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Doctor Who — The Leisure Hive, Meglos, Full Circle, State of Decay, Warrior’s Gate, The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The 18th season of Doctor Who started with the show getting a new producer, John Nathan-Turner.  Depending on who you ask, Nathan-Turner was either the best or the worst thing that ever happened to Doctor Who.  He pushed the series away from what he felt was the “silliness” of the previous season and, in doing so, he alienated both Tom Baker and Lalla Ward.  (Ward was close friends with Douglas Adams, whom Nathan-Turner blamed for turning the show silly.)  Nathan-Turner pushed for more serious stories and for better production values.  He also hated K-9, which upset a lot of younger viewers.  My personal feeling is that Nathan-Turner was not a good producer for Tom Baker’s Doctor but he was a great producer for Peter Davison’s interpretation of the character.  As for the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy years, let’s keep things cheery and not go there.

By the end of the 18th season, Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, and John Leeson (the voice of K-9) had left the show.  Completing my look back at Doctor Who, here are Tom Baker’s final serials.

The Leisure Hive (1980, directed by Lovett Bickford)

John Nathan-Turner hated K-9.  If there was any doubt about that, consider that his first serial as the show’s producer opens with the Doctor and Romana on holiday Brighton.  K-9, for some reason, rolls out to the ocean and explodes, taking him out of commission until the Doctor can rebuild him.

Personally, I would have been happy if this entire serial had just been Tom Baker and Lalla Ward on that beach in Brighton.  Nathan-Turner may not have been a fan of the Doctor and Romana working together by Baker and Ward but viewers like me definitely disagreed.  Alas, it is not to be.  Romana wants a real holiday (Brighton, in a reminder of just how British Doctor Who really was, doesn’t count) so she and the Doctor and the remains of K-9 go to the leisure planet of Argolis.  Unfortunately, Argolis is having financial problems and is at risk of being taken over by the Foamai.  When the Doctor is framed for a strangulation murder that was committed with a scarf, he is forced to stand trial and become an experimental test subject.

It’s an okay start for Season 18, though Tom Baker, for the first time since taking over the role of the Doctor, was starting to look disinterested.  John Nathan-Turner was eager to get away from the “silliness” of the previous season but, ironically, a story set on a leisure planet and featuring an intergalactic crime syndicate would have very much benefitted by Douglas Adams’s sense of humor.

Meglos (1980, directed by Terence Dudley)

The Doctor is asked to help broker a peace between two warring planets.  Unfortunately, Meglos — a sentient cactus — traps the TARDIS in a time loop and then plots to thwart the peace.

When viewers think of this serial, they usually remember Meglos taking on the form of the Doctor and Tom Baker wearing makeup that made him look like a humanoid cactus.  That’s because the plot is nothing special, though I do appreciate that we finally got to see what it’s like to be stuck in a time loop.  Jacqueline Hill, who played Barbara when the serial first began, appears as Lexa, a high priestess of the planet Tigella.

Full Circle (1980, directed by Peter Grimwade)

Having been ordered to return Romana to Gallifrey, the Doctor instead materializes on a swampy plant that is located where Gallifrey should be.  The TARDIS has slipped into E-Space, a small pocket universe.  As for the planet that they’ve landed on, it’s inhabited by swamp monsters, a group a humans who live around a crashed starliner, and a mad scientist.

The idea of E-Space was an interesting one and Lalla Ward gives one of her strongest performances of the series, as Romana is briefly possessed in this episode.  Unfortunately, this episode also introduced Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), an annoying child genius who became the Doctor’s newest companion.  Adric was one of the least popular of John Nathan-Turner’s additions to Doctor Who.  A few seasons later, Adric would be blown up while fighting the Cybermen and there would not be a dry eye in the house.

Tom Baker, unhappy with Nathan-Turner’s ideas and annoyed with Waterhouse decided to leave the role while filming this serial.  Waterhouse reportedly cursed at Baker while filming one scene.  They should have left the little punk behind just for doing that.

