Viewing images

It has come to my attention that many of the image links are not working for some people.  I'll figure this out soon, but for now, everything seems to work if you right-click  >> "open link in new tab"  from Chrome.  You can also clear your cookies and make everything work normally, but this is also annoying.

Could people comment below and let me know 1) what browser you are using, 2) whether you have had problems viewing some of the images, and 3) what the extent of this problem was.

Thanks,
-WhoTraz

s02 e10 The Dalek Invasion of Earth

In which the Doctor and his companions thwart the...well...Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Review: 
Between a crowd-surfing Dalek and Barbara running over a Dalek in a fire truck, this is easily in the top 20 episodes ever.

Important Firsts:

• First returning villain
• First companion to leave the show
• LAST appearance of Susan (for 19 years, anyway)

Musings:

• We get a fairly unique pre-intro title screen showing some Dalek saucers hovering over London along with some spooky alien music.
• I LOVE that of all the aliens in the Whoverse, it is the Daleks that get the classic "flying saucer" design.  It's also cool how consistent the ship design has remained over the years.
• After she falls off a rusty bridge like an idiot, The Doctor tells Susan that she needs "a jolly-good smack-bottom."
• The crew wonders if they are in contemporary London, but don't seem overly bothered by that sign behind the TARDIS.
• Look at this picture and tell me why Ian and Barbara are not boning.
• The Dalek's employ some vaguely cyberman-like constructs called "robomen".
• Susan and Barbara get separated by a collapsing staircase. 
• Some refugees take in Susan and Barbara and ask them if they have any relevant skills, since everyone must pull their weight.
• "I cook," says Barbara.
• "I eat," says Susan.
• Ian and the Doctor escape some robomen by diving into the river.
• And actually, everything seems to be going pretty well until OMFG.
• The Daleks do not yet recognize the Doctor yet, though according to the Doctor, this actually happens earlier than their last meeting.  A million years earlier, apparently.
• However, the Doctor sure as hell recognizes the Daleks, and you can already see his hatred for them growing. He tells them off pretty good.
• The Daleks wear some funky-ass backpack that allows them to operate off of metal floors by collecting static electricity out of the air or something.
• One of the Earth scientists refers to the Dalek shells as being made out of "Dalekanium", which is the first time it is called by this name.
• The Daleks are lead by a black Dalek, which is the first time we see a Dalek of a different color, and is basically the beginning of the end.
• Some guy with brainy-specs makes some sort of anti-dalek grenade.
• It's not really an invasion, actually, it's an occupation.  The Daleks already control the whole planet.The Dalek's master plan involves using a huge bomb to remove the Earth's core and replace it with a powerful drive system so that they can pilot the planet around the galaxy.   This, of course, is absolutely ridiculous.
• "Daleks," says Barbara "Everything they touch turns into a horrible sort of nightmare."
• The world's baddest baddass confronts some Daleks.
• This goes poorly.
• If I'm not mistaken, the Tenth Doctor recalls the events of this story in "The Stolen Earth"
• Actually, there are a lot of awesome references between the two stories.
• "Maybe everything will be all right!"
• No, Susan.
• A pretty epic battle in front of the Dalek saucer, with the humans wielding anti-dalekanium grenades.  It doesn't go super well, but allows some prisoners to escape.
• The Daleks use stupid-looking bombs.
• Barbara escapes in a fire truck.  You already know where this is going.
• Susan begins to fall in love with David, a dude who is probably right for her.
• Ian escapes back to the river.  This goes less well than expected.
• Susan and David take their relationship to the next level.
• Susan says "I never felt there was any time or place that I belonged to. I've never had any real identity."
• David replies: "One day you will. There will come a time when you're forced to stop travelling, and you'll arrive somewhere."
• And then next they OH DEAR GOD.
• Continuing his streak of hiding in stupid places, Ian is accidentally sealed inside a bomb.
• And then dropped off a cliff.
• Even after watching, I am a little unclear how he survives.
• Some slave miners revolt, and a Dalek celebrates by crowdsurfing. 
• In the end, David asks Susan to stay, but she says that no, her place is with her grandfather.  The Doctor, however, has different plans for her.
• Actually, you should just watch this, because it's pretty moving.
• Okay, I have to admit, I like the scene re-scored and smeared in Murray Gold tripe, despite the anachronism. 
• And yes, loathe as I am to admit it, I will miss Susan.  She really grew on me in the end.  In enjoyed the theme of her becoming more and more independent.
• The Doctor never does return in the series, although they will be briefly reunited in "The Five Doctors," albeit without retaining a memory of those events.  There is also an Eighth Doctor novel in which he returns, but I haven't read it.
• I try not to think about how vastly Susan will outlive David.
• On the other hand it may be a moot point, since Susan was presumably killed along with every other Time Lord in the Time War.  The saddens me more than I would have thought.
• Apparently Carol Ann Ford left the show because she was unhappy with the direction that the character was going.  Gee, I wonder why.

