Meglos (Tom Baker)

My latest trawl through old series of Dr Who came up with this story in the last series to star Tom Baker in the lead role. I have always likened Tom Baker’s portrayal of the Doctor to being a bit like a high school science teacher who is perhaps a putter sort of a full golf bag.

This story was originally broadcast in 1980 in four 25 minute episodes. 

Also we see the return of Jaqueline Hill who was last seen playing the part of Barbara alongside William Hartnell’s Doctor.

Brief Plot:

The Doctor has been invited to visit the planet Tigella, they are having problems not only with the source of their power, a strange dodecahedron, but also with the squabbles between the atheist scientifically minded Savants and the fanatically religious Deons.

A strange cactus like creature, Meglos, wants the dodecahedron but just how is he/it going to get hold of it and more to the point, why does he want it?

Problems are stacked against the Doctor – can he find out the secrets behind the dodecahedron before it is too late?

What I thought of it:

Whilst Tom Baker has always been my favourite Doctor here he does put in a good performance in the part and along with Lalla Ward as Romana, Bill Frazer as the rather grumpy space pirate General Grugger and Jaqueline Hill as the High Priestess, Lexa try their best with what is a rather poor story and a script which is not on a par with many other stories staring Tom Baker. It is worth noting that in her role in this story Jaqueline Hill is the first, as possibly only, person to have played a companion to the doctor (she played Barbara Wright alongside William Hartnell) to return to the series in a different part. I thought I recognised her when she first appeared in part one and it was confirmed in the credits. In some parts of the story it does look as if some of the cast are thinking ‘why did I agree to appear in this?

The special effects, well what can we say here apart from it was the 1980s, it was the BBC and it was a programme which was still regarded as more for children so the budget would barely keep some so called celebrities in hand cream today. The laser battle which shows some of the characters are worse shots than the storm troopers from Star Wars. Probably the only advancement used is a technique called Scene-Sync. Here the cast are filmed in one section with separate cameras moving in sync on a small model set. The two images are then superimposed and it gives the impression that the cast are on the set. This does work, sort of, but it is obvious that something isn’t quite right. Frankly it looks a bit like a bargain basement CGI technology but it was an improvement on blue screen technology. However, this did remove the need to build large structures so probably helped cut costs. Naturally with Dr Who from the era there is the use of foam rubber and bubble wrap sprayed green for all the nasty things that go squeak in the night. Then there is the use of latex over faces and the silly white wigs – I could go on.

The sets do sort of work to some extent but there is perhaps a little too much running around corridors in this story. The control rooms do have the usual ‘computer banks’ which, by today’s standards,  probably have about as much power as a pocket calculator but the buttons and flashing lights do sort of set the scene. The rather dank metallic grey inside the pirate ship does give the impression that it has seen better days. The lighting in some of the scenes does add something to it as does the incidental music but it all look like it has been cobbled together on the cheap (probably because it has).

Overall:

A slightly disappointing story and not the best script. It is saved somewhat by Tom Baker and it is good to see Jaqueline Hill back even if it was in a different part.

Bonuses:

Entropy explained:

Well this is a bit of scientific fact which is used in science fiction and has been used in Dr Who a few times. As I did do a degree in Chemistry I have some understanding of thermodynamics and here these laws of physics are gone over and sort of explained. The explanations, although accurate are not all that clear.

Jacqueline Hill – A life in Pictures.

Jacqueline Hill who played one of the first companions to the doctor returned in this story in a different part. She died due to cancer in 1993. Here fellow cast members and crew who worked on Dr Who as well as her husband and friends discuss their memories of her as a friend and colleague and shows her life in acting before and after Dr Who.

The scene-sync story:

The short documentary looks at the changes in techniques used from ‘chroma key’ where two cameras were used as an old fashioned version of ‘blue screen’ technology and its limitations. This then moves onto how the new scene-sync worked and the improvements it had on the blue screen. The Scene sync system automatically used the two cameras  at the same time and all the problems they had with it in order to get scales right and how they overcame them. The use of scene sync by the BBC on Meglos was really giving it a full test run to see if it worked before it was used in more expensive productions later.

Meglos Men:

The writers of the story , John Flanagan and Andy McCulloch talk about the story and their writing progress in the script. They discuss their meeting at drama school and how they, being out of work as actors, turned their hand to writing.

Really this is the two writes going round London in a cab visiting places where their first play was put on to where they wrote Meglos. One point mentioned was the wardrobe department’s misinterpretation of the space pirates and had interpreted it as Treasure Island type with eye patches etc. These had to be quickly changed to fit in with what the writers had envisioned.

This I felt was more of a self congratulatory ‘weren’t we clever’ than a documentary about the story.