Meggin Watches Doctor Who: Planet of Evil

After the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry Sullivan returned to Earth and dealt with the Zygons and the legendary Loch Ness Monster in their previous adventure, Terror of the Zygons, the Doctor convinces Sarah to take off with him in the TARDIS and return to UNIT HQ instead of taking the Earthly way back like the Brigadier and Harry. However, the Doctor winds up cleverly taking them away from Earth and on to another mind-spinning adventure.

            The planet in question where the Doctor takes Sarah is called Zeta Minor, the last planet on the edge of the universe. There happens to be a distress call coming from the planet, so the Doctor and Sarah investigate, hoping to come to the rescue. They realise that they are months too late when they land on the planet and walk into an abandoned scientific lab and stumble over a couple of odd-looking corpses. But they aren’t the only ones to have received the distress signal...

            The other arriving party is a military space ship sent out to rescue the scientists on Zeta Minor. The Doctor, Sarah, and the military crew discover the whole story of the events on the swampy, unforgiving planet. One scientist in particular, Sorenson, went out on an expedition to Zeta Minor looking for any source that could “repower” the dying sun in his race’s solar system. Upon discovering minerals on the planet that could theoretically do so, he excavates several pounds of the minerals and is ready to leave the planet. Throughout his expedition, however, his team of seven other scientists are being killed off one by one by some mysterious creature. Sorenson is left alone, waiting for anyone to pick up the distress signal and take him off the planet. When the military ship and the Doctor and Sarah arrive, he is ready to do just that. But there is something more about these minerals that Sorenson doesn’t know about that the Doctor soon discovers.

            The minerals found on the planet happen to be particles of antimatter, and any attempt to take the minerals off the planet would end up with catastrophic results. But why mustn’t the antimatter be removed? The Doctor discovers a strange pit on the planet, and to fall into this pit is not simply to fall to bottom of it; the pit is actually a void between two universes, the one we live in and one composed of antimatter, and Zeta Minor connects these two universes. But hold on, it gets even weirder than this.

            There is a sort of guardian on the planet, which the Doctor and Sarah dub “the Anti-man”, and if any of the antimatter on the planet is attempted to be removed, it will do whatever it takes to make sure the particles never leave.

            Still unmoved by the Doctor’s demands to leave the antimatter and find a new source to repower the dying sun, Sorenson keeps a stash of antimatter to himself, which alters his very person. It is up to the Doctor and Sarah to return all of the stolen antimatter to Zeta Minor before permanent harm is done to the military space ship and its crew.

            After watching Terror of the Zygons, I knew the Doctor and Sarah wouldn’t really wind up back in UNIT. One could tell by the look in the Doctor’s eyes that that wasn’t his original intention. It’s really easy to tell when the Fourth Doctor is just itching to embark on another time-travelling experience, simply just by looking at the way his eyes widen, his broad smile, his giddiness to keep going.

            By the way, when did Sarah have time to change outfits between stories?

From this:

To this:

            I love how the element of science used in this story is focused on antimatter. It was a great deal in the mid-‘70’s and it still is to most scientists today, and to see it play a big role in the future, where this story takes place, is relatable to us watching the show.

            The antimatter as the villain in this episode is a brilliant creation. It seems so much more scary and frightening when it doesn’t have a particular solid shape, as we usually perceive villains to be. We want our fears to take a solid shape, because having this mould to look at and to have sketched in our minds makes it a fear that we can grasp. However, when there is no definite shape to our fears, like if we fear a ghost or spirit or this “energy in physical form” in this story, we have no perfect image of it to relate to, so our fear is much less tangible and even more frightening. To have no definite shape makes it so much more difficult to figure out what it actually is.

            Zeta Minor kind of reminds me of the planet Dagobah from Star Wars. For those out of the loop, Dagobah is the planet Yoda inhabits, exiling himself to it after the rise of the Galactic Empire (gee thanks, Darth Vader). The swamps, low-hanging branches, odd plants, foggy atmosphere, and rough terrain on Zeta Minor are so similar to that of Dagobah that I sometimes couldn’t help thinking that Yoda himself would pop up out of nowhere in Planet of Evil.

            While I witnessed the physical change of Sorenson, I was also reminded of another classic theatrical figure. The way Sorenson is slowly becoming overpowered by antimatter and is transforming from himself into some horrible beast, back and forth until he is a permanent monster reminds me of Jekyll and Hyde. Only after watching the special feature documentary of this story were my assumptions confirmed; the producer of this story based Sorenson’s chemical alteration on The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde. Called it!

            So, will the Doctor and Sarah return to UNIT, as the Doctor promised in the previous episode? Chances are the TARDIS will throw them off course yet again...

Meggin Watches Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen

Finally, the Time Ring takes the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry Sullivan back to space station Nerva, where they hope to part company with the friends they made there. However, the Time Ring takes them a bit too far into Nerva’s past, placing them on the space station thousands of years ago, before the solar flares engulf Earth. And there’s something on board that’s affecting the crew...

            Once the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry discover the countless bodies littering the corridors of the space station, they know something’s afoot. With a bit of fiddling with the locking mechanism of a locked door, the trio come across four survivors trying to maintain Nerva and its objective.

            Before the solar flares, Nerva was commissioned to orbit what appears to be an uninhabited asteroid off the planet Jupiter (how very close to Earth...). The asteroid’s presence hasn’t been updated on the star charts of incoming space ships, so it is up to Nerva to warn space ships of its presence to avoid crashing into it. This assignment is said to take thirty years. This means that at the time, Nerva was more of a beacon than a space ship harbouring hibernating humans, like in The Ark in Space. The space station, however, was wrong about one thing: the asteroid, renamed Voga, holds an alien race in its core.

