Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Four

Here's a promising start to the episode, as the first scene features the Sheriff of Nottingham (purr) who was badly underused in part three. He meets with a messenger (played by Roy "Sandbaggers" Marsden - alas he has no scenes in common with Diane "Sandbaggers" Keen) acting on behalf of a mysterious "superior." It seems there is another secret plan being hatched. Sir Guy of Gisbourne is worried that Robin Hood will interfere, what with him being the hero, so the Sheriff tells his henchmannys to try and catch Robin.

Robin and his Merry Manny Ralph are not so merry when they find a village has had all of its noms taken by Sir Guy and the Sheriff's soldiers as taxes. The village head manny is played by William "Crown Court barrister Martin O'Connor" Simons, but even his extensive legal experience can't help him here when the laws are whatever the Sheriff says they are.

Robin and Ralph get into a fight with the Sheriff's henchmannys at the same river where Robin first met Little John (well you can't blame them, really... location scouting is a tricky business, mew), and things look bad for them until the other Merry Mannys arrive to help. This victory makes Robin bold, so they decide to go on the offensive against any baddys who enter Sherwood Forest, robbing from them to give to the poor.

The first manny we see them rob tells them "[the Sheriff] shall hear of this!" to which Robin replies

"I hope he will. And be sure to tell him that you have also paid Robin Hood's taxes."

The Sheriff doesn't take this news well, and again threatens his henchmanny with punishment if he doesn't catch Robin. He also takes it out on the villagers Robin helped, increasing their taxes "by half." I think that means he has just reduced their taxes to half of what they were, which is nice of him.

When he sends out henchmannys to tell the villagers this, the Merry Mannys capture them and hang them up in just their underwear, lol.

The Merry Mannys capture a knight called Sir Richard of the Lea, and we can immediately tell he must be a significant character because he's played by Bernard "Marcus Scarman" Archard - and you don't waste him on a small part unless you're Krull.

Sir Richard says he knew Robin's father, and then tells his tale of how he owes the "Abbot of St Marys" 400 moneys and was on his way to tell the abbot he could not pay it. Robin gives him 400 of the moneys they had robbed as a present before he sends Sir Richard on his way.

This evil abbot isn't the one who got stabbed back in part two - he is a different, other evil abbot, played by Kevin Stoney. Roy Marsden's character turns out to be his Brother Prior, and presumably one of the other ones is an equally dickish Brother Jerome. Sir Richard comes in and begs the abbot for more time, but then when the abbot says no he throws down the moneys and insults him, calling him "a shame to his office" in front of all his monks. This is a serious diss.

Sir Richard thanks Robin for his help by telling him that the abbot will be meeting with the Sheriff and Sir Guy to discuss their latest plan to team up and help Prince John become king.

Several long, slow scenes of Sir Guy leading the baddys - both monks and soldiers - through the forest do their best to build suspense send us cats to sleep, before the Merry Mannys finally spring their ambush. There is a big fight and Will Scarlet goes

but the goodys win in the end, and this convinces the evil abbot not to team up with the Sheriff and Sir Guy. The story ends with the Sheriff making a 'whyioughtta...' face at Sir Guy for his failure, lol.

This is a better episode than part three, with a lot more Sheriff of Nottingham in it, but it is still quite ponderous and surprisingly unexciting - even in the action scenes.

A Christmas Prisoner

What might a Christmas special of The Prisoner have been like, if they had made one? Well, given how many Christmas episodes base their plots on A Christmas Carol, it might have gone something like this...

It starts with the new Number 2 visiting Number 6 while dressed as Jacob Marley, wearing a long chain wrapped around him. Number 6 enters into the spirit of the thing by asking, in the manner of Scrooge,

"You are fettered. Tell me why?"

"That would be telling," comes the predictable response.

Number 2 then warns him that this night he will be visited by three spirits. Number 6 scoffs at this, but soon finds himself drugged asleep (as usual) and when he wakes up he is confronted by...

"Who, and what are you?" demands Number 6.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"A?"

"I said, 'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'"

"I already thought this plot was structurally similar to A. B. and C. but this just confirms it. What do you want?"

