Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Seeds OF DEATH Episode Six

The scene of the Doctor banging and shouting for Jamie and Zoe to let him in goes on for what seems like ages as the Ice Warrior ponderously moves to answer the door. Eventually, Jamie distracts it so Zoe can let the Doctor in. The Ice Warrior then chases them for a bit until they can close a "radiation door" between it and them.

It then has to do a classic slow cutting through the door (more like a slow pewpewpewing, mew), but is distracted by the arrival of some mannys with guns that are completely ineffective against an Ice Warrior, so it goes off to pewpewpew them for the lols. The Doctor makes a device similar to Phipps's from part two and it is his turn to hunt the Ice Warrior until he can pewpewpew it.

Radnor, Kelly and Eldred (must live) launch a satellite to lure the Ice Warrior invasion fleet off course. Zoe somehow knows the name of the Ice Warrior leader is Slar

Sorry, I mean "knows the name of the Ice Warrior leader is Slaar," despite it not having been used on screen before she uses it. Maybe she read it in the credits of one of the earlier episodes?

The Doctor makes his pewpewpew device "portable" and teleports to the Moon with it, where he pewpewpews an Ice Warrior before it can pewpewpew him, but then he gets captured by Slaar, who needs his thumbs to operate the teleporter.

Jamie is worried about how long the Doctor is taking so he gets Zoe to teleport him to the Moon too.

The invasion fleet is drawn off course by the fake signal. Slaar finally realises what has happened and knows the Doctor is responsible for unplugging the real signal. Confronting him with this, he says

"You have destroyed our entire fleet!"
"You tried to destroy an entire world."

Slaar orders the Doctor killed, but when the Ice Warrior tries to do it the Doctor grabs his arm and makes him pewpewpew Slaar instead. Then Jamie arrives and helps the Doctor to electrocute the last remaining Ice Warrior.

Back on Earth the foam OF DEATH is being destroyed by rain from the repaired Weather Control Station, so with everything all right again now the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe head back to the TARDIS, leaving Radnor, Kelly and Eldred (who lived) to immediately start arguing about which is better, spaceships or teleports?

The Seeds OF DEATH has its moments, but as a six-parter it is way, way too long for what plot it has, which progresses onwards at a seemingly glacial pace. It is no wonder that the Doctor was able to slip away for a holiday in the middle of the story without making much difference to it.

I don't understand why this is Longdog's favourite Doctor Who story, when I wouldn't even put it in my top three for its season (that would be The War Games, The Invasion and The Mind Robber, if you're interested - and two of those are longer than The Seeds OF DEATH so it is not that being long is intrinsically bad). The best I can say for it is that the Doctor has some nice scenes interacting with the Ice Warriors, and there are some interesting directorial touches such as when the lone Ice Warrior goes on location. Also Jamie is in it, but then you can say that about almost all the Patrick Troughton-era stories.

Still, the Ice Warriors were pretty evil here, with their plan to wipe out all the mannys using foam OF DEATH and then take over the Earth, so we can see why the Doctor wouldn't like them very much after all that.

Back on Peladon, Jo asks if they can just get the TARDIS back and leave, but the Doctor thinks they're stuck here and says they "didn't really have any choice" but to get involved. Jo replies with

"Oh, come on. You love all that 'chairman delegate' stuff. Admit it."

and she's got him bang to rights there.

They hear an alarm going off and follow the sound to discover Arcturus is in trouble. The Doctor says

"Someone has disconnected a vital part of his life support system."

but he is able to do some wiring so that the missing "vital" part isn't "vital" any more. Izlyr, Alpha Centauri and Hepesh come in and Hepesh immediately claims this as "the [W-word] of Aggedor."

The Doctor accuses Izlyr, but Izlyr then counter-accuses the Doctor.

Jo sneaks to the Ice Warriors' room and finds another clue - the missing piece of Arcturus's life support.

Ssorg comes in and finds her hiding - the Ice Warriors have obviously improved their perception skill since The Seeds OF DEATH. He takes the clue from her and goes to inform Izlyr - hang on, is Ssorg Izlyr's Companion? This is like Doctor Who has crossed over with the Martian equivalent.

Grun finds the Doctor and gets him to come with him to the castle's tunnels.

