Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Remembering of the Daleks Part Three

The recapped version of the cliffhanger scene cuts away sooner than at the end of part two, so we don't get to see Ace close her eyes and make a face this time. I do like the dramatic music during this bit, it helps cover for the fact that Ace is obviously going to escape.

The Doctor runs in and uses his anti-Dalek device (cleverly foreshadowed in the previous episode) to special effect at the Daleks, confusing them and allowing Ace to get away and Sergeant Mike to blow up the Daleks.

One of the Daleks is still alive and manages to strangle the Doctor for a bit, until he is rescued by Professor Jensen's assistant Allison. The Doctor is happy that Ace's tape player has been destroyed, saying

"That tape deck was a dangerous anachronism. If someone had found it and discovered the principles of its function, the whole microchip revolution would take place now, twenty years too early, with incalculable damage to the timeline."

and

"Ace, the Daleks have a mothership up there capable of eradicating this planet from space, but even they, ruthless though they are, would think twice before making such a radical alteration to the timeline."

But he can't have cared too much or else he might have said something about it sooner.

The Doctor uses Ace's bat to destroy the Dalek teleporter in the basement, and then it breaks.

"Weapons: always useless in the end."

he says, which is basically him acknowledging that it was a weapon, and not just an item of sporting equipment that happened to get improvised into a weapon. Why does the Doctor have this hypocritical blind spot when it comes to Ace, happy for her to carry around a melee weapon, a backpack full of high explosives, and technology that he himself admits is "a dangerous anachronism"? Not since Leela have we seen this level of indulgence from the Doctor towards his Companion, and even then he was much more severe with her than with Ace:

"Who licensed you to slaughter people? No more Janis thorns, you understand? Ever."

Compared to:

"Ace, give me some of that Nitro Nine that you're not carrying."

Mr Ratcliffe finds where the Hand of Omega is buried and gets electriced by it. This alerts the Daleks to where it is. The mysterious little manny watches as Mr Ratcliffe's mannys dig up the coffin and nick off with it.

On their spaceship, the Imperial Daleks are visited by their Emperor who is not as forgiving as I am. He has a big head like in '60s comics.

The Doctor finally gives Ace, and us watching, the exposition on what the Hand of Omega is.

"The Hand of Omega is a mythical name for Omega's remote stellar manipulator, a device used to customise stars with. And didn't we have trouble with the prototype..."

Mr Ratcliffe's mannys all get exterminated by the Renegade Daleks who take the Hand of Omega's coffin from them. Mr Ratcliffe is surprised by this but the mysterious manny in the Dalek chair (the one who isn't Davros) tells him

"You are a slave, Ratcliffe. You were born to serve the Daleks."

And turns out to be the little manny. Not Davros. What a twist.
The little manny gets out their Time Controller from where it was hidden in a cupboard.

We keep our Time Controller in a cupboard when we're not using it too.

The Doctor and Ace sneak into Mr Ratcliffe's base and see the Hand of Omega. Ace asks if it is alive, to which the Doctor smiles and replies

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

This is a great touch, and far more successful at making the Doctor seem mysterious and alien than any of the exposition from earlier on, even the Doctor's hinting accidentally-on-purpose that he was somehow involved in making the Hand of Omega.

They go inside while Mr Ratcliffe and the Daleks are out and the Doctor turns off the Time Controller. Again the subtle way in which he, a Time Lord, can instantly master the Daleks' time travel technology* is another effective moment, partially spoiled by the heavy-handed way he then leaves a literal calling card on top of it.

The Doctor and Ace run away and there is another bit of business where the Doctor almost sneezes while hiding from a Dalek. I don't know why they bothered to include these comic relief moments, the story does not need them.

They make it back to the school and join up with Mike and Group Captain Gilmore. Mike gives away that he knows the Renegade Daleks have the Hand of Omega, which he can only know because he has been working for Mr Ratcliffe the whole time. I really don't know if this is meant to be a surprise reveal to us viewers because, while on the one paw it has been really obvious ever since he was with Mr Ratcliffe back in part one, on the other paw I already knew this because I have seen this episode before - so perhaps this is another instance of this story losing some of its impact upon repeated viewings?
Ace calls him a "toerag" again, also a "lying dirty scumbag." Harsh.

Time to end the episode. An Imperial Dalek spaceship lands outside the school. It is eggboxtastic, the perfect shape for monkeys (and little mannys in the late 1980s) to try to copy when making their own spaceships at home.

While not as immediately a perilous situation for our heroes as the endings to parts one and two, this is once again an escalation of the threat of the Daleks: a single Dalek; a team of three Daleks; a whole spaceship full of Daleks. Textbook stuff.

