Sharpe, season three (1995)

Sharpe's Gold

Oh dear.

After a nearly unbroken string of exceptional, iconic episodes, the third season of Sharpe crashes to the ground by opening with this instalment, which adapts the novel of the same name in a similar way to a lot of Bond films - taking the title and the main characters, and substituting an entirely new plot.

What makes this even more of a punch in the face is that the TV story was written by Nigel "Quatermass" Kneale. You might think this would result in a good episode, but his decision to try and introduce hints of the supernatural, along with putting an inappropriate Aztec death cult in 19th century Spain, makes this a poor fit for the series.

Baddy-of-the-week El Casco (played by the improbably named Abel Folk) has his own spooky incidental music, which plays over his scenes like he's Anthony Valentine's Sorcerer character in Robin of Sherwood, and at one point the Chosen Mannys recover the journal of a French officer like they're Player Characters in a game of Call of Cthulhu. Cthulhu says this is his favourite episode of Sharpe, but then he would, wouldn't he? Silly Cthulhu.

As for me, I found my suspension of disbelief being stretched to near breaking point by the way the plot had to be bent out of shape to put a damsel in distress for Sharpe to rescue at the end. The love-interest-of-the-week is supposed to be General Wellington's cousin, Ellie Nugent, who along with her mother is looking for their missing father who was searching for treasure in this part of Spain. They tag along with Sharpe and the Chosen Mannys on their mission, and because they're related to the General it means Sharpe has to look after them despite them doing a lot of foolish things that are liable to get them killed. Ellie gets kidnapped by El Casco, and Sharpe ends up rescuing her from being human-sacrificed in a climax that also has a strong resemblance to Robin of Sherwood's first two-parter. Oh, and then they find her missing father, but he's gone mad from exposure to all the Aztec stuff.

At one point El Casco starts doing cat mews for no reason which, frankly, felt like adding insult to injury.

Major Nairn wisely declined to be in this one, and he is replaced by Major Munro (played by Hugh Ross, not to be confused with Major General Ross, who will be the next intelligence officer we will meet in the fourth season), whose distinguishing character trait is that he's SCOTTISH. Munro stays with us for the rest of season three, continuing the tradition of TV Sharpe to rotate the intelligence officer every season.

A significant subplot involves the provosts, whose job it is to catch and hang looters and deserters from the British army. The posho-who-hates-Sharpe-of-the-week is Lt Ayres, who starts by hanging one of Sharpe's mannys for stealing a chicken (we know the soldier in question is in trouble because he is a new character that's just been introduced and not one of the regular Chosen Mannys) and Ayres goes on to be a total arse throughout the episode, never missing any opportunity to be needlessly obnoxious. Unlike some poshos-who-hate-Sharpe-of-the-week he doesn't even get a chance to redeem or prove himself, getting randomly killed off a few minutes from the end, lol.

This is one of the poorest episodes of the entire series, an uncomfortable mix of styles and tones plus a good bad helping of clichéd tropes. It has some redeeming points - the main cast remain as watchable as ever, and there are some nice set-piece fight scenes - but not enough to save it from the bottom of the pile.

Sharpe's Battle

The generic-sounding title lets you know what you're in for - an average title for an average episode. While a big step up from the preceding story, this is still a long way from the highs of the previous seasons.

This might even be the most typical episode of Sharpe. It has a baddy-of-the-week in the form of a sadistic French Brigadier (played by Oliver "Cesare Borgia" Cotton) whose most memorable character traits are that his surname is Loup, which the show likes to repeatedly remind us means "wolf", and his single milky eye that at least gives him a distinctive appearance. He is otherwise utterly generic as an antagonist, dying at the end of an utterly typical swordfight with Sharpe in which is looks like he is about to win, then Sharpe turns the tables and kills him at the last moment.

There is of course a posho-who-hates-Sharpe of the week, this being Lord Kiley and a love-interest-of-the-week in the form of Lady Kiley. Unusually for the series, she avoids getting off with Sharpe when he realises she is still in love with her husband even though he treats her badly, and Sharpe helps them to reconcile before her husband gets killed by Loup while in the process of redeeming himself for being an absolute cad to all concerned throughout most of the story.

