December
15
2007
Now, I can understand why Andotus is upset. As we saw at the end of the last chapter, he’s dangling on the end of a rope over the side of a subterranean chasm (or sub-Skarosian, I suppose), with the other end tied around Ian’s waist on a small stone ledge above. Ian’s not anchored to anything, and Andotus’ fall as he tried to leap the chasm has knocked Ian off his feet as well, and now only his failing fingertips are keeping both of them from plunging into the darkness below. But Andotus is screaming, “I can’t hold on!” And that makes no sense. He’s got a rope tied around his waist. Holding on’s not an issue. Not that that helps him; the sides of the chasm are sheer, with no handholds to help him clamber back up, or at least take the weight off Ian’s midsection.
Even when Ganatus creeps his way back around the narrow ledge to help, he can’t do much more than pull the sleeve of Ian’s jacket; their hands are too sweaty to hold tight. (Indian grips. The Thals have never invented Indian grips.) In desperation, Andotus pulls out his pocketknife and sacrifices himself for the team, doing a good approximation of the Wilhelm scream on the way down. I have always hoped, should I ever have the misfortune to plummet to my death, that I would have the presence of mind to do a Goofy/Tom-n-Jerry kind of “Wa-hoo-hoo-hoo!” on the way down.
December
1
2007
As you will recall, there are now two separate parties working to get the Thals into the Dalek city as part of a sorta pre-emptive strike. (Well, and also to get the Doctor’s fluid link component for the TARDIS, so they can get the heck out of Dodge.) One party, containing the Doctor, Susan, Alydon, and Alydon’s main squeeze (sorry, I don’t remember her name — how sexist of me is that?), plans to cause a distraction at the front gate of the city. The second, containing Ian, Barbara, and various other Thals, plans to trek through the radioactive swamp to the mountain cliffs on the far side of the city, and find some means of entry there. It’s the latter party for whom this episode is named “The Ordeal,” as they really get the tough work.
Take, for example, the huge roaring whirlpool that appeared suddenly in the pool beside which they were camped last time. One of the Thals was at the water’s edge filling their waterbags (with the radioactive swamp water — eww) when the whirlpool started, um, whirling…
And by the time everyone else gets there, he’s nowhere to be found. Grimly, they go forward with their quest. (I don’t know how a whirlpool reaches out and grabs someone on the bank. Maybe it’ll be a plot point later. But I doubt it.)
November
17
2007
So. Without the fluid link, the TARDIS and its occupants are stranded. I think it’s something of an understatement when the Doctor says, “I’m afraid my little trick has rather rebounded on me,” but at least he’s acknowledging his fault. And as one of those signposts of how far Western culture has changed in the last forty-odd years, Ian and Barbara don’t immediately leap upon his confession of responsibility and rip him a new one. Why, no one even boasts of the lawsuit they’ll file if they ever get back! Do I even recognize this alien culture?
The fact remains, though, that without the fluid link, which is somewhere back in the Dalek city, they’re utterly screwed. Not just stranded; the best guess of both the time travelers and the Thals is that the Daleks will perceive them as a threat and find some way to leave their city in an offensive action. The Doctor, being terribly pragmatic (not to mention disconcertingly selfish), immediately decides that they should manipulate the Thals into fighting for them so they can regain their missing piece, and Barbara wholeheartedly agrees. Ian, on the other hand, isn’t willing to have any of the Thals die on his behalf (I’m guessing that witnessing the death of the former Thal leader Temmosus may have a bearing on his stand), and Barbara sides with him. It’s only when all four of them agree that the Daleks are likely to come out to exterminate both groups that they decide they have to push the Thals to fight — not just for the time travelers’ sakes, but also for their own.
November
10
2007
When last we left poor Ian, he had crammed himself into a Dalek chassis, and was just figuring out the controls to drive the thing. Fortunately, the speaker system works automatically, so he can instantly modulate his voice and sound just like a real Dalek, not unlike the next four decades of British children. Their plan is simply to pretend that Ian is transferring the other three prisoners to a new cell on the detention level, after which Chewbacca will grab a blaster and… No, that’s not right. But it’s the same idea. With Susan’s help, they manage to get past the sentry Dalek into the antechamber of the elevator before the sentry decides to call control and confirm the relocation of the prisoners. (Given how rarely there are prisoners in the underground complex, do the Daleks regularly station sentries as part of a make-work project?)
