My abiding memories of Longleat are of the size of the crowds. The event was massively successful. I spent most of my time either queuing for autographs- two and a half hours for a signed photo of Janet "Tegan" Fielding- or in a tent watching b/w episodes from the Sixties. VHS cassettes were still fairly rare- my friend Graham and his family had a big, boxy, front-loading VCR. On telly, Channel 4 was repeating the Emma Peel Avengers. So the opportunity to watch The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Dominators was too special to miss.
I managed to glimpse Peter Davison and Carole Ann Ford. The rest of the week, I took day trips to Wilton, Winchester, Southampton, Poole and Bournemouth. I had been a big Thomas Hardy fan at school and now I was in the heart of Wessex. For such a nerdy, naive kid, I'm surprised how adventurous I was. I chatted to all sorts of people at Longelat: members of a London sci-fi club; an operating theatre technician from Kilmarnock; a lad from Brighton; a family from Tyneside and some college girls from Salisbury. And (for C21st climate doomsayers) it snowed on the sixth of April.
In the 90s, it would have been unthinkable to picture Doctor Who returning to that peak of popularity, bringing Wiltshire to a standstill. Cancelled by the BBC, the characters continued in the novel series while the Daleks were reduced to cynical punch-lines on satirical tv shows (Of course, those were the days when Channel 4 "did" satire, instead of Come Feed My Embarassing Super-Sized Baby).But with a fiftieth birthday in the offing, look at Who now!
The Bells of Saint John - clever-clever title aside- was a glossy, confident relaunch for the series. An urban thriller in modern London, its author was open about the influence of Skyfall on the story. There was a sense, as is often the case in Modern Who, that we'd been here before, with the flighty, flirty young woman- Clara, whom we've actually met twice already- and the sinister business consortium, trapping humans in the Wi-Fi as fodder for the Great Intelligence ( Doctor 9.0, Richard E. Grant). But happily, Moffat's tropes of the joys of fatherhood, broken machines and vampy cougars were mainly reined in, despite one misogynist joke.
Where once, around 2000 AD, Big Finish's audio plays represented the future of Who, now they're about preserving and polishing the past. The latest installment of the Tom Baker/Fourth Doctor series, War Against the Laan continues last month's ecological storyline. The Doctor and Romana were battling to save a broody clutch of space manatees from exploitation from the ruthless Cuthbert. The story is frustrating on two counts: the wilfully silly adversary and the fact that it's all set-up for an upcoming Dalek story. Two out of Five Talmars (for Tom and David Warner, dignifying a cariacture villain).
I found the Seventh Doctor story Protect and Survive more rewarding. Fittingly, we return to the 80s and a claustrophobic nightmare inspired by Raymond Briggs' When The Wind Blows. Ace and Hex find themselves in a chilling scenario of Mutually Assured Destruction. Aside from some unconvincing accents, this is a compelling story that makes effective use of the audio format. Five out of five Talmars.
I'm going to Glasgow tomorrow for a long weekend. When I come back, look for more Treasuries and tabloids reviewed on the 'optikon and coming soon here, a Dr. Who audio set in Moray!
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Maybe I'm getting old, but while Saturday's episode was okay, I found it underwhelming. Same old same old, as you say. Let's hope the actual anniversary show on the big day is something special. 'Though, to be honest, the thought of yet another 'all-doctors' special doesn't inspire me.
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