s02 e09 Planet of the Giants

In which the TARDIS crew gets shrunk down to tiny size and must make their way across a lawn filled with hostile insects while in no way inspiring later films.

Review:
Surprisingly, not even the fact that the episode contains an environmental message inspired by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring can stop this from being ridiculously good fun.

Important Firsts:

• First episode set on entirely on contemporary Earth.
• First episode involving a miniaturized Doctor.

Musings:

• No but seriously, I'm not kidding about the Silent Spring thing. The writer had just finished reading Silent Spring, and the whole reason he miniaturized the crew was so that they could come face to face with the dangers of insecticide.
• Originally this story was four segments long, but the last two were spliced into one to make for a faster-paced conclusion.
• This essentially left a one-segment hole in the production schedule, which was later filled with the one-shot story Mission to the Unknown, which is unique among Doctor Who stories in that it involved none of the regular cast.
• Originally, the pilot episode of the series was supposed to involve the TARDIS crew being miniaturized. This was back when the TARDIS was conceived of as less of a time and space machine than as a general purpose mystery-box.
• The TARDIS doors open on their own in the middle of the time vortex, and Susan turns into some sort of pointer.
• I think for the exterior TARDIS shots, they are actually using their usual miniature model in someone's backyard instead of on a set at the same scale.
• The TARDIS scanner blows up because it tries to display something too big for its frame.  I'm glad my television doesn't work like that.
• The sets look awesome.
• Susan makes a friend
• Actually, though, the ant is dead, as are all the insects the crew encounters.  That anti-pesticide message is starting to seep through.
• Ironically, it's Susan who first figures out that they have been miniaturized.  Ian prefers to cling to the notion that they are, in fact, on a planet of giants.
• Susan is really starting to annoy me less as she becomes more and more competent. 
• The explanation given for the shrinking is that when the TARDIS doors opened in mid flight, the "space pressure caused us to reduce"
• Um.
• Ian gets separated at 13:10 when he climbs inside a matchbox and gets picked up by kind of an awesome man.
• OH SHIT THERE'S A CAT.
• Some long conversation about the dangers of insecticide between a nice scientist and a weasely pesticide manufacturer...
• ...who proceeds to murder the scientist with a gun.
• The TARDIS crew feels the reverberation of the gun as a big explosion, like an ancient cannon going off.  
• The scientist falls to the ground, spilling Ian and allowing him to escape.
• The crew is reunited by the body of the dead scientist. 
• The crew decides to make haste back to the ship...
• but OH SHIT THERE'S THE CAT.
• Ian takes refuge in a briefcase and gets carried.  You think he would learn.
• Some more yammering about pesticides between the local giants.
• The Doctor and Susan climb up the inside of a rusty drainpipe.  I'm pretty impressed that the Doctor manages this, although he just barely makes it.
• A line in Neil Gaiman's "The Doctor's Wife" implies that the Doctor left Gallifrey about 700 years ago, meaning that he was about 200 years old.  Given that Susan is only 16, he must not have been wandering around too long.  I'm thinking the Doctor acts around 75 or so in human terms, implying that Time Lords age about one third as fast as humans within a given regeneration.  On the other hand, the Eleventh Doctor is seen 200 years older in "The Impossible Astronaut" without seeming to have aged a day.  It could be that only the first regeneration ages normally, which would make sense since they do start as children and age to adulthood the first time around.  I dunno. 
• Barbara also makes a friend, although this one is alive.
• Ian and Barbara reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaalllyyyyyyy need to bone, and I really need a new running joke.
• Barbara fondles some pesticide-covered wheat granules.  I get the feeling this will come back and bite them in the ass.
• Once she realizes what she's done, Barbara decides that it's a good idea not to tell anyone.
• Ian and Barbara make a ladder out of paperclips.  Great fun.
• The Doctor and Susan emerge from a sink. 
• Barbara starts to die from the insecticide.  She still doesn't tell the rest of the crew. Eventually they get suspicious of her passing out every couple seconds.
• Finally, the TARDIS crew manages to phone a kindly old couple by stamping around on a telephone.  They set events in motion leading to the apprehension of Evil Pesticide Man.
• The elderly man comes to investigate, and gets a gun pulled on him. 
• The TARDIS crew lights a match by running it at a matchbox like a battering ram.
• In turn, they light a gas jet and direct it at an aerosol can.
• The resulting explosion blinds Evil Pesticide Man and saves the day! Great fun!
• Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor works out a way to grow everyone back to normal size.  Doing so astronomically reduces the relative amount of pesticide in Barbara's system, and the day is saved!
• In the cliffhanger, the TARDIS takes off on its own.
• BECAUSE NEXT EPISODE HAS DALEKS.
• No for real though: "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" is a big deal, and I'm super excited to watch it again.

