Doctor Who #129: The Smugglers Part 1

"A priest? The word of God touched me too late, boy. I'm the Churchwarden here."TECHNICAL SPECS: Only a few clips exist from The Smugglers, clips notoriously cut by Australian censors. Though I have listened to the audio CD narrated by the great Anneke Wills (best of all the narrators), I've used a reconstruction here (Part 1, Part 2). First aired Sep.10 1966.

IN THIS ONE... Polly and Ben's first trip through time lands them in Cornwall at the time of pirates.

REVIEW: Poor Ben and Polly! Killer robots is one thing, but time travel? That's another. Though Polly brings some of her sarcastic humor to the table, and Ben does his bit defending her honor, there is sometimes the sense that the script was written with Steven and Dodo in mind. Consequently, Ben acts the Doubting Thomas and Polly goes "wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". Also, she wears a cap and everyone thinks she's a boy. A very pretty boy. Shockingly, the Doctor's initial attitude towards these two kids he liked and trusted in the previous story is one of outrage at their presence. It's the old Doctor from An Unearthly Child showing his teeth again. And why not? Picking up orphans and last survivors has been the norm lately, and he's just picked up two people who have lives to get back to when he damn well knows the TARDIS won't want to go back to 1966. Worse, it's his fault for misplacing a key. So we can accept and forgive his reaction. Plus, it helps sell the premise all over again, and this feels like a proper season premiere, as the Doctor reexplains the situation, the scanner, etc. to new companions and to a potential new audience.

Though there are a lot of telesnaps taken from this story, it's still difficult to get a sense of what the locations looked like on film. It's the first time Doctor Who goes to the beach, but how did the stuff on boats look? The script does create a sense of place, with much of the dialog sounding archaic. The churchwarden is an intriguing character, with an obvious past which comes to collect an old debt in the form of the nasty pirate Cherub. He'll die violently for his refusal to talk, stabbed in the back in the only surviving clip from this episode, long enough to make me think the Australians likely didn't know what the HECK was going on there. The pirates are looking for clues to Captain Avery's Gold, coded words he's given to the Doctor as repayment for fixing his dislocated fingers (so he's had other visitors). Captain Avery, new Who fans might remember is the name of the pirate captain in The Curse of the Black Spot. It only took 45 years to find out what ever happened to him that his gold was up for grabs (or hundreds of years if we go by the historical Avery instead).

With pirates about, the townsfolk are all as wary as the churchwarden, if not downright paranoid. In addition to the innkeeper Kewper and his boy Young Tom, there's also the local Squire, an obvious blowhard who accuses Ben and Polly of murder without any kind of evidence. He's the lazy arm of the law. Meanwhile, the Doctor is kidnapped by pirates (I know they smuggle things, but why not just call the serial The Pirates?), brought to the Black Albatross (cool name!) and questioned by one Captain Pike. And that's where our story ends for now, mateys...

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - Though Ben and Polly aren't quite spot-on, it's a good start to one of the last pure historicals, though the presence of pirates may make it more of a genre piece.

Kung Fu Fridays in April 2012

Tonight, Hot Potato feat. Black Belt Jones, some silly Blaxploitation before we go to a friend's housewarming party. But in April? Here's what we'll be watching (and what you'll be finding in my capsule reviews). I've decided on a trilogy of sorts, or rather, a trilogy of swords, and a smooth back and forth between China and Korea, between vintage and contemporary.

Bastard Swordsman - A late era wuxia film from the Shaw Bros., I've heard good things about it and it did spawn a sequel. Just from the tiny pictures on the back of the DVD, I can tell there's a lot of wire fu on this one, and even people shooting chi out of their hands. Bring it on, ya Bastard!

The Sword with No Name - It's a historical epic about Korea's legendary Queen Min. It's a romance between a Queen and a rogue. It's a tale of betrayal and courtly intrigue. And it continues Korea's love affair with pretty people.

The Sword of Swords - Cheng Kang's 14 Amazons was really awesome, so we can expect good things from this magic sword story. Jimmy Wang Yu, star of this month's poster, was the One-Armed Swordsman, and though he's got both arms in this one, he still gets blinded! Can you say TYPECAST?