Perhaps of most interest in the guest cast is Ian "Harcourt" McNeice as Wagonmaster-General Runciman, Sharpe's senior officer for the duration of this episode, who is a manny with no manners whatsoever, so provides the majority of the comic relief. Otherwise the comic relief is provided by General Wellington and Major Munro, who here are as close to a Robert Holmes-style double-act as this series ever gets.

One other thing that helps this story stand out somewhat is that it is the only time (prior to the series finale Sharpe's Waterloo) that we see one of the regular Chosen Manny characters killed off. Perkins has been a Chosen Manny since Sharpe's Rifles, and while other characters introduced back in that first episode have disappeared from the show - Isaiah Tongue didn't make it to season two, and Private Cooper vanished in between Sharpe's Gold and this one - Perkins actually has the dubious honour of dying on screen. This leaves four of the original cast still in place from now on - Sharpe and Harper, of course, plus riflemannys Harris (the one who can read and write) and Hagman (the one who sings the theme song).

Sharpe's Sword

The third season ends on a high point, and a partial return to the quality levels of the first two seasons. This story sees a complex plot of British and French spies, false identities and betrayals, which is one of the best of the whole series, but unfortunately it almost tries to do too much in its run time, with the result that some of the subplots and characters do not get the development or screen time they deserve.

The guest cast is impressive. Stephen "Marvin" Moore is a Colonel who intially doesn't get on with Sharpe, but doesn't count as the posho-who-hates-Sharpe of the week because he actually comes to respect Sharpe's skills* quite quickly. Vernon Dobtcheff appears as a Spanish Don who runs a hospice. A young and pre-fame James "Mark Antony" Purrfoy appears as Captain Jack Spears, an intelligence officer W-wording for Major Munro. Speaking of Munro, by this point has completed his journey to becoming an out-and-out Komedy Scotsman, playing the bagpipes badly - not that there's a lot of difference between playing them badly and playing them well, mew - then quipping "I've never had a lesson in my life."

But the real guest-character of note is the return of Sir Henry Simmerson, last seen fleeing in cowardly disgrace at the end of Sharpe's Eagle. Michael Cochrane makes him suitably odious in every scene in which he appears (including trying to blackmail and then rape Sharpe's love-interest-of-the-week), but unfortunately it's a bit of a wasted opportunity to bring him back here, since he hardly shares any screentime with Sharpe, and probably has more dialogue with Riflemanny Harris than he does with the series' lead.

Harris gets to make his biggest contribution to the plot since the first season, when he breaks the French code that allows Sharpe to unmask the spy within their own ranks. Sharpe himself spends the middle of the story injured, so it is left to the supporting cast to carry that part of the story. Sergeant Harper turns out to have unexpected swordsmithing skills - never before and never subsequently mentioned, unless I'm very much mistaiken - and turns an old sword into a brand new one to replace Sharpe's sword that was broken when he was injured... hence the story title, clang! And with Sharpe temporarily out of the picture, it is up to a guest character to defeat Simmerson, once again sending him away humiliated, but the fact that it wasn't even one of the regular characters that did it makes it feel much less satisfying than it should have been, mew.

This is still an absolutely packed story with some great moments and plenty of twists and turns and action set-pieces - you can tell that, unlike with Sharpe's Gold, this was based pretty closely on one of the better Sharpe novels.

* A story title Bernard Cornwell hasn't used yet, but there's still time and he did start writing them again in 2021...

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Dæmons Episode Three

The Doctor confuses Bok by holding up some iron, "an old magical defence," and reciting the first line of a Venusian lullaby (one we will hear more of when he visits Peladon in a later story). Bok does one final, halfhearted rar and then he flies away.

The Master is still disguised as the vicar and he talks to Mr Winstanley, who he is trying to win over without using his normal arm-gripping method.

"All this talk of democracy, freedom, liberty... What this country needs is strength, power and decision! And those are what you can give to it."

Then, when this doesn't persuade him, the Master uses magic to scare Mr Winstanley by causing the wind to blow inside and, for good measure, his theme music to play.

Winstanley says

"I'll do anything you say."

thus demonstrating the "strength, power and decision" of a typical would-be dictator.

