The Doctor's Greatest Adventures : Earthshock

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to Day 4 of The Doctor's Greatest Adventures and this particular 4 part episode had more than a few fans in tears, baffled and startled across the pond.  Join with the Doctor (fifth incarnation), Tegan, Nyssa and Adric for the year 2526 as paleontologists and a geologist have gone missing after discovering a fossil in a fairly recent cave.  Will the Doctor and companions be able to keep their wits about them?  This is Earthshock.

Who's a grumpy boy genius then, eh?

The Doctor: You do not have the monitor skill Adric! And even if you did, I am not taking you back into E-space!
Adric: Then I'll find someone who will spoil me!
The Doctor: E-space is another universe!  There isn't a taxi service that goes back and forth!

The Doctor (Peter Davison of Doctor Who, A Very Peculiar Practice, Mystery!: Campion, All Creatures Great and Small, The Mrs Bradley Mysteries and Law & Order: UK) attempts to explain to homesick Adric (Matthew Waterhouse of To Serve Them All My Days, Doctor Who and The Killing Edge)  that he cannot risk flying back through E-Space (a smaller universe co-existing alongside the prime universe, N-Space) so he can deposit him back on his home planet of Terradon without proper coordinates.  Adric is annoyed at this information and proceeds to sulk about it while doing the calculations to head home.

Rocking that Reynolds stache well, sir!

Meanwhile on Earth, in the year 2526, a crack squad led by Lieutenant Scott (James Warwick of The Nightmare Man, The Bell, Doctor Who, Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime, Iron Man animated series and Babylon 5) escorting the lead scientific advisor Professor Kyle (Claire Clifford of Angels, Doctor Who, Emmerdale, Wish Your Were Here, Aliens in the Family, This Life and Miss Potter) to find the rest of the exploration team when they come across the Doctor and his companions and naturally our brilliant military mind comes the rather rash conclusion that the TARDIS team are responsible for the deaths of the explorers.  

Through the diplomacy the fifth Doctor is known for, he convinces Scott that they can help and points them to a large debris of rock where the prone bodies lay alongside a large metal hatch.  Out of nowhere a substantial force of androids get the drop on Scott's forces and are slain by them.  The Doctor manages to stop the androids with his trusty sonic screwdriver but not before the androids beam images  of the lot of them to their controllers, the Cybermen.   Yes, them again!  

Opening the hatch, the Doctor and Adric discover a bomb of awesome might and he orders Nyssa (Sarah Sutton of Late Call, Westway, The Moon Stallion, The Crucible and Unnatural Pursuits), Tegan (Janet Fielding of Hammer House of Horror, Shelly, Minder, Doctor Who and Parnell & the Englishwoman) and the rest of Scott's team back to the TARDIS for safety's sake.      
Can the Doctor and Adric stop the bomb in time?  What of the Cybermen and their plans?  Will Tegan make another series of ear bleeding whines and shrills?

Just a small gathering of interesting tidbits about this four parter.
The episodes voted by member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society as the best Story of Season 19 in their Season Poll as well as winner of the Doctor Who magazine for Best Story.
This episode was watched by 9.1 million viewers in 1982.  The working title of this story was Sentinel.   This was the first Cyberman story since Revenge of the Cybermen in 1975.  The producer John Nathan-Turner wanted to bring an old enemy back but did not want to resort to using the Daleks.

You're such a wanker, Adric.

The Doctor's Greatest Adventures Week: Destiny of the Daleks

Well hello there and welcome back to Day 2 of The Doctor's Greatest Adventures.   Before we get started I wanted to say Happy Birthday to my mom.   Here's hoping you have some fun this fine, bright day.

 As was mentioned yesterday... or was it the before or after?  Time travel is a bit of mucking about.  Anywho, we last interacted with the Doctor he was dealing with Ice Warriors and I feel the need to shoot on ahead in honor it being my mom's birthday and this tall fellow is her favorite doctor and all.  Let's us journey down the time corridor and end up directly after thwarting the Black Guardian and developing a randomizer (of which I am not certain the Doctor ever switched off) to avoid detection by the Black Guardian but The Doctor (Tom Baker of The Mutations, Doctor Who, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Black-Adder II, The Silver Chair, Cluedo and Medics) and timelady Romana (Lalla Ward of The Prince and the Pauper, The Duchess of Duke Street, Hazell, Doctor Who and Riviera) have landed on the remnants of Skaro after its thousand year war.  This is Destiny of the Daleks.

