A glorious, glorious story, in which not even the sight of the Doctor HUGGING Mel could diminish the joy of her departure. I love the NA 'Head Games' revelation that the Doctor telepathically induced Mel to leave him. A pity he didn't think of that sooner. But 'Happy Endings' claim that Sabbalom Glitz is Ace's first lover is, to put it mildly, less convincing.
The image of Glitz as Ace's first lover has just burned out my brain. Ick!
Sorry, I should have realised that there were innocent people around who hadn't read that blasphemous filth in Happy Endings. But it was from the horse's mouth - 'First time: Sabbalom Glitz. On the floor of his spaceship. I thought I might as well get it over with. Bloody awful.' (or words to that effect.)
Are you relying on memory for all your synopses? I'm really impressed.
I've not yet read Happy Endings but have to agree that this union doesn't ring true. If I remember rightly, Glitz refers to Ace as 'sprog' or 'brat' or some such, most of the time - does that seem fitting, if he had indeed had his way with her? Mind you, I suppose the term 'Bilgebag' might be in keeping ...
Considering the source, I'd say that's appropriate language. I don't think we'd ever confuse Glitz with James Bond.
Believe it or not, Emily, I did just about all of my synopses from memory. For some reason, I'm very good at remembering plots of films and TV shows. If only I could use that ability for something that could make me rich.
I always liked the look on Sylvester's face when Glitz says "This is the real McCoy".
He's got that cheeky look that wants to say "No, I AM!"
I wonder if Belage will ever do the Time Warp again???
TRIVIA NOTE- the model of Kane exposing himself to the Sun (the face falling apart) didn't work properly and so that is the reason it cuts away so quickly after the face starts falling apart- because after that all the face fell off revealing the very UNHUMAN MODEL SKULL underneath!!!
Did anyone else groan with the line "It's all around us". Tacky reference to Aliens.
Can someone help me please?
I haven't seen this episode in over eight or nine years.
What time is Ace from?
I cannot figure if Ace is from the future and space travel is normal.
I just rented "Survival" where she and the Doctor go back to her home. It looked very much like the current times (1989).
If she is from the current time, then how did she arrive on Iceworld?
Ace comes from 1986 & with some help from Fenric casued an explosion which transported her into the future.
I thought Ace was from 1987 - the year Dragonfire was made, making her from contemporary (back then, any way) times.
Episode 1 has possibly the worst, most contrived cliffhanger in the show's history. This moment when the Doctor dangles himself off the side of that abyss represents the absolute nadir of the show.
Worse than Dimensions in Time?
I don't consider Dimension in Time to be a true DW story but that is certainly worse than Dragonfire, Twin Dilemma, Timelash or any other late eighties turkey.
According to the New Adventures writers' guidelines, Ian Briggs' novelisation of Dragonfire implies that Glitz was Ace's first lover. It is a pretty gross idea, though.
re: 'pretty gross idea', yeah... as if you would sleep with Ace :)
The book also has Ace's mascot, a toy dog called Wayne who saves the day by being hurled by Glitz at the mercenries, & kills them by exploding. (he contained a few sticks of explosive!) How does Glitz get down the ice face so quickly? did he find a way & not tell anyone?
More like... as if Ace would sleep with Glitz. Apparently this was alluded to in the NA Timewyrm: Revelation.
And in Love and War as well. Paul Cornell is obviously REALLY keen on this idea *shakes head disbelievingly*. Luckily I just didn't get the reference on my first reading of LoW - though it's not surprising, given that even when it's spelt out in words of one syllable I find the concept somewhat difficult to grasp.
You think there would have been more attractive people passing through Iceworld.
When Belage shows up in the restaurant to tell Glitz that his ship is to be impounded, watch the actresses eyes; she's constantly looking off to one side, and giving Glitz just an occasional glance. Obviously, she's reading her lines from cue cards. I thought I was watching Saturday Night Live when I saw her doing this.
And why does Kane still want revenge on his people? The nasty people that imprisoned him have been dead for 3000 years, and he knows this, and still he wants to kill the descendants of his jailers, even though they'd be separated by about 150 generations. Time to give the ol' vengeance thing a rest, I'd say.
Yeah, but you're not a power-mad dictator. They're like God: punishing unto the third and fourth (or even more) generations for the sins of the fathers...
Are you sure Belage isn't just a bit shy or nervous around Glitz? Maybe she's just sensibly afraid that if she looks him in the face, his inexplicable sex-appeal (Ace sleeps with him, Mel elopes with him) will overcome her.
Now, I am all for Doctor Who characters having a bit of fun now and then. I like the idea that the Doc and Tegan are romping around in some hidden nook in the TARDIS. But Ace and Glitz!?. Come on, Perivale couldn't have been so bad that would make Ace want to sleep with that sociopath. Could it?
I ignored the earlier references to Ace/Glitz union due to bad novel writing. I try not to notice the novels that much. But if Emily can accept this, then it must be one of the signs of Apocalypse. The moon turns into blood, the Antichrist has come into power, the dead rise from their graves, and oh yeah, it's official - Ace slept with Glitz.
Egad!
What can I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?! *Bursts into pitiful sobs* It SAYS so! In Love and War AND Happy Endings! It's right there in black and white - as true and as canon as anything we've seen on the screen. (Still, that list of Ace's sexual conquests in Happy Endings has been flatly contradicted by Independence Day and Storm Harvest, so please goddess, let someone retcon it soon.)
Let's face it, there are bits of Who we'd all rather forget. Hartnell and the rock. 'Why not make some coffee to keep them all happy whilst I think of something.' The Doctor's old friend Mao Tse-tung. The 'she's my mother and I don't love her' scene. Various moments of the TVM that shall remain nameless. The acid bath. (No, make that the entire Colin Baker era.) Ace losing her virginity to Sabalom Glitz. Every word of Rags. But we cannot pick and choose (except where Dimensions in Time is concerned, obviously). We must be strong, comrades, we must cease our cries of 'Why!
WWWWWWWHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYY!' and embrace the entirety of Who, accepting that, as in every religion, there are just certain things beyond the understanding of mere mortals like ourselves.
Okay, Emily, I've got an answer! Why would Ace and Glitz have a romp? Because he LIED to her about getting off Iceworld (Glitz lied? Gee that'd be a first!), and used that as payment. Then he left her there, and then came back with the Nosferatu, and that's when the Doctor and Mel showed up. Does this work? Is it EVER said that she actually liked the guy enough to have sex, or is it simply stated that they did do it?
I just got a copy of "Happy Endings", and also just finished reading the section where Ace lists all her sexual experiences. Glitz was the first guy and, according to Ace, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. There wasn't any pressure from Glitz about him being her only way off Iceworld.
No no no no no, Emily. -shakes head sadly-
I can't accept that on faith beyond my understanding that Glitz and Ace did the nasty. I am an atheist for Christsakes...err...doo doo sakes?...it's hard to cuss convincingly without using religion, ain't it? Come to think of it, I am not really an atheist but an agnostic...just can't get enough conviction to be an atheist. There's no proof one way or another...
Anyhoo.
You're my rock. My antithesis. You're supposed to be the one that is anti sex. Where were you when I needed you? I feel abandoned. -weep-
Just goes to show I will never recognized the books as canon, even if the allmighty allknowing BBC does. I guess I am an heretic. I will for ever after not believe in the BBC (until they put out a new TV series).