The Doctor and Miss Hawthorne argue about whether science or magic are responsible for what is happening, continuing the theme established in part one with the scene between the Doctor and Jo, only a lot more childishly:

"You're being deliberately obtuse - we're dealing with the supernatural, the occult, magic."

"Science!"

"Magic!"

"Science, Miss Hawthorne."

The Brigadier telephones Yates to tell him that the heat barrier is in the shape of a dome all the way around the village, so he can't get in.

The Doctor does a slideshow for the benefit of Jo, Yates, Benton and Miss Hawthorne to give them exposition about aliens with horns. This may be a deliberate parallel with the Master's use of a slideshow back in The Mind of Evil, or maybe slideshows were just the fashionable thing back in 1971 the UNIT era.

"Now creatures like those have been seen over and over again throughout the history of man, and man has turned them into myths: gods or devils. But they're neither. They are, in fact, creatures from another world."

"Do you mean like the Axons and the Cybermen?"

(The earliest and most recent aliens encountered by Benton get namechecked by him here, but the Autons don't get a look in.)

"Precisely. Only far far older, and immeasurably more dangerous."

"And they came here in spaceships like that tiny one up at the barrow?"

"That's right. They're Dæmons from the planet Dæmos, which is..."

"Sixty thousand light years away on the other side of the galaxy."

(I'm not sure why Jo is suddenly an expert on this, except that it keeps the scene from being totally one-sided.)

"And they first came to Earth nearly one hundred thousand years ago."

The Doctor goes on to say that 

"They've been coming and going ever since. The Greek civilisation, the Renaissance, the industrial revolution: They were all inspired by the Dæmons."

and

"All the magical traditions are just remnants of their advanced science, and that is what the Master is using."

This is quite a dump of exposition, only disguised by having so many other characters present for the Doctor to explain it all to, and who can each take a turn interrupting him or asking him questions.

The Master and Winstanley are having a meeting with lots of other mannys, where the Master reveals that he knows the secrets of several of the mannys, including implying that one of them has murdered his wife:

"And you, Mr Grenville, has your wife come back from her sister's yet? Will she ever come back, do you suppose?"

Is this the most subversively adult line of dialogue in all of the original series of Doctor Who, do you suppose?

Because we know who the Master is really, it is easy for us to guess how he found these things out, but the mannys are scared and they stay and listen to him when he starts to use his hypno-eyes on them. He says

"I only need two things: your submission and your obedience to my will."

But they start to turn against him and Winstanley says:

"What's all this about obedience and submission? You said that we were going to rule."

So the master summons Bok to come in and disappear Winstanley. When the rest of the mannys are too scared to act against him, the Master says

"Thank you. It does my heart good to know I have such a willing band of followers."

Roger Delgado has been giving a commanding performance throughout, but this ironic line sets off the scene.

The Brigadier wants to blow the barrier up, but the Doctor tells him it won't work. The Brigadier says

"I'm not going to sit here like a spare... like a spare lemon waiting for the squeezer."

I think the reason he pauses in the middle there is that he realised just in time that he's not allowed to say 'dildo' on TV until after the watershed. The Doctor tells the Brigadier to build a technobabble contraption to blow up the barrier properly, but the Brigadier doesn't know how so the Doctor has to go out there himself. Jo says

"Of all the idiotic plans, as if blowing things up solves anything?"

for which the Doctor gives her into trouble like a massive hypocrite, considering how often he insults the Brigadier's plans himself.

The manny from the pub has been spying on the Doctor, and he now reports what he has learned to the Master. The Master sends a henchmanny to steal Yates's helicopter. Yates chases after him on a motorbike because, like in The Mind of Evil, he has delusions of being an action hero.

The helicopter flies over the Doctor and Jo as they drive along in Bessie, a scene that has echoes of North by Northwest or, since it is a helicopter and not an aeroplane, From Russia With Love. But the helicopter flies into the heat barrier and blows up, no grenade necessary this time.

The Doctor only starts to tell Sergeant Osgood (here acting as the Brigadier's thumbs to do the actual W-word) how to make the device to blow up the barrier, then the Master decides to summon Azal the Dæmon.

Azal is the POV monster, and he becomes so high up (signifying he is giant) that even the Master gets scared and falls over. The camera does a wobbly special effect meant to signify the ground shaking, and the cliffhanger moment is the Master cowering and shouting

"Go back! You will destroy me! No! No!"