War of the Arrows - And back to Korea for a 2011 hit about an archer who risks his life to save his sister from slavery under an evil prince's rule. It won a pile of awards in Asia, so I'm sure its success will translate to my little group of aficionados.

Hope the gang isn't all caught up in exams, because it looks like a pretty good month!

Yee-Haw! New Trailer for Doctor Who!

It's been a bit heavy on the word count this week, so I'll postpone by regular Dial H feature this week to instead talk a little bit about Doctor Who's new Series 7 trailer. Let's watch together, shall we?

So ok, it's rather heavy on The Gunslinger (if that is indeed the title, it's a nice wink to the Hartnell story recently reviewed in these here pages), which, according to IMDB, is scheduled to air third. Looks like fun! The snowy mountaintop, with the Dalek eye poking out is equally intriguing. Dear Lord, let's hope the Daleks have found a way to play around with their shape. Might take the sting out of the candy-covered redesign. Other things that flash by rather fast:
0:19 - An Egyptian princess with otherwise contemporary characters? Could one of the men be Rory's Dad? (That's the only other episode title as yet released.) Characters reappear from 0:24.
0:25 - The cliff face from The Time of Angels. Surely just a location reuse and not a link to the weepy ones?
0:52 - Big robot dudes, and they interact with the Egyptian princess... what IS this story?
0:54 - Some fans are speculating this is the first Doctor as played by another actor, as a tie-in to the 50th anniversary celebrations, or even as a way to infer that the new companion played by Jenna-Louise Coleman could be a regenerated Susan. Does that theory hold water for you?
0:54 - Rory's Dad (if it's him) and they're flying a rocket together.
1:05 - "Give me a Dalek any day." Famous last words.

So it looks like there's material from maybe three episodes. More when we get more. You excited yet?

Doctor Who #128: Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.

"There's always an answer to be found, if you dig deep enough."TECHNICAL SPECS: Released in theaters Aug.5 1966. Available on DVD.

IN THIS ONE... The Dalek Invasion of Earth retold... in GLORIOUS COLOR(TM)!

REVIEW: While Doctor Who and the Daleks stuck pretty close to Terry Nation's original Season 1 script, Daleks Invasion takes far more liberties, and is much better for it. Six episodes produced on a TV budget thus becomes a very pacey color movie clocking in at less than an hour and a half. So obviously, everything is more spectacular. When I remember the Dalek coming out of the Thames, it's probably this one. The beams falling across the TARDIS is practically a set piece. The Dalek saucer contains huge sets. There's a stunt with a guy falling on bricks before getting sprayed by several Daleks. Wyler drives through Daleks (instead of Barbara) and has to break his windshield with a spare brick to see where he's going. The trek to Bedfordshire is paved with Robomen on bridges. And I don't even know how they manage to pull of the finale with the Daleks being sucked into the Earth. Design-wise, the Robomen don't look like zombies with clunky head gear - they've got proper uniforms. The capsule dropped into the mines is a big, bright Christmas ornament that slides down at breakneck speeds. And the production is further amplified by multi-level sets and outdoor explosions with characters in the shot. I do miss the race through London though, because as good as the movie looks, it doesn't have the same sense of place the episodes do.

Though more of a comedy than the original episodes, the slapstick is a lot less Jerry Lewis than in the first movie thanks to the elimination of the over-the-top Ian character. He's replaced by the great Bernard Cribbins who would go on to fight the Daleks again as Donna's grandfather. As Tom Campbell, a beat cop who walks into a certain police box by mistake after being knocked upside the head by jewelry thieves, he brings just the right mix of action heroics and gentle comedy. The stand-out scene for him is the one picture above, where he tries to hide among the Robomen with a vain attempt at following their programmed movements. In the end, he'll be the one who destroys the Daleks by fixing the mineshaft under Doctor Who's directions, a great bit of team work between the two heroes of film, hiding their communication in plain sight. Cribbins is such a joy that you easily forgive the nonsense epilogue in which he's brought back minutes before he left (and there isn't two of him) so he can stop the theft. Turns out he was only three punches away from a promotion. A hoot.