Will, you disappoint me. You think that Ace would prostitute herself just to get off the planet? Shame on you.
The only thing that could possibly explain Ace doing the bump and grind with Glitz was that she was really, really drunk, and her judgement was impaired severely. Maybe.
Okay, got my copy of "Happy Endings" in front of me, and here's what Ace says:
"'Number one....' Dorothee` [note--Ace is going by this name by now] considered......'Sabalom Glitz. On the floor of his spaceship. He spent the whole night chatting me up, and I thought it was about time I tried it. Bloody awful. Very painful.'"
This is part of a list of former lovers that Ace is telling Benny. The final count was 63; by the end of the novel, it's up to 64.
Luiner; Hey I was just trying to explain away something that I, too, don't like to think about (ie. Ace and Glitz). 'Prostituting herself' isn't as bad as some of the character changes she went through with the Virgin novels, and let's be reasonable here; Iceworld was a really crappy place for a young human girl to be, and who's to say Glitz didn't get her drunk, make a promise to take her away and then bail out? He's not exactly Clark Kent! 'Shame on me'? Shame on the author that started this whole idea they've done it.
Anyways, if Glitz was number one then that's just one author's take on their prior relationship, which we can't prove or disprove. Frankly, until someone mentioned it here, I would never have thought such a relationship existed.
Hey, no biggie. I was out of line.
Plus I still haven't gotten over the shock that Emily accepts this. Though it's perfectly logical because she accepts the books as canon. And she's pretty much read all of them. I would too, if I had read a tenth of that.
For some reason, I find myself surprisingly sensitive to the subject. I don't have a problem with Ace having sex. I just can't believe her choice of men to lose her virginity to. I have an extremely high opinion of her. But she was young, and the human race is full of people who lost their virginity in less than ideal circumstances. Plus, though attractive, probably scared away many prospective guys because of her attitude and angst, not to mention the Nitro 9. Just hope she used protection because I doubt Glitz is all that careful himself in those matters - probably has Venusian Syphilis...argh! I am starting to buy into this nonsence. If the series were still on the air this wouldn't have happened!
Like I said before, I will never accept the books as canon, no matter what the Beeb says. They're letting the writers be too cavalier with established characters.
Believe me, Lunier, many smart people have made dumb choices when it comes to sex partners. And that's all I'm gonna say on that.......
As to what's canon, I think you have to relax. The stories have to continue to evolve, or they'll become worthless. While I don't agree with every interpretation of the Doctor and Co in the novels ("Rags" is a good example), I think that, in general, they are canon in spirit.
Come on, give books a chance!
*Sigh* You know, if it was the DOCTOR who'd regaled us with stories of his dirty past, I wouldn't believe a word of it - he'd be lying for some twisted-arch-manipulator-chess-player-type reason, or he'd had his brain implanted with all these false memories, or something. So you're right, Luiner, I really shouldn't swallow that •••• about Ace n'Glitz without a struggle. Her list of partners WAS untrue - failing to take certain events in the PDAs into account for some reason (perhaps because they weren't published till several years afterwards) so maybe it was all a tissue of lies to wind Benny up or because Fenric had implanted false memories or messed with her biodata (a la Dark Sam) or she didn't want to admit what a young innocent virgin she'd been when going off with the Doctor, or - given her deeply contradictory feelings about the late lamented Jan (madly in love in Love and War and No Future, indifferent in Deceit, totally despised him in Lucifer Rising) she didn't want to admit he was the first, or she was talking about someone else who happened to be called Glitz (hey, stranger things have happened) or she was so drunk she confused THINKING about having sex with Glitz with actually DOING it, or, if she DID do it, it's not her fault cos Glitz employs aphrodisiacs/hypnotic techniques...whatever.
It would be a lot easier to dispose of if it had just been a drunken claim in Happy Endings instead of being mentioned in Love and War as well ('Okay, so she'd taken what warmth she could find on that planet, and it was painful and tawdry and sodding meaningless...She'd done it because she'd wanted to do it.')
I've started to accept the possibility, Emily, if only because Mike pretty much hit the nail on the head.
I'm pretty smart, and I've made some dumb choices. And I'm not going to say anymore on that, either.
They say you never forget your first time; I would gladly forget my first time, since it was someone I barely knew, and wasn't terribly attracted to, and never saw again (Thank God for small miracles!). It was an overriding desire to lose my virginity, so maybe Ace wanted to get it over with?
That's exactly the comment Ace made!
Hey, any virgins out there--"getting it over with" is a TERRIBLE reason to have sex. Believe me!
The problem is, there has to be a first time, which for the vast majority is terrible (those who said it wasn't terrible probably lied). For most of us, I suspect, getting it over with was the main reason to do it.
Certainly was for me. I want to get it out of the way as fast as possible so I could consider myself an adult (okay, not a good reason, but I was in my teens at the time). Disappointing, yes. Anticlimatic against the hype. Regretable, no. It had to be done.
My advice to those virgins is that it can get a whole lot better after that "first", even with a few drunken mistakes later on. But by all means, use protection. I certainly hope Ace did. I would hate it if Ace got pregnant or caught a terminal disease.
Man, I feel like I am on Oprah, now. And here I was saying I wouldn't say any more...
How prescient of you, Luiner. Ace does indeed get pregnant (rather surprisingly, given that you'd've thought, with all the shagging she does, that she'd've got herself fixed up with some high-tech protection) though as she gets her brains blown out a few hours later, it's not massively important.
God, some people should be forbidden to write Who books and canonise their sick ideas, and the PerryTucker abominations are definitely on the list.
There's absolutely no evidence in this that Ace has slept with Glitz or that Mel is the "poor, trusting" creature that Ace remembers in 'Loving the Alien' (she's deeply suspicious of Glitz and Kane throughout - the latter despite only having just met him and with no evidence of his Evilness).
I would also imagine that Kane and Belazs' relationship wasn't consumated - in which case why all the silly hints?
Glitz is a bit of a disaster though. Does anyone remember the calculating psychopath of the first four episodes of 'The Trial of a Time Lord'? - because Ian Briggs certainly didn't. Even when selling his crew into slavery he comes across as a lovable Cockney wideboy.
The most remarkable thing about this story (apart from the adorable dragon design), is that a cliffhanger that's never been rationally explained by man or beast is surrounded by one of the most exposition heavy scripts in the series' history.
Finally, why does it take Kane 3000 years to get round to commissioning a statue of Xana? (It's not an Ark-like multi-generation job, the sculptor's only just started it in Part One). And why is he so pleased with it when it looked like a novelty lolly? Maybe he's one of those people who doesn't know anything about art but knows what he likes...
There's absolutely no evidence in this that Ace has slept with Glitz How true! How true! But sadly you're saying this to the wrong people. Let's ambush Paul Cornell the next time he turns up at Tavern.
or that Mel is the "poor, trusting" creature that Ace remembers in 'Loving the Alien' (she's deeply suspicious of Glitz and Kane throughout - the latter despite only having just met him and with no evidence of his Evilness She goes off with Sabalom Glitz for heaven's sake! The bloke she KNOWS DAMMED WELL has just sold his entire crew off as slaves! Though I'd say that qualifies her as insane rather than merely trusting...
