9.2 The Curse of Peladon

Curses!

The Doctor is testing his newly working TARDIS, so he decides to go on a little adventure.  They land on the planet Peladon.  This brings me to a new concern.  He had to drag Jo along for the adventure.  He's been so impatient about leaving Earth, and yet he feels the need to make Jo go with him.  Jo is a nice enough girl, and she doesn't want to hurt the Doctor's feelings.  I get the impression that she would much rather go on a date with Yates than be chased by a beast.  Can you blame her?  The Doctor's dependency on Jo is creepy at best.  Is he in to her, or does he constantly need a companion?  At least she is supposed to be a woman, so it doesn't seem quite so wrong.

David Troughton plays the King of Peladon.  I'm sorry, but he just didn't cut it.  His father was a great actor, so it probably annoyed David to no end.  I'm sure he got a lot of "Your father is awesome.  Who are you?"  It's hard to compete when your father is a famous successful actor.

The Ice Warriors are back.  This time though, they are kinder and more reasonable.  I didn't mind them at all.  They were intelligent and didn't fly off the handle.  They also recognized fairness and loyalty in the Doctor. 

Pertwee gets to battle with the King's bodyguard, so that was a bit ridiculous.  It was something like the old days, when the Doctor and his companions were constantly mauled.  Let's never forget Ian's fight in The Aztecs.  That was epic.  Of course the Doctor wins.  There is no way he's going to die in some fight pit on Peladon.

Jo is posing as a princess from Earth, so the King of Peladon practically leaps on top of her, demanding babies and such.  He even says something like they don't have many pretty young girls in the castle.  Perhaps it would be a good time to throw a ball or something?  Anyway, she's not really into him.  Mostly she wants him to be a better king and person, which isn't happening.  She really was an integral part of this plot.  It was just like the old days, when companions were thrown about willy nilly, captured, held hostage, chased, etc. 

I didn't like the whole plot revolving around Aggedor, the supposedly mythical beast.  It usually goes that the mythical beast is actually real.  This has been done so many times, that I wasn't surprised when it turns out the beast is alive and kicking.  The Doctor is the only one who soothes the great beast with song, thereby turning Aggedor into a fluffy little puppy.  It's just like a fairy tale!  Also, Aggedor looks like Alf.

WHAT IN HADES?

 

WHAT IN HADES?

 

Next Up: The Sea Devils

9.1 Day of the Daleks

It's Dalek Day and I'm getting out my plunger!

Well, we don't know who the villain is in this story.  I kept mentioning how afraid I was that the Master would be in this, but my expert viewer assured me that he was in prison and not likely to show up.  You never know, though.  Oh here comes the Master, riding a Dalek! Just kidding.

We haven't seen the Daleks in a good while, so I was ready for a good evil Dalek story.  Unfortunately this one just wasn't very fun for me.  We didn't get any really good Dalek action until the end of the 3rd episode. My expert viewer told me that they added the Daleks at the last minute to get viewers started on the 9th season.  If you are going to write a Dalek story, you may as well cram it full of insane killing machines, and not make it about guerrillas and other strange people.

I have often expressed a dislike for time traveling, and temporal paradoxes.  How did I ever make it through Star Trek?  But I don't really like that in Doctor Who.  He uses the machine to travel through time, but he really doesn't go back or forward in time, to create paradoxes and change history.  At least he's not supposed to, according to the Time Lords.  So this was more like a Star Trek episode. 

Jo was downright annoying in this episode.  One thing I don't like is her naiveté.  She doesn't really think much, and she is gullible.  The Controller managed to scramble her brain with propaganda in less than 10 minutes, and she believed him.  I think mostly she thought he was hot.  Of course she's never met the Daleks, nor has the Brigadier, so they didn't know what to expect. 

The Doctor of course, hits the roof when he found out about the Daleks.  The Daleks also hit the roof when they discovered that the Doctor is around.  "Exterminate!"  We did get to see pictures of Hartnell and Troughton as the Daleks laughingly remembered all the merry adventuring they had with the Doctor.  Well actually they started slobbering and snarling at the mere mention of his name.  They don't like him. I can't imagine why.  They are about to kill him, but the Controller interferes.  I actually thought it was uncharacteristic for them to be 'talked out of' killing the Doctor.  They always act as though they would kill their own grandmas just for the Doctor's head on a silver platter.  At least they got a good torture scene out of him.

