One fat geek's SUCCESSFUL attempt to regenerate into a not-so-fat geek by watching the entirety of Doctor Who while walking on a treadmill

RIP Peter Miles, Farewell Mel

Feb 27 2018
RIP Peter Miles, Farewell Mel

Sad news today for fans of Classic Who: actor Peter Miles passed away last week at the age of 89. He was best known for his role as Davros' second-in-command Nyder in Genesis of the Daleks. He also appeared in Invasion of the Dinosaurs as the scientist who brought the giant lizards to London, but for me his best appearance was as Dr. Lawrence in The Silurians. He was absolutely riveting in that story as he faced off against the Third Doctor. The scene in which Lawrence is infected by the Silurian plague and attacks the Brigadier is one of the best moments of the story, sold entirely on Miles' strong performance. It is at least a comfort to know that Miles' passing was peaceful. My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

On a happier note, today I saw the last of Mel. So let's talk about that.

Dragonfire - Parts 2 & 3

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

I have to say, after the greatness of the previous two stories this one was a bit of a disappointment. It's not bad by any stretch, but it really seems half-baked. There are numerous plot threads that never quite come together, and moments that happen with no real explanation.

Case in point, the cliffhanger at the end of part one. In it the Doctor is exploring the ice tunnels searching for the dragon, and for no apparent reason he decides to climb over a railing at the edge of a sheer cliff and then dangle himself over the edge. It is entirely deliberate, and no clear reason is given why he might do that. Apparently in the initial script there was more of a setup showing that the path he was on was a dead end, and the only way forward was to climb down the sheer ice face, but that does not come across at all in the scene as filmed.

There are also a bunch of scenes that are directly lifted from the movie Aliens, which had just come out the previous year. There is a clone of the bug hunt scene from the movie, there is a bit with a very young girl scuttling around beneath catwalks to escape the dragon (who was very clearly modeled after the xenomorphs), and a few other bits as well. None of it fit the story particularly well, and it all felt very random.

Also, for the second story in a row, out of the blue virtually all of the innocent background characters are killed in a vehicular explosion. Just... boom! 90% of the on-screen characters are dead when the spaceship Nosferatu goes up in a fireball.

On the other hand, the loss of that ship leads its owner Sabalom Glitz to name his next ship the Nosferatu II, which comes across as "NosferaTutu", which made me laugh out loud. I am a bad person.

As per usual, Mel does nothing useful during the entire course of the story. Then for no particular reason at the end she decides it's time to stop traveling with the Doctor, and to run off with Glitz instead. The two had barely spoken over the course of the story, it's not like there was any chemistry there, but she just up and decides to go. Which, frankly, is just peachy keen by me.

So the Doctor winds up with Ace as his new companion, which is also swell by me. I like Ace a lot, she's smart and aggressive and likes to blow things up. She's the type of person who will run into danger instead of just standing around screaming.

So that wraps up the Seventh Doctor's first season. I am already a third of the way through his tenure.

Tomorrow: another damn Dalek story.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Seventh
Companion(s): Mel, Ace
Episode(s): Dragonfire - Parts 2 & 3
Steps Walked: 7,175 today, 2,421,353 total
Distance Walked: 4.04 miles today, 1,254.26 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 16 today, 61 total
Weight: 247.68 lbs (five day moving average), net change -59.62 lbs


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