While it is highly unusual for a baddy being in peril to be the cliffhanger, it shows how the Master is just as much a regular character as any of the Doctor's Companions from UNIT.

This episode is incredibly heavy with exposition, to the extent that the Doctor resorts to a slideshow, but now that we're through it we can more clearly see the similarities and differences between this story and its obvious influence Quatermass and the Pit.

The similarities are obvious to anyone familiar with both stories, since they both feature an archaeological dig turning up an ancient spacecraft, whose alien occupants are horned, and who have influenced the development of humanity, and whose technology is sufficiently advanced as to be taken for the supernatural.

Looking beyond that, there are plenty of significant differences that mean The Dæmons can hardly be called a ripoff of Quatermass. Here are just some examples:

• Quatermass and the Pit is all about the slow build-up over the course of its episodes, up until the explosive, dramatic payoff at the climax in the final part. The Dæmons, meanwhile, has action from as early as part one
• Quatermass and the Pit is set in London, specifically post-war London, and this setting is a vital element to the story. The Dæmons is set in a rural English village, and this is an essential part of its plot, where the Master can infiltrate the community and our heroes can be easily isolated
• In Quatermass and the Pit the explanation of the aliens is mainly theorising by Professor Quatermass, with nothing ever explicitly confirmed on screen. While in The Dæmons, the Doctor (and the Master) already know about the alien Dæmons from before the story begins
• The character of the Master, who seeks to gain the power of the aliens for himself, has no parallel in Quatermass

So the differences build up to ensure the actual storylines are hardly similar at all. The most direct lift from Quatermass is the live TV broadcast from the scene of the action, that is then cut off. Only this occurs towards the end of Quatermass and the Pit, but early on in The Dæmons (in episode two).

What The Dæmons borrows (or steals, if you prefer) is not whole plots, but rather ideas, or details. For a final example of this, the name of the village, Devil's End, is quite close to the name of the street where the events of Quatermass and the Pit took place, Hobbs Lane/Hob's Lane - with "Hob" being another name for the devil.

This gets even closer if we consider the film version of Quatermass and the Pit (which was made in 1967, much closer to when The Dæmons was made than the 1958 TV series), where the London Underground station setting is Hobbs End.

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

The Ambassadors OF DEATH is a seven-episode story from season seven of Doctor Who, first broadcast in 1970. It stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Caroline John as Liz Shaw, and Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. It was also responsible for the most successful Doctor Who spinoff ever made.

It starts with a manny called Charlie, who is in space in an old-timey spaceship (although it must have been cutting-edge back when this was made, when mannys had only recently been going from the Earth to the moon). He uses his space telephone to talk to mannys still on Earth, and we learn he is about to dock his spaceship with "Mars Probe 7" which has been to Mars and taken off again.

Charlie says...

No, that's Charley, not Charlie.

Charlie says "Something took off from Mars."

Cue titles!

Actually we had already seen some of the titles, so that doesn't count as a proper pre-titles sequence, but they saved the episode title, number and writer's credit for after this dramatic moment.

We now see that the Brigadier is there with the mannys on Earth.

Davros (Michael Wisher), who is for some reason in disguise as a BBC broadcaster - it's a very cunning disguise, as he fits right in and it is easy to imagine him guest-presenting an episode of Have I Got News For You - fills us in on the story so far, since we seem to have joined in media res. Some spacemannys have already gone missing while in space and... hang on, isn't this just the beginning of The Quatermass Experiment?

The Doctor is watching the same programme as us, but he isn't interested and turns it down to carry on trying to fix the TARDIS. He makes Liz disappear by mistaik, and then himself. This is a komedy bit that goes on until they both reappear. Clearly wanting to get on with the plot, Liz turns the sound up on the TV in time to hear some more exposition from Davros:

"The two craft will be linking up in a moment or two. And then we shall know the answer to the mystery that has baffled the world's scientists for seven months."

The Brigadier is there to make sure it is really Mars Probe 7, and not some naughty aliens attempting an invasion by stealth.

Charlie's spaceship links up with Mars Probe 7 in slow motion, so that we have plenty of time to enjoy the nice model shots and to be reminded of how much more expensive the effects were in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Charlie begins to open the door between the two ships. Again this is done really slowly, but now it is to build the tension, and Charlie says "I can hear something."
He thinks the door is also being opened from the other side. The Brigadier looks concerned.