I would also imagine that Kane and Belazs' relationship wasn't consumated - in which case why all the silly hints? Ah, Kane and B- er, are you SURE that's how you spell her name? Anyway, they are obviously the Count Grendal and Madame Lamia of their day. Romantic love across the class divide! (Love which, incidentally, gets both women killed at the hands of their exes.) I don't know - and I really don't want to speculate - how they manged to overcome the, er, fatal temperature differences to have a shag, but please don't try claiming that Kane remained faithful to his late lamented whatshername for THREE THOUSAND YEARS.
In Ace's explosion the ice-jamb just completely vanishes - shouldn't there be a few chunks of ice around?
Why doesn't anyone look cold?
What's this about the twelve galaxies?
How did Glitz expect to fly his spacecraft if he'd sold all his crew? And if they were unnecessary, why bother with them in the first place?
'Only one of us can leave Iceworld aboard the Nosferatu' – um, why?
Should Ace and Mel be laughing and shaking hands about blowing up people?
Take it from me, Ace, when you live in London you do NOT look up at the stars through gaps in the clouds. It's too well-lit, for a start.
Why does Belage (or however you spell it) bother roping some bloke in to help assassinate Kane? She's capable of turning up the temperature herself, thank you.
Dibber! What happened to poor Dibber?!
Why did Kane's girlfriend kill herself? Yes, I know it was to escape arrest, but what's so bad about arrest? They didn't have a death penalty or anything, not if they didn't use it against Kane of all people. In fact, given the authorities' consideration in supplying him with a luxury prison, a means of escape, etc, they'd probably have allowed them both to live happily ever after together on Iceworld.
Never mind Kane waiting 3000 years to build the statue - why did he wait 3000 years to go after the Dragon's power source?
Why bother bringing terror to the upper levels and driving everyone towards the Nosferatu, exactly?
Do ALL Kane's people have a tendency to be ice-cold and millennia old? If so, why are they so human-looking?
Glitz was prepared to go all the way to Perivale to drop Ace off? Very nice of him, I say suspiciously. But wouldn't it be the wrong time period?
Rememberance comes right after this...making two stories IN A ROW where the Doctor talks the baddie to death. It's practically a McCoy theme, and a vast improvement on the cannibalism motif his predecessor was stuck with.
It's possible that Glitz could have hired a new crew on Iceworld, as a spaceport it could have a job centre or spacefarer's welfare office.
Emily is quite right to query my spelling of the name of the character played by Patricia Quinn. It is, in fact, spelt 'Belasz'.
Richard - Belasz (look, that's a S T U P I D way to spell a name) seemed to think she could fly the Nosferatu single-handed.
Not if you're Hungarian, Emily...
How many times was the word Spacecraft used in this story?
Ace seems really excited when there's talk of going aboard the Nosferatu, almost as if she's never seen it before... so all these novels alluding to her intimate relations within the spacecraft aren't in keeping with the information and intonations seen on screen.
Thank god! Thank you!! Obviously every book, audio and TV episode are God's Honest Truth, but if there's a bit of a clash then, well, some canons are more equal than others, so the BLATANT TRUTH that Ace did NOT have sex with Sabalom Glitz has now officially been established.
Maybe she's really excited about returning to the ship because she enjoyed having sex there with Glitz?
But then that doesn't tie in with what the books say about it being an awful experience for her.
Glitz. I can't watch a story with him without being distracted by how he shaves. Does he actually use a razor to section off his beard like that?
I'm sure by that time you can programme a razor to do exactly what you want. Or genetically modify your beard to grow in stripes. (This doesn't quite fit with Rose's claim the Ninth Doctor cuts himself shaving, but then the Doctor was probably so shocked that he actually had to SHAVE in that incarnation that he didn't get up to speed on high-tech razors, especially given his INCREDIBLY BRIEF LIFESPAN.)
For those who were mystified by Daniel's description of Glitz, a wide-boy is a spiv, a shify geezer, a guy wot knows 'ow to get 'is 'ands orn any gear wot you may require, at a price. In fact if I'd thought of the term 'black-marketeer' a few seconds earlier I could have saved myself a lot of wasted typing. The name originated in the war years when these underworld types could be found wearing attire not unlike zoot-suits.
Part of me still wishes I had the little girl's dress in this story - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v85/lizbee/vlcsnap-350777.png
It WAS a •••• good dress, wasn't it? You wouldn't catch 'em putting so much effort into a dress THESE days.
the fact that Stellar runs around in a blue dress like that indicates that Iceworld is mis-named and really has the temperature of a BBC studio on a summer's day in 1987.
Or that the dress had an inbuilt temperature-control. Or that the kid was an android. Or, er, something.
Did anyone's breath look white?
Mel runs around in short sleeves and no coat, Ace is in shorts. There's also a really cringe-worthy moment - besides the stupidity of wearing a dress on an ice planet - where Stellar's dress bunches up and the viewer is treated to a long look at Miranda Borman's white underwear. No adult actress would accept that but because Miranda Borman was a four-year-old actress, everyone thought it was "cute".
Mel runs around in short sleeves and no coat, Ace is in shorts.
Oh. Dear. Well, I suppose it's no worse than the new series, where - as the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet version of Planet of the Dead points out - Tennant might have bothered to TAKE HIS JACKET OFF in an attempt to portray the desert planet as A BIT HOT.
There's also a really cringe-worthy moment - besides the stupidity of wearing a dress on an ice planet - where Stellar's dress bunches up and the viewer is treated to a long look at Miranda Borman's white underwear. No adult actress would accept that
Are you QUITE SURE? Cos I've never noticed this myself, but the Completely Useless Encyclopedia lovingly enumerates each time Jo flashes her knickers at us...
Tennant might have bothered to TAKE HIS JACKET OFF in an attempt to portray the desert planet as A BIT HOT.
He's a Time Lord - he may well be comfortable under temperature extremes that would have the average human collapse from heat exhaustion, or hypothermia. Since Iceworld is apparently in our far future, Glitz's native time zone, the local humans could easily modified themselves to find subzero weather shirtsleeves conditions.
That leaves Mel and Ace, but Mel may just be enjoying a minor perk of Tardis travel - like all the other companions we've seen not dressed for the weather -and Fenric has spent centuries manipulating Ace's family tree, excuse enough for her.
He's a Time Lord - he may well be comfortable under temperature extremes that would have the average human collapse from heat exhaustion, or hypothermia.
We've seen evidence TLs can survive extreme cold, but they don't seem to do well in heat. Davison didn't look cool trekking across the Planet of Fire, and Colin simply collapsed on Varos.
At least Miranda Borman was so young that she probably doesn't have any memory of the director thinking it was OK to show the viewing audience Miranda's underwear rather than doing a retake - or even giving the poor little girl some tights.
Mel may just be enjoying a minor perk of Tardis travel
See Blood of the Cybermen for the ridiculous claim that the TARDIS keeps mini-skirted bare-legged Companions warm in the Arctic. Computer games DEFINITELY aren't canon, however.
We've seen evidence TLs can survive extreme cold, but they don't seem to do well in heat. Davison didn't look cool trekking across the Planet of Fire, and Colin simply collapsed on Varos.
Ooh, excellent points!
At least Miranda Borman was so young that she probably doesn't have any memory of the director thinking it was OK to show the viewing audience Miranda's underwear rather than doing a retake - or even giving the poor little girl some tights.
