away.
Second Doctor and Benton are apparently trying to erect some sort of mixing bowl to control the entity. Benton throwing his chewing gum wrapper into the fizzing blob isn't as strange as it might at first seem. Back in the early 70's, in Britain, we didn't have that drawing of a little chap throwing his litter into a bin, oh no. In place of the bin was a fizzing blob of antimatter. This was all part of a failed 1970's public information film series about the clean and safe disposal of rubbish that involved locating receptacles constructed entirely of matter from a dimension perpendicular to our own.
The Brig gets to indulge in yet more comedy double-take action as he enters the TARDIS for the first time. Wha-wha-whaaaaaaa.
Doctor Tyler's scribbling out basic mathematics on the gravel. Good job it's not snowing as he might have used an entirely different implement to write his equations out. Omega's revealed to by yet another maniacal nutter behind a mask. Although he should be applauded for using third degree burns victims to help run his evil lair. I wonder why no Bond villains have utilized henchmen in oversized novelty suits as their helpers of choice. Oh yes, that's why, cos they're crap and not very mobile.
The inside of Omega's place looks like an explosion in a treacle factory. Tyler locates some backbone and attempts an escape. A very slow moving escape through the syrupy tunnels. The burns victims could also be half sucked sweets. Or boiling drops of toffee that have been dropped into cold water. Or fudge. They just might be fudge.
I have absolutely no idea why Brigadier's pacing around the TARDIS dying to talk to his men - otherwise known as the wankers who make up the ranks of UNIT. I mean, they might as well have brought in Girls Aloud to help defend the United Kingdom, and all her dominions, from alien attack. They'd do a damn sight better job and be a little more pleasing on the eye than this lot. Then the First Doctor appears, word perfect. But his arms are being operated by puppeteers dressed in black behind him.
To relieve what little dramatic tension that's been built up, the Third Doctor produces a bunch of flowers only for Jo to drop them. I can just imagine one of the burns victims goes back to scoop up the discarded flowers and in a melancholic moment sobs gently to themselves, a single brown tear running slowly down their blobby body.
Then the whole house disappears down the Eastern European cartoon hole...
The Bumper Book of Made-up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part 2 of The Three Doctors: John Levene, who played Benton in this story, was splitting his time during the studio recording sessions between posing as a nude model, for evening classes at Shoebryness community centre, and badger baiting.
Er, now it is definitely episode two of ‘The Three Doctors we’re doing this week, isn’t it guys?
The story so far…
The Doctor and Jo have been zapped to another universe - along with some bits of UNIT equipment and a tedious scientist - by a blob of CSO-tinged jelly. Outside, a bunch of expressionistic Mr Blobbys are showing UNIT soldiers up for the useless, non-regulation-haircut nobodies that they are. And the second Doctor has been sent back to help out his successor, though seems more concerned about where he’s left his recorder.
Yes, it’s Doctor Who’s first (of several) excuses to give itself a hearty pat on the back for lasting so long. Long before the days of JN-T and Longleat celebrations, here’s the show’s first ever dalliance in reuniting both past and present leads for no other reason than a bit of cheap publicity. But never mind, Doctor Who was ten years old (well, nine-and-a-bit if we’re being picky) and it was time to get the bunting out. I wonder if they’ll do this sort of thing every ten years…
Still, at least it’s a chance for Patrick Troughton to show what we’d been missing these past three series. And do what he’d subsequently do no less than twice in the eighties: slip effortlessly back into his signature role as though putting on an old pair of winter mitts. He really is the star of the show here - knocking Pertwee’s typically neck-rubbing fop into a cocked hat - and is blessed with by far the episode’s best dialogue (I just love that line about feeding the anti-matter blob useless information like a television set…talk about biting the aesthetic that feeds you).