When Charlie goes through the door (upside down, to remind us he is in space) he is met by a sound effect that makes him, and all the mannys listening back on Earth, make an 'oh noes' face. When at last it stops, Charlie says... nothing more. So it's true what they say about not being able to hear you scream in space - because the SFX are too loud, lol!

The Doctor has recognised the sound effect (I'm not that surprised, the BBC are bound to have used it somewhere before) but he can't remember exactly from where, so he and Liz go to the "Space Centre" - writer David Whitaker taking lessons from the great Terry Nation here, I wonder?

The Brigadier suggests sending another "recovery capsule" spaceship to investigate the disappearance of this one, which is just asking for them getting Tintin-Planned by whatever aliens are out there. Luckily for them they don't have another one to send right now.

Davros interviews Dr Taltalian who, with his outrageous French accent, is obviously just Inspector Clouseau in disguise - this is a crossover I was not expecting!

The Doctor arrives and predicts they will hear the sound effect again, and then he annoys the manny in charge (Professor Cornish, played by Ronald "Uncle Quentin" Allen) until they do. Everyone makes an 'oh noes' face again, except for the Doctor who just listens to it. He knows it is a coded message, and he wants to decipher it so they can reply.

But before they can even make a start, there is a third sound, much shorter than the ones before, and the Doctor recognises it as a reply to the first two. Now the Doctor wants the Brigadier to help track where it came from.

They achieve this when the the reply too is repeated, and - we could probably have guessed this - it came from London, only "seven miles from here." Is it just me or are there a lot of sevens in this seven-part story?

UNIT race into action, with multiple jeeps full of mannys on location, and incidental music that sounds considerably less... er, less eccentric than what was used in Doctor Who and the Silurians. There are mannys inside the building, who are led by Carrington (John "Rimmer's Dad" Abineri). He has been expecting UNIT to arrive sooner or later, and he tells his henchmanny to keep them away for as long as possible, but not to kill anyone "unless absolutely necessary." He needs time to "send the final transmission."

There is a big HAVOC fight scene of UNIT and the baddys shooting at each other, with the Brigadier clearly enjoying himself tremendously, until Carrington's henchmanny is about to shoot the Brigadier, but instead he surrenders. They are proper baddys, who even have a self-destruct for their base. After triggering the countdown, Carrington escapes.

The Doctor goes to see Dr Taltalian about using his computer for decoding the message, but when he and Liz get there, Dr Taltalian pulls a gun on them. We didn't even know he was a baddy, so this is a surprise cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space Episode Four

The Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier are working out what is going on, with the Brigadier asking the questions so that the other two can answer them, for our benefit as well as his. The Doctor thinks at the factory they are building a body to house the "collective intelligence" contained in the energy units.

Now that the dummy General Scobie has taken over, he is on the side of the Autons and orders the Brigadier not to go to the factory. When the Doctor hears that the factory was making a dummy of the general for the Madame Tussauds museum (which wasn't a secret, apparently), he takes Liz straight there to visit (any excuse, eh, lazy Doctor?) and, when he examines the brand new dummy of General Scobie he realises it is actually the real one!

Channing then gets the dummy General Scobie (the dummy one... I know, but I need some way to tell the real dummy from the dummy dummy, don't I? Mew) to go to UNIT and seize the unit.

The Doctor and Liz are still sneaking around the museum when it is closed, dark and empty. Channing and George Hibbert come in and many of the dummys come to life. It's lucky that George was there to ask Channing things about their plan, since it allows the Doctor and Liz to overhear them.

Channing leaves but then George sees the Doctor, who tries to undo the hypno-eyesing.

"Channing is controlling your mind, you must resist him. Channing is your enemy. The enemy of the entire human race!"

Channing comes back and George doesn't give the Doctor and Liz away, so we know he has partly resisted.

Back at the factory, in the control room, Channing has made a big box with lots of dials on it, and he puts the unit near it. At the UNIT laboratory, the Doctor is also making something, but we don't know what it is yet.