Season 1: a retrospective

Title Sequence

Worst companion fail: "But the Aztecs were Mexicans. We must be on Earth!"
Best companion win: Probably Ian, master of disguise.
Best monster: this is an easy one.
Best Dalek defeat: Ian rolling one on to his jacket
Best Doctor pic: Probably toking up
Best Quote: "I made some cocoa and got engaged" --The Doctor
New series bonus round: I STILL love this.

A video involving a dalek and a puppy.

s01 e08 The Reign of Terror

In which some French people freak out, the Doctor's companions get arrested a lot, and the Doctor hikes 12 kilometers through some farmland to rescue them.

Review:
So I realize that Doctor Who season finales don't exactly have the best track record, but at least they've never been this boring.

Important Firsts:

• First season finale.
• First time the Doctor beats someone unconscious with a shovel.

Musings:

• Susan states that the french revolution, i.e. the Reign of Terror, is the Doctor's favorite period in Earth's history.  Evidently the Doctor enjoys being bored.
• Nevertheless, the Tenth Doctor shares this fascination for all things French.
• There's an extremely shrieky, whiney frenchmen who is actually more annoying than Susan.
• In fact pretty much all the French in this episode ham it up to a fairly extreme degrees.  It's pretty obnoxious.
• Barbara changes into a more period-appropriate outfit BASICALLY WHILE IAN WATCHES
• *sigh*
• Some French set fire to a barn in which the Doctor lies unconscious.  His companions are dragged away to be executed.
• Things look pretty grim for the Doctor at the end of the first segment, as he wakes up just long enough to pass out from smoke inhalation.
• The barn goes up in a pretty epic blaze.  They're burning a model here, but based on the size of the flames, it's a pretty big model.  Adjusting for the time period, these special effects are basically the equivalent of this.
• A lecherous leper of a French jailer offers to trade Barbara freedom in exchange for sex.  She slaps him in the face.
• Barbara and Susan reminisce about being taken captive by cavemen in the first episode.
• The Doctor is rescued by a dirty little frenchboy.
• The Doctor decides to hike the 12 miles to Paris to rescue his companions.   He spends some time looking for a walking stick.
• Setting across the French countryside with a look of grim determination, the Doctor marches along to a bopping ditty.
• The Doctor encounters a French taskmaster slavishly driving some debtors who are building a road. What follows is one of the best Doctor Who scenes ever
• The doctor walks for another three segments (about one hour of real time).  Meanwhile, his companions sit in captivity and are menaced by various boring Frenchmen.
• Upon arriving in Paris, the Doctor dons a pretty bitchin' disguise and proceeds to rescue his companions in style. 
• It good to see the Doctor doing to rescuing for once, a job usually left to Ian in previous episodes.  The writers are finally starting to cast the Doctor more in the role of hero.
• Unlike all episodes up until this point, The Reign of Terror does NOT end in any sort of cliffhanger, and in fact suggests that the crew will have several adventures before we see them next.   This is fitting for the end of a season, and it also gave a place to allow spin-off media such as novel and radio plays to insert adventures without breaking continuity.
• "Our lives are important—at least to us—and as we see, so we learn... Our destiny is in the stars, so let's go and search for it." --The Doctor, last line of the first season.

s01 e07 The Sensorites

In which some aliens telepathically menace some humans on a spaceship, only then it turns out the humans have been huge dicks all along.

