Looking Back: Dragonfire

So 'Dragonfire' is a hideously underrated story. But more on that later.

You join us here this week at the chilly end of 1987, a time when Doctor Who was... not in a good place. Shall we say. It had just struggled through a particularly difficult time with Colin Baker's 'Trial of a Time Lord', something everybody needs time to get over because, let's all face it - 'Trial' is a fucking mess. It's an ungraceful zit on the face of the BBC. It's atrocious. It saw the mistreatment of the lead actor, prompting desperate performances, saw the shocking (but effective) demise of a companion, and then saved her later on in a rushed and nasty way. It saw the desecration of a show that had come to be loved, the final nail in the coffin for Doctor Who, the hurried farewell sermon, the scratched tombstone. That classic innovative show lost apparently forever in the earth.

No stopping them graverobbers though.

The much discussed and oft praised McCoy era began some way into 1987, Doctor Who's 24th year of broadcast. Colin Baker (understandably) wanted no more to do with the show, and so moved on famously before a regeneration scene could be filmed, leaving the BBC with a new lead to find and a different stance to take on how sci-fi had to be done. What they found was a Scottish ex-circus clown and a pantomime space opera, and thus the Doctor returned, lighter, funnier, odder, more relatable and sympathetic than Baker's short-tempered wanderer. Here was a Doctor the audience could warm to, a man with a panama hat and an umbrella shaped like a question mark, and r's rolled so viciously you couldn't help but smile - the wonderful alter ego of Sylvester McCoy. Companion Mel was sticking around for a bit, and with all of eighteen months to prepare a comeback deserving of a big-budget, high adventure science fiction drama, Doctor Who finally came lurching back onto our screens with... 'Time and the Rani'. And then 'Paradise Towers', and then 'Delta and the Bannermen'. Which are... n't good. So was Doctor Who past the point of no return?

You might have been excused for thinking so. A lot of fans at the time started tuning out, abandoning ship. They didn't want this new silly Doctor with his silly camp stories and his strange ways. These days we can appreciate those three unfortunate serials, at least for those aspects which couldn't be helped - we can view them through rose-tinted goggles, admiring their bravery and feeling nostalgic for McCoy. But at the time, 'Time of the Rani', 'Paradise Towers' and 'Delta and the Bannermen' were just not want the people wanted. They were wrong, turning away more fans than they gained. Doctor Who wasn't working how it once had. There was a bad, bad vibe.

Then, 'Dragonfire' happened. And 'Dragonfire' is really something different. It might still have the insane camp, and the puns, and the costumes, but it is, must be universally recognised as where things started to change. A new companion, Ace, was introduced, a character with a notoriously complex and interesting backstory. The themes were darker, the stakes higher, the Doctor's performance subtle and involved. 'Dragonfire' is the sigh of relief. From here on in, things would only get better and better until Doctor Who's untimely cancellation in 1989, two years later. The upswing of quality is catapulted from the end of this story until the closing scenes of 'Survival', and is the reason the McCoy era has become so adored with fans. Plots became intellectual and challenging, exposition was wittled to provide a healthy aura of mystery and mesmeric charm. This is where Doctor Who got good again. Let's give it a look.

Yeah. I really love this story. Seriously. From minute one, it's just great, great fun, a romp around an alien trading colony with a dragon, an insane criminal, a hapless Glitz and feisty Ace. It's everything you could want. Iceworld itself is very well designed - the bar, the caverns, the cooling tunnels. All the sets seem appropriate, and impressive - Kane's lair provides a respectable level of vertical space, which never hurts. Costumes, while still recovering from escapades like 'Delta and the Bannermen', are still glitzy and silly, but fit well enough with the environment to merit their acceptance by the viewer. Everyone's giving it their all, and it shows. The plot sparkles with good fun and heady adventure for the sake of itself, which slowly evolves into something more sinister while still retaining the wit and enthusiasm the story holds early on. It's endearing, certainly, but not endearingly bad, endearingly charming.

