Praise the Carpentry.
Part One
Sue: Anything I should know?
Me: Only that it’s late 1977 and context is everything.
Sue: I would have just turned 16. Oh look, it’s Robert Holmes; I feel better already.
The episode begins with a nervous man named Cordo standing in a very drab corridor.
Sue: This reminds me of Brazil.
Me: The country?
Sue: The film.
It’s an astute observation (it helps that she watched it recently), and Roy Macready does look like Jonathan Pryce. If you squint.
Cordo is instructed to pay his departed father’s death taxes to Gatherer Hade.
Sue: This story is very brown. Then again, everything was very brown in the late seventies. Is this what you meant by context? This story is the same colour as a Bond Bug.
Me: A what bug?
Sue: An orangey-brown, three-wheeled sports car from the seventies; like a sexy Robin Reliant. It was the exact same colour as the giant rib cage this guy is walking through right now.
The Gatherer sits behind a giant table made from real ma-ho-gany.
Sue: They could have written this story for me. I could watch this for hours. Please, keep talking about wood.
Me: Praise the carpentry.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is playing chess with K9 in the TARDIS. He tells Leela to shut up as he concentrates on his next move.
Sue: How can anyone concentrate when K9 is switched on? It sounds like the cleaners are in the studio next door.
Leela exclaims that the time rotor has stopped moving. The Doctor responds by leaping around the console room like a maniac.
Sue: Calm the **** down, mate.
The TARDIS arrives on Pluto in the far future; the Doctor and Leela attempt to discuss the prospect of going for a quick W-A-L-K without alerting K9.
Sue: We do that all the time with Buffy. But Buffy is a stupid labrador and K9 is a supercomputer, so it’s a bit silly. Cute but silly.
K9 really wants to go with them.
Sue: Just like a real dog. Always wanting to be out. At least he doesn’t moult. Oh, take him. Go on, Doctor, take him.
And then:
Sue: TAKE HIM!
But the Doctor won’t have it and he leaves the poor mutt behind.
Sue: That’s never Pluto. It looks like Birmingham.
A wide shot helps:
Sue: That really shows the scale of the place. They are trying their best, bless them, and it’s miles better than them doing it in a studio with some crappy CSO, I suppose. Where are they anyway?
Me: Pluto.
Sue: You know what I mean.
Me: A tobacco factory in Bristol.
Sue reaches for a cigarette as Cordo appears on the very same rooftop. He intends to throw himself off its edge.
Sue: Tea-time suicide again. We had one of those last week. How did they get away with this?
An exasperated Cordo is at the end of his tether because he can’t pay his taxes.
The Doctor: All you need is a wily accountant.
Sue: Just ask Jimmy Carr.
The Doctor offers a conciliatory jelly baby to Cordo.
Sue: It’s a liquorice ****ing allsort again! That’s going to make things even worse.
The Doctor talks Cordo away from the edge and the poor man fills him in on the current sociopolitical climate of the planet. Cordo spots the Gatherer and he makes a run for it. After some slapstick comedy, the Doctor follows.
Sue: Tom Baker is spoiling this. He’s trying too hard to be quirky. He makes those prancing idiots on The Newsroom look realistic.
Gatherer Hade suspects the TARDIS could belong to smugglers.
Sue: Why is he dressed as a pink bee? His PA’s costume is a bit naff as well. Are fashions on Pluto based on Quality Street wrappers. Is that it?
Thankfully, the Gatherer’s costume doesn’t put her off:
Sue: He’s very good. What’s this actor been in before?
Me: Stop asking me that. Do I look like Toby Hadoke?
Leela, Cordo and the Doctor enter a large tunnel system…
Sue: The location is excellent. I didn’t know that tobacco factories had such large pipes. I guess they have to blow all the smoke up something…
Me: This is a tube station in Camden Town, I think. I’m not Richard Bignell, either.
Cordo tells the Doctor and Leela about the mysterious others: a group of tax evaders who have become outlaws.
Sue: So there’s a community of rock stars, comedians and Tory Party donors living underground? That’s, er, interesting, not to mention topical.
It doesn’t take very long for the Doctor and Leela to bump into these mysterious others.