            When the Doctor is notified of Voga, he recalls its nickname, the Planet of Gold, and realises that the Cybermen are involved.

            The Cybermen are a mostly cyborg race. They used to be a humanoid race, until they kept “upgrading” themselves with technology and artificial parts for self-preservation. Usually their main goal is to upgrade the rest of the universe. However in this story, the Cybermen want revenge.

            The reason why the Doctor connected Voga with the Cybermen is because of the Cyber-Wars. Voga is well-known for having the largest supply of gold in the universe, and when the humans realised that gold is the Cybermen’s only known weakness, they could use the gold to overthrow the Cybermen and end the Cyber-Wars. This happened, but one ship survived (as it always happens on Doctor Who), and is now ready to destroy Voga and regain the power they lost. Little do they know that they’re up for a taste of their own medicine...

            Once Sarah has been affected by the very poison that took the lives of most of the Nerva crew, the Doctor sends Harry, Sarah in his arms, via transmat to Voga for the cure. Sarah and Harry are then taken by the Vogans inhabiting the asteroid (should it be called an asteroid or a planet?), and have been informed by the Vogans that they are planning to launch a rocket heading straight for the Cybermen.

            With both the Cybermen and the Vogans racing to destroy the other first, the Doctor must pick the side he wants to help and aid them until the other is destroyed.

            This is my first classic Doctor Who arc featuring the Cybermen. The first time I saw them was in the two-parter with David Tennant (Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel), and they were a different kind of Cybermen compared to the classic ones. In series two of the revival Who, the Cybermen were created on parallel Earth by the Cybus Industries. They’re upgraded versions of the human race, similar to the Cybermen of old. Although the look of the old Cybermen is much different from what I’ve seen of the new series, they have the same sort of objective: to be the dominant figure of the universe. I did notice, though, that while the new Cybermen want to upgrade everyone in the cosmos to be like them, the older Cybermen don’t seem to portray that. Like the Daleks, they want total control. Perhaps it’s just in this story where they aren’t quite the same? I’d have to watch The Tenth Planet with William Hartnell as the First Doctor to understand them more.

            The character development award for this story goes to Harry Sullivan. When he was first introduced in Robot, he was UNIT’s military doctor who thought that “police boxes don’t go careering around all over the place,” but after he steps into the TARDIS, messes about with the controls, and is uprooted to a space station in the distant future, his aspect of life is changed forever. He asks much more questions than he did before, and he slowly grasps the concept of travelling through time and space. However, being the awkward third wheel of the Doctor’s usual bicycle, he often gets picked on by the Doctor. Whenever something happens out of an act of clumsiness, the Doctor always glares at Harry, and while the Doctor walks away, Harry asks Sarah, “What’ve I done now?” Deep in the gold-lined caves of Voga, Harry accidently causes a rock slide, knocking out the Doctor. When the Doctor comes to, he laughs at what Harry has done and shouts, “HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE!” Even though Harry may be the subject of the Doctor’s fun at times, he’s also very quick-thinking and agile. Just goes to show that his UNIT training pays off.

            I’ve noticed that the Doctor gets put in oodles of danger in this story. He is forced by the Cybermen to go to Voga with a bomb strapped to back to plant even more bombs in Voga’s core. He gets tied up with Sarah and is stuck on the vacated Nerva, which the Cybermen programmed to crash into Voga. He suffers from the rock slide that Harry unfortunately caused. He was minutes away from being detonated. It’s absolutely crazy. The director of this story was obviously trying to put the Doctor in more peril so the viewers could realise that what the Doctor does is dangerous, and it seems like going from one whirlwind to another.

            One thing that kept bothering me was the Gallifreyan symbol for the Seal of Rassilon on the walls of the Vogan structures.

At first, I was thinking, “The Time Lords are here! Whaaaaaaat?” but after the end of the third episode, my hopes gradually diminished with the absence of the Time Lords. Only after the arc finished did I Google search why it was there. Turns out, it’s the Vogan symbol, but the show’s designer liked the symbol and kept it for the Time Lords in future episodes. Darn...

            One thing still doesn’t get resolved for me: what happens to space station Nerva? In The Sontaran Experiment two stories back, the astronauts the Doctor was talking to said that Nerva doesn’t exist, that it’s just a legend. So what happens to it? Is there something in this episode that I missed?

            Revenge of the Cybermen is the finale of the twelfth season of Doctor Who, and the end of Tom Baker’s first. I must say this story is not particularly as spectacular as its predecessors such as Robot and Genesis of the Daleks, but it does have a certain air of finality to the never-ending adventures of season twelve. Since the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry took off in the TARDIS at the end of Robot, they haven’t had any time to stop and breathe. When I first began my classic Who marathon with Jon Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen in The Time Warrior, I always thought that the adventures of the Doctor and his companion would be something along the lines of going off on a trip in the TARDIS, wind up on some alien planet, get involved in a tussle with some villainous aliens, and then pop back to UNIT for tea and a discussion about what just happened. Season twelve has definitely widened the playing field for Doctor Who, and I just hope that it won’t fall into a rut in the next season.

Meggin Watches Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks

Thinking the transmat beam will send the time-travelling trio back to space station Nerva, the Doctor is surprised to find that someone has interfered with the pathway of the beam, taking them to a war-scarred planet. When a Time Lord emerges from the fog and asks an incredibly huge favour of the Doctor on behalf of the Time Lords, the Doctor must go forth on the planet Skaro whence they where misled to and carry out the mission his race requests of him. His mission: to rewrite the history of the creation of the Daleks, so as to either wipe them from existence or alter their structure to make them less of a threat to the universe. Once the task has been completed, the Doctor and his friends are free to leave the planet by means of Portkey. Sorry, I meant the Time Ring that is gifted to them by the Time Lord.

