The Pertwee era can be summed up thus: Season 7: Quatermass, Season 8: The Master, Season 10: Anniversary and Jo leaves, Season 11: Sarah Jane introduced; which of course leaves out Season 9: The Middle One. Very much like Season 3, it is hard to really define this season as it's stories are of variable quality. In my mind the season is most well known for it's failures like The Mutants. However having watched the season again for this review I have re-evaluated some of my opinions.
Let's start at the beginning shall we? Day of the Daleks is an interesting story involving time paradoxes and alternative futures. The premise that the freedom fighters caused the World War that led to the Daleks' invasion in the 22nd Century is a very good one and is really clever. Other points in the story's favour: Pertwee's one-man wine and cheese party, which just goes to show how much of a dandy the 3rd Doctor can be. Aubrey Woods as the Controller is superb, giving a good portrayal of a man who, despite all the evil acts that he is responsible for, is trying to do the best for his people. Two negative points though: First, when the Doctor guns down the Ogron in cold blood (can't remember which episode). They aren't shown firing at him so why does he shoot back? Was there a shot of them firing that was edited out of the finished programme? I don't think that it's in the Doctor's nature to just fire first and then to kill. Second, the Daleks voices are pathetic. They don't sound menacing enough (mind you, they're not as bad as those in Revelation!).
Phallic based alien design, Ice Warriors, Court Intrigue and a parody of Britain's entry into the European Union all go together to make a neat little old-fashioned story. In The Curse of Peladon there's no "we have to save the universe" plot here. Which makes it enjoyable. There's no threat from an alien menace. The only threat comes from a mythical monster and superstition. One thing to the story's credit is that Brian Hayles decided to play with the audiences' expectations by having the Ice Warriors as the good guys. The romance between Jo (sorry, Princess Josephine of Tardis) is very well played and believably acted by Katy Manning and David Troughton. I could almost believe that she would have stayed with him. Aggedor looks too unrealistic, but is quite cute. And I'd just like to add that I like Alpha Centauri because he's very funny with his/her/hir high-pitched voice and cowardly nervous character and vacuum cleaner pipe arms! (There, I've got to the end of reviewing Curse of Peladon without mentioning Pertwee's Venusian lullaby. Doh!)
On the surface (no pun intended) The Sea Devils appears to be an aquatic re-make of The Silurians, and you'd be right to think that. Or would you? Did we really need another Silurians? I don't think so, but this had the added bonus of the Master and lots of exciting scenes of ships and gun battles involving the Navy to make up for the repeated plot. The Master is played with wonderful charm and evil in varying degrees by Roger Delgado, who has never been bettered in the role. He has some great scenes when he uses Trenchard's patriotism for his own uses.
Malcolm Hulke handles the moral questions perfectly as he did in Silurians. It's a shame the Sea Devils' whispering voices weren't suited to the same kind of discussions as the Silurians. Couple of other things were good: Edwin Richfield as Captain Hart, a likeable character and believable, especially when he finally accepts the Doctor's stories about the Sea Devils. It's good to see all the Navy hardware on show. (Did they have to pay to have all this stuff for the programme? The Navy must have seen this as a good publicity vehicle). Once again, Hulke fails to get the period right for when the Silurians and Sea Devils inhabited the Earth. One final thing it was good seeing the Master get away at the end. We'd all been waiting for that moment from the beginning of the story!
The Mutants doesn't have a lot going for it. It only has two convincing actors in it and one of them dies in the first episode, namely Geoffrey Palmer as the Administrator and the other is Paul Whitson-Jones as the maniacal Marshal. The Marshal is a complete maniac and Whitson-Jones plays the character to perfection. A man desperately struggling to keep control, doing whatever is necessary to keep control of the planet Solos; even if it means killing the Administrator, killing the native population by changing their planet's atmosphere (which is harmful to humans) so that humans can breath there. Nothing will get in his way - except for the Doctor of course! The actual story is fine; that of mankind holding on to colonies that they couldn't afford to keep both financially and morally. I think the story was based on the British occupation of India. The main problem with the story is the pace of the thing. It just seems to have too much to-ing and fro-ing between the Skybase and Solos, and is full of lots of padding of wandering caves. While the first couple of episodes have a good dramatic pace to them, it starts to lose it somewhere around episode 3 or 4. Perhaps it would have been better as a four parter.
The actual 'Mut' costumes are fine and (almost) realistically resemble insects. One other thing, congratulations for featuring a black character in a main role, but unfortunately Rick James as Cotton acts very unconvincingly (and so does Christopher Coll as Stubbs).
And on to what is regarded as another turkey of the season: The Time Monster. Can't think why, there are some very good performances, direction, effects and an interesting story. First the story: Very rarely in the series do we come across any creatures from beyond time, so the Kronos is interesting from that point of view. Again, Delgado gives a good performance, especially in the scenes with his fellow scientists he actually comes across as a real person you could almost believe is normal. I also like the scene when he is trying to hypnotise the head of the research facility, where he has a very strong presence. It reminded me so much why I like the character. The Doctor (I suppose I should mention him somewhere in this review!) is on top form. Pertwee gives a good performance in this, especially when he is in Atlantis trying to persuade them not to follow the Master. Speaking of Atlantis, the scenes there are convincingly done, the sets don't look too cheap and the costumes seem convincingly historic. While the characters are walking clichés, that doesn't matter as they seem believable; in particular Ingrid Pitt as Queen Galleia, the way that she is so easily manipulated by the Master through her vanity.
The story is very well directed by Paul Bernard. One shot I really like is the one where the Master is watching the UNIT convoy on his video watch. It's good to see someone watching something from the right angle. I also like the slow-motion sequences when time is slowed down. I think the Master's TARDIS being disguised as a reel to reel computer is quite groovy! One other thing, when I was watching this my Dad was in the room. He isn't a who fan at all (usually complains when it's on). He ended up watching the first three episodes! In fact after the cliffhangers in the first two episodes he was saying "What happens next? Fast forward to the next episode." Not bad for a 26 year old programme, eh?