Sue: The people who made Lost must have seen this. They even look like the others from Lost. By the look of them, I bet they smell the same too.
Meanwhile, K9 disobeys the Doctor’s orders and he leaves the TARDIS. He makes his way to Level 42…
Sue: Coincidence?
She’s not referring to Douglas Adams.
I ask Sue if she recognises the actor playing Goudry.
Sue: Yes, I recognise his voice. Hang on… I know this…
I pause the DVD.
Minutes pass.
Sue: I’ve got it! He’s the vicar on EastEnders!
Me: It’s Michael Keating. He played Vila in Blake’s 7. Actually, this story is very Blake’s 7 in look and feel. The costumes, especially.
Sue: You’re not exactly selling Blake’s 7 to me.
For several years now, we have fed a small pack of wild cats who come and visit us each night (usually when we’re in the middle of Doctor Who). We named them Blake, Avon and Vila. Severlan died a few months ago and we haven’t seen Vila in ages.
Sue: I often wonder what happened to Vila…
Me: He probably ran away.
I press Play.
K9 arrives at the hole in the floor that leads to the others’ hideout…
Sue: This will be a challenge.
The others’ leader, Mandrel, gives the Doctor a fake credit card to use in the city.
Sue: You wouldn’t get many of those in your wallet. If you had more than one bank account, you’d have to carry them around in a small knapsack.
The Doctor visits a hole-in-the-wall, and with Cordo keeping watch, he inserts the card. A glass cubicle imprisons the Doctor and he is gassed for being overdrawn.
Sue: ****ing bankers.
Part Two
Four uniformed men arrive to retrieve the Doctor.
Sue: Why didn’t Cordo press that button and get him out? He had plenty of time.
The men take the Doctor away on a gurney.
Sue: It’s Barclaycard’s Death Squad. I bet he gets charged for being carted away. This is very similar to Brazil. And Bob Diamond’s darkest fantasies.
And then we meet the Collector…
Sue: Is he sniffing something off that paper? Is that what I think it is? What a banker.
The Collector is an insane economist…
Sue: He’s a tiny Ed Balls. He definitely livens things up a bit. It’s a very creepy performance.
Tom Baker wakes up in a straitjacket. He does a passable impression of an elephant before sitting bolt upright.
Sue: Didn’t the Doctor hang around with Houdini? He should be able to get out of that.
The Doctor has been deposited in a conditioning room with a man named Bisham. Bisham tells him that Pluto’s inhabitants are made docile with PCM (Pentocyleinicmethylhydrane).
Sue: We need a scene with some happy people in it. Just one scene would do it. All I’ve seen so far are depressives, rebels and bureaucrats. What about those in between?
Mandrel’s gang continue to bicker among themselves.
Sue: It’s Oliver Twist for middle-aged men. Mandrel is basically Fagin and the loud-mouthed woman (who really belongs on the stage, not on television) is Nancy. She’s bloody terrible.
The Gatherer decides that the Doctor is an arms smuggler, and he’ll need the Inner Retinue to deal with him.
Sue: Oh very good. Was Robert Holmes a communist?
Me: No, that was Malcolm Hulke. But Holmes received a large tax demand before he wrote this, so he wasn’t in the best of moods.
Sue: If any of the Inland Revenue saw this episode, they would have crucified him later.
Leela accuses Mandrel of cowardice. She even insinuates that he hasn’t got a penis.
Sue: You go, girl!
Cordo volunteers to help Leela find the Doctor.
Sue: He’s like Frodo in Lord of the Rings. Cordo – Frodo. Coincidence?
K9 continues to disobey the Doctor’s orders and blankly refuses to return to the TARDIS.
Sue: He really is a typical dog. Buffy is exactly the same. Aww, look at him wagging his little tail.
Shoot me now…
The Gatherer decides to release the Doctor from the conditioning centre so he can follow him and identify anyone he makes contact with in the city. But things don’t look too good for Bisham…
Sue: Is the Doctor going to leave the other bloke there? That’s horrible.
The Doctor throws a bag of sweets at Bisham’s head on his way out.
Sue: (as Bisham) How am I supposed to eat these with my hands tied? I don’t even like liquorice!
