Doctor Who: The Gunfighters DVD review

With “A Town Called Mercy” debuting this weekend, it seemed like a good time to go back and take a look at the DVD of the last Doctor Who story that tackled the western, which was a long time ago - like, 46 years. Yes, we’ll have to travel all the way back to 1966, the third season, when William Hartnell was still the Doctor – the first Doctor…

The TARDIS arrives in Tombstone, Arizona, in a stable near the O.K. Corral. Predictably, it’s just days before the infamous shootout, but the Doctor hasn’t chosen the time and place on purpose. No, the TARDIS has randomly chosen Tombstone, while the Doctor has a serious toothache, and is in need of a dentist. Bizarrely, the fact that the American Old West may not be an ideal place to seek medical attention only becomes an issue when it's too late. The Doctor heads out into the town, along with Steven (Peter Purves) and Dodo (Jackie Lane) - collectively one of the least effective TARDIS teams, perhaps never more so than here – in search of a dentist. He finds one in the form of Doc Holliday (Anthony Jacobs), who’s just set up practice, and the Doctor is his first customer.

Post surgery, our Doc is mistaken for the other, and the first couple episodes mostly revolve around the time travelers being threatened and intimidated by the Clantons. But then Johnny Ringo (Laurence Payne[1]) shows up in episode three (aptly titled “Johnny Ringo”; “The Gunfighters” is in fact the final story to give individual episodes their own title), and events escalate towards the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, around which the final episode is set.

“The Gunfighters,” back when I was a teenager, had one of the worst reputations of the entire series. People don’t say quite as many bad things about the “The Gunfighters” these days, but then again people don’t really say much about it at all. According to Wikipedia, back in ’66 it wasn’t the ratings that were a disaster, but rather the Audience Appreciation scores, which were among the lowest Doctor Who has ever received. It’s sort of easy to see why, too, for much of “The Gunfighters” is intentionally played for laughs, yet the jokes exist side by side with a fair amount of ruthless bloodshed.

So, “The Gunfighters” is funny and violent, and neither thing, at that time anyway, was Doctor Who necessarily well known for, never mind mixing them together. Add into that mix some frequently dodgy accents (though they’re not nearly as bad as reputation suggests), and the song The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon[2], which plays ad nauseum throughout the entire four episodes, essentially narrating the story in a Greek chorus kind of way, and you’ve got a recipe for potentially one of the worst Doctor Who stories ever.

Except that it isn’t. Not quite. Looking at “The Gunfighters” through the eyes of today, it holds up well enough, all things considered, and kudos should be given to something that dared to be so bold and different during what was a fairly turbulent time for the series. Its moody lighting and the direction from Rex Tucker are also rather impressive. 

If it fails to engage, it’s not because its tone shifts all over the place, but rather because the leads are so ineffectual and unimportant to the storyline. The Doctor is utterly ill-equipped to deal with these ruthless sorts of folk. He’s out of his element here, and Hartnell seems to grasp that, and in turn does a remarkable job of doing almost nothing, aside from being a flustered old man. He’s hardly the hero of the tale, which makes for a much different dynamic, as one character after the next has no patience for this seemingly doddering geriatric and his goofy companions. It’s as if the story happens around them, and they have little effect on the outcome of events. On the other hand, it could be argued that this is a strength of “The Gunfighters”; that the Doctor cannot stride into every situation and have influence on the outcome. Indeed, the events of the O.K. Corral may very well be a fixed point in time, of the type that was outlined in “The Waters of Mars.”

It’s tough to recommend “The Gunfighters” to anyone but completists and the like, but at the very least, it’s certainly a more entertaining viewing than something like, say, “The Ark.” By premature comparison, “A Town Called Mercy” likely has nowhere to go but up. Last but not least, I would personally love to someday see the Doctor’s extracted tooth come back into play ala the Tenth Doctor’s severed hand. Silly fanboy wish; nothing more.

[1] Laurence Payne would go on to play major roles in the 80’s Doctor Who stories “The Leisure Hive” and “The Two Doctors.”  

[2] The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon was sung by Lynda Baron, who 17 years later played Captain Wrack in “Enlightenment,” and then 28 years after that, played Val, the department store clerk in “Closing Time.”

DVD Extras: Easy enough to recommend is the fascinating 43-minute documentary on this disc entitled “The End of the Line,” which details all the behind the scenes turmoil of the show’s third season. It’s worth checking out this disc for the doc alone. Beyond that, there’s a commentary track featuring actors Peter Purves, Shane Rimmer (Seth Harper), David Graham (Charlie), Richard Beale (Bat Masterson), and production assistant Tristan de Vere Cole, all moderated by the mighty Toby Hadoke. “Tomorrow’s Times – The First Doctor” is a featurette which looks at press coverage of the series during the Hartnell era. There’s also a photo gallery, production notes subtitle option, Radio Times listings in PDF form, and a coming soon trailer for “Paradise Towers.” 

Doctor Who: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Thankfully, writer Chris Chibnall did not riff on Sam Jackson’s infamously profane line of Snakes on a Plane dialogue, which, going into this episode, was the most unsettlingly awkward prospect imaginable, especially if it had been in the form of a PG-rated tongue twister coming from Matt Smith. Since that didn’t happen, though, the only direction for estimation to go was up, and that’s mostly because, with a title like “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” expectations were low to begin with, since, well, we’re not 10-year olds anymore.

The Doctor: “Well, there’s so much to discover. Think how much wiser we’ll be by the end of all this.”

