Oh look, he's talking about Doctor Who again. Must be a day with 'day' in it, I guess. This year's season is over and as of the time of writing we seem to be in a sort of Zero Room of "pathways to continuation" and the whole enterprise (the series, not the starship; wrong franchise mate) seems to be in a state of stasis as to when the show will return and I'm jonesing for my Who fix - I desperately need new, or even "new" (to me) old Doctor Who to watch!
And waffle about, of course.
I don't do it on this blog all that often though, not as a review anyway - I'm aware that the show does get referenced a bit, that's just how it goes when you've been immersed in a fictional (how dare you, sir? It's real, I tells thee!) universe since the age of three (that'd be 1982, fact fans: my earliest memory of television is Peter Davison's Doctor and Adric in the woods, which would probably be 'The Visitation' rather than 'Kinda' - I like to think I could discern a real life location from a studio set even at that age but I'm kidding myself of course. I thought that Biggins really was in the jungle in On Safari) it's just second nature. It's just how my brain works.
Or doesn't, depending upon your point of view.
I think the first time I encountered the word 'periwig' I assumed it was a hairpiece cut into a brunette bob a la 1984-vintage Nicola Bryant. This isn't true of course, it's a joke, but you get my meaning. I'm actually slightly surprised at how much I've restrained myself over the years from constantly rambling on about Who - I think the last time was my review of the first story featuring the Barbara Benedetti incarnation of the Doctor, 'The Wrath of Eukor'* (see HERE if curious), and I do intend to watch the other three entries in her oeuvre at some point, as well as the Projection Room flicks featuring the Chris Hoyle embodiment of telly's titular Time Lord and to rewatch Krystal Moore's groovy Doctor Who Velocity (the Tron crossover [yes, you read that right and it's as glorious as it sounds] especially) - gosh, the expanded universe of fan films is big - but for now I'd like to turn to something I've wanted to watch for a long time.
[*Wrong, you fool! You've forgotten your rambling, probably drunken maunderings about last year's season - Ed.]
Anyway, as many will know the history of Doctor Who like every television show encompasses as many storyline routes not taken as were - fictive forks in the road unexplored as scripts were rejected or abandoned for sundry reasons, mostly ones of sheer practicality. The earliest comes with just the second ever story, as Terry Nation's 'The Daleks' was not originally scheduled for that place. Odd though it may seem from the distance of more than sixty years of cultural history that includes the Skaroine pepperpots, the show's four-part debut 'An Unearthly Child' (or '100,000 B.C.' if you're one of the contrarian elitist editors of DWM, or even 'The Tribe of Gum' if you go by the Titan script books - and more thereon soon) was originally to be followed by another story from the same author: Anthony Coburn. Though now probably best known to Who fandom for fathering a rather problematic man, Coburn was also the progenitor of many of Doctor Who's iconic staples such as the outer form of the TARDIS as a British Metropolitan MacKenzie Trench police box and the character of schoolgirl 'Suzanne' being reformatted as the Doctor's unearthly grandchild Susan. Having delivered these initial four scripts, Coburn embarked upon a second serial - variously titled as the rather prosaic 'The Robots' but later settled on as the much more evocative 'The Masters of Luxor' - comprising of six episodes and set on an alien world to contrast with prehistoric earth setting of the bulk of the opening story (apart from the present day 1963 of the opening instalment), and having a much more science fiction bent.
However, as we know, this was destined not to be and the story went unproduced in favour of Nation's less philosophical and more pulp action serial influenced 'The Daleks' seven parter and the course of history flowed in the direction that we all know. Coburn's second story (and final one, he never wrote for Doctor Who again) was forgotten - indeed his first one went unremembered to the extent of Trivial Pursuit citing Terry Nation as the actual instigator of the show. But in the early 1990s, during the series' wilderness years away from the screen, Titan Books produced a sadly short-lived range of published script books and astoundingly to my young self included 'Luxor' among their number. In fact, so astounded was I that I dropped the book in the bath at one point (in the interests of accuracy, this may have been more to do with falling asleep than astonishment) and the cover and pages are still all crinkly. Much like the pages of the magazines under your bed, only not with the 'good pages' stuck together with your special glue. That probably isn't a thing these days, what with the internet and everything. But it wasn't just me reading it and imagining what might have been had this story have been made - across the ocean in Chicago in the space year 2001, some crazy college kids went as far as actually realising it. Manifesting it into reality, if you like - only by actually getting off their arses and doing it rather than the power of hope or whatever.
Director Frank Smialek and his Doctor actor Anthony Sarlo decided to edit the originally scripted six parts ('The Cannibal Flower', 'The Mockery of a Man', 'A Light on the Dead Planet', 'Tabon of Luxor', 'An Infinity of Surprises' and 'The Flower Blooms') down into the more traditional - at least by the standard of the '70s and '80s - Doctor Who shape of four twenty five-ish minute episodes. Another alteration was to make Susan the Doctor's niece rather than granddaughter, which both better suited Sarlo's more youthful Doctor than William Hartnell and - probably completely coincidentally - echoes Jill Curzon's Louise and her relationship to the Peter Cushing Doctor in the 1966 Amicus/Aaru feature Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. Which is canon as fuck and totally amazing, I insist. I really do.