Jo meets Aggedor, who goes "Rar!" trying to be all big and scary, so Jo runs away. We viewers only catch glimpses of Aggedor for now, to keep the reveal that he is a super cute monster and not scary at all really as a surprise twist for later on.

Grun hears Aggedor's rar and he also runs away, leaving the Doctor on his own.

Jo runs into the Ice Warriors and they don't believe her story about meeting Aggedor. She puts to them what the Doctor said earlier about them being "a race of warriors" and Izlyr replies by saying

"We were once, but now we reject violence except in self-defence."

"What about Ssorg's gun? This is supposed to be a peaceful mission."

"Unfortunately, in order to preserve peace, it is necessary to survive."

The Doctor finds his way to a secret door that leads to another* statue of Aggedor, but it is a trap, because behind it (the trap, I mean, not the statue) Hepesh and Grun are waiting to accuse the Doctor of "extreme sacrilege." He is taken to the king, who tells the Doctor "the laws of Peladon allow for no defence."

Similar to the laws in The Keys of Marinus, this is all very convenient for getting our heroes into trouble, but in the case of Peladon doesn't leave them much in the way of defence against the accusations of being a "primitive" and "barbarous" planet with fucking stupid laws.

Obviously there is "only one punishment... death" so that is the end of the episode. The Doctor makes a nonplussed face, as though disappointed by the incredibly poor quality of this particular cliffhanger. In this he echoes the faces made by us cats watching at home.

* With the number of statues of Aggedor there seem to be on Peladon, I am surprised the new series of Doctor Who hasn't set a story there and had the statues turn into Weeping Angels... Weeping Aggedors?

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Seeds OF DEATH Episode Five

Fewsham finally resists the Ice Warriors openly, fighting with the one about to pewpewpew Zoe for long enough for the rising temperature to kill it off.

The Ice Warrior on Earth goes to the "Weather Control Station" (thank you convenient but stylishly-directed establishing shot) where it pewpewpews a manny and takes over.

The Doctor finally gets back from his holiday wakes up and is able to join Jamie, Zoe and Kelly in getting teleported back to earth by Fewsham. The Ice Warrior leader has not been killed by the heat, and he manages to turn the wheel back down.

The Doctor and Eldred (must live) team up to investigate the foam OF DEATH. Most of the characters, even the Doctor, call it a "fungus" but Jamie calls it "that foam stuff" so I will stick with that. In the laboratory, a balloon begins to inflate and the Doctor tries hurriedly to find something that will neutralise it, including several kinds of acids. The thing that he succeeds with is water... which is already pH neutral, so clearly "neutralise" was the wrong word this time.

Jamie and Zoe head for the Weather Control Station to make it rain water onto the foam, not knowing that is where the Ice Warrior has already been and borked all the controls. They even close and lock the door. thinking to keep the Ice Warrior out...

...Instead they've locked it in with them.

Fewsham secretly broadcasts his conversation with the Ice Warrior leader for the mannys on Earth to see and hear as he asks the leader to give him exposition about their plan to land their invasion fleet on the Moon.

Too late the leader realises the "video link" is switched on as he stares out through the fourth wall at us and the other mannys watching him from Earth. He orders Fewsham to get pewpewpewed. Then they also pewpewpew the video link, presumably because they lack the thumbs with which to turn it off. I sympathise, mew.

The Doctor hears from Eldred (must live) that the Ice Warrior on Earth was last seen headed for the Weather Control Station so runs there himself to try to help Jamie and Zoe. He can't get in because the door is locked, and he gets surrounded by foam. The Doctor makes an "oh noes" face because he is trapped, and that is the cliffhanger.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Seeds OF DEATH Episode Four

The balloon goes pop and Brent goes

Fewsham starts teleporting more seeds OF DEATH to Earth, where they pop. Jamie and Phipps stealthily watch unobserved as the Ice Warriors then tell Fewsham to teleport the unconscious Doctor into space. It looks like they have done this, but really they have just sent him away for an episode's holiday. Jamie rescues the Doctor's stunt double in the nick of time, who then has to spend quite a lot of the episode carefully not looking at the camera.

On Earth, the popping seeds OF DEATH are turning into foam OF DEATH.

