DOCTOR WHO REVIEW: THE TALONS OF WENG CHIANG
Written By : Robert Holmes
Directed By : David Maloney
Today, I continue my reviews of my favourite stories from each of the twelve doctors. The fourth doctor is an interesting one because there are several stories from his era which I love and it was difficult for me to actually pick one better from the other. I love The Pyramids of Mars, but then I also really like Terror of the Zygons, The Seeds of Doom, The Masque of Mandragora, The Deadly Assassin, The Robots of Death, Horror of Fang Rock and City of Death but it's difficult because Tom had so many little era's within his own era as the doctor.
Putting all of that aside and actually having to narrow it all down to just one story that I truly love watching and never get tired of watching, I can remember the first time when I watched "The Talons of Weng Chiang" during christmas 2009 and just adored it. I would watch it again, and again and even if there were times where I didn't feel like watching the whole story, I would watch bits of it, funny scenes, scenes which I found thrilling or entertaining about the story or dramatic. I just loved it, for a time it was my favourite doctor who story until I saw Day of the Daleks the following year and that all changed.
This story just has everything. A compelling outline, a great pace, fantastic storyline, dark setting, excellent script, superb cast, brilliant villains and a top of the class director.
This story was written by Robert Holmes who has written various other stories for the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth doctors. As well as being the writer of some of the stories, he was also the script editor so he oversaw a lot of the scripts that came in during the time of the early to mid 1970's. So stories like "The Brain of Morbius" for instance, that has a lot of Robert Holmes in it, even though it was written by Terrance Dicks. As well as that, working alongside with Holmes was a man called Phillip Hinchcliffe who as the producer after Barry Letts left. The Talons of Weng Chiang was to be Hinchcliffe and Holmes's final story as the head production of Doctor Who. They did have another season of stories which they were in the process of planning, however after being in charge for three years, in 1977 Phillip Hinchcliffe got the sack because he was told that the stories that was producing were too scary and too violent for children or young audiences so he was moved on to another programme called "Target".
I guess the main questions I ask myself when it comes to the stories that I love so much, are the same sort of questions that I ask myself last week. Why do I love it so much? what is it about this story that draws me to it so much that I can't stop watching? Well... I guess you could say that in terms of this story, I like the victorian influences in it such as Sherlock Holmes, Phantom of the Opera, Man in the iron mask, heavily influenced by literature of the time and the culture of the time. I love for the premise of its popularity as this story is highly regarded by fans as one of the best doctor who stories ever made and I would be inclined to agree with that. It's up there with "The Caves of Androzani", "Blink", "The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances", and "Genesis of the Daleks" to name but a few. Of course this story has to put up with criticisms for being racist, which I can understand, it has gotten heavily criticised for being racist.
I love the grim, dark, victorian setting. The victorian era has to be one of my favourite era's in history and considering that the BBC do costume drama very well they manage to convince the viewer that you are where the story is set, with believable and life like settings and convincing detailed costumes which looked excellent, and the make up on this story was superb as well.
The pace of this story is great because, it just goes so quickly. You watch this story and you think "my goodness, I can't believe I just sat through six, twenty five minute episodes." everything happens at a very quick pace, the problem with most six parters for me tends to be in the middle and this story does suffer from that where you get to episode three and things do tend to slow down and then the pace picks up again in episode four and we're back to normal pace. But overall, I thought the pace of this story was truly excellent.
Great villains, excellent villain in Magnus Greel or as he's other wise known in the story as Weng Chiang. I liked the design of his costume. I though actor Michael Spice gave a tremendous performance in the role, effective voice and he you truly felt he was a desperate character struggling to stay alive and that what makes him a threat because he is so desperate, and on the brink, he would do anything to keep himself alive.
Mr Sin. He would be scary for children watching this story at the time in 1977. He's a very sort of garish, ugly little runt of a thing that would throw a knife in your back as soon you turn away. I liked the whole concept behind him, and the back story that he had, which is explained in episode five of the story. It was very interesting to go into such detail so the audience understood it and wanted to be interested in wanting to know.
There are other splendid performances in this, from Tom Baker to Louise Jameson to Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter, both of which I feel came together to form the best double act in Doctor Who's 53 year history. Jago and Litefoot are wonderful together and make quite a team.
Tom Baker's doctor is always a bit off the wall. He is the most unpredictable of the doctors you never quite know what to expect next from him. Tom gives more of a stern, serious performance in this particular story. He's not so much the eccentric ball of energy that he is in some of the Graham William's stories or in some of his earlier stories. You really feel that the doctor is a detective, he's working stuff out and yes, there are elements of Tom's humour in the performance. He makes the odd joke here and there, and flashes the classic Tom Baker grin from time to time. But overall, very distant from his normal characteristic behaviour. That doesn't mean to say that Tom isn't very good. He is, he's just more stern and serious in this story than he normally is.
The rat of course, yes, that is one of the less redeeming factors about this story. It isn't scary at all. At least not to me. It's impressive in how they did it, but I just felt the rat just lumbered about in terms of movement it wasn't very threatening or come across as scary at all. It was this big fury thing lumbering across the screen and the actors being told "This is scary" and they go "AHHH!". It's quite ridiculous.
Leela was good, even though she is actually better in other stories before and after this. They really did play on the Eliza Dolittle to professor Higgins thing in dressing her up in a proper victorian dress and doing her hair up all nice and proper, she was very quiet posh in this story, a bit posh for a savage. She's never been like that before, but in this story, she was.
David Maloney, terrific director. Really understand the concept of what the story was about and was very creative and inventive with his camera angles and choices of the way you saw characters perspectives. I like directors who actually take the time to make the effort to go into such detail as you'll get more out of the story.
Going back to my question before about why do I love this story so much? I guess I just became captivated with it. The music I remember had a big part to play in making scenes as dramatic as they were. I felt the music score for this was excellent, it matched well to what was going on in the scene. Superb production values, made the story look very dark and mysterious, as well as that wonderful acting from all the cast just come together to produce what was a very successful story.
Some might argue that it is over rated or not very interesting, and I can understand and respect such views. It's not perfect, there some fundamental flaws with it that clearly show when you watch it but overall I love it. I welcome this story as being one of the greatest stories ever made and just reading it on paper, it's one of most compelling doctor who scripts ever written in my opinion, on the exception of course of Day of the Daleks.
NEXT WEEK : The Caves of Androzani.