            When the opening scene began, I thought it was straight out of the World War II time period, but it turns out that the planet Skaro has been going through a war resembling that of WWII for years. As the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry Sullivan scope out the planet to find the place to begin their mission, they observe that the military equipment used appears to come from a long string of time periods. There are laser guns, bullet guns, poison gas, and methods of centuries-old warfare, as well as gas masks and radiation sensors. The Doctor explains that these methods were used instead of from old to new, but quite the opposite way around. They started from the newest technology when war first broke out until they ran out of new supplies, so referring to older methods of warfare. This could only mean one thing: that this war has been going on for an insurmountable amount of time, for countless centuries.

            Seeking shelter in a bunker lying outside an enormous dome big enough to cover an entire city, the trio are bombarded by gunfire and poisonous gas. Hastily putting on the gas masks that decorates the faces of dead soldiers lining the bunker (to fool the opposing side that the bunker is guarded), the Doctor and Harry are taken inside the dome. Sarah, however, gets left behind...

            The Doctor and Harry discover the history of the war on Skaro while in the dome of the Kaleds. The Kaleds and the Thals are the two races that inhabit Skaro, and for many centuries they’ve been at war against each other for domination of the planet. The Kaleds inform the Doctor and Harry that they have a team of advanced scientists that are working on the ultimate machine that will help them win the war. What is this machine? Well, none other than the Daleks. The Doctor is eventually introduced to the inventor of the Daleks: Davros. But the Doctor and Harry weren’t the first of the trio to witness Davros and the Daleks...

            Sarah Jane, after waking alone in the empty bunker, wanders around outside the dome trying to find the Doctor and Harry, until she stumbles upon a secluded area inhabiting Davros himself. In hiding, Sarah discovers the Dalek for the first time, as Davros tests the Dalek by commanding it to exterminate a test subject. Sarah then runs away, into a group of Mutos, or former Kaleds that have been altered due to chemical mutations from the war. Sarah and the Mutos are then kidnapped by the Thals and forced to work for them, loading radioactive components into a missile waiting to be launched into the Kaled dome.

            The Doctor and Harry, after being secretly freed by a trusting Kaled scientist, intend to rescue Sarah from the Thals, even though Sarah has her own methods of escape. Eventually, the three wind up back in the Kaled dome, where Davros himself harshly interrogates the Doctor by torturing his friends for information to improve the Daleks. Through great lengths of fruitless persuasion, strong alliances, and an awful lot of running, it is up to the Doctor and his two friends to impact the creation of the Daleks.

            Like Planet of the Spiders, I’ve been informed countless times by many people that Genesis of the Daleks is the best classic Doctor Who serial ever written. And this time, unlike Spiders, I wholeheartedly agree. It gives me great pleasure to say that this is the BEST classic Who story I’ve ever seen. To be able to go back to the beginning of the Daleks, to witness their invention and their change as Davros takes the big step from remote control to total self control, it’s powerful stuff. There were many times when I was properly scared, and I’m a teenager! I can only imagine how the children of that time felt when they first saw this on transmission! It has great erratic pace, spread out so brilliantly into six thirty-minute episodes, and the suspense in every episode is heightened by the thrilling music. It also, like several other Who serials in the past, reflects some part of our own society that makes it relatable and tangible. Like The Sontaran Experiment, this arc looks back on the Nazis of World War II.

            The Kaled race is all about sustaining the purity of their race. Early on in the war, the Kaleds and the Thals used chemical weapons to fight, and the chemicals mutated some of the Kaleds, changing them into the Mutos. Because the Kaleds want to keep their race pure (kind of like the Malfoys and their obsession about Pure Bloods in the Harry Potter series), they exiled the Mutos to the wastelands of Skaro. If any of the Mutos would so much as step into the Kaled dome, they were sure to be killed in a heartbeat. This strong belief of long-standing purity is like Hitler’s ideals of maintaining a pure, nationalistic German force. He was so sure that getting rid of the Jews, and other “inferior” minorities in his eyes, was the only solution to keep Germany pure. Even the Kaled uniforms resemble that of the Nazis. The Daleks, at first being merely servants and soldiers under the remote control of Davros, then developing superior beliefs of their own, of the 2005 series and onwards reflect these Kaled and Nazi views – that the Dalek race should be the only and superior race in the entire universe, and so everyone inferior to them must be exterminated.

            Of course, the Daleks, like Hitler and his Nazism, are always defeated (with the occasional Dalek dematerialising in the nick of time and scuttling off to edge of the universe in order to regrow its race. Thanks, Russell T Davies), and the Doctor knows this because he’s the one who’s always defeated them. Unfortunately, Davros realises this and forces the Doctor to reveal every encounter with the Daleks and why they were defeated, in order to fix these flaws and weaknesses and the make the Daleks utterly invincible. Now that’s a recipe for disaster...

            The big, moral-questioning situations of this story are when there are important choices to be made. The Doctor and Davros must make these choices. The Doctor, whose sole purpose on Skaro is fulfil the wishes of the Time Lords and to either destroy the Daleks or improve them, is forced to make the choice between exploding the Kaled mutation room, holding the growing Daleks, or not. While Sarah tries to convince him to detonate the room, saying that the Daleks are evil and that they will one day be the destroyers of the universe, the Doctor brings up the situation of whether or not one should kill a baby even if they knew that baby would grow up being a horrible tyrannical dictator. To kill the Daleks right there and then would make the Doctor just like them. Also, to commit genocide to the Daleks would mean the Doctor’s life would change entirely. After all, the Doctor met the Daleks for the first time in the second story of Doctor Who, so to destroy the Daleks would change his very being. He wouldn’t lose Donna Noble when he had to erase every memory of every adventure she had with him. He wouldn’t lose Rose Tyler when she is trapped across the void on the parallel world. He probably wouldn’t even meet most of his companions if it weren’t for the Daleks. He wouldn’t have to destroy both Time Lords and Daleks alike in the final acts of the Time War.