"Why did you resign?"

"Spirit!" says Number 6 in his most defiant voice, "remove me from this place!"

By thus short-cutting the scene, the vision fades before Number 6's eyes, and is replaced with...

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me!"

"You look more like the Ghost of Space 1999. I suppose you're going to ask me why I resigned as well?"

"Well, since you mention it, my boy, why did you resign?"

"There are some upon this Earth of yours," returned Number 6, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of pushing, filing, stamping, indexing, briefing, debriefing, and numbering, in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

After a pause (i.e. an ad break), the spirit continued his plan, though without much optimism, and brought forward the two smaller spirits he had accompanying him.

"Aren't you going to ask me about..?"

"The boy is Ignorance, the girl is Want. As in: you are Ignorant of the reasons why I resigned, and you Want to know what they are."

After that, Number 6 silently stared down the spirit until he shuffled away, and the vision moved on to...

"Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?"

The third spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us?" Number 6 pursued.

"Isn't that a tad spoiler-y?"

The vision is interrupted by the Colonel, who says

"Quite agree. Quite agree. Silly. Silly... silly."

"No," says Number 6, "I said 'spoiler-y.' Besides, Monty Python isn't going to start for another two years, so the general public's not going to understand this, are they?"

"If you're worried about what the viewers at home are going to think, my lad, have I got 'shadows of the things that will be' for you..."

Enter Cobb very suddenly.

"I thought I was supposed to play the Ghost of Christmas Past?"

Big Gay Longcat reviews Blakes 7: Animals

There are three episodes of Blakes 7 that I haven't looked at yet on this blog, and the only one of those that has Servalan in it is...

Oh dear.

Animals starts with Scorpio! in space already. Dayna is defending some manny called Justin against Tarrant's accusation that Justin is a mad scientist, because Tarrant has noticed a pattern emerging when it comes to the scientists they meet living isolated existences on planets far from Federation space in order to conduct their experiments.

Dayna defends Justin because she knows him from before she joined the series, and there's also a pattern there regarding old friends that means this Justin's chances of surviving to the end of the episode are, to put it mildly, not good.

Dayna teleports down to the planet where she meets Og and his friends, who are the "animals" of the title even though there is another reading that the real "animals" are, of course, Mannys. Dayna runs away, shooting a couple of Og's friends with her pewpewpew gun until she sees Justin. Who is the real "animal" here? Do you see?

Federation pursuit ships attack Scorpio! and Tarrant has to fly away from their special effects.

Inside Justin's base he gets a bit creepy with Dayna while giving her - and us - the exposition about who he is and what mad science he does. He is a genetic engineer and surgeon who has made the animals, and not out of socks like would be perfectly normal. He doesn't say why for now, so as to save some exposition for later.

Dayna is stuck on the planet because Tarrant has gone back to Xenon Base to get Scorpio! repaired. Meanwhile Servalan has found out about the Federation ships that attacked Scorpio! earlier and is interested in the mysterious ship and the planet it was near, so she gets her henchmanny-of-the-week to give her the exposition about Justin's planet "Bucol 2" which is top secret, so of course that only makes her even more interested.

"Set a course for Bucol 2."

Darth Vader needed the Force to know the rebels were on Hoth, but Servalan just knows that if it is mentioned to her on-screen, it must mean Avon and his friends are involved.

Tarrant is proved right, Justin is definitely a mad scientist, and even Dayna says his work is "insane" when she finds out he was working for the Federation trying to make "radiation proof commandos."

Avon finally appears in the episode on board Scorpio!, trying to repair it with Orac, Vila and Soolin. There is some comedy business where Vila has to go into a dirty and smelly part of Scorpio! to do some repairs when he doesn't want to. The fact that a normally reliable Vila-being-silly scene isn't funny bodes ill for the rest of this episode.

Justin tries to justify (justinfy?) all the bad experiments he has done. It seems he and Dayna are coming around to each other's point of view, or it may be that Dayna is playing along with her mad friend until Scorpio! comes back and she can teleport away? He is very creepy.