Episode One: The Cannibal Flower
As more adventurous (to reference a great Rilo Kiley album, and why not?) teacher Ian heads outside to explore with unearthly child Susan, his erstwhile staff room compatriot Barbara remains in the ship to aid the Doctor in detecting the sudden and mysterious power drain of the TARDIS' systems. Ian and Susan come across an empty space age banqueting hall replete with long table bedecked with a feast, a scenario that puts me in mind of something out of an Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy roleplay novel (roll the dice to decide what happens next: will Susan give in to her hunger and tuck into the feast only to find it poisonous, or will Ian have a Skill and Stamina score high enough to stop her?) but the Sixties schoolmaster references the Grimm tale of 'Hansel and Gretel' being fattened up for the witch's dinner instead. Curiosity the cat killer - maybe that's what wiped out Gallifrey's native Killer Cats of Geng Singh! ZOMG, it suddenly all makes sense and must indeed be canon - overcomes Ian and he presses a switch which causes some robotic automatons to emerge from concealed recesses in the walls (Coburn's original and less evocative title for this story of course being the rather prosaic and perfunctory 'The Robots') which of course causes Susan to emit a shrill scream though at least she doesn't find a way to twist her ankle. These silver bacofoil '50s space adventure-style robots appear to be inert and totally lifeless and thus presumably mostly harmless; Ian and Susan rejoin Barbara and the Doctor in the feasting hall just as the automatons twitch into life and follow them...
Episode Two: The Mockery of a Man
"The masters of Luxor have made us well, and we serve you."
Shown to their rooms to rest and provided with fresh and futuristic clothing (my sadness at Susan changing out of her school uniform is quickly alleviated by her and Barbara's new outfits consisting of form fitting white dresses with side splits and go go boots - it's like they're catering to all of the fetishes) the crew relax and enjoy themselves, Barbara relishing the use of the baths of Luxor to wash the cobwebs of the "caves of Za" right out of her hair in a nice continuity nod and both she and Susan mocking Ian's white leotard as looking like an acrobat about to attempt the high wire. They come across a map of the city of Luxor, prompting the Doctor to muse "If that's Luxor, where's here?"
Another kind of droid, one with glowing Jawa-esque eyes that calls itself a Derivatron, enters the room and tries to question the existence of the team. Which seems needlessly existentialist to me, but important to the Derivatron who speaks of taking them to 'the Perfect One' and prompting the Doctor to demand "Take us to your Masters". So close, Time Lord. It's 'leader', you fool! Spooked by the Derivatron's parting comment about the rather rude mechanicals of this world having destroyed the "living men" who created them, the time travellers decide to make a break for it. Leaving the comfortable quarters-cum-cell that they were sealed inside, they make their way to an observation deck where they observe (well, duh) a weird experiment in which a captured man and another humanoid being (who we soon learn is the Perfect One, played by Matt Ellegood ) are strapped to elevated tables side by side and wired together in some sort of life force transfer. Think Larry Talbot and the somnolent Monster in Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man and congratulations, you've got it. But also commiserations because if that was your go-to mental reference then you've gt the same brain as me.
Mr Perfect (sadly, he doesn't perform a Perfect plex on anyone) explains that the 'Masters' first created the basic functional robots, and then the more advanced Derivatrons - for illustrative purposes he has models on tiers of differing height like the 'class' skit with the two Ronnies and John Cleese - before they dared to dream of him and he in his perfection destroyed the creators. This backstory is pretty similar to Ruk in Star Trek's 'What Are Little Girls Made Of?', basically. And without the power flowing through the City, which only operates when someone living arrives, the Perfect One is non-existent; making him pretty similar to the eponymous antagonist of the Red Dwarf episode 'Legion' too. This mockery of a man ("It's in the title", as Josh Spiegel of Movie Timelines would say) now wishes to transcend his origins and become a real live boy by draining the travellers' life forces into himself. He'd get on famously with Jano and the Elders from 'The Savages'.
And showing great taste, he is intent on feasting on Barbara and Susan...
Episode Three: Tabon of Luxor
As our knee-high boot wearing heroines are strapped down firmly (for the plot and not purely in order to cater to my fetishes I tell myself), Susie Who makes her move: tearing free from her bonds with some kind of usually-hidden Gallifreyan super strength, or maybe an extra-dimensional power inherited from the Timeless Child - hey, isn't headcanon fun? - she bops a robot and a Derivatron and swiftly frees Barbara. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ian spot a light through a window and the Doctor divines that someone out in the wilderness outside the city is flashing a beacon in the same one, one-two, one-two-three rhythm as the signal that brought the TARDIS to this benighted planetoid. Resolving to get down there, they break through the window and the Doc (I do usually kindly refrain from addressing him as such) takes a gander through his handy-dandy collapsible telescope leading to a neat P.O.V. shot - complete with making to simulate the scope - of an era-appropriate model of ancient-looking ruins in the near distance, I suppose. That's a little Puressence reference, for anyone counting my inevitably dated pop culture spots. The Time Lord and the teacher decide to chance the climb down the outer wall of the city to get to that temple of secrets and find out what's going on.