Review:
Exactly like this, but without any special effects.


Important Firsts:

• First display of Time Lord telepathy (by Susan, no less)
• First discussion of Gallifrey (though not by name)
• First use of "brainy specs"

Musings:

• The episode begins with a series recap of sorts as as the Doctor and his crew reminisce about their adventures so far and how they have changed as individuals and as a crew. 
• The Doctor notes: "It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure!" which sums up the whole series nicely
•  You can see that the Doctor is actually starting to like adventuring for the sake of adventuring, rather than just for the sake of escaping the stuffiness of Time Lord society.
• A Sensorite cuts the lock off of the TARDIS, which then prevents the crew from getting back in.  A strange sort of lock indeed.
• 10 minutes in and no one is separated yet.  A new record?
• We're in the 28th century, evidently. 
• Maybe Ian and Barbara finally bone in this episode?
• Edit: nope.
• The Doctor does some vague pelvic thrusting.  Not sure why.
• The Doctor puts on some spectacles in order to do smart things such as pilot the space ship.  The Fifth and Tenth Doctor also had this habit, though in the First Doctor's case it probably had more to do with being blind than trying to look smart.
• 12 minutes and he crew is still all together.
• The Sensorites have heads that look kind of like testicles.
• A lot of weird mind control in this episode.  
• 16 minutes, NOBDY separated yet. 
• One of the spaceship's crew has seen better days.
• Fortunately, they help him out by using some sort of OH MY GOD!
• Ian has a sighting that reminds me a lot of that movie about the gremlin on the airplane wing.
• On a related note, Susan runs off screaming and somebody finally gets separated at 19:23.
• "Where does the power come from" asks Ian.  "Electromagnetics!" answers a crewman.
• Susan is able to detect the Sensorites telepathically.  This is the first display of Time Lord telepathy.
• Then again, it's unclear if this is a universal Gallifreyen trait or restricted to Time Lords.  I still have a lot of trouble imagining Susan passing her Time Lord SATs or whatever.
• Susan and Barbara work together to nuke the Sensorites with a telepathic mind-bomb.
• It turns out that the Sensorites are actually timid creatures who fear the human spacemen and are trying to use telepathy to defend themselves.  This is actually a pretty cool twist.
• BRAINY SPEC ATTACK
• The Tenth Doctor references the Sensorites in the episode "Planet of the Ood" 46 years later. Apparently they come from a planet very near the Ood, and they are closely related species.
• The Doctor's disdain for weapons first comes out here, when he has to opportunity to use a ray gun but refuses.
• The Sensorites have a remarkably complex culture.  It's cool what the show could do with a 2 or 3 hour runtime instead of 45 minutes. 
• There's kind of an "Avatar" theme running here, where the Sensorites are being menaced by greedy humans...
• ...except instead of "Unobtainium", the element of conflict is "Molybdenum," which is the stupidest sci-fi bullshit if I've ever heard.
• Oh wait.
• The Sensorites wear some really stupid jumpsuits. Check out those feet.
• Susan disobeys the Doctor for the first time, and the Doctor FREAKS OUT.
• This precipitates a pretty good argument between them. 
• "In all the years my granddaughter and I have been traveling, we've never had a an argument.  And now, you've caused one!" says the Doctor to the Sensorites.
• "It's not the Sensorites," says Barbara, "she's just growing up."
• And, indeed, loathe as I am to admit it, Susan is remarkably competent in this episode.  She understands subtleties of the Sensorite culture that even the Doctor misses. 
• The jumpsuits may be dumb, but their masks and makeup are remarkably convincing.
• "These 'humans' are so hideous" says one Sensorite.  
• "But consider," says another, "to them, WE may look hideous." no shit, testicle head.
• One of the humans asks Susan about where she comes from:
• "It's been ages since we've seen our planet.  It's quite like Earth...but at night the sky is a burnt orange, and the leaves on the trees are bright silver."
• Gallifrey is next described 45 years later in the episode "Gridlock", when the Tenth Doctor also mentions the "burnt orange sky" and "silver leaves"
• At the end of them episode, watching the Sesnorites fly off, Ian makes a snarky comment about how at least the Sensorites know where they're going.
• This causes the Doctor, who is still a little ticked off from his earlier argument with Susan, to FREAK OUT and announce that he is dropping Ian's ungrateful ass off at the next destination, no matter where it is. CLIFFHANGER!!!!!