While Tom gets lots to do, and Doctor Who shines as well as the smartest man in the room (don't ask about the red wool gloves though), other characters are by necessity sacrificed. Roberta Tovey is back as Suzie Who, but of course she's too young to get a romance subplot with David. There's little of the resourceful genius of the first film here, and Suzie is relegated to weak-ankled hanger-on most of the time, precocious but not driving the plot . Gone is Barbara, replaced by Doctor Who's niece Louise (without explanation). Louise is strictly a cipher, but I like her better than I do Barbara Who. Jill Curzon is a beauty and the Sherlock Holmes fashion she espouses make her fit in with this TARDIS crew. She doesn't get a lot to do, and certainly doesn't pick up TV Barbara's heroic bits, but she's still brave, runs into a Dalek saucer and proposes jumping out the garbage chute, so she's not useless and is never a screamer. The guest characters both win and lose when compared to the originals. They have much less depth, being either good or evil and only that, without too much nuance, but the resistance fighters at least get to be more "movie heroic", capable of thinking of strategies without a companion's help, and in Dortmun's case, getting to make his sacrifice count as he blows up a building that falls on advancing Daleks. David is more streetwise. Jenny doesn't exist. Most of the others are forgettable (the fight between brothers here has no familial context, for example, and survives only as a plot point). The real exception is the black marketeer Ashton who is wayyyy better in the movie than he was on TV, even if he doesn't get a name here. He's dapper and suave, and totally ruthless. A smiling menace. And he's more instrumental to the plot, and gets a much better and more deserved end as the Daleks blow up his shed. Compare to his death by Slyther on TV...

All the structural changes - mostly who lives through which incident from the original plot - keep the story fresh even to the show's fans, as does the new ending. In the original, the Daleks' bomb is used against them and blows them all up. Here, there's a crazier, but more original outcome, that makes their bomb unleash magnetic forces that suck the Daleks and their ships down into the ground. It's completely insane, but a lot more visual. Well hey, the Daleks' plan to remove the Earth's core and install an engine or somesuch was crazy too. Doctor Who's just fighting crazy with crazy. Peter Cushing's benign performance sells it well enough. You know, it's too bad they never remade The Chase as a third film. I mean, the serial was terrible, but that only means it could have been elevated by the process. And I find myself quite intrigued by this small family of temporal adventurers, facing down the Daleks like real pros, cool and collected. Especially if they could have picked Tom up again.

VERSIONS: It's no mystery the movie is based on the serial we now call The Dalek Invasion of Earth (Doctor Who reviews #46 to 51 on this blog).

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Not quite so silly as the first film, the Dalek Invasion of Earth remake is an improvement in large part thanks to Bernard Cribbins' involvement. And of course, he'll be the reason today's fans will want to see this. Good fun!

Doctor Who RPG: Season 3

On the occasion of completing reviews on the 1965-6 season of Doctor Who, I should like to re-imagine it as a role-playing game campaign using Cubicle 7's DWAITAS RPG. (Go back one, to Season 2)

GMs
Though Donald had agreed to GM Season 3, second semester commitments and difficulty in getting players to stick around made him give up the reigns to Gerry mid-way through. Though our fictional Doctor Who RPG club has a healthy roster of capable DWAITAS GMs on tap, that doesn't mean they're all on the same wavelength (in fact, they hardly ever are). While Donald's half of the season is more or less business as usual and marked by the search for replacement companions, Gerry's imposes an important change of campaign focus that did not necessarily sit well with Billy and his Doctor. Gerry figures that the Time Lord in his games should have left his mark on the universe, and he introduces characters who already know the Doctor, alluding to some unrevealed backstory.

The Characters
-Billy has up to this point evolved his Doctor organically, starting as a unlikable old man who warms to his human companions and eventually adopts their attitude towards helping people. Perhaps that's why he's starting to feel disconnected from the game after Gerry takes over. Relationships he would have liked to earn are simply thrust upon him. Consequently, he starts to miss an important number of sessions, and gets needled for it by the GM who seems keen to replace him if he can't give the game his all.
-Maureen's Vicki starts the season, but almost immediately realizes she won't have the time for it. She asks Donald to give her an out in the second story.
-Peter's really only started to play, so he's in for the long haul with Steven, but as the year progresses, he gets more and more frustrated with the opportunities given his character and the endless parade of potential companions. For the players, it feels like the campaign may be dying, even if their new GameMaster is full of ideas.
-Replacing Maureen proves to be difficult, as the campaign notes below will show, eventually settling on Jackie (not the same Jackie who played Barbara) and her hastily assembled character Dodo. Even she wouldn't last until the end of the season before GM Gerry brings in two of his friends, Anneke and Michael.