The Gatherer tells the Doctor that his arrest was a terrible misunderstanding brought about by a computing error.
Sue: They had a NatWest.
Leela, still on the Doctor’s trail, orders K9 to stun a guard.
Sue: How can this guard not hear K9 coming? Do the drugs they pump into the air conditioning mess with your hearing?
The Doctor and the Gatherer banter over some raspberry leaves (a scene that Sue enjoys a great deal). On his way out, the Doctor offers the Gatherer a sweet.
The Doctor: Humbug.
Sue: Now he’s confusing licqourice allsorts with humbugs! Oh, I see. It’s because the Gatherer is dressed as a giant humbug. I get it now.
Sigh.
Leela, K9 and Cordo save Bisham from undergoing his conditioning…
Sue: The Doctor will be pleased. He’ll get his “jelly babies” back as well.
Cordo suggests that they follow the P45 return route.
Me: That reminds me – it’s my last day at work on Friday.
Sue: Coincidence?
Me: Just think, starting from Monday, I can give this experiment my undivided attention.
Sue: Does that mean I’ll have to watch more episodes a week?
Me: Yeah, no more days off for you. Sorry. We might even finish by October. Imagine that: life without Doctor Who.
Sue: The quicker we finish this, the quicker you can divorce me.
Me: Yeah, and then I can crowd source some funding for the inevitable sequel: ‘Adventures with the New Wife and Blake’.
The episode concludes with Leela and Co. confronted by a vehicle carrying two guards.
Sue: A golf buggy with a mattress tied to the front? Scary stuff. I’ve got to say, aside from the odd joke here and there, this is very average so far.
Part Three
I should warn you that Sue had a bad day at work, and she wasn’t in the best of moods when we watched this episode. If only I had some PCM handy…
Sue: This is ridiculous!
K9 has stunned one of the guards. The other guard gets out of his buggy and looks behind him.
Sue: What the **** is he looking for? And if this is K9′s POV, it’s nowhere near where it should be. The direction in this scene is atrocious.
Leela’s gang commandeer the buggy.
Sue: They should spend Part Three executing an Austin Powers three point turn.
There’s some casual sexism about lady drivers, which gets up Sue’s nose, but worse is yet to come, as the buggy is driven towards the bodies of the two guards…
Sue: They’ll have to get out and move them. Oh wait, that edit suggests that they just ran them over. Nice. I’m not convinced that the buggy would have made it over them, but there you go.
They hurtle down the corridor, guns a-blazing, at a cool 5 mph.
Sue: It’s not exactly Star Wars, is it?
Me: It isn’t even THX-1138.
Sue: The direction in that scene was awful. Just awful.
But it’s not all bad news: when we make it back to the studio, and Mandrel threatens to torture the Doctor with a red-hot poker, everything clicks into place for Sue.
Sue: That was a very good scene. Let’s have more scenes like that, please.
Leela is brought before the Collector…
Sue: I like the little fella. Is that his real voice or is he just putting it on?
Me: (as the Collector) I don’t know. Good, isn’t it?
I find it impossible not to impersonate Henry Woolf (badly) whenever he’s on screen. I can’t be alone in this, can I?
Sue: I like the sound effects on his computer. What happens when he gets an email?
The Doctor plants the seeds of revolution in the others’ minds.
Sue: It’s very topical, this one. Nothing much has changed. The Doctor should come down here and sort our fat cats out.
Meanwhile, Leela has been strung up at a 45 degree angle…
Sue: I bet that would be good for your bad back. I could make you one, if you like.
Me: I think I’d rather suffer with the back, thanks.
Leela is threatened with the steamer…
Sue: What’s the steamer?
Me: Swedish waterboarding.
Large portions of this episode amuse Sue (intentionally); she loves the interplay between the Gatherer and the Collector and she believes that Tom Baker is on his best behaviour this week and taking things much more seriously.
The bad guys gather for Leela’s public execution. Attendance is poor; the Gatherer suspects it’s because people can watch it on the telly for free.
Sue: They should have made it pay-per-view. They missed a trick there.
Leela’s casket is plunged into a hidden chamber.
Sue: So it’s a public execution where you can’t see a damn thing? What’s the point in that? Is it really any wonder that nobody bought tickets?