In this digital age of creating dinosaurs with ease, it’s almost amazing that it’s taken Doctor Who seven seasons to get around to doing it, yet for much of the time the revival’s been on the air, one of its chief competitors, creatively speaking, has been the ITV series Primeval. With that show currently in a production limbo, it was probably seen as a good time to go find out what might be done with the Doctor meeting dinos. As it turns out, the prehistoric creatures were only slightly more pivotal to the goings-on than the Führer was to “Let’s Kill Hitler.”

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy DVD review

With the release of “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy,” the Sylvester McCoy era draws to its DVD close, and the final tale of Season 25 is a fine enough series of notes to go out on. Like “The Happiness Patrol” before it, “Galaxy” is (sometimes) a satire, only the satirical elements here aren’t as prominent as the story’s emphasis on surrealism. This is the sort of material that the McCoy era seemed hell bent on exploring, yet came away from with mixed results. “Galaxy,” to my mind, never quite scales the perfection of the story that brought us Helen A and the Kandy Man, but then it’s not going for as political a statement, either. At its core, “Galaxy” is about not following your dreams by selling out, and the horror and hurt that results from inaction.

That such ideas should be wrapped around a story set at a circus makes “Galaxy” a possibly appealing proposition, and it is a worthy story, even if flawed, due to a somewhat unsatisfying final act. (Similarly, writer Stephen Wyatt’s previous Doctor Who script, “Paradise Towers,” resulted in much the same ratio, though this is still superior to that offering.) 

The Doctor (McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) receive a piece of intergalactic junk mail inviting them to the Psychic Circus, currently operating on the planet Segonax. The Circus, which was once quite the draw for young and old alike, has fallen on hard times. The staff is in shambles and at odds with one another, while visitors go in and don’t come out. Seemingly unaware of what the Circus has devolved into, and despite Ace’s fear of clowns, the Doctor heads for Segonax, and naturally the pair find themselves in loads of trouble and danger, yet always surrounded by an extremely colorful cast of characters.

Christopher Guard's Bellboy menaced by Ian Reddington's Chief Clown

It’s the clowns, though, that elevate “Galaxy” from intriguing to well worth a look. The Chief Clown was brought to life by a guy named Ian Reddington, who was so good in his role, that in a Doctor Who Magazine poll, he won best villain of the season – in a year that had already featured villainy in the forms of Daleks, Davros, Cybermen, Nazis, a time-traveling witch, as well as the aforementioned tyrannical dictator, and her sweet-toothed psychotic servant. Yes, even through the lens of today, the Chief Clown (and to a lesser degree, his silent, robotic minions) makes an impression, and if you’ve a fear of clowns, as many seem to, you can’t say you weren’t warned. Reddington gets a great deal of mileage from never playing the part even remotely for laughs, yet his clown has an unsettling welcoming quality, but doesn’t necessarily give off a sinister vibe until the camera captures him in just the right moments. It’s a tough act to describe, and better imbibed; one helluva performance, which might’ve made Pennywise weep with envy.

Sophie Aldred & Sylvester McCoy

The rest of the cast shines as well, featuring an array of talented Brits - mostly unknown here in the States - who inhabit all the various carnies and fans of the circus. Aldred is in as fine a form as usual, and McCoy acquits himself nicely, turning in a subdued performance that only falls apart in the final act when he’s forced to do a bunch cheap parlor tricks that are more at home on a vaudevillian stage than on Doctor Who (though keep an eye out for the hanging man tarot card introduced in episode two, that’s paid off in episode four). Further, this is a tale in which it’s never made specifically clear whether or not the Doctor is manipulating events in his favor; might be, might not. The revelations of the true enemy in the final act indicate that maybe he “knew all along,” yet it’s in no way ever spelled out. Frankly, I prefer McCoy’s Doctor a little more ambiguous, such as he is here, but the lack of narrative clarity may have some viewers calling foul.

Behind the scenes of “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” things were a disaster, and, due to an asbestos scare at the BBC, the serial was this close to being scrapped entirely. All of its exterior location work had been completed when this was discovered, but the remainder of the production (roughly ¾ of it) was scheduled to be completed in studio at the BBC, which was now unavailable. Producer John Nathan-Turner knew the potential power of this tale, and wasn’t about to let it go. He fought tooth and nail to finish “Galaxy,” and in the end a giant tent (so perfect given that it largely takes place inside, wait for it…a giant tent!) was erected on the Elstree Film Studios parking lot, where the serial was completed. Kudos also to director Alan Wareing, who makes the most of everything at his disposal, imbuing the serial with proper chilly atmosphere, and casting a sense of dread over the entire piece.

John Nathan-Turner

But much credit must be given to Nathan-Turner. If it weren’t for his dedication, “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” would barely exist today. We’d have about an episode’s worth of existing footage, and the serial would probably survive only in some sort of “Shada”-like limbo, with animated recreations, or audios, or books to attempt to show us what the serial might have been. The extras on this DVD go a long way toward giving him that much deserved credit, and those associated with the serial appear to have nothing but admiration for the man. People all too often talk a great deal of smack about Nathan-Turner, but not here. Not on this disc - which in addition to being generous towards JN-T, is also bursting at the seams with worthy bonus material.

