THE ENEMY AND THE HOBBIT

Well, after more than forty years in limbo, and a couple of months awaiting distribution to those of us without iTunes accounts, and a further delay in the strange vaults that both Amazon and the Royal Mail seem to specifically reserve for anything that's being posted to me, last Saturday morning I was finally able to watch the first of the two great resurrections of Doctor Who serials starring the incomparable Mr Patrick Troughton which turned up in Africa a few months back.

Huzzah!!!

Until it was rediscovered, this serial had languished all but forgotten and unloved at the bottom end of many of those "favourite story" lists so beloved of fandom perhaps because of the lack of a recognisable monster and perhaps because it was always seen as a bit of inconsequential "filler" between the more "exciting" stories of that fifth season way back in late 1967 and early 1968.

It wasn't helped by the fact that for many years the only surviving episode was part three which was universally accepted to be a bit of a "dud" even though Reg Lye's cameo as Griffin the chef is a comic high point. Even the director, Barry Letts, used to lament the fact that the only part that could be seen of his otherwise fine work was so lacklustre, so it remains a rather poignant truth that he didn't live long enough to hear about its recovery.

Anyway, it just goes to show that received opinion about the quality or otherwise of things so very few people have actually seen is usually quite wrong, because, since it has resurfaced and become available, it's reputation has somewhat soared, perhaps at the expense of the other serial, "The Web of Fear" which (mostly) turned up at the same time and now appears to be being rated slightly less highly than once it was by those who have already seen it.

I'm still going to have to wait for the DVD release in March, so I'm sure that I'll be burbling on about that come the time, you'll no doubt be pleased (ahem!) to hear...

Anyway, let's just say that I rather enjoyed it, although I'd still struggle to "recommend" it to a "non-fan" audience because, like so much other genre and vintage telly, such things are not everyone's cup of tea and modern viewers can find such things a little slow and mundane in comparison to what they're used to, and an appreciation of the quality of that era, once considered a "golden age" is not the most widely held point point of view.

Naturally, because it featured the incomparable Mr Patrick Troughton, I thought it was all rather wonderful and, given that it is still one of only seven complete stories from the twenty-one he appeared in during his slightly more than two-and-a-half years playing the part in the late 1960s, being able to watch it at all is such a rare treat that it really ought to have been savoured more, rather than feasted upon like I did last Saturday morning.

In the evening we finally watched part one of "The Hobbit" too, which, strangely enough, had about the same running time and, despite the fact that we'd put off watching it time and again because we thought it was likely to be "far too long" for the average weekday evening, (so much so in fact, that the envelope containing the disc had a layer of dust on it), it turned out to be all rather enjoyable too.

And this coming from a chap not usually drawn to the world of "fantasy" with all of its goblins and elves, swords and sorcery, wizards and witchcraft, and the excessive use of portentous language and the like.

It's never going to be my "first choice" of movie to watch, and I don't suppose that I'll be dashing to the cinema any time soon for a look at part two, but I found it an entertaining enough two-an-a-half hours or so and will no doubt sit down and watch the next bit when the disc finally turns up.

I imagine that, for the majority of people, it wold be the more popular choice from those options and, in terms of general entertainment value, I'd probably be forced to agree, but those flickery old black-and-white shows from the 1960s are still my "guilty pleasure" and I'd still rather have a complete run of those to watch than any number of the latest blockbusters...