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Doctor Who, The Wilderness Years: The '90s, Pre-Movie, Review
So my plan of watching all the Wilderness Years content in 2022 didn't pan out for one reason or another, nor did my planned New Who rewatch in 2023 (which has been surprisingly Doctor Who-lite in general). I have spent the past year tinkering with my approach a bit, which involved dividing this era into three sections as well as the TV movie, and it seems like it's mostly worked. The one part I've been going back and forth on is whether to include Reeltime and BBV films in the same ranking or to split them up. In the end I decided since these lists are gonna be divided up as it is why add another. (I will add that I am not watching any BBV material while providing any sort of financial support to the company, in light of what happened last year. Read into that as you will.)
Going into this I was expecting a dip in quality, mostly from visual production and scripting. However, the most common issue I ran into is sound quality, which I'm bringing up here because I suspect the sound mixing may have been fixed in versions of these releases I do not have access to, making it a marginally unfair metric to hold against it. That said, this aspect is important since I had trouble following what was happening in at least two of these. I actually ended up pretty impressed with how most of these turned out visually, to be honest.
Overall, this review covers video content from the '90s released prior to the 1996 TV Movie. This includes two officially licensed "special" productions by the BBC, and four independently-made spinoff films with officially licensed characters and/or monsters. I've ranked each story based on these two designations.
Characters
Normally I use this section to highlight my thoughts on the writing and performances of the major characters, but considering how many there are I'm only going to cherry pick some of the more notable ones. I will say that taking into consideration performances from Dimensions in Time isn't particularly feasible considering... yeah.
John Levene as John Benton - I didn't know that Levene had actually retired from acting going into this, so I'm happy we got to see him again even in an independent project. However, he spends most of it acting by himself or reacting to a hallucination, which he does a serviceable job at, but it just makes me wish we got to see a proper swan song for the character.
Caroline John as Liz Shaw - There as a thirty year gap between proper appearances of the character, so its hard to draw a straight line from the Liz we saw in Season 7 to the Liz that shows up in P.R.O.B.E.. That said, John definitely has the gravitas to be able to carry a series of films as a lead, and when she gets the opportunity to she's giving the best performance in any of the things I watched for this review. This is going mostly off the second film though, since she weirdly doesn't get a ton of screen time in the first film.
Louise Jameson as Patricia Haggard (and briefly Leela) - I love Leela, and while it was fun seeing her pop up briefly in the role again in Dimensions in Time, Jameson at this point in time feels more suited as Patricia. Her chemistry with John is surprisingly good, and she does a lot with the little she is given, especially in The Devil of Winterborne. I'm excited to see where this character ends up going (if anywhere) and it's piqued my interest in Jameson's other roles outside the Doctor Who universe.
Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - While not the final appearance of the character, his appearance here where he gets the spotlight serves as a nice victory lap for the character, and it's a treat to see him actually interact with his daughter. I'm a bit annoyed they didn't even include a bit of throwaway dialog explaining where his wife is, but this still feels like the same character we saw in Battlefield and it ties nicely in with his origins in The Web of Fear. I wish they had allowed him more screentime with UNIT and Sarah Jane Smith, but I understand it came down to the story's structure and how much time they actually had.
Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield - I have so many mixed feelings about this return and this performance. It felt like, in the beginning especially, Victoria had taken stupid pills in order for the rest of the plot to happen. (Like I didn't for a second buy that she had forgotten what the Great Intelligence was). However, her more mature, half-brainwashed portrayal in the rest of the film works much better than expected. It's a surprisingly bleak follow-up for a Classic companion that feels emotionally honest to how she would have ended up, and leaves me as the viewer wanting more when she absconds off into the ether at the end. Perhaps that's the ideal sendoff for the character, especially in contrast with the more modern inclination to put a bow on everything.
Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy as The Doctor and other roles - Aside from Sylvester, none of them are actually playing the Doctor here for very long, but it was a nice treat to see so much of these former Doctors get a sizeable amount of screentime and flex their acting muscles in new roles, even if the projects themselves are a bit on the dodgier side. It's especially delightful to see more of Pertwee, as he passed in 1996, and the introduction talk show segment he had in Dimensions in Time was probably my favorite part. Davison also knocks it out of the park with his more dramatic acting in The Devil of Winterborne.