Rador and Eldred (must live) are just hearing about this when an Ice Warrior suddenly teleports in and goes on a rampage, destroying as much of the studio set as it can. Bullets from the mannys' guns have no effect on it (no doubt pissing off the Brigadier), but it is able to pewpewpew all of them, except for the named characters.

The Ice Warrior goes out on location where it finds some mannys fighting the foam OF DEATH and pewpewpews them OF TO DEATH.

Zoe is the only manny small enough to be able to sneak into the control room. Fewsham sees her, and distracts the Ice Warrior guard to allow her to get in and reach the heating control wheel. Zoe is also a good choice here because of her prior experience with wheels in space.

She turns it to "full on" but then the Ice Warrior sees her - cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Seeds OF DEATH Episode Three

Mr Phipps is trying to telephone Earth but he gets through to the Doctor instead and tells them about the Ice Warriors. Zoe hasn't met them before, allowing the Doctor and Jamie to tell her about them and at the same time any cats watching who might not have seen their previous story. As tempting as it is to Scheherazade further by now reviewing The Ice Warriors, I'm not going to. It's not laziness when you're a cat - it's just being a cat.

The Ice Warriors capture all the mannys who teleported up from Earth and then pewpewpew the ones who aren't named characters.

The rocket lands on the Moon with the help of some stock footage and the Doctor goes off to look for Phipps, leaving Zoe and Jamie to refuel the rocket. Zoe discovers the rocket has been damaged upon landing and cannot be used again, so she and Jamie go to look for the Doctor.

The Doctor and Phipps rescue Kelly from an Ice Warrior and then loads of the Doctor suddenly turn up from either his past or his future to help him get away.

Two Ice Warriors corner the Doctor and he explains why they shouldn't pewpewpew him:

"Your leader will be angry if you kill me. I'm a genius!"

"Genius?"

So they capture him instead.

Jamie and Zoe are more fortunate, as an Ice Warrior wanders straight past them going "herp derp derp" and doesn't see them or hear them as they whisper to each other about it as soon as it is past them. They then meet up with Kelly and Phipps, and they use Phipps's machine to pewpewpew another Ice Warrior.

The Ice Warriors take the Doctor to their leader. He investigates a strange contraption that the Ice Warriors bring in, and one of the spheres inside it blows up like a balloon and gases him when it pops. The Ice Warriors make Fewsham teleport one of the other spheres to Earth.

Radnor, Eldred (must live) and their friend Brent see it arrive and it also inflates, but it doesn't pop yet because it is the cliffhanger - one relying upon the suspense of a possible scare to come rather than delivering a scare right now.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Seeds OF DEATH Episode Two

The Ice Warrior leader (who is played by Alan Bennion, who also played Izlyr in Curse of Peladon) tells Fewsham to repair the teleporter again, and says

"Now you know what will happen if you fail... You will die."

It definitely seems as though he is going to leave his threat as an implicit one, but then he decides his meaning isn't clear enough so makes it explicit by tagging on those last three words.

There is a lengthy scene of Radnor and Kelly (when she is able to see over the top of her boss) trying to persuade Eldred (must live) to let them use his rocket, which the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe join in just to try and get the plot going.

On the Moon, Phipps, one of the mannys who wasn't captured by the Ice Warriors back in part one, successfully hides from the Ice Warrior that is hunting for him.

Because they don't have any astronauts on Earth (they "gave up training astronauts years ago" says Radnor) then the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie are going to go in the rocket. Is this set in the terrible future from Sapphire & Steel's Assignment Three where there aren't any animals? Because doggys and monkeys are good at crewing spaceships, just ask the Soviets or the Americans. The French were even clever enough to send a cat into space!

The episode takes its time showing us the countdown to the rocket launch, to parallel the real-world space race launches that took place around this time and which viewers in 1969 would be familiar with, but which now seems laborious padding to us in the far future of 2021. This is similar to scenes of the Doctor going into space in Ambassadors OF DEATH - what is it about stories with "OF DEATH" in the title that the Doctor always seems to go into space in them?

The rocket launches successfully but the communication with Earth is borked. Jamie says

"Och no, this is worse than the TARDIS."

Lol.