State of Decay (1980, directed by Peter Moffatt)

Still trapped in E-Space, The TARDIS materializes on a planet where the villagers live under the shadow of a dark tower. Ruled over by three cruel lords, Zargo, Camilla, and Aukon, the villagers are forced to regularly sacrifice their young to appease their rulers. The Doctor, Romana, K-9, and Adric investigate and discover that Zargo, Camilla, and Aukon are vampires! After being defeated by the Time Lords, the vampires retreated into E-Space, where they found a new planet to rule. Of course, that little tosser Adric wants to become a vampire. Why Romana and the Doctor didn’t leave Adric behind on the vampire planet, I’ll never understand.

Even the weaker seasons of Doctor Who usually featured at least one classic serial and, in the case of Season 18, it was State of Decay.  For all of the justified criticisms of John Nathan-Turner time as producer, he did make an attempt to improve the show’s production design and it paid off with this atmospheric serial that paid homage to the great vampire films while also retaining its Doctor Who identity.  Tom Baker seems to be rejuvenated by the clever script and he and Lalla Ward’s chemistry is allowed to shine.  K-9 even gets to do something other than getting kicked around.  State of Decay is a Doctor Who classic.

Warrior’s Gate (1981, directed by Paul Joyce and Graeme Haper)

Still trying to escape E-space, the TARDIS materializes on a similarly trapped spaceship that is run by Captain Rorvik (Clifford Rose).  Learning that the ship is carrying an enslaved race known as the Tharils, the Doctor set them free.  The Tharils help the Doctor reenter N-Space.  However, Romana decides to stay behind to help the Tharils.  The Doctor gives her K-9 and then leaves with Adric.  The Doctor should have left Adric behind too.

This was Lalla Ward’s final episode and both she and Romana deserved a better send-off.  Romana deciding to disobey the Time Lords, I can understand.  Leaving the Doctor, even to help the Tharils, doesn’t seem like something Romana would have done.  John Nathan-Turner finally got his wish, though.  K-9 stayed with Romana.  What are Romana and K-9 going to do in an alternative universe?  They don’t even have a TARDIS.

The only highlight of this episode was Clifford Rose’s manic performance as Captain Rorvik.  Otherwise, it was a forgettable send-off for two great companions.

The Keeper of Traken (1981, directed by John Black)

The Doctor and annoying Adric are summoned to the planet Traken, where the Master (Geoffrey Beevers) is attempting to capture a power source that will give him a new set of regenerations.  (The Master doesn’t look as badly decayed here as he did during The Deadly Assassin.)  With the help of the Keeper of Traken, Tremas (Anthony Ainley), and Tremas’s lovely daughter Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), the Doctor is able to stop the Master.  However, as soon as the Doctor leaves, the Master emerges from a long clock and somehow merges with Tremas’s body, giving him a new set of regenerations.

Despite the presence of Adric, this is not a bad story.  The Master makes his return and, in the final minutes of the serial, Anthony Ainley takes over the role.  Ainley would play The Master for the rest of the original show’s run.  While Ainley’s Master was always more cartoonishly evil than Roger Delgado’s, he still proved to be a worthy adversary for the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Doctors.

Logopolis (1981, directed by Peter Grimwade)

This is it.  This is final serial to feature Tom Baker as the Doctor.  Things start with the Doctor materializing the Tardis around an actual police box in an effort to fix his chameleon circuit.  The Master then materializes his TARDIS around the Doctor’s.  It all fun and games until the universe starts to unravel and the Doctor sacrifices his life while literally holding space and time together.  Along the way, the Doctor gets two new companions, Nyssa (who has been traveling with the Master under the impression that he’s her father) and Teagan (Janet Fielding), an outspoken Australian flight attendant who entered the TARDIS thinking that it was a police call box.