T.P. McKenna as Captain Cook & Jessica Martin as Mags

DVD Extras: The Toby Hadoke-moderated commentary is a blast, loaded with fun, opinions and information. It features Aldred, alongside actors Jessica Martin (Mags) and Christopher Guard (Bellboy), as well as writer Wyatt, script editor Andrew Cartmel, and composer Mark Ayres. It’s something of a shame, given that it’s the last disc of his era to get a release, but McCoy is nowhere to be seen here, in any form or fashion (it seems unlikely that any of his other stories will get special edition treatment, but who knows?). The aptly-titled “The Show Must Go On” is a fine, 30-minute making-of which explores much of what’s been talked about here, including the behind-the-scenes complications. It also includes an on-camera interview with Ian Reddington, which is quite the bonus for fans of the Chief Clown.

There’s an 11-minute selection of extended and deleted scenes culled from the first and third episodes, alongside some intriguing model footage that was originally set to open the serial. “The Psychic Circus” is a mostly terrible music video for an even worse song that’s written by Christopher Guard, and features vox from Guard, Jessica Martin, and T.P. McKenna (who must surely have been drunk when he agreed to take part in the project). “‘Remembrance’ Demo” is a couple scenes from the Season 25 Dalek story, rescored by Ayres. “Tomorrow’s Times – The Seventh Doctor” is a look at the press reaction to the McCoy years. “Victoria Wood As Seen on TV” is a mercifully short, howlingly awful piece of sketch comedy featuring none other than Jim Broadbent sending up a version of the Doctor. I can actually remember when this fiasco made the cover of Doctor Who Magazine; must've been a slow month for news. There’s also an isolated music score, the option to listen to the serial in 5.1 Surround, an unusually excellent photo gallery packed with great behind-the scenes shots, the production notes subtitle option, and Radio Times listings & some storyboards in PDF form. Finally, there’s an Easter Egg that flew entirely over my head, and a coming soon trailer for “Planet of Giants.”

Behind the scenes, at lunch

Doctor Who: Asylum of the Daleks

Two types of Doctor Who episodes Steven Moffat has excelled at envisioning are Christmas episodes and season premieres. Once again, in the latter area, he has not failed. “Asylum of the Daleks” is a deliriously intense dramatic trip — a Hammer House of Dalek Horrors — that delivers on just about every count and expectation one could have from a 50-minute installment of this series. It’s probably Moffat’s finest season opener yet. (The list of requests I wrote earlier this week? Let’s just say I’m presently a satisfied Whovian.) After the bad taste left by so much of season six, this felt very much like a series getting itself back on track. Perhaps we shouldn’t get prematurely excited, though, lest we end up let down later? It is, after all, only the first installment of a season of 14 that’s going to stretch well into next year. Still, this was most reassuring.

Many aspects are worthy of discussion, but the one that was the most startling was the early appearance of Jenna-Louise Coleman, here playing a character named Oswin Oswald, revealed in the climax to be a human converted into a Dalek. Moffat has insisted for months that Coleman’s new companion would be introduced at Christmas, to the point where this was an accepted fact; obviously a massive deception. Why keep it a secret, and is the “surprise” a surprise to the average viewer who doesn’t keep track of behind the scenes stuff such as casting? Even over in the U.K., where the public actually knows who Coleman is, won’t most viewers just shrug and say, “Oh yeah, I heard she was coming onto the show.” It’s a long way to go to keep a secret that didn’t necessarily need to be kept.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Five Things We Hope to See in Doctor Who’s Season Seven

As of this Saturday night’s season seven premiere, it will have been exactly eleven months to the day since Doctor Who was last regularly seen on our TV screens. Expectations for a new run of episodes are always high. But for some, this season’s hopes verge on borderline desperate. See, season six didn’t go over particularly well with many hardcore fans. Drunk on the success of his partial reinvention of the show the year prior, head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat went and made the series his own — arguably more so than any other producer before him.

On Moffat’s watch, Doctor Who became a celebration of the clever, rather than the intelligent. One-liners were traded back and forth in place of conversations. Sexual innuendo took the place of declarations of passion and love. All of this was reflected in his quartet of lead characters’ ongoing need to keep their emotions guarded, a departure from the exposed heartbeats often on display under former creative lead Russell T. Davies. When they weren’t engaging in snarky wordplay, Moffat often forced the Doctor and his best friends, the Ponds, to endure uncomfortable silences at odds with the Doctor Who we’ve come to know.

Read the rest of my first article for Vulture by clicking here and visiting their website.

Also, I'm returning to the world of Doctor Who recaps starting this weekend. Links to my Vulture pieces will be posted here on Sunday afternoons. 

Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space Special Edition DVD review

Looking for a review of the “Spearhead from Space” Blu-ray? Click here.

Having been critical of some of the recent classic Who Special Edition DVDs, it’s great to be in a position to bestow some kudos once again, as “Spearhead from Space” is a story absolutely deserving of some double dip love, especially given that, alongside “The Five Doctors” and “The Robots of Death,” it was one of the first three stories released on DVD back in September of 2001. First is a word that’s used frequently when talking about “Spearhead.” It’s the first story of the 1970’s. It’s the first story in color. It’s the first tale of Season Seven. It’s the first story of Jon Pertwee’s era, as well as the first story with Caroline John’s Liz Shaw. It’s the first story to feature the Autons. It’s the first story to explore in some detail the process of regeneration, and the Doctor’s physiology (we’ve got your first mention of two hearts, right here!)

Now that’s a lot of firsts, and yet what to my mind overshadows them all is the fact that “Spearhead from Space” is the first - and only - story from the classic series shot entirely on film[1] and on location. If it weren’t the sole instance, that fact would likely be lumped in with all the other firsts, but since visually this tale is such an anomaly, its filmic aspects tower above almost everything else. Once one sees “Spearhead,” one cannot help but wonder what the rest of Doctor Who might’ve been like if everything that followed had been produced in this manner.

