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swordznsorcery) wrote2014-01-05 09:55 am
swordznsorcery) wrote2014-01-05 09:55 am
Entry tags:
The Space Museum
Thanks to the wonderful world of Amazon gift vouchers, I've been catching up on some new (to me) Doctor Who. Therefore, today I'm going to bore the world with talk of "The Space Museum".
I knew this one fairly well anyway, as I have the Target novelisation. Whilst the Targets were hardly known for their literary magnificence, they were a great way to uncover the mysterious history of previous Doctors, in those long ago pre-BBC Video days. They're the reason that Ian and Barbara have been my favourite Who companions since I was a little kid, many years before I ever actually got to see them. No matter how much fun they are, when you're a miniature Who fan frustrated with the lack of repeats, they can't compare to actually watching the episodes though. This one is definitely a case in point.
"The Space Museum" has a reputation for being one of the duller adventures, and it's certainly true that there's a lot more talk than action. In one scene, for instance, Ian, Barbara and Vicki are captured by a museum guard, and proceed to chat amongst themselves for five minutes, whilst he stands patiently by. The conversation is unnecessarily long-winded, and quite ridiculous given the circumstances. The first two episodes feature a lot of talk in order to set up a slightly awkward time-hopping premise that should probably have been done differently. But! Do not believe the talk of boredom. There is so much in this adventure to enjoy. "The Space Museum". Let me show you it.
The first thing to recommend in this adventure is Ian's outfit. Gone are the suits and cardigans of previous outings. Ian has gone up in the world, and is now sporting a rollneck-and-blazer affair that makes him look like a secret agent, especially when he's dashing about being heroic with a gun.
Exhibit #a: Special Agent Chesterton, licensed to slightly wound.
The second thing, strictly from a fandom point of view, is Jeremy Bulloch in the guest cast list. Jeremy Bulloch played Edward, the headman of the village of Wickham in Robin Of Sherwood, and has always been extremely popular with fans of that show. (He was also Boba Fett in Star Wars, which is good too).
Exhibit #b: Jeremy Bulloch. With impressive alien eyebrows.
The third thing is Barbara, which really goes without saying. She's great here though. As the museum floods with gas, she battles on, refusing to be overcome, and practically carrying a young revolutionary to safety as well. It does seem to be a particularly rubbish gas, I'll admit, but even so it's a good scene. Note to bad guys: when counting on a gas to paralyse your victims, make sure it's strong enough to work in less time than it takes them to stagger through a labyrinth of endless, identical corridors in search of the front door.
Exhibit #c. Barbara escaping the deadly smoke of doom.
Not the best ever photo of Barbara, I'll grant you, but she's being damned dynamic for all that. Although admittedly you pretty much just have to take my word for it.
Here's a bonus team photo, with very-much-not-smoke-obscured Barbara, in order to make up for it:
The young fellow she's helping through the gas is Dako, played by Peter Craze. He's the brother of Michael Craze, who was later to play Ben, one of the First Doctor's final companions. Poor Ben was rather forgettable, and lacked the dynamism of both Ian and Steven, but nonetheless, hurrah for his younger brother.
Exhibit #d. Dako. A rubbish revolutionary, and younger brother of Ben Jackson.
Then there's Vicki. Like Susan before her, Vicki often suffered from being the slightly pathetic teenaged girl that nobody quite knew what to do with. She seemed to mature when Ian and Barbaracruelly abandoned me left, and was perhaps rather better when partnered with Steven, but here she's really very good. She helps the hopeless revolutionaries take over the planet, breaking into the armoury for them, and stealing countless ray guns. I'm not really sure that arming children and encouraging them to go to war is entirely to be recommended as a plotline in a family TV show, but what the hell. Anyway, she's the same age as them, so that makes it okay. Also, it's great to see her get to reprogram a computer, showing a brain and a problem-solving capacity that poor old Susan rarely got the chance to display. With the right writer, Vicki can be pretty damned awesome.
As an aside, her exchange at one point with Jeremy Bulloch: "I won't let you go!" ; "I won't let you stop me!" is pretty much punch-the-air spectacular. Go Vicki.
Exhibit #e. Vicki the revolutionary leader.
The Doctor doesn't actually get a great deal to do in this adventure, but there is a chance for him to show his general amazingness. Shut up, yes that is a word. Taken away to be prepped as a museum exhibit, his body temperature is lowered to several thousand degrees below zero. He bounces back from that with nothing but a slight case of rheumatism. This display of fortitude helps to counteract the fact that at times here William Hartnell is relying more on established quirks than on actual acting. Never did a man say "Hmm?" more often, to say nothing of the chuckling and pointing.
Exhibit #f. The Doctor in the freezer, very much not being dead.
One of the main drawbacks of this adventure is that the bad guys don't seem terribly bad. We're told that they've taken over the planet Xeros, murdered all the adults, and kept the children as slave workers, however for the most part they're just rather officious types, blustering about in their museum. One exception is Lobos, the governor. He's a brilliantly smug, self-satisfied sadist, and I love the way he smirks to himself when Ian is trying to make him revive the Doctor.