The episode concludes with Leela about to be steamed alive.
Sue: I’ve seen better. The script was quite funny, though. It actually cheered me up a bit.
Part Four
Between Parts Three and Four, Sue played a tennis match for her local team. She took her frustration out on the balls (which wouldn’t be the first time), and she’s in a much better mood as a result.
Sue: It’s still very average. Thank God for Dudley Simpson – he’s making it seem much more exciting than it really is.
The Doctor rescues Leela from the steamer while Mandrel monitors the city’s PCM levels.
Sue: He should keep his eye on its bit rate, too.
When all the fuss has died down, no one can find K9 anywhere and everyone starts calling for him.
Sue: How can they not hear him coming? He is obscenely loud. I won’t mention it again. It’s pointless.
And it’s not just K9. When the Collector starts spinning round in his chair, it’s just as bad.
Sue: Imagine what it would be like if they both appeared on-screen at the same time…
The Doctor and Leela hypnotise one of the Collector’s guards. Incredibly, Sue doesn’t recognise Stuart Fell.
The Doctor and the Collector go head-to-head.
Sue: I love the Collector’s eyebrows.
Me: Remind you of anyone?
Sue: Yeah, I’m not stupid, you know. He’s supposed to be Denis Healey, which is bang out of order, actually. You might want to pause this…
We get into an animated discussion about how amazingly cool Denis Healey really was, and how Robert Holmes should have sucked up his tax bill and stopped moaning. The discussion ends with this statement from Sue:
Sue: It’s because this programme is made by middle class ****ers for middle class ****ers. Pay your ****ing taxes.
Me: OK, calm down.
When I resume the DVD, Nicol walks in.
Nicol: What’s going on?
Sue: We’re watching an episode of Doctor Who where the bad guy works for Barclays Bank.
Nicol: Are you serious? Have you seen the news?
Sue: Barclays in the future is even worse.
Nicol can’t resist joining us for the last five minutes…
Nicol: Why is everyone dressed as a jockey?
She’s referring to the Gatherer’s PA, Marn.
Sue: All she needs is a hat and she’s good to go in the 4:15 at Kempton.
Meanwhile, up on the roof, the Gatherer is hoisted up by a gang of revolutionaries.
Sue: Nice Frankie Howerd impersonation, there.
They throw him off the top of the building. And then they cheer.
Sue: No way! Did that just happen?
Nicol: That’s Bob Diamond next week.
When Nicol sees the Collector for the first time, we get our second – and wholly independent – Austin Powers reference. Coincidence?
Nicol: It’s Dr Evil’s Mini-Me.
But even Nicol is enjoying this. And as the Doctor and the Collector battle it out, I notice that Sue has a huge grin on her face. And when the Collector starts to lose the plot, she is positively beaming.
The Doctor: What’s contingency plan B?
Nicol: He’s like George Osborne – he doesn’t have a Plan B.
The Collector is so stressed by the Doctor’s meddling, he shrinks back into a Usurian.
Nicol: So the planet was taken over by some green poo? That’s embarrassing.
Sue: I’m not impressed. That was silly. They didn’t need to do that.
The Doctor, Leela and K9 prepare to leave Pluto…
Nicol: You didn’t tell me that K9 was in it! I would have come down earlier if I’d know that. I love K9.
Me: Well, that’s certainly news to me. You can always watch the next one with us. You’ll love it.
Sue: It’s nice to see the Doctor getting a send-off for a change.
Me: Yeah, waved off by a bunch of murderous psychopaths. It’s lovely.
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor and K9 resume their game of chess. K9 claims he will achieve checkmate in six moves.
The Doctor: Do be quiet, K9.
Sue: It’s too late now.
The Final Score
Sue: The last episode nudged it above average. The script was very witty and the villains were excellent. However, the execution was a bit dull and the direction wasn’t good at all. It’s was alright, I suppose.
6/10
The experiment continues…
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I quite like this story, and I agree with the score
Next story though… woah, it’s a f*cking belter of a story! Bring it on
I think this comment from Sue sums up my feelings about this story – “this is very average so far”.