One major criticism that all too often gets lobbed in the direction of classic Who is that it frequently looks cheap, due to how much of it’s shot on videotape. One thing unlikely to ever be said about “Spearhead” is that it looks cheap; dated, perhaps, but not cheap. Shot entirely on 16mm, this thing looks like a coolly classic horror sci-fi flick from the early 70’s. It has such a different style that much of it is borderline unrecognizable as Doctor Who. (Obviously, your mileage may vary.) As for why this happened, and why it never happened again, well, let’s leave a few mysteries for you to discover via the DVD.

So, all these firsts tend to dominate any discussion of “Spearhead,” to the point where the story itself doesn’t get talked about nearly as much, but then again the story isn’t necessarily one of its strongest aspects. It’s a good, old-fashioned alien invasion yarn, sure, but it’s not exactly bathed in brilliance from a plot or character standpoint. What is its greatest strength, however, is in how perfectly Robert Holmes’s script reinvented Doctor Who from what it was before. In one fell swoop it became virtually a different TV series from the six seasons that preceded it, and laid down a new template that would be followed and/or experimented with over the next few years (though in fairness, credit also needs to be given to “The Web of Fear” and “The Invasion.”)

Further, an argument could easily be mounted that it was here, within the confines of “Spearhead,” that the seeds for modern Doctor Who were laid. You’ll find inspiration from “Spearhead” in no less than “Doctor Who: The Movie,” “Rose,” and “The Christmas Invasion,” and what those stories all have in common is that each of them is a “starting over” point, and they all seemingly had the good sense to reach back to this tale as a means of doing just that.

There’s loads of talk and info on this DVD about how and why Doctor Who was very near the brink of cancellation at the end of the Troughton era, and that the only reason it was given another season is because the higher ups at the BBC couldn’t come up with a worthy replacement. In this instance, thank goodness for their uncreative minds, because if not for the greenlighting of another season with a new Doctor, and for Derrick Sherwin’s bold reinvention of the series, it’s highly unlikely we’d be talking about Doctor Who today. Sherwin’s a guy who doesn’t often get a lot of credit for his contributions to the series, but he did some really important stuff in regards to Who (or at least he claims to have). While “Spearhead” is a story of many firsts, in the case of Sherwin it was his last, for it was after the production of this serial that he was moved off of Who, and Barry Letts was brought in as his replacement. 

If there’s a star of “Spearhead,” it’s undoubtedly the Autons. Simply, the series had never seen anything like them before, and children raised on steady diets of Cybermen and Daleks must have been truly and genuinely terrified by the shop window mannequins coming to life, and going on a killing spree across London. These creatures didn’t feel like fiction from outer space, but seemingly a tangible threat kids could understand and relate to in a way that few Who monsters before them achieved. But alas, shop window dummies proved to be something of a one-trick pony, as the sequel to “Spearhead,” “Terror of the Autons,” proved by being considerably less effective than the original, and the Autons wouldn’t threaten the Doctor again until 2005, in the aforementioned “Rose.” (Due credit must also be given to Steven Moffat for his own reinvention of what an Auton can be via Rory the Roman.)

As far as double-dips go, “Spearhead” looks as clean and perfect as ever I’ve seen it (and boy have I seen some crappy looking versions of this over the years). I don’t know if it’s quite a night and day difference from the 2001 DVD. I attempted to do some screengrab comparisons for this piece, but ultimately decided to not go that route as I couldn’t see major, breathtaking differences via frame by frame comparisons. That said, this serial’s been cleaned up considerably in contrast to the old DVD, and the new extras more than make it worth returning to the well. Besides, the bit of the excised Fleetwood Mac song “Oh Well, Part 1” has been reinstated into the factory scene. (For purists, this is great news. For Mac freaks like me? A long overdue necessity.) My only complaint? If ever there was a classic Who story that begged for a Blu-ray release, it’s this one, and it sure would’ve been nice if a chance had been taken, as this would be a treasure in 1080p.

[1] The only other Doctor Who story shot entirely on film was the aforementioned TV movie from 1996, but this writer doesn’t consider that part of the classic series, because, well, it’s not. It stands on it own. I’m not saying it’s not part of continuity, just not part of the classic series.

DVD Extras: Aside from the now dated “Who’s Who” featurette, everything from the 2001 DVD, including the commentary with Nick Courtney and Caroline John, has been ported over for this release, so you can pass your old disc on to a Who newbie with confidence. New to this disc is a second commentary track featuring Sherwin and Terrance Dicks, which is lively, informative fun. Sherwin’s something of a blowhard, but that’s part of his charm. He reminds me far more of an American producer than a Brit. “Down to Earth” is a fine, proper making of doc, even if at 22 minutes it feels a little short. It includes bits from a vintage interview with Jon Pertwee, which is a nice bonus. “Regenerations: From Black and White to Color” feels as if it’s an extension of the first doc, and its title is fairly self-explanatory. Additionally, there’s a nice selection of Radio Times listings in PDF form, and a trailer for “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.”