Exhibit #g. Lobos, a not very nice person to meet.
And then we're back to Ian. Whilst this adventure might deserve some of the criticism thrown at it for its slow pace and over-reliance on talking, what that criticism fails to address is Ian. In episode three he goes into fisticuffs mode, and has the most awesome throwdown with the museum guards. First up he battles a whole army of them sent to capture him, and then he captures a guard, forcing him - at gunpoint! Take that Ten, and your hypocritical attitude to weaponry - to help him rescue the Doctor. It's fabulous, particularly since most of the guards are played by legendary stuntman Peter Diamond, who always was a dab hand in a fist fight. Episode three is basically William Russell having a ball. Not that he didn't usually anyway of course. It's just that I like celebrating the fact.
Exhibit #h. Ian Ian Ian, crash, bang, pow. In by-now-traditional action screencap blur-o-rama.
My favourite bit of the whole story might just be the closing moments though; and I don't mean that in a nasty way. It's not that I'm happy it's over. In those days, one adventure often led into another, and this is no exception. As our heroes head away from the museum, we see a Dalek reporting in to Headquarters about the position of the TARDIS. And it refers to the TARDIS crew as "Our greatest enemies". Enemies plural. Not just the Doctor, but Ian and Barbara as well (Vicki hasn't met the Daleks yet). One of my greatest objections to the modern vision of the show is that it's always all about the Doctor. He's been raised up from wandering meddler to some supreme being, revered by friend and foe alike. His companions are just along for the ride, and pretty much have been ever since the UNIT family was disbanded. No more do they get themselves into and out of trouble without the Doctor's assistance. No more do they rescue him, solve puzzles themselves, and battle the bad guys without his help. It's all about the Doctor; and no amount of waffle from Russell T Davies about how his companions are better than the old ones can change that. Here, the Daleks consider Ian and Barbara to be their enemies too. I love that. It's really no more than they deserve.
Exhibit #i: A Dalek making me happy. Note to modern Who-makers: You can throw all the backstory, family and friends at your companions that you like. It won't make them more fully-rounded characters, or better than their predecessors, when all they're allowed to do is hang onto the coat-tails of an all-powerful Doctor. Jack and Rose were a good start back in 2005, and then suddenly it all went wrong.
So anyway, there you have "The Space Museum". It's not perfect, it's definitely a bit too slow and chatty, and it gets unnecessarily bogged down in a clunky explanation of time mechanics, just so that the TARDIS crew can see a glimpse of their own possible future. It's also a bit too jokey for my liking, at least in the first two episodes. That was probably intentional though, given that it follows directly on from the very uncompromising (and glorious) "The Crusade". I could also argue that a band of officious museum guards are not the most enthralling of enemies. But it's fun, it has Ian and Barbara - who can raise any story to greater heights just by their presence - and it has marvellous fisticuffs. Call me easily pleased, but I don't ask for much more out of life than that.
I knew this one fairly well anyway, as I have the Target novelisation. Whilst the Targets were hardly known for their literary magnificence, they were a great way to uncover the mysterious history of previous Doctors, in those long ago pre-BBC Video days. They're the reason that Ian and Barbara have been my favourite Who companions since I was a little kid, many years before I ever actually got to see them. No matter how much fun they are, when you're a miniature Who fan frustrated with the lack of repeats, they can't compare to actually watching the episodes though. This one is definitely a case in point.
"The Space Museum" has a reputation for being one of the duller adventures, and it's certainly true that there's a lot more talk than action. In one scene, for instance, Ian, Barbara and Vicki are captured by a museum guard, and proceed to chat amongst themselves for five minutes, whilst he stands patiently by. The conversation is unnecessarily long-winded, and quite ridiculous given the circumstances. The first two episodes feature a lot of talk in order to set up a slightly awkward time-hopping premise that should probably have been done differently. But! Do not believe the talk of boredom. There is so much in this adventure to enjoy. "The Space Museum". Let me show you it.
The first thing to recommend in this adventure is Ian's outfit. Gone are the suits and cardigans of previous outings. Ian has gone up in the world, and is now sporting a rollneck-and-blazer affair that makes him look like a secret agent, especially when he's dashing about being heroic with a gun.
Exhibit #a: Special Agent Chesterton, licensed to slightly wound.
The second thing, strictly from a fandom point of view, is Jeremy Bulloch in the guest cast list. Jeremy Bulloch played Edward, the headman of the village of Wickham in Robin Of Sherwood, and has always been extremely popular with fans of that show. (He was also Boba Fett in Star Wars, which is good too).
Exhibit #b: Jeremy Bulloch. With impressive alien eyebrows.
The third thing is Barbara, which really goes without saying. She's great here though. As the museum floods with gas, she battles on, refusing to be overcome, and practically carrying a young revolutionary to safety as well. It does seem to be a particularly rubbish gas, I'll admit, but even so it's a good scene. Note to bad guys: when counting on a gas to paralyse your victims, make sure it's strong enough to work in less time than it takes them to stagger through a labyrinth of endless, identical corridors in search of the front door.