You think at that point they would have said, "Okay.  Let's just go home." but they decided to keep on with their plan.  They have taken over Earth [again] and enslaved everyone.  The guerillas from that time, wish to change their history.  They go back to this time when they think was the crucial downturn of their history, when Sir Styles was organizing the Second World Peace Conference.  They think that Sir Styles blew up the peace conference, thereby making it easy for the Daleks to invade Earth.  Therefore the guerillas want to kill Styles before all that happens. Then it got all confusing for me.  The Doctor and his friends know that Styles isn't responsible for all this.  He's a regular kind of guy.  Hopefully. But he does have good wine.

The Doctor deduces that in fact the guerillas themselves cause the explosion that scrambles Earth, thereby throwing them all and Earths' future, into a temporal paradox.  WHAT.  Not to be left out of the plot, the Daleks and their little minions -- the Ogrons -- return to 'present' time to ensure that their takeover of Earth still happens.  That was a bit stupid on their part.  They didn't think they were walking into a trap?  Quickly the Brigadier evacuates all the members of the conference when the Daleks arrive, and then they blow the building to smithereens with all the baddies inside. HAH! THAT will show them!!!

They have a bomb called the Dalekanium bomb, that is designed specifically to blow up Daleks.  You know that you are in too many Doctor Who episodes when they build a bomb designed solely to destroy you and they even name it after you.  What's next? This is a Cybermanium bomb!  Actually I've been working on a bomb of my own.  It's called a Zarbianium bomb. Mwah hah hah!

Like I've said before, this had very little actual Dalek action.  Although I shouldn't complain.  Usually I like episodes that are only in four chapters. 

We got to see more Doctor Who karate chops.  Oh yay.

The Brigadier has now met the Daleks.  He's become so alien savvy.

Don't the Orcs look like Ogrons?

I wouldn't say this is the coolest mode of transportation.

Next Up: The Curse of Peladon

P.S. I apologize if my writing has been sporadic.  We got A Link Between Worlds for Christmas and let's just say that I've been a little distracted since then. Well, the game was really for my expert viewer, but I get to play it on occasion.  Stupid hero mode! My nerdiness knows no bounds.

8.5 The Daemons

Okayyyyyyyyyyyyy...............................

Let's just go back into time and pretend that this one doesn't exist. To summarize this plot:  The Master, posing as a vicar, summons a daemon from the underworld in the church's basement. 

 

The Master usually finds a way to create minions, but all he could muster was one small stone gargoyle, with its tongue sticking out.

This is all happening in a Neanderthal village, where people are superstitious up to their collars, and not much takes place there, beyond a small gargoyle running loose.  The Master seems to have been there for some time as the 'new' vicar, as he is generally accepted by the locals.  His plans are so elaborate.  What kind of sermons was he giving, and all that?  And then I took over the universe in great fire and brimstone...."Oh sorry, folks.  That was my diary."

 

Nice helicopter!  Too bad it exploded.  That's a lot of money down the drain. The Brigadier was most unhappy.

This was more about the little side characters, such as Benton and Yates who are on their own for a while. 

A barrier has been created all around the village.  The actors took great pride in throwing things at the barrier and watching them burst into smoke.

It turns out that the daemon is not the devil as everyone presumes. It is actually an alien from the planet Daemos who had come to Earth thousands of years before.  The Daemons had infiltrated Earth for years, and had even made their way into the myths.  What's strange is that the Daemon doesn't want to rule the world.  He really doesn't want the Master to, either.  For once, an alien has good sense, and realizes that the Master is a deeply disturbed maniac. 

In the end, the Master convinces the Daemon that he's a terrific guy and will do just fine running the world, so Azal gives him the power. Azal then decides to kill the Doctor, just for good measure.  However, Jo wants to sacrifice her life for the Doctor's and this confuses Azal to such a degree that he blows up and dies.....Well that makes no sense at all.

In the end, the Master is captured by U.N.I.T. and taken away.  He's really such a pain in the butt nowadays.  I hope they don't bring him back for a very long time.