Servalan meets with Ardus, who is played by Kevin Stoney. Kevin Stoney had already been in Blakes 7 back in Hostage, where he played a different character but also one who only met Servalan out of all the regular characters. Ardus gives Servalan more exposition about Bucol 2.

Because this is season four, Servalan is of course pretending to be Commissioner Sleer, and Ardus recognises her and has to pretend not to. But Servalan knows that he knows who she is and has him blowed up, although she would probably have done that anyway.

Servalan's spaceship lands on Bucol 2. Dayna goes outside to give Og noms and he throws her stunt double off a cliff, at the bottom of which Servalan's Federation troopers just happen to be passing. Back at Xenon Base, Avon and the others are finally ready to go and rescue Dayna, having not done very much so far this episode.

Justin finds Dayna's dropped pewpewpew gun and shouts

"DAYNA!"

so loudly that William Shatner took notes. Justin thinks Dayna is ded so he goes back to his base where he gets drunk and starts wrecking the place.

Dayna has been captured by Servalan and is made to tell her all the things we - and she - already know. But this scene isn't a complete waste of time, as it cleverly establishes that Servalan has a lie-detecting machine which goes "bong" every time Dayna tells a lie. This means that when Servalan asks Dayna if she loves Justin (a fairly out of the blue question but it does help us move on with the plot so I'll let it pass) and Dayna says "of course not" it goes "bong."

The idea that Dayna is in love with creepy Justin is pretty difficult to swallow, especially when you consider that Dayna knows Avon. Servalan says

"I have to have him, Dayna, you do see that?"

It sounds like everybody loves Justin now. He's no Jarvik, and writer Allan Prior is no Ben Steed... for which small mercy we must be thankful.

Servalan has another convenient machine that hypno-eyeses Dayna into hating Justin so that she will betray him. Most of the hypno-eyesing is done off screen, perhaps the BBC were worried that if viewers saw it then we would be hypno-eyesed into hating him too? They need not have worried, the episode has been successful enough at that already.

Dayna goes back to Justin's base and he lets her in. Dayna then lets in Servalan because for some reason her hating Justin also makes her want to team up with Servalan, even though she killed Dayna's father.

Servalan always knew how to make an entrance.

Servalan captures Justin and sends her troopers to go and capture Og after learning that Og is the cleverest and most important of the animals.

Avon, Tarrant and Soolin finally teleport onto the planet. They dramatically burst into Justin's base and then Avon dramatically kicks a chair out of the way and then he dramatically slips on the floor.

LOL.

This is actually the best bit of Animals, because the episode is so bad that you take what entertainment you can get from it. Avon looks a bit annoyed when he finds out that the front door has been left wide open when Servalan took her prisoners away, which means he slipped on the floor for nothing. This scene is all of Blakes 7 in microcosm.

Justin persuades Servalan to de-hypno-eyes Dayna in exchange for his cooperation (de-hypno-eyesing seems to consist of Servalan saying "you love him, Dayna, you love him" repeatedly. The BBC not worried about this working on the viewers, then), and while they are doing this he hears Avon trying to contact Dayna over her bracelet... which she has conveniently taken off for this scene to allow Justin to do. It was also convenient for the plot that Avon didn't think to try contacting Dayna until now. Mew.

Avon, Tarrant and Soolin have a shootout with the Federation troopers. Dayna runs away and Servalan tries to shoot her but shoots Justin instead. Wait, isn't this almost exactly how Jarvik got killed back in Harvest of Kairos? What are the chances of that happening?

Dayna escapes and tries to rescue Og but he gets shot by a trooper. Servalan's ship flies away and Dayna sees Justin's body on the ground. Avon says to his bracelet "Vila, stand by to bring us up" while Dayna has a sad, and so brings the episode to an end. Not a moment too soon.

Animals is a terrible episode of Blakes 7. When the best bits consist of something that should have been an out-take, and a one-scene cameo from a decent character actor, you know you do not have a winner on your paws.