            Davros is also given a choice, this time by the Doctor. The Doctor asks Davros if he could invent a hypothetical virus that could destroy anything and everything in the universe, would he do it. The Doctor hopes that he can dissuade Davros from doing so, and I believed he could as well, but Davros relishes the idea that he can destroy everything, making himself the supreme ruler of the universe.

            This story is just fantastic. Before watching this serial, my favourite Doctor Who arc was The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End because of the return of Davros, the Daleks, and all the Tenth Doctor’s companions (and who doesn’t love the return of Sarah Jane?). But now, Genesis of the Daleks has knocked Russell T Davies’ series four finale to second place for me. Genesis has all the elements of a classic Doctor Who story: loads of running, deep reasoning, the separation of the Doctor and his companion, and the Daleks.

            And what’s truly brilliant is the final scene of episode four. As the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry all hold on tightly to the Time Ring (Portkey!) and travelling in time back to space station Nerva (hopefully), this conversation ensues:

                        Sarah Jane: You don't seem too disappointed. We've failed. Haven't we? 
The Doctor: Failed? No, not really. You see, I know that although the Daleks will create havoc and destruction for millions of years, I know also that out of their evil must come something good.

Meggin Watches Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two

           Because mostly the entire world knows what happens in the last Harry Potter film due to having seen the movie already or having read the book (and if you haven’t done any of these, you’re out of your mind. Why are you even reading this?), this review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two is going to be different. Or special. Whichever word you prefer. Instead of providing a synopsis of the movie and then the comparisons and my opinions of it, I’m going to provide my reactions to this OUTSTANDING movie. Yes, before I start off, I rate it five out of five stars for epic performances by the entire cast, great retelling of the novel, and the visual effects.

            I went to the midnight premiere of the film with several acquaintances of mine (cosplaying as Cho Chang. Asians ftw), but that very weekend, I went back to the cinema and took notes. This is what my thoughts look like: 

It’s a bit jumbled up, isn’t it? So here’s my much more organised version of what I thought about the movie. WARNING: This is not in chronological order.

            I watched the Literal Harry Potter trailer before heading off to the cinema, so at the really intense/serious moments, I’d think of the trailer to keep from crying my eyes out.

Students in Hogwarts marching in lines everywhere? Snape’s definitely increased discipline in the school...Reminds me of those strict fictional boarding schools I read about.

Neville = BAMF

Brilliant music! Alexandre Desplat is one of my favourite composers (closely following John Williams, Danny Elfman, and Murray Gold).

Neville + Luna. <3!! Even though that wasn’t originally in the book, it’s great to see how the film played out the awkward romance.

Professor McGonagall is one of my two favourite Hogwarts teachers. Maggie Smith is a gem; I’ve seen her play the strict-corset-grandmother role in so many films and costume TV dramas, and it’s so great to see her out of her typecast. Her epic duel with Snape is just outstanding, and I adore her hilarious quotes! “I’ve always wanted to use that spell!”

Way to mention that Harry’s Invisibility Cloak is a Deathly Hallow...There was one moment where Harry was the most powerful wizard ever...

Beautiful recreation of the Resurrection Stone. It hardly looks like a stone at all, but a perfectly carved gem. I did notice the Deathly Hallows symbol on it..

THE DRAGON IN GRINGOTTS OH HOLY EFF. I’ve never been so scared of a dragon in my entire life.

BELLATRIX LESTRANGE IS MY FAVOURITE VILLAIN IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. Half the time I often ask, “What the frack is she doing?” because she’s always doing something weird or different from all the other Death Eaters.

When Hermione is disguised as Bellatrix: brilliant acting! All the more reason why I love Helena Bonham Carter!

Bill Weasley is fit.

WTF is Cho still doing at Hogwarts?

I spy Percy...

“My lord?” *Voldemort kills* That’s a great way to die...

What?! In the book, Lavender does not get nommed on by Fenrir Greyback!

Neville vs. the Snatchers. Hilarious and epic. Neville’s changed so much!

When Harry explains who really owns the Elder Wand...Hilarious how he worded it a bit blatantly sarcastic. “It’s mine.” Laugh.

VOLDY, DON’T BREAK THE ELDER WAND!

Brilliant photography. Hats off to the cinematographers.

When Harry reads “I open at the close,” I then understood what it meant.

Voldy’s army. My reaction: “Oh shit...”

Harry, upon seeing his dearly departed relatives after retrieving the Resurrection Stone, hardly looks at his dad. Gee, way to leave out James...

RIP Lupin, Tonks, Fred. :’(

“That’s my girlfriend, you numpties!” One of the best quotes of the entire movie.

Snape is such a triple agent...

The kiss in the Chamber of Secrets – is that how it was supposed to happen? That was a bit too theatrical to me. But, hey, whatever pleases the audience...there was great whooping and applauding at that bit.

Snape is the second of my two favourite Hogwarts teachers. His life is so twisted and complex, and he’s always had the best taciturn moments of all the movies. He is the most dynamic character out of everyone. A lot is revealed that makes us sympathise for what he’s been through. Personally, it should have been Lily and Snape forever. Snape’s memories are so sad! It was the second time I cried through anything in the movie (I’ll discuss the first later), but this time, I cried for the longest amount of time. His death reminded me of his actor’s death in Sweeney Todd: first the razor-quick swipe across the throat, then the collapse to the floor. While he wasn’t stabbed repeatedly by a singing barber and thrown backwards into the furnace below, his attack from Nagini is just as horrific. Snape deserves the longest paragraph of this entire review, because he’s always been an outstanding character to me. He manages to make a laugh escape from me, followed quickly by waves of revulsion. He is one of the most confusing and interesting and romantic characters out of everyone in this series.