There then follows the iconic scene where the Autons in the shop window come to life with a sound effect and break out of the window (off-screen). A policemanny runs to investigate, and gets pewpewpewed, and so do a few other mannys including the manny on a bike wearing a silly hat.

This is the turning point of the story, as the Autons are no longer acting secretly, they are ready to put their full plan into operation. Somebody telephones the Brigadier to tell him what's happening.

"It's started, hasn't it?"

asks the Doctor, portentously. He knows a good dramatic thing when he sees it.

The Doctor knows they can't wait any longer, so he persuades the Brigadier to attack the factory with whatever UNIT mannys he has to paw. Just like the Doctor earlier, the Brigadier doesn't take much persuading.

Thanks to the Doctor, George is overcoming Channing's hypno-eyes, and he attacks the box in the control room with a stick until Channing comes in and catches him. George asks Channing

"Who are you? What are you?"
"We are the Nestene."
"Nestene?"
"We have been colonising other planets for a thousand million years. Now we have come to colonise Earth."

Some great exposition here, and played totally straight by the two actors. George is horrified, then Channing gets an Auton to pewpewpew him.

UNIT arrives at the factory but the dummy General Scobie (the dummy one) is waiting. The Doctor uses the machine he has made to turn off the dummy general.

"You've killed him!"
"I don't think so. You see, he was never really alive."

He takes off the general's face to reveal the Auton underneath.

Insert Scobie-Doo reference here.

In the museum, the dummy General Scobie (the real one) comes back to life and looks confused.

The Brigadier teams up with the soldiers that the dummy General Scobie (the dummy one) was commanding in time for a proper fight scene - guns, stunts, everything the Brigadier could possibly have wished for, while at the same time the Doctor and Liz sneak around the factory using the machine on the Autons, deactivating them one by one until they reach the control room.

 'He's behind me, isn't he?'

Liz hides while the Doctor goes in to confront Channing. Channing responds by turning the big dial on the box up to maximum and then he recalls. The Doctor tries to use his machine but it doesn't work. Liz tries to fix it while the Doctor gets grabbed by some naughty tentacles. This is Cthulhu's favourite bit.

The Doctor tries to fight it with some Venusian Gurning, but it is not until Liz manages to repair the machine that it blows up the box. All the Autons, including Channing, go

Back at the UNIT laboratory, the Doctor and the Brigadier "discuss terms" for if the Doctor is to W-word for UNIT. Oh noes, the Doctor doing the W-word! He's clearly no cat. Not yet.

The Doctor wants a car (not a cat, but such similar words maybe he just got them mixed up and only found out his mistaik later), and in return the Brigadier wants to know his name. The Doctor tells him it is

"Smith. Doctor John Smith."

and he smiles. Not such a big secret after all, eh Steven Moffat?

What's so good about Spearhead from Space?

Spearhead from Space is a great introductory story for Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and the establishment of the UNIT era. Indeed Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is the main Companion - practically the main character - for much of the story, perhaps because we have met him before (during the Patrick Troughton era) while Liz is new.

As a story in its own right, it is well-paced, ever escalating towards an iconic climax in episode four, when we get one of the most famous scenes in all of Doctor Who to pay it off - so good that Russell "The" Davies would later lift it completely for his first episode Rose.

Speaking of lifts, Robert Holmes was blatantly inspired by the 1955 BBC TV series Quatermass ii (he must have thought he could get away with it after 15 years and no DVD release), with several aspects of Spearhead from Space coming from it - most obviously the shape and purpose of the meteorites/energy units, but also in a key location being a factory under the control of the aliens, and the hypno-eyesing of mannys to make them go along with the aliens' plans. But Holmes makes these elements fit as part of a new plot (albeit still in the 'alien-invasion-by-stealth' sub-genre) and why not? He's stealing from the best after all.

There's also something to be said about the way that this story was made entirely on film, which lends it a 'cinematic' quality and an extra level of credibility that many of the studio-bound (or a mix of studio and film) stories lack. This is helped by the fact that the SFX throughout are impressive (by Doctor Who standards) and fit the story perfectly, which would probably have still been true even on videotape.

All in all, we're off to a great start to the season and the era, but I happen to know that the next story will be even better...

Quatermass and the Pit

Inside the mind of every Doctor Who writer there is a race memory of Quatermass and the Pit.

