Four-part TV serial, 100 Minutes, Color, UK,
1980
Written By: David Fisher
Directed By: Lovett Bickford
Dramatis Personae:
Tom Baker
is The Doctor, Time Lord, adventurer,
and all-around meddler in cosmic affairs.
Lalla Ward is Romanadvoratrelunda (or ŌRomanaĶ for
short), the DoctorÕs plucky and brilliant Companion this season.
Adrienne
Cori is Mena, aged and venerable
matriarch of Argolis.
David Haig is Pangol, MenaÕs impetuous and
radical son, brilliant engineer but short-tempered and xenophobicÉwith good
reason, as it turns out.
Nigel Lambert is Hardin, Earth scientist
commissioned by Mena to try and save the Argolin people.
John Collin is Brock, the ArgolinsÕ human
financial advisor, a sniveling untrustworthy Earthling if ever there was one.
David Allister is Stimson, HardinÕs unscrupulous
financier.
Laurence Payne is Morix, MenaÕs ill-fated
husband and predecessor.
Commentary:
Doing something a little different this time around,
as IÕm taking on the small screen, and a fond memory of my childhood: Doctor
Who. IÕve spoken elsewhere about my disappointment with the modern re-invention
of this show, how it relies on shaky science and convenient Deus Ex Machinae to resolve problems
rather than on intellect and perseverance. And of course, like most Americans,
for me Tom Baker is the quintessential Doctor. Imagine my dismay to revisit the
Baker Years and discover that my memory was a bit rose-tinted. As much as I
felt the old Doctor Who was superior to the new one, the old show was
definitely not without its flaws, its shortcomingsÉand its convenient Deus
Ex Machinae.
ŌThe Leisure Hive,Ķ the serial which opened the
18th season of Doctor Who, begins on Brighton
Beach sometime in the Victorian Era. After their adventures last season, the
Doctor and Romana are looking for some R&R, but in true Doctor Who fashion,
theyÕve not only come in the wrong year, but the wrong TIME of year. ItÕs the
off season, and Brighton Beach is deserted, damp, and dreary (ah, the three DÕs
of fine English weather). While the Doctor seems to be taking this in stride
and enjoying the solitude, Romana is bored and frustrated. She proposes that
they change their vacation plans. In the 23rd Century on the planet
Argolis, there exists a facility known as ŌThe Hive.Ķ The Hive is a sort of
retreat, where the body and the mind are stimulated through education and
physical activity. The Doctor agrees to the take the TARDIS to Argolis, partly
out of curiosity and partly to get Romana to stop whining.
The Hive, meanwhile, is not doing as well as it
would seem. Although a bustling tourist destination for many races, the Hive is
the last remnant of the dying Argolin civilization. Four decades previous, the
Argolins got involved in a devastating war with the insectoid Foamasi. The
short but costly war rendered the surface of Argolis uninhabitable (the Hive is
a self-contained facility), and rendered the Argolins themselves sterile and
subject to a wasting illness. To make matters worse, as we learn from Brock as
he reports to Morix, the Hive is doing badly financially. Brock anticipates
bankruptcy within a yearÉbut there is hope on the horizon. A private company
has made a generous offer to purchase the entire planet Argolis. The catch is
that the company is Foamasi-owned: the very race the Argolins went to war with
forty years ago, and, by no small coincidence, the only race capable of
surviving on the radioactive surface of the planet. Already pretty far along in
his radiation-induced decay, Morix is so flummoxed by this news that he
succumbs to death, refusing to sell to the Foamasi with his last breath.
With the death of Morix, Mena is named leader
of the Argolins. She immediately returns from Earth, where she had been meeting
with the scientist Hardin, telling Hardin to join her on Argolis later. At the
same time, the Doctor and Romana arrive at the Hive, just in time to see Pangol
demonstrate the power of the ŌTachyon Recreation ChamberĶ to some gathered
tourists. The Tachyon Recreation Chamber is one of those old-school science
fiction devices that has all kinds of power but a very vague purpose. As Pangol
demonstrates it, the Chamber appears to be some kind of replicator, able to
duplicate living matter and restructure it however the operator wants. The
Doctor and Romana are rather fascinated by the Chamber; even though the device
as it is has little practical use, what the Argolins are able to do with
tachyon particles is very creative. Their fascination is short-lived, however,
as a power surge during the demonstration accidentally causes the death of a
tourist volunteer. The Doctor and Romana come forward to help, but instead are
whisked away to MenaÕs office, as they are mistaken for Hardin and his
assistant (the guards were told to expect a human doctor). Mena clears up the
misunderstanding in short order, but asks the two time travelers to stick
around, as three scientists are certainly better than one.
