The Web of Fear - "[I]s it safe?" "Oh, I shouldn't think so for a moment."

BBC - Doctor Who Classic Episode Guide - The Web of Fear - Details

Season 5, Story 5 (Overall Series Story #41) | Previous - Next | Index

This shot alone worth the price of admission.

No sooner is Salamander sucked out the door into the vortex than we're caught up in a new adventure ... we're shown the TARDIS suspended in space, captured in a web, and then we're dropped straight into a 1950s B horror movie. Over the top acting,stock music cues, and all.

I'm going about this all out of order, so the robot yeti we encounter, and Professor Travers, would've been known by sight to anyone who'd watched "The Abominable Snowmen" first. This story was clearly made as an excuse to see the Yeti again. (Or to reuse them for budget purposes hoping they'd be a success first time around.) That's not particularly ambitious, but "Web" delivers on its modest goal. Those big, shaggy, Great Intelligence-controlled robots may not make hella sense, but they're so damned adorable can you blame fans for loving 'em? (That's a rhetorical question. Because no. You can't.)

After "Enemy" made a Bond-inspired, globe-trotting break from the Base Under Siege structure that characterized several earlier Troughton-era stories, "Web" has us squarely back in that mode. A mode in which it stays stuck for a while. In that sense, this is a bit of let down. Where "Enemy" was doing something a bit daring and different, "Web" takes no chances at all. And, after introducing a strong woman of color in the previous story, is back to being lily-white with only a stereotypical German Jew giving this story anything like diversity. The Yeti, great as they are, are recycled; so, this feels so very much like generic Doctor Who. It's hard to shake the been there, done that ennui.

That feeling of nothing being new here is reinforced by the modern-day viewer's benefit of hindsight. We know that Nicholas Courtney's Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart will get promoted and go on to become a fixture of the series for years to come -- even contributing a daughter to carry on the Stewart name into the new series. Back at the time this was shown, I don't think that was predictable. More likely alert viewers would've thought instead: "Isn't that the bloke who played Bret Vyon a few years back?"

While we're noticing things that will get reused, the foam that fills the tunnels of the London Underground will be used again in "The Seeds of Death" as the spores the Ice Warriors try to smother the Earth with. Again, hindsight makes it obvious, but it wouldn't have seemed so same-y to those watching in 1967.

I lamented the return to League of White Men casting above, but I nearly forgot one of the better moments in terms of the portrayal of women that this story featured:

KNIGHT: What's a girl like you doing in a job like this?
ANNE: Well, when I was a little girl I thought I'd like to be a scientist, so I became a scientist. 

You tell him, Anne.

Yeti, Lethbridge-Stewart, the bit of dialogue above, some decent atmosphere. That's what this has going for it. Uncomfortable Jewish stereotyping, some hammy acting, and a general lack of originality or a sense that it has anything in particular to say work against it. Glad it was found, but "Power of the Daleks" still looks like the missing story we needed the most.

You know, I'm glad the restoration team, upon finding finally getting hold of this film, didn't feel obliged to insert a CGI Jenna Coleman into the story to link it to the Series 7 GI arc. (A DVD extra with tongue firmly in cheek on the other hand would've been a nice Easter Egg.)

Small trivia note: John ("Sgt. Benton") Levene, who'd later join Nicholas Courtney as part of the regular UNIT crew appears here, but you wouldn't know it until the credits rolled as he played one of the yeti.

The Enemy of the World - "I'm going out for a walk. It'll probably rain."

BBC - Doctor Who Classic Episode Guide - The Enemy of the World - Details

Season 5, Story 4 (Overall Series Story #40) | Previous - Next | Index

Are "Enemy" and "Web of Fear" the last of the lost episodes we'll ever see recovered? I don't know if bookmakers have odds on another story turning up, or if there are rumors out there I just haven't heard yet ... but my sense is it's not very likely. Based on what we got with 2013's surprise discoveries though, here's hoping more are stashed away somewhere just waiting to be recognized for what they are.

Salamander is one of the most intriguing villains the show has ever had. It helps that he's played by Patrick Troughton, who is excellent here in his dual roles. But it's not just the novelty and Troughton's charm, it's how sinister Salamander is and how, despite being a mere human, he manages to penetrate the TARDIS and seems to be within a hair's breadth of carrying off his impersonation of the Doctor long enough to be the one who survives at the end. To the extent this story is Doctor Who does James Bond, he's every bit the Bond villain for most of the story, but he's something a bit more complicated. He's not just got a secret lair where his tech comes from, he's running a con on the world at large and on his own his own scientists and lackeys.

And it's the fact all his power comes from a con, which is basically just a story, that makes his super-power, if you will, storytelling. It's not that he can cause earthquakes and volcanoes, it's how he got to wield that power that turns out to be so fascinating. It's why confidence tricksters make such brilliant villains -- think Verbal in The Usual Suspects -- because they're schemes are so high-risk/high-reward; they're always on the verge of being revealed as frauds, even while they're amassing tremendous klout.

