Hello everyone, the Historian here, going where no TARDIS Project member has gone before! Yes, as I’ve been nattering on about, I have not seen, nor read, nor nothing any of this story before, barring a few basic facts and some photos. This is, to say the least, exciting for me…and for the Project folks who are definitely sick of me knowing what comes next! And yes, I do know about this story’s less…than…stellar reputation, but I’m excited nonetheless. This story also sees us return to the work of recon makers Loose Cannon Productions (whose website has unfortunately disappeared). So, on with the episode!
This episode first aired 8 March 1969.
H = Historian
K = Ketina
R = Ronelyn
Sp = Spoo
MS = MiniSpoo
P = Photobug
A = Altair
E = Ezio
Pe = Penuche
—
K: You could tell the cliffhanger was coming because people were moving.
R: Next week, on the voyage of the space leech!
Sp: I love the space leech!
A: I thought it looked more like a mosquito.
Sp: So did I, actually. It looked like the Raid Mosquito. Like the Raid Mosquito crossbred with a remote control.
P: First of all, Argonite, really? Is it made from the Argons?
R: You know, spawned by the explosion of the “Eye of Argon.” Yes, I agree, it’s bad writing.
<Just Google the “Eye of Argon.” While not actually the worst story ever written… we’ve read worse, it’s pretty bad, and delightfully fun to read out loud.>
H: So, one of the things that I’ve heard about this story, from people who saw it back in the day…
K: That it’s really long, and boring, and dull?
H: Besides that – is that the model work was supposed to be really amazing. We only got kind of a taste of that with the CGI reconstruction, and the little tiny bit that we saw in the cliffhanger. But it certainly seemed impressive. And the weightlessness scenes, which I assume were probably taken from episode two, looked really good, even if I could occasionally see the wires.
P: What, they didn’t film this in outerspace?
H: Ah…
P: Budget cuts?
K: I liked the way the recon, I guess it was the recon, kept taking the same weightlessness scene and kept flipping it 90 degrees to make it look different every time.
R: You’re assuming it was the recon.
H: That is a decent point. We just don’t know. They might have been cutting corners in the original.
R: “Those are union men up on those wires. It’s gets real spendy real fast.”
Sp: I assumed that the recon CGI was being faithful to how many times they used model shots, in which case, those models must have been pretty impressive, because they sure got their money out of it. I counted at least four separate uses – reuses – and reversals – of the same vaguely suggestive ship docking sequence.
P: Are you sure that was vague?
Sp: There are children present. Yes, it was vague. Okay, so trivia time…
H: Yeah? Remember, I haven’t seen this before.
Sp: Especially for Historian and Ketina. By my rough estimate, we didn’t see the Doctor or the TARDIS, or his companions, for a full 12 minutes into the show.
H: Oh, don’t remind me.
Sp: Name one or two other stories where you don’t see the Doctor until midway through the first episode.
H: Mission to the Unknown.
P: Unearthly Child.
R: And what was the one where he was invisible?
K: Not counting vacation days episodes.
Sp: Any others?
K: I’m sure we’ve seen one or two others in the Project already. Just none this boring!
H: I don’t know about that. I actually think there are a couple of firsts here. One is that I think Spoo is right, and this might be the furthest into an episode that any sign of the Doctor, his TARDIS, and companions appear. This second first is I’m pretty sure this is the first episode where we get an entire series of scenes before the story title and the episode number caption.
Sp: They really weren’t keen on a cold open with the first two Doctor’s here.
H: They really weren’t keen on the Cold Open in classic Doctor Who ever. I think in the whole classic series there were only one or two Cold Opens, like they do now.
K: I’d have to think about it.
Sp: Of course it’s not a trivia question at all to count off the number of times that the first reaction the Doctor has to encountering danger where he’s landed, is to RUN AWAY from the TARDIS. As opposed to, I don’t know, go inside. Shut the door. Wait for things to blow over.
R: I believe the way it was supposed to play out, they wandered across the room away from the TARDIS, and the boomy shooty guards came in from the other side of the room near the TARDIS, and drove them off.
H: That’s pretty much how it seemed to me too.
R: I still agree with your point.
Sp: Yeah, I didn’t get that sense of blocking from the recon.
R: And speaking of the recon, I could REALY REALLY have used just a brief fade between facial expression changes. <makes faces>
H: I don’t know. I kind of liked that. I thought it was fun. It certainly was visually interesting.
E: Yes, I agree.
R: IS THERE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS SHOW THAT YOU DON’T LIKE?
H: I’m not saying it was an interesting episode. I just liked the little transitions. I actually felt like partial animation to me, which I think a fade would not have done.
P: And this way you could tell that it was not moving pictures.
K: At least the plot, if dull, was easy to follow. Unlike most of the Cybermen stories.
R: We have argonite. Which is something that men like.