* It took the Monkeys With Badges ages to work out how to use our Time Controller. Then they popped back in time and told themselves how to do it.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Remembering the Daleks Part Two

Ace rescues the Doctor by hitting Mr Bronson - she doesn't use her bat though, she's not that psychotic. The Doctor and Ace go and get a rocket from a soldier and Ace blows up the Dalek with it.

Group Captain Gilmore and Professor Jensen don't trust the Doctor, but they have to go along with him for now because he's the only one who knows what is going on. He goes off on his own and tells Ace she can't come because

"It's not your past. You haven't been born yet."

Professor Jensen asks Ace

"Not been born yet? What did he mean by that?"

To which Ace smiles with an "oh shit, how am I going to explain this?" expression on her face. We don't see her response.

The Doctor goes to a café for a cup of tea and some padding. Meanwhile Mr Bronson has repaired the Dalek teleporter and more Daleks start to appear in the school basement.

The Doctor visits the Hand of Omega, which is disguised as a coffin. He puts Ace's bat inside for a moment, then gets it to follow him by floating. This leads to a bit of business where a manny faints upon seeing it float by itself.

The Doctor buries the coffin with the help of Packer from The Invasion who is a blind vicar now for some reason. This scene is very portentous but doesn't make a lot of sense, and the presence of Packer makes me think that this story would be improved immeasurably by the presence of Kevin Stoney (like almost all Doctor Who stories that don't already have Kevin Stoney in would be).

"Packer! Why are you burying the Hand of Omega for?"
"Sorry Mr Stoney, sir. I think it's a crude attempt to make things more enigmatic, sir."
"You're a stupid incompetent, Packer!"

Mr Bronson attacks Sergeant Mike, but when Mike wins the fight the Daleks kill Mr Bronson by remote control.

Back at Mike's house the Doctor gives Ace back her bat, then she calls Mike a "toerag" when he won't let her come with him to do soldier stuff.

Once everyone else has gone away, Ace discovers that Mike's family are racists so she goes back to the school by herself in order to get into peril in time for the end of the episode. And also to get her tape player which she left behind earlier. She then meets a Dalek and runs away.

The Doctor has been making an anti-Dalek device when he hears from Mike that Ace is not still at his house. He immediately works out that she must be at the school getting into trouble.

The Dalek blows up Ace's tape player with its pewpewpew gun, thus demonstrating more regard for non-interference in Earth's history than Ace or even the Doctor have so far shown in this story. Ace responds by attacking it with her bat, which now has a special effect on it due to the power of the Hand of Omega. Then Ace runs away again and picks up a rocket from a ded soldier.

The rocket may have been super effective against a single Dalek, but Ace gets surrounded by three Daleks who all, in true Dalek fashion, decide to shout at her instead of shooting her. But it makes for another great cliffhanger ending, escalating the peril from a single Dalek at the end of part one to a whole team of them now.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Remember the Daleks Part One

Remember the Daleks is the first story of season 25. It stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace. Although it is a Dalek story it is not written by Terry Nation, which bodes ill for how good this can possibly be, but then on the other paw it is written by Ben A Ronovitch who is a manny that likes Ars Magica* so maybe it will be good after all? Let's find out.

It starts with a pre-titles sequence (which is also how season 24 began, although I assume this is a coincidence) in which we see the Earth from space and hear mannys talking. Then sinister music starts playing and a Dalek spaceship appears before we cut to the title sequence. This is a great opening, reminding us that the Daleks are the very best baddys in the whole of Doctor Who and the only ones to have successfully conquered the Earth (twice).

The TARDIS arrives near a school and the Doctor gets interested in a van because it has technology on it. When asked, Ace denies having any Nitro Nine in her bag but even I can tell this is a lie. Ace goes to get noms and meets Sergeant Mike, while a little manny watches the Doctor as he investigates.

There's something sinister about the little manny, although I can't quite put my paw on what exactly it is yet. She sings

"Five six seven eight, it's a Doctor at the gate."

And I don't think that is a coincidence - she recognises the Doctor somehow. It is a mystery for now, and it is a good thing they did not have modern-day internets in 1988 or else there would doubtless be speculation that the little manny was Susan, or Romana, or (somehow) both.

The Doctor goes in the van with Gandalf and Aragorn with Professor Rachel Jensen and takes over so the plot can get going. There is a ded manny to see so they get Mike and Ace and all go in the van to meet Group Captain Gilmore. The Doctor predicts that the manny was killed by "a projected energy weapon" or, as Rachel calls it,

"A death ray?"

By which they mean a pewpewpew gun. Sylvester McCoy plays the Doctor as suitably alien, beyond just being an outsider to these new characters who all know each other, with lines like

"What a predictable response."

Soldiers surround the place and one of them gets exterminated, proving the Doctor right. He had perhaps ingratiated himself with "the military" a bit too easily (since they are not UNIT or mannys he had met before) but this turn of events properly establishes him as knowing things and being on their side.