As far as other performances go, Shakedown is really making me want to bump Blake's 7 up my priority list because of how many actors from that have bled over into '80s and '90s Who. I was also really impressed with the supporting cast in The Devil of Winterborne and Downtime. I'll get into it more below, but seeing the first incarnation of Kate (Lethbridge-)Stewart was something I've been looking forward to and I really enjoyed it. I was surprised at how little screentime Elisabeth Sladen had as Sarah Jane Smith, though I guess it's a victory they managed to get the rights to the character at all.
The BBC
I get that the show had just been cancelled, but it's honestly sad at how little the BBC actively cared about Doctor Who as a property during this era, especially since the thirtieth anniversary occurred during this time and they had an actor willing and able to play the most current incarnation still at the top of his game. I'm glad it's not nothing at least.
2) Specials, 2 Parts - Dimensions In Time
Official press materials describe this release as a "pantomime" to explain why... it is the way it is. To be honest that seems like an insult to pantomimes, and I get why fans at the time were so mad about this. Aside from the talk show intro segments sometimes featuring Jon Pertwee, which aren't technically part of the actual story, everything that happens is pretty incomprehensible. I hope they manage to license this for an eventual Collection box set for no other reason than to see a version with cleaned up video and audio and a subtitle option. It's especially a shame because it feels like Kate O'Mara is actually bringing something as The Rani which is completely lost in this confusing mess. As an admitted enjoyer of The Star Wars Holiday Special, this is the inferior product. The most surprising thing about it is that they managed to secure Tom Baker to appear in it at all! Also, it probably goes without saying, but the decision to make this a crossover with EastEnders of all things is... something.
1) Search Out Science Episode - Search Out Space
Independent Spinoffs
I'm honestly pretty impressed by how quickly the quality of these productions improved, considering most are made on a shoestring budget. I suppose they would need to in order to attract the participation of so many actors from the main show, but I was expecting far less so my expectations have pretty definitively been surpassed. And while I do think the Reeltime and BBV releases have a different flavor to them - and likely a difference in how "canon" they're considered by the larger continuity - I decided it would be the most fair to rank them all together.
5) Reeltime Production #1 - Wartime
The framing device (which I mostly understood via reading a summary of the story) should have been fleshed out more, because it's key to making any sense of why the story plays out as it does with Benton hallucinating. And when Benton is actually in a scene interacting with someone else, usually his father, it's good, but so much of it is spent with him emoting by himself. Probably the decision that shocked me the most was showing the (staged) body of a dead child, which is something even productions dealing with child death tend to shy away from. Overall, this felt more like a learning experiment rather than a project that can stand on it's own outside the context of how it was made.
4) BBV Production #1, P.R.O.B.E. Film 1 - The Zero Imperative
3) Reeltime Production #2 - Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans
Honestly, I was blown away by how good this story looked. Not that it was transcendent or anything, but if you told me this was an official Doctor Who story made on the cheap side I would've bought it - which is all the more impressive considering this whole thing was written, shot, and released within a very short time frame. The sets and costumes look on par with something from the main series, and its edited in a way that feels sleek and professional. The actors - alum of Doctor Who or otherwise - are all really solid in their roles, and it's really fun seeing Sophie Aldred and Carole Ann Ford in particular play against type and do it so well. It actually makes it even more outrageous that Ford hasn't been utilized at all in the revived series. Jan Chappell and Brian Croucher doing so well with some really clunky dialog has definitely energized my desire to watch Blake's 7.