Metropolitan & The Last Days of Disco: The Criterion Blu-ray reviews

Filmmakers who only make movies when they feel they have something worth saying are a rarity in this age, where it seems the goal is to see how quickly one can be hired to helm the latest, biggest superhero opus. Whit Stillman has only made four movies since 1990, including his hyphenate debut, Metropolitan, which was released that year, and rather amazingly snagged an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay. It lost to Ghost, which, from today’s perspective, is a travesty, but typical of the Academy nevertheless. 50% of Stillman’s filmic oeuvre, including the aforementioned Metropolitan, along with The Last Days of Disco (1998), both hit Blu-ray last week, and from the fine folks at Criterion, no less.

When I think of Stillman’s films, what I think of first is the speech; the way the characters speak. His films are drunk on subtle affectations of the English language (but not necessarily the language itself). It isn’t that, in a Stillman movie, what the characters have to say isn’t important, but rather that you’ll find yourself almost hypnotized by the manner in which they’re saying it. No doubt some viewers will be just plain annoyed by the incessant, rhythmic chatter. Those people will not find the next film of his any more tolerable, because there’s no question that a Stillman film is a Stillman film. I’d use the word unique if not for the fact there are now four of them. Now, all of that said, Stillman’s dialogue is second to none, and positively crackling when heard within the context of the situations he devises, and coming from the mouths of the memorable characters he’s created.

Metropolitan follows a group of young, rich people living in New York City during Debutante Season, which apparently coincides with Christmas break. Now you must understand that I was born and raised in small town Missouri, and have spent my adult life in Texas. There is no reason on this Earth or any other why I should care about these people and their cushy situation, and yet Stillman writes characters that interest, and therefore their situations are of interest as well. The kids in Metropolitan are interesting because they genuinely appear to struggle with their existence. It’s easy to write privileged folk as shallow. Most do. What’s tough is giving them some sort of depth, which Stillman does. Into their privileged lives stumbles Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), who is not privileged, nor is he rich. The group accepts him (some quicker than others), as they are basically decent people and they recognize a kindred spirit in Tom, and the film showcases one complex conversation, argument and/or debate after another, all draped in some wraparound, romantic entanglements.

I’ll never quite understand why Metropolitan is reminiscent of some John Hughes movie from an alternate universe, yet for me it is. It’s sort of like The Breakfast Club, if that movie had little interest in appealing to the masses. I think Stillman wants his movies to be appreciated and liked (any filmmaker who’ll tell you otherwise is lying), but I think he also knows there’s a specific audience for his work. I’ll not venture out and guess who that audience is, because by my own admission I don’t feel as though I’m part of the target, and yet I’m endlessly amused by his universe. It’s anyone’s guess who’ll like a Whit Stillman movie, and the only way to find out is to dive in and see if it’s a club you want to join.

Chris Eigeman

Some years after Metropolitan, in 1994, Stillman unveiled Barcelona, which starred Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols, both of whom had made their big screen debuts in Metropolitan. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that someday soon, Barcelona also gets the Criterion treatment. Four years after Barcelona came The Last Days of Disco, which ended up being Stillman’s last movie until 2011, when he brought us Damsels in Distress, which I must confess I have not yet seen, as it played for only a week in San Antonio, but is hitting DVD and Blu-ray in September.

But we’re here to talk about Disco, and The Last Days of it. Much of what I wrote about Metropolitan applies to this movie as well, except that Stillman had a bigger budget and access to all sorts of folks who at the time were up and coming Hollywood talent: Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Matt Ross, Robert Sean Leonard, and Matt Keeslar to name a few, as well as Chris Eigeman, the De Niro to Stillman’s Scorsese for the third time in a row. Or the MacLachlan to his Lynch. Someday, for a lesser known director and actor combo, I will hopefully say “The Eigeman to his Stillman.” Disco follows a group of twentysomethings in the year 1980, or maybe 1981, as they navigate their way through the changing times. Their self-involved dialogue covers their places in the world to sexuality to careers to, of course, disco. With a Whit Stillman movie, you can’t always tell when he’s taking his characters seriously and when’s having a laugh at their expense. Such lines are blurred, and that’s a big part of the charm of his style.

What I believe to be the triumph of Disco, is that despite packing the movie from one end to the other with disco hits, and regardless of the fact that much of the film takes place in a Studio 54-like nightclub, the movie never once, not even for a second, feels in the least bit kitschy. It is a Whit Stillman movie first and foremost, and his style never gets swallowed by the tacky surroundings, nor does he as a writer or director ever rely on nostalgia or wallow in excess or wink through the camera. The title of the film is wholly accurate, and yet it’s a film that shouldn't be judged by that title. Simply put, you may have no interest in disco yet still appreciate this work. No mean feat, no lack of vision and talent.

It’s tempting to suggest that these two movies would make a fine double feature, but I won’t. The day these discs arrived I watched Metropolitan, and let it wash over me. A few hours later I put on Disco, and within ten minutes I realized that I couldn’t watch two Stillman movies in one day. They’re too thick for that. The movies leave the viewer with so much to think about, that one cannot simply move on to the next one. I ended up putting a week or so between the viewings and Disco felt all the stronger for it. It was perhaps the most rewarding viewing of the movie I’d ever had. In some ways the same can be said for the Metropolitan viewing, simply because I’ve never seen it look as nice as it does on this Blu-ray. (It may even have been the first time I saw it in its proper aspect ratio.) Disco has always looked reasonably good, so this presentation wasn’t exactly revelatory, but a nice Criterion presentation nevertheless. (If you're interested in Blu-ray screencaps, I recommend looking at the articles at DVD Beaver here and here.)