"Listen to me, Brigadier..."
"Group Captain. Group Captain Gilmore!"

As the level of danger escalates, this is a perfectly pitched tiny moment of humour in amongst the peril. With lines like that and the later exchange between Gilmore and the Doctor:

"Nothing even remotely human could have survived that."
"That's the point group, Group Captain, it isn't even remotely human."

The dialogue in this scene is very good at establishing the situation and the characters and their dynamic with the Doctor. It also builds up the threat posed by a single Dalek very well.

Sadly the payoff is not as good as the build up. The Dalek emerges and starts missing with every shot from its pewpewpew gun, though the soldiers are not successful either. The Doctor blows it up with Ace's Nitro Nine, making him look like the only competent character in the story so far.

The Doctor and Ace take the soldiers' van and drive around while the Doctor gives Ace some of the Daleks' backstory... or should that be The Backstory of the Daleks? There is also some business with them changing who is driving the van that is clearly meant to be comedic but is just confusingly directed instead.

Mike introduces Group Captain Gilmore to Mr Ratcliffe, who is played by George Sewell from UFO and The Detectives. Something is mysterious about him... and I don't just mean his name, which makes him sound like he might be a mouse on a high place... because the next scene we see Mr Ratcliffe in, his mannys have knocked out two of the soldiers and stolen the ded Dalek for an unknown purpose.

Mr Ratcliffe is taking orders from an unseen manny in a Dalek chair - it looks a bit like Davros although I know it isn't Davros because I have seen this before. But I think that we are supposed to think that it is Davros so there will be a surprise later on, however this will obviously only work if we have not seen it before or read this review before.

The Doctor and Ace go back to the school where they meet Mr Bronson, who is played by Michael Sheard from Doctor Who (the last of his six guest appearances, having already been Rhos in The Ark, Dr Summers in The Mind of Evil, Laurence Scarman in Pyramids of Mars, Lowe in The Invisible Enemy and Mergrave in Castrovalva. And yet the Doctor never felt the need to investigate or explain why these six different characters were so similar...) and he acts strangely too.

The Doctor and Ace go into the school's basement. Ace has a bat which is not of the flying mouse variety but is of the sort used in American sports, demonstrating that the BBC were still trying to appeal to American viewers at this point in the show's history. This kind of bat is also the sort to be used for a bit of the old ultraviolence, and I suspect that this is the reason that Ace has it since, as I have speculated before, this Ace is a psycho.

In the basement there is a Dalek teleporter. A Dalek tries to teleport in but the Doctor breaks the teleporter so it disappears. Another Dalek comes and the Doctor and Ace run up the stairs to get away because everybody knows Daleks can't climb stairs.

Mr Bronson turns out to have been a Dalek henchmanny and he traps the Doctor in the basement and then the Dalek comes up the stairs after them, ending the episode, proving for the first time that stairs are not an insurmountable obstacle for the Daleks, and forever confining "everybody knows Daleks can't climb stairs" to the "lose you 10 points" category on QI.

This makes for a great cliffhanger ending precisely because "everybody knows Daleks can't climb stairs" and so the reversal of this well-established truism is genuinely shocking and powerful... the first time you see it.

As with it not being Davros in the Dalek chair, the cliffhanger loses a lot of its effectiveness once you are expecting it, so the episode can never be quite as good on repeat viewings as it was when seeing it for the first time.


* Ars Magica is a tabletop Role-Playing Game about wizards in the 13th Century who speak Latin.

My friend Longdog has been playing in an ongoing game of Ars Magica for a while now, and has been enjoying it very much. His character is a magic dog who can speak, read and write Latin and he has a job as a librarian W-wording for some wizards. Sometimes the wizards go off to have adventures and then he can get up to all sorts of magical doggy mischief while they're away.

Here is a picture of Longdog studying the rules in order to be ready for his next session!

The Laughing Prisoner

The Laughing Prisoner is one of the oddest TV programmes that exist. Made by Channel 4 in 1993, it is a strange pastiche of The Prisoner in which Jools Holland resigns from presenting his own programme and is then taken to the Village where he meets Number Two, played by Everybody's Big Gay Boyfriend Sir Stephen Fry. Naturally Number Two wants to know why "Number Seven" resigned.

What follows is a mix of sketches in which Number Two tries to break Number Seven using spoof versions of various Prisoner plots, intercut with light entertainment style music bands playing live in the grounds at Portmeirion (Holland and Fry are also on location there, so this probably features about as much filming in the actual Village as The Prisoner series did), and clips from the original series chosen to give the impression that Number Six/McGoohan is present with Holland and Fry - this is edited together quite well except that the differing quality of the film stock gives the game away completely.