Galaxy Four. Donald's first adventure scenario isn't quite as clever as he meant it to be, and his use of sound effects to make his robot Chumblies express themselves is more annoying than anything. Beautiful deadly Amazons vs. kind-hearted ugly monsters, why did it go wrong?

TYPICAL DRAHVIN
Attributes: Awareness 3, Coordination 3, Ingenuity 1, Presence 2, Resolve 3, Strength 4
Skills: Athletics 3, Fighting 3, Marksman 3, Subterfuge 1, Survival 1, Technology 1, Transport 2
Traits: Attractive; By the Book, Code of Conduct (They have a strict class system and are contemptuous of males), Distinctive. Story Points: 2-4
Home Tech Level: 6 (Equipment: Laser Rifle 7[3/7/10], Steel mesh [anything ensnared is cut off from communicating via radio or other bandwidths])

Mission to the Unknown. Eager to make up for his previous game's lack of luster, the GM attempt something new - a Cutaway. For a single session, the players take on the roles of disposable Space Secret Service agents who run afoul of Dalek activity. To make it even more intriguing, he sets it up as a teaser not for the next game, but for the one after that. The players have a ball getting their asses handed to them by Varga plants and Daleks, like the Suicide Squad, and can't wait for the TARDIS to land on Kembel. Well, except for Maureen who's already asked to be written out in the next adventure.

The Myth Makers. That adventure takes place in the Trojan War, and Donald decides to play the reality rather than the myth to humorous effect. Not only that, but making the Greeks and Trojans less resourceful or noble than Homer's artistic license would have them allows the players to take a more active hand in MAKING the myths happen. When Donald's characters rename Vicki "Cressida", it doesn't fall on deaf ears. Maureen relishes the chance to go out on a romantic subplot and become a figure from History. Because of her departure, Donald recruits a new player, Adrienne, and asks her to generate a character from Troy. She embraces the challenge and creates Katarina, a handmaiden introduced in the scenario's last session.

The Daleks' Master Plan. At this point, Donald decides to start running his game like he would Dungeons & Dragons, as a long continuous story rather than shorter episodic scenarios. Apparently, no one told him "The Chase" wasn't the most satisfying of role-playing experiences. And yet, he gives it a valiant effort, with the help of the Daleks (always a good enemy) and Mavic Chen, betrayer to the human race. Over the course of the story arc, he'll use a prison planet, Steven's piloting skills, old Hollywood (in a Christmas day session with quite a bit of alcohol involved), the Meddling Monk in Ancient Egypt, and he'll go through three players in the process. First is Adrienne, who quickly discovers that her character's low Tech Level is a real pain to get around. She bows out by sacrificing herself at the first possible opportunity. Second is Nick, playing SSS man Brett Vyon (a link to the Cutaway), who wanted to find out what this game was all about and asked to join the group for a few sessions. He, too, allows himself to be killed when his time is done (but he'll be back when he has the time...). And then there's Jean and her Barbarella of a character, super sexy agent Sara Kingdom. She's cold-hearted and driven to action, but her character is perhaps to at odds with what the campaign is trying to do, so cue a third sacrifice, making this one of the most gloomy scenarios ever played, but not by design.

