I took an early stroll around Acewood Park last Sunday before the temperature had breached the 90 degree mark.
While walking up to the trail, I noticed a turkey hen with her youngins in the yard that abuts the park.
Do toms hit the high road after they knock up a hen? Maybe after the eggs hatch? Or was this hen's mate just out running errands when I spied her and her brood?
After the turkey family had wandered away, I noticed that a fence had been erected.
This could only mean one thing: goats! I found a group of them relaxing in the shade on a hillock down the path a bit.
It looked like there was a bumper crop of garlic mustard so they were feasting like kings, no doubt.
When the kids were hungry, they wasted no time in securing a meal.
The one on the right head butted mom's teat a couple times which could not have been comfortable. Is this how they get the milk flowing or was the kid just being a spaz?
With the trees full of leaves and everything verdant, it was just gorgeous. One of the runoff tributary hoolies that flowed to/from a culvert seemed to have a fair bits of water.
I found this rather odd as it didn't look like the pond itself had much standing water.
On my way to the arch I noticed a pair of cranes taking in the sun. It turned out that, when I looked at my photos, there was, in fact, a trio of them. The one on the right looks like a juvenile but I am not sure.
It was simply lovely and rather cool in the woods. I felt enveloped by all the green. If only the din of Highway 51 couldn't be heard. During lockdown it was very quiet here and I miss that peace & calm of no traffic.
The birdsong was beautiful and the leaves rustled gently in the breeze. My beloved arch was fully covered with green and the pond was full of whatever those plants are.
Standing there taking in the scene, I saw some motion to my left. A mallard hen and her ducklings were hanging out in the weeds near the shore. I guess there was water in the pond after all.
Despite the heat, I enjoy seeing all the animals with their offspring as they're adorable. Plus I think there's something majestic, if not transcendent, about the fecundity of nature and its cyclical patterns. It's a joy to witness them all the year long but all the new life in the spring is special for me. Perhaps as my time grows shorter I find a little existential relief from seeing life spring anew.
After I did my loop, I found myself surrounded by woodpeckers as I heard their calls coming from both sides of the path. I caught sight of one in a nearby tree that turned out to be a female. Perhaps she and her fellow were having a conversation about the annoying apeman below.
So we are back from our holiday edition break and the Doctor has thankfully lost that Charlie Manson look. Indeed, he appears all friendly and winks at us readers. But his open eye reminds me of the Master in Deadly Assassin and so that portrait just has an odd feel for me.
This is the longest TV comic yet for the Third Doctor - 7 parts of 2 pages each. Epic!
It begins with the Brigadier and the Doctor in the back of a UNIT limousine heading deep into the Scottish Highlands. Their destination is a highly secure facility where they meet its director, Professor Logan, who looks like he should be in the "Land of Confusion" video. Logan has surreptitiously sent a manned mission to Venus which has returned with rock samples that prove there's life on the second stone from the sun. Are astronauts who go to Venus properly called Venerealnauts?
The Doctor brings a sample of the Venusian rocks to UNIT's lab where the bonnie lass Liz Shaw is thrilled and amazed at the discovery. Her Time Lord mentor, however, is sure they're fakes.
Never one to put off confrontation, the Doctor goes to Logan's home, a well-appointed and well-maintained castle that is highly expensive, and tells him straight up that he's been to Venus at least five times and there are no rocks there akin to the sample he was given. Logan laughs off the Doctor's accusation and tells him to go away. No one would believe his outlandish allegation.
The Doctor begins to return to the big city when he has an epiphany. Doing a MacGyver routine, he hastily assembles a device from parts taken from Bessie which can put people into suspended animation. He infiltrates Logan's facility but is eventually captured. Logan, tired of the Time Lord's interference, has the Doctor strapped into a rocket which is launched - destination Venus.
There's a panel showing the Doctor in that chair where he looks like Davros. It's uncanny. I suppose his visage is being distorted by the force of the rocket's thrust similar to the facial distortion seen in Spies Like Us but he really looks like the creator of the Daleks.
But our hero won't be defeated so easily. He manages to escape his bonds and turn the craft around onto a course for Earth. Logan likes his castle. No, he loves it. He is so castlephilic that he lets the Doctor live and vows to give a full confession to the authorities so that the Doctor doesn't crash the capsule into the villain's precious castle.
I can never recall exactly when we understood that Venus is totally inhospitable to aikido instructors. Let me see here...It seems that by 1967 we apes understood that the temperature and air pressure were just too great for even a Time Lord to traipse around in. Yet Doctor Who writers kept up the charade. Either that or they made up some tale as to how Venus got so bad. For a series that began as something to impart some knowledge to kids, it sure lost its way when it comes to Venus.