“Not my daughter, you BITCH!” This was the most highly anticipated line of the whole movie. SO well said. Perfectly drawn out, perfectly executed. Molly Weasley, kudos to you.

When the Malfoys all walked away after that awkward hug from Voldemort, I was thinking, “There could be a spin-off series about the history of the Malfoys. They’re always such pure-blooded cowards, hiding behind Voldemort, and Draco and Narcissa changed so much in the past three movies. This should happen.”

“Let’s finish this the way we started – together!” BROMANCE!!

Love the fake ending, slowly fading into “Nineteen years later...”

Okay, out of all the people who’ve aged, Hermione didn’t.

Albus Severus Potter is such a cutie. I can tell he’ll be another popular figure at Hogwarts. The Potters never disappoint...

The first time I cried was when all the Hogwarts teachers and students and members of the DA and (ex) Order of the Phoenix cast the protective enchantments over Hogwarts. I was thinking, “Oh God. This is it. Don’t lose it, don’t lose it, oh shit...”

This movie is just. Wow. There really aren’t any words to describe it. I so can’t wait for it to come out on Blu-ray so I can watch it in uber HD. Alas; the chronicles of Harry Potter are now officially, completely chronicled. I’m always in a melancholy stupor whenever a series ends. I was miserable for days when A Series of Unfortunate Events ended. I had endless, tearful Star Wars marathons after I saw Revenge of the Sith in the cinema. I cried for days when David Tennant regenerated into Matt Smith on Doctor Who. But, in the words of the Doctor himself, “Everything’s got to end sometime; otherwise nothing would ever get started.”

Meggin Watches Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment

Ever since the Doctor regenerated for the third time, he, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry Sullivan have been careering through time and space by means of travelling in the TARDIS and now by transmat. In the previous adventure, The Ark in Space, the trio leave space station Nerva by means of teleportation, for the space station’s new captain asks them to fix the teleporting mechanism that beams them to Earth. The three time-space travellers materialise on planet Earth, and the Doctor starts to work on the circle of transmat refractors, encouraging Sarah and Harry to explore the different-and-yet-the-same planet. Little do they know that there’s something hiding on what appears to be this empty planet, and it’s not very nice...

            After several scuffles with what eventually turns out to be a stranded group of astronauts, the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry discover that the astronauts are being picked off one by one, but by what or whom, no one knows, until Sarah is captured by a robot and taken to a familiar space ship...

            The robot in question turns out to be the helper of a Sontaran, a militaristic alien. While the robot rounds up all the humans it can find on the planet (which turns out to be just the Doctor and his crew and the stranded astronauts), the Sontaran executes harsh and brutally fatal experiments on the humans and sends the information to the leader of his army. Once again, it is up to the Doctor and his companions to save the day, and to prevent a whole Sontaran army from destroying Earth.

            Because this arc is only two episodes long, there really isn’t an extensive overview on my part today. The length of this arc didn’t live up to my expectations of a classic Doctor Who story. However, while the story is brief, the plot is familiar and extensively well-written and detailed. The similar theme in this story reminds us as viewers of events that have happened in the past. The methods of experimentation that the Sontaran uses are similar to those performed by the Nazis on the people they holed up in their concentration camps. Dehydration tests, strength tests, food deprivation tests - these experiments have all obviously been toned down for the children watching this show, but it reflects the harsh experiments the Nazis used after World War II.

            In a way, the Sontaran race is similar to the Nazis as well, although not as spot-on as the Daleks. They aren’t born – they are cloned. Each Sontaran looks practically identical. They live only to fight, and are trained in combat in their early years so they can serve for their race. Their sole purpose in life is to die honourably in battle. It’s incredible how the writers of Doctor Who are inspired by the historical events of Earth’s past and can create alien villains that so resemble our own. In a way, it’s like creating one’s own version of events, like CS Lewis’ and Philip Pullman’s interpretation of the Bible and Christianity. Of course, I may just be thinking too deeply on such matters...

            On the subject of Sarah Jane’s outfit, however...

            Honestly, I don’t know what she was thinking...I mean, the orange Wellies, I can deal with, and I wouldn’t mind wearing a pair myself, and the blue hat (not pictured) is a nice touch, but a yellow raincoat and matching  trousers is like you’re a shining beacon for attracting aliens. That’s probably why she got captured in the first place...

            It’s nice to see the resurgence of Sarah’s attitude in this story. She never fails to stand up for herself, even when she’s been uprooted from her own time. When Harry keeps calling her “old thing” out of habit, she points out that she isn’t really a “thing” and insists that he call her by her name. It seems that it’s going to take Harry a while to get used her feminist attitude.

            And, of course, Tom Baker never fails to disappoint. From funny quips such as “Trafalgar Square is that way...mind the traffic,” to taking out his five hundred year diary to look up the Sontarans in his past, it just makes me admire him even more. I’m not sure if I like the fight scene between him and the Sontaran, as I still have to get used to the Doctor actually fighting someone.

            One thing that I still question even after watching is of what I heard one of the astronauts say to the Doctor about space station Nerva.

VURAL: Because Nerva doesn't exist, that's why. There's no such place.
DOCTOR: Fascinating. You don't believe it exists and yet you've obviously heard of it.
KRANS: Everybody's heard of the Lost Colony.
DOCTOR: Lost Colony? You mean it's become a legend like Lost Atlantis?
ERAK: Like what?
DOCTOR: Lost Atlantis. It's a legendary city... oh, never mind.