Whatever else you might want to say about season 18, it gave Tom Baker a fitting send-off.  After seven years of saving civilizations and planets, the Fourth Doctor finally saved the entire universe.  Perhaps knowing how traumatized viewers would be to see the Fourth Doctor die, this episode featured Peter Davison (familiar to viewers as Tristan Sebring from All Creatures Great And Small) as the Watcher, a mysterious figure who merged with the Doctor at the end of the serial and turned out to be his Fifth Incarnation.

I had hoped to discuss some of the Fifth Doctor’s adventures this October but time has caught up with me.  (It’s a pity because Peter Davison more than made the role of the Doctor his own and several of his serials — Kinda, Snakedance, and Enlightenment to name just three — are worthy of being considered classics.)  For me, as someone who to watch Tom Baker’s Doctor on PBS while growing up, this does seem like the right place to stop.

For now.

Onstage On The Lens: The Rocky Horror Show (dir by Christopher Luscombe)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

With Halloween approaching, the Shattered Lens presents to you a recording of the 2015 West End production of The Rocky Horror Show, featuring Richard O’Brien, Emma Bunton, Stephen Fry, Anthony Head, Ben Forster, Haley Flaherty, and David Bedella.

The film is so popular that I think some people tend to overlook Rocky Horror‘s theatrical origins.  Personally, I prefer this energetic stage version to the film.

 

Music Film Review: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (dir by Jim Sharman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It feels strange to actually watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show without an audience.

I say this because the film is actually far better known for its fans than anything else.  First released in 1975 to middling reviews and, at first, anemic box office returns, The Rocky Horror Picture Show went on to become the first great cult film.  It’s literally been playing in theaters for 25 years, which has to be some sort of record.  When one sees Rocky Horror Picture Show in a theater, one does not merely sit back and watch in a state of suspended animation.  Instead, most of the audience becomes a part of the show.  They yell, they dance, and many of them return night-after-night.  I have been to two midnight showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and I have to admit that it was actually pretty intimidating both times.  The people in the audience — the veterans who knew every line and knew exactly what to do — were, more or less, friendly.  I’ve read some online horror stories about people who felt like they weren’t welcome the first time they attended a showing.  I had the opposite experience.  No one was rude, no one glared.  It was definitely a cliquey group but I felt as if they had earned the right to be in their clique.  No one seemed to be bothered by the fact that I was mostly there just to observe.  (I should also mention that neither showing that I attended demanded that the first-time watchers stand up or go to the front of the theater or anything like that.  Apparently, there’s quite a few people online who got upset over being singled-out as “virgins” and never got over it.)  But it was intimidating in much the same way as meeting a friend of a friend is intimidating or exploring a new town is intimidating.  I was surrounded by people who had a deep connection with each other, one that had been forged by sharing the same experience for years.  It was a communal experience that was actually touching to see, even if I never stopped feeling like an outsider.

It’s interesting to compare the midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show to the midnight showings of The Room.  I attended several midnight showings of The Room and I have to admit that I eventually soured on them as it became clear that many people were showing up to taunt the film as opposed to enjoying it for the odd, communal experience that it was.  The last few The Room showings that I attended were filled with a hostility that left me feeling a bit uncomfortable.  Whereas The Room’s cult has often felt a bit mean-spirited (as if everyone had gathered together to laugh at Tommy Wiseau for thinking he could make a movie), The Rocky Horror Picture Show‘s cult is based on a genuine love for the film.

As for the film itself, I watched it last month without an audience and I judged it solely as a film.  The pacing is a bit off and, without the group experience, it’s a lot easier to notice that the film’s storyline doesn’t make a bit of sense, though that was undoubtedly deliberate on the part of the filmmakers.  That said, Tim Curry’s performance still gives the film a jolt of energy, recapturing your attention and holding it until the film comes to a close.  (The genius of Curry’s performance as that, as flamboyant as it is, he still plays Dr. Frank-n-Furter as being an actual characters with feelings and emotions.  He doesn’t just coast on attitude.  One need only compare him to Laverne Cox in the 2016 TV production to see how strong Curry’s performance is.)  Susan Sarandon brings some depth to her performance as Janet and, if Barry Bostwick is a little on the dull side of Brad …. well, the heroes who appeared in the film that Rocky Horror sends up were rarely that exciting.  I enjoyed the snarky humor of Richard O’Brien’s performance and the energy that Meat Loaf brought to the production.  Charles Gray, in the role of the Criminologist, really doesn’t get enough credit for holding the film’s disparate parts together.