She may not REMEMBER but I BET fans are sending her screenshots of her knickers from Dragonfire and asking her to sign 'em...
Dragonfire really looks really bad. Really, really bad. It's like somebody threw some glitter on the Blue Peter set and decided it would do. Every single resident of Iceworld looks like they either dressed in the dark or self-medicate to a ridiculous disease. And, speaking of wardrobe, while there's always been a fine tradition of upskirt shots in DW I think the director should have Just Say No to four year old girl's knickers centre screen.
Stellar in a nutshell, from the novelisation:
Stellar was fed up. She was a Starchild, looking roughly
similar to a six-year – old Earth girl, and she was fed up of
traipsing round a boring freezer centre with her mother.
‘Do keep up, Stellar,’ complained her mother from behind
the mass of exotic black feathers that decorated her
clothing. This mass of black feathers then turned to
inspect the contents of another freezer chest, while Stellar
trudged wearily behind wondering if they sold toys here.
I suppose it doesn't exactly explain what a 'Starchild' is, or why it only looks roughly like a six-year-old Earth girl instead of just BEING a six-year old...?
Anyone else think that the dragon looks abit liek the alien from alien?
Granted, the character of Stellar was better developed in the book, but did they have to have her talking about her mother sleeping with
another man?
Ian Brigga: "Oh, you want to use clips of one of my stories in the new series? Which one?"
Steven Mofatt: "Uh, Dragonfire"
Ian Briggs: "Oh"
Here we go again. Is it just me, or is the Doctor shedding companions more
often than Tom Baker offered people jelly babies? It seems like companions
these days have an incredibly short life expectancy, Evelyn vanished after a
mere seven stories, Frobisher barely registered with two, Peri wasn't around
for all that long either, and now Mel's taken off after a run of only nine.
Whatever happened to the companions of old who stayed for the majority of a
Doctor's reign? Jamie was around for all but one of his Doctor's
adventures, there weren't many stories without Jo around and Tegan stayed on
board the TARDIS so long that she well and truly overstayed her welcome -
and she didn't even want to be there! Still, I suppose if companions come
and go on a quicker basis like this you're sure to never get bored of them
(like I did in Season 21), but the downside is that just as you get to know
a character, they suddenly run away...
I'm afraid I wasn't very impressed with DRAGONFIRE. It's not that it was
exceptionally bad (well, Ace was, but more on that later), it just wasn't
particularly good. Some parts of it I enjoyed, some parts I rolled my eyes
and wondered why they bothered doing it like that, and the ending result was
something fairly average. Which was a bit depressing, since I always held
this story as being the most interesting and entertaining of the Season 24
stories, but somehow it manages to miss the mark of being anything near
wonderful. In fact, if it didn't have the significance of seeing off Mel
and bringing in Ace, I doubt this story would stick in anyone's mind as
being memorable.
I'll start with what I found good about this story. The idea behind it
isn't too bad, really, although it isn't much of an attempt to do anything
too different from the norm - I'm not sure where I've seen the "imprisoned
alien wants to return to home planet for revenge but finds it destroyed"
plot before, but I know it's been done. Oh yes, THE HAND OF FEAR did it,
for one. Anyway, I liked the angle they tried to take with this story on
having an almost mythological quest for an ancient treasure guarded by a
dragon, with an evil ruler watching over them wanting the treasure for
himself. The problem is, none of this potential was really tapped into.
The dragon was found much too quickly, then killed with an equal amount of
ease so any potential thought of it being a threat was completely lost
(incidentally, if Kane could kill of the dragon that easily, why didn't he
do that thousands of years ago, so he'd be free to look for the treasure
without hindrance?). Not to mention the idea of a quest rather disappeared
the moment Glitz decided to go back and steal his ship himself after he gave
up looking, and all we ended up with is a bit of a run-around through some
BBC ice-caves before a rather anti-climactic climax. Like DELTA AND THE
BANNERMEN before it, this story doesn't quite know where it's going
(although thankfully it didn't turn out quite as horrendous), and thus gets
stuck...
The bad parts of the story seem to almost cancel out the good parts, which
render this story fairly neutral in my little brain, not that the bad parts
were especially bad either. Some of the dialogue was written in a very
forced manner, you could tell they were mostly lines designed to push a plot
point along rather than sound like natural dialogue - most of the first
episode came out like that, as well as anything Ace came out with (for
somebody seeming so anti-trust, she's quite keen to expand in detail about
her life to a complete stranger). Also, for a story which has quite a
limited amount of plot in it, there seems to be a sense of rushing the story
to squeeze it into it's allotted three episodes. Like any new format for
the series, I think writing for three episodes is going to take the
production team some time to get used to. Also, with the exception of
Patricia Quinn (who was a surprise to see here again, I forgot she came back
for this story), none of the guest cast could put over any form of decent
performance - Kane wasn't remotely threatening, his 'employees' were more
cardboard than the walls, his zombie mercenary henchmen guys should have
been frightening, but they really weren't. And what was the point of that
bloody kid running up and down the corridors for three episodes? They'd cut
from the action of some important scene to see this little girl wandering
around these empty sets playing with her teddy bear, with the occasional
interruption by her mother looking for her (and why wasn't the mother blown
up with the rest of the shoppers when they took off in Glitz's ship?). It
didn't serve any purpose to the story, really (besides undermine any sense
of danger for anyone there, after all, if a little girl can get her way into
and out of the Restricted Zone and survive, why should the Doctor be in any
danger?) and just got annoying. If I'm missing some important significance
to this, please tell me...
Speaking of redundant characters, it seems Glitz has returned to attempt a
hattrick of Doctor Who appearances, and I still have yet to see what's so
appealing about him that warranted his reappearance after THE MYSTERIOUS
PLANET. I can't see much different in him from Stotz in THE CAVES OF
ANDROZANI, or that other one in THE SUN MAKERS, or, well, most characters in
a Robert Holmes story. He's got a weird roguish charm, I suppose, but
nothing to write home about, and certainly nothing that means he needed more
appearances after that Trial finished. Especially here - besides start the
plot rolling, what did he do to the story? Followed the Doctor around, drew
him onto a time-wasting red herring in regards to recapturing his ship,
displayed more sexism than the series has seen since the seventies, then
wandered around doing his own thing before being lumped with Mel at the end.
If there's nothing worse than bringing unnecessary characters back, it's
bringing them back without doing anything interesting or new with them.
Thankfully, while everyone else was crumbling around them, the regulars
managed to do some decent performances. Except for Ace, the new companion.
Sorry, I know she has fans out there, but she was awful. Really, really,
awful. As in I don't think we've had such a terrible introductory
performance from a companion since Adric in FULL CIRCLE. I'm sure Sophie
Aldred's a nice person and all, but here every single line she delivered had
no sense of conviction or depth of any kind - she wasn't just reading the
script, she was intoning it, then attempting to put some level of emotion
over the top that more closely resembled some kid straight out of a primary
school play. Look at when she was talking to Mel in her room "I ain't got
no mum and dad", or however she did it - I know some people have parental
issues, but really, that so didn't work. I can see where they were trying
to come from with this character, give us a street-cred teenager with a
desire to blow things up rather than scream at it, but Aldred just doesn't
work, sorry. If she were an ordinary one-off character I don't think I'd
mind too much, but if she's going to be back again next week, and the week
after, then I fear for the quality next two seasons. As it was, I found
myself immediately comparing her to the alternate companion choice, Ray from
DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN. Last week I'd have said we got the better end of
the deal, but after seeing Ace in this story I don't think we won by much.