s01 e06 The Aztecs

In which Barbara is mistaken for an Aztec goddess, Ian defeats some mighty warrior with a lot of consonants in his name, and the Doctor accidentally gets engaged.

Review:
Did I mention that the Doctor's accidental engagement is the result of cocoa beans?

Important Firsts:

• First (failed) attempt to change history and discussion thereof
• First romantic subplot involving the Doctor

Musings:

• It turns out that Barbara specializes in Aztec civilizations.  In practice this means we have to listen to her talk for a miserably long time about history, which is never fun.
• Pretty good costumes.  Pretty dumpy sets.
• "But the Aztecs are Mexicans!  We must be on earth!"
• Following that gem, Susan looks at some cave paintings and declares: "Hey look: cartoons!" Great.  A Time Lord kindergartner.
• Actually, it's worth noting that not all Galifreyans are Time Lords.  As I understand it, Time Lords are a subset of Galifreyan who have stared into the Time Vortex and had their biology rewritten (mmmm, triple helix DNA!).  Susan may be simply Galifreyen.  In fact, it's pretty easy to imagine her failing whatever entrance exam the Time Lords use. 
• Barbara gets mistaken for a goddess when she waltzes out of the holy temple having donned a bunch of sacred jewelry....
• ...And gets separated from the group at 2:43.  This may be a new record.
• The high priest of sacrifice is not a nice man
• He is also a little bit lecherous
• The Doctor finds a lady friend, and they are absolutely adorable together.
• In fact, this is the only romance involving the Doctor that I have ever fully approved of. If ANY human is going to be the Doctor's equal, it's going to be a sweet, baddass, and extremely wise old woman, not some trashy 19-year-old.
• Also, I still can't get over this.
• Barbara insists on trying to use her status as goddess to eliminate the Aztec tradition of human sacrifice. When the Doctor finds out, he exclaims "You can't rewrite history, not one line!"
• He goes on to say "What you are trying to do is impossible. I know. Believe me, I know!" and you can really see the sadness in his eyes.  This theme would be repeated many times throughout the years, including in recent episodes such as "The Fires of Pompei"
• Granted, now that the Time Lords have all kicked the bucket, time is apparently more mutable, for good and for bad.
• Ian performs the vulcan nerve pinch on the Aztec's most powerful warrior, and as result is crowned general of the Aztec army.
• "They call me The Doctor. I'm a scientist, an engineering, a builder of things!"
• Susan gets locked up in a seminary for the middle two segments because Carol Ann Ford went on vacation.
• Susan TWEAKS OUT when she find out about the concept of arranged marriage.
• Of course that reaction is nothing compared to when she finds out that she is forcibly betrothed to next week's human sacrifice.
• Upon being introduced to the idea of cocoa beans as currency, the Doctor exclaims: "What an excellent idea! A currency you can drink!"
• Apparently consuming a cup of cocoa together constitutes a marriage proposal in Aztec-land. Blissfully unaware of this custom, the Doctor makes a cup for the sweet old lady.
• Later, when Ian asks the Doctor what he did that afternoon, the Doctor replies, bewildered: "I made some cocoa and got engaged"
• The evil high priest of sacrifice wears an increadibly stupid headress that looks like rabbit ears. In fact, all the hats in this scene are abominations.
• Also worth noting is Susan's fiancee: the naked dude on the rock.
• The Doctor constructs a baddass pulley system to open a temple door.  Pretty sweet.
• In the end, no one gets married, and the TARDIS crew barely escapes with their lives.  All's well that ends well?
• The Doctor is sad as he enters the TARDIS.  He slips a little trinket gift from the sweet old lady into his coat pocket and pats it, smiling sadly. :'(