Fewsham repairs the teleporter and the Ice Warrior leader tells him to let it receive teleports from Earth. Now that they don't need to care about their rocket plan, Kelly and two of her mannys go straight to the Moon. The Ice Warriors hide so they only meet Fewsham, who acts very suspicious and doesn't tell them the truth about how they have been invaded by Martians. Who would believe him anyway? I mean, what are the chances of that happening..?*

Phipps is still in the same room we saw him hiding in earlier. He has spent his time setting up a machine, and when an Ice Warrior comes in (still looking for him) he uses his machine to pewpewpew it. Unfortunately, in order to plug this machine in, he has to unplug the rocket homing beam that the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie were relying upon to guide them to the Moon - a plot point that would later be used for a joke in an episode of Red Dwarf, but here it is the exciting cliffhanger.

* I know I made a similar joke in the Curse of Peladon review, but this is the earlier story so this joke technically happened first.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon Episode Two

The Doctor pushes the Ice Warriors and Alpha Centauri out of the way so the falling statue misses them. While the Doctor keeps the king, Hepesh, and the delegates talking, Jo sneaks off to investigate who could have pushed the statue down. She finds a clue on the ground where the statue was.

Later, the king speak to Jo in private. He obviously fancies her, saying

"I was brought up by wise old men. I hardly ever see anyone young... or beautiful."

Smoov, your majesty. Very smoov.

While it was already pretty obvious that Hepesh is the brains behind Grun's actions, it is made explicit when we see him ordering Grun to kill the Doctor.

Jo shows her clue to the Doctor and he identifies it as "an electronic key." He immediately suspects the Ice Warriors (despite that it would have been them that the statue landed on if he hadn't been there to save them). When Jo asks why he tells her that

"Well, the last time that I encountered them, Jo, they were trying to colonise the planet Earth. And Peladon is very like Earth."

and he goes further, adding

"I know the Ice Warriors, Jo. They're a savage and a warlike race."

Jo, quite sensibly, says

"I still think you're jumping to conclusions."

Why has the Doctor made up his mind already? It is not like him to be so prejudiced. Well, unlike with many other times the Doctor mentions his previous encounters with aliens, the events he refers to here are from an earlier TV story that we can actually go and watch for ourselves. So I think we should take a look at the last time he met the Ice Warriors and see what all the fuss is about...

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Seeds OF DEATH Episode One

The Seeds OF DEATH is the fifth story of season six of Doctor Who, starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, Frazer Hines as Jamie, and Wendy Padbury as Zoe. Like The Curse of Peladon, it was written by Brian Hayles.

It starts with lots of mannys teleporting things about the place for the lols, but one of them is getting it wrong. We meet Osgood, played by Harry Towb (also seen in Terror of the Autons), who teleports off to the Moon to give Fewsham (Terry Scully, Groff in Dawn of the Gods) into trouble.

They and some other mannys get attacked by a POV monster and one of them is pewpewpewed to show us it means business. Osgood still bravely sabotages their teleporter rather than let the POV monster get its claws on it, so he gets pewpewpewed too. On Earth they know something is wrong when they lose contact with the Moon, but they don't know what.

The TARDIS lands in "a space museum" which the Doctor seems surprisingly happy about considering what happened to him last time he visited one of those.

Zoe finds a video that gives them (and us) all the exposition about their teleport system "Travelmat" (the inventor must have been a fan of Fraggle Rock), although we cats knew this already because we have seen Blakes 7. Then a manny comes in and points a gun at them, trying his best to be like a POV monster but we can tell it's a manny really.

With their teleports all borked, the mannys on Earth need a rocket to get from the Earth to the Moon, and Commander Radnor (Ronald Leigh "Children of Auron" Hunt)  says

"There is just one man, one man alone, who can help us now."

Is it Tom Hanks, lol?

The Doctor makes friends with the manny with the gun, Professor Eldred (must live), by showing an interest in his space museum. This allows them to get more exposition, about how space travel has been abandoned because mannys all prefer teleporting about the place to travelling in spaceships.

Radnor and his second-in-command Miss Kelly come in and it turns out that Radnor and Eldred (must live) were old friends who fell out because Radnor likes teleports while Eldred (must live) preferred rockets, and all the other mannys siding with Radnor made him very grumpy.