The characters populating our world are also convincing (or if not convincing, entertaining or engaging) enough. Returning is Sabalom Glitz, last present in the aforementioned 'Trial of a Time Lord', an intergalactic crook with a paunch and an educated turn of phrase. Glitz is just as much fun here than he was there, more so, even, attributable to the vastly improved quality of the story which is giving his character context. Tony Selby is always enjoyable to watch as the clumsy rogue from Salostophus, and his presence lends the narrative its catalyst as he produces the treasure map which is to draw the Doctor, Mel and the young waitress Ace into a quest to find the mythical dragon beneath Iceworld. Mel is good here, certainly more acceptable than she is in 'Trial', (this being Bonnie Langford's swansong as companion) and I think the way she's handled in a group makes her much more bearable than usual (I'm not a real fan of Mel, but perhaps I need more experience of her). Everything clips along - we meet the baddies, the goodies, see the sights, hear the music with time to spare for private scenes that let writer Ian Briggs expand on the characters of Bellasz, Ace and Kane. It's good to see so much going on for so simple a story.

One of the most important elements of 'Dragonfire' is, of course, the introduction of Ace, and it's really interesting to see how differently her debut plays out than those of previous companions. Indeed, the way Ace is handled throughout the next two years is strikingly mature and of a more modern nature than has been seen previously. Before now, companions have been bystanders, characters defined more by what they do for a narrative than who they are in it (exceptions being Susan, Barbara and Ian, of course, Romana, Turlough, Sarah Jane). So it's refreshing watching Ace's backstory and troubled past unfold in dialogue, hearing her side of story slip out bit by bit in masterful character touches, why she would want to travel with the Doctor, what has made her who she is today. It's remarkably progressive, and isn't the only part of this story that is; the 'monster', a cybernetic alien dragon, turns out to be affable and sweet; Bellasz is a layered character, with flaws and wants; the model shots and effects are breathtaking and the music builds appropriately at key points. 'Dragonfire' is a big push forward in terms of pure class for Doctor Who. 

So the characters make sense, more sense than they have for a while. Each have desires and real-life motivations. All of them, right? All... except Kane. Now Kane is the bad guy of the piece (yeah, spoilers, whatever, not really). He's the guy who kills his own people with his bare hands, whose reasons for 'spreading chaos throughout the galaxy' (there's some really bad exposition from Kane) are shifty and a bit rubbish. He's out and out bad, so bad he needed to be stranded on a planet alone, in a prison ship with a jailer who carries the key that would release him, to taunt his evil mind (weird plot touch? Yep). But honestly, in all seriousness - I couldn't care a jot less. Kane is great. He's great to watch, he's cold, he's a bastard who wants to avenge some thing about his wife or sommat (the details aren't particularly important). He's just bad and camp. And I don't care, because this story is camp. It's camp from minute one to the closing scene. The first cliffhanger is hilariously bad, the second is obvious and CAMP. IT'S ALL CAMP. But it's kinda glorious, too. Sometimes you just need a big fun runaround, a romp without much stakes or character development. But when it's a big fun runaround romp with stakes and character development (hint: like this), the experience is so much more overwhelmingly uplifting. 'Robots of Death' is excellent. 'The Curse of Fenric' never fails to amaze, once it's picked up. But this just makes you happy. You leave it feeling content. And that's really all you can ask for.

You know, really, there isn't so much to say anymore. I'd like to mention some touches; the motif of the little girl with her teddy, for instance, is actually really nice and effective, and lends the Dragon some really adorable character moments when it waves her goodbye after saving her life. It's a nice dragon. Then you have the Doctor, who is wonderful here - McCoy plays inquisitive, sharing his findings, having a whale of a time without losing control or forgetting his bumbling self. He has some great scenes (see 'distracting the guard'), some great lines (see the speech on relative time), some wonderful, wonderful character building scenes (see Mel's goodbye. Really. I need to really talk about this properly, outside brackets). See Mel's goodbye. I'm not even the greatest fan of Mel, I've said that, but the last scene she shares with the Doctor inside the TARDIS is lovely. It speaks volumes about the Doctor, how he tries to battle away his want for her to stay with bluster and detachment, and then gives up after he's come out the other side of his preoccupations with time and its relativity. It's very New-Who feeling, in a good way that elevates the experience for the classic viewer who likes a bit of sentimentality. And then there's Ace's elation at joining the Doctor, Kane's really kind of gory demise (seriously, his face melts, like in Indiana Jones. Only... worse? It's really nasty), Kane tempting Ace with his sovereign, the girl and the diner, the really incredible model work that speaks wonders about the ambition of the production team, the ANT hunt, the revelation of Iceworld's true nature, the destruction of the Nosferatu and so many more. This story just keeps on giving, again and again.