The thing that really brings this story down are some of the questionable writing decisions. Terrence Dicks didn't pen any of the Classic series stories featuring Sontarans, but he was the writer of the Rutan's sole appearance in "Horror of Fang Rock" and the show's script editor for "The Time Monster". So I guess it was a bit of a shock that the characterization of the Sontarans was so strange. Putting aside their licensing-required designed tweaks, they behaved more like British war generals in a Shakespeare play than either the classic portrayal or even the goofier revival one. It almost makes me wonder if there's a spinoff novel somewhere that explains them away as some weird offshoot. The repeated use of the phrase "sexually pair-bonded" also landed like a thud every time it came up (which was weirdly often) and felt more like the production having fun with the fact that they could acknowledge the existence of sex because it was direct-to-video. At least the only onscreen confrontation between the Sontarans and the Rutans felt somewhat natural.
2) Reeltime Production #3 - Downtime
Downtime felt like it should have either been fifteen minutes longer, or used it's time more wisely. Because at the end of the day that's the primary reason it landed in second place instead of first. The dream sequences the Brigadier were not explained well enough (or at all until halfway through) and there were other sequences that just felt like the film treading water until the third act when all the characters met up. But there's no reason the characters couldn't have met up and interacted more in the second act. The biggest disappointment was probably how little Sarah Jane had to do and how little screen time any of the returning characters shared with one another. That said, I thought most of the moments where they did to be the most effective of the film, as well as when Kate finally got involved in a meaningful way. The Brigadier resolving some of his previously alluded to family issues was great to see, as was seeing him reunite with Sarah Jane at the end. Nicholas Courtney did great with the material he was given, and his screen partners were serviceable enough.
Simultaneously the best and worst thing this film did is everything with Victoria and Travers. The meat of the movie, with Victoria essentially serving as the brainwashed antagonist, is a really cool way to use a former companion and it makes for effective drama. However, the steps they took to get there are a bit shaky, and I'll once again reiterate that there's no reason she shouldn't have recognized the Great Intelligence. The tragic end for Travers also does a good job at rounding out his arc from his original run. In all honesty, I have a soft spot for the Great Intelligence as a villain as series 7 of the revival was the first I watched in real time, so seeing this missing piece of their lore fit so perfectly as a bridge between that and their classic appearances was very satisfying. The fact that Kate Stewart also made her main series debut that season also definitely conditioned me to like this story. It's a trend with Classic monsters and villains I wish New Who would do more often, rather than trotting out the Master, the Daleks, and the Cybermen for the umpteenth time.
1) BBV Production #1, P.R.O.B.E. Film 1 - The Devil of Winterborne
I went into this film not expecting much, especially with how much of a mixed bag the previous film had been. So suffice to say I was blown away by this. It's no masterpiece by any means, it's still very much the same kind of B-Horror/Sci-fi that the first one was, but this time they landed in that sweet spot that it was clearly going for. It helps that, during moments there is intense and serious acting it lands. Caroline John and Peter Davison are particular standouts, with scenes like Liz telling Patty about her childhood fear of a graveyard and Purcell confessing to a murder not having any right to be as creepy and effective as they are. Terry Malloy is also a great foil for Liz as D.I. Burke, and its a shame he apparently doesn't show up again after this because he was set up so well. Honestly, the only weak member of the cast is a pretty glaring one. Mark Gatiss's portrayal of Georgie is questionable at best and at worst... well, he slips out of his stutter when the pacing of the plot requires it. While he's a character we're supposed to sympathize with, it feels mean-spirited in a way the rampant evil homoeroticism never manages to.
And yeah, while I had my biases with the last film, I have a soft spot for camp gay horror that delves beyond subtext, and all three student characters provided no shortage of that. The Luke character made me feel genuinely sad, and everything with Christian and Andrew ended up being so twisted and fun to watch. It's weird to think that these are the first explicitly gay on-screen characters in Doctor Who, bless you Mark Gatiss. I also appreciated the heavy subtext with Liz and Patricia that contrasted nicely with its warmth and genuine emotion, lest this just devolve into a "gay = evil or dead" parable. As a negative though, I will say I was put off by the amount of blood and gore in this, and I get why it was there but still.