Why do the astronauts think that Nerva doesn’t exist, if the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry all just came from it? Something must happen to it, and I have a feeling that we’ll find out soon.

Meggin Watches Doctor Who: Robot

Last time on Doctor Who, in the conclusion of the arc Planet of the Spiders, the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith witness the Doctor’s transformation from one face to another, as Jon Pertwee says goodbye and Tom Baker says hello. With the Fourth Doctor comes an eccentrically erratic personality, doubt among the ranks, and a mysterious break-in, where the Doctor, the Brig, and Sarah Jane can solve the case. This is Robot, Tom Baker’s first story on Doctor Who.

            After regenerating, the Doctor wakes up in a rambling state, expressing a jumbled sequence of things he’s said in the past. After falling back into unconsciousness, the Brig asks for Lt Harry Sullivan, UNIT’s medical officer, to take care of the Doctor.

            The next day, the Brig and Sarah are discussing the break-in at the Ministry of Defence and the stolen plans, because the Brig can’t talk to the Doctor due to his unfit state. As the Brig gives Sarah a visitor’s pass to the National Institute for Advanced Scientific Research, or “Think Tank”, for a rare journalist opportunity, the Doctor sneaks into his own laboratory to gain entry to the TARDIS. Just as he’s about to open the blue doors, Harry Sullivan catches him in the act and attempts to return him to the sickbay. The Doctor throws a bit of a fit and continues rambling (this time about his ears), and when Sarah and the Brig return, they find Harry tied up with a jump rope and stuffed in a locker and the Doctor about to take off in the TARDIS. Sarah bangs on the TARDIS doors just in time, for as the Doctor opens the doors, he recognises Sarah and the Brig after several moments of prompting, and is convinced to stay on Earth because of his needed assistance to solve the mystery of the break-in.

            After several ridiculous wardrobe changes and settling into the classic long scarf of radiant colours, velvet jacket, argyle jumper, and floppy hat, the Doctor and the Brig set out to the scene of the crime while Sarah goes off on her journalism experience. Small clues cause the two situations to connect over one similarity: a robot.

            The robot in question is called K1. It is a prototype for replacing human beings who work dangerous activities, such as mining and handling radioactive materials. The director, a woman (what a shocker) named Hilda Winters, states that K1’s prime directive is to serve and not harm humanity. This directive becomes clouded when Sarah asks Winters to prove it isn’t dangerous, and Winters orders K1 to kill Sarah. Kind of difficult to serve humanity by harming humanity, is it not? Confused, the robot is forced to stop, and Sarah, seeing the torture inflicted upon it, asks K1 if it is feeling alright. This will obviously prove its purpose later on in this story. Of course, Winters scoffs, bluntly stating that robots have no feelings.

            In order to discover more about K1, the Doctor must talk to its inventor, Professor Kettlewell. When the Doctor arrives at Kettlewell’s, he realises it’s a trap, but too late: K1 receives orders to kill the Doctor because it has been told that he is an enemy of humanity. With UNIT forces coming in to back him up, the Doctor tries to find Sarah, only to realise she’s run off with Kettlewell because he can assist her to sneak into the Scientific Reform Society meeting that Think Tank is hosting. Upon arriving at the scene, all is revealed: Winters has acquired the Destructor Codes entrusted to Great Britain, and will be able to use them as nuclear ransom to ensure world domination. It is now up to the Doctor, Sarah, and the Brig to stop the nuclear outbreak before the countdown reaches zero...

            This episode is so far the best classic Doctor Who arc I’ve ever seen so far. I know I might’ve said this as well about The Monster of Peladon, but this trumps it a thousand times over. The story is extremely well-written, and there are Earthly problems that the people of this time were fretting about. Nuclear war, for instance, and feminism and “the good of humanity” play vital parts in this story. Hilda Winters, seeing the power of science as an avenue to world power, will resort to the detonation of nuclear devices to get what she wants. But how was she able to come across the Destructor Codes to begin with?

            Another history lesson: there were three main countries with nuclear weapons at the time: Russia, China, and America. To ensure peace during this time of cold war, the governments of these countries all decided to give the locations and launch codes of their nuclear weapons to a neutral country, which happened to be Great Britain. If things get heated between the three countries, Britain would feel free to publish said launch codes in order to cool things down. With the assistance of K1, Winters is able to acquire the codes and wreak havoc on humanity.

            So, you see how different – and somewhat refreshing – this Doctor Who story is. There are no aliens in this arc. The true villain is humanity itself. We are capable of acting against each other in order to become more powerful than everyone else, even if it is by “evil” means. And to use the reference of a nuclear war to secure world dominance is similar to the times of the Cold War.

            Feminism also plays a big role in this story. Sarah Jane is well known for her headstrong attitude towards equal rights, and we also see that feminism is another (mild) contributing factor to Hilda Winters acting out. There is one part of this story where Sarah Jane is trying to get into the Scientific Reform Society meeting, and the guard and Sarah engage in a heated debate over women wearing trousers.

 Short: Your own attire, is it really suitable?

            Sarah: Trousers? Oh, surely that’s a matter for me to decide?

            Short: As things are at the moment, it is. But in a more rationally ordered society -

            Sarah: - I would wear what you thought was good for me. I see. And think what you thought was good for me, too?

            Short: It’d be for your own good.

               Honestly, me not being a woman from the seventies, I don’t understand the problem with women wearing trousers, but it was obviously quite an ordeal back then.