Hello Swinden!!

The Doctor: Oh, look! Spoilers!









Having escaped the Black Guardian The Doctor and regenerated Romana find themselves on a planet with an unusual amount of radiation.  The Doctor suggests the anti-rad pills be kept at the ready and journeys onward.  After a rockslide holds one of his legs, Romana goes for K-9 as assistance.  A collection of silver haired individuals scoop up the Doctor and reveal that the planet in question is Skaro during some sort of mining operation on the planet.  Explosions reach a conflict between the Daleks and their enemies the Movellans and the Daleks are looking for any possible edge to end the steadfast war they have been in by stealing the remains of Davros.

Jem and the Holograms are tough on intruders!

In Genesis of the Daleks, they turned on their creator and presumably killed him but his life support systems actually left him in a state of suspended animation (that old chestnut)  After being revived and brought up to speed, Davros (Dave Gooderson of Hazell, Doctor Who, Codename -Icarus- , Seaview and A Touch of Frost) concludes that the logical parties have no means of imagination in which to wage war and with the lack of instinctual nature feels they will be stalemated indefinitely.

Caught between two warring parties, the Doctor must continue to play along with their madcap plans of conquest until he, Romana and K-9 are safely away.  Were either of these factions triumph over the other may mean more devastation to the known universe and therefore the Doctor must interfere.

A few bits of interest and trivia about this 4-part episode.  Several of the fans seems to believe that Romana burned through about 5 regeneration cycles to pick the look she wanted.  According the script she was projecting a 3D image similar to the Doctor's old mentor Kam-Po did.  So it is a wardrobe gag on what to wear, oh what to wear.

The book the Doctor is reading is called "The Origins of the Universe" by Oolon Coluphid, a character created by then script writer/editor and later author Douglas Adams of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this character when on and wrote a series of philosophical best-sellers all depicting God and what we deem bizarre and inexplicable errors or creations.   Read the book and you too will enjoy.

This is also Lalla Ward's first appearance as Romana when previously she portrayed Princess Astra.  13 million viewers saw this on its original release in 1979.  

I say, these quarries are all starting to look alike.

Godzilla Vs Week: Godzilla Vs Gigan

Welcome ladies and gents, one and all to Day 5 of Godzilla Vs Week and boy do we have a cluster of critters tearing up the countryside to the likes of Man of Steel.  This time around we will see Ghidorah's home-world and his oppressors making him do their bidding.  What???!!!   An innocent Kaiju??!!!    Nah, he is a collaborator, see?  They're giving him a piece the action.   This is Godzilla Vs Gigan.

Stop doing the Monster Mash!  STOP IT!!!

Priest: Children's Land"  Is that some sort of a spoiler name for a lunatic asylum?







It would appear that large cockroach like creatures  from Nebula-M are invading the Earth to colonize and assume control but...  those pesky humans might be cagey so it is best to approach this in the form of a theme park!!!   Disneyland and world are controlled by giant cockroaches!!!   Heh, moving along we see the aliens are going on a Zygon and assuming through metamorphosis the guise of the work staff and higher ups that is developing the peace- themed park, World Children's Land...  I hope something got lost in translation or that is the crappiest name for a theme park.  The centerpiece of the park is a huge Godzilla Tower shaped in his image.   Popular Manga artist stumbles upon this plot of invasion as his work is essential to design the park when he hears of two audio tapes known as Action Signal Tapes that will summon the space monsters Ghidorah; thought to be destroyed by Godzilla, Rodan, Anguirus and Mothra and a new cyberorganic creature Gigan as they will rain havoc down on the Earth.