Whit Stillman

Blu-ray Extras: The star extras here are undoubtedly the commentary tracks. Metropolitan features Stillman, editor Christopher Tellefsen, as well as Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols. It’s an informative track to be sure, and certainly well worth a listen if you’ve any interest in grass roots independent filmmaking (indeed, Metropolitan is one of the poster children for true indie filmmaking). The Disco track features Stillman, Eigeman, and Sevigny and by comparison is a great deal more fun and flirty, due to Sevigny’s lively presence.

Additionally, Metropolitan offers up some deleted scenes and some alternate casting choices, with optional commentary, as well as a booklet with an essay by Luc Sante. Disco also has some deleted scenes with optional commentary, an audio recording of Stillman reading a chapter from his book, The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards, which was published a couple years after the movie was released. There’s also a behind-the-scene promo featurette from 1998, a stills gallery, and a trailer, as well as a booklet with an essay by David Schickler.

Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks DVD review

Back when I got into Doctor Who, around ’84 or so, its seemingly vast universe was entirely new to me: Over 20 years worth of a series that I now had the opportunity to immerse myself in. Needless to say, I dove right in and through Sunday night screenings on PBS, Target novelizations, and an assortment of reference books, I got pretty caught up over the next few years, and most of that trivia I carry with me to this day. During this time I was completely in awe and maybe even a little jealous of anyone who’d been watching the show since it started in ’63. Or even 1970. Pick a year that’s far enough away from ’84 so as to command some respect. For these people, in my mind, surely Doctor Who was not merely a show, but a way of life, for they had seen the passage of two decades reflected in this wonderful, imaginative TV series.

Fast forward to today, and close to another 30 years have passed, on top of the aforementioned 20. Doctor Who will be celebrating its 50^th birthday in 2013, and the show is picking up rabid new viewers all the time. There are people for whom Matt Smith is their first Doctor – people who after discovering him, go back and see the Eccleston and Tennant episodes for the first time, and maybe, if they’re really taken by the concept, they go even further back into the show’s history and look at Tom Baker or Jon Pertwee. To those folks, might I now be one of those people I envied and was jealous of? I’ve got this whole history with Doctor Who, and have been following it through some frequently turbulent times, all the way up to the massively successful beast it is today. But I use the word “might,” because I don’t know if there’s the same kind of respect for the show’s history today that maybe there was 30 years ago.

There’s such a surplus of genre material on TV available to fans these days (certainly far more than in '84), and as such there’s always something newer and cooler right around the corner. Sitting in this tiny corner of the internet, I write about some of the more obscure aspects of what’s currently the most popular sci-fi TV series on the air. Does anybody really care about all this history? The answer is, of course, yes. The Rued Morgue has its regular readers, and plenty of folks actively searching for specific classic Doctor Who DVD reviews end up on this blog as well. What’s bothersome to me personally is that I know that most fans of the new series are content with just the new series, and in between seasons, they’re not seeking out these classic adventures that form the basis for the series today. So whether you’re relatively new to the Whoniverse, and you’re here reading about classic Who for the first time, or have been getting into the classics for a while now, I’d just like to say good on you for your appreciation of and/or interest in everything that came before. These classic tales are the backbone of Doctor Who, and the upcoming 50th anniversary won’t be something that happened overnight.

Now all of that said, I couldn’t have written a more elaborate, reverential intro for a more mediocre classic series entry. It’s easy to take Daleks for granted when you’re a fan of this show, as they’ve always been there. (Some may not even know there was a period during pre-production of the new series when the estate of Dalek creator Terry Nation looked as though it wasn’t going to allow the Doctor’s most infamous foes to be used - a potential development that seems unthinkable and impossible at this point.) At this stage of the classic series, the production team was whipping out Dalek stories right and left. The previous two seasons had featured “Day of the Daleks” and “Planet of the Daleks,” while the season following this one would unveil “Genesis of the Daleks.” All three of those are reasonably good to excellent tales, and so it falls upon “Death to the Daleks,” from Jon Pertwee’s final season, to be the weakest of this unofficial early to mid-‘70s quadrilogy. After giving this DVD two full viewings, I’ll at least give the serial (and Nation, who wrote it) some credit for trying to add a couple twists to the Daleks…even though those twists end up not terribly exciting.

The Doctor (Pertwee) plans to take Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) on holiday to the planet Florana, where the water is effervescent, so swimmers just sort of automatically float. The TARDIS ends up elsewhere – the planet Exxilon, which is about as far from a holiday planet as one could imagine. It’s a dirty, muddy hole with an ancient, impenetrable city at its center. Making matters worse, the city drains the power of anything and everything in the surrounding area, so the TARDIS runs out of power entirely. This is one of those rare instances where the Doctor is actually forced into having a dangerous adventure.

Exxilons on the planet Exxilon

Outside the TARDIS is the indigenous Exxilon population – grunting, cloaked waxen-faced figures - who attack first and ask no questions later. Also present are a group of humans (the Marine Space Corps), and hot on their heels, a group of Daleks. Both groups are searching for a rare mineral called Parrinium, which exists in abundance on Exxilon, and is the cure for a space plague that’s running rampant and laying waste to both species. Like the TARDIS, the Daleks find that their power has been drained, and so their energy-based weaponry no longer functions, and they are forced into an uneasy alliance with the humans. One thing’s for certain – nobody is going anywhere as long as the ancient Exxilon city continues exerting its force over all the parties involved.