Last Words?

Phoof. I'm out.

The first time I watched 'Dragonfire', I didn't like it. I didn't get it. I didn't like its campness, didn't understand why it should be so well-loved. The bad guy was stupid, all the acting was a bit strained, it was embarrassing to watch with someone else there.

I honestly don't know what changed.

I love 'Dragonfire'. It's just quintessential Doctor Who fun. An excellent story that has space to unfold but not to waste time, a story that lets us enjoy every facet of its production but not get tired of it. A story that excites us for what is to come, and with good reason - this is the beginning of 'Remembrance of the Daleks' and 'Ghost Light' and 'The Curse of Fenric', a story that ensures more than any other of the time that our little science fiction telly show will survive, even after it all goes wrong. 'Dragonfire' embodies why Doctor Who is still on our screens today, and why it will continue to be for a long, long time. Thank you Sylvester McCoy, thank you Ian Briggs and Sophie Aldred and Bonnie Langford and Tony Selby. What a wonderful story. Watch it for me, and be happy.

Looking Back: The War Games

As the swinging sixties drew to a solemn close, a lot of things were changing in the world. The space race had been pretty well won as Neil Armstrong's famous boot crunched on the moon's cheesy soil for the very first time. Russia and America still peered at each other through frosted goggles, fingers hovering over big, important red buttons. Jim Morrison was arrested in Florida for indecent exposure, the Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight, Monty Python's Flying Circus aired for the very first time on BBC 1. The greatest decade the world had ever known was ending - and something else entirely was on its way.

In the midst of all this upheaval, a BBC program called Doctor Who was also considering certain changes - lead actor Patrick Troughton had already stated his desire to jump ship and swim to better places, and in response to both this and to the punishing schedule enforced over the last two years of filming, the Doctor's companions Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury had also made it clear that Season 6 was to be their last in the TARDIS. Viewing figures were at a dangerous low. This teatime show made with matchsticks and bubble wrap needed to find a way into the modern day, or be pulled back with the tide and into the catalogue of failed telly exploits.

Luckily, some people still quite liked Doctor Who in 1969.

Conversations were quickly had where they counted, phone calls made, and, predictably, the nation's favourite science fiction would return to screens again in 1970, with new colours and a new lead, and pave the way once more for future generations to keep the flame burning. The Doctor wouldn't die with the decade that had spawned his adventures.

This, when the first episode of 'The War Games' aired, was still in the future, but the show was ripe for a reworking and so script editor Terrance Dicks (later to oversee all of Jon Pertwee's five years on Earth) had decided to send the second Doctor out with as big a bang as his near-exhausted BBC-issue musket could provide. At ten parts and 250 minutes of pure Who, the gargantuan beast Dicks's request spawned still remains the second longest single story ever to have graced our screens, not counting 1986's mutated pseudo-season-pseudo-story 'Trial of a Timelord' because, while might claim to be one narrative, it is blatantly and horribly not. And while the overwhelming prospect of ten episodes straight might chill even the hardiest Whovian's blood, this story is surprisingly well-paced and watchable for its length, and still remains one of the most discussed and noteworthy serials to come out of Doctor Who's first ten years.

The success of 'The War Games' is accountable largely to its writers Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke - a duo who would later go on to see made the classic 'Ambassadors of Death' of Pertwee's first season as Doctor - and to David Maloney, director previously of 'The Mind Robber' and 'The Krotons', and afterwards of, among other greats, 'Genesis of the Daleks' and 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang', amounting to a track record of classics unmatched in its popularity by nearly any other. This dream team of BBC execs took it upon themselves to end Patrick Troughton's tenure with an explosive and sprawling tour de force, a final outing and tragic end to the Second Doctor's three-year hero of the good in the Universe, and combatant of the evil - we know it as 'The War Games', and it's a story not to be forgotten. So slip on your cardboard headband and watch closely through a pair of iffy cut-out crosses; it's time for a commentary.