The remaining mannys on the Moon manage to send a short emergency message asking for help, which is cut off partway through. We now see that the POV monsters are Ice Warriors, and they pewpewpew the manny who sent the message. Slow zoom to their leader's face - cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon Episode One

The Curse of Peladon is the second story of season nine of Doctor Who, it stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant. It was written by Brian Hayles.

It starts on a dark and stormy night in an old castle, where it is quickly established to us there is a king, played by David Troughton (I wonder, did he become king only because of who his father was?), who has two advisors who don't get on with each other. One of them, High Priest Hepesh, threatens the other, Chancellor Torbis, saying Torbis will "bring the curse of Aggedor upon us!"

Cla... no, wait, not quite.

There are shades of Gloucester and Winchester from Shakespeare's Henry vi in the way the two mannys can't get on with each other even when the king mediates. Their disagreement is about their planet Peladon joining the Galactic Federation, with Torbis in favour and Hepesh against.

When he leaves, Torbis gets attacked by a monster and is killed. Hepesh says

"So, the spirit of Aggedor has risen again, the ancient curse of Peladon will be fulfilled!"

Clang! (properly this time)

The TARDIS materialises outside the castle. Inside, Jo says

"I'm all dolled up for a night out on the town with Mike Yates when you talked me into a joyride in this thing."

A night out with Mike Yates or a trip in a time and space machine - tough choice! I think, despite her complaining, we can safely say that Jo made the right choice here. As soon as they leave the TARDIS it falls off a cliff, leaving them to climb up to the castle to look for help.

The king meets with "the delegate from Alpha Centauri" who has one eye, six arms, and looks like a big green willy, lol. I shouldn't make fun of Alpha Centauri (as they all call him) because I know what we long sockcats look like before the Maker of Cats attaches our ears, faces and paws.

Another delegate is from Arcturus. He has a gun. It is Arcturus's gun, although I suspect it may also be Chekhov's.

Now that Torbis is ded, Hepesh can counsel the king without being contradicted. He says of Torbis

"He saw your future as a servant of the Galactic Federation. I see you as an independent ruler of a great and glorious kingdom."

There's more to this scene and their dialogue than that, but this quote lays out the essential dilemma for Peladon - at least as Hepesh claims to see it. But can the king, and we viewers, trust that Hepesh is being honest?

The Doctor and Jo find a secret door taking them into the castle from the tunnels below it. Almost the first thing they see inside is an Ice Warrior! The chances of that happening must be a million to one! The Doctor follows it for a bit, and then Jo asks him what it was.

"That, Jo, was an Ice Warrior, a native of the planet Mars."

"You've seen them before?"

"Yes indeed I have, and believe me, they're not very pleasant company."

Then a bunch of mannys run in and capture them.

In the throne room, the king is meeting with the Ice Warriors, who are also delegates from the Federation. They want to know about "the curse of Peladon" (Clang! again) and Hepesh tells them:

"It concerns the royal beast of Peladon, now extinct. It is written, mighty is Aggedor, fiercest of all the beasts of Peladon. Young men would hunt it to prove their courage. His fur trims our royal garment. His head is our royal emblem. It is also written there will come a day when the spirit of Aggedor will rise again to warn and defend his royal master, King Peladon. For at that day, a stranger will appear in the land, bringing peril to Peladon and great tribulation to his kingdom."

They are interrupted when the guards bring in the Doctor and Jo.

The Ice Warriors advance upon the Doctor menacingly, but they have mistaken him for the "chairman delegate from Earth" who they were expecting to arrive and so they greet him as such. The Ice Warrior leader introduces himself as "delegate Izlyr from Mars" and his friend as "sub-delegate Ssorg."

The Doctor finds himself with no choice but to pretend to be the delegate from Earth, and claims their "space shuttle" crashed as a way to get the TARDIS back. Since the penalty for being present here while not being of royal blood is death, Jo pretends to be "princess Josephine of Tardis." Their bluff is made tremendously easier by the readiness with which the other delegates are prepared to give them exposition about what has happened in the plot so far so that they can join in.