The sketches are of questionable quality, and show that Sir Stephen's Comic Authority Figure persona really only works properly when he's playing opposite Hugh Laurie (who does make a brief appearance, but not sharing in any scenes with Fry). The biggest laughs come from the only other prisoner in the Village, Number Three, a.k.a. Stanley Unwin.

Where this does prove worthwhile is in the accuracy of the pastiche - the attention to detail shows this was a labour of love on somebody's part, possibly Holland's? For instance, when Number Seven is about to reveal why he resigned (before being interrupted by the need to introduce one of the live bands), he says word-for-word what Number Six says when he almost reveals why he resigned in The Chimes of Big Ben.

The Laughing Prisoner is available on YouTube here, for the time being at least. As we approach the 50th anniversary of The Prisoner, it is worth checking out this curiosity if you have never done so. And a little curiosity never harmed anybody.

The Final Frontier?

Erin Horáková* has written a great article about how mannys need to stop getting Captain Kirk wrong! Read it here.

* Who also wrote a fantastic article about Blakes 7 here.

Epic Sax Manny at Eurovision

Yet more proof (as if any were needed) for how great Eurovision is. Here's Moldova's entry from 2010:

And Now Come Cats!

I have been playing a game called Magic: the Gathering. It is a good game in which you summon your best cats to form a cat army to fight against the baddy's army, which may be made up of vampires or weredoges or zombies or dragons or dinosaurs or even bad cats!

Of course my army is full of good cats because cats are best. The opposing armies are represented by cards that you choose to go in a deck of cards. Here are the cards that I and my friends like best:

Scared Cat may be only little, with not much strength or toughness, but he is cute handsome and he can come back from the dead as a Cat Mummy. (You can see an artist's impression of what I would look like if I was a Cat Mummy at the top of this page.) Also there are other cards in the deck that can give him more strength and toughness.

Scared Cat is Scary Cat's best card.

This cat has a strength of three. He is a fierce cat!

Initiate's Companion is Puppy's favourite cat card, although he also like cards that have wolves, hounds and other doges on them.

Longtusk Cub is only a kitten when he first arrives but, as it says on the card itself,

It won't be small forever.

He can nom energy to get big.

Longtusk Cub is Kitten's best card.

Other cats that nom energy to make themselves stronger are a leopard and a tiger, although the increase to their strength is only temporary.

There is also a flying Vehicle that cats can Crew, meaning they get inside and fly around in it. It was made by the Cat Monkeys of Kaladesh, who are clever inventors who can also give their strength and toughness to other cats. One of the best cats for them to do this to is the Skyhunter Skirmisher.

Skyhunter Skirmisher is a flying Cat Knight. He is another cat who starts off small, but he can attack twice, so that every time he gets stronger he really gets twice as strong!

Scrounging Bandar is the favourite card of the Monkeys With Badges, while Skyhunter Skirmisher is Mr Purple Cat's best card.

Prowling Serpopard is a Cat Snake! That may sound strange, but he is very useful when the baddy wants to use counterspells to stop you from summoning your cat army - because now they can't!

Okatra is a cat God from the world of Amonkat where she is their equivalent of Ceiling Cat, or possibly the Hoff. Okatra makes Warriors, not cats, so she is not like the Maker of Cats.

Regal Caracal is an expensive luxury cat! He always arrives with two of his friends, and he makes all other cats stronger and tougher.

It suffices to say that Regal Caracal is Expensive Luxury Cat's best card.

Ajani is the best main character in Magic, because he is a Planeswalker who is a cat. He is a brave and loyal cat, and he took an Oath to keep watch when he joined the Gatewatch.

Ajani is Gamma Longcat's best card, and mine too.

Nissa is also a member of the Gatewatch. She is not a cat, but she is a good friend to cats and has the ability to give all your cats extra strength and toughness.

This card also does that, representing as it does the vigilance of cats who stay alert even when having sleeps (so not all cats then).

These cards are useful for getting rid of the baddy's army.

Of course in order to summon all your cats to be in your cat army, you need lands for them to live in. Cats are coloured green and white in Magic (unlike in real life where they are coloured red and orange and yellow and green and blue and blue and purple... like me) so that means they prefer Forests and Plains and lands like that, although cats that nom energy also like living in the Aether Hub.

When I put all these cards together I get the following deck, which is called Cats.

4 Sacred Cat
3 Longtusk Cub
4 Scrounging Bandar
3 Initiate's Companion
1 Oath of Ajani
2 Declaration in Stone
3 Skyhunter Skirmisher
2 Prowling Serpopard
2 Aetherstream Leopard
2 Aethersphere Harvester
1 Always Watching
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Oketra the True
3 Cast Out
2 Regal Caracal
1 Riparian Tiger
1 Ajani Unyielding
9 Plains
9 Forest
2 Canopy Vista
2 Sunpetal Grove
1 Aether Hub
1 Tranquil Expanse