Big Gay Longcat reviews He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special

Christmas is the most commercialised of all the manny holy days, and has been since long before we cats were made from socks. When this started being the case is unknown, but the blame is often placed on the USA in the 1980s, back in the time when President Reagan was president.

Let's look at one of the all time classic TV Christmas Specials to see this coming to pass in real time, as the materialistic and spiritual sides of Christmas fight for screentime in 1985's He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special.

It starts with a pre-titles sequence in which Adam and Adora are about to celebrate their birthday, conveniently timed at Christmas (which I think is getting the messianic metaphor in a bit too early and blatantly). All of She-Ra's friends have come with her to visit her parents, and luckily they are the king and queen so that means their house is big enough.

The decorations they are putting up are suspiciously Christmas-like, and the queen remarks on how they remind her of Christmas.

"Christmas? What's that, an Earth holiday?"

asks the king, implying that even though they have been married long enough to have adult children, either she has never mentioned Christmas before now or he has never asked her what she means by it before.

The queen knows about Christmas because she is a manny who originally came from Earth. This means that, just like Jesus (and Spock, and the eighth Doctor Who), He-Man and She-Ra are half-manny on their mother's side. Although their origin story is otherwise more akin to Krishna's than that of Jesus, what with all the fighting monsters and possessing of magic weapons.

International espionage doesn't take a break for the holidays, and Man-At-Arms is still W-wording on building a spaceship with which to spy on Skeletor. But who spies on the spies?

Why, it is the handsome, charming and cat-like Orko, who investigates the "Sky Spy" and accidentally launches it while he is still inside, lol. It flies straight into the title sequence.

After the titles, Skeletor and his henchmannys see the Sky Spy and chase after it in their own spaceship. Spying on the Sky Spy from back in their own base, Prince Adam and Man-At-Arms see this happening, so Adam says

"Then He-Man's going after Skeletor. BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!"

This leads into the first of the transformation sequences we see in this episode, and it may be 40 years old but it is still as cool as all fuck.

He-Man flies on some kind of rocket cycle and then uses his magic sword to chop the grabby claws off of Skeletor's ship.

"There we are: claws to paws."

he quips. The ship then manifests some grabby rope belt thingys which overwhelm and capture He-Man, for a few seconds until She-Ra flies in (on her magic flying unicorn Swift Wind, he of the deep, forty-cigarettes-a-day voice which ill-becomes such a majestic animal) and rescues him, because this is an equal opportunities Christmas special.

To show that his organisation only partially tolerates failure, Skeletor gives his henchmannys a single parachute between them and then ejects them from his ship, lol.

The Sky Spy flies away across space, and soon He-Man and She-Ra have to give up their pursuit of it. It flies all the way to Earth and deposits Orko in a snowy, mountainous location. He rescues two small mannys from an avalanche (although not explicitly stated on-screen, this was almost certainly caused by the Sky Spy's crash landing) and befriends them. They seem unfazed to have been rescued by an alien with magic powers, perhaps because this sort of thing was a fairly common occurrence in the 1980s.

They explain to Orko about Christmas, starting with the most materialistic part:

"When you get lots of presents!"

Again, it was the 1980s. These are the children of Ronald Reagan. Metaphorically, I hope. Mew.

"But it's also a time when everybody thinks about peace and goodwill toward men."

They decide to tell Orko about the birth of Jesus, although to save time they will do almost all of this off-screen between scenes. Orko also finds out the mannys' names off-screen, which may very well save on vital seconds of screen time but it does also make the story more confusing for the viewers.

Back on Eternia, the others deduce that Orko must have been on board the Sky Spy. They trace the ship to Earth, but the only way they can get Orko back from that distance away is to teleport him using the Liberator Man-At-Arms's teleporter. But he says "it needs a carium water crystal" (I think that's how it's spelled, although it could just as easily be spelt 'MacGuffin') to power it over interstellar range. Adora thinks these may be found on Etheria, so it is a job for She-Ra to go and look for one.

The She-Ra transformation sequence has always lived in the shadow of He-Man's iconic original version, but it makes up for this by the accompanying music being, if anything, even better than the famous He-Man theme.

Mermista, one of She-Ra's friends, tells her where to look for the crystal, but warns that it is "guarded by the Beast-Monster" (which as a name sounds like the beast/monster equivalent of 'He-Man'). She-Ra flies there and says

"Doesn't look as though anyone's home."

Immediately after she says this, a beast/monster rises up out of the wet and rars at her. She-Ra and Swift Wind distract the Beast-Monster while Mermista looks for the crystal they need. This takes less than a minute, because action sequences are tricky to animate and this isn't even the main plot.

Just as She-Ra and Swift Wind are about to leave with the crystal, a giant robot rises out of the ground, and this is soon followed by the arrival of two more.

Swift Wind tries to fly away, but they get pewpewpewed and captured in a bubble. The robots then transform

into a rocket, a tank, and a hovering robot that doesn't really look much different. Swift Wind says

"They're changing into other forms! What evil robots!"

Is this some kind of not-very-subtle dig at The Transfomers? Did the two franchises have a vendetta with each other or something?

She-Ra knows they are called "the Monstroids" which is a great name and sounds like something Terry Nation would have come up with. She-Ra escapes from the bubble using her magic sword and they take the crystal back for Man-At-Arms's teleporter.

The Sky Spy and Orko get teleported to Eternia, but the children get teleported there as well. Wasn't an accidental teleporter kidnapping a major plot point in The Care Bears Movie too? Oh well, if you're going to steal, steal from the best...

We finally get told that the children are named Kim and Jason Alisha and Miguel.

On his evil asteroid in space, Evil Horde Prime says

"There is a great disturbance in the force a new spirit of goodness has arrived on Eternia. The power of Horde Prime may be threatened."

He orders Skeletor and Hordak to team up and "crush" the spirit of Christmas, but they immediately start arguing.