"Enemy" takes a bit of a beating in the critical judgments found on the official BBC site, but is adored by Sandifer and hailed as one of the best stories produced. Sandifer, here I am being a critic fanboy again, is much closer to the truth, I think, than The Discontinuity Guide. For one thing, in a season of Base-Under-Siege stories that, frankly, get so tedious it makes them almost impossible to watch on my late-night viewing schedule. Sandifer's analysis keys in on how the narrative subverts the action-adventure tropes, but may over-emphasize the degree to which it does, at least intentionally. This story feels very much like a deliberate attempt to do James Bond & The Avengers where the subversive elements are introduced by necessity of the six-part story structure and the limits of budget. That the end effect is what Sandifer describes I won't dispute, but I suspect it's a happy accident ... the kind which probably only happen to secret geniuses like he argues David Whitaker (this story's writer) is ... that resulted in the brilliant outcome.

Griffin the cook is rightly lauded (universally -- as far as I can tell) as a sublime addition to the story. It's this sort of anarchic playfulness of storytelling style that so few shows even attempt to pull off that adds depth to the whole affair. It looks so quintessentially British to my American eye to have a character so comedically cynical just sort of tossed into the mix. Why don't we see more Griffins on TV?

Let's talk for a moment about the women in this story. There's Victoria, who I don't much care for as a companion, but she and Jamie get to go on a dangerous mission without the Doctor to investigate Salamander. Actually, what the hell were they thinking sending those two on a dangerous mission?! For crying out loud. They don't even know what a helicopter is and they're in a 1960s era spy story of the near future positively littered with helicopters! Still, they acquit themselves admirably, for the most part, and it's not too distracting that they're totally unequipped to do what's asked of them.

Then there's Astrid, who is the Bond women of this story. Sort of. Mercifully she's the action aspect of that role, not the dubiously oversexed aspect. No mere eye candy, sixties era Bond girl here. Not only is she more Bond that Troughton's Doctor, the Doctor is more Bond girl than she is! Watch him frolicking around the shore in his skivvies and marvel at the role reversal. That inversion may be my third favorite thing about this story.

Unless Carmen Munro as Fariah is the next best thing. Forty stories in and I gather from Sandifer's post this is the first black woman to appear on the show. We're still miles away from this being a coup for civil rights, Patrick Troughton ruddied up to play a Mexican villain is hardly a step forward here, but at least he's no Toberman.

The near-future of this 1967-filmed story is practically today. Not exactly recognizable when compared to the real world, or really any other 21st century DW stories either, but that's OK. Continuity is a sucker's game in this universe. The travel between locations is not depicted very effectively, nor does the editing help. I wondered several times where the heck people were, and how they changed continents so suddenly, or if they did.

Small trivia note: Patrick's son, David, has a small role as guard in "Enemy," but he's got a much larger role as King Peladon in "The Curse of Peladon" which, quite coincidentally, I just watched as well, so he'll get mentioned again shortly.

How the NRA Hijacked the Second Amendment

How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment - Michael Waldman - POLITICO Magazine

"A fraud on the American public." That’s how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. When he spoke these words to PBS in 1990, the rock-ribbed conservative appointed by Richard Nixon was expressing the longtime consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum. 

Twenty-five years later, Burger’s view seems as quaint as a powdered wig. Not only is an individual right to a firearm widely accepted, but increasingly states are also passing laws to legalize carrying weapons on streets, in parks, in bars—even in churches.

Atheists in the Bible Belt: A survival guide

Atheists in the Bible Belt: A survival guide – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs


Glad to see CNN covering the recent TFS-hosted FFRF convention here in Raleigh. It's amazing to me there are still large segments of the population that fear and distrust freethinkers, so anything that shows we're just folks helps.

KSR talks Hunger Games

Shaping the Future with Science Fiction and Climate Fiction - KimStanleyRobinson.info: 

“Science fiction represents how people in the present feel about the future,” Robinson says. “That’s why ‘big ideas’ were prevalent in the 1930s, ’40s and partly in the ’50s. People felt the future would be better, one way or another. Now it doesn’t feel that way. Rich people take nine-tenths of everything and force the rest of us to fight over the remaining tenth, and if we object to that, we are told we are espousing class warfare and are crushed. They toy with us for their entertainment, and they live in ridiculous luxury while we starve and fight each other. This is what The Hunger Games embodies in a narrative, and so the response to it has been tremendous, as it should be.”

As it should be.

If schools can help young adults process the reason why the narrative strikes a chord and translate that recognition into civic engagement, they'll be fulfilling one of their purposes. So, instead we see concerted efforts to grind down the teachers, steal from public education to persuade parents send their kids to charter schools, and breed a generation ready accept to their roles as playthings of the idle rich ...