set to ambient soundscapes (7m 55s), and a 7m 11s extract from the children’s show BLUE PETER that deals with a British teen’s homemade Doctor Who models. Although nothing is made of it, BLUE PETER host Peter Purves served as one of the First Doctor’s companions a decade before this clip, most notably in the epic and sadly incomplete serial known as “The Daleks’ Master Plan.” Inserting the disc into a PC-ROM drive provides access to the 1976 DR. WHO ANNUAL, consisting of 64 pages of illustrated fiction, science articles, and comics stories, as well as nine pages of relevant RADIO TIMES listings. Another two of Baker’s most fondly remembered outings are consecutive but from different seasons. “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” closed out the 14th season (its first episode originally airing on February 26, 1977, with the sixth and final installment on April 2) while “Horror of Fang Rock” opened the 15th season (with four episodes airing from September 3-24, 1977). The leap forward from “Genesis of the Daleks” in overall consistency is quite apparent. In these later adventures, the Doctor’s companion is Leela (Louise Jameson), a savage warrior woman descended from future space travelers who re- verted to primitive ways over time. Originally dressed in a revealing leather outfit, Leela was an obvious attempt to inject some sex appeal into a show that was still considered family viewing. In “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” (Story 91), the Doctor brings Leela to Victorian London to meet her ancestors, only to quickly run afoul of the Tong of the Black Scorpion. Young women have been disappearing, and the Doctor’s investi- gation leads him to Li H’sen Chang (John Bennett), the Palace Theatre’s celebrated magician. Li H’sen and his sentient ventriloquist’s dummy, Mr. Sin (CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY’s Deep Roy), have been kidnapping the women on behalf of a sewer-dwelling phantom who calls him- self Weng-Chiang (Michael Spice), claiming to be an ancient Chinese god. In reality he’s an infamous war criminal from the far future whose experiments include a giant rat that’s guarding the sewers. “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” is not only one of the very best DOCTOR WHO stories, but also an inspired adventure serial mixing Fu Manchu, the Phantom of the Opera, Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, Eliza Doolittle, FOOD OF THE GODS and THE TIME MACHINE with more modern influences like martial arts action and the ongoing hunt for escaped Nazis. It’s written by Robert Holmes, one of the better writers DOCTOR WHO had, and his flair for colorful vocabulary and arcane dialects serves the story well (perhaps too well, as will be explained). Holmes often has his characters


30


making false assumptions about the Doctor and the strange events swirling around them, so that they think they’re taking part in a totally different story, allowing for a seamless mix of humor and suspense. The story is not entirely pastiche; there are some bizarre original touches. Mr. Sin, for ex- ample, is no standard living dummy, nor a small person in disguise, and not a robot either. Rather, he’s the “Peking homunculus” from the future, and he has the modified brain of a pig. Nifty stuff. This was the final story from Philip Hinchcliffe’s three-year tenure as producer, and he gave it one of the biggest budgets any WHO serial ever had. Director David Maloney keeps things moving, not letting the limitations of multi-camera studio shoot- ing hamper him. The cast is British sterling: Chris- topher Benjamin in particular is outstanding as Henry Gordon Jago, the self-important impresa- rio who runs the East End music hall where much of the action takes place. (Benjamin shines in a very different role in “Inferno,” and he appears in several episodes of THE PRISONER as well.) Jago becomes a bumbling Holmes to Trevor Baxter’s Watson-like Professor Litefoot; they make such a good pairing that there was talk of spinning them off in their own show at the time.


The audio commentary involves Hinchcliffe, Maloney, Ms. Jameson, and guest cast Bennett and Benjamin. They are not all present during ev- ery episode’s commentary, which keeps things from getting unwieldy. Giallo fans will find it inter- esting when Hinchcliffe points out that one clever escape was borrowed from an old movie; Sergio Martino and Ernesto Gastaldi must have seen the same film before writing TORSO (1973). There is often repetition between the text of the production notes and the commentary, and sometimes contra- diction; this reviewer would recommend the text over the commentary as it provides more information while still allowing one to enjoy the show. The notes are so comprehensive that it is even pointed out when ex- tras arrived late on set. The commentary does attain some added value, however, with the knowledge that John Bennett and director Maloney have both passed away since recording it.


As the commentary participants readily admit, the serial’s most notable failing was Weng-Chiang’s giant rat. Though its appearances are brief, it would probably have been better to leave it to viewers’ imagi- nations. There is less frank talk, however, about the controversy that surrounds this serial. Although likely true to the period (or at least the literature of the period, from which Robert Holmes so freely draws), terms like “inscrutable chinks” are bandied about, and none of the Chinese characters are shown in a


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84