My only hope is that she'll improve as time goes by...
What's depressing is this is Mel's big finale, which is sad because she's a
companion who in the recent past was coming along in leaps and bounds and
was really hitting her stride by this point. Then, without warning, without
a real reason, she decides in the final scene that she's going to leave the
Doctor and take up travelling with Glitz instead. Huh? It doesn't really
make sense - Mel's never liked Glitz, really, she's tolerated him on the odd
occasions she's met him because she's had no choice. What could she get
from adventures with Glitz that she'd never get from adventures with the
Doctor? And Glitz doesn't like Mel either, look at how often he refused to
do anything if she tagged along? Not to mention wouldn't either the Doctor
or Mel worry about her safety, considering what he did with his last crew?
The two of them pairing up to travel the universe seems so surreal and wrong
that it defies belief - it's a companion departure right up there with
Leela's sudden desire to get married to Andred on Gallifrey. Even that NA
theory that the Doctor planted the thought in her mind to leave doesn't seem
to fix it up well enough, it's just too wrong. And a companion like Mel,
despite her faults, really deserves more than that. I'm actually quite sad
to see her go, really - everybody seems to utterly despise her, and I can
almost see why, but her biggest problem seems to have been brought into the
series at the wrong moment, when everything was in turmoil, the production
team didn't know what they were doing for most of the time, and the poor
character suffered for it. As I said, things were settling down by now and
she was finally hitting her stride, especially here, where she could work
with the Doctor almost as an equal rather than a companion. If she'd stayed
on another year, now that behind-the-scenes things have sorted themselves
out, I suspect she'd prove how good she really could have been. Oh well, it
was fun while it lasted, Mel. Instead we're going to get Ace...
Oh yes, and there was the Doctor. That seriousness we saw last week was a
bit of a blip on the storyline scale it seems, we're back to the buffoonery
again (not that I mind that). You know, it's hard to find anything to say
about his performance here, I can't really think of anything notable about
it. He spent the story skating about the ice caves exploring and being all
wondery and stuff about what he saw, then stepped in to save the day at the
end. He's still doing pretty good work in his performance, he just didn't
get much to grapple onto here. I did like the way he slipped and slid about
on the ice as he walked about where everyone else reminded us all it was
merely a studio floor - it's not quite the level of detail that Davison used
to put into his performances, but it's a step in the right direction. And
that first cliff-hanger was a bit odd, yes, but I can see what they were
trying to do with that (in the long shots you can see the ledge he was
attempting to climb down to). Nothing special about McCoy's performance
here, really, but nothing bad either. Which is what you can say about the
whole story, really...
DRAGONFIRE is rather disappointing in that it isn't particularly special one
way or the other. It's not actively bad, nor is it overwhelmingly
wonderful, it just sits in mediocreland, not bothering to be either great or
grating, just plain. Which if it were a mid-season filler it wouldn't be so
bad, but when it's a story that ends the season, sees the departure of one
companion and the introduction of a new one, it needs to be something better
than ordinary. Still, at least Mel left with a fairly strong performance in
her send-off, but sadly I can't say the same for her replacement's premiere.
And I'm suddenly dreading the next few stories...
Evelyn vanished after a mere seven stories
She did?
The Marian Conspiracy
The Spectre of Lanyon Moor
The Apocalypse Element
Bloodtide
Project: Twilight
Real Time
The Sandman
Jubilee
Doctor Who and the Pirates
Project: Lazarus
Arrangements for War
Medicinal Purposes
Pier Pressure
Thicker than Water
The Nowhere Place
100
Assassin in the Limelight
A Death in the Family (with the Seventh Doctor)
A Town Called Fortune
The Crimes of Thomas Brewster
The Feast of Axos
Industrial Evolution
And that's just the audios...
Frobisher barely registered with two
He's a comic-book penguin! He should be EXTREMELY GRATEFUL to have scraped together a couple of audios. Plus he got Mission: Impractical, though you seem to be ignoring the books. (Speaking of which, Evelyn got Instruments of Darkness and a Spiral Scratch cameo.)
Peri wasn't around for all that long either
She got the Fifth Doctor and MOST of the Sixth Doctor's life. The miracle was that she stayed so long, when you consider what she had to put up with from Colin Baker. And don't forget she got an ENTIRE season of Lost Adventues, may the gods have mercy on her soul.
and now Mel's taken off after a run of only nine.
Audios alone she's got:
The One Doctor
The Juggernauts
Catch-1782
Thicker than Water
The Wishing Beast & The Vanity Box
The Wrong Doctors
Spaceport Fear
The Seeds of War
Unregenerate!
Bang-Bang-a-Boom!
Flip-Flop
Red
The Fires of Vulcan
Tegan stayed on board the TARDIS so long that she well and truly overstayed her welcome
WHAT welcome?!
a rather anti-climactic climax
Melting-Kane is what I call a REAL climax, myself.
for somebody seeming so anti-trust, she's quite keen to expand in detail about her life to a complete stranger
*Sigh* Yes. Well, no doubt Mel just has one of those pleasant open faces...
what did he do to the story? Followed the Doctor around, drew him onto a time-wasting red herring in regards to recapturing his ship, displayed more sexism than the series has seen since the seventies, then wandered around doing his own thing before being lumped with Mel at the end.
He sold his crew into slavery, which was really dramatic. Well, SHOULD have been really dramatic. Unfortunately everyone (especially Mel) ignored the implications...
she's a companion who in the recent past was coming along in leaps and bounds
She WAS? WHERE?
Then, without warning, without a real reason, she decides in the final scene that she's going to leave the Doctor and take up travelling with Glitz instead. Huh?
The Doctor hypnotises her into leaving because Fenric has sent Ace. The books say so, so it must be true.
What could she get from adventures with Glitz that she'd never get from adventures with the Doctor?
I have a horrible feeling the answer is 'sex'.
it's a companion departure right up there with Leela's sudden desire to get married to Andred on Gallifrey
Except that it has that truly wonderful farewell scene (that McCoy insisted on reusing from his audition because it WAS originally just supposed to be a 'Yeah, goodbye Mel' kind of thing) which is so much more than Mel deserves.
Even that NA theory that the Doctor planted the thought in her mind to leave doesn't seem to fix it up well enough
Well, it's better than nothing.
And a companion like Mel, despite her faults, really deserves more than that.
Really? I'd say that Mel TOTALLY deserves to get sold into slavery by Sabalom Glitz. Couldn't have happened to a more irritating person.
What use are amnesiac zombies going to be in helping Kane conquer an entire planet?
And why hasn't anyone perfected cryosleep by now?
And why - after presumably years of freezing people - does one of Kane's soldiers need the whole 'amnesiac' thing explained to him.
'The difference is purely perceptual' - the Seventh Doctor, vis-a-vis regeneration. The HELL it is!
'If you kill him, you kill us too!' - wow. Mel's ALREADY in love with Glitz? She hasn't shown any signs of PINING for him since Trial.
'He told us everything, about how you tried to stop him delivering secret documents' - leaving aside the fact Mel is so stupid she believes every word Sabalom Glitz says...why would she TELL the baddies that?