MAVIC CHEN
Attributes: Awareness 3, Coordination 2, Ingenuity 4, Presence 4, Resolve 4, Strength 3
Skills: Athletics 1, Convince 4, Knowledge 3, Marksman 2, Science 3, Subterfuge 3, Technology 2, Transport 2
Traits: Brave, Charming, Friends (Major/He has people loyal to him in every service of the Solar System), Technically Adept, Voice of Authority; Distinctive, Eccentric/Megalomaniac, Selfish. Story Points: 12
Home Tech Level: 6 (Equipment: As Guardian of the Solar System, Mavic Chen has access to almost anything he needs, including ships and weapons)

The Massacre. The gloom both in the game world and in reality (finding new players can be stressful) is starting to get to everyone. Billy wants to take a little time off, and Peter is annoyed that he's had to share his particular niche with other players lately (Brett's and Sara's). So Donald decides to play his 16th-century France scenario regardless, giving the Doctor an out for a couple weeks, while he focuses on Steven. It gets Peter enthusiastic about playing again, but they just gloss over what the Doctor was doing in the meantime. The use of a double for the Doctor likewise goes nowhere because there just aren't enough players to investigate every little wrinkle, and the historical era chosen by the GM is hard to grasp in the first place. A friend of the group, Jackie-but-not-Barbara-Jackie, terribly inexperienced when it comes to role-playing games, asks to play and Donald offers her a ready-made character from his last setting called Anne Chaplet, but she declines and wants to create her own. Besides, she doesn't know that she can play a character from another time. All these headaches cause Donald to give over the reigns to another GM, Gerry, when the latter expresses interest in taking over.

The Ark. Gerry starts out strong, unless you count his monster design abilities. The players snicker at his drawings of the Monoids, but do like his ideas. A vast generational ship, a mystery unfolding over the course of hundreds of years as the TARDIS revisits the same spot twice, and the Monoids aren't half bad when mimed and voiced ("Gerry, can you take that drawing off the GM screen, please?"). The way Donald left, there wasn't much in the way of a transition, so Gerry doesn't really know all that's gone before, and he's not one to read the Club's game files. He's apparently the first one who's thought of having the TARDIS spread a plague, even if it never was a concern before. Jackie is finding her footing and has already dropped the Manchester accent she introduced herself with.

MONOIDS
Attributes: Awareness 2, Coordination 2, Ingenuity 3, Presence 1, Resolve 3, Strength 3
Skills: Athletics 2, Convince 1, Craft 3, Fighting 2, Knowledge 2, Marksman 2, Medicine 1, Science 1, Subterfuge 4, Survival 1, Technology 2, Transport 2
Traits: Alien, Alien Appearance, Mute. Then choose from Animal Friendship, Argumentative, Clumsy, Selfish. Story Points: 2-4
Home Tech Level: 6 (Equipment: Heat prod 7 [3/7/10], Voice box [allows them to overcome Mute])

The Celestial Toymaker. In the Toymaker, Gerry creates a surreal dimension and a god-like villain that's already met the Doctor. Billy isn't keen on creating past relationships via Knowledge rolls, so finds a way to skip out on a few sessions while Dodo and Steven are made to play strange and deadly children's games against the Toymaker's pawns. To compensate for Billy's unplanned absence, Gerry turns him invisible and mute and gives him a long task to do, if only to explain why the other characters can't access the Doctor's wisdom. Towards the end of the story, Gerry point blank asks Billy if he's still into, because if not, he might as well recruit a new Doctor for when he turns visible again. Billy feels less committed than he used to, but he still has a sense of ownership about the character he's nursed for almost three years. He'll come back.

The Gunfighters. Having heard that The Myth Makers was a fun lark, Gerry tries to do the same with the Old West. It's an era that's been mentioned by both Peter and Jackie in conversation, though it's not clear they wanted to play in a SEND-UP of the fight at the O.K. Corral. In fact, while Jackie has a lot of fun playing opposite Doc Holliday, Peter feels like the GM is being unfair with him, giving him all sorts of Tech Level penalties and such. The use of a particular song is an interesting twist on the more frequent use of score to create a mood, but it gets a little ridiculous. Fun idea to have the players sing it though. It's at the end of this one that Peter gives his four-session notice. Gerry's disappointed, but vows to give him a good last adventure.