Shame that everyone else doesn’t seem to be having so much fun. Besides Pertwee, ‘The Three Doctors’ marks a further decline in the Brigadier from believable bombardier to barking buffoon (though the double take he gives when he first sees Troughton and the astonished look as he finally sees the TARDIS interior are notable exceptions). The there’s those UNIT soldiers, who are just so inept it barely seems plausible that any of them got near the boy scouts, let alone a - supposedly - highly efficient paramilitary organisation (Benton is only just persuaded not to chuck a hand grenade point blank at the anti-matter blob at one point). Oh, and don’t forget Dr Tyler - who, as a plot device, had already exhausted his usefulness in part one - and now does little but write ‘E=MC2’ in the sand (in case we, understandably, forgot he was a scientist) and attempts the most embarrassingly pathetic escape attempt in the show’s then history. And that’s including Hartnell and co’s impersonations of ancient skulls in ‘The Firemaker’.
Worst of all though is - for a part two - just how much padding there is in this episode. All the yakking between Troughton and co in the TARDIS (Troughton aside) is pure blubber on what should have been a tense, tightly wound twenty-five minutes. And the aforementioned Dr Tyler’s Clint Eastwood impression is marking time in a story which - certainly in the case of its villain - has barely started yet. Speaking of Omega, why has he fashioned all of anti-matter as though it’s made out of haemorrhoid treatments? And on a similar subject, why has Gallifrey gone through a refit that makes it look like the inside of a lava lamp?
Still, you’ve gotta love a story that suggests that heaven may be a gravel pit (and let’s face it, for some Who fans it is). And are we to assume that someone took Bessie for a spin before the third Doctor and Jo found it, seeing as its tyres are already covered in chalk dust? But that’s a pretty memorable cliff-hanger: this time, the whole of UNIT HQ has been sucked into the black hole; leaving a watching sentry gob-smacked. Twice.
If only the Restoration Team could have made the whole episode twice as memorable…
(‘The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about ‘The Trought’s Comeback’, Part One: feeling threatened by his predecessor’s presence on set, Jon Pertwee deliberately hid Troughton’s recorder for two days; necessitating its loss be included in the finished programme)
Well, this is my first pop at reviewing the old series so I might find it difficult to be really scathing. After all, as a ‘New-Who’ fan, my expectations of the show are different and I don’t have a ‘it’s not as good as I remember it’ card to fall back on.
Nevertheless, I can’t say I liked this. The earlier Pertwee stories I enjoy a lot: I sat all the way through The Silurians, more or less, and thought it was amazing. But The Three Doctors...not so much.
There’s a definite pall over the production; as if – since it was a gala bit – they could pass off with some 2nd rate tosh, carried along by some nostalgia. The script is the main problem but the cast certainly don’t bother.
First of all, Pertwee, seeing as he’s meant to be the current Doctor. Not the best ad for early 70s Who, this. Elsewhere, he’s great, (I don’t care about the self-righteousness) but the delivery is simply flat. Ep. 2 isn’t the worst example of this, but that’s only because absolutely nothing happens, and his reaction to finding Bessie in the quarry – sorry, world of anti-matter – sorely lacks.
Hartnell makes his single appearance, caught in a hang glider’s handlebars suspended from his garage roof and reading from an auto-cue. I’m only sorry this is my first sight of the 1st Doctor, especially seeing how everyone went into hyperbolic meltdown over An Unearthly Child. It would be rather churlish to criticise Hartnell for being too sick to take a larger part, and hard to go into any greater depth anyhow.
Troughton, too, gets a raw deal, overplaying the clown: harping on about his damned recorder and his little chit-chats with Benton and the Brig are like so much padding. No prizes for guessing which way they went for his reaction to being known as the Doctor’s assistant – it could have been subtle, or over the top. They chose the path of the eternal panto.
And Jo just hobbles about in platform boots, a blue min-dress and a Muppet-skin gilet. Traversing quarries never looked so retro.
Poor Brigadier. He’s done no favours at all: pacing anxiously about the TARDIS while his inferior officer adapts to circumstances with ease. The Brig is a lesser character by now, a pity as he was so good. Altogether, he’s ineffectual and surplus. Without contributing anything, he just wedges in five minutes more padding in with a foreshadowing of TEOTW – the upgrade of his radio.