I’ve never really got this story. I remembered very little of it from seeing it when it was first broadcast, I remember very little of it from reading the target novel and I remember very little of it from having re-watched it a year or two ago. It really is a forgettable story as far as I am concerned. There’s nothing really awful about it to make you remember it and there is nothing great about it to make you remember it either. I’d have given it a 5 at the most because it is just, well, brown really. I much prefer “Image”!
Just looked up the Bond Bug, looks like the sort of thing John Pertwee would have loved:)
Apparently the Whomobile was basically a Bond Bug with a bodyshell transplant…
They should have made a body kit to do that for yourself:)
I’ve only seen this once, many years ago, but I seem to remember quite enjoying it. But then I really liked Creature From The Pit, and find Remembrance Of the Daleks dull and stupid, so what do I know?
Another fair score I feel, well into my era of the show and recall discussing with my best mate that Leela’s top definitely slipped at the end of episode 3 and you could see EVERYTHING. The memory cheated about the mammory. Hoping The Restoration Team will get round to a special edition one day that addresses my juvenile recollection. Oh, and the Tax Rant on a mug please.
I’m on my marathon rewatching of the show in full (although watching more than your 2-a-day quota) and recently rewatched this for the first time since it was released on DVD, and much like Sue was unimpressed for the first half, but I still adore Woolf’s Collector. You should have made her watch it with the info-track. I love all of the details about his stature, and I’m sure Sue would’ve too… I fully agree with her score… and I wish you luck with Underworld – You should get her to chant the mantra “The quest is the blog… the blog is the quest”
I saw Henry Woolf in some Beckett play, think it was Endgame, in the local theatre a few years ago. I remember that, but I don’t remember a whole deal about The Sun Makers…
“It’s because this programme is made by middle class ****ers for middle class ****ers. Pay your ****ing taxes.”
By the way, I have never seen this one but if it is like Blake’s 7 in look and feel, I will have to check it out.
A Michael Keating cameo will be the icing on the cake.
Speaking of Blake’s 7, if anyone hasn’t yet heard the sad news, Paul Darrow’s wife Janet Lees Price (who appeared in a small role in the last episode) died last month.
http://www.avon-paul-darrow.co.uk/news.htm
http://kalypso-v.livejournal.com/289696.html
In a way, it was overshadowed a little by Caroline John’s passing so I would not be surprised if some of you missed the news.
All my love and prayers to Paul at this time.
Yet another wonderfully funny and thought-provoking review from Sue.
I think the Collector’s eyebrows are as much Joe Gormley as Denis Healey. Like Neil, I’ve spent a lifetime trying to imitate the Collector’s voice, and failing. Henry Woolf may be the most distinguished actor ever to have appeared in DW, with Richard Todd his nearest rival. I can’t successfully imitate Mr Todd either.
Didn’t either of you think of the Beatles?
“If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.”
- George Harrison
Sorry to hear about Janet Lees Price.
As for Sun Makers…
The villain going down the plughole is my favourite Dr. Who antagonist dispatch ever.
Bah, I was hoping for some more joke royalities but it looks like you thought of it at the same time. It’s 1977, so I would have liked it in original proper Cheese & Onion Ringos. The fried-not-baked sort that dissolved on your tongue, before they went and FUCKING RUINED THEM.
Fair
Psst, Sue? Pennant Roberts directed The Sunmakers. You remember, he also did The Face Of Evil. He’s best remembered as a director for changing a significant part when casting from a man to a woman in each story he did, but to me he’s better known for really terrible gun battles in every episode three.
And, just for historic sake, here’s what the factory in Bristol looked like when I visited it in 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DNp_OBfTE
I used to work round the corner from this place. I’d forgotten that a retail park had been built on there. Where I used to work has now also closed but one of my ex-colleagues there used to work in the tobacco factory when it was open. I was interested to learn that on the shopfloor there were tubs filled with cigarettes and you could smoke as many as you wished, for free, but you could not take any off site (for obvious reasons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have had something to say about that).