Now, with a story ten parts long, it's always quite easy to pick out individual cogs and wheels for discussion - not wanting to trawl and retrawl through all of 'The War Games' hundreds of minutes, thousands of seconds, one finds oneself naturally drawn towards the aspects of the serial that stuck in one's mind on the first watch (although, with a story of such incredible volume, repeat viewings can be difficult to face). This in mind, and looking down the list of to-dos, it isn't difficult to choose between certain aspects of the narrative to analyse - the intense and intriguing first twenty-five minutes, the chemistry of the seventh and eighth episodes and the charged interactions between the Time Lords, the War Chief and the Doctor. Whilst odd memorable scenes or lines or shots and bits and bobs clunk on the back of the mind's eye every now and again, for those looking to observe and deduce there are certainly clear peaks of quality within 'The War Games', and definite periods during which one's attention tends to sag in the middle, and whilst none of the serial is what anybody could possibly call 'bad', there are noticeable instances of heavy padding to sparse out the story, to water down the squash. This is as with any other Doctor Who story, of course, but with ten parts you're always going to struggle to find material which might suit to insulate the cavities left between different plot points or important events.
So it's remarkable to see just how much of this feels so rawly necessary.

Part one of 'The War Games' is absolutely quintessential Doctor Who. The plot is tight, the script clips along wonderfully and the guest cast shines - Smythe is purely heartless, with a shady background to boot, and Carstairs and Jennifer belongs flamboyantly and brilliantly in a nineteen-forties propaganda film. The rather bleaker wartime world we find ourselves thrust into is very effectively realised and explored with time to spare for plot points, like why Smythe has alien tech in his office and why nobody seems to be able to remember anything very far back after they signed up. I don't want to spoil anything too much for anybody who hasn't watched this, but I can say that the mystery is gripping and the cliffhanger excellent, a proto-'Androzani' blinder that feels unavoidable and awful and just forces you to tune in for part two. And this coming after an adventure in a 'Genesis of the Daleks'-style No Man's Land and a confrontation with a general who really isn't all he seems - it already feels epic and bigger than anything we've got before.

Delving further into the story, the mystery becomes more complicated - different time zones and characters come constantly crashing into the narrative in an onslaught to our half-developed suspicions. The War Chief here, Romans charging from the hills... this story sprawls like a cat under a Volkswagen, but never in a way that seems too ridiculous or without control. Pretty soon we're out of the First World War, pretty soon after that we're finding glassy enemy TARDISes in the recesses of the antagonist's fort. It's on another scale. The guest cast performances are still consistently generally pretty perfectly pitched, too - look out for Michael Troughton's brief cameo as a young soldier, for the monocled and nasal German officer we meet in episode two, for the robotic Security Chief. There are so many elements to this story that have to come together, and I think some of the praise in that they do must be spooned to co-writer Malcolm Hulke, always reliable for a good structure and fair pace. The acting is, overall, of a top quality - but we all know there's really only one star in this mad world of guns and conspirators. And it's the final bow for this little man in his bow tie and shabby coat.

Patrick Troughton's performance in 'The War Games' is immaculate, and so Second Doctor it hurts. Every line rings true, every new obstacle attacked with an enthusiasm and vigour so typical of this man's Doctor Who persona. And we haven't discussed Troughton before now, so I will. The dude's a god.
I'm not saying that he never hammed it, that he never got stuff wrong. We all know this Doctor's tendency to exaggerate, to fluster a little too much, to pander to the younger and the slower. But my god if he wasn't one of the best we've ever seen. Because this is the Doctor who set the trend for all who followed, because there hasn't been an interpretation of the character since Troughton who hasn't had some of the spark, the eccentricity, clumsy tomfoolery or humour that he did in that first episode of 'Power of the Daleks' three years before this. It was an act so totally different from that of his predecessor William Hartnell, so completely other that it has inspired everything that's happened in Doctor Who since. He's a comic, cosmic hobo, the madman in a box, eager to see the Universe. He's the f*cking man.