Exhibit #c. Barbara escaping the deadly smoke of doom.
Not the best ever photo of Barbara, I'll grant you, but she's being damned dynamic for all that. Although admittedly you pretty much just have to take my word for it.
Here's a bonus team photo, with very-much-not-smoke-obscured Barbara, in order to make up for it:
The young fellow she's helping through the gas is Dako, played by Peter Craze. He's the brother of Michael Craze, who was later to play Ben, one of the First Doctor's final companions. Poor Ben was rather forgettable, and lacked the dynamism of both Ian and Steven, but nonetheless, hurrah for his younger brother.
Exhibit #d. Dako. A rubbish revolutionary, and younger brother of Ben Jackson.
Then there's Vicki. Like Susan before her, Vicki often suffered from being the slightly pathetic teenaged girl that nobody quite knew what to do with. She seemed to mature when Ian and Barbara
As an aside, her exchange at one point with Jeremy Bulloch: "I won't let you go!" ; "I won't let you stop me!" is pretty much punch-the-air spectacular. Go Vicki.
Exhibit #e. Vicki the revolutionary leader.
The Doctor doesn't actually get a great deal to do in this adventure, but there is a chance for him to show his general amazingness. Shut up, yes that is a word. Taken away to be prepped as a museum exhibit, his body temperature is lowered to several thousand degrees below zero. He bounces back from that with nothing but a slight case of rheumatism. This display of fortitude helps to counteract the fact that at times here William Hartnell is relying more on established quirks than on actual acting. Never did a man say "Hmm?" more often, to say nothing of the chuckling and pointing.
Exhibit #f. The Doctor in the freezer, very much not being dead.
One of the main drawbacks of this adventure is that the bad guys don't seem terribly bad. We're told that they've taken over the planet Xeros, murdered all the adults, and kept the children as slave workers, however for the most part they're just rather officious types, blustering about in their museum. One exception is Lobos, the governor. He's a brilliantly smug, self-satisfied sadist, and I love the way he smirks to himself when Ian is trying to make him revive the Doctor.
Exhibit #g. Lobos, a not very nice person to meet.
And then we're back to Ian. Whilst this adventure might deserve some of the criticism thrown at it for its slow pace and over-reliance on talking, what that criticism fails to address is Ian. In episode three he goes into fisticuffs mode, and has the most awesome throwdown with the museum guards. First up he battles a whole army of them sent to capture him, and then he captures a guard, forcing him - at gunpoint! Take that Ten, and your hypocritical attitude to weaponry - to help him rescue the Doctor. It's fabulous, particularly since most of the guards are played by legendary stuntman Peter Diamond, who always was a dab hand in a fist fight. Episode three is basically William Russell having a ball. Not that he didn't usually anyway of course. It's just that I like celebrating the fact.
Exhibit #h. Ian Ian Ian, crash, bang, pow. In by-now-traditional action screencap blur-o-rama.
My favourite bit of the whole story might just be the closing moments though; and I don't mean that in a nasty way. It's not that I'm happy it's over. In those days, one adventure often led into another, and this is no exception. As our heroes head away from the museum, we see a Dalek reporting in to Headquarters about the position of the TARDIS. And it refers to the TARDIS crew as "Our greatest enemies". Enemies plural. Not just the Doctor, but Ian and Barbara as well (Vicki hasn't met the Daleks yet). One of my greatest objections to the modern vision of the show is that it's always all about the Doctor. He's been raised up from wandering meddler to some supreme being, revered by friend and foe alike. His companions are just along for the ride, and pretty much have been ever since the UNIT family was disbanded. No more do they get themselves into and out of trouble without the Doctor's assistance. No more do they rescue him, solve puzzles themselves, and battle the bad guys without his help. It's all about the Doctor; and no amount of waffle from Russell T Davies about how his companions are better than the old ones can change that. Here, the Daleks consider Ian and Barbara to be their enemies too. I love that. It's really no more than they deserve.
Exhibit #i: A Dalek making me happy. Note to modern Who-makers: You can throw all the backstory, family and friends at your companions that you like. It won't make them more fully-rounded characters, or better than their predecessors, when all they're allowed to do is hang onto the coat-tails of an all-powerful Doctor. Jack and Rose were a good start back in 2005, and then suddenly it all went wrong.
So anyway, there you have "The Space Museum". It's not perfect, it's definitely a bit too slow and chatty, and it gets unnecessarily bogged down in a clunky explanation of time mechanics, just so that the TARDIS crew can see a glimpse of their own possible future. It's also a bit too jokey for my liking, at least in the first two episodes. That was probably intentional though, given that it follows directly on from the very uncompromising (and glorious) "The Crusade". I could also argue that a band of officious museum guards are not the most enthralling of enemies. But it's fun, it has Ian and Barbara - who can raise any story to greater heights just by their presence - and it has marvellous fisticuffs. Call me easily pleased, but I don't ask for much more out of life than that.