Logan is a good, cartoonish villain. As an engineer, he gets points for giving his rocket self-destruct mechanism a big handle with "EXPLODE" in big letters.
Another two-pager from a holiday edition of TV whatever they called it over there. Probably the same one as "Assassin From Space". Once again the Doctor has that Charlie Manson look in the intro panel.
The Brigadier summons the Doctor and tells him that a small device has been stolen and is at a foreign embassy which precludes any official UNIT involvement in its retrieval. He wants our hero to get it back as Time Lords are not really official representatives of UNIT nor the human race, for that matter. Ere long the Doctor approaches the embassy at issue which appears to be the German one, by the look of the coat of arms on the lintel, dressed as an old lady. She, er, he has come armed with some mind control juice applied via a perfume mister.
The Doctor manages to snag the stolen device and makes an escape with the aid of the Brigadier who is disguised as a bobby.
The Third Doctor in drag looked quite funny but the Brigadier looked disturbingly like Joe Stalin in a panel or two. No Liz in this one. Confirmation of it being the German embassy comes when a guard yells "Halt!" Was there ever an East German embassy in London?
At first I thought that I had neglected to copy all of the files onto my phone but I soon realized that "Assassin From Space" was indeed only two pages long. Further research shows that this appeared in a special holiday issue of the English equivalent of TV Guide so perhaps they only had room for abbreviated Time Lord Tales in order to get all the jolly Christmas stuff packed in the issue.
Notice how the portrait of the Doctor has lost its warm, avuncular charm and our hero has taken on a rather menacing look, as if he were Ebenezer Scrooge readying Bob Cratchit's corpse for transport to the dog food factory where it would fetch a few quid. Look at those crazy eyes!
The plot here is simple: an alien race seeks to colonize the Earth but understand that they must rid our planet of its Gallifreyan champion first. And so they send what looks to be a mechical ant-like thingy to ambush the Doctor as he strolls through his favorite park in London.
The Doctor is able to fend off the creature with his cane which might be sonic as it can do all manner of things including zapping giant mechanical insects with a laser beam.
No Liz here. The Doctor exclaims, "By the powers!" Is that an English phrase or did the writer just pull it out of his a**? "Great powers!" "By the powers!" Hmm...
This little tale gave me a strong sense of déjà vu.
The Doctor and Liz are amongst the observers aboard a Royal Navy cruiser which is testing out some fancy new depth charges. They pass the test which involves destroying a bit of rock. While everyone celebrates, the Doctor and Liz note some radio interference which they think originates from the nearby S.S. Monitor whose job is to assist other ships navigate the rocky waters of wherever it is the story takes place.
But it turns out the Monitor is offering bad course data, much to the chagrin of various captains whose ships end up in Davy Jones' Locker. Upon investigating, it is discovered that the crew of the Monitor have been knocked out cold and a tape recorder with the bum data is being broadcasted to unsuspecting ships. The Doctor and Liz investigate under waves in a bathyscaphe which is "eaten" by a larger submersible with nasty, big, pointy teeth.
They are taken to the home of the Carpanthans, a race of fishmen who put the Doctor and Liz on trial for the destruction of their city - that rock the depth charge destroyed was no mere rock. Their trial takes place in a courtroom which fortuitously happens to have a stash of emergency gas cutting cylinders. Luckily Liz has a lighter with her - does she smoke Virginia Slims? You've come a long way, baby!
Despite a makeshift flame thrower, our heroic pair are unable to effect an escape. However, the Doctor manages to convince the Carpanthan leader that he will not reveal their presence to the apes on the surface. For this act of kindness, the Doctor and Liz are allowed to leave. Those Carpanthans weren't so bad after all and didn't seem to worship Dagon.
I don't know when this comic was written but it bore more than a passing resemblance to Doctor Who and the Silurians. Fish people under the ocean, reptile people under the ground. The Doctor trying to broker peace between a cold blooded race below and the warm blooded apes on the surface.
Liz is back, although she blurts out "Doctor, I'm scared!" at one point. A little science at the beginning but she's mainly the pretty thing needing the Doctor's help.
The Third Doctor's first season continues with another comic: "The Mysterious Meteorite".
A large ferrous meteorite lands near an airfield which of course attracts UNIT's attention. Standard Operating Procedure dictates that the Brigadier enlists the help of the Doctor and so he does. Our beloved Time Lord investigates the large iron mass. Finding it safe, he declares it fit for a museum.