And then we all get to dance 'round the maypole.

Next Up: Day of the Daleks

8.4 Colony in Space

Ugh.

We knew it wouldn't be very long before they would find some way to get the Doctor onto a freaking weird planet. And they managed to get the Master in this one, too.  Way to kill two birds with one stone.  Not that they really needed to go off and kill the birds.  The birds were just fine the way they were. 

Hey did yah hear that Crazy Joey Masterson Superkiller Devilton is planning on blowing up mankind with the Doomsday Weapon?"

"Wait, haven't we gone through this before?  I guess we should send Doctor Smitey-Smith-Snodder to Uxariean so he can thwart Master Joe's Masterplan."

"Do what now?"

So, the Time Lords grant the Doctor temporary ability to use the TARDIS, and send him to the planet Uxariean to thwart the Master's evil plan.  Couldn't they have just saved everyone a bunch of trouble, and snatched up the Master themselves? Or do they really get their jollies watching the Doctor and the Master exchange verbal blows for all eternity?  Well, they don't bother telling the Doctor why he's on the planet either, they just let him figure it out for himself, which is really strange.  Last time they sent Mr. Mcnee to warn him.  Maybe we're supposed to expect that the Master will be in this episode, too and that isn't a good thing. 

Jo has a massive freak out when she discovers that they are no longer on Earth.  I was quite cross until I realized that she has never left Earth in the TARDIS before.  Poor thing.  But I found this annoying because we had to go through all the "We're in space!" dialogue that we always get with a new companion.  She doesn't like it, either.  I think she lands in the 'accidental' companion category.  I don't really like her on another planet, when she is out of her comfort zone.  She was irritating in this one.  I guess little children would like her. 

The IMC is corrupt and full of mean-spirited trolls.  The colony is full of slow dim-witted folk.  Have we seen this before?  Earth doesn't seem very nice, so the 'Puritans' are trying to escape to smashed uninhabitable rock planets to live in peace.  Anything's better than Earth!  Instead of the Native Americans, we have the Uxariean primitives, who are marvelously short sighted.  The primitives happen to have the Doomsday Weapon in their possession.  When one does not have T.V., one builds Doomsday Weapons.   

When the colonists and the IMC go head to head over the planet's resources, they decide to call in an Adjudicator, who just happens to be the Master.  Boy does he get irritated when he realizes the Doctor is there.  The Doctor and the Master exchange verbal blows, as the Master has faked his identity to get to the planet, and steal the Doomsday Weapon from the Uxariean primitives.

I feel like they're finding ways in which to integrate the Master into the show.  Of course he wants the Doomsday Weapon, because he wants to blow up creation for no particular reason.  You'd think he'd change sometimes, and stop wanting to create mass destruction wherever he goes. 

It seems like the writers are running out of plots to keep the Doctor on Earth, so they're sending him away on various 'missions'.  I like the Earth plot, and I hope they stay with that for a little while longer at least.  I like that they are developing side characters, such as Benton, because the 'being on Earth' plot has been continuous.  When the Doctor was traveling through space, they had to quickly develop characters for a plot, and then you would never see those characters again no matter how interesting, dull or complicated they were.

The Doomsday Weapon is responsible for all the trouble that the Uxariean primitives have experienced, so the Doctor convinces the Guardian to blow it up, so that it will no longer have such an evil effect on the natives, the colonists and the planet.  Once the Doomsday Weapon is destroyed, the land will supposedly become habitable for the colonists.  The IMC is held responsible for its illegal behavior, the colonists can live on the planet again, and the primitives...well...they mostly die. It's a good ending.

So who hates the karate moves that the Doctor knows, and the two fingers on the chest that overpowers people in a matter of seconds?  He even makes the karate noises when he chops them to the ground.  This is one part of the Doctor I absolutely do not like. 

 

WHAT....THE......HECK!!!!!

 

 

Next Up: The Daemons

8.3 The Claws of Axos

Hmmm...let's reuse the crab claws from the Macra Terror.  A ship from space has landed on Earth, and a group including the Brigadier and the Doctor go to investigate.  At first these pretty golden angels act all nice and sweet, but they're not.  The Axons need fuel for their ship, and in exchange they are willing to hand over Axonite, which can replicate whatever substance. Ideally, mankind would never run out of nutrients and resources.