'You've only got yourself to blame' - a surprisingly mild reaction by our freedom-loving Doctor to the revelation that Glitz is a slave-trader. (Still, Ten didn't say ANYTHING to Caecilius about being a slave-owning git...)
'We're not talking to you' - and that's the best Mel can do? Poor Old Sixie got relentlessly bullied for putting on a few pounds, Glitz gets a few moment's pouting for turning slaver?
I have a horrible feeling Dragonfire thought it was being all feminist, with all those gun-toting female bosses, but it JUST COULDN'T HELP repeatedly referring to every female as a 'girl', could it...(NB: is this the LAST time the Doc n'Companion will be referred to as 'a/the man and a/the girl'?) Except for Xana, of course. Who is referred to as 'the woman Xana' despite the archive completely omitting to refer to Kane as 'the man Kane'...
Would touching people on their cheeks with REALLY cold hands REALLY result in their death within moments?
'He's all right, underneath' - Mel's in-depth analysis of Glitz. You won't be saying that in a couple of days when he's chucking you out the airlock, Sunshine...
After THAT cliffhanger...half the shots looking down suggest an endless abyss. And half suggest there's a ledge not too far down. Presumably the one Glitz is standing on when he rescues the Doctor.
Glitz suddenly decides it's impossible to find the treasure before his 72-hour deadline-for-losing-the-Nosferatu expires. WHY? And why doesn't it occur to him or the Doctor that he could buy back the ship AFTER it's been confiscated? And why does the Doctor go along with his hijack-the-ship plan instead of, say, just getting him something saleable from the TARDIS?
'We've got no right to kill' says the bloke who'll be blowing Skaro sky-high in his very next story. It's ESPECIALLY ironic given the celebrations his once and future Companions are currently engaged in after a mass nitro-9 slaughter of Glitz's ex-crew.
Belazs chooses a curious conspirator for the 'Kill Kane!' plot. The very bloke who's just telling her that they have only themselves to blame for being Kane's slaves. The very bloke who thinks that turning the temperature up a bit and then standing there while Kane kills him constitutes a plan. (One of the deleted scenes has Belazs tell him to destroy the refrigeration unit. So why the hell doesn't he?)
'There wasn't nowhere else to go' - Ace describing her Iceworld existence. Sure, it's not like there are LOADS OF SPACESHIPS arriving ALL THE TIME to travel off round the TWELVE GALAXIES. (OK, not quite sure what HAPPENED to 'em all as Nosferatu seems the only one left.)
'I will erect colossal statues in your honour' - and then kill anyone who actually LOOKS at 'em, presumably. (Speaking of which, all the Belazs-betrays-Kane subplot is a bit of a waste of time, if he was gonna kill her for seeing the ice-sculpture ANYWAY.)
Glitz tries to HIT Ace when she calls him 'bilge-bag'? But she's ALWAYS calling him bilge-bag! And he later shoves her protectively behind him when the Dragon appears! And he plans his first trip in Nosferatu 2 to get her home...
'At last! After 3000 years, the Dragonfire shall be mine!' - thought it would have taken considerably less than 3000 years if you'd thought to send someone to look for it earlier. Like, a couple of hours, maximum.
Why only two people on the ANT-hunt that's the culmination of Kane's life's work?
How does the Doctor know the star-chart is out of date? Judging by the way he has to go back to the TARDIS for a modern star-chart, it's not because he's memorised the position of the stars in every single place and time he might possibly visit.
'We'd better hurry. We might be able to stop Kane and save the creature' says the Doc, as he leaves said creature to the mercy of the two hunters and runs away.
'This isn't a wind-up, is it? I mean, I really am going to be able to see your spacecraft, aren't I?' - no one has TOLD Ace it's a dimensionally-transcendental time machine. Why's she so excited? Can't she go to the docking-bay and see numerous spaceships every day? And hitch a lift on one if she's so inclined?
Alas, the poor refugees. The McCoy era just ENJOYS blowing up ships/buses full of innocent tourists, doesn't it.
Why exactly does the Dragon walk down the corridor towards the two totally-unconcealed guards with their really big guns that promptly kill him?
Wow. Even Sabalom Glitz is prepared to swap the treasure for Ace's life, but Mel of all people is TOTALLY 'Oh, let her die...'
'You know, for someone who's had the patience to wait around for 3000 years, you seem to be in rather a hurry, suddenly' - QUITE, Doctor. QUITE.
'All your mercenaries are dead' - what! When did THAT happen?! And...y'know...HOW?
It's INCREDIBLE they got away with the Kane death-scene.
'Mel can keep you out of trouble, Glitz' - SERIOUSLY? THAT'S how the Doc salvages his conscience for abandoning her?
And Mel doesn't give a second thought to the fact that abandoning the time-machine means abandoning her parents. Neither do Ace or Glitz give a thought to the fact that there's extremely little point in dumping her back in Perivale if it's centuries in her future.
I have the seriously annoying feeling that this could have been INCREDIBLY good if it hadn't taken a wrong turning somewhere.
And why hasn't anyone perfected cryosleep by now?
They have, but history isn't a one-way street. Sometimes, technologies get lost.
Would touching people on their cheeks with REALLY cold hands REALLY result in their death within moments?
Not on their cheeks. Freezing the arteries feeding the brain could kill, by cutting off the blood supply, but they don't run through the cheeks. I think he'd need to caress people's necks to kill that way, though stroking their forehead would be pretty uncomfortable.
'There wasn't nowhere else to go' - Ace describing her Iceworld existence. Sure, it's not like there are LOADS OF SPACESHIPS arriving ALL THE TIME to travel off round the TWELVE GALAXIES.
Can Ace afford the fare? Even if she can, does she have the right travel documents?
How does the Doctor know the star-chart is out of date?
Maybe he recognises the printing style.
THAT'S how the Doc salvages his conscience for abandoning her?
Well, it's not as if he ever really wanted her. He just got stuck with her because he couldn't safely change the future he'd seen in the matrix during his trial.
Neither do Ace or Glitz give a thought to the fact that there's extremely little point in dumping her back in Perivale if it's centuries in her future.
Glitz may not even realise Ace is a time traveller, while Ace is under the impression that she got to her future using some pretty basic chemicals, so may assume it'll be easy enough for Glitz.
They have, but history isn't a one-way street. Sometimes, technologies get lost.
Odd that THE DOCTOR said it was IMPOSSIBLE! that anyone would remember anything about their previous life following cryosleep. No doubt he was perfectly attuned to this place n'time's level of technology as well as its star-map-font. At some point between Six and Seven he must have done some SERIOUS research on galactic history. (Though he DID have to go back to the TARDIS to check up on his hunch, so not THAT thorough.)
'There wasn't nowhere else to go' - Ace describing her Iceworld existence. Sure, it's not like there are LOADS OF SPACESHIPS arriving ALL THE TIME to travel off round the TWELVE GALAXIES.
Can Ace afford the fare? Even if she can, does she have the right travel documents?
She wouldn't have to afford the fare - she could work her passage as a waitress (or any other manual task). And I doubt people need travel documents in this particular sector of space or Ace would probably have been locked up as an illegal immigrant by now. Or if she DOES need documents, she could get the criminal scum she's hanging round with like Glitz to forge her some.
THAT'S how the Doc salvages his conscience for abandoning her?
Well, it's not as if he ever really wanted her.
That's not the POINT!