Inside the antechamber, they pull the plug to the door controls and try to get Ian back out. Unfortunately, the catch on the Dalek’s dome is stuck, and if there’s one point in this whole serial that challenges my suspension of disbelief, it’s that Ian did not have an immediate panicky pants-peeing claustrophobia attack. Not only that, but the Daleks have cut the power to the floor in the antechamber, so they can’t even wheel Ian into the elevator, so they have to leave him behind. Cutting the power to the elevator itself was out of the question, I guess.
November
3
2007
So Susan, who had returned alone to the TARDIS to retrieve the anti-radiation sickness drugs, steels herself and steps back out the TARDIS doors into the stormy night…
…and practically into the arms of a big blond fellow waiting right outside for her. After the initial scare, they get along famously; his name is Alydon, and it was he who had mysteriously touched Susan in the forest the previous night (and spooked the bejesus out of her), and had left the case of drug vials for them. From her, he learns that the Daleks still live beneath the empty city. That’s good news, because Alydon is one of the Thals, who have just returned to this area in their wanderings, and they’re running out of food; he hopes that maybe if the Daleks and the Thals work together, they can benefit from the exchange. He also gives Susan an extra case of drug vials, as he suspects that the Daleks only wanted a sample for their own use.
October
27
2007
And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: The first-ever appearance of a Dalek on Doctor Who.
Okay, not quite yet. We see, as at the end of the last chapter, a plunger menacing Barbara, then we immediately cut to the Doctor, Ian, and Susan, who are trying to figure out where Barbara has gotten to. Yeah, splitting up doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore, does it? (In exploring, Susan utters an innocuous line which, in retrospect, seems to sum up a lot of the next few decades of the series: “Hey, there’s a corridor over here!”) Then the Doctor hears the sound of a faint ticking. They follow, and find a room full of functional scientific equipment (roughly equivalent to the terrestrial equipment one might find if, say, one were trying to dress the set of a science fiction TV show in the early 1960’s). Before they can find the mercury they’re seeking, Susan discovers that the clicking is coming from a Geiger counter — and the needle isn’t in a very friendly place.
October
20
2007
When we left the Doctor and his companions at the end of “An Unearthly Child,” the inaugural storyline of the series, they — that is, the Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and her schoolteachers Ian and Barbara — had all escaped from pursuing cavemen by running into the TARDIS and hitting the controls for “Any Frickin’ Where/When But Here.” They had ended up somewhere vaguely jungle-ish, and though radiation counter at first showed in the normal range, as soon as Susan stopped looking at it the needle flipped all the way into the “Kentucky Fried” range.
So now, the four of them step outside to check out the bizarre landscape. And even weirder is what it is up close: The trees are actually petrified in place. The soil is nothing but sand. A white ash covers all surfaces, and a dry mist wanders over the landscape. The planet, the Doctor declares, is utterly dead.
October
13
2007
[Again, apologies. Technical difficulties surrounding screencaps have not yet been solved, but I didn't want to leave this hanging any longer.]
So. Waaaay back when, when we last saw Captain America, he was fighting henchment (naturally) in a farmhouse that the Scarab used as yet another auxiliary hideout. A hideout which, as fisticuffs were flying within, the Scarab himself was trying to bomb. Why? Because Hillman, railroad magnate on whom the Scarab had been revenging himself, could identify the Scarab as Dr. Maldor, respectable curator of the Drummond Museum. So Maldor/the Scarab drops bombs from his plane, hoping to obliterate both Hillman and Captain America. And if he loses a few nameless thugs, so what? Draft-dodgers are apparently lining up to join his criminal organization, they way he goes through them.
September
1
2007
[Apologies for the unannounced absence. It's hard to watch Saturday serials when I go a month without getting an actual Saturday.]
[Apologies also for the lack of screencaps herein. My TV tuner card has apparently gone belly-up, which means I can't connect my VCR to snap frames from the old Video Treasures VHS I've been watching. A solution is in the works; in the meantime, the sparse images illustrating this entry have been "borrowed" from around the internet.]
So let’s see: Where were we? Oh, yes. Goons were menacing Mr. Hillman, Captain America had burst into the hotel room, the ensuing tussle broke most of the furniture in the suite, and Captain America had apparently been thrown from the high window to the darkened street far, far below.