When Hardin finally arrives, Mena reveals what
they had been doing on Earth: Hardin had been using tachyon radiation to
perform rejuvenation experiments. His latest test footage certainly looks like
heÕs made a breakthrough, but the brilliant Romana immediately realizes that
itÕs a fake. In fact Hardin is VERY CLOSE to success, but the sleazy Stimson
forced him to cook up some fake footage to make them look better. Nonetheless
Romana has faith in him.
While all this is going on, however, a
mysterious creature has been skulking around the Hive, performing small acts of
sabotage (like the power surge that claimed the touristÕs life). Stimson
stumbles onto the creatureÕs doing, and is killed for his trouble. The creature
manages to frame the Doctor for the murder, which is enough for the pompous
Pangol, who had the Doctor pegged as a troublemaker from the very beginning.
But Romana strikes a bargain: if they are allowed to go free, they will help
Hardin with his research. The time travelers turn out to be on the losing end
of the deal, however: although Romana and Hardin were confident in their
figures, another act of sabotage causes the Doctor to age into an old man in
the Chamber. And Pangol has finally had enough of all this and locks both of
them away.
As Mena succumbs to slow decay, Pangol begins
to assume more and more power, and takes the strongarm approach to the Foamasi
offer. Meanwhile a creature makes itself known to the Doctor and Romana: it is
a Foamasi police officer, tracking a group of Foamasi criminals who are
scheming to gain control of Argolis. These rogue Foamasi have been responsible
for the sabotage around the Hive, in an attempt to drive the price down and
make the Argolins more desperate to sell. The Doctor works with the officer to
expose Brock as the criminal, and helps him take him into custody. But what no
one has counted on is Pangol, and the revelation of what he really is: the
product of long-abandoned Argolin cloning experiments. Pangol is a microcosm of
every living Argolin, and he believes himself to be the harbinger of a new age
of Argolin supremacy. With Mena incapacitated, itÕs now up to the Doctor and
Romana to take down Pangol before he starts the war with the Foamasi all over
again.
One has to keep oneÕs standards low when
dealing with Doctor Who in the first place. It always was a low-budget
show, getting by on charm when it couldnÕt impress by special effects. But ŌThe
Leisure HiveĶ falls short of even Doctor Who standards; the makeup
and effects are silly – the Argolins look like they have artichokes for
heads, and the less said about the Foamasi costumes, the better – and
while the acting is decent (the one thing Doctor Who always had over its
American sci-fi brethren was access to a pool of British stage-trained actors
who could make ANYTHING sound good), the plot is horribly confused. Most of the
confusion comes out when describing the function of the Tachyon Recreation
Chamber. Whatever the hell that means. ItÕs never really clear what the bloody
thing DOES. It is duplicating matter? Is it warping time and space? We never
really know, and the technobabble devised to explain its form and function
makes absolutely no sense (and IÕm a former Trekkie; I know my technobabble).
And when the Doctor uses the Chamber to pull a happy ending out of his
Gallifreyan behind, itÕs enough to numb your brain. So this thing really can do
everything, including fill in plot holes.
While the acting is generally good, there are a
few flaws, one of which is named Lalla Ward. DonÕt get me wrong, Lalla Ward is
a decent actress, as well as easy on the eyes (Tom Baker certainly must have
thought so). SheÕs very much an English Rose: fair, petite, and possessing of
that British snaggletoothed overbite that I find quite sexy in a way IÕm not
comfortable analyzing (in retrospect, she bears more than a passing resemblance
to Billie PiperÉhmmÉ). But her Romana was frankly my least favorite Companion.
Maybe itÕs just me, but I preferred Mary Tamm. Her Romana was beautiful,
confident, and quietly dignified. Her rapport with the Doctor was always more
one of equals than most of the other Companions. Lalla WardÕs Romana comes
across most of the time as a precocious brat, overeager to satisfy her own
desires and prone to hysterics. The DoctorÕs Companions have an unfortunate and
not-entirely-undeserved reputation for being useless damsels-in-distress, and
Romana Number Two is unfortunately right up there with them. At least Sarah
Jane Smith knew enough not to volunteer the Doctor as a guinea pig in an
experiment!