Recaptured by the robots, "these women creatures" as the Perfect One refers to them and thus making his sound like a proto-incel and leading me to wonder if Luxorans Going Their Own Way was a movement that led to their seeming extinction are conveyed to the 'guest apartments' under order to rest and take food and wine. I mean, it would be inhospitable to do otherwise.
"The order is registered."
Out in the wilderness, Chesterton and our hero are exploring the ruins and find what appears to be a stone sarcophagus bearing an elegiac eulogy in overtly religious language (something of which there was apparently a lot more in Coburn's original scripts, including presenting the usually rationalist Doctor as someone who balances science and faith equally, whilst quoting Karl Marx) including the legend "O Lord, please deliver them from flesh", which to me sounds almost Cronenbergian. Alas, we aren't going to get my dreams of body horror realised here, but there is a smidge of Universal / Hammer style gothic as the hermetically-sealed tomb is opened - the Doctor wishing that he had "a sonic..." something to hand - to release a cryogenically preserved man (Kirk Jackson) whose lowered lifesigns are rapidly on the rise as he returns to the land of the living. As Tabon - for 'tis he - rises from his self-imposed grave like an Altered Beast and we find that 'twas he who was the original creator and onlie begetter of the Derivatrons and who conceived of the creation of the Perfect One only to retreat out here in the fields to preserve himself in his cryogenic crypt to hide in shame from his Promethean endeavours.
Did you know that an early, and now sadly lost, cinematic adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (to give her novel it's full and cool title) was Joseph Smiley's 1915 Life Without Soul? The title wafted and wended through my mind as Tabon went on about how he created life, but without a soul. Which makes him I suppose the Victor in the end, with the Perfect One his creature or demon (it's never referred to as 'the Monster' in the text as frustrated Karloff fans have discovered through the ages).
Episode Four: The Flower Blooms
The finale opens - like the titular blossom - with our heroes having thought of Susan and Barbara whilst squeezing themselves up a dark and dangerously tight shaft with the expectations of it all ending with a messy explosion, for Tabon has conveyed that the Perfect One has control of the Luxorians' atomic stockpile and it's almost never a good idea to let someone with dodgy motives who wants to prove themselves to be a real man have unfettered access to your arsenal. Unfortunately, the unknowing Susie 'n' Babs have slightly damaged the saint of (im)Perfection with a jerry-rigged trip wire which risks the whole planetoid; if he/it dies then the nuclear magazine will detonate and take everyone and everything with them. Hang on to your ego there, metal man. Baffled by Barbara and Susan's recitations of "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" and "Mary, Mary, quite contrary" and especially especially unnerved by the two women laughing at him (I'm telling you, definitely an incel-bot enraged by girlish giggles), the not so Perfect One declares that "the meaning of all this is that it has no meaning" and resolves to end their lives by absorbing them into himself as the Doctor, Ian and Tabon race to rescue them.
"And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death."
I really would encourage anyone interested in the history - including the alternate 'could have been' histories of short trips and side steps - of Doctor Who to check it out. It's available to watch at time of writing as part of the Doctor Who Fan Film Database on Youtube. Show it some love and prove that you are a human with a soul and not a robot. Or don't, whatever.
Shot on colour digital videotape and then converted to monochrome with an authentic to the period electronic score composed by Smialek himself, 'The Masters of Luxor' is a pretty unique artefact: a fan film that's an adaptation of an actual official set of BBC-commissioned Doctor Who scripts, rather than the usual fan-penned fanwank (which I of course mean in the sense of fannish wallowing in continuity [I'm looking at you here, too, Big Finish; no, Nick, "What if Bellal met River Song?" is not a 'lovely idea' worthy of multiple box sets], rather than what happened to that lad who won the competition to have a sleepover at Mike Yates actor Richard Franklin's house [IYKYK]). And that isn't a slam on all fan films at all - as I've said I do mean to dive into more in the future - it's just that this has a standing of it's own apart from the others, in my view at least.
A weird glimpse into a parallel timeline (ah, but is it a continuation of the 1970 Parallel Time dimension from Dark Shadows? And was that itself the same continuum as 1841 Parallel Time? ANSWER ME! This is what goes on inside my head the whole entire time, you know - it's like Herman's Head if the voices contained within Charlie Brewster were constantly arguing over continuity and canonicity) where Anthony Coburn's second story followed his first instead of Terry Nation's 'The Daleks', it's certainly an interesting plane of reality to visit but I'm not sure that many would want to live there permanently.