TYPICAL COWBOY
Attributes: Awareness 3, Coordination 3, Ingenuity 2, Presence 2, Resolve 3, Strength 3
Skills: Athletics 3, Convince 1 (+2 Intimidation), Craft 1, Fighting 3, Marksman 3, Subterfuge 1, Survival 3, Transport 1
Traits: Choose from Animal Friendship, Brave, Lucky, Quick Reflexes, Sense of Direction; Cowardly, Impulsive, Selfish, Unattractive, Unlucky. Story Points: 3-6
Home Tech Level: 4 (Equipment: Pistols 5[2/5/7])

The Savages. Gerry presents his vision that the Doctor should have left his mark on the universe by now with a far future tale where a Utopian society exploits a primitive population. The ensuing call to revolution is a good vehicle for Steven's skills, so Peter need not have thrown in, almost illogically, with the utopians minutes after landing. Bit forceful on his preparations for leaving, there. Once again, Billy misses a session, and Gerry threatens to turn him into an NPC. Truth be told, when Billy's present, he's really present and is by now the best role-player around the table, turning the GM's solutions to his absence into ways of resolving the plot. Peter leaves on a high note.

The War Machines. And after two more sessions, Jackie stops coming round. Maybe playing with Peter was part of the attraction for her, or maybe she doesn't feel she fits in with Gerry's two new recruits. These are Anneke, playing the sassy, mod secretary Polly, and Michael, playing a sailor on leave, fretting for excitement, called Ben. They created their characters with the GM, so they could be introduced as an integral part of the plot, and take over with their strong personalities. Gerry was keen to start setting stories in the present day as well, so while his self-drawn monsters still look terrible, he introduces here the things that interest him - menaces to present-day London, an ineffective military, the Doctor having credentials with British authorities, and a season finale that actually feels like a finale (other GMs have simply stopped wherever they ran out of stories before summer vacation). So when Jackie sends word that she's not playing anymore, it's easy to say she's home and that's that.

WAR MACHINES
Attributes: Awareness 1, Coordination 3, Ingenuity 1, Presence 2, Resolve 3, Strength 7
Skills: Fighting 2, Marksman 4
Traits: Robot; Armor (10), Fear Factor (1), Natural Weapon: Gas gun L(4/L/L), Special: Conventional weapons (guns, grenades) do not work in a War Machine's presence), Slow, Weakness (electromagnetic fields disrupt its nervous system). Story Points: 0
Home Tech Level: 6 (War Machines are ahead of their time thanks to WOTAN's mysteriously advanced store of knowledge)

Billy is getting tired after three years, and isn't getting on as well with the current GM as he was earlier ones, but he'll be back for a couple scenarios next season. The hunt begins for his replacement!

Doctor Who #127: The War Machines Part 4

"Oh, it sounds as though you've changed its character, Doctor."TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Jul.16 1966.

IN THIS ONE... The Doctor defeats a couple of war machines, and reprograms one to destroy WOTAN. Polly and Ben take off in the TARDIS at the end.

REVIEW: I'm afraid it's not always clear how the Doctor defeats his enemies in the final chapter of The War Machines. He corrals #3 easily (and on faith) because, according to him, it was activated before its programming was completed. He uses electromagnetism to immobilize #9, fair enough, but then seems to have the same effect on the robot as he did #3. So here... confused by the EM field? Hard to say because the science isn't properly explained. (I do like his pacifying of the creature with "temper, temper".) And what should we think of the Doctor's ruthlessness in this episode? Though Ben keeps saying they have to save Polly, the Doctor's always more concerned with the big picture. Again, fair enough, but he does send a killer robot into the Post Office Tower (it must have great big lifts) where it might well have killed Polly instead of Krimpton. And though yes, Krimpton is a bit of a creep, that's only because he's under WOTAN's control. He really didn't deserve to die, or for the Doctor to act so proud of himself around his corpse.

And it's all very ordinary as a plot, isn't it? Though the Doctor leads us to believe he's sending a Trojan horse in with a counter-program to WOTAN's mind control, perhaps a virus , he's really just sending it to blow up the sentient computer. Not that WOTAN does much better. I mean, what was its plan exactly? If "C-Day" was going to connect it to every computer around the world, why jeopardize that kind of global foothold by building killer robots that only draw attention to themselves? WOTAN would have done better playing a longer game.

For all that, there's a dynamic contemporariness to the serial, with its robots gliding down real streets filled with 60s cars, its many extras huddled around televisions and radios as if this were a real state of emergency, and its use of actual TV presenters of the day to tell us to stay home. It's so contemporary, "C-Day" (the day the episode takes place on) is stated to be July 16th. Go on, check out when Part 4 actually aired, above. Don't these sound like a lot of the tricks the new series is always pulling?

