The Geek Show

When I’ve told fellow Doctor Who fans that the next story I’m reviewing is The Five Doctors, there’s generally been a knowing laugh. Not, to be clear, a mocking laugh – nothing like the “ha ha, you poor sod” response I got when it was The Underwater Menace. No, it’s an indulgent, fannish amusement, the appropriate response to an indulgent, fannish and amusing story.

This article contains spoilers for the bizarre twist ending to The Legend of Hell House (1973). If you have not yet seen the film and wish to remain unspoiled, please watch it before reading further. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the name Doctor Who? For some, that will be the image of the TARDIS, the Doctor’s iconic time-travelling blue box. Some will think of a specific actor who played the Doctor, such as Tom Baker or David Tennant.

Long wanting to catch Kenichi Ugana’s work, it wasn’t until we caught the inimitable punk fever of last year’s The Gesouidoz (at London Fanta) that we finally caught up with the eclectic director making a name for himself on the international festival circuit. When his name popped up again for Fantastic Fest with his latest movie, The Curse, we had to pounce (doubly so, as we have an interview coming up). And we can report that it’s 2 for 2 with us.

You could argue that The King’s Demons is the last ordinary story of the classic series. Over the course of the ’80s, as the show becomes a bizarrely early victim of the streaming-era curse of shortened seasons with no filler episodes, the middle ground of Doctor Who falls away; everything starts aiming to be epic or experimental or operatic, rather than solid. On paper, it sounds like a good thing – why would anyone want a solid filler episode instead of something that’s aiming for the stars?

The late 1960s were a golden age for radical, anti-authoritarian Leftist cinema, and no wonder when you look at the stature of the directors making such films: Jean-Luc Godard, Costa-Gavras, Glauber Rocha, Richard Attenborough. Wait – Richard Attenborough? Sir Richard Attenborough? Sir Richard Santa Claus Attenborough, Oscar darling of the 1980s, man whose only significant controversy involved lax safety standards at his dinosaur theme park?

The country most people associate with the idea of a horror franchise is America. The UK has a few, as do Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand, but the notion of anyone competing with the USA on franchising is laughable. Which is why the existence of a Norwegian slasher trilogy isn’t just an outlier — Cold Prey is an anomaly. Directed across three movies by Roar Uthaug, Mats Stenberg, and Mikkel Brænne Sandemose, the series now has a brand‑new, flashy Blu‑ray box set courtesy of Second Sight Films.

By the end of Peter Davison’s second season there is an unbridgeable gap between what the show does well and what the production team and the fans both want it to do. What it does well – and what it’s been doing a lot of recently – is produce cerebral mysteries, often themed around mysticism or time travel, which delve into the companions’ back stories and show off the Fifth Doctor’s pensive, empathetic qualities to fine effect.

Terminus is, at the very least, trying to do some distinctive things – and if you think that’s an unpromising introduction to a review, well, you’re right, but let’s take stock of the positive things first. It’s the middle story in a linked run of three adventures, which isn’t unprecedented in the series’ history, but it’s being done in a more ambitious way this time.

When it comes to stealing intellectual property, asking for permission is overrated. The same goes for dangerous stunts, particularly that of the skydiving variety, especially if it means a shot at playing a gig at the most esteemed live venue in your hometown. At least, that’s the logic preached by Canadian trailblazer Matt Johnson, forever a bold and unabashed success story of stretching the legal limits of what you can capture on-camera in the spirit of anarchic fun.

Following on from Snakedance‘s exploration of the Fifth Doctor’s character and particular brand of heroism, here’s another road not wholly taken. The problem the Fifth Doctor keeps running into isn’t that Peter Davison is a bad actor – he may be second only to Patrick Troughton as the most technically gifted performer to take the role in the classic series – but because his Doctor’s characterisation is too often boiled down to “not Tom Baker”.