He never really wanted Donna or Leela or Ian and Barbara or Adric or Tegan or Jo or Romana or River either. People are supposed to GROW on him. Admittedly this IS Mel...
"Or if she DOES need documents, she could get the criminal scum she's hanging round with like Glitz to forge her some."
I don't really see Glitz as a forger. Or if he is he's like that forger from 'That Mitchell & Webb Look' who makes fake credit cards out of cheese.
They have, but history isn't a one-way street. Sometimes, technologies get lost.
Like humanity having time travel in Captain Jack's time (51st Century), but having seemingly lost that ability in later centuries.
Even in the fifty-first century, certain people (viz, Magnus Greel) didn't really seem to have the hang of time travel, whilst others had time-travel devices on their wrists...
What's the problem???
Think of flight:
In 1903 the Wright Brothers first flight was a really big event--yet well before the end of the century you could go almost anyplace for the cost of a ticket.
Hate to say it--but I see no problem.
Oh.
Bloody good point.
It honestly never occurred to me that a century is a VERY LONG TIME...
"In 1903 the Wright Brothers first flight was a really big event"
Though still a less impressive achievement than Richard Pearse's first powered flight that took place several months earlier.
Hey, when I was is school I was taught it was the Wright Brothers--and that there were a couple of Europeons(s?) who came close but failed.
It's only been in recent years that I've heard anything different--and I put this in the revisionist history box with the other rewrites.
Was Pearse the one whose plane crashed after being thrown be a catapault???(I do seem to remember hearing someone doing somethin like that.)
Emily:It honestly never occurred to me that a century is a VERY LONG TIME...
It is an easy mistake to make--unless ther are big evenys to catch your attention, it king of fades into grey.
(I also admit to a bit of trouble fittong some events into their proper place in time(I tend ro think of Shakesspear as being from a long,long ago,while I think of Columbus as much more recent( and yes I have learned that Shakesspear is more recent--but I have to think about it to make it feel real)).
Like JEP, I knew of the Wright Brothers. I had to go to Wikipedia to find out about Richard Pearse.
and that there were a couple of Europeons(s?) who came close but failed
You might be thinking of the two French pilots who, in 1927 (a few months before Charles Lindbergh made his flight to Paris) tried to fly to North America. They were never heard from again. Some believe they did make it and crashed somewhere in either Maritime Canada or New England. Attempts have been made, over the decades, to find the wreckage and their skeletal remains. So far, no luck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Aviators
My point was that why does humanity have access to time travel in the 51st Century, but not in stories set in later centuries (Frontio, for example). What happened?
Why does Kane wait 3000 years before trying to find the Dragonfire, especially if his troops can so easily destroy the dragon? What is the whole point of the subplot involving Stellar, which never really connects to the main story at all? How on earth can a sixteen year old generate a time storm in her bedroom from a chemistry experiment? (Okay, yes, The Curse of Fenric, but that story came two years later.) And, of course, why does the Doctor climb over a cliff and slip down his umbrella for no reason whatsoever?
And, of course, why does the Doctor climb over a cliff and slip down his umbrella for no reason whatsoever?
Because of the Great Intelligence's actions in Name of the Doctor. It may be responsible for half the cliffhangers in the entire series.
Why does Kane wait 3000 years before trying to find the Dragonfire, especially if his troops can so easily destroy the dragon?
Because, for some inexplicable reason he never thought that his jailer also had the treasure.
How on earth can a sixteen year old generate a time storm in her bedroom from a chemistry experiment? (Okay, yes, The Curse of Fenric, but that story came two years later.)
Well that really is laziest form of nitpicking I have ever seen- "Oh they explained it two years later so it doesn't count". Actually, yes it does. And even though Fenric is one of the stupidest stories from one of the weakest seasons of classic Who, it is still an explanation.
And, of course, why does the Doctor climb over a cliff and slip down his umbrella for no reason whatsoever?
Avail yourself of either the novelisation or the dvd where this is explained quite emphatically in the making-of doco.
And even though Fenric is one of the stupidest stories from one of the weakest seasons of classic Who
It's WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!
you heard me....
What was with the little girl that seemingly had the run of the place in Episode Three?
To me, the biggest problem with that plot strand wasn't that the little girl just wandered around not noticing what was happening around her. The problem was her mother, who lost her child as she ran screaming from a zombie attack...and then marched around demanding that everyone searched for her child in a super snooty way, as though she had a very important hair appointment and couldn't spare ther time to search for her child herself.
I think this was a dodgy bit, as the production team forgot where the zombie plot went. But considering the script hell that the whole season went through I'm surprised this story is as competent as it is.
The problem was her mother, who lost her child as she ran screaming from a zombie attack...and then marched around demanding that everyone searched for her child in a super snooty way, as though she had a very important hair appointment and couldn't spare ther time to search for her child herself.
That's not a nit. That's the Who Production Team's rather ruthless take on being upper-class.
(To be fair, they were equally ruthless with the 'working' class in Warriors Gate...Come to think of it, have they ever had a really good go at middle-class smugness and if not, WHY not!)
It is strongly implied that Kane had previously had a rather abusive sexual relationship with Belasz. Given what happens to anyone who has skin contact with him, it's a little challenging to understand how that would have worked.
It's a little challenging to understand how it would have worked for Kane either - touching anyone with normal human body temperature would be like sticking his hands into a blast furnace.
Ooh, I've just spotted this at the top of the thread:
TRIVIA NOTE- the model of Kane exposing himself to the Sun (the face falling apart) didn't work properly and so that is the reason it cuts away so quickly after the face starts falling apart- because after that all the face fell off revealing the very UNHUMAN MODEL SKULL underneath!!!
They may well have reasoned this way, but visuals of the model skull exist and it looks very effective. It graced the cover of an issue of 'The Frame' published right after this episode, so the effects team can't have been that ashamed of it.
It isn't just Glitz and Mel on the ship at the end of Dragonfire, but the little girl and her mother, too. How often has this sort of thing happened in Doctor Who with story facts overlooked in the euphoria of the Doctor's victory?
I'd hardly say there was much euphoria-at-the-Doctor's-victory THIS time. The cute dragon is dead, practically everyone else is dead, he's lost his Companion to a slave-trader etc etc...
How often has this sort of thing happened in Doctor Who with story facts overlooked in the euphoria of the Doctor's victory?
What "story facts" are being overlooked? We know that Stella and her mum are on the ship at the end because... we see them on the ship at the end.
The real oddity is why Stella's mother seems not to have noticed what's been going on in Iceworld over the course of the previous episode.
Stellar is meant to be a stand-in for Newt, the little girl from Aliens, right? But, Newt never wore a dress in Aliens, let alone one that's so impractical it shows Stellar's knickers when she crawls under a table in the cafe during the zombie attack.
To be fair to Stellar's mother (or father. Or nanny. Or whoever dressed her that morning) they weren't really EXPECTING her to crawl under a table during a zombie attack...
And what's wrong with flashing your knickers anyway, if it's good enough for Jo Grant...
Stellar is meant to be a stand-in for Newt, the little girl from Aliens
I never made that connection.
much of the story is a homage to Aliens. The ANT hunt etc etc. Aliens was a recent film in 1987.
And the name of the villain is Kane.
Kane was the name of the first victim of an ALIEN in the 1979 movie, and was played by future War Doctor, John Hurt.