As the delegates, and the Doctor and Jo, are leaving the throne room together, Hepesh's henchmanny Grun tries to topple a big statue of Aggedor onto them - cliffhanger!

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years is an eight-part ITV political drama series from 1981 that starred Robert Hardy as Winston Churchill and featured a host of recognisable actors as his various family, friends, allies and enemies.

It covers the years in between 1928 and 1939. When we first see him Churchill is the Chancellor, but then the Conservatives (his party) lose the 1929 general election - so the "wilderness years" of the title refers to the period he spent as still an MP but without a ministerial post.

The first half of the series is mainly about how Churchill sets himself against the other senior Conservatives when he opposes the bipartisan policy to start India on the road to self governance. Churchill's allies to begin with are his friends Professor Lindemann (David Swift, Henry from Drop the Dead Donkey) the intellectual, and Brendan Bracken (Tim "Captain Harker" Pigott-Smith).

Opposing Churchill are most of the political heavyweights of the time, including the likes of Stanley Baldwin (Peter "Power Game" Barkworth), Neville Chamberlain (Eric "Moriarty" Porter) and Samuel Hoare.

Hoare, played by Ewar Woowar, is portrayed as Churchill's main antagonist throughout the series. In a succession of senior cabinet posts (Minster for India, then Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary), he represents the political positions Churchill opposes, and is portrayed as the moral opposite to Churchill with his use of underhanded tactics such as nobbling parliamentary select committees.

The series contrasts Churchill's political battles with scenes and sub plots about his family life, including his arguments and reconciliations with his wife Clementine (Sian "Livia" Phillips) and son Randolph (Nigel Havers), and his financial problems. I found it difficult to find any interest or feel any sympathy for the character in this latter plotline - his family is so privileged that when he gets into debts and loses his newspaper column, the Old Boy Network solves both his problems for him trivially - the political drama equivalent of "...and with one bound he was free."

At the opposite end of the scale in terms of being sympathy-inducing, we have the bit where Churchill gets run over by a car when visiting New York at the end of episode two, putting him in a wheelchair for months. The scene where this accident occurs is genuinely shocking, coming out of nowhere, and if this wasn't a biographical account you would have to accuse the writers of just putting it in for the sake of a cheap and easy cliffhanger. 

After his defeat over India, the second (and superior) half of the series turns to Churchill's attempts to make the government take Hitler's Nazi Germany seriously as a future threat and enemy, at a time when Germany was building up its armed forces secretly. Churchill gathers a number of informers in the British civil service and military, including Ralph Wigram of the FO (Paul Freeman, Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark, who is here able to keep his accent straight for once) and Major Morton (Moray Watson, George Frobisher in Rumpole of the Bailey), who pass information to him secretly for him to use in his campaign.

This has the effect of making the series feel quite a lot like an espionage drama, helped no doubt by the fact that this was made around the same time as the BBC's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982), which share a similar look common to filmed TV series of that era. They even share Sian Phillips playing the protagonist's wife, although Clementine Churchill gives Phillips a larger role than she ever had as Ann Smiley.

As Churchill is increasingly proved to be right about Hitler's ambitions, support for his side grows and the opposition to him recedes, but unfortunately the main holdouts are the new Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and his head of the civil service Sir Horace Wilson (Clive "Jobel" Swift), both utterly committed to their doomed policy of "Appeasement."

They are supported right to the end by Lord Halifax (played as a doddery old manny by Richard Murdoch, in a not dissimilar way to his portrayal of Uncle Tom in Rumpole) and Samuel Hoare, until the invasion of Poland when even they can see that the policy has failed utterly, and the moment in the final episode where Hoare comes to align himself with Churchill over Chamberlain serves as the climax to the series arc and a moment of utter vindication for Churchill.

This is a fine political drama series with some top-tier actors and acting, and presents an interesting take on a lesser-known (at least to me) part of Churchill's life and career. Others may be more qualified than I am to say just how much this cleaned up his character traits to make him into the heroic protagonist, but it certainly cannot be said to have whitewashed him completely. While Churchill is centre-stage throughout, making this undeniably Robert Hardy's show, I personally found more interest in the secondary characters, some of whom (such as Samuel Hoare) I knew next to nothing about prior to watching the series. I was educated as well as entertained.