There’s a definite post-Christmas feel to the BBC schedules today – with only the new series of Doctor Who catching my eye.
DW is in 20th anniversary mode – and the show begins as it means to go on with a story featuring the return of an old adversary. Since this baddie (Omega) made his sole appearance some ten years earlier, you could argue that the majority of the audience might be somewhat perplexed when the ‘great’ reveal is done.
But this, I guess, is the conflict between general audience/fan appreciation which continues to dog the series today. How far should you go in pandering to the fans? (who are never satisfied, whatever you do).
After all this preamble, do I enjoy Arc of Infinity? Well, not much. The location filming in Amsterdam is nice and it’s good to see Michael Gough guest star but it’s a bit of a dull run around. However, bonus points have to be issued in Nyssa’s direction – she’s finally grown up and become a more assertive character.
Which is a bit ironic, since her time with the series is now very limited ….
I’ll take another Laurel and Hardy film (Our Relations) on ITV and I’ll follow that up with Zulu, the ideal sort of film made for a quiet holiday afternoon. It launched Michael Caine’s career, after a lengthy series of false starts, but there’s plenty of value lower down the bill (Paul Daneman, Glynn Edwards, Neil McCarthy, Gary Bond).
Adele Rose is on scripting duty for Coronation Street and I’ll round off the evening with a late night Thriller repeat (Look Back in Darkness). Bradford Dillman and Catherine Schell star in a script by Terence Feely.
Archive Television Musings 
I didn’t watch any television on New Year’s Eve and 1st and 2nd of January because I was camping with the Venture Unit and we didn’t have a video recorder. But I came home on the New Year Bank Holiday Monday and got back in time for Doctor Who. This was the first series where I saw them all first time round.
Two criticisms of Arc of Infinity annoy me. Some people complain that bringing back Omega was a bad move because he last appeared on the programme ten years earlier so the majority of viewers wouldn’t know who he was. But in fact a little over a year earlier BBC repeated The Three Doctors as part of The Five Faces of Doctor Who.
And some people knocked the production team for making a story abroad every year, and there was no reason at all for the scenes on Earth to be in Amsterdam. But it makes it a lot less false than every alien invasion taking place in the Home Counties.
And why do some people think that Colin and Robin are a gay couple?
LikeLike
I rather like the idea of “stellar engineer” as a profession!
LikeLike