setsuled

The Sixth Doctor and his companion Mel encounter the violent aftereffects of an abruptly halted war in the 2013 audio play The Seeds of War. Not to be confused with the television stories The Seeds of Doom or The Seeds of Death. There are no literal seeds involved this time but some kind of telepathic entity called The Eminence inciting people to violence. It's not a bad audio, not remarkable, but pretty solid.

Once again the Doctor (Colin Baker) has ended up at the place he intended but 80 years after the date he intended. The nice outing he'd planned for himself and Mel (Bonnie Langford) instead turns into a confrontation in a war zone where incredulous military personnel have trouble believing the Doctor and Mel know nothing of the factions involved.

Mel is pretty inconspicuous in this one except for an amusing reference in the climax to her fondness for carrot juice. But there's not a lot of levity in this one, in fact it's fairly grim. In one moment I liked, Mel tells someone whose father is dying, "If anyone help, it's the Doctor," and the Doctor irritably interrupts with, "Stop making promises on my behalf!" abruptly breaking up the almost deification of the Doctor that sometimes happens in these stories. This one certainly gives an impression of stakes which makes the ending a great deal more satisfying. Six is kind of known for being involved in some particularly grim stories in his television run but this older audio Six is portrayed as more sombre, subtly altering the tone of the story, in this case for the better.

Those looking to finally hear about how the Sixth Doctor met his companion Mel will kind of get what they want with the 2013 audio play The Wrong Doctors. I admire writer Matt Fitton's decision to make a confusing and weird moment from the television series even more confusing and weird instead of tidying it up. It's mainly an enjoyable story though Bonnie Langford makes things even more confusing by getting her lines wrong from time to time.

The final season of the television series to star the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) aired in 1986, comprised of four stories that were all tied together in a season long arch called The Trial of a Time Lord. Each individual story featured a framing story where the Doctor was on trial on Gallifrey and the various tales were shown to him and the court as evidence of whether or not he'd been a good Time Lord. In the third story, Terror of the Vervoids, an adventure from the Doctor's future was shown, featuring a companion, Mel (Bonnie Langford), the Doctor had not yet met. When the season's story arc resolved, the Doctor from earlier in the time stream, the one on trial, went off with Mel as a companion, not quite mentioning the trouble this caused since she came from further ahead in his time stream. Essentially, the Doctor started travelling with Mel because she came from a future where she was travelling with the Doctor. In the following season she became a companion to the Seventh Doctor, denying the writers any opportunity to explore the paradox, if they even intended to. The somewhat chaotic situation with the writing staff at the time, and Colin Baker's sudden departure, prevented the show from following up on the topic. According to Wikipedia, writers from the show at the time, Pip and Jane Baker, addressed the issue in their novelisation of The Ultimate Foe, the final story in Trial of a Time Lord. But the paradox is my favourite thing about that otherwise really annoying companion with the squeaky voice.

The Wrong Doctors picks up with the Doctor sad and alone after the departure of the excellent audio companion Evelyn Smythe--the actress who played her, Maggie Stables, had retired due to illness that caused her death a year later. So Six decides its finally time to meet Mel for the "first" time. The story cuts between this and scenes where the Sixth Doctor, earlier in his time stream, is dropping Mel off at her home in the town of Pease Pottage so he can have the opportunity to meet her for the first time properly. Everything goes wrong when both Sixth Doctors meet after their TARDISes are stolen; there are inexplicably two Mels, one of whom doesn't seem to be as smart as the other; and there are dinosaurs and Victorians roaming the streets.

Age has improved Langford's squeaky voice somewhat, it's not quite as grating, so I don't mind that it doesn't make sense that she sounds older than she's supposed to be in the story. The two versions of Six are played off against each other under the theory that the audio plays have softened Six a little bit from the obnoxious, arrogant personality fans dislike about him on the television series, but the difference is really too subtle to justify how the characters remark on it in the audio play. But the plot which explains the strange goings on is delivered nicely enough by entertaining dialogue between the characters, though it still never manages quite to give us a picture of how the Doctor and Mel met. But maybe that's for the best.

