Doctor Who: The Jon Pertwee Years (part 3)

The conclusion of my latest Doctor Who three-parter: reflections on the Jon Pertwee years. You can read my overview of the era here, and my initial countdown of favorite serials -- #10 through #6 -- here. What follows are my top five Pertwees. Just a few words up front: things that struck me after I'd completed my list. As I've noted elsewhere, I'm not the biggest champion of writer Robert Holmes; I admire him, but I don't revere him the way many Whovians do. (Two of his best-loved serials, "Talons of Weng-Chiang" and "Caves of Androzani," leave me cold.) So it was a pleasant surprise to see that I'd included three Holmes scripts in my Pertwee top five. I quite like his Third Doctor contributions -- particularly his last two -- and doing this series of posts has caused me to reevaluate Holmes's output. And here's my most interesting revelation. When I published my top 25 Classic Who serials last November, only one Pertwee made the list, for which I was lightly mocked by friends and colleagues. It was "Carnival of Monsters," at #14. I'd still include it, but I've come to love one other serial more, as you'll see below. As I look back at that top 25, I'd now place my (new) top Pertwee at #10 in my list of all-time favorite Classic Whos. "Carnival" would remain where it is, and my third-place Pertwee would probably fall around #20, perhaps between "War Games" and "Image of the Fendahl." So the most illuminating thing about this latest rewatch -- which was designed to view the Third Doctor era with fresh eyes, to better understand what my friends see in it -- is how much my estimation of the era has truly grown. That's been lovely. Anyway, on to my top five:

#5. The Time Warrior
written by Robert Holmes
directed by Alan Bromly

Doctor Who: The Jon Pertwee Years (part 2)

The second chapter of my latest Doctor Who three-parter, beginning a countdown of my top ten Pertwee serials. (You can check out the first chapter, an overview of the Pertwee years, here.) As I noted in Part 1, my enthusiasm for the Third Doctor era is tempered by some very real reservations, so I suspect my top-10 list won't resemble anyone else's. I gravitate towards the serials that aren't quite as emblematic of the Letts-Dicks approach, but that strive for a little more novelty, even if they're rougher around the edges. And I definitely respond most to the serials that are best directed. One of the first Who reviewers I read, Finn Clark, argued that strong directors were particularly needed during the Troughton years, as a way of differentiating the numerous base-under-siege stories. I see it differently. I think solid directors were needed much more in the Pertwee era. The similarity of settings -- particularly during the earlier, Earthbound years -- cried out for directors with singular style and creative vision. I find parts of the Pertwee era visually flat (the early '70s, after all, were not a particularly flattering time, design-wise); of the serials below (#10 through #6 on my list), I see that all are anchored by directors whose work bears evidence of a deeply personal aesthetic. For me, that often made the difference between a good Pertwee and a great one. Here goes:

#10. The Sea Devils
written by Malcolm Hulke
directed by Michael E. Briant

Doctor Who: The Jon Pertwee Years

When my husband and I started watching the classic era of Doctor Who in December of 2011, armed with a dozen DVD's recommended by a friend, we had no idea what to expect. We knew nothing of the show's history: which Doctors and companions were revered, and which reviled; which periods were most beloved, and which most belittled. All we knew was that we had binged on New Who Series 2 through 6 the previous year, and now looked forward to seeing the show in its earlier incarnation. We watched in fairly random order. I remember we started with "Genesis of the Daleks" and for some reason reached the Fifth Doctor last. Somewhere around the middle, we got to the Third Doctor, and the two stories of his my friend had recommended: his first two serials, "Spearhead From Space" and "The Silurians." "Spearhead" we found enjoyable, but "Silurians" felt endless, and although we'd been giving each other quizzical looks all the way through, it wasn't till it was done that we turned to each other and spoke, with essentially the same request: "Can we move on to another Doctor?" The Jon Pertwee era, or at least what promised to be a "Doctor stranded on Earth" set of stories, was not the Who we wanted to view. We had been weaned on Tennant and Smith, with big adventures through time and space; seeing the Doctor trapped in Earthbound settings wasn't what drew us to the series. It wasn't what fired our imaginations. And having already watched the Fourth, Second and First Doctors, Pertwee was our least favorite incarnation to date: we gravitated towards the less imposing Doctors -- and his air of withering authority and exasperated superiority wasn't much to our liking.

Gilmore Girls season 7

We all turned on Gilmore Girls, didn't we? Creators Daniel and Amy Sherman Palladino departed at the end of Season 6, and despite their leaving the show in tatters (some have speculated they were determined to sabotage it before they went), we were suspicious that anyone could replace them. And we didn't give new showrunner David S. Rosenthal a chance. He told us he wasn't going for fast fixes: he was going to let the mess that ended Season 6 play out, and promised the characters would emerge better and stronger for their journey. And we didn't believe him -- in fact, we hated him before he ever got started.

Sampling Soaps: The Tudors and Downton Abbey

I finally had a chance to binge-watch The Tudors. I remember seeing the first episode on Showtime back in 2007, but nothing about it compelled me to tune in the following week. If only someone had told me that Michael Hirst was, by his own admission, writing a soap opera and not a historical narrative, I probably would have pushed past the ponderous pilot. (Oh, Lord: "pushed past the ponderous pilot." I've rewatched so much Newhart recently, I'm starting to talk in alliteration, like Michael Harris -- although I suppose he would have "pushed past the pale pageantry of the ponderous pilot.")

As soaps go, The Tudors isn't a bad one: it's almost always watchable even when it isn't very good. That said, I was never convinced that Hirst was writing the show he thought he was writing; in the interviews I've read, he describes characters much more rounded than the ones we see on the screen. At one point, after Henry VIII has rejected papal supremacy and initiated the English Reformation simply so he can marry Anne Boleyn, his chief minister Thomas Cromwell describes him as, in fact, "a true Catholic, except this one thing: he would have neither Pope, nor Luther, nor any other man set above him" -- and although that's the character's observation, it's pretty much how we see Henry as well: as a man of no real convictions, a narcissist who'll rewrite, ignore or subvert any laws of church or state to meet his needs. As for Anne Boleyn, Hirst was apparently struck when critics called her a "manipulative bitch," because he intended something more fully realized, but it's hard to see how, since from the moment she appears on the scene, pimped out by her bastard of a father, she has her eyes firmly set on the crown. (Hirst gives her a few sympathetic scenes right before she gets axed, but that's Soap Writing 101, and we see right through it -- it humanizes her, but it certainly doesn't "redeem" her.)

No Place Like Holmes: 2013 in review

FX reran my favorite Buffy episode the other morning, "No Place Like Home," and I had one of those "boy, remember when TV was good?" moments. And I suppose TV still is good, or I wouldn't be bothering with this blog, and perhaps as some say, it's better than ever, but man, there's so much about the current TV landscape that I don't understand.

the CBS implosion: The Good Wife, The Mentalist