Hordak: "Have no fear, great master, I will eliminate this... this Christmas spirit before another day is past."

Skeletor: "You? You can't even handle that muscle-bound female She-Ra!"

Hordak: "Just a minute, what about the way He-Man handles you, Bone Brain!"

Skeletor: "Bone Brain? Why you miserable excuse for a villain..."

LOL! These two trying to team up is as much fun to watch as when the different Doctors get together.

As we approach the halfway point of the episode, the main plot is finally in danger of getting started. Unfortunately here comes She-Ra's friends Perfuma and Bow to waste our time with an appallingly twee musical number.

This is mercifully cut short when Hordak attacks, and captures Alisha, Miguel and Orko - presumably Orko now knows too much about Christmas to be allowed to go free? There is a brief appearance by one of the best She-Ra characters, Catra, piloting Hordak's spaceship.

The Monstroids reappear and attack Hordak's ship, forcing it to land. The Monstroid leader (we don't yet know his name but it's probably something like Megaton or Magatron) demands the prisoners be pawed over to them, and Hordak and his henchmannys run away - their legs going like in Scooby-Doo to make this into a komedy moment.

The Monstroids call their leader "Number One" which is an unexpected Christmas crossover with James Bond. Either that or they're now having a go at the GoBots.

She-Ra's friend Peekablue uses her psychic power to see what the next part of the plot will be, and tells She-Ra and He-Man where to find Orko and the mannys, as well as warning them about the Monstroids.

Orko, Alisha and Miguel are in a stereotypical prison cell, with bars on the windows and everything, when they are rescued by "Cutter" of "the Manchines." He cuts through the bards of the cell, saying

"They don't call me Cutter for nothing."

Another Manchine called "Zipper" helps them escape until they get surrounded by all the Monstroids.

"You're pretty good at giving orders, Metal Mouth, now let's see how good you are at taking them - move away from my friends!"

He-Man and She-Ra come to rescue in the nick of time, and defeat the Monstroids one by one, accompanying each with a Bond-like quip. I expect they know this is the best way to annoy Number One. The Manchines do their best to help, but given how quickly He-Man and She-Ra were going through their Monstroid opponents, I don't think they needed it.

Meanwhile Orko, Alisha and Miguel meet "a Manchine puppy" who is there to be cute. Skeletor flies in on a rocket cycle and captures Alisha and Miguel (and the puppy, who is called Relay) while shouting

"Ha! Got you at last, you troublesome tots!"

He flies off leaving Orko behind to tell He-Man and She-Ra, but by then Skeletor has enough of a head start to get away from them. Though not from Hordak.

Skeletor: "Now nothing can stop me from delivering them to Horde Prime."

Hordak: "Don't be so sure, Bonehead."

The two baddys pewpewpew each other. Hordak has to break off his pursuit, but Skeletor's rocket cycle crashes (after flying blind for a little while). Skeletor tries to make the mannys travel on foot, but they are too cold.

Miguel: "Please, mister, be nice. It's Christmas time."

Skeletor: "Christmas time? What's that?"

Miguel: "It's a season of love, and joy."

Alisha: "And caring."

Skeletor: "Is that what Christmas is? No wonder Horde Prime wants to get rid of it."

Despite claiming to be unimpressed, even disgusted, by the concept of Christmas, Skeletor does magic up some extra warm coats for the two mannys so that they can survive in the cold.

Miguel: "Thank you Mr Skeletor, you are very kind."

Skeletor: "Kind? Never use that word around me!"

At first Skeletor wants to leave the puppy behind, but eventually he relents and goes back for it, saying

"Oh blast it! I don't know what's coming over me... but whatever it is I don't like it!"

LOL, he's getting Christmassed.

Alisha: "It was nice of you to save Relay, Mr Skeletor."

Skeletor: "I am not nice!"

In case it isn't obvious enough by now, these scenes are tremendous fun and are easily the best bit of the whole episode. Miguel and Alisha start telling "Mr Skeletor" about Christmas.

Miguel: "Well, it's a wonderful time of the year. Everyone has lots of fun."

Skeletor: "You mean they get in fights?"

Miguel: "No, no! They have fun!"

Skeletor: "Fights are fun! I like fights!"

Miguel: "And you give each other presents..."

Skeletor: "And when you open them they explode, right?"

As happy as we cats would be for this scene to continue, it is interrupted by "a Snow Beast" which has decided to attack them. Skeletor protects the mannys and uses his magic to defeat the beast, which slides away on the ice (and is presumably unharmed). Skeletor, who hasn't He-Man's mastery of the universe post-battle quip, says

"So much for the Snow Beast."

We're building up to the big climax, as He-Man and She-Ra and Hordak and his disposable robo-henchmannys all catch up with Skeletor and his friends prisoners. Skeletor and Hordak pew at each other for a bit, until Horde Prime himself arrives in a giant spaceship to try to capture the mannys personally. He-Man and She-Ra are kept busy fighting the seemingly endless horde (hence the name) of robots, so it is up to Mr Skeletor to save the mannys from Horde Prime, which he does by pewing the spaceship with a single pew that both destroys its grabby claw thingy and then makes it crash. Must have knocked out the main rivet or something, mew.

Even He-Man is surprised that Skeletor saved the mannys, but concludes

"I think you're feeling the Christmas spirit, Skeletor. It makes you feel... good."

"Well I don't like to feel good. I like to feel... evil."

LOL.

This Christmas truce brings the main plot to an end, and all that is left is the epilogue where we see the birthday party that was being prepared for back at the beginning. Alisha and Miguel are teleported home to parents who, despite claiming they "were so worried," don't seem to require any explanation for how their missing children suddenly turned up in the house.

In a final scene with Prince Adam and Orko, Adam gives a hasty disclaimer that "not everyone celebrates Christmas" before asserting Christian supremacy with "but the spirit of the Christmas season is within us all."

