“I’ve put all
my eggs in the one basket.”
“Well that’s
fine… supposing no-one steals the basket.”
The Brigadier
and the Third Doctor there from The Time Warrior.
Ironically, the
Brig is in much the same situation in the first story in this seventh Third
Doctor box set, The Unzal Incursion.
Written by Mark
Wright and set during the Doctor’s first, rather more spiky year as UNIT’s
scientific advisor, The Unzal Incursion has a lot of the flavour of that year,
with a little evolution from the 1970s. Liz Shaw (played by Daisy Ashford,
daughter of Caroline John) with a frankly uncanny rightness of tone, has been
leading a project to give the Earth a long-range warning system to pick up any
alien wrong ’uns heading our way. As soon as it goes live, the Invasion Of The
Week that was later to become a staple of the show becomes much more difficult
to achieve.
Which is as
good a reason as any for a bunch of alien wrong ’uns to want to knock it out or
control it. The Hotspur Network, as it’s rather catchily called, becomes the
focus on the Unzal Incursion, but like a lot of the best stories from the Liz
Shaw season, the threat is already here. With a hint of Inferno around the
edges, almost overnight, UNIT is compromised from within. Previously perfectly
loyal officers go over to the enemy. And the Doctor, Professor Shaw and the
Brigadier are forced onto the run, with all the forces of a hostile UNIT on
their tails.
Chases in
Bessie, chases in helicopters (with Lethbridge-Stewart in the pilot’s seat),
sonic weapons, mass brainwashing, all the good stuff from early Pertwee-era Who
is here, with a cast who frankly sound like they’re having the time of their
lives. There’s an incredible zing between all the main players, Tim Treloar as
the Third Doctor anchoring the piece with ever-increasing confidence and a
vocal Pertwee stride, Jon Culshaw as the Brigadier sounding like he’s got the
job he was born to play, and Daisy Ashford fitting in perfectly as Professor
Shaw.
There’s an
interesting question posed in the sub-text of The Unzal Incursion – at what
point do your actions stop being your responsibility? There’s a good deal of
brainwashing involved in getting UNIT to turn on its leader, and the question
is raised of whether simply being brainwashed is defence enough for those who
do unconscionable deeds, or whether at some point a line is drawn and
responsibility allocated for not fighting a difficult personal fight to escape
the brainwashing.
Along the way,
there’s some excellent Liz Shawing, of the king you’d love to have seen on
screen. There’s a classic Third Doctor gambit, stepping forward to be the
Unzal’s ambassador to the powers that be, and there’s an utterly barnstorming
performance from Misha Malcolm as Sergeant ‘Nicki’ Attah, described as a relief
for Benton. We’d very much like more of Sergeant Attah, please and thank you,
and ultimately, we’d like her to be Brigadier of UNIT North or somesuch, second
only to Lethbridge-Stewart himself. We’d like that because Malcolm’s
performance is fresh, and vibrant, and a joy to listen to, and because she
feels like a paving of the way for the likes of a young Winifred Bambera to
come up through the ranks. More. Please. Thank you.
In all fairness
though, we could ask for more of almost everything in this story. More of the
effortless chemistry between Culshaw and Treloar (adjusted slightly in this
story so that it reflects that first Pertwee season with its sizing up of each
other). More Daisy Ashford, any time she’s free and the stories can be written
for her. And more hardcore UNIT action stories like this one, to sweep us along
and make us eat popcorn as the episodes power by us one after another with a
pulse-raising punch and purpose.
And then
there’s The Gulf.
Two more
dissimilar stories it would be hard to even devise, but you won’t be chewing
popcorn listening to Tim Foley’s tale of serious psychological horror.
You’ll be too
busy biting your nails.
There’s a whole
different atmosphere here, as Foley takes the Third Doctor and Sarah-Jane
(again played by the daughter of the original actress, in this case Sadie
Miller) to an artistic retreat with several serious differences. A platform on
a giant lethal ocean, occupied solely by women artists, presided over by Marta
Malvani, a seemingly past-her-prime artist, who now mostly guides the works of
others. In a mark of staggeringly ironic casting, Marta Malvani is played by
Wendy Craig, an actress of legendary status and power, whose prime is not only
here and now, but has been enduring in one form and another for decades. You
could more or less stop reading once you know Wendy Craig is in The Gulf and be
assured of its quality.
But there’s so
much more to say. This thing is creeeeepy. Rivulets down the wall,
water-monsters talking you to death, old secrets rising to the surface, complex
relationship drama creeeeeepy.
Tim Foley
always has a dab hand with his scripts of getting you to buy into the
character-chemistry, but this is a story so immersive, so multi-faceted, you
may need a good brisk walk in the sunshine once you’re done with it, just to
restore your equilibrium. That’s only right for a story where the villain seems
to ooze into you from the walls, from the air, from the drinking water, and
from every conversation you have.
Imagine a
situation where the air you breathe became both insidious and aggressive,
wanting to trip you into one reaction. One obvious reaction, and then you die.
Don’t blink. Don’t move. Don’t breathe…
This is a story
very much in a 21st century vein, but starring the Third Doctor and
Sarah. It’s very distinctly an evolution of the kind of story that could have –
and would have – been told on TV during their era, but the character chemistry
between the two of them remains true to that Seventies model.
It would be
utter folly to try and explain all the backstory of The Gulf to you – and
besides, it would ruin the experience for you. But in the foreground suffice it
to say that one of the young artists on the platform falls into the deadly sea,
and is missing, presumed about as dead as you can imagine.
And then she
comes back.
The creepy
suspicions that begin to drip into every conversation are what powers The Gulf
along, and when the truth is finally revealed, it’s so very worth the
wait. As with Daisy Ashford’s Liz Shaw in The Unzal Incursion, there’s at least
one scene in The Gulf which is pure Sarah-Jane, of the kind you’d have paid
good handfuls of salary to have seen on screen. Slightly weirdly, they’re both
scenes of companion-torture. But where Liz is tortured physically, and you hear
her magnificent resistance, Sarah-Jane gets the psychological treatment, and it
reveals something about the relationship between our favourite journalist and
her ever-absent Aunt Lavinia that will help put them both in a brand new light.
The Unzal
Incursion is full-on early UNIT action adventure that will get your pulse
pounding. The Gulf, by way of utter contrast, is a clammy, claustrophobic
terrorfest, probably way too dark for TV at the time, but absolutely up there
with the likes of The Chimes of Midnight in the sustained atmosphere and chilly
finger up the spine stakes.
Both of the
stories in this box set could well be thought of as masterpieces in their own
right. The cast is spot on, anchored by Tim ‘Flawless’ Treloar, and you’ll come
out the other side of this box set believing you’ve just been through a Third
Doctor kaleidoscope of moods – and loved every minute of it.