I've never been a fan of "I'm the Doctor, I'm a Time Lord from Gallifrey, what are you going to do about it?" which is why i like it when Kane says "who are you?" and the Doctor replies simply "just a traveler".
Yeah, Who has made attempts to get back to the whole 'just a traveller' thing ('I got too big so I've deleted all memories of me! Genius!') but it never works.
Luckily I totally adore the whole Oncoming Storm, Lonely God, Supreme Authority In The Universe stuff.
WORSHIP HER!!
'Leave him! He's in the Restricted Zone. He's a dead man.'
--The Restricted Zone is just an unlocked door away? And the assistant needs to be told this? Doesn't sound very restricted.
Wouldn't a city (okay, spaceship) THAT visible from orbit affect the planet somehow? Its rotation and/or orbit? Francois?
All Glitz says is that he's charged with delivering secret documents that other parties would kill him for. When the locals approach the table, Mel jumps up, assuming they're the other party, blabs about the secret documents and offers that she and the Doctor should die too.
Okay that's not really a nit, but it sure makes you even happier that she's leaving.
But why does the local constabulary assume that story is a lie and not some side project he has going on?
If Ace's chemistry experiment whisked up a timestorm that brought her to Iceworld, how does she know she was expelled? She talks about the expulsion as if she experienced it.
And why does Mel not bat at eye at the timestorm story?
And 'A levels' is what tips her off that Ace is from Earth?
If I was going somewhere with Nitro-9, Mel is exactly the person I'd want to carry them too.
Ace is 'six-...eighteen'. Because Kane's army of mercenaries has a strict age requirement..?
Why is Mel so worked up about the possibility of Ace joining Kane? Can she just automatically identify 'Bad Guy'?
Why does Ace save Mel?
That wasn't a question. It was a lament.
I've really never been sure what's going on in this sequence. Does the Doctor climb down the cliff and only then, when he's down one umbrella-length, does he realise it's a sheer drop of hundreds or thousands of feet? And then, Glitz helps him down (not up), so it's apparently just a drop of less than one Glitz?
Always found it a bit disconcerting that the Doctor couldn't keep up in a philosophical discussion with a guard.
Why can only one person leave in thr Nosferatu? Didn't it have a crew of seven when it came in? Don't Mel and Glitz leave together? (Maybe she meant it as a challenge, that one of them would have to die, but it still doesn't look it would fit eight people. And why does it needs that big of a crew when one person can apparently fly it?)
The atmosphere seems exactly like Earth's, but at no point is anyone's breath visible.
How DOES a group of seemingly normal humans (albeit in a trance) survive, with no scars yet, Nitro-9 blowing up in their faces?
Does the little girl just smile at everything?
Why exactly does Mel leave? She says it's time, but she hadn't even arranged to leave with Glitz yet. Not that I'm not grateful, but I don't see what her motivation is. (Emily's 1999 comment at the top regarding Head Games makes perfect sense though.)
Stellar's mother isn't the least bit emotional to finally find her daughter.
Did the Doctor ever come up with the third rule?
All Glitz says is that he's charged with delivering secret documents that other parties would kill him for. When the locals approach the table, Mel jumps up, assuming they're the other party, blabs about the secret documents and offers that she and the Doctor should die too.
Okay that's not really a nit, but it sure makes you even happier that she's leaving.
Also, even sorrier and more perplexed that this sort of voluntary-human-shield attitude hasn't got her killed long since.
And why does Mel not bat at eye at the timestorm story?
To be fair, we all swallowed that timestorm-via-chemistry-experiment stuff till Fenric disillusioned us...
And 'A levels' is what tips her off that Ace is from Earth?
Well, an enormous chunk of the universe looks/behaves human even if they don't come from Earth.
Ace is 'six-...eighteen'. Because Kane's army of mercenaries has a strict age requirement..?
Sweet of 'em to be more picky about minors than the British Army...
Why does Ace save Mel?
That wasn't a question. It was a lament.
Ace is a wonderful Companion but we've just gotta accept that she does have issues, one of which is finding the nearest young(ish) female, latching onto her like a leech and spilling all her secrets. Look on the bright side, at least she's not shouting 'Boom!' on this occasion...
I've really never been sure what's going on in this sequence. Does the Doctor climb down the cliff and only then, when he's down one umbrella-length, does he realise it's a sheer drop of hundreds or thousands of feet? And then, Glitz helps him down (not up), so it's apparently just a drop of less than one Glitz?
This is undoubtedly due to the Great Intelligence dropping into his timeline to destroy him...
Always found it a bit disconcerting that the Doctor couldn't keep up in a philosophical discussion with a guard.
Now you mention it, that DOES imply that Seven is either thick or stuck dumb that a guard could be smart - i.e. a raging classist snob.
Stellar's mother isn't the least bit emotional to finally find her daughter.
Well, why the hell should she? A lot of parents don't give a •••• about their kids, it's just unusual to SHOW it on Who cos it's unusual to show KIDS on Who.
Did the Doctor ever come up with the third rule?
Not that I've ever noticed, in the dozens of mutually-contradictory continued adventures of Ace...
Wouldn't a city (okay, spaceship) THAT visible from orbit affect the planet somehow? Its rotation and/or orbit? Francois?
Depends on how massive and how high it actually is. If large and low enough it would create tidal effects that would trigger earthquakes and tidal waves. It could be pretty damaging actually.
If Ace's chemistry experiment whisked up a timestorm that brought her to Iceworld, how does she know she was expelled? She talks about the expulsion as if she experienced it.
Maybe she was expelled before that last experiment that whisked her away. Knowing Ace, she wouldn't let a little thing like an expulsion keep her away from her lab.
And why does Mel not bat at eye at the timestorm story?
She's been travelling in a time machine for a while and has experienced a lot pretty weird stuff. Ace's story could have sounded pretty tame to her at that point.
Depends on how massive and how high it actually is. If large and low enough it would create tidal effects that would trigger earthquakes and tidal waves. It could be pretty damaging actually.
I can't find any picture to link to. But if Iceworld is, well, ice, I assume tides wouldn't be much of an issue.
When the spaceship disembarkes, that must devastate the planet. It's about a quarter of the mass by eye (and day-old memory). I hope nothing else was living there.
To be fair, we all swallowed that timestorm-via-chemistry-experiment stuff till Fenric disillusioned us...
That may be my issue actually. Since the PBS station in Chicago that had been running Who for years stopped running it before the final season, I never saw Fenric until years later, so that timestorm line stuck with me longer than it should have.
Pretty sure I thought the chemically-created timestorm was weird when I first saw the ep, but that was before I became a nitpicker or was even on the internet, so it's not like I was thinking of noting the nit or having a place to post it, I probably just wrote it off as another "British sci-fi writers don't know science" thing.
I probably just wrote it off as another "British sci-fi writers don't know science" thing
For some odd reason I just can't bring myself to shriek BURN THE BLASPHEMER! so I'll settle for a look of sad reproach...
Maybe this has already been covered in this thread which I haven't read through yet, but I just watched the first episode again. What are the most inventive reasons we can come up with for the Doctor's actions at the cliffhanger?
Well, it's suggested up-thread that it's all due to the Great Intelligence's interference in his timeline, which would certainly make sense of Clara's presence at that point...if not of why Moffat would choose THAT moment to commemorate...
BLESS!
Long, but it does work.