In the end, when viewed as a film as opposed to a communal experience, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is undoubtedly flawed but it’s still energetic enough to work.  The love for the old sic-fi films comes through and Tim Curry’s uninhibited performance works with or without an audience.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a film that brings people together and I hope it continues to do so.

Horror Film Review: In A Violent Nature (dir by Chris Nash)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Johnny was perfectly happy being dead until some obnoxious college friends decided to take a camping trip and came across a locket hanging off of a fire tower.  The locket was what kept Johnny’s soul at rest.  When one of the group decided to take the locket so that he could give it to his girlfriend, Johnny came back to life.

Already haunted by the tragic memories of his life and how a bunch of bullies murdered him by tricking him into falling off of the tower, Johnny is determined to retrieve the locket.  Slowly and methodically, he walks through the wilderness, killing everyone that he encounters as he searches for the one thing that will….

Well, it’s a slasher movie!  You know how these things go!

Released in 2024 and directed by Chris Nash, In A Violent Nature‘s plot may be typical slasher stuff but the way the story is told makes the film unique.  Nash tells the story almost totally from the point of view of the undead Johnny.  The camera follows Johnny as he makes his way through the woods and what we learn about him and his motivations largely comes from the snippets of conversations that we hear from people in the distance.  Johnny’s victims largely appear in the distance, having typical slasher film conversations but we only hear them in passing, like fragments from a half-remembered dream or movie.  We’re learning with Johnny.

As such, this is the rare slasher movie that requires that one actually pay attention to what is being said.  It’s also a rare slasher movie that requires a good deal of patience on the part of the viewers.  Johnny moves slowly and so does the movie.  Though the kills are certainly bloody and there are plenty of genuinely frightening moments, the film is ultimately more about the sight of hulking, single-minded Johnny walking through the woods and through fields of brilliantly green grass than anything else.  If Terence Malick made a slasher movie, it would look a lot like In A Violent Nature.  Would Terence Malick have included the yoga kill?  Perhaps.  I think he would have included a voice-over though about nature, though.  (Speaking of the yoga kill, it’s notable that this non-traditional slasher movie features one of the bloodiest killings of the genre, as if the director wanted to make sure that we understood he didn’t consider his film to be too good for the genre.  I appreciated that.)

A film like this is great if you’re a fan of both Malick and horror, as I am.  If you prefer your slasher films to be a bit less self-consciously esoteric in their approach, you might wonder what all of the hype was about.  In A Violent Nature is one of those films that the viewer will either love or the viewer will give up on after several minutes of watching Johnny staring out at the lake.  It’s an experimental film and, like all experimental films, it’s not for everyone.  That said, if you have the patience for it, it’s an engrossing and off-beat slasher flick.

 

Horror On The Lens: Night of the Living Dead (dir by George Romero)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Halloween!

Watching this movie is a Halloween tradition here at the Shattered Lens and I am honored to keep that tradition alive (heh) in 2025!

Be sure to check out Arleigh’s review!

For the record, you can count me amongst those who thinks that Ben got everyone killed.  We root for Ben because he’s the more likable character but, in the end, Harry was right and Ben ended up becoming a cold-blooded murderer.  These are the type of things that make Night of the Living Dead the scariest zombie film ever made.  The living are just as terrifying as the dead.

I should also note that, for all the criticism the character gets, Barbara has one of the most totally realistic reactions that I’ve ever seen in a horror movie.  She’s in shock and denial.  I would probably have the same reaction.

And now, here is the greatest zombie film ever made!