Orko gets the last word when he trumps the prince's Christmas message by reminding us that, in addition to "peace and caring and happiness," above all else Christmas is a time for

"Presents."

As a joint He-Man and She-Ra special, the episode takes a different approach to how it divides its time between the two series, with She-Ra meeting as many of her friends as possible, albeit each one appearing only for a very brief time, scarcely more than a cameo. He-Man, on the other paw, only spends time with a couple of his friends - Man-At-Arms and Orko - but they are more heavily involved in the plot, at the expense of his other friends not getting a look in. Even Teela barely appears.

This results in the single worst thing about this otherwise fun adventure - the non-appearance of the best He-Man character, Cringer (a.k.a. Battle Cat). Cringer is even missing from his usual place in He-Man's transformation sequence, so thoroughly is he excluded. No cat worth his rainbow stripes would forgive them for this, Christmas spirit or no Christmas spirit.

War and Peace

In 1956 the Americans made a film version of War & Peace starring Audrey Hepburn as Natasha Rostova. This was shown in the Soviet Union in 1959, and though it was immensely popular, they also hated all the changes and omissions that Hollywood had made. So early on in the '60s it was decided to make a Russian version that would be better, longer and more faithful to the book than the American version. So much longer, in fact, that they decided it had to be split into four parts, with each part being long enough to be worthy of a film in its own right.

Part One: Andrei Bolkonsky (1966)

With Cold War pride on the line, virtually unlimited assistance was promised by the Soviet government and so the budget is estmated to have been the equivalent of (adjusted for inflation) $1 billion. This is most obviously to be seen on screen in the battle scenes, which are frankly ridiculously massive in scope and involved the use of Russsian army conscripts as extras. But the sets and costumes even in the peacetime sections are also detailed beyond belief, and all the balls, banquets and salons filled with extras.

Not being an aficionado of Russian cinema, I don't know any of the main cast from having seen them elsewhere, so only two are worth calling out - in the casting of Ludmila Savelyeva as Natasha Rostova the Russians seem to be trying to out-Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn. Or as Chekov might say: 'Audrey Hepburn was invented in Russia.'

Then there's the main character of the story, Pierre Bezukhov - easily one of the most famous characters in Russian literature, his part must have been heavily sought after by all the leading Soviet actors of the day (this is the character that Anthony Hopkins went on to play in the BBC TV version). So how did the director cut through the dilemma of who to cast? Simples. He cast himself.

At just under two and a half hours, part one is the longest of the four films (which add up to being over 7 hours in length). It is perhaps subtitled "Andrei Bolkonsky" because Prince Andrei (or "Prince Andrew" as he is unfortunately called in some English translations) arguably undergoes the most emotional development of all the main characters in this early section of the story. The son of a war hero and general, he joins the army when war (clang!) is declared against Napoleon's France because it is what is expected of him, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Being of the nobility, he is immediately made a senior officer and put on the general's staff. In the battle of Austerlitz Andrei is wounded and there is a famous scene where he lies on the battlefield gazing up at the sky, and realises there is more to life than the petty ambitions of mannys, all the while unaware that Napoleon himself is passing within a few feet of where he lies.

It's quite hard to judge each part on its own. In terms of spectacle - alas we live in the age of CGI, where such epic battle scenes could be created for a fraction of the cost (and by that I even mean good looking CGI, not your crappy Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V cheap job), so I expect this loses a lot of the effect it would have had in the '60s, when it really would have shown up the BBC the Americans. In terms of plot, you need to see more than just part one since a lot of the disparate plot threads are nowhere near ready to come together yet. In terms of emotional impact, this comes nearest to the book of any of the adaptations I have seen (i.e. both BBC versions) - which I would expect of oh those Russians.

Part Two: Natasha Rostova (1966)

The second part of the story is set in the peace (clang!) in between Russia's two wars with Napoleon's France. It focuses on the character of Natasha Rostova, hence its subtitle.

Arguably less epic than the first part due to the lack of battles, this part's centrepiece is the grand ball where young Natasha and Prince Andrei fall in love. This scene is in its own way as impressive as the battle sequences, with a cast of thousands all in period-appropriate costumes in attendance. It certainly puts the low budget 1970s BBC version to shame, and even the more impressive second attempt from 2016 (where the ball was a spectacular centrepiece) can't compete with this cinematic grandeur.

Andrei and Natasha get engaged, but his father won't allow him to marry until a year has passed. Much of the film is then spent on the things Natasha and her family do during this year, such as travelling into the countryside to go on a wolf hunt, and enjoying other quintessentially Russian, rustic entertainments. These scenes are thematically important elements of the book but hardly essential to the main plot, so it does somewhat feel as though the film is being forced to spin its wheels a bit.

Upon returning to the city Natasha attends the opera, where she is seduced by the dastardly Anatole Kuragin (whom Colin Baker played in the BBC '72 version). Natasha acts so irrationally and so emotionally in this bit that it is very tricky to empathise with her, although it is somewhat more understandable when he looks like this:

Purr.

Although Anatole and Natasha are prevented from eloping together, in a scene which is oddly quite rushed considering how long and slow many of the earlier scenes were allowed to be, Andrei finds out and feels betrayed enough to call off the engagement. This creates something of a cliffhanger ending for part two.

Part Three: The Year 1812 (1967)

The shortest of the four parts at a mere 1 hour and 21 minutes. This part is pure spectacle, with over 50 minutes of the runtime dedicated to the battle of Borodino. Scene after scene of vast numbers of soldiers, horses, explosions and smoke are presented to the viewer, the cumulative effect of which is to numb us into accepting that we're not seeing a phenomenally expensive film production, but the actual historical battle which actually happened.

So successful is this that we even accept the absurd sight of Pierre Bezukhov wandering through the battle as a civilian in his suit and tie posh clothes and white top hat. If mishandled this could have been unintentionally comedic, but it succeeds because the surrounding grandeur - and the detail of the reconstruction - forces the viewer to think 'yes, this could have happened: I can see it.'