Everyone except the Doctor thinks that this is a great trade.  He's rather cautious of the Axons, mainly because he's been around the block a few times.  It's all very suspicious indeed.  Well, actually the Axons have discovered the Master, and are holding him prisoner. The Master has struck a bargain with the Axons.  They can have Earth if he can have his freedom back.  It's all very simple.  I've noticed that the Master is a bit of a middle-man.  He has these plots that involve setting aliens against the humans for his own evil purposes.  They become so busy fighting each other, that he ultimately ends up controlling everyone.  So far he's miserably failed.  The Doctor is a constant thorn in his side.

REALLY?

The Axons, knowing who the Doctor is, want him to tell them the secret of time travel.  I guess they want to hop through space, wreaking havoc on everyone else.  The Doctor pretends to help them, but really he's tricking them.  He moves the Axons and their ship into the TARDIS, then placing them into a time loop, from which they can never escape.  The Doctor boosts his flight circuit, whatever that means, and escapes from his time loop. 

The Doctor and the Master spend a great deal of time tricking each other.  The Doctor tricks the Master into helping him restore the TARDIS, so they can escape.  But really the Doctor isn't trying to escape.  The Master gets away, however in his own TARDIS.  The Doctor tries to leave too, now that his machine works, but he lands back on Earth.  The Doctor is very angry, because this means that the TARDIS is programmed to return to Earth whenever it is used.  The Doctor ends with a bitter comment that he's like a 'yoyo'. 

Are we going to see the Master again?  I have a feeling that we will.  I'm actually beginning to grow a little tired of meeting him in every episode.  Maybe they will give us a break so I can like him again.

Next Up: Colony In Space

8.2 The Mind of Evil

The Master is back, and bad as ever!  Okay, he's a little angry that he's been marooned on Earth for no good reason, so his goal is to wreak as much havoc upon Earth as is Time Lordly possible.

The beginning seemed a bit Clockwork Orange-ish, except this was not R rated.  The Keller machine is designed to extract the evil bits from hardened criminals, turning them into placid gentle members of society.  Well yah, the effects turn them into catatonic drooling idiots, but that's okay.  We shouldn't worry too much about little things like that.  Well, the machine is actually evil, if you can imagine that.  The machine discovers the person's worse fears, and they die from extreme terror when the machine subjects them to said fears.

There is a second side plot going on.  Someone has stolen important documents from the Chinese at the World Peace Conference and then the Chinese delegate is found dead. This was a bit odd, because they don't normally have other races in Doctor Who.  The Doctor can speak a Chinese dialect, which is very strange considering that he does not even know French.  What's he been doing?  Sitting around studying Hokkein while on Earth?  I guess he would have a lot of time on his hands when he's not defeating the Master.  Chin Lee is a bad girl, but it's okay because she's been mind controlled by the Master.  I like when people are forgiven for them crimes when they've been mind controlled.  Apparently he's trying to cause a world war, by assassinating important leaders.  What the heck?

Meanwhile the criminals have taken over the citadel, where they and the Keller machine are.  They don't want to be brainwashed, and I can't blame them for that.  I remarked upon the appearance of the criminals, which my expert viewer found strange.  They were all neat and tidy in suits and ties.  They must not have invented the orange jumper yet.

The Keller machine is too strong even for the Doctor and the Master, who is a master at mind control.  We get to see the Doctor's worse fears, which include the Cybermen, the Daleks, the War Machine [I thought Harnell really liked these things], a Silurian, a Sensorite, a Zarbi [Oh heck, that would be my worse fear, too] and others that I didn't recognize.  Why was he afraid of the Silurians? Weren't they his friends?  The Keller machine grows in strength, and begins teleporting through the prison, wiping out minds at will.  You can tell it's having a freaking good time.

The Brigadier and his troops run into the citadel, and take back the prison.  But they too run into a problem when the Keller starts knocking them off the board. The Doctor discovers that the machine goes dormant when one of the criminal idiots sits by it.  So, they take the machine with the idiot Barnham and use it against the Master, so they can detonate the Thunderbolt before the Master uses it for his evil purposes.  Unfortunately, the Master escapes Earth because he has taken back his dematerialization circuit, much to the chagrin of the Doctor.  But is the Master gone forever? Of course, the Master calls the Doctor on the telephone, just to rub it in.  They're so mean to each other.