Twitter Sonnet #1087

In styrofoam a face awaits the flame.
In cases gilt the chairs await the kings.
On circuits hid electrics tell the name.
On lobby desks within the metal rings.
'Twas bread surrounded lettuce late at night.
For sandwich worsts the only quiet dog.
Unspeaking parts attest to clamour right.
Alas for cymbals shining through the fog.
The clashing oats revealed a winning meal.
In time a pottage placed a building gruel.
In faceless porridge breakfast grains'll deal.
A field of post at dawn is much the rule.
A blue return on countless stones emerged.
The plastic pushed where thoughts and dreams converged.

Enjoying several Sixth Doctor audio dramas once again lured me back to watching one of his television stories this week, in this case Attack of the Cybermen from 1985. It's really not bad though it's more than a little muddled.



According to Wikipedia, the story's authorship has such a complicated history that no-one seems to be quite sure who wrote it. From Wikipedia:

The serial is credited to "Paula Moore"; however, behind that name lies one of the most confused and controversial authorships in the entire series' history. Authorship copyright on the serial is divided between "Paula Moore" (real name Paula Woolsey) as the author; Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis as creators of the Cybermen; Eric Saward as the creator of Lytton and the BBC who hold the copyright on the series elements.

Several separate accounts offer differing versions of who actually authored the story. Most accounts agree that series fan and continuity advisor Ian Levine suggested a number of plot elements. At the one extreme, it is suggested that the story was authored by series script editor Eric Saward, with or without substantial input by Levine, with Woolsey only acting as the story's author to prevent problems with the Writers' Guild, who objected to script editors editing their own scripts. Alternatively, it is suggested that Woolsey originated the story, but Saward heavily rewrote it in his capacity as script editor. Levine himself claims that Saward wrote the dialogue to Levine's story and plot and that Woolsey "did not write one single word of that script". Saward has flatly denied this in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine.

One reason for the complexity and confusion around the script's origin is that under Writer's Guild guidelines, script editors were forbidden to commission themselves, and Levine's deal with the series specified that he could not receive any on-screen credit for his work. Thus the use of "Paula Moore" may have been an attempt by Saward to disguise the fact of his involvement from John Nathan-Turner.

One thing's for sure, the serial feels disjointed and scattered. The first serial of Colin Baker's first season as the Sixth Doctor--his second serial overall--it was the first regular serial to be divided into two forty five minute parts. The first part, involving the Doctor and Peri (Nicola Bryant) running afoul of a complicated heist in London, has a totally different tone and setting to the second part, set on the icy adopted homeworld of the Cybermen, Telos. But that's hardly new for Doctor Who--some of my favourite serials, like The Time Monster or The Seeds of Doom, also spend their last episodes in a completely different setting with a mostly different cast than their first episodes. It can be a wonderful way of showing the scope Doctor Who can cover.



In Attack of the Cybermen, though, it meant many elements were introduced only to all but vanish or be drained of interest. The heist element in the first part introduces some gangsters, often in location shots from modern London, that feel extraordinarily authentic, headed by Lytton, a returning character from the Fifth Doctor serial, Resurrection of the Daleks. It's hard to see in him the mercenary from that serial, though. Played like a ruthless mob boss by Maurice Colbourne, one wonders if he hadn't originally simply been cast in Attack of the Cybermen as a completely different character before it was decided his previous role on the series had been too recent for people to have forgotten it. He's quite good, in any case, before suddenly, inexplicably being revealed as a hero in the second episode.



Also among the gangsters is guest star Brian Glover as Griffiths, who would go on to star with the future Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, in Alien 3. He brings a real sense of streetwise, authentic menace of the common gangster but on an alien world he's reduced mainly to finding different ways of saying, "What the hell is going on?"



The Doctor and Peri are separated in the second episode, each encountering members of the indigenous people of Telos, the Cryons, who are attempting to have vengeance on the Cybermen. They have an intriguing costume and make-up design and are all women for some reason. I suspect their bubble wrap moustaches were meant to look like something else.