Final Thoughts
I forgot how long it takes me to write these reviews, between finding the time to sit down to do it and the time it takes to actually write it all out. I'm so happy I decided to do this though, as it serves as a nice record of this years-long project that's much more reliable than a series of Twitter threads. Next up, at long last, is the TV Movie, and then two more chunks of Wilderness years content before I loop back, finally, to the revived series. While I can't do a full rewatch before the anniversary now, I think I'll continue with my plans for a rewatch and even document it, though probably not in anywhere near as much detail as my first watch of Doctor Who.
So yeah, I suppose my short-term goal now is to finish the Wilderness Years before the anniversary. I've also made some plans to watch the post-Wilderness Independent Spinoff content, which I've heard much worse things about so that's exciting. Until the next review, which I hope to god is soon. I left this coming weekend free for the TV Movie, after all.
Going into this I was expecting a dip in quality, mostly from visual production and scripting. However, the most common issue I ran into is sound quality, which I'm bringing up here because I suspect the sound mixing may have been fixed in versions of these releases I do not have access to, making it a marginally unfair metric to hold against it. That said, this aspect is important since I had trouble following what was happening in at least two of these. I actually ended up pretty impressed with how most of these turned out visually, to be honest.
Overall, this review covers video content from the '90s released prior to the 1996 TV Movie. This includes two officially licensed "special" productions by the BBC, and four independently-made spinoff films with officially licensed characters and/or monsters. I've ranked each story based on these two designations.
Characters
Normally I use this section to highlight my thoughts on the writing and performances of the major characters, but considering how many there are I'm only going to cherry pick some of the more notable ones. I will say that taking into consideration performances from Dimensions in Time isn't particularly feasible considering... yeah.
John Levene as John Benton - I didn't know that Levene had actually retired from acting going into this, so I'm happy we got to see him again even in an independent project. However, he spends most of it acting by himself or reacting to a hallucination, which he does a serviceable job at, but it just makes me wish we got to see a proper swan song for the character.
Caroline John as Liz Shaw - There as a thirty year gap between proper appearances of the character, so its hard to draw a straight line from the Liz we saw in Season 7 to the Liz that shows up in P.R.O.B.E.. That said, John definitely has the gravitas to be able to carry a series of films as a lead, and when she gets the opportunity to she's giving the best performance in any of the things I watched for this review. This is going mostly off the second film though, since she weirdly doesn't get a ton of screen time in the first film.
Louise Jameson as Patricia Haggard (and briefly Leela) - I love Leela, and while it was fun seeing her pop up briefly in the role again in Dimensions in Time, Jameson at this point in time feels more suited as Patricia. Her chemistry with John is surprisingly good, and she does a lot with the little she is given, especially in The Devil of Winterborne. I'm excited to see where this character ends up going (if anywhere) and it's piqued my interest in Jameson's other roles outside the Doctor Who universe.
Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - While not the final appearance of the character, his appearance here where he gets the spotlight serves as a nice victory lap for the character, and it's a treat to see him actually interact with his daughter. I'm a bit annoyed they didn't even include a bit of throwaway dialog explaining where his wife is, but this still feels like the same character we saw in Battlefield and it ties nicely in with his origins in The Web of Fear. I wish they had allowed him more screentime with UNIT and Sarah Jane Smith, but I understand it came down to the story's structure and how much time they actually had.
Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield - I have so many mixed feelings about this return and this performance. It felt like, in the beginning especially, Victoria had taken stupid pills in order for the rest of the plot to happen. (Like I didn't for a second buy that she had forgotten what the Great Intelligence was). However, her more mature, half-brainwashed portrayal in the rest of the film works much better than expected. It's a surprisingly bleak follow-up for a Classic companion that feels emotionally honest to how she would have ended up, and leaves me as the viewer wanting more when she absconds off into the ether at the end. Perhaps that's the ideal sendoff for the character, especially in contrast with the more modern inclination to put a bow on everything.
Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy as The Doctor and other roles - Aside from Sylvester, none of them are actually playing the Doctor here for very long, but it was a nice treat to see so much of these former Doctors get a sizeable amount of screentime and flex their acting muscles in new roles, even if the projects themselves are a bit on the dodgier side. It's especially delightful to see more of Pertwee, as he passed in 1996, and the introduction talk show segment he had in Dimensions in Time was probably my favorite part. Davison also knocks it out of the park with his more dramatic acting in The Devil of Winterborne.