And of course, we've got a change of companions at the end. Dodo's true exit is through a message delivered by Polly (imagine if she were still under WOTAN's control, delivering false news about Dodo who's just running late, and then boarding the TARDIS on purpose...). The Doctor thinks her an ingrate, making her the first companion to leave on a bitter note. Everybody else got eulogies and well wishes, but Dodo gets an insult. As for the new couple, a spare TARDIS key luckily fell out of the Doctor's cloak earlier so they can get into the police box to give it back. Well, there have been ways to get aboard that have seemed more forced (see previous guest room occupant).

VERSIONS: In the Target books novelization, one of the war machines gets a name - Valk. It should also be noted that The War Machines as seen on DVD (or VHS) is not the same as what was seen on TV in the summer of 1966. Some elements are still missing from the archives, so the episodes were re-edited to cover the off-air recording as well as possible, reusing certain shots, for example.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - Some action, some location filming, and a good change of companions. Not bad, though the plot lacks any real depth.

STORY REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The War Machine succeeds as a slick new way to tell a Doctor Who story, and many of the "contemporary Earth" stories to come will have to acknowledge one debt or other to this serial. The counter-argument is that to tell its story, it has to reinvent the Doctor's role, callously gets rid of yet another companion (but the show's better for it, Ben and Polly are already excellent characters), and of course, its evil computer and killer robots look pretty silly.

The Old 52: Local

If you haven't read it, it's new to you. Every month I try to supplement the New 52 with a series from the Old 52. Series I've never read, but have always meant to.
When it was new: Local is a 12-issue indy series from Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly and published in black and white at Oni Press between 2005 and 2008. It has since been collected into a single volume.

Premise: A series of 12 short stories spanning about 12 years, and each in a different North American city or town, using places and other elements locals from those places would immediately recognize. Even so, Local wasn't meant to be opaque to non-natives, and each story would be universal, an event in the life of Megan McKeenan, a 17-year-old girl we would follow until she was 30. As originally conceived, she would sometimes be the lead, sometimes be a supporting character, and sometimes be an extra in these stories. As it turned out, the project became about HER story, with an occasional look at other people from her family.

Search for review... Review located: Can I just say, right off the bat, that I love it when writers give themselves a challenge and various constraints like this. Wood, whom I've followed through DMZ and Northlanders, has always been adept at creating a big picture from smaller stories, and here the picture is of one young woman. Why IS Megan moving around so much? That, and her final destination, is the mystery. Each issue was designed around a map of North America, and each of 12 places are well researched (taking the year - the story starts in 1994 - into account as well) and beautifully rendered by Ryan Kelly, who has a fluid brush stroke and a talent for facial and bodily expression. Some cities are big and well known, like Portland OR or Austin TX, while others are more rural, like Missoula MT. As a proud Atlantic Canadian, I was stoked that Megan lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a bit! And of course, the stories themselves have variety. I love the way Megan imagines the events of the first issue in various ways before the writer commits to a single variety. Or the almost silent issue in which a strange stalker enters her apartment to leave Polaroid messages. Some of the stories stand quite well on their own, while others are definitely part of Megan's arc. There's violence and there's love. The ghosts of the past and the uncertainty of the future. It's a life. You won't always agree with Megan's decisions, but that's what makes her a real person. Her inability to connect with the people and places around her is at the very heart of the series, and each story explores that theme cleverly and passionately.
I'm quite impressed by Ryan Kelly's art in Local. Wood hasn't given him easy briefs. Not only must he render real places without making them look like photo reference, but he has to project the feeling of those places as well. Some scripts are incredibly wordy and could have turned into boring talking heads. Others have very little-to-no dialog, leaving it to the art to tell an effective and moving story. Kelly takes on every challenge and succeeds admirably. For art fans, there's even more, as Kelly's various pin-ups are supplemented by other Megans by professional and fan artists alike. A beautiful, beautiful project from two expert craftsmen.

Trade in for one of the New52? In a heartbeat. I mean, do we really need a book like Voodoo out there?