I only rarely bring up politics - this is supposed to be my fannish journal - but let's just say this week had started really badly in real life terms (not that it was unexpected, but the European Election results were really as terrible as feared), so I have to say it was oddly charming and relieving to be reminded of positive European interaction again when returning to Munich on Friday. Because: never have I ever seen and heard this many Scots outside of Scotland. Friday was the first game of the EM, Germany versus Scotland, which meant lots and lots of Scots. In t-shirts and kilts. And a punning headline: "Schotten rocken München" (Scots rock Munich, only the German word for "skirt" is "Rock", so it's a pun on the kilts as well.) The Scots were cheerful and fun, and seemed to be universally embraced, not that there also wasn't much joy when Germany won the football match. None of which makes up for the election results, obviously, but even for not football fans like myself, it caused smiles and cheer. Thank you, Scots!
On to
Doctor Who. In several incarnations. Last weekend there was a reduced prices sale at Big Finish for historicals, so in honour of the late William Russell I went and bought a couple of First Doctor era historicals narrated (mostly) by William Russell/Ian Chesterton. There's were:
Transit of Venus: Set after
The Sensorites. Team TARDIS gets split up, with the Doctor and Ian ending up with Captain James Cook on the Endeavour while Susan, Barbara and the TARDIS appear to have had a watery fate. (Obviously not.) Ian is increasingly convinced that the ship's scientist and botany fan extraordinary, Joseph Banks, is behaving weirdly and Up To No Good. This story (written by Jacqueline Raynor) went for a bit of an Edgar Allen Poe flair where the question is whether our narrator or everyone around him is bonkers, with the mystery resolved in a Whovian way. (Sidenote: given I knew Joseph Banks would have to go on and became the grand old man of expedition financing in his later years, I was a bit less inclined to believe that Ian had to be right than I otherwise would have been.) Cook, interestingly enough, is hardly in it (though Russell does a Yorkshire accent for him when he does appear), but there is a great and silent scene between Ian and the Doctor which captures this early stage of their relationship very well.
The Fires of Cadiz (by Marc Platt): This time, our foursome have ended up in pre-Armada launching Spain, and William Russell shares narrator duties with Carol Ann Ford as Susan. I was a bit disappointed by the first half beause the opening monologue by Ian looking back seemed to foreshadow that would go for something more complicated than Evil Catholic Spaniards versus Heroic Protestant Brits, and then we promptly went into a story that seemed to tick all the cliché boxes - Spanish Inquisition, going from accusation to instant torture and execution (this is not how these trials worked!), fanatic population, with Ian's "I had to remind myself that in England, Catholics were persecuted in this era" as the sole nod outside the cliché. True, there were non-evil Spaniards included, too - the Morisco Esteban whom Ian befriended and defended, and the couple where Barbara, Susan and the Doctor found shelter with, Catalina and Miguel -, but still, I was somewhat discontent.... and then we had the grand rescue-from-the-autodafé already mid story, with the second half indeed devoted to making things more complicated, not solely but also by showing the attack of Ian's hero Sir Francis Drake from the pov of the terrified Spanish population of Cadiz. Plus this story also checked (in the most agreeable way) a lot of First Doctor era boxes: Ian is heroic and compassionate, Barbara and the Doctor clash and she gives him a What's What speech, the Doctor pulls off a fun impersonation and a madcap rescue, and it's a historical without any alien involvement,
and unlike alas too many early serials gives Susan lots to do instead of letting her twist her ankle again. Oh, and if you haven't figured out who Don Miguel is by the time he makes the Doctor ride on a mule named Sancho, you really don't know anything about the era. ;)
The Library of Alexandria: My favourite of the three! (Written by Simon Guerrier, whom I knew from the Cromwell + Seventh Doctor, Hex and Ace story
The Settlement): Narrated by Russell again, and by Susan Franklyn as Hypatia. For verily, our heroes decide to take a break from adventuring and stay for a weeks when the TARDIS arrives in late antiquity Alexandria. Though I have to say, given Hypatia's terrible (historical) ending, I was wondering how the story would work around that, and the answer is, it's not a question because Hypatia doesn't die in this story, which is set years before her death and shows her in her prime. (It does, however, feature the burning of the Library of Alexandria.) One thing I very much appreciated in all three serials was that the fact Ian was originally a science teacher is a constant part of his characterisation, and here he happily geeks out at the chance to chat with Hypatia of Alexandria, while Barbara is in history teacher bliss at the chance to be in the famous library. Guerrier's story also does a great job of showing Hypatia's brilliance by the way she deduces various things about the Doctor and the menaces du jour, and by the end I was sad continuity and history didn't allow for her to join Team TARDIS and escape her gruesome fate a few years later. (I mean, given that Big Finish gave the Fifth Doctor lots and lots of adventures with Peri and Eminem between his last but one and his last tv adventure, I suppose she could have, but the First Doctor wasn't able to steer the TARDIS yet and couldn't have brought her back in time, not to mention that bringing a friend back to be torn apart by a mob is something I have a hard time seeing even the First Doctor doing...) Anyway, Russell again does a great job both narrating as old Ian looking back and speaking the younger Ian within the story, and it's a story I certainly will listen to again.
And now for this week's tv episode.
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