I know that this is because, long
ago, I managed to persuade her of the sheer fabulousness of Mr Patrick Troughton and his excellent performance in the role,
and, when we were going through one of our semi-irregular sortings out of the
house one long-ago weekend, it was the audio-reconstructions of that particular story,
alongside its stable-mate “The Abominable Snowmen” that we put on the CD player
to help pass the time, and she has, on occasion, and without prompting, asked me to dig these out again for her to listen to whilst I’ve been off doing other things.
Yes, this bears repeating; she sometimes mentions that she’d like to listen to it without me even having to suggest it, so it must have something going for it.
Yes, this bears repeating; she sometimes mentions that she’d like to listen to it without me even having to suggest it, so it must have something going for it.
So, when four of the five missing
episodes of this six-part story turned up last year, there was much jubilation
in my mind, and at least a momentary flutter in hers, at the knowledge that one
day we might be able to sit down and actually watch some of it and finally make some
sense out of the mysterious howls and wows and growls which make up much of the soundtrack of the big battle which occurs, if it's not too spoilerific to mention, towards the end.
We don’t, quite naturally,
subscribe to such things as “iTunes” so our wait has been a longer one than
some have had to endure, but last week, at last, the shiny disc plopped onto
the doormat and, when an appropriate moment presented itself, we were finally
able to give it a go.
On the first evening, we sat down and watched episodes one and two of this rediscovered rematch with the Abominable Snowmen and its controller, the so-called "Great Intelligence". Obviously, because it hadn't been "lost", I'd seen episode one before, of course, and my completist nature had already picked it up on a prior release, but, you know, missing part one when you sit down to watch a story, really isn't the done thing.
(Pauses to suppress irritation at memories of latecomers arriving at both the cinema and the theatre who can quite drag me out of the moment… I wouldn't let the buggers in, myself, but what can you do…?)
I'd always been particularly impressed by the atmospherics of that opening episode of the story anyway, and so it bears rewatching, and I am even more impressed with it now as the cliffhanger ending of the previous story, "The Enemy of the World", is paid off during the opening moments of this tale, and that, rather fortuitously, was the other "rediscovery" from last year.
The first "new" episode for me was, quite naturally, the second part which turned out, perhaps with a certain amount of irony, to be Patrick's week off from this particular story. This sort of thing used to happen in those days with an all-year-round production schedule based around a few leading characters, where the story needed to tread water for a week, or rattle out some exposition to move the plot along, so that the leading mean could take a well-earned rest.
Still, it remains a worthwhile episode in itself, one which has a nicely played little action sequence in the middle of it, and one mesmerisingly poor performance from one of the supporting players to keep the viewer entertained. There's also a very typical performance from a young Deborah Watling playing one of the Doctor's travelling companions, Victoria Waterfield, an almost permanently terrified character who always seems to be on the very edge of reason… This time she's got her dad, Jack Watling, around to help, although he's not playing her father, but the father of another girl played by Tina Packer, which must have felt very odd at the time, I imagine.
Now I didn't want to splurge. After all, the discovery of brand spanking new old episodes for me to watch is a rare enough event that it ought to be savoured and sipped at like a fine wine, not guzzled down like a stubby bottle of cheap supermarket lager at a summer barbecue, and so the disc was ejected and we found other things to do with the rest of our evening.
The next evening, we squeezed in the Episode Three "reconstruction" during a free half hour, which turned out to rather surprise me by being the same length as the original episode and not just the hacked down "brief summary" I had expected. This episode does, however, remain as little more than a "slide show" of screen captures made back at the time of broadcast and yet was actually surprisingly effective, not least because it includes the charismatic performance of the late Nicholas Courtney portraying the then Colonel (and future Brigadier) Lethbridge-Stewart for the very first time.
A couple of days later, we settled down for episode four, which I had been unreliably informed by m'internet acquaintances, was a bit of a belter, and, for once, t'internet did not lie. The first half includes a rather magical sequence with the marvellous Mr T in the laboratory of the underground base, which includes so much subtlety that the static photographs could never effectively have conveyed it fully, and the second half is almost exclusively given over to an extended "action sequence" in which the army do battle with the Yeti, which turns out to be a pretty futile gesture.
Now, despite perhaps not holding up to modern-era standards for such scenes, this is, perhaps, one of the best film sequences that that era of the show ever produced and works so much better than the "sound only" version with which I was familiar. The music, roars, bleeps and bangs, with very occasional dialogue, all accompanied (on the version I had) by a frenetic narration, couldn't really fully explain what was really unfolding during these scenes, and perhaps proves, once and for all, that to really appreciate what's going on, those missing episodes need to be found.
Saturday night, perhaps the most appropriate of evenings to watch this programme, brought episode five to the table, an episode which starts with a much beloved character possessed by "Great Intelligence" (as it were), and a lot of exposition, but which, with it's "real time" format slightly resembles an episode of "24" although the "24" in this case means minutes...
It's another lovely episode, though, in which Patrick Troughton is very much the old charmer that he was, especially in the scenes featuring the silver ball, and Deborah Watling gets to spend some quality time acting alongside her father in a slightly bizarre Father/Daughter moment or twelve. Meanwhile, there's a lot of talk of characters ending up with "the mind of a child" which now foreshadows elements of this story picked up in the new series.
On the first evening, we sat down and watched episodes one and two of this rediscovered rematch with the Abominable Snowmen and its controller, the so-called "Great Intelligence". Obviously, because it hadn't been "lost", I'd seen episode one before, of course, and my completist nature had already picked it up on a prior release, but, you know, missing part one when you sit down to watch a story, really isn't the done thing.