The resumption of war against Napoleon's France, and the invasion of Russian soil by his armies, forces the peacetime plotlines of part two to go on hold for much of the duration. The only subplot of note that there is room for aside from the war concerns the death of Prince Andrei's father, which he learns about just before the battle begins and the news of which contributes to Andrei's acceptance of the inevitability of his own death.

At the end we witness the wounded Andrei meeting the even more badly wounded Anatole (a scene which the '70s BBC adaptation, sadly, only described happening off-screen) and reconciling before Anatole's death. This sudden reintrusion of the plot from part two might seem unexpected to a viewer unfamiliar with the novel, since there is no foreshadowing of this twist within part three itself, but it is at least faithful to the original story.

If there is a weakness to this incredible piece of filmmaking, it has to be the very ending, where a voiceover about the consequences of the battle seems to have been added to give some sort of closure and a futile attempt to make the film stand on its own. But it really doesn't - you need to have seen the earlier parts to understand the significance of the non-battle scenes, and you need to see part four to get any kind of resolution to the various plot strands - both the war ones and the peace ones.

Part Four: Pierre Bezukhov (1967)

Despite not containing any big battle sequences on the scale of those in the first and third parts, the final instalment of the film series manages to feel even more epic thanks to the scenes set around the French occupation, looting and burning of Moscow, which takes up the first third of the 1 hour 36 minute duration. It looks like a similarly enormous number of extras were used as in the battles, and the director again uses overhead tracking shots to put across the epic scale of the event in a similar way, but this time with the addition of loads of things being on fire.

As main characters begin to get killed off, the direction becomes more experimental, with Prince Andrei experiencing an extended surrealistic dream sequence that is like something out of Excalibur, while scenes focusing on Petya Rostov (a character who, if this were a conventional war movie, would have you shouting "Dead!" at the screen, Mary Whitehouse Experience-style) go into black & white.

It is curious to think that only the first film would even approach the length of most modern films, since the other three are all under 100 minutes each, so there would be no way they would need to split it into four sections if it had been made in the 21st century.

They also wouldn't have needed to abridge the novel so much, since even at the combined length of 7 hours the ending still feels rushed, without the proper conclusion to Pierre and Natasha's story (it is sort of left for the viewer to fill in the blanks, perhaps presuming familiarity with the original story) and even omits some of the more significant subplots such as Nikolai and Maria's romance. Why, if they made it now they could even get Peter Jackson to add some extra subplots!

I felt that, sadly, the badly paced ending was the weakest part of any of the four films (the '70s BBC version didn't exactly stick the landing either). But the journey to get there was worth it - a unique cinematic experience, not to be equalled in scope and scale until the age of CGI made faking it possible, and never, I expect, to be surpassed.

The film studio Mosfilm have made this available to watch in full, in good quality and with decent English subtitles, on their YouTube channel.

Seven Ridiculous or Ridiculously Awesome moments from Mahabharat (1988)

But are they ridiculous, or are they ridiculously awesome? The line is sometimes a very fine one, so judge for yourselves...

1. King Shantanu's dilemma [Episodes 1-2]

King Shantanu the Shagger (whose inability to keep his royal penis in his pants is the proximate cause of all the dramatic events of the entire epic) watches his wife - the goddess Ganga - drown his infant sons, while absurdly melodramatic incidental music plays and the camera repeatedly crash-zooms to his face like a whole season's worth of Colin Baker-era Doctor Who cliffhangers have come at once.

Shantanu is bound by his oath never to interfere in anything that Ganga does, and his inner turmoil is written on his face in the form of some amusingly contorted facial expressions. Ganga's smile after each drowning is the smile of a serial killer, and yet this doesn't ever seem to stop Shantanu from fathering yet further sons with her. Eventually, as she goes down to the river with their eighth son, he finally takes an action to stop her.

2. Bhishma's Terrible Oath [Episodes 3-4]

Saved from drowning, the eighth son of the king is taken by Ganga to be taught by gods, immortals and sages and then returns to his father as the perfect prince and heir to the throne. But Shagger Shantanu's lust gets in the way again when he falls for a fishermanny's daughter, Satyavati. Her father insists that Shantanu may only marry Satyavati if it will be their son who inherits the throne instead of the prince.

Dutiful above and beyond what is expected of a son, the prince agrees to step aside in favour of any other sons his father may have. But the fishermanny is not even satisfied with that and suggests that the prince's descendants may try to claim the throne back from his descendants.

Thus, in order that his father may get a shag, the prince swears a terrible oath that he will be celibate for his entire life, and so is thenceforth called Bhishma: He of the Terrible Oath.

3. The wrath of Amba [Episodes 5 and 70]

Bhishma kidnaps three princesses to marry them to his half-brother (a perfectly acceptable custom within their culture). One of the princesses, Amba, objects on the grounds that she was already in love with, and secretly betrothed to, another manny. Bhishma apologises and sets her free, but her beloved then rejects Amba because his pride has been hurt by his inability to prevent the kidnapping. Rather than be angry at her lover for rejecting her, Amba turns her ire against Bhishma and swears to kill him if he will not make amends by marrying her himself - which he refuses to do becaue of his oath.

Some 65 episodes later we discover, via flashback, what became of Amba after this - she went to Bhishma's own martial teacher, the invincible Parshuram, and persuaded him to fight Bhishma on her behalf. The result was an epic battle between the two, with both deploying devastating celestial weapons, but which ultimately ended in a stalemate. So with Amba still not having achieved her vengeance, she swore to die and be reborn again and yet again until she could somehow be the cause of Bhishma's death.

4. The convoluted circumstances of Karna's birth [Episodes 7-8]

Princess Kunti was taught a magic spell by a sage that could see the future, and he foresaw that this spell would be useful to her later in her life. He explained to her that, when she recited the secret magic words, it would turn her into Superted summon any god of her choosing. But the mischeivous sage did not say what the god would do after it had been summoned. So Kunti tried it out, and summoned the Sun God to appear.