The iron giant is transported via truck to its new home but small hole opens on it from which escapes a cloud of iron filings. No ordinary filings, they are sentient and quite hungry. And so they attach themselves to metal where they dine like a king. Bridges, storage tanks, airplanes, guns - anything made of metal becomes part of their smorgasbord. You can see where this would cause problems.
The Doctor is ably assisted by Liz Shaw in what I think is a first for these TV comics and they discover that the iron filings are alive. By chance they dined on a tank full of Rust-Oleum, er, an anti-corrosive liquid which provides a cure for infection by the wee iron beasties.
A fairly standard TV comics adventure notable for the presence of Liz which makes me wonder why she wasn't in earlier comics. She was present in Spearhead From Space so why did it take so long for her to appear in print? While she does lend a hand here, she doesn't exactly put her scientific genius to work. And wasn't she an expert on meteorites?
Vanessa Bishop did a lot of writing for Doctor Who Magazine in addition to penning some short stories, none of which I've ever read. Until now.
"The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back" appeared in the first Decalog so we are looking at a tale from c.1994. The Reference Guide places it immediately after Doctor Who and the Silurians while the Complete Adventures shunts it forward a bit to follow The Ambassadors of Death instead. The Reference Guide adds explanations for chronological placement of the stories whereas I can find nothing similar at The Complete Adventures site. I am going with the former here as the Brigadier is still pissed at the Doctor for what he sees as his willingness to betray UNIT in favor of the Silurians.
Lethbridge-Stewart is indeed very angry with the Doctor. He is suspicious of that two hearts thing and not happy that his scientific advisor has been slipping out without telling his (ostensible) superior where he's going. And so the Brigadier is having the Doctor followed.
I should note that the story begins with a bit of Reverend Maurice Burridge. First, the beginning of an encounter with the Doctor followed by some reckless driving out on the country lane that shakes him out of prayer mode.
As noted above, the Brigadier is suspicious of the Doctor and even Liz isn't quite sure where he's been going when he suddenly goes absent from the lab. It turns out that the Doctor has been trying to track down an alien who has been stranded here on Earth. Sounds like something right up UNIT's alley but the Brig and Co. have been left out of the loop, presumably because of the jiggery-pokery that the Brigadier pulled off with the Silurians. It turns out that Burridge has been harboring the creature.
With the Doctor having been tailed, the Brig and a crack UNIT squad show up as the Doctor is closing in on the alien. It turns out that, when people make eye contact with the visitor from another world, this alien gaze induces seizures followed by death. Of the humans, that is. The Brigadier refuses to let the Doctor follow through on his plan to have the alien captured and cared for while he repairs its ship.
The alien, an Eriscent, is running for its life but encounters a group of UNIT red shirts as it attempts to re-enter the church. The soldiers suffer from the telepathic contact the alien tries to make. In order to prevent death on a wider scale, the Doctor lets off a shot and the alien falls to the ground dead. He bitterly whispers to himself, "There. I'm sure that's made everything a lot tidier for you, Brigadier." before telling Liz that his shot didn't even hit the alien, that it has simply died of fear.
This is one dark, bleak tale. It's hard to believe that the Doctor and the Brigadier would become such good friends after they fight here. I mean, they don't just do the old couple bickering routine, they really go at it. Recriminations follow accusations and poor Liz gets stuck in the middle. The Brig reprimands her and good, at one point. And that poor alien. For once the Doctor is unable to help someone who really needed his assistance.
Bishop does a great job here of telling a fine tale in under 30 pages but also taking the relationship between the Doctor and the Brigadier to an extreme - for Doctor Who. I am used to this pair being at loggerheads occasionally but ultimately working together for a common cause. Here these two alpha males show a lot of contempt for one another. A very different feel than anything I've seen on the TV show.
As I was writing, it occurred to me that this dark twist on the Doctor Who formula may have been part of a larger trend in the mid-90s. Then I struggled to find another example of a TV show/movie franchise/whatever which usually had happy endings take a turn to the dark side. I thought about Batman but I don't read comics so I didn't know when he turned into The Dark Knight. So my hypothesis remains just that.
Anyone out there more familiar with pop culture out there that can comment on existing properties becoming darker and grittier in the 90s?
While Madison is not a huge, sprawling metropolis, it's big enough to have neighborhoods that any given Madisonian may not be familiar with unless they purposely visited. Such was the Sunset Hills/Radio Park area for me until last week when I went on a tour of the neighborhood courtesy of Madison Trust for Historic Preservation. I'd been in the area before as it is just south of Hoyt Park and I have been down Glenway Street but I had never been in the heart of the neighborhood with all the fancy Modern-style homes.
The tour started at Hoyt Park and it was a lovely evening. The nasty heat was still a day away.