As far as other performances go, Shakedown is really making me want to bump Blake's 7 up my priority list because of how many actors from that have bled over into '80s and '90s Who. I was also really impressed with the supporting cast in The Devil of Winterborne and Downtime. I'll get into it more below, but seeing the first incarnation of Kate (Lethbridge-)Stewart was something I've been looking forward to and I really enjoyed it. I was surprised at how little screentime Elisabeth Sladen had as Sarah Jane Smith, though I guess it's a victory they managed to get the rights to the character at all.
The BBC
I get that the show had just been cancelled, but it's honestly sad at how little the BBC actively cared about Doctor Who as a property during this era, especially since the thirtieth anniversary occurred during this time and they had an actor willing and able to play the most current incarnation still at the top of his game. I'm glad it's not nothing at least.
2) Specials, 2 Parts - Dimensions In Time
Dimensions in Time certainly lives up to it's reputation. An interesting premise made incomprehensible by the short runtime, frantic pace, and appearances by EastEnders characters. Though considering it's a charity special, it was nice to be able to see so many characters again. (x)
Official press materials describe this release as a "pantomime" to explain why... it is the way it is. To be honest that seems like an insult to pantomimes, and I get why fans at the time were so mad about this. Aside from the talk show intro segments sometimes featuring Jon Pertwee, which aren't technically part of the actual story, everything that happens is pretty incomprehensible. I hope they manage to license this for an eventual Collection box set for no other reason than to see a version with cleaned up video and audio and a subtitle option. It's especially a shame because it feels like Kate O'Mara is actually bringing something as The Rani which is completely lost in this confusing mess. As an admitted enjoyer of The Star Wars Holiday Special, this is the inferior product. The most surprising thing about it is that they managed to secure Tom Baker to appear in it at all! Also, it probably goes without saying, but the decision to make this a crossover with EastEnders of all things is... something.
1) Search Out Science Episode - Search Out Space
Search Out Space is a fun oddity that's mostly enjoyable as a way of seeing the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and K-9 on screen again. The questions are for very young children so the content itself is sadly not very engaging. (x)
Apparently the expanded universe figured out a way to insert this into Doctor Who canon, but at the end of the day this is just a fun children's show appearance by McCoy and Aldred as the Seventh Doctor and Ace, along with Leeson as K-9. The show is clearly designed for very young children ("What shape is the Earth?" being one of the questions) so there isn't any depth to be found here if you were searching for any. However, since this aired just a year after the show's end, it's a special treat to see the Doctor and Ace just as they were on their final adventures. And really, at the end of the day, that's all it really takes to do better than Dimensions in Time.Independent Spinoffs
I'm honestly pretty impressed by how quickly the quality of these productions improved, considering most are made on a shoestring budget. I suppose they would need to in order to attract the participation of so many actors from the main show, but I was expecting far less so my expectations have pretty definitively been surpassed. And while I do think the Reeltime and BBV releases have a different flavor to them - and likely a difference in how "canon" they're considered by the larger continuity - I decided it would be the most fair to rank them all together.
5) Reeltime Production #1 - Wartime
Wartime has a decent story and was actually filmed relatively well despite its budget... however the editing choices ranged from confusing to outright terrible, dragging the overall production down. The framing device should have also been explained and expanded on a bit more. (x)
I feel bad ranking this so low as it's the very first of these productions, and was the only one to be made while the show was still in production, but at the same time it's a good sign that future productions improved from where this started. This is the one that had the most apparent production issues (that went beyond a low budget). The editing specifically is perplexingly bad, and there are whole sequences that just seem like the editing team was playing around with the new special effect tools that were available rather than using them in a smart way (it was giving Powerpoint presentation). The decision to have all the B-roll of the other soldier waiting for Benton play out in slow motion gives the impression that they didn't shoot enough footage and were trying to stretch out what they had, but they also probably would have benefited from cutting down the runtime of Benton walking through the woods. It just seemed like there were long stretches where someone was quietly walking around without anything happening.The framing device (which I mostly understood via reading a summary of the story) should have been fleshed out more, because it's key to making any sense of why the story plays out as it does with Benton hallucinating. And when Benton is actually in a scene interacting with someone else, usually his father, it's good, but so much of it is spent with him emoting by himself. Probably the decision that shocked me the most was showing the (staged) body of a dead child, which is something even productions dealing with child death tend to shy away from. Overall, this felt more like a learning experiment rather than a project that can stand on it's own outside the context of how it was made.
