I've been watching

Delta and the Bannermen - "I've never seen..." episode one of Delta. Ken Dodd's performance was one I had never encountered before, although one hears tales. Even given that... he comes across as 'Wacky Tollman' rather than as any distinctive personality (the behind the scenes interviews were more revealing about the character, and that Ken Dodd come across as 'always on' for the camera). This just kicks off the main problem with this story, in that it is a series of vignettes rather than any serious attempt at a developed tale. There are various amusing moments, but the whole seems unconnected and messy, just a few too many plot holes. And the incidental music was too heavy handed, a problem many McCoy stories suffered from.

The other music, tied in to the time period, was nice. At this point I'd like to thank the person who did the production subtitles, they were very useful and gave goo dinsight into how much thought the prodcution team put into the atmosphere of the setting. The Chimerian girl wasn't an easy ask, I'm happy with what they did there. Thinking back over it, I'd say the production did a better job than the story did.

The Deadly Assassin - I hadn't remembered that the matrix sequence was over an episode long! A complete change of pace that shows that Doctor Who still has a few tricks up its sleeve. And given the set restrictions, I thought the first half of the story, in the Panopticon, also worked well. That does leave the final episode, in particular the fight with the Master, but I'd rather not dwell on that.

There have been criticisms over this 'stolid' aspect of the Time Lords, which isn't really that unexpected, even ignoring their previous appearances. They are supposed to be 'anti-Doctors', in that they don't intervene (as a general principle), but generally sit back and watch the affairs of the universe, only really getting involved when time travel is an issue, or other Time Lords are problems. It's either a stately affair with heads right up arses, or a country of couch potatoes watching events unfold on some screen (cf Vengence on Varos). Various later writiers have pepped them up, but this is a good story of two cats (the Doctor and the Master) amoung very sedate pidgeons.

[END]