The artist and a buddy of his accidentally took one of the tapes mistaking it for a mix tape and goes home to play it.  Yeah planetary domination requires both of these key elements, the monsters and the control over them and bug boys already dropped the ball.   Godzilla and Anguirus are relaxing on Monster Island without a Mole Man in sight when they hear this high frequency noise.  Godzilla sends Anguirus to investigate it.  It's good to be the king.   Anguirus heads to the mainland only to be jumped by the Japanese Self Defense Force in a misunderstanding of the creature's actions.  Rather than go sickhouse on them, Anguirus leaves the area but did not stop the impeding creature invasion.  Godzilla joins forces with Anguirus to find and destroy Ghidorah and this new Kaiju Gigan.

OPTIC BLAST FIRE!!!

Just a few tidbits about the film at this time now.  To save some yen, stock footage of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and Destroy All Monsters was spliced into this film along with a recycled musical score by Akira Ifukube to balance the numerous prints.
This film is the first in which Godzilla actually caused a Kaiju to bleed.  Normally it is a tail beating there, a rock chucked here and atomic breath to power but Gigan bladed like a buzz-saw and metal hooks raking Godzilla he actually used his claws for a change.

So to suspend disbelief of the resurrection of Ghidorah because they wailed on that boy via Destroy All Monsters this was to be a future incarnation of the same creature, apparently in the far away time of 1999 he came back from the dead or some such.   Then Martin Landau and Barbara Bain must have towed him for some reach of space their on Moonbase Alpha.

Not a bad addition to the Godzilla Showa Series but I was also not thoroughly impressed with the subplots running rampant all over and not fully tied in.

I.... LIVE...AGAIN!!!!!

Doctor's Regeneration Week:The Power of the Daleks

Hey there kids and welcome back to Day 2 of Doctor’s Regeneration Week and as promised from last blog I am jumping back into the first regeneration ever and its reason why.  The very first Doctor William Hartnell of While Parents Sleep, Nothing Like Publicity, They Drive by Night, Too Dangerous to Live and They Came by Night was suffering from arteriosclerosis (a hardening of the arteries) making it difficult to say lines and often quite winded after the physicality required of running about.  So the producer Verity Lambert suggested the Doctor is an alien why not have him renew himself with a different body and thus the series was saved.   Hartnell even suggested Patrick Trouton (Hamlet, Doctor Who, Scars of Dracula, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and The Omen) as a possible Doctor.  Without more fanfare this is Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks.

Dandruff shampoo!...not working!!!

Hensell: Now look here- I run this Colony. I’m entitled to know why you have come to Spoiler? What is your brief?

The Doctor: I am the Examiner.

Hensell: Why are you here?

The Doctor: To examine. And I intend to start my examination at once!

After defusing the Z-Bomb, being exposed to radiation and tiring his body completely out the Doctor strolls into the TARDIS telling both Ben and Polly this old body is a bit worn down then collapses on the floor.  In replace of the cantankerous grump with a heart of gold lays a younger man who bounds upward and babbles profusely about the Doctor, his collection and discoveries.  Ben and Polly both are startled that this man seems different than the Doctor they have come to know pulling them out of scrapes and danger but try their level best to inform him of who he is.  The Doctor starts reading vigorously through his own journal taking in all the accounts and tales of woe and triumph in the journal when the TARDIS comes out of flight has landed some time ago. 

Yes, a mercury filled swamp is ideal for a picnic.

The Doctor feels like a stroll and proceeds to head out with Ben and Polly in hot pursuit.

Finding themselves on Earth Colony Vulcan they move about looking at the technology and see a ship that is being unearthed (or unvulcaned) holding three complete Daleks.   The Doctor warns Hensell to leave them where they are but he will hear nothing of it as the Daleks promise to be subservient to Vulcan.   Quicker than you can scream, “This is a dreadful mistake and you are best to walk away, now.” The Daleks loose the benevolent ways and right back into the genocidal tendencies of extermination all things not Dalek.   Yes I am sure a few Whovians saw that maneuver coming more than a light year away.

 Polly, Ben and the Doctor must come up with a plan to defeat the Daleks and save Earth Colony Vulcan before the Daleks can send word back to their empire on Skaro.  Can they manage with all the madness or will they themselves become servants of the Daleks?   Oh go and watch it.   It is a great episode!

Either we exterminate these drapes or I am leaving...