Erm, why was the Brigadier sleeping at his desk? Doesn't he have a home?

They didn't do much with the World Peace Conference plot after the 4th chapter.  It just sort of evaporated into space.

Next Up:  The Claws of Axos

8.1 Terror of the Autons

This one was fun on many different levels. 

We meet the MASTER!  He's a great character.  He's got a certain level of cheesiness to him, but his demeanor and attitude really makes him a fun character.  I found him almost likable.  The Master is a renegade too, but someone tortured him as a child, so he's evil and mean spirited, compared to the Time Meddler and the Doctor who just like to have fun.  Well, he's probably related to the War Chief in some way.  They look and act alike. They're probably from the evil side of someone's family.  "Oh you know Bumble's side of the family. They're all.....different."  

So the Master mind-controls a circus conductor to steal a Nestene meteorite, which we saw in Pertwee's first episode.  Of course this meteorite was sitting in Doctor Who's dormant baddie museum just waiting to be stolen, where we also have the hibernating Silurian, the frozen Ice Warrior and the Cyberman pod.  That's a catastrophe waiting to happen.  The Master then uses the meteorite and the space telescope to transmit a message into space.  Who is he summoning? Please don't be the Krotons! Or the Macras! Or the Yeti! Or the Quarks! Or the Cybermen! Or the Daleks! Or the Zarbi! Or the Ice Warriors! Or the....Seaweed Monster!!!

Anyway, this gets weird when Pertwee's [parole officer as my expert viewer calls him] Time Lord friend appears in the sky dressed as Patrick Mcnee from the Avengers T.V. show.  The Time Lord warns Pertwee that the Master is going to wreak havoc upon Earth.  Pertwee doesn't really seem to care for the warning.  He's seen worse.  I thought it strange that the Time Lords seemed fit to warn Earth about this.  They didn't care when the Cybermen came to town.  Maybe they feel a little embarrassed that this time it's one of theirs. 
Can you imagine the Time Lord's discussion at the dinner table over this:
"Hey did yah hear that Crazy Joey Masterson Superkiller Devilton is planning on blowing up Earth?"
"Not again. Last time it was The Web Planet.  I guess one of us should go warn Doctor Smitey-Smith-Snodder and the stupid Earth planet."
"Oh I suppose.  Let me finish my tea first."

Sadly Liz has left us, and she is replaced by Jo Grant.  Yeah....she's pretty weird.  She dresses very strangely and her hair is most unattractive.  But she's odd, so that's different. We haven't really had odd before.  Though you could say that Dodo was odd, but an immature odd. Jo is sort of mature, but odd.  Odd.  She's kind of like an odd flower child, or hippie.  She's cheerful, though.  The Doctor hates her, because she has been forced upon him.  He so hates that.  He's downright rude to her, and I want to stomp on his foot several times, for his lack of charm whenever he's an arrogant rude twit.  He has clearly not read any etiquette books to save his life.

Those are some killer daffodils.  That would be a clever way to kill off your boring parasitic spouse.  "Happy Valentines Day, honey! I brought you some flowers that a weird guy with a gigantic head gave me!"  Oops, you're dead.

I really could have done without the killer self inflating black plastic chair. That was stupid.

 
Now that I think about it, this is plotline is replete with really bad gift ideas.  The small demon doll was a strange addition to the plot.  "Oh the daffodil didn't work, honey?  Have a strange killer demon chucky doll!"  I'll put it over here where it is warm, so it can work its magic.  Mwah hah hah!  I don't know which is worse, death by plastic chair, or death by demon doll. You tell me.

The Master is great, because his plan basically involves defeating the Doctor, and taking over Earth, with the use of the autons and the Nestene Consciousness.  His plan is grandiose, and most detailed.  He puts a lot of thought into his design.  You do have to give him an A for effort.

The Doctor has tricked the Master, though. He gave him the non functional dematerialization circuit.  Now the Master is stuck on Earth, too.  This could get interesting!

Next Up: The Mind of Evil