Animals' weaknesses are many, from the misfiring "comedy" scenes to the multiple glaring plot contrivances, but the episode's biggest crime is sidelining our heroes Avon, Vila and even Tarrant in favour of Justin, a character who has all of the negative qualities of Jarvik but none of the positives. Yes, Animals is so bad it leaves me pining for the glory days of Jarvik and his manly manliness.

The First Churchills

I have taken a break from watching Fall of Eagles to watch an even older (in both senses) historical BBC drama series, The First Churchills.

Made in 1969 (and so just in time for Monty Python's Flying Circus to come along and make fun of it and period dramas of its ilk), this series stars John "Baron Munchausen" Neville as John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Susan Hampshire as Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and is set over the course of their life together, from 1673 when they first met through to 1714 when Queen Anne died.

Their lives are divided up into 12 episodes, with the first two concentrating on their meeting, falling in love, and then marrying. The rest sees one or both of them getting involved in major political and military matters of the day, due to their closeness to a succession of Kings and Queens of Britain: first Charles ii (who takes his doggy with him everywhere), then his brother James vii, then his daughter and son-in-law Mary and William, then finally her sister Anne.

Other major characters include John's best friend Sidney Godolphin (John Standing, Sam Collins in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), and Sarah's best friend - for a while - Queen Anne is played by Margaret "Antonia" Tyzack.

As with I Claudius and Fall of Eagles, there are a lot of minor characters who come and go over the course of the series, either for a single episode or else recurring as required. Some of the most notable include Michael "Captain Needa" Culver as John's brother Charles Churchill, (which is noteworthy mainly because there does seem to be a close physical resemblance between the two actors), Kevin Stoney makes his obligatory one-scene appearance (here as an Archbishop), and the main antagonist of the series is the French King Louis xiv, played by Robert Robinson (no, not that one, would that it were).

In the later episodes John Churchill is captain-general of all of Britain's army, and spends most of his time fighting wars against France. Due to the nature of this sort of series, we see virtually nothing of the actual battles - a handful of soldiers and a single cannon, in a field and on film, stand as shortpaw for the entire army. What we see is the generals and other important mannys making their plans and receiving reports in their tents, and in its own way this is just as enthralling, while being far easier on the BBC budget.

This is an interesting period of history, and this series gives viewers a solid overview of it, using the OTP of John and Sarah Churchill as POV characters gives it a unique perspective and sense of thematic cohesion. However, they are portrayed as unambiguous goodys throughout, so it may not be totally historically accurate. This could be because the series was based on the book Marlborough: His Life and Times by a manny who, by a curious coincidence, had the same surname as the Churchills.

Fall of Eagles: The Last Tsar

We've had two episodes on Austria, two episodes on Germany, and so now the series turns its attention to the third eagle: Russia. There Alexander iii is the Tsar, and his son and heir is Nicholas, played by Charles "Pendleton" Kay.

Nicholas has no interest in politics, and spends all his time drinking and playing games with his friends, or carrying on a relationship with ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska (Jan Francis, Lisa in Secret Army). His parents want him to marry a princess, not a ballerina, and considering the difficulty he has breaking it off with Mathilde, it becomes clear just how indecisive and generally useless he is.

The princess he chooses is Alexandra "Alix" of Hesse-Darmstadt, and while his parents do not approve of her because she is German, it does meet with the approval of both Queen Victoria and, especially, Kaiser Wilhelm - Barry Foster making a short appearance in the episode to practically order Nicholas to propose to Alix immediately.

Princess Alix is played by Gayle Hunnicutt (Irene Adler in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes). Nicholas's lack of tact means he makes a mess of his proposal by talking about his affairs to Alix, but then they do appear to come to genuinely love each other.

Sadly, they are going to prove to be very bad influences on each other, with their shared conviction that the Tsar is appointed by god and can therefore do no wrong and need not share power with anyone else. There are early signs of that here as Alix ignores advice from those around her, even her own sister.

No sooner are they engaged when Tsar Alexander falls ill and is probably dying, and Nicholas has to face the fact that he will be Tsar very soon. The Russian liberals, represented by industrialist Sergei Witte (Freddie Jones, Claudius in The Caesars, Ynyr in Krull, among many other roles) and professor Paul Miliukov (David "Monkey" Collings), hope they can influence him into being more of a reformer than his father.