Sp: I like some of their picture choices. They had that one for comander gruff and shouty that looked like he was looking directly at me.
P: Through you.
Sp: Yes, actually. Also, I loved the really clumsy photoshop of the boarding party’s heads on the same uniform five times.
H: Interesting fact about this story, there are no telesnaps. So I don’t know where most of these shots are coming from, but a bunch of them are clearly composites, which are done in precisely the way you are talking about. From what I remember, from the now gone Loose Canon web site <RIP Loose Canon web site> they would actually research pictures of the actors, if they could find out who they were, and find photos of them and composite them into costumes from the episode. And clearly there’s a tiny bit surviving from this episode. Like Ian walking up the stair case and slapping his hand on the table.
P: Speaking of the soundtrack.
H: Oh yes, we’re going to leave that for you.
Sp: Yes, we are going to speak of the soundtrack.
P: First of all, hoky comes to mind.
H: It was one of the most interesting things in the episode. It kept me awake. I’m not saying that it was good. I’m saying that it kept me awake.
R: It was like music out of the Banana Splits.
<Ronelyn and Historian start “singing” wacky music stuff>
K: My problem was that the audio track was so bad I could hardly hear anything.
H: I actually thought the audio track was relatively good, given that this was a recon. I could pretty much understand, given that this was a recon. It was decently ballanced.
K: Maybe I’m just used to DVD quality now.
Sp: So the vibe that I got from the first third of the episode, was that we were watching some kind of incredible crossover show with a completely different science fiction show, and that it would have been really cool at the time to see both whoever these Argonauts were, and Doctor Who.
R: Argonite-nauts.
K: Alas, nope.
H: It felt like Doctor Who trying to insert itself into a so-so kids pulp from the 50’s.
R: On the bright side, British William Shatner was actually kind of impressive. “Space the… final front-eeeer. These are the voyages of the star ship…”
P: V-41-Lo
K: Or, as I like to call it, Vailo!
H: One could mention valium.
<Discussion of the various ship designs. Disagreement regarding the quality of the various ship designs.>
H: Pulpy!
R: Twee!
K: Okay. Moving on.
Sp: Did they make the helmets for a completely different cast?
R: Which ones, the renfair space ones?
Sp: I mean all of them. It looked like they were made for a completely different set of actors.
K: Maybe it was the recon?
Sp: No.
H: At a guess, I bet that they are reused props. So you may very well be correct.
R & P: Budget cuts.
H: No, they reused props all the time, even before the budget cuts. But it’s just a guess.
R: Did anyone else notice that space pirate captain Andy’s plate mail space suit…
H: Had a zipper in it. Yes, I noticed that as well.
E: And the cosplayers all groan.
Sp: Rookie mistake, captain.
H: I actually wonder if, part of that given the nature of the composites, given the nature of the recon, but I don’t doubt that it’s possible, and it wasn’t just the recon.
K: Well, next week we’ll know for sure. Or at least know more of what is the pain of the recon, and what is actually what they filmed.
R: Maybe we’ll get another black guy sighting.
H: Yeah, we did this week.
R: Sorba. I was actually worried that he was killed off in the same episode. “Is this Doctor Who, or the Walking Dead.”
Sp: I fully expect to be disappointed by next week’s moving picture installment, because half the fun of this week’s recon was seeing what photo they were going to use every time they opened a door.
<laughter>
Sp: Next week’s episode will be the only time that I will not be saying in my head “Dinsdale!”
<It’s a Monty Python reference>
H: One thing we didn’t mention is the return of the beacon sound, merely an episode after we last heard it.
MS: Bacon
Sp: Beacon.
P: But it’s not a beacon sound this time, but a demolition sound. I was wondering why they didn’t just block the signal.
H: Here’s my fan-spanation for that – what occurred to me. The sound isn’t specifically tied to the explosion itself. It’s a sound the explosive charges give off to let anything in the area know there’s going to be an explosion.
R: <sighs> It’s an audio cue to indicate that radio waves are going on. Because otherwise you have someone explaining something very dull in a very dull scene. At least now you have a very dull scene with beep beep noises.
Sp: I liked knowing definitively that yes, Weird Al was right, we really do have it all, on UHF.
<laughter>
H: Yes. My immediate response was “Ultra High Frequency? What?” Admittedly, British TVs didn’t have a UHF dial, like we did. Most had only 3 buttons at this point.
Sp: Final thoughts?
P: Not quite. When did they attach the rockets? Also, fricken awesome timing from the materialization. I’d forgotten we were Doctor Who’ing until the TARDIS appeared.
H: Did you notice my “thank god”
K: I was just spending most of the episode wondering how the Historian is liking this one, since you like all of them that I hate. You not liking this one, it’s almost refreshing. Although I didn’t really hate this one so much as just being bored stupid.