4) BBV Production #1, P.R.O.B.E. Film 1 - The Zero Imperative
The Zero Imperative suffers from a lot of technical issues (mostly sound mixing) that often make it hard to follow, but is saved by the acting performances of it's cast and a premise that isn't too complex despite it's ambition. I wish they gave Liz more to do though. (x)
When I thought of "independent spinoffs" before starting this, this was basically the type of movie I'd thought up in my mind. A sketchy psychiatric hospital that's hiding a patient and a mysterious string of murders, and a suspicious as hell admin staff. It helps this movie a lot that said admin staff are all former Doctor actors, because the writing often feels like it's a draft short of being done and aspects of the production feel lacking enough to bring down the story. It was weird seeing a young Mark Gatiss in this, and have him maybe even have more screen time than Liz Shaw, who's supposed to be the main character. In fact, the plethora of Doctor Who actors means none of them really get the chance to take the lead in any scene, and need to split focus with at least one other. Tonally it often feels too serious for cheesy b-horror/scifi, but isn't produced well enough to be taken seriously. So yeah, quintessential "knockoff Doctor Who" vibes. Gotta start somewhere I guess. At least the story itself struck the right balance of being "complex, but not too difficult to understand" which is something a lot of similar movies fail to achieve.3) Reeltime Production #2 - Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans
Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans has some iffy aspects - specifically the characterization of the Sontarans and the repeated use of the phrase "sexually pair-bonded" - but is otherwise an enjoyable story. The acting and production design is impressive for an independent project. (x)
Honestly, I was blown away by how good this story looked. Not that it was transcendent or anything, but if you told me this was an official Doctor Who story made on the cheap side I would've bought it - which is all the more impressive considering this whole thing was written, shot, and released within a very short time frame. The sets and costumes look on par with something from the main series, and its edited in a way that feels sleek and professional. The actors - alum of Doctor Who or otherwise - are all really solid in their roles, and it's really fun seeing Sophie Aldred and Carole Ann Ford in particular play against type and do it so well. It actually makes it even more outrageous that Ford hasn't been utilized at all in the revived series. Jan Chappell and Brian Croucher doing so well with some really clunky dialog has definitely energized my desire to watch Blake's 7.
The thing that really brings this story down are some of the questionable writing decisions. Terrence Dicks didn't pen any of the Classic series stories featuring Sontarans, but he was the writer of the Rutan's sole appearance in "Horror of Fang Rock" and the show's script editor for "The Time Monster". So I guess it was a bit of a shock that the characterization of the Sontarans was so strange. Putting aside their licensing-required designed tweaks, they behaved more like British war generals in a Shakespeare play than either the classic portrayal or even the goofier revival one. It almost makes me wonder if there's a spinoff novel somewhere that explains them away as some weird offshoot. The repeated use of the phrase "sexually pair-bonded" also landed like a thud every time it came up (which was weirdly often) and felt more like the production having fun with the fact that they could acknowledge the existence of sex because it was direct-to-video. At least the only onscreen confrontation between the Sontarans and the Rutans felt somewhat natural.