The plot, while quite talky and hampered by the
aforementioned technobabble, is fairly clever, I must admit. IÕve often heard
that ŌThe Leisure HiveĶ was meant as an allegory of the British tourism
industry, which was dying a slow death at the time the serial was written. And
the metaphor is clear: the Argolins, once a proud and mighty nation, reduced to
a theme park, and being forced to sell out to foreign investors – and
former enemies at that. The Recreation Chamber can also be viewed in the same
light: the technology that powers the Chamber could be used for so much more,
and all the Argolins use it for is entertaining the tourists (except for
Pangol, of course, who uses it for evil – ironically, with more
practicality than anyone else in the Hive). This state of affairs is explained
somewhat by Mena partway through the serial: the war with the Foamasi lasted
all of 20 minutes, and ended with the utter destruction of Argolin civilization
(even the survivors are slowly dying and unable to bear children, thus
guaranteeing their extinction within a few years). While itÕs never stated
outright who started the war, there is every indication that the Argolins were
once a very proud and warlike race, as opposed to the somewhat bureaucratic
Foamasi, so it seems pretty clear where to lay the blame. Mena explains that the
creation of the Hive was not only meant to preserve something of Argolin
civilization, but also to provide a place where other races could gather in
peace, to relax together and learn about each other, in the hopes of fomenting
interstellar understanding. In a sense, the Hive is the ArgolinsÕ penance for
destroying themselves, and their effort to prevent something like what happened
to them from happening to any other planet. ThatÕs pretty deep, man. No
American sci-fi show of that era ever tried to be that deep.
That was always the charming thing about Doctor
Who:
it was goofy to look at, but it always had its heart in the right place. And
ŌThe Leisure HiveĶ does have heart, even if it doesnÕt have much else. Every TV
show has its weak episodes, and this is one of them. I mean, Doctor WhoÕs been on the air for
over three decades; they canÕt all be great. And as critical as I am of the new
Doctor Who, I must now caution myself that the old one had its moments
too. For every time David Tennant makes a touchy-feely speech about the
sanctity of all life that somehow makes everything all right, Tom Baker was
breaking out the sonic screwdriver and reversing the polarity on some widget.
So I canÕt heap TOO much blame on the new showÕs head. But at least the old show
had the excuse that it was made 27 years ago. Times have changed. Special
effects have gotten better and less expensive, audiences have become more
savvy, and science fiction is being held to a higher standard of quality.
Things just should have gotten better by now, and itÕs a shame that they
havenÕt.
Then again, I am biased toward Tom Baker.
Frankly, I just prefer the Doctor to be old and wise rather than cute and hip.
IÕd much rather the universe be saved by a sage than an emo boy, I guess...
Things To Look For:
- While the makeup for
this episode is pretty darn goofy at times, there are moments when it does
work. The artichoke-headed Argolins have what appear to be seedpods or buds on
their heads, which pop off one by one as they succumb to radiation sickness. It
looks a lot more effective than I just described, and serves as a good visual
indicator of the health of an individual Argolin. The aging makeup used on Tom
Baker is quite effective as well; he really does look like an older version of himself.
And though the suits are kind of awkward and silly-looking, the conception of
the Foamasi is pretty cool. It just needed a more effective rendering.
- As the first episode of
the 18th season, ŌThe Leisure HiveĶ marked an attempt by Doctor
Who
producers to modernize the show. So we have an opening theme song and sequence
quite different from the classic arrangement. The DoctorÕs wardrobe has also
been altered, moving away from the motley Bohemian look that characterized Tom
BakerÕs run and to a more streamlined and color-coordinated fashion. The
ultimate effect is to make the Doctor seem much less goofy and more stern,
which I actually find detrimental to his character. That was the thing I loved
about BakerÕs Doctor: he was like an eccentric English Lit professor, brilliant
but absent-minded, quirky but capable of seriousness when the occasion called
for it. This is a darkening of the Doctor that I didnÕt care for. By trying to
remove the goofiness of the show, they took away the part I liked. Alas. Although
I will say, the modernization efforts had one good lasting effect: the absence
of K-9. The boxy robot dog was the one element of the show that was too goofy
even for me.
- Watch for the
Incredible Shrinking Foamasi! Apparently Brock wasnÕt simply working with the
Foamasi; he actually WAS a Foamasi wearing a human costume. Which is a pretty
cool idea, until you start comparing human and Foamasi anatomy. There is no way
a four-foot-tall round green insect is going to pass for human by just putting
on a skin. I donÕt care how good it looks. Unless the Foamasi are mostly
airÉwhich might explain why they look like empty garbage bags in some scenesÉ
- In retrospect, I have
to admit that I can see similarities between Tom BakerÕs Doctor and David
TennantÕs Doctor. TheyÕre both quirky and stylish in their own retro sort of
ways. TheyÕre both very mercurial, yet capable of great arrogance and
terrifying levels of rage. And of all the Doctors, they two are the ones most
capable of feeling something akin to romantic love for their Companions. It was
no accident that Sarah Jane Smith, the Fourth DoctorÕs first and most
recognizable Companion, was the one TennantÕs Tenth Doctor reunited with after
all those years. These are the two Doctors that are most alike in personality;
they attract the same kinds of Companions. If only David Tennant got himself
the scarf and the hat, maybe IÕd like him betterÉ
Written words (c) 2007-2010 Tim o'Brien. Not to be used without
permission. Other content, including images, is intended as a Fair Use pursuant
to 17 U.S.C. sec. 107.
Date Posted: December 4th, 2007
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