H: That’s pretty much where I am too.
P: I’m pretty impressed at how fast they found a welder.
Pe: Why couldn’t he open that with the sonic screw driver.
H: He probably doesn’t have it on him, and the door was completely welded shut.
Pe: The sonic screwdriver takes care of everything.
K: The sonic screw driving didn’t become a magic thing until at least season 14. This is season 6.
P: Also, what is a fixed beam transmitter? That sounds like something you have to point. This is clearly not a point thing. This is clearly a transmit everywhere, and thus not a fixed point beam.
<discussion of scifi books that use such scifi technology>
P: The welding must have heated the door, and I’m guessing they’re going to forgot that the door has been partially cut next week.
R: That the Doctor’s area is now open to space, I think.
P: If you want to kill the pirates, simply continuously broadcast the explosive sound at all of the Alpha stations. Because, as soon as they turn on the explosives it will detonate before they can get away. Boom.
H: I’m still not convinced that that’s how it works, but I’m not sure.
K: Now are we at final thoughts? Penuche, can you start us off this week, and the newbie?
Pe: I liked the uniforms with the gold on the collar, and the squares.
P: It was black and white, how’d you know it was gold?
Pe: It was shiny, so I like to think it was gold. Very 60’s futuristic.
<Penuche, Ketina and Cz’s mom, was actually alive and remembers back then>
E: <shrugs>
A: I was distracted and thinking about other things, so I found it not boring and I liked it.
<laughter>
A: My brain was doing stuff during the slow parts.
P: No women, except Zoe.
K: Yeah. That sucks.
P: If you’re going to be in space for months at a time, me personally would like to have women also. Because, that’s reason enough to live.
K: Especially given the last few stories.
H: The whole season really has had decent parts for women.
Sp: Oh, for pity’s sake, you got your black guy. What do you want? <laughter> You can have your black guy or you can have your broad. What do you want?
P: This sounds like the 2008 primaries.
<general laughter>
P: It’s still my turn? Okay, lots of diverse music in this episode.
R: There was one.
P: No, there was two. <attempts to describe them. It’s just getting silly at this point – sorry I can’t capture it adequately.>
H: Moving on, to Minispoo.
K: It wasn’t awesome. I’m sorry. It really wasn’t.
MS: This is the first time that I’ve ever had to say this. That show was evil! It wasn’t awesome! My feet are asleep.
<Minispoo is being unintentionally cute>
K: Big Spoo?
Sp: Oh boy. <thinks> We covered the fishing line. Once you saw it once you knew exactly where it was and you couldn’t see anything else. We covered the reused footage. And the reused soundtrack. And the sausage fest cast. And the late arrival of the Doctor. I would have been curious to see what would have been the radar graphics from the actual episode. Yeah. So… um… that was a thing we all did. Together. For 25 minutes. Okaydoke.
K: Ronelyn?
R: “What you do mean they’re using UHF? Don’t they know that that causes cancer and also Rupert Murdoch to make lots of money and then start Fox News?”
H: How is “News of the World” UHF?
R: You just had to crap on my joke, didn’t you?
H: No, I am confused.
K: My turn?
R: Sure.
K: So, one thing we didn’t not talk about, was the plot.
P: What plot?
H: Because it’s a bog standard pulp space opera plot.
K: But it’s my final thought. So the pirate are stealing “argonite” which is basically scifi gold. And they’re stealing it by blowing up beacon made of it?
MS: Bacon.
Sp: Beacon.
R: Yup.
Sp: With you so far.
K: Which is why they’re breaking them up so that they can collect the little space gold pieces after they fly into space.
H: Yes.
K: Okay. So that was the plot.
H: And the space police are trying to catch them. You forgot that bit.
K: I didn’t forget that bit. I was just explaining the bad guys plan. As plans go… and admittedly building undefended your beacons out of space gold isn’t very bright… it’s a reasonable plan. Compared to every other bad guy plan in Doctor Who, anyway.
Sp: You know you would be on board with this if it was a Cybermen plot. You would be on board with this if it was the Cybermen running around creating an atomic weapon by scraping all of the radium off of the clocks back then.
H: It would be a more interesting story, if that was the case. “Step 47.”
K: I’m just saying that we couldn’t mock this plan so much. There was plenty of things to mock in this episode, but for once, the bad guys plan wasn’t one of them.
R: The bad guy plan actually made sense. The good guy plan, not so much.
H: Remember, this is only episode one of six. Give the bad guys time.
Sp: Take us home, historian.
P: He can’t, because the beacon’s gone.
<laughter>
H: And that’s where we’ll end for this week.
MS: Bacon beacon!
—
And there we have the first episode of our penultimate story! Next week, the one and only existing episode of this six-parter. Until then, I remain
THE HISTORIAN
NEXT WEEK: THE SPACE PIRATES EPISODE 2