            Of course, I leave the performance of the new Doctor for last. Tom Baker is outstanding. He is turning out to be a promising Doctor, and is becoming a fast favourite of mine. His silliness and eccentricity lightens up the show at times where it needs to be uplifted, such as when he comforts Sarah Jane by offering her some sweets by starting off with the well-worn catchphrase, “Would you like a jelly baby?” His scene with Harry towards the beginning of the first episode is enough to send me in a fit of laughter, from rambling on about his ears to jump-roping with Harry in time to a song. And that’s not it; just when I can’t get enough, he pulls off the comedic search for a new look, going from Viking to court jester to something that looks as if it jumped off a playing card. From the witty quotes to the wide eyes, I can’t seem to forget him.

            Memorable quotes:

Doctor: Don’t worry Brigadier! Everything’s fine I assure you! The brontosaurus is large and deplacid!

Doctor: Can’t? Can’t? There’s no such word as can’t! 

 Brigadier: Believe me, Doctor, the place is impregnable!

The Doctor: Never cared much for the word 'impregnable.' Sounds a bit too much like 'unsinkable.'

Harry Sullivan: What's wrong with unsinkable?

The Doctor: 'Nothing,' as the iceberg said to the Titanic!

Harry Sullivan: What?

The Doctor: Glub glub glub....

As for where the Doctor and Sarah, and now Harry Sullivan, are going off to next, well, we can be sure that they won’t be back in time for the dinner at Buckingham Palace…

Meggin Watches Doctor Who: Planet of the Spiders

Back on Earth, the Doctor and the Brigadier are investigating the mysterious practises of a clairvoyant due to the Doctor’s fascination with psychic ability. Meanwhile, the Doctor’s companion Sarah Jane Smith investigates a peculiar Tibetan meditation centre, where a familiar face there suggests something dangerous could be happening...

            After the fiasco some members of UNIT (stands for UNified Intelligence Taskforce) took part of in Invasion of the Dinosaurs a couple arcs back, Michael Yates, having left UNIT due to his participation in bringing back “The Golden Age”, seeks refuge in a Tibetan meditation centre. However, things appear fishy when he stumbles on a secret group meditating in the cellar, chanting something that doesn’t revolve around Tibetan beliefs. Too afraid to call on UNIT, he turns to Sarah Jane to get to the bottom of the matter. Yates and Sarah hide away in the cellar and watch the next secret meeting, where, after a string of incantations, a giant spider appears in the middle of the cellar, leaps on a man named Lupton’s back, and disappears. Fearing something of the alien kind, Sarah Jane returns to UNIT to inform the Doctor. Of course, while she’s been investigating away, the Doctor and the Brig are conducting experiments of their own back at UNIT HQ. The Doctor discovers Professor Clegg (no, not Nick Clegg, you numpties), a man with powerful psychic abilities. Clegg, having the ability to move objects without touching them and the ability to see into the future, is put to the test by the Doctor. However, upon looking into an alien blue crystal sent by post from the Amazon by the Doctor’s previous companion, Jo Grant, Clegg envisioned deadly spiders and met his unprecedented demise. The Doctor, wondering what the psychic message of spiders could mean, is enlightened by Sarah Jane of the events in the cellar. Seeing a connection with Clegg’s last vision and Sarah’s tale, the Doctor decides to look into the peculiar situation.

            Of course, before the Doctor can do any such thing, Lupton, having his mind shared with the giant spider, is forced by the spider to go to UNIT to retrieve the blue crystal in order to attain insurmountable power. Lupton steals the crystal with telepathic assistance from the spider in his head, and the Doctor, Sarah, and the Brigadier go off on a multi-vehicle chase to get the crystal back. All is lost when Lupton makes a miraculous escape and is persuaded by the spider to take the crystal to its home planet, where they can thwart the other spiders and rule the planet and many others to come. Little did Lupton know that the retreat’s simpleton handyman, Tommy, has a fixed fascination for “pretty, shiny things”, and secretly takes the blue crystal. Lupton, fearing the loss of his power, assures the spider they can bluff their part of the bargain, and so teleports to the planet, Metebelis III, anyways. Sarah, hot on his tracks after seeing him run off to the cellar, unexpectedly gets teleported as well. The Doctor, arriving at the scene too late, must return to Metebelis (a planet he visited once before) in the TARDIS and resolve the ever-growing dilemma before it is too late.

            Before watching this arc, I’ve heard nothing but great things about Planet of the Spiders, but in truth, after I watched it, I was a bit disappointed. Other than one trip in the TARDIS to collect Sarah from Metebelis, there’s hardly any time travel to confuse us. The special effects are great for the 1970’s, but the spiders aren’t. I don’t know how it could have been better, but the spiders just weren’t working for me. I mean, they’re very frightening, obviously – come on, giant spiders! They’re probably even more dangerous than the acromantulas in the second Harry Potter book! Perhaps it was the voices of the spiders that were a bit of a turn-off. Yes, they were loud, but also high-pitched; it made them appear even less frightening. However, when they are capable of possessing other bodies and bending their minds to their own will, they are capable of doing more than their eight legs can handle.

            One question I had, and that was raised in the middle of the story, was how the spiders came to Metebelis III. Some history for you: In the planet’s past, a space ship carrying humans from Earth crashed, and the people have lived on the planet for generations. However, a spider on board the space ship found its way to the Blue Mountains, home of the blue crystals, like the one the Doctor was in possession of. The spider basked in the effect of the crystals and grew smarter and larger, and its descendants have evolved into the giant spiders seen in this story.

            I’ve noticed that there are many references to the Doctor’s past in this season of Doctor Who. In Planet of the Spiders, we are comforted by the letter Jo Grant sent to the Doctor with the blue crystal from The Green Death, we return to Metebelis III, and although we haven’t seen him before, the Doctor is reunited with his old mentor from Gallifrey, who also aids him with his regeneration, of which this arc is famous for. Is it that the writers are feeling nostalgic, or have they just run out of ideas for Jon Pertwee now that this is his final season on the show?

