Terry Nation (1930–1997)

This left an impression that's lingered for several days now. It sounds a standard grade-B Girl In Danger thriller but is instead more focussed upon atmosphere than on a fast-paced plot or sympathetic v antipathetic characters.

Leaving aside Girl(s) In Danger the characters seem with only a couple of exceptions menacing. This isn't simply because they live in an environment and speak a language alien to the protagonist: a helpful English immigrant seems as threatening as the surly peasant at show more a godforsaken cafe. and it's only a harsh local who has unequivocally the protagonist's best interests at heart. The sense of danger remains vague even when the danger itself has become explicit and though the action occurs on a sunny summer day there are shadows both literal--the woods, the slowly approaching rain clouds--and figurative--the distant scarecrow of a mam broadcasting seed who often stops to gaze at the 'bad' road--that are never dispelled by full light.

Even the ending is not a resolution, or at any rate it wasn't one for me: Protagonist has been saved, but given what's gone before she might well still be in danger. I re-wound to see the end again, and certainly there's quite a strong suggestion that all is well but nonetheless this is hard to credit.

On the whole I find it difficult to sit through movies & so watch very few of them, but this one I'll watch again to soak up the atmosphere and to look not just for clues but for nuances I missed. I'm glad I didn't give in to my impulse to delete it immediately upon hearing the soundtrack over the opening credits, which inexplicably portends a bargain-basement ripoff of a James Bond thriller. show less

The first story here, Prison in Space, depicts the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe stumbling into a future Earth run by women (usually just called "superiors"), where men ("inferiors") are completely subjugated. Anyone who ever saw Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Angel One" knows that there's no way this can end well, and it doesn't. It's awful. Simon Guerrier says in the extras that when he adapted Sharples's original scripts for audio, he shifted a lot of sexist dialogue from the Doctor to Jamie show more to keep things a little more tolerable, but that's not really the problem.

The problem is that the narrative itself is sexist. Not only do the women wear skimpy outfits, the narration mentions it quite a bit. Why would they, if gender values truly were reversed? (There's also a "hilarious" bit where Jamie sees some naked women.) All the women in the story are solely characterized by their appearances-- one is "high-strung looking," another is "butch," and Chairman Babs, the ruler of the planet, looks like a toad, a fact we’re told at least three times. (And I lost count of how many times Sergeant Alice-- the butch one-- did something "bullishly.") These women have absolutely no personality beyond these physical appearances, and indeed very little will of their own. As soon as the men start fighting back, the women just give up and lose. Zoe is reconditioned by Chairman Babs to be part of her new society... and then promptly stands around for two episodes. She's saved by Jamie spanking her. Really, you can't make this crap up.

After how much I enjoyed The First Doctor Box Set, this most recent release was a return to the type of stuff we saw in the first series of The Lost Stories. If it wasn't for finally getting to see what Terry Nation's Dalek series would have been like, this would be yet another release that was better off lost...

You can read a longer version of this review on Unreality SF. show less

Title seems misleading given that the film takes place on one impossibly long French day when it never seems to get dark. There really isn't much to it when you stop to reflect, but Franklin, as a girl hunting for her missing traveling companion, and some excellent cinematography and locations keep it compelling until the end. Certainly must have been one of the cheapest films ever made in terms of costumes--one per character--and cast, really, really small. But well directed. Wildly show more inappropriate musical score by Laurie Johnson--did he even know what he was writing it for? show less

In some ways it's quite dated and there are occasions where they undermine the female characters a lot, but on the other hand often the most competent characters are female and the main bad guy is female. We also have a lot of different people and races in the story, more than you would often have in other series of the period (or even, sometimes, now). The computer ORAC is so snide and entertaining and is most of the reasons I dislike things that talk to me.

One for those who believe killing show more off core characters only started with George R R Martin need to watch this (or read Katherine Kurtz) as several times people are killed off. Sadly, apparently, some of the female actors left due to feeling that their characters were being made less.

This is a series with no real "good" guys, everyone has problems and issues and often make hard decisions between two (or more) bad choices.

Lasting only four seasons (three more than Firefly, that Paul Darrow/Avon describes as a modern version) it's a twisty complicated series with a lot of characterful moments and characters that I cared for and wanted to see succeed.

Despite some rickety special effects and some dated bits this series did stand the test of time with myself and my husband as we watched. show less