Bristol to Australia – I may have moved on but I still have a soft spot for Brizzle – The Coronation Tap at the bottom of Sion Close, crawling distance from the Clifton Suspension Bridge for starters. Finest cider selection I have ever seen, just be careful with the Exhibition Cider
My own reactions to this have never been much better than Sue’s, so imagine my surprise learning last February at Gallifrey One that this is Louise Jameson’s favorite story. I suppose she had different reasons to be fond of it than I might have…
I think it’s mostly because of the strength of the script and the fact Leela has so much to do in the story, especially when compared to her other serials.
Myself, this is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who stories, and is actually one I use when trying to define what makes something a Doctor Who story (what with its slightly anarchic tendencies- the Doctor against the tax collectors and all that). Fantastic script, great sets and performances, and Robert Holmes at his most Holmesian. What’s not to like?
It’s definitely the Gatherer and Collector that make The Sun Makers rise above an average story. I don’t care what anyone says – I love K-9 – loud drive mechanism and all! In Dr Who history there are only two occasions when I have cried – the first was when Adric was killed (I was only eight at the time) and the second was when K-9 was blown up in School Reunion!
I don’t care either what the doomsayers are saying about the next story Underworld – it’s actually a reasonably good script and despite what I’d heard about it being poor visually, when I saw it on DVD again it wasn’t actually that bad. There are some poor performances in it though…
My recollection of this story consists of jolly interplay between the Gatherer and Collector and then quite a lot of running through drab corridors. It’s one of those stories I like very much in theory but have a lot of trouble sitting through in practice. 6/10 seems just about right — I can’t imagine doing a story like this any differently than they did, but I can’t help not falling in love with it.
I love the tax rant though. Very timely, given all the nonsense being tossed around today on this continent about the health care decision.
“Thank God for Dudley Simpson – he’s making it seem much more exciting than it really is!” After what Sue has said about him in the past, I was pleased that she gave a thumbs up to Duds this time. Might make for a nice mug?
The casual brilliance of the W-A-L-K gag is not that he spell it out in front of the super-computer, that’s only half the gag. It’s that he spells it out in front of the dog, and the dog is clever enough to understand it but the other person isn’t.
Not one of my favourites. I can’t help thinking that a lot of the praise it gets is because of Robert Holmes (no arguements there), but it doesn’t and never has engaged me: sorry.
Didn’t the Adipose drop Sarah Lancashire off a tall building in New Who? I seem to recall one of them winked at the Doctor so he let them off.
I’ve nicked this from somewhere, but at least when The Beatles wrote Taxman they had the decency to put a decent guitar solo in. Not a fan of this.
And is Henry related to Gabriel?
Ah yes, the Beatles (or George at least) complaining about supertax.
Wasn’t there also a line about “If you’re overweight, I’ll tax your fat”? Interesting re RTD’s puerile take on corporatism and obesity, with liposmurfs…
Like many above, in so far as I remember this one at all, I remember it for lots of running around in concrete corridors. Clever conception, but it didn’t really come off for me. Much like the next – and I say that as a Jason…
With regards to the Taxman line, not unless it’s on the Anthology version, which I haven’t heard for a long time, admittedly.
I was quite pleasantly surprised when I saw this one on DVD, because it made no impression on me at all when I was a lad. The plot would have sailed over my head and there are no monsters in it! But it’s quite a witty little tale and the Collector is a hoot.
I like it in part because it’s BOTH anti-government and anti-corporate, rather than trying to pretend that only of the two (which one depending on ideology) is untrustworthy.
I love “Praise the Carpentry.” Top in-joke. Almost as enjoyable as “Gatherer Pyle”, which always cracks me up.
“They could have written this story for me. I could watch this for hours. Please, keep talking about wood.”
I’m amazed neither of you mention Bisham. Blimey. He’d have your eye out. Particularly as you mention Mandrel’s bit missing and tiny Ed Balls.
“Tea-time suicide again. We had one of those last week. How did they get away with this?”
There’s another attempt in the next story, and it’s just about the only interesting bit of the plot. Come to think of it, going two stories back, didn’t Marius plan his own suicide, in effect, too? I suppose it was 1977 and everyone was a bit glum. That’ll be why the Doctor’s sudden new characterisation is ‘he arrives somewhere and cheers everybody up, because they’re in the late ’70s and all miserable’.
“It’s Barclaycard’s Death Squad. I bet he gets charged for being carted away.”