In this rare instance, the apparent cliffhanger turns out to be exactly what has happened: Captain America is pushed from the window and falls, falls… through the canvas roof of a truck parked at the curb, a truck which is apparently loaded with sacks of cotton batting or some other wonderfully comfortable and soft material. No worse for wear (though, one hopes, a little shamefaced under the mask at having to be rescued in such a lame and arbitrary manner), he hops it back up the fire escape, but by the time he gets back up to the hotel room (huff, huff), the two goons have already taken Hillman with them.
August
4
2007
Let’s start where we left off. Actually, let’s start three or four minutes before. That way, we can re-experience the entire car chase (thrill to skidding turns on dusty country roads!) before Matson shoots Grant Gardner’s tire and Gardner leaps from the out-of-control vehicle — oh, like you didn’t see that coming? — before it rolls over a cliff. Explodes at the bottom, too, for good measure.
But Gardner doesn’t have time to wistfully contemplate the umpteenth car he’s wrecked; as soon as he gets back to the office (hiking all the way, no doubt), he receives a call from a railroad magnate named Hillman — calling from a telephone in his private traincar, the ostentatious capitalist. Hillman was also one of the sponsors of the Mayan expedition which has been a recurring theme throughout this serial, and just like everyone else, he pronounces it “MAY-an.”
July
21
2007
When last we left Captain America, he was fighting with a thuggish technician right inside the million-volt generator, while another technical thug was throwing the generator switch. Surely it’s not too hard to imagine Captain America decking his sparring partner and jumping out of the generator chamber before the sparklies get too lethal. He is, after all, Captain America. and it only takes another few jabs before the switch-thrower goes down for the count, too. That leaves Cap with one unconscious Scarab henchman, one extra-crispy of the same, and one unfortunately dead brilliant scientist with the secret of reanimation in the next room over.
July
14
2007
Man, this is only too simple this time. Gail, inside the shack wired to blow, hears the shooting outside as Captain America takes on the two henchmen outside. She trots outside to find out what the fuss is all about right before the fatally-shot henchman collapses on the plunger. Ta-dah! Saved!
What’s really interesting here is that neither henchman escapes. You may recall, from earlier recaps, the usual pattern: One henchman scampers off, the other meets an untimely doom. The habitual survivor was a high-ranking thug for the Scarab named Matson, a fact of which I never informed y’all mostly because they didn’t refer to him by name for the first several times. (And because I didn’t realize it was always the same person escaping. I mean, a dark-haired guy in a double-breasted suit and hat who waves a gun. Dime-a-dozen in serials!)
July
7
2007
The first matter worth noting in this episode comes right at the start of the opening credits, for this is billed as a chapter of The Return of Captain America. That was the title under which the serial was re-released in 1953, a particularly underhanded instance of dirty pool by my standards, in that it was not a return of the character in a sequel, but simply a return of the same serial to the theater. (Video Treasures apparently couldn’t find a print of the original release when compiling their VHS version.)
That little bit of trivia out of the way, we go back to where we were: Captain America and two henchmen fighting in a gunpowder-filled barn, with poor Gail trapped in the pit beneath a trapdoor.
June
2
2007
Perhaps I’m too demanding on the serials I review. (“No! You, Nathan? Too demanding?”) I mean, when a chapter ends with the explosion of the aircraft carrying one of our main characters, I expect a certain amount of backpedaling and revisionism. It still seems a bit too lax when, thanks to puh-lenty of creative re-editing, Captain America has time to knock out both of the thugs who planted the bomb, get into the next room, untie the real mechanic, find out that there’s a bomb on Gail’s plane, get the correct radio frequency, raise her on the radio, and have her bail out in time to be saved from the explosion. Maybe it’s just envy on my part; maybe I just wish I had the power to re-edit the close calls of my life to give myself oodles of time to avoid potential calamities. Damn you, Captain America! Damn you for making me unsatisfied with causality!
May
19
2007
Explosions. They’re capricious. What we saw at the end of the last chapter was the huge Oil & Gas Plant going up, thanks to the explosive fumes pumped into the boiler. And presumably, bits of Captain America were part of the huge fireball. But as we see at the opening of this chapter, Cap spends his last few seconds in the building furiously spinning some gaskets closed, then he runs out the door. And as fearsome as the explosion looks, it’s one of that peculiar variety for which a few dozen steps out the door of the exploding building is sufficient to protect one from any untoward effects.
Not only that, but thanks to Cap’s efforts, the gas only made it into the pipes of that one building instead of blowing the entire plant to smithereens… a fact that the Scarab, aka Dr. Maldor, finds out over the radio. Glumly.
