Netflixing Doctor Who Double Feature
I ended up watching two different stories more or less back to back. So I'll just do both of them togetehr as a single entry.
Revenge of the Cybermen
Following the previous Dalek story, the first Tom Baker season ends with the return of another popular monster. The Doctor, Harry and Sarah Jane have spent most of the season traveling without the Tardis, going from point to point via every other possible conveyance. After escaping Skaro by Time Ring, the team ends up back at Nerva Station. It's centuries before the events in Ark in Space, so they are stuck cooling their heels while waiting for the Tardis to come back through time and meet them. Thankfully there's an attack by the Cybermen, a trio of soldiers trapped on the station, and a planet of gold, to keep them from getting bored while they wait.
All things considered, this is a rather weak story. It introduced the nonsensical gold weakness into Cyberman lore, which would remain until they returned in the new series. I know the tradition in Doctor Who was to create the bad guys with an exploitable weakness (the way the Daleks originally had to have power from the floors, or the probic vent on the Sontarans) but the gold weakness in the Cybermen just did not make any rational sense. And the idea just got ridiculous as time went on. Even in this episode, when the Cybermen attack the gold planet Voga, the Vogans' weapons were useless. You have to wonder why they didn't just throw rocks at them.
One fun thing about the DVD for this episode was the background on the cave system they had filmed all the Voga sequences in. It's a place called Wookey Hole. It's most famous geological feature being a rock formation called the Witch of Wookey. There's some story about a witch that got turned to stone centuries ago, and the place is supposed to be haunted. The crew reported a lot of mishaps when filming in the cave, including Elisabeth Sladen falling into the underground river and nearly getting carried away by the current. Plus the producer had his own ghost story about seeing a diver coming down when the caves were supposed to be deserted.
I didn't get to see all of the episode, since my disc from Netflix was too scratched up to play on either the DVD or Blu-Ray. I was able to watch most of the first thee parts of the story, but only the last five or six minutes of the final part were watchable. I'd say this is one of my least favorite episodes I've seen from the Baker run so far.
Terror of the Zygons
By comparison, Zygons was quite enjoyable. I knew the episode hadn't been released on DVD, so I hunted up the files online and got a download that included the Doctor's appearance on Disney Time in front of the episode. It was rather unexpected and random, but a fun addition to the file.
So the gang is back on Earth in the right time period, and the Doctor has received an urgent call from the Brigadier about the destruction of a bunch of oil rigs in the North Sea. Which turn out to be the efforts of aliens who are controlling the Loch Ness Monster. Only on Doctor Who could they get away with that.
If nothing else the Zygons stand out as one of the most brilliant creations of the Tom Baker run. I'd say the Zygons stand up to some of the makeup effects of the current series (way better than the Raxacoricofallapatorians) and really are the quintessential Doctor Who villain of the Baker years. Which makes it such a shame they never reappeared. Considering their frightening visage, I wouldn't be surprised the story got a lot of flack from Mary Whitehouse.
This also features the last appearance of Harry Sullivan as a companion. He returns to duty with UNIT, while Sarah Jane and the Doctor head off for adventures without him. Harry was something of a last minute hedging of bets for the producers, who were uncertain who they were going to have as the next Doctor, and the younger character of Doctor Sullivan was intended to be the muscle if they had an older man playing the part. Since Tom Baker was fairly young and fit, he was unnecessary and they started off the new season with phasing him out. Harry really did not have much to do in the story, after getting kidnapped by the Zygons in the second episode he stayed on the sidelines till the end. While Ian Marter wasn't bad in the part and stayed involved even afterwards as a writer of the novelizations, Harry Sullivan as a character really did not add much to the stories, so his absence was not that great a loss.
Zygons is definitely one of the better episodes, and part of Tom Baker's best days as the Doctor. Since it had been so long since I'd seen this episode, I hadn't really remembered much of it. So I was quite happy to sit through it and re-experience it. It's been so long since I've seen a lot of these stories, I'm quite looking forward to seeing them.
