This week I've been listening to the BBC Audiobook adaptation of Brian Hayles' 1967 Dr. Who adventure, The Ice Warriors. Hayles fused the plot of "The Thing from Another World" with a dystopian climate change story that matched the tenor of 60s New Wave sci-fi. As you can see, "far-out" designs were juxtaposed with the interiors of an English country house; and the lumbering, hissing reptile men from Mars went on to have a reasonably good run in the second division of Who monsters. You'll remember I blogged last month about their most recent audio appearances.
The Ice Warriors is read by Frazer Hines-Jamie McCrimmon- and although the line readings are sometimes a little hurried, he is one of the best readers in this series, along with Peter Purves. Aside from his accurate and affectionate impression of Troughton, previously heard in Big Finish's Companion Chronicles, Hines also successfully evokes Peter Sallis and Angus Lennie. His Martian voices are splendid and definitely give Nick Briggs a run for his money.
There's an interesting debate about the pros and cons of a technological society and its implications for individuality and self-sufficiency; a theme that would later be explored by Terry Nation's Survivors. I have a particular fondness for this serial firstly because I saw the surviving episodes one afternoon at the GFT in the very early 90s; then, in 1998, I spent money I didn't have to fly to London with Easyjet so I could attend the 35 Up event at BAFTA and buy the video box set below. I also got the autographs of Wendy Padbury and Sophie Aldred but I was dumbstruck with fanboy awe; so, sadly, I missed the chance to speak to Michael Craze, who passed away three weeks later.
Among the many things I enjoy about the serial are: the futuristic Ice age setting; the strong guest cast; the clowning in the first Tardis scene- it landed on its side; the special title sequence and the alien incidental music.
The story also features the Second Doctor's dislike and distrust of computers as a character beat, which seems to dovetail nicely into my dvd viewing. Having recently acquired a copy of 1979's sublime Douglas Adams confection, City of Death, on a trip to Inverness three weeks ago, I turned my attention again to another favourite, the Swinging Sixties mould-breaker, The War Machines.
As you know, Ben and Polly are among my favourite companions in 60s Who. They're very much archetypes of the era- he's a working class Cockney; a bit handy in a fight but somewhat traditional and regimented. She's rather posh but very "with-it" and outgoing- I like to think she was the Honourable Hippolyta Wright, educated at Roedean. The dynamic has a bit of a spin on it- he's physically smaller and slighter; a bit highly-strung; she's the inquisitive, impetuous one. I wonder what Ben might mean, exactly, when he says "I ain't no Deb's Delight"?
The energy and vigour of Ben and Pol was less relevant to Troughton's younger Doctor and once he had a playmate/stooge on board in the shape of Jamie McCrimmon, their function became redundant. Happily, RTD told us the characters were now running an orphanage in India, which beautifully taps into Anneke Wills' own experiences on the Hippy Trail.
Anyway, the story serves to dispatch unsuccessful companion Dodo, the short-lived child-woman with the wandering accent (who went on to suffer the most ignominious fate in spin-off novels). It's also intriguingly directed by Michael Ferguson, who went on to create vivid, unsettling images in The Seeds of Death, TheAmbassadors...of Death and The Claws of Axos (and to create the Mitchell brothers for Eastenders!) There are effective shots of the boxy, tank-like machines on contemporary London streets and odd, almost-Brechtian moments when the mind-controlled scientists speak to camera. Whispering WOTAN also tells us "Doc-tor Who- is -re-quire-d". So Peter Cushing was in the right.
One of the most important things to note about 60s Who is that, until Troughton's very last story, there is no Time Lord mythos- certainly no Gallifrey, no regeneration cycles- just a mystery man who may be hundreds of years old, travelling through time and space in a police box. It could be argued that very mystery lends potency and charm to the character -as was once the case with the Canuck berserker mutant James Howlett aka Logan aka Wolverine.
The movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine came through the post this week and it's testament to Hugh Jackman's charisma that he makes the over-X-posed X-Man sympathetic. Even more remarkably, Taylor Kitsch's Gambit also made me warm to that character. The Wolverine, as I first knew him (from Foom 8, fact fans), is a quintessentially 70s comic-book character, just as Gambit sums up the 90s. The cruel and vicious metal claws, the anti-authoritarian stance, the outsider status- all these elements were added to Stan Lee's stock misunderstood Marvel protagonist, then refracted through the prism of Viet Nam, Watergate and the disenchantment with the counter-culture. Wolverine was the Avengers' brash, argumentative Hawkeye with Conan's savagery and additional alienation.
It took two things to propel Logan to fan-favourite status- Canadian penciller-turned-writer John Byrne, who gave the 70s anti-hero some nobility and, wisely, hints of a backstory in Alpha Flight; and Miller and Claremont's 1982 minseries, which magnified the ronin elements in the character's background.
Next: Demons of Red Lodge
All images copyright of their respective owners. Chap with wings; five rounds rapid.
No comments:
Post a Comment