(l-r) Pertwee, Duncan Lamont, Joy Harrison, Julian Fox

On paper, “Death to the Daleks” doesn’t sound all that bad, but there’s something of a disconnect between script and screen here. It lacks the necessary “oomph,” I think, and the first two episodes in particular move like dripping molasses. It’s the sort of pacing one expects from and will typically excuse in a Pertwee-era six-parter, but in a four-parter like this one, it’s a bit indefensible. The human characters are all terribly stock, and their attitude toward their mission lacks any kind of urgency. Duncan Lamont’s portrayal of the pivotal character Galloway, in particular, is exactly what’s wrong with this serial; the guy’s just sleepwalking through this script, collecting a paycheck. The crippled Daleks retrofit their weaponry with standard, bullet-based hardware, which sounds potentially much more exciting than it actually is; director Michael E. Briant never makes the most of what he has to work with, and instead the whole production feels as if it’s just “getting by.”   

The Doctor and Bellal

In the third episode, the story introduces the character of Bellal (Arnold Yarrow), an underground dwelling Exxilon that doesn’t share his surface-dwelling relatives’ beliefs or subpar intellect; aside from the regulars, Bellal’s the most interesting character in the serial, but that may only be because there’s no real competition in the interesting character department. The Doctor’s trip into the Exxilon city with Bellal manages to kick the entire affair up a notch or two, although much of what happens on their journey was bested in other, later classic Who tales such as “Pyramids of Mars,” “The Hand of Fear,” and even “The Five Doctors.” Yeah, that’s kind of the rub here: There’s little that “Death to the Daleks” does that the show didn’t do better somewhere else, although actress Joy Harrison can’t be found in any other serial, and she is quite the looker; enough so that even the Doctor seems more interested in protecting and comforting her than Sarah Jane...yet as a member of the Marine Space Corps, one wonders why she needs protecting by or comfort from a man who appears to be twice her age, dressed in a frilly shirt and a smoking jacket. (Clearly there are loads of women in the Whoniverse working through their daddy issues via the Doctor.)

Last, and far from least, “Death to the Daleks” features quite possibly the worst Who score of the ‘70s. Written by Carey Blyton (who’d previously done the oddball score for “The Silurians”) and performed by the London Saxophone Quartet(!?), this thing is just one step above “Wha-wha-whaaaaaa…,” sad-sack type music. Not real sure where Dudley Simpson was, but man oh man this serial could’ve used his magic, as Blyton was clearly the wrong person to add musical menace to the Daleks.

DVD Extras: Since most of the key figures involved in the making of this serial have since passed on, that leaves a rather oddball assortment of folks to fill out the commentary track: Actor Julian Fox (who is so enthusiastic about his work in this serial, it seems the highlight of his career), Dalek operator Cy Town, director Michael E. Briant, assistant floor manager Richard Leyland, costume designer L. Rowland Warne, and special sounds creator Dick Mills, all moderated by Toby Hadoke. If only they’d have found the janitor for this serial, my commentary dreams would be complete!

Go on. Have a chuckle.

The making-of, entitled “Beneath the City of the Exxilons,” is at its most engaging when Nicholas Briggs is speaking. It seems that he’s the world’s biggest “Death to the Daleks” fan, and, admittedly, through his enthusiasm, it’s easier to see the good in this serial, so by all means, don’t take my word as gospel. Sometimes all it takes to elevate the opinion of a dodgy classic Who story is one incredibly passionate fan, and that’s exactly what Briggs does here. Likewise, Fox appears here as well, and his cheery outlook on all things “Death” continues, but I was most stoked to see Arnold “Bellal” Yarrow interviewed, if for no other reason than because his character was such a highlight of an otherwise lackluster tale.

23 minutes worth of behind the scenes studio footage from this story is quite the cool addition. Even to someone who’s not a fan of the story, this was perhaps the bonus highlight of this disc. Also present is another entry in the “Doctor Who Stories” series, this time called “Dalek Men,” which features interviews with Dalek operators John Scott Martin and Nicholas Evans from 2003. “On the Set of Doctor Who and the Daleks” features some rare, behind the scenes footage of the first Cushing film. Finally, there’s the photo gallery, the production notes subtitle option, Radio Times Listings in PDF form, an isolated score(!), and a coming soon trailer for “The Krotons,” which was released on the same day as this disc.

Doctor Who: The Krotons DVD review

With the release of “The Krotons,” the short list of complete serials from the Patrick Troughton era of Doctor Who that can be released on DVD, have been. There’s very likely still fare like “The Ice Warriors” with animated missing episodes on the horizon (though that hasn’t been officially confirmed), and then there’s Episode Two of “The Underwater Menace,” which was found last year and has yet to see the DVD light of day. But as far as serialized storylines with all their pieces intact, this is currently the last of its kind. Yay? Many of the DVD reviews for “The Krotons” will likely be less than charitable. It’s not a particularly flashy story, and it will probably strike few as little more than filler between the lengthier, more epic stories featuring Cybermen and Ice Warriors that bookend it. And truthfully that’s precisely what it is, but that doesn’t mean “The Krotons” doesn’t possess a few merits of its own. For starters, it’s the first script to come from the pen of Robert Holmes, arguably the greatest Doctor Who writer of all time. This fact alone warrants that we cut “The Krotons” some slack.