(Pauses to suppress irritation at memories of latecomers arriving at both the cinema and the theatre who can quite drag me out of the moment… I wouldn't let the buggers in, myself, but what can you do…?)
I'd always been particularly impressed by the atmospherics of that opening episode of the story anyway, and so it bears rewatching, and I am even more impressed with it now as the cliffhanger ending of the previous story, "The Enemy of the World", is paid off during the opening moments of this tale, and that, rather fortuitously, was the other "rediscovery" from last year.
The first "new" episode for me was, quite naturally, the second part which turned out, perhaps with a certain amount of irony, to be Patrick's week off from this particular story. This sort of thing used to happen in those days with an all-year-round production schedule based around a few leading characters, where the story needed to tread water for a week, or rattle out some exposition to move the plot along, so that the leading mean could take a well-earned rest.
Still, it remains a worthwhile episode in itself, one which has a nicely played little action sequence in the middle of it, and one mesmerisingly poor performance from one of the supporting players to keep the viewer entertained. There's also a very typical performance from a young Deborah Watling playing one of the Doctor's travelling companions, Victoria Waterfield, an almost permanently terrified character who always seems to be on the very edge of reason… This time she's got her dad, Jack Watling, around to help, although he's not playing her father, but the father of another girl played by Tina Packer, which must have felt very odd at the time, I imagine.
Now I didn't want to splurge. After all, the discovery of brand spanking new old episodes for me to watch is a rare enough event that it ought to be savoured and sipped at like a fine wine, not guzzled down like a stubby bottle of cheap supermarket lager at a summer barbecue, and so the disc was ejected and we found other things to do with the rest of our evening.
The next evening, we squeezed in the Episode Three "reconstruction" during a free half hour, which turned out to rather surprise me by being the same length as the original episode and not just the hacked down "brief summary" I had expected. This episode does, however, remain as little more than a "slide show" of screen captures made back at the time of broadcast and yet was actually surprisingly effective, not least because it includes the charismatic performance of the late Nicholas Courtney portraying the then Colonel (and future Brigadier) Lethbridge-Stewart for the very first time.
A couple of days later, we settled down for episode four, which I had been unreliably informed by m'internet acquaintances, was a bit of a belter, and, for once, t'internet did not lie. The first half includes a rather magical sequence with the marvellous Mr T in the laboratory of the underground base, which includes so much subtlety that the static photographs could never effectively have conveyed it fully, and the second half is almost exclusively given over to an extended "action sequence" in which the army do battle with the Yeti, which turns out to be a pretty futile gesture.
Now, despite perhaps not holding up to modern-era standards for such scenes, this is, perhaps, one of the best film sequences that that era of the show ever produced and works so much better than the "sound only" version with which I was familiar. The music, roars, bleeps and bangs, with very occasional dialogue, all accompanied (on the version I had) by a frenetic narration, couldn't really fully explain what was really unfolding during these scenes, and perhaps proves, once and for all, that to really appreciate what's going on, those missing episodes need to be found.
Saturday night, perhaps the most appropriate of evenings to watch this programme, brought episode five to the table, an episode which starts with a much beloved character possessed by "Great Intelligence" (as it were), and a lot of exposition, but which, with it's "real time" format slightly resembles an episode of "24" although the "24" in this case means minutes...
It's another lovely episode, though, in which Patrick Troughton is very much the old charmer that he was, especially in the scenes featuring the silver ball, and Deborah Watling gets to spend some quality time acting alongside her father in a slightly bizarre Father/Daughter moment or twelve. Meanwhile, there's a lot of talk of characters ending up with "the mind of a child" which now foreshadows elements of this story picked up in the new series.
It’s got a cracking ending
though, not least because it includes the return of one of the soldiers thought
lost during the battle scenes during episode four, and some lovely scenes
involving “Evans the Coward” and it finishes with a pretty effective effects
sequence during which the growing web threatens to engulf everything in its
path.
Which brings us, quite naturally, to episode six.
The denouement...
The big finish...
Well, kind of. An almost forgotten character makes an unexpected reappearance, another character reveals his true colours, and the Doctor discovers that the road to hell can indeed be paved with the very best of good intentions. Still, inevitably, the "Great Intelligence" is defeated once again, but, despite this skirmish, the war, it is implied, is not over... although, with a disagreement between the writers and the production office, a third encounter was destined never to occur. At least not until, with some "timey-wimey" plotting, Steven Moffat resurrected this mostly long-forgotten foe to write a sort of prequel to this story a couple of Christmases ago.
Meanwhile, the story ends with that "Next Week: Fury From The Deep" caption which serves as a gently poignant reminder of how much is still missing.
The denouement...
The big finish...
Well, kind of. An almost forgotten character makes an unexpected reappearance, another character reveals his true colours, and the Doctor discovers that the road to hell can indeed be paved with the very best of good intentions. Still, inevitably, the "Great Intelligence" is defeated once again, but, despite this skirmish, the war, it is implied, is not over... although, with a disagreement between the writers and the production office, a third encounter was destined never to occur. At least not until, with some "timey-wimey" plotting, Steven Moffat resurrected this mostly long-forgotten foe to write a sort of prequel to this story a couple of Christmases ago.
Meanwhile, the story ends with that "Next Week: Fury From The Deep" caption which serves as a gently poignant reminder of how much is still missing.
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