The final installment of the 1950s sci-fi series by Nigel Kneale had parts of it taken and used in multiple Doctor Who stories, without any of them quite going so far as to copy the plot outright.

The Daemons is one of the most blatant, including as it does an archaeological dig turning up an ancient spacecraft, whose alien occupants are horned, and who have influenced the development of humanity, and whose technology is sufficiently advanced as to be taken for black magic.

Image of the Fendahl also prominently features ancient aliens, as well as a skull far older than it should be. Also the pentagram on the Fendahl skull is reminiscent of the pentacle marking inside the spacecraft from the pit.

If Robert Holmes took a few ideas from Quatermass ii for his Spearhead From Space, it is not too much more of a stretch to see the influence of Quatermass and the Pit in The Ark in Space, not only in the insect design of the Wirrn being a bit like the aliens from Quatermass and the Pit, but in the way that the Doctor and Harry find one long dead as the ending to an episode. There is also the small matter of the Doctor using a device to see into the dead Wirrn's brain, which resembles the (somewhat convenient) machine that Quatermass uses to see the race memory of the aliens.

Doctor Who and the Silurians (one of the best Doctor Who stories evar, it has Paul Darrow in it!) features a race memory buried in the minds of mannys so they go mad when they see the Silurians. Although in  a clever twist on Quatermass and the Pit, instead of mannys being Martians, it turns out that Silurians are Earthlings.

Considering that Doctor Who and the Silurians is from the same season as Spearhead From Space (influenced by Quatermass ii) and The Ambassadors of Death (influenced by The Quatermass Experiment), that only leaves Inferno out of Jon Pertwee's first season as the Doctor - and while I see it as a bit more of a stretch than the other three, you could consider the mannys digging up an ancient substance that influences their minds and makes them go on destructive rampages as a reflection of the events in Quatermass and the Pit.

Also throughout season seven, the Doctor's relationship with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT more closely resembles the dynamic between Professor Quatermass and the military (and in particular Colonel Breen in Quatermass and the Pit), with this never more apparent than when they are actively in conflict with each other in Doctor Who and the Silurians. It can be easy to forget this when you are used to the more comfortable "UNIT family" dynamic seen from season eight onwards.

Beyond the 1970s, where the majority of stories influenced by Quatermass seem to be found, in The Curse of Fenric the "evil from the dawn of time" Fenric has been waiting in his container for mannys to find him and wake him up. And by the time we reach The Satan Pit in 2006 there is a very real question of whether Doctor Who is still being influenced by Quatermass or if it is now simply being influenced by earlier Doctor Who that was influenced by Quatermass.

Quatermass and the Pit is a masterpiece of building up suspense before paying it off. There is very little peril for the characters until near the end of part four (of six), only a long, slow build of mystery as the fantastic premise is established for us. When the peril does arrive, it escalates quickly until the whole of London is threatened at the climax.

The structure is similar to that of The Quatermass Experiment, but with much of that earlier series missing we lose out on being able to experience this effect there - the film version is not long enough to substitute in this respect - and Quatermass ii has a more conventional structure (with hindsight of the direction most TV sci-fi would take) of revealing much of the threat early so we then watch our heroes struggle against it.

"We are the Martians."

With a premise as strong yet fantastic as "mannys are Martians really" it is no wonder that this series proved so memorable, and as an allegory for immigration it remains as topical now as it was 60 years ago. It pulls this premise off by playing it absolutely straight, with total conviction from the actors - a real strength of all of the Quatermass serials.

André Morell is great as Professor Quatermass, although at first I found myself missing John Robinson (who played the part in Quatermass ii) since he doesn't remind me of Tiberius from The Caesars. Morell is ably assisted by a new self-sacrificing Companion, Dr Roney the Canadian archaeologist, proto-Indiana Jones and part-time inventor of convenient plot devices.

While the machine for seeing into mannys' brains is almost one sci-fi contrivance too far, it is used extremely well, with the brief footage of the aliens fighting each other being all the more effective for its brevity. The alien design is great too, and their first reveal makes for a fantastic end-of-episode cliffhanger.

The three Quatermass serials each features an original method of alien invasion that allows every one to stand out in its own way. My favourite of the trilogy (in as much as it is possible to fairly judge between them when so much of the first story is lost) is Quatermass ii, which I thought had the most exciting story, but all three are great and stand the test of time.