The human-looking Gonds have been slaves to their unseen masters, the Krotons, for thousands of years. Every so often the Krotons call upon the best and brightest of Gond students to enter their massive “machine,” never to be seen again. What a way to keep your minions down; periodically remove the only people smart enough to someday mount any kind of revolution! But this is merely a side effect of the larger plan of the Krotons, who’ve been attempting to harness the mental power of those that enter their machine for generation upon generation of Gond. The TARDIS arrives on the unnamed planet, which smells of sulphur and sports two suns beating down on its surface. The Doctor (Troughton), Zoe (Wendy Padbury) and Jamie (Frazer Hines) come across a door, which opens on its own. Out stumbles the very same Gond - now clearly disoriented - that we previously watched enter the machine. Weaponry appears and within seconds the Gond is erased from existence. Our mortified heroes move on and into the Gond city, where they learn of the race’s horrific history with the Krotons, and how they’ve been trained to never go into the “poisoned” wasteland on the other side of the machine, and therefore are ignorant of what happens to those who enter it. Obviously, things have to be put right.

I think what really gets to me about “The Krotons” is the idea that this situation has been going on for thousands of years. Thousands! Actually, in one scene, somebody says “a thousand,” but what’s a millennia or two in a 90-minute sci-fi yarn? Either way it’s a preposterously long time for this society to have been operating under these conditions, and yet I find myself totally buying into the notion, to the point where Gond life is just plain depressing…and then one day this little man from the stars arrives and everything changes. The Gonds were likely so ill-equipped to deal with a world sans the structure forced upon them by the Krotons, it’s entirely probable they crumbled altogether after the Doctor quietly slipped away, but that’s another story entirely.

However, the real meat of “The Krotons” is not an imagined backstory, or even the one that might occur after it’s over. Most of the tale revolves around the power of intelligence, which the Krotons require for survival, and how the Doctor and Zoe come along and provide these bellowing creatures with the exact amount of “zing” they’ve been looking for all these centuries. Even if the Gonds are mostly cardboard, and the Krotons are mostly forgettable, the serial offers up many fine moments from our heroes. Troughton and Padbury really deliver some goods here, as if they realize the goings-on are all pretty mediocre, but if just they rise to the occasion, they may save the day in more ways than through the characters on the pages of the script they’re acting out. Frazer Hines gets some choice bits as well, but ultimately, in a story about intelligence, Jamie’s bound to be somewhat sidelined in comparison to his two co-stars. Indeed, this may even be Padbury’s finest hour during her time on the series.

The Krotons: Only menacing from the waist up!

“The Krotons” is an early effort from David Maloney, who, with fare like “The Mind Robber,” “Genesis of the Daleks,” and “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” on his resume, was clearly one of the greatest directors the series ever had; after Doctor Who, he would go on to be a major force in the world of Blake’s 7. Even with a script as frequently slight as this one, Maloney, like the actors working for him, makes the most of what he has to work with. Perhaps his best decision, though, was to make sure the Kroton creatures were largely shot from the waist up, lest viewers find themselves driven to distraction by the goofy Kroton skirts. As far as Robert Holmes goes, there’s not a whole lot in the serial that would ever really lead you to believe that one day he’d become one of, if not the definitive Who writer, although I’d make the argument that the Doctor and Zoe’s relationship here very much serves as the earliest example of the celebrated Holmes “double act,” which his scripts often featured. Also, it’s somewhat interesting to note that Holmes liberally stole from “The Krotons” many years later when he concocted “The Mysterious Planet” for the “Trial of a Time Lord” season. The two tales have numerous similarities that should be obvious even based on what I’ve written here. No doubt the Colin Baker serial works better, but then again it came at the very end of Holmes’s Who writing career, rather than this one, which kicked it off.

DVD Extras: A commentary track featuring Philip Madoc…great jumping gobstoppers! How did I write an entire review of “The Krotons” without ever once mentioning that the great Philip Madoc also made his Who debut with this story? Madoc, who passed away in March of this year, went on to play a substantial role in Troughton’s semi-swan song “The War Games.” Then in the ‘70s he achieved true cult status by bringing mad scientist Mehendri Solon to life in “The Brain of Morbius,” before his final contribution to the series in the “Key to Time” entry “The Power of Kroll” (which also came from the pen of Holmes). So anyway, the commentary features Madoc, with fellow Gonds Richard Ireson and Gilbert Wynne, as well as Assistant Floor Manager David Tilley, make-up designer Sylvia James, costume designer Bobi Bartlett, and special sounds designer Brian Hodgson, all moderated by the always amusing Toby Hadoke.

The standout extra here is a 52-minute doc entitled “Second Time Around,” which is a retrospective of Troughton’s era. Last month I took the “Resurrection of the Daleks” Special Edition DVD to task for its bitchy Davison-era retrospective. I’m happy to report that they get it just right here, with the proper mix of attitudes both reverential and realistic, featuring Anneke Wills, Debbie Watling, Hines, Padbury, Terrance Dicks, Derrick Sherwin (who, it’s revealed here, came up with the idea of the Time Lords [perhaps it was revealed previously on “The War Games” set or somewhere else; if so, I’m just now making note of it]), and maybe a few others I’m forgetting. For this doc alone, “The Krotons” disc is a must-buy for fans of this era of Doctor Who. Beyond that, there’s another entry in the “Doctor Who Stories” series; this time it’s an interview with Frazer Hines. As it is labeled Part 1, I can only assume there’s more of it to come on a future DVD (perhaps that potential “Ice Warriors” disc I mentioned earlier?) Also present is another entry in “The Doctor’s Strange Love” series with Joe Lidster and Simon Guerrier…but without Josie Long! It’s almost as if someone in charge is reading my reviews. Heh. There’s also the usual photo gallery, Radio Times listings in PDF form, production notes subtitle option, and finally a swell coming soon trailer for “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy,” which will hit DVD in August.