Witte is actually doing very nicely out of the status quo, but he fears that if Russia does not modernise at least a little, their whole system could be threatened by revolutionaries.

In the leader of these revolutionaries we meet the final main character of Fall of Eagles, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, played by Patrick "Sejanus" Stewart. He is only in a couple of scenes in this episode, meeting his future wife Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya for the first time as he takes over her secret group just by being better at organising than the rest of them are, and by actually having a plan.

In the closing scenes Tsar Alexander dies, and there is a brief appearance from Kevin Stoney as the priest who officially recognises Nicholas as Tsar Nicholas ii. His only dialogue is a long list of the many titles Nicholas has inherited, which carry on even as the credits start to roll.

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.

Top 10 actors who should have played Number 2 in The Prisoner

Clickbait subtitle: Number 6 will make your jaw drop!

While obviously Paul Darrow would have made the best Number 2 evar, let's be sensible cats and confine ourselves to actors that could have plausibly been about in the era that The Prisoner was being made, and well known enough that they could have realistically been cast as the series' second main character for an episode or two.

Patrick Troughton could easily have made the list but for one thing, which is that he spent the whole of the period in question being in Doctor Who as a full time job. He just misses out on my top 10 for that reason.


#10. Kevin Stoney

Kevin Stoney is a good enough actor that he could be placed higher, but he is let down by his performance from that time he was actually in The Prisoner, as Colonel Jolly-Good-Show-What-What in Chimes of Big Ben - a character so broad in his English mannerisms that he could easily be best friends with Biggles or Bertie Wooster.

But imagine if Kevin Stoney had played his Number 2 more like his Tobias Vaughn in The Invasion (1968), then we'd be purring.


#9. Anthony Hopkins

Making this list mainly on the strength of his work in the Department S episode A Small War of Nerves (1970), plus of course all the hindsight of his subsequent career, Anthony Hopkins only places so low because of the feeling he'd be wasted as Number 2.

In the Prisoner episode Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, Nigel Stock has a good go at playing Number 6 trapped in another manny's body, but despite a couple of strong scenes he can't rescue the rubbish production from itself. Now imagine Anthony Hopkins filling those shoes instead, and I think he may have had more chance than anybody else (except for a time-travelling 1980s Paul Darrow) of lifting that story up.


#8. Dennis Alaba Peters

Staying with Department S for inspiration, Dennis Alaba Peters played the regular authority figure Sir Curtis Seretse, and I think this could have been a good template for a take on Number 2.

He just needed to stay away from dodgy back projection when meeting with Stewart SullivanNumber 6 and he would have been fine. Sadly that was no easy feat in latter parts of the series, which is why he is no higher up this list.


#7. Herbert Lom

Herbert Lom was mainly a film actor, but did appear in a few TV shows, such as playing the main character in The Human Jungle (1963-64) and a guest star in The Man From UNCLE in 1967.

Despite looking a little bit like Kenneth Griffith (Number 2 in The Girl Who Was Death and, arguably, Fall Out), I don't doubt that you would have gotten a very different performance out of this veteran character actor, a few years before he got a bit typecast from playing Chief Inspector Dreyfus in the Pink Panther films.


#6. Philip Madoc

Going by his performance as the War Lord in The War Games (1969), Philip Madoc could have been a compelling, sinister, threatening Number 2, a worthy antagonist for Number 6 to face.

Contractually obligated joke:
"Why did you resign?"
"Don't tell him Pike!"


#5. BRIAN BLESSED

BRIAN BLESSED's versatility and range as an actor have been somewhat obscured by his post-Flash Gordon persona, but if you look at his work in the 1960s and '70s, such as guest appearances in The Avengers or his Augustus in I Claudius, you see what he would have been capable of as a Number 2.

Maybe his beard is Number 1?


#4. Honor Blackman

After leaving The Avengers to star in Goldfinger (1964), Honor Blackman could have returned to telefantasy television as a Number 2 who was the dark side of Cathy Gale or Pussy Galore.

