By Roy Mathur, on 2024-05-06, at 23:12:12 to 23:44:40 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
The Peter Davison era is finished. We've still Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, a few movies, and a wrap party, and then that is it.
Please let it end this year. I don't think I can take any more. Ten bloody years. That's what some get for murder.
Notable Cast: Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison, Peri Brown: Nicola Bryant, Sharaz Jek: Christopher Gable; ballet dancer, choreographer, actor, co-founder London's Central School of Ballet
Director: Graeme Harper, also floor assist: The Power of the Daleks, prod assist: The Seeds of Doom, Warriors' Gate, dir: Revelation of the Daleks
Writer: Robert Holmes: var cred: Doctor Who, Blake's 7, The Nightmare Man (see many prev pods)
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: Masters Pit, Dorset, BBC Television Centre, Studio 6 1983--1984
Broadcast: Story 135, season 21, serial 6, following Planet of Fire covered in 538, 4 x c. 25 min, 8 March to 16 March 1984
Media: Target novelization by Terrance Dicks (1984), VHS with Robot (1992), DVD (2001), DVD Issue 36 of The Doctor Who DVD Files (2010), DVD Revisitations with The Movie and The Talons of Weng-Chiang (2010), vinyl soundtrack (2013)
99 Red Balloons (99 Luftballons) by German pop star Nena is number one.
I love that song, but have no idea what it's about, or rather I didn't until I Google, Google, Googled. The lyrics of the anti-war song are about how ninety-nine red balloons are mistaken for UFOs by the military, who send planes and precipitate apocalyptic war.
Arriving on a muddy planet riddled with tunnels called Androzani Minor, the Doctor and Peri succumb to raw spectrox poisoning, and are captured as suspected gunrunners by the military guarding Morgus's valuable longevity boosting spectrox mines from madman Sharez Jek and his android army. The big twist occurs at their execution, when their bodies are revealed to be Jek's android doppelgangers.
In fact, the pair, along with the aide-de-camp, Salateen, are prisoners of Jek. In a sudden attack, the Doctor is captured by Morgus's mercenaries, who, unbeknownst to all, are privately working for him as smugglers trading Jek's spectrox for weapons. Peri is taken by the mine guards. The doctor hijacks the mercenary's ship, escapes, consults with Jek, then searches for bat milk to cure Peri.
Morgus arrives, finds his secretary has usurped him, and desperately enlists mercenary leader Stoz to steal Jek's spectrox hoard. At Jek's hideout, Jek kills Morgus, Stotz kills Jek, and android Salateen kills Stotz.
The Doctor milks a cave bat, finds Peri, carries her back to the TARDIS, pilots it away, feeds Peri the milk, before collapsing and regenerating.
What a traumatising experience to subject Peri to on her first outing as the Doctor's Companion. Infection, near execution, and being perved over by a freak in a mask. Being a Companion is a nightmare.
Everyone from Androzani Major we meet are only out for themselves. They have a terribly selfish and cold society. It is most evident in the ruthless kleptocrat Morgus (John Normington) and sadistic mercenary Stotz (Maurice Roeves). Morgus is played brilliantly by John Normington. The Wikipedia entry talks about his breaking of the fourth wall, but that isn't the case. He is expressing his thoughts out loud. It may be directly to camera, but it's not to an audience. It's theatrical rather than hammy and I appreciated that. On the other hand, maybe he was just trying to hog the camera to boost his portfolio for other roles. Who can really tell with actors? (Pod 537).
Sharaz Jek's back leather suit and black and white mask symbolically describing the scarred tissue beneath is slick and evil, fit's the character's maniacal, but brilliant Phantom of the Opera persona and is also sufficiently science fictiony. It's a more stylish version of his androids design. I'm also strongly reminded of John Phillip Law's costume as the titular character from Danger: Diabolik (1968) (episode 217 and others). I also appreciated the theatricality of the villain Sharaz Jek. His brilliance, mania, vengeful and cruel rage, creepy attraction and occasional fondling of Peri, and ability to move though the caverns and even into his enemy's HQ with impunity is pure Phantom of the Opera. He is portrayed with wonderful physical dynamism, charisma, and vocal projection by ballet dancer and actor Christopher Gable.
The two versions of aide-de-camp Salateen, both human and android are played well and ambiguously by Robert Glenister. The Hitler-like flop of hair only adds to his cold ruthlessness.
Creature design: the primary monster is a rarely seen dragon-like cave predator (one of the "magma creatures"). The look is acceptable, but the outfit so immobile that the suit actor only manages a comical shuffle. There is also a scene in which the Doctor milks a bat. It's all unintentionally clumsily comedic in an otherwise dramatic science fiction drama with some serious things to say about greed.
Like Resurrection of the Daleks, the military appear to armed with Mac10s, but modified with red gas cannister shaped attachments glued on.
The Peter Davison era ends with it's best story and one I remember clearly from it's original broadcast. It's high operatic drama provided by Christopher Gable's delightfully and stylishly evil, scenery-chewing, and wildly inappropriate for today's tastes, the pervy old git, Sharaz Jek. In Jek, we see yet another Whoish instance of a robotocist gone mad (Robot and The Robots of Death; pods 324 and 375). It's also a vicious critique of rampant kleptocracratic capitalism because---and forgive me as Dune is foremost in the zeitgeist presently---the spectrox must flow. In concluding the Davison's tenure, I don't know how to feel. Davison was one of my favourite Doctors back then, but I haven't gelled with him during my rewatch, hence my eagerness to blast through his last few stories... and deal with the regeneration into snarky, unpleasant, and even worse dressed Colin Baker. When Peri asks what's happened, the first words from the new Doctor's mouth are, "Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon."
The cave monitors feature the colours red, green, yellow, and blue. These are the colours of the Mauritian flag, but in the wrong order. They should be red, blue, yellow, and green.
Next, I cover Ncuti's first season episode on the 11th.