            Might I say that it’s been trying to accept Sarah Jane’s red-and-white striped getup. The other two outfits used in this episode aren’t that bad, though. I once visited the Sarah Jane Smith Fashionista Fever website, and I noticed that whenever Sarah Jane is time-space travelling in the TARDIS with the Doctor, her outfits appear to be outrageous, yet bitingly loveable, but when she’s on Earth, her style dwindles to the styles of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.

While on Earth, Sarah displays a toned-down style,
 quite different from her spacey outfits.

Just before her trip to Metebelis III,
she dons a stripey shirt and matching sweater.

            I also noted that this is the story in which Sarah Jane gets possessed by an alien for the first time on Doctor Who.

            I think that one of the best performances by anyone in this episode is of the character Tommy. He is the handyman at the Tibetan retreat, and although he’s a bit simple-minded, he is so adorable, and I’ve grown to love him since he first came on screen. What’s also incredible is how he actually plays a part in the fight for the possession of the blue crystal. Because of his obsession with “pretty, shiny things”, he takes the crystal from an unknowing Lupton. Of course, the crystal has the power to show a person his own mind, and when Tommy looks into the crystal, his mind becomes improved by the crystal’s power. He is able to read and speak and think coherently when before, he couldn’t. Because of his brand-new knowledge, those who’ve been involved in the secret group in the cellar are not aware of his transformation and underestimate him, making him the hero of the day.

            So, what is the theme of this story? Because there is one; it’s subconsciously dominant. Why did Tommy take the blue crystal? What convinced Lupton to aid the spider? Why did the Doctor even take the blue crystal from Metebelis III to begin with, causing this entire problem? Greed. It’s a perfectly common human fault that even the Doctor has, and he’s not even human. Even the spider, digging into Lupton’s mind, felt nothing but greed. It may not be so dominant in all of us, but it’s there.

            When I first got into Doctor Who, I watched a YouTube video chronicling every Doctor’s regeneration. So when Sarah and the Brigadier are in the Doctor’s room in UNIT fretting over his whereabouts, and they suddenly hear the TARDIS materialising, I was struck by the familiarity of this scene. I’m glad that the Brig and Sarah were there to witness his regeneration, for it symbolises the Doctor Who audience itself: there are those who have witnessed the Doctor regenerate before, having stuck with the show since the beginning, and there are newbies who saw this series first on transmission who didn’t know the Doctor could even do that. The latter resembles Sarah Jane, who’s only known the Third Doctor, and the former resembles the Brig, who’s been with the Doctor since the Patrick Troughton years (aka Second Doctor, for those who aren’t in the know). And to regenerate into Tom Baker, the infamous Fourth Doctor with the ridiculously long scarf and worn-out catchphrase regarding jelly babies, it makes me look forward to watching the Tom Baker years.

Meggin Watches Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks

It is the year 1941, at the height of the London Blitz during World War II. The Germans invade England with a constant barrage of bombs and other means of warfare, while England remains in the dark, waiting out the invasions. England’s Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, seeing no other alternative, decides to wheel out the deadliest weapon that could either win them the war or wreak even more havoc...

            After receiving a call from Churchill himself requesting aid in the war effort, the Doctor and Amy Pond career off in the TARDIS, back into the past. For Amy, it’s been increasingly overwhelming, first from jumping into the distant future in the previous episode, The Beast Below, to heading into events long past. For the Doctor, it appears that meeting Churchill is a reunion, after apparently meeting him several times before. As the title of this episode suggests, the Doctor, accidentally arriving one month after Churchill rang, realises that Churchill’s deadly weapon to take down the Germans is the exact same force that the Doctor utterly despises.

            The first ten to fifteen minutes are spectacular – there is perfect pacing in the way the Daleks are revealed, how the Doctor reacts, and how the battle is taken up into space. In the beginning, the story has potential to be a two-parter, but then there are several tiny plots that unfold afterwards that come all jumbled together as the story must hastily draw to a close in a forty-some minute slot. As the story progresses, the pacing becomes erratic: slow at first, then ridiculously fast, then varying between the two, until eventually the dust settles, revealing the conclusion, and even that holds some mystery.

            The role of the companion at first is very quiet: Amy simply just stands back and watches the Doctor in awe as he, oh how should I put this, shows off. He wants Amy to be his companion, and what better way to convince her to stay than to take her back to England’s past so she can experience it herself? Of course, Amy steps back into the limelight for a moment when the Doctor asks her to tell Churchill that the Daleks are bad news, and she just looks daftly confused. Surely Amy was alive when the Daleks invaded Earth multiple times during the Russell T Davies era, so she should have experienced the full might of the Daleks when they took over the Earth and moved the planet across the universe and all that. But no, something’s happened to Amy that makes her forget the existence of the Daleks. This in itself has the essence of another hidden plot that won’t be revealed until several episodes later.

            Also, on the return of the Daleks: HOW?! I mean, yes, you can’t have Doctor Who without the Daleks, but the Doctor destroyed them all the last time they were involved. The excuses for each time the Daleks return are getting even more ridiculous. Although, their next excuse won’t be quite so frivolous, as they actually have a reason to return other than just “Oh, we need to have Daleks in every series.”

            There are some very brilliant parts in this episode that make up for the jumbled storyline. Amy eventually plays a key part by helping sending Spitfires into space to aid the Doctor, and she plays a vital role in saving the Earth from a catastrophic demise constructed by the Daleks. The dogfight in space (also advertised in the series trailer) is quite literally awesome, because of the hint of a Star Wars reference and, come on, how many times will we see a space fight on Doctor Who? However, I’m not sure yet if I like the new Daleks. I suppose it will take some getting used to...

            As for the mysterious crack in time, well, that’ll be for another day...