Quatermass ii

Robert Holmes is often considered to be Doctor Who's best scriptwriter, partly responsible for shaping the direction the series took throughout much of the 1970s. But his first two scripts for the show, The Krotons and The Space Pirates, are not exactly typical of Holmes's style, and it is only with his third story that he truly arrives on the scene, helped perhaps by the simultaneous arrival of colour for the first time and Jon Pertwee as the brand new Doctor.

I think Robert Holmes must have been a Quatermass fan. While I would hesitate to call Spearhead From Space a "rip-off" of Quatermass ii, it certainly copied some elements - not just those characteristics shared by many 'alien-invasion-by-stealth' plots (as opposed to 'alien-invasion-by-force', the other main type of alien invasion plot that Doctor Who had done multiple times by this point), but in specific aspects such as the hollow meteorites that carry the aliens to Earth in both stories.

The character of Bernard Quatermass seems more of a manny of action in this story than he did in The Quatermass Experiment, not hesitating to personally investigate dangerous situations. I don't know if it seems this way because we only have the first two parts of the original story to judge it by, or if perhaps the recasting of Quatermass prompted a shift in the characterisation, but the end result is that he feels a lot like Jon Pertwee's portrayal of the Doctor during the UNIT years. Maybe it was this that Nigel Kneale objected to, rather than the occasional lifting of story devices?

Speaking of Jon Pertwee's Doctor Who, the most noteworthy guest actor to appear in this is Roger Delgado, playing a journalist in part four. Maybe this is what gave the Master the idea of teaming up with the Nestenes in Terror of the Autons?

"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

All comparisons to Doctor Who aside, Quatermass ii is a surprisingly fast-paced six part serial. It shows fewer signs than its predecessor of having been made in the 1950s, with many improvements in the technical competence of the production, and it is difficult to believe that almost all of it was broadcast live. It is also a great story that still stands up well today, with many twists and turns that, while they may have been imitated, have scarcely been bettered. The scenes in part five with Quatermass and the workers sabotaging the alien life support, and the aliens' subsequent retaliation, are particularly strong.

It was also particularly pleasing to be able to watch a famous television series made all the way back in 1955 without having any knowledge of what would happen in it or how it would end, especially in this age of the internets when it seems I can't go a single week after a new Star Wars film comes out without being spoilered on it.

The Quatermass Experiment

This is probably the oldest television programme I shall ever watch. Broadcast live in 1953, only the first two episodes of the six part series survive, although the same story was made into a film version by Hammer two years later and that does still exist to be watched so I know how it ends from that.

The TV version differs from the film in many of the same ways that the Doctor Who TV stories The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth differ from their film versions. Most notably, from the two parts that we can see, they differ in where the rocket crashes - in the film it crashes in the countryside, an isolated location, but on TV it crashes in the middle of London city, leading to scenes consciously reminiscent of the Blitz (which was only 10 years past at the time this was made). It seems that a rocket crashed into a crowded city street was easier to create in a TV studio, while a rocket crashed in a wide open but empty field was easier to create on location.

On the subject of Doctor Who, it seems The Quatermass Experiment's writer Nigel Kneale didn't like Doctor Who and thought it stole all his ideas. While it is hard to ignore that some stories from Doctor Who have elements that resemble those of The Quatermass Experiment - the disappearing astronauts in The Ambassadors of Death, the monster from The Seeds of Doom, and The Lazarus Experiment was not even trying to hide its influence when setting its own climax inside a big church - they are only a few out of many different story archetypes done over the years, and I think it would be tough to detect much resemblance between Quatermass and the serials from the early William Hartnell years of the show.

Four years before doggys first went into space, and eight years before mannys followed them, The Quatermass Experiment showed a British space programme being the ones to put the first mannys into space. This optimistic view of the UK's technological reach and associated status in the world would perhaps be the most lasting influence on Doctor Who, in which the Doctor would normally visit Earth by way of England, where the BBC studios were helpfully located.

The technical limitations of the time this dates from are obvious and inescapable, and the absence of parts three to six is tragic in a way, but this is nevertheless a fascinating look back to the dawn of television science fiction.