Fab. Though Sue seems uncharacteristically confused this week; first thinking communists are against taxes, then being the voice of the Company and telling everyone to pay them. I’m with Roderick T. Long, upthread, on why this works – it’s not just anti-capitalist or anti-big state, but anti-bullies.
“I can’t be alone in this, can I?”
No, you’ve got your wife with you. (Badumm-shhh!)
“No way! Did that just happen?”
Brilliant moment. Serves him right for boasting earlier of his special powers – despite his cape, they evidently don’t include flight.
Defining moment for Terrance Dicks, too: in his novelisation, he has everyone be a bit ashamed afterwards, almost directly saying, ‘Oh, that naughty Bob! He goes too far!’ Mind you, he keeps in the details of what your death day involves, which was too gruesome to say on screen…
If Sunmakers is channeling Blake’s 7, the next is channeling Space 1999.
I wonder if Sue could say, hand on heart, that she would not be tempted to do a Jimmy Carr if she was ever faced with the 98p in the pound top rate of income tax that Denis Healey and his chums favoured…
Be that as it may, my view of this story is the opposite of Sue’s. It starts out quite brightly, enjoying the virtue of being a bit different from the norm, but by the second half has just become a silly, self-indulgent pantomime, and definitely Holmes’ weakest story since the Troughton era. The Collector is a typically inventive Holmes character, but I find him rather irritating, while Gatherer Hade’s perfomance is on the overripe side of fruity. The drab corridors make it pretty horrible to look at as well, although this is hardly a problem unique to this story in the Williams era!
By the way Sue, if you find your will to live sapping during the next story, just remember this – the experiment is the experiment.
The Quetiapine is the Quetiapine.
All things considered, though, as far a drab corridors go, those are mighty impressive ones what with how huge they all are.
Plus, I always found the starkness of the sets to work to the story’s advantage, kinda working as a visual metaphor of the Company and how drab and unhappy general life is. It’s a story for me where the ideas are represented well on the script and the screen.
We may well find that the meme is the meme.
Bob Diamond? Diamond geezer. Not a Usurian at all…
Indeed. A shame that classic Who isn’t more in the mainstream consciousness – I’d love to see a Steve Bell strip cartoon showing Diamond disappearing down the drain in his boardroom chair…
Doctor Rates and the Lieborians, praps.
BTW – hope you had a good leaving do.
Thanks, PolarityReversed! Some grand old blokes and the two sexiest ladies in the Department on a sunny afternoon in a beer garden, could’ve been worse
You’re right – the banker vanishing into a commode is a visually perfect metaphor for what’s happening to the “industry” – and it’s all of their own making.
The actor playing the Gatherer reminds me of Peter Butterworth rather than Frankie Howerd). And no mention yet of Henry Woolf’s stirling work in ‘Words & Pictures’?
I would support a “Adventures with the wife and Blake”. Though only with Sue.
I remember enjoying this story when I first saw it 20+ years ago. I rewatched it about 2 years ago and still enjoyed it, but not quite as much as I remembered. Tom Baker was my first exposure to Doctor Who and consequently always held a special place in my heart. As I have matured and have now seen all of the regenerations, I have a different take on his interpretation. My youthful self still clings to him as my favorite, but mature consideration does not necessarily rank him as best.
I have refrained from reading too far ahead in your experiment; I’m still working on the Hartnell years in my own trek through the Who anthology. However I couldn’t resist the temptation to peak in on your current installment just to see how Sue is coming along in her assessments. I have to say that 6/10 is a fair rating for this story, but my youthful self still clings to more of a 8/10 rating. I’m looking forward to rewatching this again to see if my perspective has changed any.
Other than “Vila” I always struggle to remember much about this story.
I really liked the next one for quite a few reasons – great ideas and some interesting attempts to engage a larger picture.
‘It’s Barclaycard’s Death Squad’
Great line, but do you really want to give them ideas?
“The quicker this is over, the quicker you can divorce me”
Speaking on behalf of fans who are married, I can only say that I was surprised this comment has taken so long to make it into the conversation! I think this deserves it’s own special mug
“That’s never Pluto. It looks like Birmingham.”
love it.