2) Reeltime Production #3 - Downtime
Downtime has some glaring pacing issues, but is otherwise a fun story that serves as a worthy chapter in the Great Intelligence saga. The highlight though is definitely seeing Classic characters on screen again, as well as the introduction of Kate Stewart. (x)
Downtime felt like it should have either been fifteen minutes longer, or used it's time more wisely. Because at the end of the day that's the primary reason it landed in second place instead of first. The dream sequences the Brigadier were not explained well enough (or at all until halfway through) and there were other sequences that just felt like the film treading water until the third act when all the characters met up. But there's no reason the characters couldn't have met up and interacted more in the second act. The biggest disappointment was probably how little Sarah Jane had to do and how little screen time any of the returning characters shared with one another. That said, I thought most of the moments where they did to be the most effective of the film, as well as when Kate finally got involved in a meaningful way. The Brigadier resolving some of his previously alluded to family issues was great to see, as was seeing him reunite with Sarah Jane at the end. Nicholas Courtney did great with the material he was given, and his screen partners were serviceable enough.
Simultaneously the best and worst thing this film did is everything with Victoria and Travers. The meat of the movie, with Victoria essentially serving as the brainwashed antagonist, is a really cool way to use a former companion and it makes for effective drama. However, the steps they took to get there are a bit shaky, and I'll once again reiterate that there's no reason she shouldn't have recognized the Great Intelligence. The tragic end for Travers also does a good job at rounding out his arc from his original run. In all honesty, I have a soft spot for the Great Intelligence as a villain as series 7 of the revival was the first I watched in real time, so seeing this missing piece of their lore fit so perfectly as a bridge between that and their classic appearances was very satisfying. The fact that Kate Stewart also made her main series debut that season also definitely conditioned me to like this story. It's a trend with Classic monsters and villains I wish New Who would do more often, rather than trotting out the Master, the Daleks, and the Cybermen for the umpteenth time.
1) BBV Production #1, P.R.O.B.E. Film 1 - The Devil of Winterborne
The Devil of Winterborne is a massive leap forward in production quality, and is much creepier and graphic than the first film. I was also really happy that Liz actually got a lot of screentime and helped drive the narrative forward this time. (x)
I went into this film not expecting much, especially with how much of a mixed bag the previous film had been. So suffice to say I was blown away by this. It's no masterpiece by any means, it's still very much the same kind of B-Horror/Sci-fi that the first one was, but this time they landed in that sweet spot that it was clearly going for. It helps that, during moments there is intense and serious acting it lands. Caroline John and Peter Davison are particular standouts, with scenes like Liz telling Patty about her childhood fear of a graveyard and Purcell confessing to a murder not having any right to be as creepy and effective as they are. Terry Malloy is also a great foil for Liz as D.I. Burke, and its a shame he apparently doesn't show up again after this because he was set up so well. Honestly, the only weak member of the cast is a pretty glaring one. Mark Gatiss's portrayal of Georgie is questionable at best and at worst... well, he slips out of his stutter when the pacing of the plot requires it. While he's a character we're supposed to sympathize with, it feels mean-spirited in a way the rampant evil homoeroticism never manages to.
And yeah, while I had my biases with the last film, I have a soft spot for camp gay horror that delves beyond subtext, and all three student characters provided no shortage of that. The Luke character made me feel genuinely sad, and everything with Christian and Andrew ended up being so twisted and fun to watch. It's weird to think that these are the first explicitly gay on-screen characters in Doctor Who, bless you Mark Gatiss. I also appreciated the heavy subtext with Liz and Patricia that contrasted nicely with its warmth and genuine emotion, lest this just devolve into a "gay = evil or dead" parable. As a negative though, I will say I was put off by the amount of blood and gore in this, and I get why it was there but still.
Final Thoughts
I forgot how long it takes me to write these reviews, between finding the time to sit down to do it and the time it takes to actually write it all out. I'm so happy I decided to do this though, as it serves as a nice record of this years-long project that's much more reliable than a series of Twitter threads. Next up, at long last, is the TV Movie, and then two more chunks of Wilderness years content before I loop back, finally, to the revived series. While I can't do a full rewatch before the anniversary now, I think I'll continue with my plans for a rewatch and even document it, though probably not in anywhere near as much detail as my first watch of Doctor Who.
So yeah, I suppose my short-term goal now is to finish the Wilderness Years before the anniversary. I've also made some plans to watch the post-Wilderness Independent Spinoff content, which I've heard much worse things about so that's exciting. Until the next review, which I hope to god is soon. I left this coming weekend free for the TV Movie, after all.