In the moral compromises they make in their fight against the Cybermen, the story picks up the general theme from the Fifth Doctor's final season of the inevitable bad things one must do in the name of a good cause. I suspect this led to the bold idea of making the Doctor himself a bit of a coward and a bully in his new incarnation, something requiring a delicate balance that the Sixth Doctor stories never attain.



It's weird, though, I guess the audio plays really have made Six grow on me. I still have all the same complaints about him--Colin Baker's performance is a little flat, the costume is ugly. But I guess it says something for the fondness bred by familiarity that I kind of like all the things I hate about him. He's almost punk now. It is a bit like seeing the obnoxious young man with mustard smeared all over his face climbing on stage and making you suddenly realise he's Sid Vicious.



It occurred to me Nicola Bryant's performance is worse than Colin Baker's. Her inexperience as an actress seems much clearer beside him than it was in her scenes with Peter Davison and Mark Strickson. She also seems incredibly nervous, her voice constantly quavering and plaintive, something only partially explained by the Doctor trying to throttle her in the previous story. I wonder how differently Colin Baker would have come off in his angry fits if he were opposite Elisabeth Sladen or Louise Jameson. Leela probably would have cut him.



But I did enjoy the story. The Cryons were weird enough and the general confusion is sort of captivating.

To-day I also read the new Sirenia Digest featuring a new story by Caitlin R. Kiernan called "Behind the Wall of Sleep". Featuring H.P. Lovecraft's ghouls, it presents an effective series of dreamlike encounters. Focus is more on sensation and mood than a moving plot and as usual Caitlin wonderfully evokes a sense of experiences and environment both subtly and oppressively sinister and strange. As a story about ghouls, it's no surprise that it concerns death, but it does so in a nicely contemplative and solemn way. I can't remember reading another ghoul story that so nicely inspired this particularly haunting melancholy.

The Doctor was once again pitted against the absurdities of his own show in the 2012 Sixth Doctor audio play The Fourth Wall. The audios have done this a few times with stories like The One Doctor--also a Sixth Doctor audio--though The Fourth Wall ostensibly sets its sights a little wider, satirising space opera serials in general. It's funny, has some surprisingly effective drama, and is the third to feature Six's companion Flip who continues to be an enormous delight.

A whole artificial planet called Transmission has been made for the purposes of creating a television series called Laser about a hero named Jack Laser (Hywel Morgan) and his companion, Jancey (Tilly Gaunt), who battle the evil Lord Krarn (Martin Hutson). Due to some kind of mix up while the Doctor (Colin Baker) tries watching a cricket match on a special television on the TARDIS, Flip (Lisa Greenwood) is transported onto the planet into the fictional scenario. The actors apparently perform scenes and in a place in time slightly out of phase with the present the characters become real and "improvise". And that's where Flip finds herself.

The stuff with Laser is pretty much the standard superhero parody you might see on The Tick--the big, dumb, improbably lucky hero armed with corny quips--though Jancey's tendency to scream when there's trouble clearly seems aimed at Doctor Who. My favourite part, though, is Lord Krarn who perfectly satirises everything I hated about the Master in 1980s Doctor Who. He says he wants to take over the universe and he's going to wipe out the human race and Flip finally asks the questions no-one ever thinks to ask the Master in the 80s--why the hell would you want to control the universe and how does destroying the human race help you accomplish that? To which Lord Krarn becomes flustered and can't answer. One of the reasons Missy is my favourite incarnation of the Master is that Steven Moffat actually does a pretty good job explaining the Master's behaviour as a repressed affection for the Doctor--something that's set up in the Third Doctor era with a few lines about how he and the Doctor used to be friends but the idea wasn't really explored until recently.

The Fourth Wall, written by John Dorney, also has some nice stuff about how one shouldn't underestimate the affection fans have for even poorly written fantasies. Krarn encountering his creator almost recalls Roy encountering Tyrell in Blade Runner--Krarn is understandably angry that his wife was killed off just to give him a motive to be evil. It must be quite a shock to discover one day that one has been badly written, I don't really blame him for wanting revenge.