Naturally as a cat I am bound to say I'd prefer the latter option.


#3. David McCallum

The Man From UNCLE series ended in 1968, so it is just possible that David McCallum could have come straight from there to be in The Prisoner, a few years before playing a prisoner himself in Colditz.

David McCallum is a truly great actor, so his Number 2 would have been bound to have been memorable in the first place, but there would also be the added question if, just as some speculated that Number 6 was really John Drake from Danger Man, could his Number 2 be Illya Kuryakin?


#2 Christopher Lee

In between making Dracula sequels for Hammer* Christopher Lee guest-starred in The Avengers episodes Never, Never Say Die (1967) and The Interrogators (1969), so it is not inconceivable that he could have been in The Prisoner around that same time. I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say he would have been a magnificent Number 2.

* This isn't even a joke: Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966); Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968); Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970).


So who is #1?


You are Number 6.


Only joking, it's:


#1. Roger Delgado

Roger Delgado's list of acting credits on IMDB for the 1960s show him as being stuck playing shifty foreigners called Von Golling (Danger Man, 1961), Rodriguez (The Saint, 1966) or Kreer (The Avengers, 1969), and many more examples both on film and on television. Inevitably they were minor villains, henchmen or, at best, guest villains of the week.

Aside from a recurring role as the Spanish Ambassador Mendoza in Sir Francis Drake in the early '60s, it took until his (perfect) casting as the Master in Doctor Who for him to find a regular part that showed off his acting skills to the best of his considerable abilities - although the Master was an alien, Delgado did not have to put on a dodgy accent or even more dodgy facepaint in order to play him.

I think it would have been great if we had seen a Number 2 played in the same vein, if only the producers of The Prisoner could have looked past the typecasting to the undoubted talent underneath. With all the qualities that made Roger Delgado's Master such a brilliant foil for Jon Pertwee's Doctor, Number 6 might have met his match at last.

It would have been even better if they had allowed him to record his own version of the opening dialogue (rather than lazily use the default sequence, as they tended to do towards the end of the series). That way we could have had:

"I am the new Number 2... and you will obey me." 

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermannys Part Four

Harry Mailer stops Harry Sullivan in time before he blows them all up with the Doctor's cyberbomb. Tom Baker auditions for the part of Augustus in I Claudius when he shouts at the top of his voice "IS THERE ANYONE IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTER!!!!!" "HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE!!!!!" and it is loud enough that even BRIAN BLESSED would be at least a bit impressed.

Harry Mailer blows himself and the cybermannys up by taking off his own cyberbomb, which frees the others from their bombs and stops me from being confused as to which Harry is which. The Doctor persuades Tyrum and Vorus to give him 15 minutes to go back to Nerva and rescue Sarah before they take him off the case and launch their rocket.

The cyberleader wants to crash Nerva into Voga and then blow it up with more cyberbombs. He must have only just thought of this plan because otherwise he would probably have done it already instead of sending the Doctor and the other mannys to Voga with cyberbombs.

When the aliens see Nerva coming towards them Vorus launches his rocket and Tyrum shoots him too late to stop him. There is some subtext about Tyrum being a democratically elected leader and Vorus wanting to be some sort of fuhrer of the aliens instead of him, but even with such good actors as Kevin Stoney and David Collings in the roles this is not sufficiently developed to make the aliens' society interesting. Vorus's last line is

"My skystriker! My glory!"

After rescuing Sarah, the Doctor stays on Nerva to stop the cyberleader's plan, but they get captured again and, as punishment, they get massaged by the cybermannys and then left on Nerva to be blown up while the cybermannys evacuate in their own spaceship.

The Doctor 'phones Voga up and tells the Commander how to steer the rocket so it misses Nerva and blows up the cybermannys' spaceship instead. Then the Doctor makes Nerva miss Voga so the day is saved.

The TARDIS turns up and Harry teleports up to Nerva so they can all leave in the TARDIS in a very abrupt ending.