The Sun God then told her he would not leave until he had given her a son, which he then did in the unconventional manner of pewpewpewing Kunti with a special effect until a baby appeared in her arms. Being unmarried, Kunti had to keep the baby's existence a secret, so she set him adrift upon the river to be found and cared for by another family. The baby was Karna, and we have by no means seen the last of him in this series.

5. The even more convoluted circumstances of Krishna's birth [Episodes 10-11]

Evil King Kansa usurped his father's throne and reigned as a tyrant. When the gods themselves prophecised that his sister Devaki's eighth son would cause his death, he imprisoned both her and her husband Vasudev. Not taking any chances that he might lose track of which son is which, Kansa resolved to kill all of Devaki's sons, and so he killed the first six in an unnecessarily gruesome manner by throwing them against the wall of his sister's prison cell.

Obviously his attempt to cheat fate was literally destined to fail, with Devaki's seventh pregnancy being magically transferred to Vasudev's other wife, Rohini, leading to the birth of Balram, while the eighth son is saved by even more direct divine intervention - the gods setting free Vasudev for long enough to deliver his child to safekeeping beyond Kansa's power. This eighth son is Krishna, the avatar of Vishnu.

6. Baby Krishna fights some monsters [Episodes 12-15]

Rather than keep baby Krishna's whereabouts a secret, the villagers of Gokul openly celebrate his coming with a musical number, so that Kansa immediately discovers his location. Advised by an equally evil vizier, Kansa sends a succession of monsters who could have come straight out of an episode of Monkey to kill Krishna. Each one is foiled really easily, because Krishna has the full powers of a god from birth, and so he effectively acts as a living deus ex machina.

At one point he is fighting underwater with Kalia, a giant, five-headed cobra. His friends and family see blood come to the surface, and I was waiting for one of them to say

"Blood! I hope this is not Krishna's blood."

But of course it is Kalia's.

7. Krishna defeats Kansa really easily, while laughing the whole time [Episodes 16-17]

Evil King Kansa convinced himself that if he could defy the gods' prophecy of his death by killing Krishna before Krishna killed him, then he would become immortal. So he set a trap by pretending to repent his evil ways and then inviting his nephews to come and visit him. Krishna and Balram walked into the trap and trivially defeated the attempts by Kansa and his henchmannys to kill them, while all the time laughing in a way calculated to unnerve the king until he tried to run away. But Kansa could no more escape from Krishna than he could overcome him, so that was the end of his reign of terror.

It is unusual to see a dramatic presentation with such a lack of peril for the protagonists, because while on the one paw these episodes seemingly possess all the tropes of a classic underdoggy tail, with our plucky heroes vastly outmatched by the strength and power of the baddy and all his resources as king of the country, yet because of Krishna's godly powers we never feel he is in jeopardy for even one moment.

Doctor Who Night 2024: Eric Saward's Vision

For our 22nd* annual Doctor Who Night we watched some stories from season 22. We started with Attack of the Cybermannys, which was written by "Paula Moore" - a cunning pseudonym that Eric Saward used to fool the BBC into letting him write more scripts than he was really allowed to under their rules.

While an enormous step up in quality from the preceding story, this is a confused mess of a plot that is trying to be a sequel to Resurrection of the Daleks and The Tenth Planet and Tomb of the Cybermannys, while including topical references to Halley's Comet in a subplot that doesn't really go anywhere.

Speaking of subplots that don't go anywhere - something of a Sawardian trademark - the ultimate example of this has to be the way that escaped prisoners Bates and Stratton never meet or interact with the Doctor or Peri, and are killed off without accomplishing anything relevant to the main plot.

Another Sawardian trademark is the presence of space mercenaries - in this case Lytton (Maurice Colbourne), returning from Resurrection of the Daleks but with an almost unrecognisably different personality - whom it seems the writer would rather spend his time with than the Doctor and Companion. The early scenes establishing Lytton as a London gangster, diamond thief and all-round hardmanny seem to belong to a different show - not necessarily a bad one, but not Doctor Who.

Lytton eventually comes a cropper thanks to the third - and worst - Sawardian trademark: his love of gratuitous violence.

I always thought that radiation gravity gold was the Cybermannys' one weakness, but according to the Doctor:

"The Cybermen have one weakness. They'll react to the distress of their own kind."

I assume there's at least one Big Finish story out there about how undercover policemanny Russell somehow survived and ended up on Skaro, where he became the Kaleds' chief scientist? No? Funny how some actor reuse matters more to the superfans than others, mew.

Revelation of the Daleks, also written by Eric Saward (under his own name this time), is in general a much better story than Attack of the Cybermannys, although it is arguably an even worse Doctor Who story, what with the way the Doctor and Peri are kept away from the main plot for more than half of the duration. It is also an enormous step down in quality from the preceding story, for obvious reasons.

The parade of characters we are introduced to - who are mostly being set up in part one only to get killed off in part two - are interestingly grotesque and have a complex set of relationships with each other and with Davros, who sits at the heart of the story like a pider in its web. In many ways this is his story, showing him as a genius manipulator of the greed and vanity of the mannys around him, as well as the mad scientist we have seen him as before. It is trying to do something new with the character, and it is a pity that this doesn't extend beyond this one story, since the next time we will see him will be In Remembrance of the Daleks.

Most of the characters come in pairs, forming double acts as Saward tries to copy the writing style of Robert Holmes: Kara and Vogel, Orcini and Bostock (the obligatory space mercenaries for this story), Takis and Lilt (with a totally tropical taste), Natasha and Grigory. This gives one member of each pair somebody to tell their exposition to, which is good because this script has a lot of exposition to get through - to the point where there is a character whose role is to give a running commentary on events to all the mannys in suspended animation, a.k.a. the viewers at home.

This is the DJ, played by Alexei Sayle, a baffling inclusion even by the already eclectic standards of this story. Peri thinks he is a Space American, but it turns out he is just putting the voice on, which is ironic because Nicola Bryant is also putting the voice on to play Peri.

While the level of violence is less than in some stories this season (the worst offenders are Attack of the Cybermannys, Vengeance on Varos and The Two Doctors), it still includes a manny getting stabbed with a syringe and injected with embalming fluid. This scene is played for laughs, since even as he goes

his wig falls off, lol.

Not played for komedy is the scene with the see-through Dalek, inside which is a manny being turned into a Dalek. Doctor Who Mazagine once called this "the single most up-chuckingly disgusting thing seen in the show ever." Although this was before the return of the new series, so could easily be superseded by [spoiled for choice when it comes to this punchline -Ed]

After this season aired on the BBC, the series came within a gnat's crotchet of getting cancelled. I think it is quite clear who is chiefly to blame.

* I'm not sure how we managed that when I was only made in 2008. It must have somehow involved time travel.

Space Buttons

Despite the impending pantomime season this is nothing to do with a Space Panto written by Terry Nation. Sorry to disappoint, zanni.

This is actually about the visible futuristic space buttons I just noticed on Avon's costume, which you can see here:

Isn't it odd that I never noticed these before? I suppose I must have been too busy looking at Avon.

Purr.

Ben Steed tries to decide on a name for his latest episode

The Planet of Manly Men and Weak Women

Avon and Gunn Sar

The Planet of Gunn Sar

The Moobs of Gunn Sar

The Manly Moobs of Gunn Sar

Gunn Sar's Moobs

Avon and Gunn Sar's Moobs

The Power of Gunn Sar's Moobs

Power ✔

Best end credits of all time?

In any list of the best TV end credit sequences of all time, Terrahawks has to be in consideration for the top spot. It is glorious in its full early-80s fake CGI (very much in the style of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series), which portrays a wonderfully simple concept of the goody Zeroids and baddy Cubes playing a game of Noughts-and-Crosses.

I mean just take a look at this:

Purr.

And in this one the Cubes cheat, lol!

An Unexpected Crossover

Combat Colin was a comic strip that ran in the pages of Action Force and then, later, in the pages of Transformers and Action Force. It was written and drawn by Lew Stringer, who had previously written Robo-Capers for the Transfomers comic prior to the addition of Action Force to that title.

From November to December of 1989 the Combat Colin strip featured a five-part story (each part consisting of only a single page) that crossed over with the setting of a certain 1960s TV show, and included multiple references to the most iconic imagery and dialogue from that series, as well as a couple of title drops gratuitously crowbarred in.

I can only assume that most, if not all, of these references would have been lost on the intended readership of the strip, who would have been much too young to have seen the programme in question upon broadcast - even on repeat. And DVDs hadn't been invented back then!

The first reference to The Prisoner, other than the font used for the story title, is the knockout gas being put through the keyhole to incapacitate our heroes. This on its own could have been passed off as a coincidence - the real clincher comes in the final panels where we see the arrival of Combat Colin and Semi-Automatic Steve in a suspiciously Village-like place.

The second instalment references the famous exchange between Number Six and Number Two from the title sequence, even if it is somewhat mangled:

"Where am I?"

"In the place!"

"What do you want?"

"We want information!"

After encountering a number of other characters familiar to regular readers of Combat Colin who are respectively "the prisoners" and "the warders," the plot diverges from that of The Prisoner by revealing the identity of "Number One" early - it is Colin's old enemy "the Brain!"

Part three sees Colin attempt an immediate escape in a similar style to Number Six's early attempt from Arrival - though Colin's use of a penny-farthing is borrowing a different element of the show's iconography.

Making his way across the beach, Colin's shout of defiance is undeniably that of Number Six:

"I'm not a number... ...I'm Combat Colin!"

The pursuing Mountain Man answers him:

"Please yourself... ...It's your funeral!"

Clang!

Title drops continue in part four when Madprof tells Colin

"Better start living in harmony with this place, pal!"

and the comics tradition of teasing the next episode is here done with a simple:

Next week: Free for all!

Other Prisoner references on this page include the Brain making his base in "the greenish dome" and, after the heroes and villains team up against him, the Brain describes them as

"Six of one, and half a dozen of the other!"

The original plot, of the Brain stealing Colin's Combat Trousers to use against him, concludes in part five with no explicit Prisoner references other than the "Village" setting continuing from earlier parts, and there's one line that sounds more like it could have come from Police Squad:

"Now you'll be a prisoner, Brain, ~ in Wallytown jail!"

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord

Part

So Robert Holmes went

before he could finish his script for the final instalment of this fourteen-part epic. His protégé, script editor Eric Saward, finished it, but the producer John Nathan-Turner rejected this script because of the cliffhanger ending that Holmes and Saward had put in. It seems very likely this would have involved a crash-zoom to the Doctor's face, but we'll never know because it was never made. Instead JN-T turned to Pip and Jane Baker (the writers of parts nine to twelve) to write an alternative part fourteen with a happy ending, with the side effect that the plot crashed between two very different writing styles between the penultimate and ultimate episodes.

This is immediately obvious from the first moments of the final part - the Bakers, having no idea how Holmes and Saward intended to resolve the cliffhanger to part thirteen, had to make up a solution of their own. Glitz runs over and tries to save the Doctor from disappearing under the quicksand, but fails.

The Doctor then pops back up, perfectly alright again. The justification for this seems to be that this was an illusion, which is a dangerous precedent to set (for the viewers, if not the Doctor) because it means that it is harder for us to accept later threats to the Doctor as being genuine when the plot requires them to be.

The Valeyard appears to talk to the Doctor, all the while teleporting around like a second-rate Tim the Enchanter. He explains, in a roundabout, overly verbose kind of way, that he wants to kill the Doctor because this will free him of the good side of his personality. A cleverer writer would have made use of this motivation later on in the plot, by (for example) having the Doctor's conscience burden the Valeyard at a crucial moment and interfere with his evil plans, but the Bakers seem to have forgotten they introduced this trait for him by the time they wrote the climax.

The Valeyard vanishes and the Doctor and Glitz have to run away from "asphyxiating nerve gas." The Doctor claims

"This is in deadly earnest."

so apparently we are supposed to take this threat seriously. Glitz, like the viewer, cannot tell the real threats apart from the illusions. I can't blame him - this seems more than a little arbitrary to me.

The Doctor and Glitz make their way to a hut on the beach, which turns out to be the Master's TARDIS.

The Master hypno-eyeses the Doctor with a flashing light and some noises. He sends the Doctor out into the Victorian-era location of the Valeyard's "Fantasy Factory" base to act as bait. When the Valeyard comes out the Master attempts to pewpewpew him, but he has a forcefield that deflects the Master's pews. The Valeyard shouts at him

"You really are a second rate adversary."

and then returns fire by throwing explosive feathers at him. The Master and Glitz run away while the Valeyard does an evil lol.

The Doctor snaps out of his hypno-eyesed state when he hears Mel's voice. Mel takes the Doctor back to the trial room, where there is a subtle wrongness to the way Mel and the Inquisitor speak to him - staying too still, or pausing just slightly too long before speaking. This is either a very clever way of indication that this is all an illusion of the Matrix, or else yet another example of the director not being very good at his job.

They replay a short excerpt from the end of Terror of the Vervoids, which Mel says is an accurate depiction of what happened. The Inquisitor then finds the Doctor guilty of "genocide" and insists that

"Your life is therefore forfeit."

The camera then pulls back to show the Inquisitor and Mel watching the courtroom from another version of the courtroom. While this is easily the best twist of the episode, it is responsible for the many subsequent theories that this courtroom could be another illusory one in turn, and that therefore every adventure the Doctor has from this point on still takes place within the Matrix. Perhaps the Time Lords should have named their Matrix after a different film?

Mel takes the key to the Matrix from the Keeper and runs for the seventh door. The Doctor, meanwhile, is on an old cart being taken through the dimly lit Victorian streets by some Gallifreyan guards. It's a good thing we've already seen that this isn't real, or else this would have been a massive giveaway. The big question now is why the Doctor hasn't noticed yet, but of course he has and is only playing along. When Mel comes to 'save' the Doctor - with her most panto line-reading yet

"Never mind the Sydney Carton heroics, you're not signing on as a martyr yet."

the cart vanishes and he tumbles to the ground. Instead of being grateful for Mel's rescue, he is grumpy.

Back in his TARDIS, the Master attempts to hypno-eyes Glitz, and when that doesn't W-word he instead bribes Glitz with a large chest full of prop pirate treasure - it's super effective!

Now in the Valeyard's base, the Doctor and Mel search for clues. Mel opens the door to the waiting room, but instead of being teleported to a beach she instead sees a dragon who breathes fire at her. Naturally, this bit was my friend Dragon's favourite bit in the whole story, and I also enjoyed it for the odd way it foreshadows Mel's final story the following year.

Glitz captures Mr Popplewick and brings him into the room. Popplewick directs the Doctor and Mel to where "Mr J J Chambers" is to be found "across the courtyard." Once they have gone, Popplewick paws over the Matrix secrets to Glitz. He then attempts to shoot Glitz with a gun, but Glitz has already stolen the bullet. The Master arrives and points a gun of his own at Glitz, and takes him (still carrying the secrets) back to his TARDIS. This short scene of all these baddys double-crossing each other is almost too good to belong in this episode.

The Doctor pulls the Mr Popplewick disguise off to reveal he is really the Valeyard using an old-school mask like the Master used to back forward in the UNIT era.

"The performance was too grotesque to be real. I have never been able to resist a touch of the Grand Guignol."

Mel opens the Valeyard's cupboard to reveal

"A megabyte modem!"

With such power the Valeyard can connect to the internets! He will be unstoppable!

The Valeyard's plan is revealed. He wants to assassinate the Time Lords attending the Doctor's trial by firing a "particle disseminator" (a pewpewpew gun) through his modem to the courtroom. The Doctor sends Mel to warn them while the Valeyard does another evil lol.

In the courtroom the Time Lords are concerned with the news they've just heard, that "the High Council has been deposed." The Master attempts a coup by holding the Matrix hostage. He makes a speech that is somewhat reminiscent of his universal ultimatum from Logopolis:

"What I have to impart is of vital importance to all of you. Now that Gallifrey is collapsing into chaos, none of you will be needed. Your office will be abolished. Only I can impose order. I have control of the Matrix. To disregard my commands will be to invite summary execution."

His plan is then immediately defeated by the Valeyard because he booby-trapped the Matrix secrets that they stole, which now activates and hits the Master and Glitz with some kind of effect that makes them go all slow-motion and black and white. So it seems the Valeyard was correct to call the Master "a second rate adversary" since he can defeat the Master without even being there.

The Valeyard taunts the Doctor:

"There's nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality."

At least I think that's a taunt, I don't really know what it means, mew. I like the sound of the word "catharsis" though.

Mel bursts into the courtroom and warns them of the danger. The guards run away while the Time Lords, encumbered by their costumes, just have to duck as the Matrix TV screen explodes and lets some dangerous SFX into the room. The Doctor manages to break the Valeyard's modem - oh noes! How will he post his important opinions on who is best out of Blake and Tarrant now? The Doctor and the Valeyard run away from the "feedback" (the manifest form of a thousand angy cats telling him his opinions are this: wrong) but the Valeyard is caught by the SFX and pewed.

The Doctor escapes back to the trial room where he is presumably just as guilty of genocide as he was in the fake courtroom earlier.

Doctor: "Now, let me see, where were we? I was about to be sentenced, I believe?"

Inquisitor: "All charges against you are dismissed, Doctor."

Phew, thank goodness for Gallifreyan make-it-up-as-you-go-along Law! The Inquisitor also tells the Doctor that

"The young woman, Miss Perpugilliam Brown, is alive and well and living as a warrior queen with King Yrcanos."

This is not quite what the Master told her in the previous episode, which was that Peri had been made a queen by King Yrcanos - not that she was a warrior, nor that she was with Yrcanos. Though if he offered, I can't imagine her turning down BRIAN BLESSED, can you?

The Doctor suggests that the Inquisitor should stand to be the next President of the Time Lords, no doubt thinking her flexible attitude towards law and order makes her eminently qualified for the job. The Doctor and Mel then head off to the TARDIS for the traditional quick exit now that the story's over - except, of course, that Mel didn't arrive by TARDIS, and in fact the Doctor hasn't even met her yet.

You might think this impending temporal paradox might worry the Doctor, but he is more concerned with Mel putting him "back" on the exercise and diet plan we saw him on at the start of Terror of the Vervoids - though this isn't really "back" on it for him, since he won't have started it yet. Mew. The Doctor's last lines are him complaining about carrot juice. There's a good chance this is what brings on his next regeneration...

Back in the courtroom, the Keeper of the Matrix has also regenerated - into the Valeyard! He turns to camera and does an evil lol for our benefit. The Bakers snuck in a cliffhanger after all.

The considerable problems encountered by the production team when making The Trial of a Time Lord - not least the death of Robert Holmes and the resignation of Eric Saward - go a long way to explaining the problems that we viewers can see on screen when we watch it. But arguably the story was flawed from its conception, especially the "Christmas Future" segment which required much more careful pawing in order for it to make sense as part of the overall trial story.

The other segments were hardly free of issues - The Mysterious Planet had a glaring plot hole that betrayed the fact that Robert Holmes was no longer around to fix it in another draft, and Mindfuck suffered from the gaping flaw that we in the audience lost our connection to the Doctor's motivations for more than a whole episode, without even a satisfying payoff to justify it.

The story suffered throughout from mediocre direction and a lack of ambition in the smaller things that undercut what would otherwise have been the show's most ambitious story since the 1960s - as exemplified by the majestic opening model shot cutting to a dull beige interior set.

And yet, in spite of all its many flaws (and in some cases actually because of them, varoonik), The Trial of a Time Lord is a tremendously enjoyable story to watch - a colourful, fun, silly, messy romp; a pantomime across time and space, if you will. I mean, a story that contains both the lines

"I AM A MAN OF ACTION, NOT REASON!"

and

"Whoever's been dumped in there has been pulverised into fragments and sent floating into space, and in my book that's murder."

can hardly be all bad, can it?

It may be the longest (which ought to mean best) story the series ever attempted, but the decision to split it into four identifiable parts means it need never be a burdensome time commitment - one can dip into it for an episode or two and simply bask in whatever nonsense one sees unfolding on screen. In that respect the story it most closely resembles might be The Time Monster, only with a less good Master.

On the subject of the Master - the Valeyard ends up here becoming a much better Master than we have seen since the glory days of Roger Delgado - even being revealed as the Doctor's dark side, a long since abandoned possible origin for the Master. Michael Jayston does his best to make the character stand out, especially once he gets the chance to be out of the courtroom in the final two parts, but really the only reason he isn't the Master is so that we can have the twist where he turns out to be an evil Doctor. It's easy to see why the Valeyard never returned - the universe simply has no need for two characters who are both the hero's shadow, metaphorically or literally, or both.

I have made repeated reference to the make-it-up-as-they-go-along nature of Gallifreyan Law in these reviews. I think the reason this is so obvious - more so than in the other times the Doctor ended up being tried by the Time Lords - is due to the trial format and courtroom setup on this occasion being so close to that of a real British courtoom trial - judge, jury, prosecutor, defendant in the dock, prosecution evidence followed by defence evidence, witnesses, and so on. The result is an uncanny valley effect where the audience - familiar with real life courtroom procedure, if only from other TV shows - feels cheated when it then proceeds to make up its own rules, which wouldn't be the case if the trial was wholly alien from the very beginning. The trial at the end of The War Games being the purrfect example of the latter.

And given the central importance of the trial to the story - the clue is in the name - it is surprising to me that the makers did not get David Fisher in to be one of the writers. Fisher wrote for the series back during Tom Baker's era, but he also had considerable experience as a prolific writer for the 1970s TV series Crown Court - a show entirely concerned with courtroom trials. Why not at least get him involved for the structure and writing of the courtroom scenes?

We can see in The Trial of a Time Lord the forerunner of many of the tropes that would go on to be common in the 2005 revival series of Doctor Who. Most obviously, it is almost impossible to imagine the new series without some sort of overarching plot arc running across an entire season. But digging a little deeper, we can see more things in common - the arc being forced to intrude into stories that don't need its presence, making them worse than if they had been allowed to stand alone; the build up to a grand finale that is then written in a hurry so that it all unravels like a load of bollocks (I told him that was a mixed metaphor and he would insist -ed); and the chickening out of killing off Companions after saying they have been/will be. Even an insistence on spending the budget on impressive bits of SFX because the showrunner producer is embarassed by the show's reputation for being unable to compete with glossy American sci-fi can be traced to here.

At least in Trial of a Time Lord the Doctor acting out of character can be explained away as the Matrix lying to us.

Finally, I must say something about the controversy that surrounds The Trial of a Time Lord's cliffhangers. Contrary to poular belief, not every episode ends with a crash-zoom to the Doctor's face. In fact, only eight of the 14 episodes end in this way, which is only just more than half. Of course, of the other six, three feature close ups of the Doctor's face (four if we count the Valeyard as the Doctor) without a zoom, which means it feels like it happens more than it does. Only parts three and nine are completely free of this repeated phenomenon, so it is no wonder the story has the reputation it does, but there is actually more variety there than you might expect.