Here are a couple Doctor Who cosplayers I met on Friday, dressed as the Twelfth and Seventh Doctors. Apart from that there's not a whole lot of Doctor Who at Comic Con I can tell you about that you can't experience yourself by watching the full YouTube videos of both panels:





I took notes for the Classic Doctor panel figuring that one might not go online. Of course, it did. I am glad I managed to post a clip of Peter Davison, Sophie Aldred, and Colin Baker discussing the first female Doctor as early as it did, particularly with respect to Peter Davison who seems to be getting thrashed for having a past preference for a male Doctor despite expressing full support for Jodie Whittaker now. I kind of knew trouble was coming when, while Colin Baker was enthusiastically putting out tweet after tweet about how great it was to have a female Doctor, Peter Davison's first tweet on the subject was only one about how we should be encouraging to fans who are "uncertain about change." I'm sad to see now that Davison has deleted his Twitter account over the backlash he's faced. Though I think this may have been an overreaction on his part the rancour that has been aimed at him, even though he has more than once expressed his support for Whittaker, is disappointing and I can see how it might make him want to stay away from social media.

At the same time, the reason I do think Davison's initial tweet was a blunder was that it doesn't seem to reflect the nastiness with which people were reacting against Whittaker, posting flagrantly misogynist and sexist comments and commentaries. I have yet to see, apart from Davison himself, anyone expressing an articulation of "uncertainty" about a female Doctor that's truly respectful.

One of the problems I have with the vigorous efforts of so called Social Justice Warriors--I know many who self-describe that way, so I don't know if it's a pejorative anymore--is that there's a tendency in their publications to respond aggressively and dismissively to people for not knowing the definition of a term that's only current in Social Justice circles. For example, I saw an article recently that blasted an article in the New York Times that spoke in favour of cultural appropriation. The response to the article was to say that the author didn't understand that what he considered to be positive instances of cultural appropriation were in fact something called "cultural engagement". So I often see this seemingly unconscious, but aggressive and sometimes belligerent, conflation of an inevitable ignorance of niche or new definitions of terms with racism or sexism. It's no wonder when people are put off by what seems to be obnoxious pedantry.

I want to say this in preface because it seems Peter Davison is exhibiting the kind of misunderstanding that reflects white male privilege. He's not been forced to have the perspective of a woman and he evidently hasn't spent time trying to imagine what that perspective is like. Otherwise, he might be responding more like Colin Baker. Six remains my least favourite Doctor so it's somewhat awkward that I seem to be agreeing with him more in terms of social politics than with Davison--Colin Baker counters Davison's only really articulated argument so far, that it's a shame boys are losing a role model, by saying that there's no reason a woman can't be a role model for boys. Though I wonder if the realities of gender role barriers in English playgrounds support the viability of boys looking up to a woman.

Personally, I find the idea of not wanting the Doctor to be a woman to be difficult to imagine. Not just for statistical or political reasons but simply because I've always liked female protagonists and I like Doctor Who so it follows I should like a female Doctor Who. But since a young age I've been resistant to ideas of behaviour prescribed by gender so there's a whole lifetime of experience in trying to create oneself as a particular gender identity that I don't really have. People who have had that experience might support the idea of a female Doctor on an intellectual level but have to deal with residual feelings from that lifetime of experience.

In my first post about Whittaker, I casually referred to people who didn't like the idea as sexist, Davison's tweet made me wonder if this was the right tact for me to take. I think Davison failed to consider the issue fully but on the other hand I do agree with what I think is at the heart of what he's saying. The Doctor, after all, walked up to the Silurian and extended the hand of friendship. I'm not saying I feel the slightest sympathy with anyone expressing outright hostility to a female Doctor. But I find myself hesitant to express hostility myself when it might push away anyone for whom this upcoming season might be the thing that changes their minds about what--or who--women can be. This is the sense in which I think Davison advocated being "encouraging".

Someone has compiled a nice video of former Doctors reacting to the concept of a female Doctor: