Tag: doctor who

Doctor Who: The Horror of Fang Rock

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Doctor Who
The Horror of Fang Rock
Season 15, Story 92

The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) accidentally land the TARDIS on Fang Rock, a small island off the southern coast of England. When The Doctor notices that the lighthouse is without a light, they go and investigate. Inside the lighthouse they discover a dead guy and two still living lighthouse keepers – Reuben (Colin Douglas) and Vince (John Abbott). They explain that just before The Doctor arrived, they saw a strange light crash into the sea, and ever since the power has been fluctuating as the temperature keeps dropping.

While The Doctor and Leela are investigating the rest of the lighthouse, someone or something moves the corpse. Then, because the lighthouse light keeps going out, a pleasure boat crashes into the rocks. It is owned by a snooty lord, and with him are a lady and two other men.

Legend has it many years ago a monster came to Fang Rock and killed two of the keepers and drove one mad. Now a new creature has arrived, but this time it is from outer space. It is known as a Ruton, and it thinks Earth might be a good strategic place to fight the Sontarans.

The Ruton is a round, blobby thing that looks a bit like an egg yolk with some streamers hanging off of it. Tis not the greatest of Classic Who monsters, I tell you that. The production team made the smart decision to keep it off-screen for the most part, and they made it a shape-shifter so sometimes it appears as the dead keeper.

I am a big fan of base-under-siege stories, and the lighthouse makes for a great setting. The Ruton is not a great villain, but for most of this series four parts, it is off base trying to get in. The addition of the rich, snobby people adds a nice touch of fear and hysteria to the proceedings, while the lighthouse keepers mostly keep it together.

It is a pretty dark story, and Tom Baker eases into that side of the character, showing very little concern for the other characters who keep getting themselves killed. It has been a while since I’ve seen any of the other Leela stories, but she does seem to be transitioning nicely from the “noble savage” she was when she first joined the Doctor to someone who relies a little more on her intelligence than her strength (though she still throws a knife nicely and wields an axe at one point during this story.)

I’ve seen this one many times. It has become one of my go-to Classic Doctor Who stories as it moves at a brisk pace, has a terrific little story, and finds Tom Baker in fine form.

Sorcerer 4K UHD is the New Blu-ray Pick of the Week

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I’ve been writing this column (or something similar) off and on now for well over a decade. It has been interesting to see home video move from DVD to Blu-ray to 4K UHD and then struggle with the advent of streaming video.

I’d like to say this has gained me some secret knowledge as to how the companies that produce home video decide how and when to release things, but it really hasn’t. Other than things pick up in the post-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas period, and slow way the heck down in the weeks following Christmas, I have no insight into what any of these companies are doing. And last year, even that simple insight failed as there wasn’t as big of a push just before Christmas, and we got some amazing releases during the normal winter doldrums.

Streaming was a game-changer. The truth is, most people are happy to watch Netflix or Hulu or whatever and no longer have the need to buy physical media. What’s left are collectors. People who desire the physical media, who want something to put on their shelves. Collectors are a strange breed (I count myself as one of them.) We are willing to spend inordinate amounts of money on something we could easily watch for free.

Lots of amazing Boutique Labels have sprung up to meet our needs. Companies like Arrow Video, Kino Lorber, and Severin are now putting out fantastic sets of all sorts of films, both popular and obscure.

I still don’t know the ins and outs of what they decide to release and when. But we now have more options than ever before.

That’s a long-winded way of saying this is an incredible week for physical releases.

There are a lot of films to talk about. We’ll start with my favorite. Sorcerer is a loose remake of the classic French thriller Wages of Fear (1953). Directed by William Friedkin, it follows four misfits from around the globe (including Roy Scheider and Bruno Cramer) who are tasked with transporting some highly unstable dynamite across the vast South American jungle.

It is one of the most intense films ever made, with our heroes driving these big trucks across terrible terrain, never knowing if a turn or a bump in the road will cause them to explode.

The Criterion Collection is releasing it with a new 4K UHD transfer and loads of nice extras.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

A Minecraft Movie 4K UHD: I’ve never played Minecraft, but my daughter loves it. Actually, what she really loves is watching hardcore Minecrafters play the game on YouTube. When this film came out, she and her friends went to see it opening weekend. They loved it. I think they loved it ironically, but she’s a teenager, and it is hard to tell. She made me watch it the other night, and it’s not terrible. I mean, it is a movie based on a game in which you basically just build stuff, and I’ve grown increasingly tired of Jack Black’s schtick, but Jason Momoa is a lot of fun playing against type.

Lethal Weapon 4K UHD: One of the great action flicks from the 1980s gets a UHD upgrade.

Total Extermination: The Peter Cushing Doctor Who Collection: The original Doctor Who series was an immediate success upon its launch in 1963. The Daleks were introduced in only its second story, and they became a sensation. So much so that in 1965, a full-fledged Technicolor movie was commissioned starring Peter Cushing as The Doctor. Doctor Who and the Daleks pretty much follows the original Dalek story with some minor changes. A year later, Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD was made, this one following yet another Dalek story from the TV.

They are oddities, and not necessary viewings, even for fans, but I quite like them. Severin Films is releasing them both in a boxed set, giving them a 4K upgrade with loads of extras.

Doctor Who: Season One: When Disney acquired the rights to Doctor Who for some stupid reason, they reverted the season numbers back to One. I have to admit I didn’t love this season, it felt a little too juvenile, and…well, Disneyfied, but I own all the others, so this will definitely be a pick-up by me.

Dark City 4K UHD: I don’t remember liking this dark science fiction noir when it first came out, but people I respect seem to really like it so I need to give it a revisit. Arrow Video is giving it a nice upgrade.

The Monkey 4K UHD: This loosely based on a Stephen King short story horror flick from Osgood Perkins is light on story and heavy on complicated deaths (and fun). You can read my full review here.

Novocaine 4K UHD: This rather silly action film has an interesting premise – its hero cannot feel pain. He isn’t indestructible. He still bleeds, burns, and can break bones; he just can’t feel any of that happening to him. The film takes this premise to pretty ridiculous (and ridiculously fun) extremes, but I enjoyed it.

Palindromes 4K UHD: Todd Solondz makes difficult films full of terrible characters that you somehow still manage to empathise with. I’ve not seen this film, but Radiance Films appears to have done their usual remarkable job with this release.

The Invisible Swordsman 4K UHD: Arrow Video presents this Japanese film about an awkward Edo-era swordsman who meets a spirit who says he can help him avenge his father’s death (by turning him invisible, of course).

The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost: Radiance Films is releasing this Japanese tale about a Samurai trying to win his wife back, and supernatural vengeance.

Doctor Who: The Savages Is the Pick of the Week

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I’m obviously a big fan of Doctor Who. There are lots of old, Classic episodes still missing (the original tapes were erased by the BBC to save money). Some of those missing episodes still have existing audio but no video. Sometimes they’ll take that audio and animate the video so we have something to watch.

They recently did that with a William Hartnell story called The Savages, and I’ve made it this week’s pick.

There’s also a new Soderberg, a big boxed set of Blaxploitation, and much more coming out this week. Click here to read more.

Amadeus is the New Blu-ray Pick of the Week

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Thus far this year has been a knockout in terms of physical media releases. Usually, releases didn’t start getting good until about March as January and February were considered low months as everyone was still recovering from spending all that money on Christmas. But dang if every week this year hasn’t been a banger.

I haven’t watched Amadeus in a couple of decades but I remember loving it. And now you get the original version (there was a director’s cut released in 2002 pushing the original cut into obscurity) in glorious 4K UHD. Call that my pick of the week.

But we’ve got some Classic Doctor Who coming out this week, a couple of cool-looking Japanese films, two Criterion releases, and more. Click here to read my full rundown.

Five Cool Things And A Larch

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I thought I had previously posted a bunch of my Five Cool Things articles, but it appears that is not true. So, I thought I’d return to the beginning and post the first one I wrote. Before I started writing these articles for Cinema Sentries I had a separate blog where I was writing about the things I was enjoying every day.

It was just for fun, like I said earlier it was a way of bringing a little joy into a dark world. I did it enough that I wanted to bring it to a larger audience, hence Cinema Sentries. The owner of the site liked the idea but we struggled with a title for it. I knew I wanted to do more than just one cool thing per article and somehow we landed on five things and then we added the “And…”. As a joke my friend decided the first article should be And…a Larch (don’t ask me why.)

And here we are. It is fun reading these old articles and see the things I was enjoying back then. This first one was written in January of 2017. That seems a lifetime ago. You can check it out here.

Doctor Who: The Chase

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One of the things I’ve been meaning to do with this blog, but I never seem to remember to actually do is to write about movies, TV shows, books, and music that I enjoy, but in smaller ways. Instead of doing full-on reviews, just write a couple of paragraphs about something I found interesting.

For a couple of years, I wrote a little thing for Cinema Sentries called Five Cool Things. Every week I’d write about five things (well, technically six as there was always an “and…”) I enjoyed that week in the way that I’m talking about. I’d just do a couple of three paragraphs about whatever it was I enjoyed and not worry about digging in too deep.

With that in mind, I’m gonna try to do more of that type of thing. First up is the Doctor Who story “The Chase.”

The wife and I have been chronologically working our way through Classic Doctor Who. The Chase was the Eighth and penultimate story of the second season. It stars William Hartnell as The Doctor, and William Russell, Jaqueline Hill, and Maureen O’Brien as his companions, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki.

I am a fan of Hartnell’s version of The Doctor and I do like a great man of his stories, while also admitting that I often find them dull. Classic Doctor Who episodes were 25 minutes in length. A single story might last anywhere from two episodes to eight. The long ones often feel like the writers had to pad things out in order to fulfill the set number of episodes for their stories. Hence my boredom.

“The Chase” gets around this by basically creating a bunch of mini-stories inside the main one. The Daleks have built a ship that can travel through space and time much like the Tardis, and it has a way of following the Tardis anywhere it goes. This leads to a series of adventures as the Tardis crew tries to flee the Daleks, zipping from place to place and all over history.

In one episode they land on the top of the Empire State Building and then on a ship at sea (the Mary Celeste, a famous ship that was discovered completely without a crew, no one ever found out what happened to them). In another episode, they land inside a haunted house where they meet Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula (and Frankenstein’s monster body slams a Dalek!) Then they land on a planet full of giant, monstrous fungi. The Daleks build a robot Doctor and nearly kill Vicky with it.

It is all quite silly. But then again I tend to prefer my classic Doctor Who stories to be silly. When they get too serious they tend to feel ponderous and I tend to get bored.

I quite liked this one.

Doctor Who – The Enemy of the World

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Classic Doctor Who ran from 1963 to 1989. It included some 311 stories told over 695 episodes of television. The Doctor was portrayed by seven different actors. While I have watched every episode of the New Doctor Who series, I’ve not yet made it through all the classic stories.

I have seen at least a few stories from each Doctor, but I’ve always watched it fairly randomly – watching one story from this era and then another one from a different era with a different Doctor, etc.

They are now releasing complete seasons of the classic series on Blu-ray but for ages they released single stories on DVD. I reviewed a few of them for Cinema Sentries including this one starring Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor (and in this case the story’s central enemy).

I’ve come to love Troughton’s version of the Doctor, but this was the first time I’d seen him in the role and my opinion of him was not yet solidified. Anyway, you can read the review here.

Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor

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One of the many reasons Doctor Who has had such a fantastically long run time as a series is that The Doctor regenerates. That wasn’t always supposed to be true but when the First Doctor (William Hartnell) got sick the show was such a huge success the producers came upon this idea to keep it running.

The Doctor is an alien, who says when he dies, he doesn’t really die, but becomes someone else? Well, he’ll always be The Doctor, but he can be played by a different actor and have a different personality. Patrick Troughton took on the role of The Second Doctor and the rest is history.

It was a genius idea. Whenever an actor gets tired of playing the role someone else will take his (or her) place. A new Doctor is born with an updated personality. This also allows the series to change with the times.

It also allows fans to constantly argue over which Doctor is the best.

A Doctor’s regeneration is always a big deal. Matt Smith was one of the most popular Doctors ever and so when he decided to leave the character you just knew his departure would be huge.

It was. So huge in fact they tied it into a Christmas Episode (an annual tradition). The Time of the Doctor wrapped up several storylines and more. And then some more. As you can read in my review it is a lot of fun, but also an overstuffed mess.

Doctor Who: The Complete Seventh Series

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My family and I have been watching the new series of Doctor Who every Friday night for many years now. We are currently at the beginning of Peter Capaldi’s era as The Doctor and this is at least our fourth round through the entire thing.

Watching the series over and over and over again gives me a new perspective on each episode every time I watch them. My love for the best episodes deepen, and my irritation at stories I didn’t like the first time around tend to flatten. And I’m constantly noticing things I didn’t notice before.

So it is interesting to read this review of Series Seven all these years later (I originally wrote it in 2013). I apparently wasn’t so keen on it back then (at least not the second half). I’ve come ’round to Clara Oswald a great deal since then and find most of the episodes to be quite good. Strangely, I didn’t mention Amy and Rory’s final episode in the review (other than noting I was sad to see them go) and it is now one of my least favorite episodes of their tenure as companions.

Anyway, you can read my thoughts here.