This last episode feels a bit rushed, especially at the very end. Most of the dramatic climax hinges on rockets, spaceships and planets either hitting each other or not hitting each other as required, but the visual effects are not up to the job of conveying this satisfactorily. When this is the case in Doctor Who, as it quite often is, the burden falls on the actors to act and react convincingly to make up for the lack of impressive effects, but because this is rushed they are unable to fully do so here.

For the story as a whole the biggest problem is that it is divided between too may sets of underdeveloped characters. In addition to the Doctor, Harry (Sullivan is an imbecile) and Sarah, there is (1) the Commander and Harry Mailer (oh, he's actually called Lester in this, I am a silly cat), (2) Kellman, (3) Vorus's alien faction, (4) Tyrum's alien faction, and (5) the cybermannys themselves. The result is that the cybermannys don't actually do very much in the story, which is a shame because it is supposed to be all about their revenge. Mew.

So, yes, Revenge of the Cybermannys has its faults, but it is enjoyable and pretty entertaining despite them. Tom Baker is great in all of his bits, as you would expect, and none of the actors let the side down. There are many worse Doctor Who stories, but there are also plenty that are better.

While it is hard to tell because so much of The Daleks' Master Plan has its pictures missing, I think Revenge of the Cybermannys is, sadly, almost certainly the worst Doctor Who story with Kevin Stoney in it.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermannys Part Three

The Doctor and the other mannys who were shot are not dead, only having sleeps. Kellman doesn't get shot by cybermannys because he is on their side. He tries to help them by searching the Doctor's pockets to look for clues, but he only finds jelly babies and other Doctor noms.

Harry and Sarah meet Tyrum, who is still being played by Kevin Stoney even though he is wasted in this role when he could have been in much better parts in much better stories around this time. He was in I Claudius the year after this was made, and I doubt he got the part of Thrasyllus on the back of Revenge of the Cybermannys. Harry and Sarah fill Tyrum in on the plot up to this point.

I don't know why Harry Mailer, the Doctor and the Commander are sitting like monkeys in this bit, maybe they did it for lols or to confuse the cybermannys?

The Doctor tries to find out the cybermannys' plan. He provokes the cyberleader with lines like

"You have no home planet, no influence, nothing. You're just a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers skulking about the galaxy in an ancient spaceship."

The cyberleader gets quite emotional and hits the Doctor, but it is a trick so the Doctor can steal one of their cyberbombs. This doesn't get him far though, as another cybermanny sneaks up on the Doctor and captures him again. Even though his escape attempt has failed, the Doctor continues to troll the cyberleader even as he is being told their plan.

"Our calculations indicate that two bombs, placed in the central fissure of Voga, will fragmentize the planet."
"Fragmentize? Oh well, I suppose we can't expect decent English from a machine."

Clearly the Doctor has been to the future and seen the internets.

The Doctor, the Commander and Harry Mailer are made to wear the cyberbombs and are sent down to Voga. The cybermannys that go with them are attacked by aliens but the cybermannys' pewpewpew guns are too powerful for the aliens and they go

Kellman teleports down to Voga and is captured by aliens. It turns out Kellman is a double agent, he knows about Vorus's rocket and wants to blow the cybermannys up too. He tells Tyrum about it and tries to get the aliens to work together against the cybermannys.

Kellman goes off with Harry to try and stop the cyberbombs from blowing the planet up, while Sarah escapes and teleports back to Nerva.

The Doctor, the Commander and Harry Mailer are still wearing the cyberbombs because they will explode if they try to take them off, and they are on a countdown to explode anyway! This makes for an exciting and suspenseful scenario, just the sort of thing that Terry Nation would do (as often as possible). They are trying to find a way to escape from the bombs when a lot of rocks fall on them.

Harry and Kellman are nearby and rocks fall on them too. Kellman goes

Harry finds the Doctor having sleeps, and he goes to take the bomb off him. Harry doesn't know this will make it explode - oh noes!

This is a big improvement on part two, with more happening and much better pacing. The Doctor's scenes with the cyberleader are good, as is the ratcheting up of the tension over the bombs. Because they don't explode (in this episode at least), the cyberbombs are being used in the Hitchcockian 'suspense v surprise' style, and are very effective as a result.