Benton’s a much more proactive character, the one who forces Troughton and Courtney into the TARDIS, and the one who does the inevitable UNITy thing and inclines toward just blasting the thing.
Which brings us neatly onto the thing. What isn’t clear in the slightest is what it’s meant to be. Given enough clues and associations, the willing viewer can give some amount of credence to any effect. The vaguely ink blottish, 2D stain – is it meant to look 3D? Is it alive? There’s very little to go on and it never even touches on ferocity.
Omega barely even gets a look in here because I – unfortunately – read the schedule and this has to be the emptiest episode of the lot.
His staff of squashed Tesco pomegranates don’t do much for the menacing atmosphere. Astounding that Omega, power of a God and all, decide to create wobbly, chewed jellies to run his abysmal rock. There’s clearly a theme – he just like s the bauble effect. That, and he respects Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen’s opinion.
So – it’s a nightmare fast-food joint staffed by your typically degradingly-dressed sub-humans masterminding an operation to strand innocent fashionistas in a dusty quarry full of boiled sweets.
I’m sorry my first pitch is so negative – honest, I don’t actually hate the series.
Firstly an apology. The following is a review of The Three Doctors, episode 3. I hold my hands up and lower my head - I misread the schedule and I'll be damned if I'm sitting through another episode of this anniversary story. To be fair, this is also a little more eventful than part 2 anyway.
I’m writing this entry to the accompaniment of Magic Carpet Ride on the iPod. It’s in shuffle mode so I hadn’t requested it so to speak, it’s just one of about 8000 tunes buried beneath the shiny white surface. That said, it seems so appropriate – “you don’t know what we can find” seems to be the overall approach to episode three of The Three Doctors. And let’s face it, there are enough corridors to explore and lots of sickening glitter (as opposed to shiny gems) embedded in the walls to dazzle and excite us, but the whole thing seems so disconnected that anything could happen. Before you cry party pooper I’m all aware of the anniversary feel to the story, but it just seems overdone and messy. I don’t know why the set designer didn’t just go the whole hog and put up balloons and birthday banners throughout Omega’s labyrinth. Although the gel guards may as well be walking sherry trifles. Subtlety is certainly not the watch word of the day.
The more I watch the third Doctor, the more I become irritated
with his sanctimonious clap-trap and he’s certainly on fine fettle here. Seeing
the second Doctor next to him only serves to show how annoying Pertwee’s Doctor
was becoming and his determination to remain serious while the rest of the cast
were having a wail of a time with a silly script just exacerbates the
self-righteousness of his Doctor. The key scenes with Omega are actually
difficult to watch, thanks to a combination of the Pertwee’s grimness and
Stephen Thorne’s goes-upto-eleven performance. Talk about arch villainy – maybe
it’s the fault of the direction to maintain that celebratory mood, but when
does celebration have to equate pantomime? The story makes such a play at being
part of the overall series, rather than a one off special that I don’t know why
that felt that everyone should just give up. The story is one step away from
having a ‘boo-hiss’ or a ‘he’s behind you’ audio track.
Omega is potentially a really interesting character and had
he been a character up against Eccleston’s Doctor, then I’ve no doubt we’d have
had the type of moral high ground debates witnessed with the Daleks. I actually
prefer Omega in Arc of Infinity and I know that’s tantamount to blasphemy in
some Who quarters. The Omega of this story is boorish and loud and while he may
be twisted with hate, I don’t know why he has to become the giant from Jack and
the Beanstalk. I wanted to use the Oz analogy but I remembered that the
Discontinuity Guide noticed that too, bless ‘em.
In fact The Three Doctors is a tribute to other comedy
giants too – you have the Three Stooges in the Doctor(s) and
On a final, more cheery note, it was nice to see Doctor Who tapping into the nation's love of wrestling with that whacked out clif-hanger. Had me on the edge of my ring, it really did.