And this script and this story really gives Troughton the chance to shine. His blustering aggression as the inspector in the 1917 Zone, the sudden and absolute seriousness that assaults him at the involvement of the Time Lords, the incredible, chemical scenes he shares alone with the War Chief - all these allow us to see a more chiselled and adult version of our hero that hasn't necessarily been let out over the rest of his run, making way instead for the floundering space buffoon. It's a Doctor robbed of his choices, knowing that life has caught up with him but never giving up hope, not until his final scene with Jamie, and the touchingly direct farewell the two share. After that, the Doctor is running on an empty tank. He is desperate choosing his new face, finally beaten by the time he is cast to Earth. It's a tragic, unmerited end for the man who has for so long campaigned to fight the evil he sees in the Universe, and a wonderful, wonderful curtain call for the Doctor who would shape the future of the show.

Really, there isn't really a lot more to say, not wanting to ruin the experience for those who haven't yet had the chance to dive into it. Jamie and Zoe's departure is, as mentioned, equally brutal and unfair, just slow enough to register but not fast enough for the impact to be missed. The Time Lords here are portrayed as real bastards, cold and calculating, inexperienced in the ways of justice and mercy; maybe that's bias from somebody who didn't want Troughton to go, but I think it's fair, and that this only serves to reinforce the contrast between the Doctor and his people. This surely is why our hero ran away.

In the vein of bastards, I'd just like to quickly mention Philip Madoc, who plays the War Lord, commander of the unnamed alien forces in this story. Because Philip Madoc is absolutely fantastic too. He's icy, really icy, but not in an obvious way, not in a way that you've really seen before. He's softly spoken, and he moves sedately and slowly. Every tone of his voice is measured and articulate, in a chilling and enthralling way. By the time he moves into this story in part seven (seven!), one is growing tired of the antics of the incompetent and dully formulaic Security Chief and War Chief, and of their vaguely clichéd histrionic evil. Madoc breathes new life into the story, makes you sit up at every scene. Until his death he is the perfect foil for our shaggy Doctor, and plays against Troughton well in the few scenes the two share. And though end this story must with his defeat, it's an interesting thing that it sees the defeat of the Doctor, too.

Last Words?

Like last time's 'Horror of Fang Rock', this is a sad story. But sad in its narrative more than its implications for Doctor Who.

You see, this story marks the end of Patrick Troughton's run as the Doctor. But at the same time it delivers a really great time in terms of performance and scripting. Against the odds, it releases the Second Doctor's polkadot balloon into the sky with a happy sigh of satisfaction, a final relief after the recently unworkable filming schedule and subsequent decline in viewing quality. It's not perfect, there's a lot of wasted time, there's cell hopping, there's some silly dialogue. But 'The War Games' paves the way for Jon Pertwee, and colour, and after him Tom Baker and after Tom Baker Peter Davison. It's a legacy to future generations of actors and writers aspiring to make their mark on Doctor Who. That isn't why this is a sad story.

This is a sad story because it actually is a sad story. It's the story of a young traveler out to see the stars and explore, forced to fight for good against the bad of the cosmos, and how all his good, and all his efforts to find good ended up the death of him. How his final battle against some of the worst in the Universe faced him with the wrongs of his own people, and made him recognise the flaws in them. But the really galling thing about this story is that the Doctor knows he can't fight it. Once the Time Lords are coming, that's it. That's the end of his life as he knows it, he's replaced, albeit with a dashing, velvet-clad technicolour action hero. But it's unfair. It's fundamentally wrong that this should be happening to him, now, when he has so much to give as who he is. But he knows that them's the rules - we don't, we expect him to escape. We expect him to beat the system and ride off into the sunset with his two faithful companions at his side. But this system is his system, the one body he can't rise against. And it's the most awful thing in the world to see the little man in his checked trousers and crumpled coat have to face the errors of others and pay for it, and pay hard. It's against everything he believed in, and everything we believed in with him. But them's the rules, and the powers that be are showing him the door.
So goodbye Doctor. We'll raise a glass to your memory, cite you as the one who changed it all, for the better. You might change your face, your clothes, but underneath all that you will always be the same cosmic hobo in his magic box, fighting evil with a sonic screwdriver and a twinkle in the eye. So cheers for that.