Next Up: Planet of Evil
Revenge of the Cybermen
Following the previous Dalek story, the first Tom Baker season ends with the return of another popular monster. The Doctor, Harry and Sarah Jane have spent most of the season traveling without the Tardis, going from point to point via every other possible conveyance. After escaping Skaro by Time Ring, the team ends up back at Nerva Station. It's centuries before the events in Ark in Space, so they are stuck cooling their heels while waiting for the Tardis to come back through time and meet them. Thankfully there's an attack by the Cybermen, a trio of soldiers trapped on the station, and a planet of gold, to keep them from getting bored while they wait.
All things considered, this is a rather weak story. It introduced the nonsensical gold weakness into Cyberman lore, which would remain until they returned in the new series. I know the tradition in Doctor Who was to create the bad guys with an exploitable weakness (the way the Daleks originally had to have power from the floors, or the probic vent on the Sontarans) but the gold weakness in the Cybermen just did not make any rational sense. And the idea just got ridiculous as time went on. Even in this episode, when the Cybermen attack the gold planet Voga, the Vogans' weapons were useless. You have to wonder why they didn't just throw rocks at them.
One fun thing about the DVD for this episode was the background on the cave system they had filmed all the Voga sequences in. It's a place called Wookey Hole. It's most famous geological feature being a rock formation called the Witch of Wookey. There's some story about a witch that got turned to stone centuries ago, and the place is supposed to be haunted. The crew reported a lot of mishaps when filming in the cave, including Elisabeth Sladen falling into the underground river and nearly getting carried away by the current. Plus the producer had his own ghost story about seeing a diver coming down when the caves were supposed to be deserted.
I didn't get to see all of the episode, since my disc from Netflix was too scratched up to play on either the DVD or Blu-Ray. I was able to watch most of the first thee parts of the story, but only the last five or six minutes of the final part were watchable. I'd say this is one of my least favorite episodes I've seen from the Baker run so far.
Terror of the Zygons
By comparison, Zygons was quite enjoyable. I knew the episode hadn't been released on DVD, so I hunted up the files online and got a download that included the Doctor's appearance on Disney Time in front of the episode. It was rather unexpected and random, but a fun addition to the file.
So the gang is back on Earth in the right time period, and the Doctor has received an urgent call from the Brigadier about the destruction of a bunch of oil rigs in the North Sea. Which turn out to be the efforts of aliens who are controlling the Loch Ness Monster. Only on Doctor Who could they get away with that.
If nothing else the Zygons stand out as one of the most brilliant creations of the Tom Baker run. I'd say the Zygons stand up to some of the makeup effects of the current series (way better than the Raxacoricofallapatorians) and really are the quintessential Doctor Who villain of the Baker years. Which makes it such a shame they never reappeared. Considering their frightening visage, I wouldn't be surprised the story got a lot of flack from Mary Whitehouse.
This also features the last appearance of Harry Sullivan as a companion. He returns to duty with UNIT, while Sarah Jane and the Doctor head off for adventures without him. Harry was something of a last minute hedging of bets for the producers, who were uncertain who they were going to have as the next Doctor, and the younger character of Doctor Sullivan was intended to be the muscle if they had an older man playing the part. Since Tom Baker was fairly young and fit, he was unnecessary and they started off the new season with phasing him out. Harry really did not have much to do in the story, after getting kidnapped by the Zygons in the second episode he stayed on the sidelines till the end. While Ian Marter wasn't bad in the part and stayed involved even afterwards as a writer of the novelizations, Harry Sullivan as a character really did not add much to the stories, so his absence was not that great a loss.
Zygons is definitely one of the better episodes, and part of Tom Baker's best days as the Doctor. Since it had been so long since I'd seen this episode, I hadn't really remembered much of it. So I was quite happy to sit through it and re-experience it. It's been so long since I've seen a lot of these stories, I'm quite looking forward to seeing them.
Next Up: Planet of Evil