A short walk later we were surrounded by all these homes built in the "Modern" style.
The neighborhood was platted in 1953 and had deed restrictions attached to it: houses had to be in the Modern style, had to be of bespoke design by an architect, attached garages only, et al. I was reminded of by great aunt & uncle's neighborhood in South Barrington, Illinois.
I felt that, if I ran into a young person, it would take a lot of restraint on my part not to take them aside and say, "There's a great future in plastics." Maybe I could update it to "There's a great future in AI. Think about it. Will you think about it?" Then a look of horror would come over their face as they beat a hasty retreat.
We didn't enter any of the houses but I imagined that there was a sunken living room in most of them. I wonder if key parties were big in this area back in the day. I mean, weren't they all the rage with upper middle-class folks at that time?
Aside from the neat houses, the neighborhood was oak central. This place was a virtual oak forest with every or nearly every property having at least one of the hardy trees. It was grand. There are several homes here designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright's acolytes, Herb Fritz. Our guide noted that he also designed Telemark Lodge which I visited once when my great uncle, the one who lived in South Barrington, threw a shindig for the whole family up in Cable. Another notable architect involved in the neighborhood's creation was Elizabeth Mackay Ranney, Madison's only female architect during the time Sunset Hills was being assembled.
This place was once the home of a physicist who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project. It was very nicely terraced. I cannot even begin to fathom the landscaping bills these people must pay. But I, for one, am glad they do because the yards in the neighborhood are gorgeous.
I have another neighborhood tour this week. This time, however, it's of one that I am quite familiar with.
I was quite surprised to run into this brew at my local bottle shop. The last time I was there I bought up their remaining stash of Dovetail's Rauchbier. On my way out, I stopped to ask the guy behind the counter what they'd be getting next from the venerable Chicago brewery and wouldn't it be nice if it was the Grodziskie. He replied that it would be a much less smoky brau, their Pils.
On a recent return visit I did indeed see the Pils in the cooler. But also this, Summer Hopfenlager, which is a hoppy lager for the lazy, hazy days of summer. While I might have run into mention of it at the Dovetail website, I had never seen it in the wild and so I grabbed a 4-pack. It wasn't until I got home that I actually read the label which noted traditional brewing methods - yay! - and modern hops - uff da! Oh boy. What was I getting into here?
The nouveau hops in the recipe were Vista and Strata. Strata rang a bell but Vista only registered bad memories of the much-maligned OS from Microsoft. While I knew that I'd have fruity flavors on my hands, I avoided researching them on the interwebs so as not to prejudice things or set any expectations. I wanted to drink this stuff and taste what I could taste instead of tasting what some hop dealer's webpage told me I should be tasting.
Beyond the hops, I wasn't sure what kind of brau we were looking at here. Was it their Old Country Helles given a New World hop makeover? Or perhaps it was more of a Landbier, some kind of bespoke lager brewed to accommodate a modern hopping regimen. Whatever it was to be, I expected a pale lager of some sort. And for my sins they gave me one.
Is it me or does the label have a Pet Sounds kind of thing going for it?
My tasting was done outside shortly after I had mowed the lawn which seemed wholly appropriate.
I think I did a heckuva job with my pour because I got a couple two tree fingers of firm, brilliant white foam and this stuff held out for a while so I managed to get some decent photographs. The brau was a hazy yellow and I spied a few bubbles here and there inside. On one hand, smelling grass in the aroma wasn't out of line as I had just mowed but I swear that this brew had a very traditional kind of smell to it: bread and grassy hops, in the main. Maybe a hint of fruitiness in there too but I thought I was smelling a Helles. Maybe the Strata and Vista were added to do more for flavor than aroma.
A light-medium body and a healthy dose of fizz greeted my tongue along with a luscious bready taste. Then came the New World hops. They were piney, at first, but also kept the grassy thing going. Fruitiness followed. It began as something like honeydew melon and became more strawberry-like on subsequent sips. While my tongue couldn't help avoid the fruit flavors, the beer didn't have a cloying resemblance to Hawaiian Punch or Froot Loops like a typical hazy IPA does for me. The fruity taste was more than an accent but less than the Kool Aid man running through a wall at me.
The piney-fruity hop combo lingered a bit on the finish with the malt bubbling beneath. Things turned towards the pine which left me with a moderate bitterness and a medium dryness.
I was not expecting the pine notes here and so I was a bit surprised at the West Coast kind of taste. At 4.5% A.B.V. this stuff is on the lighter side which befits a summer brew but there was still a rich malt flavor and enough hops to stand out but not overwhelm. It was hoppy but Dovetail wasn't trying to kill you with them. And for that, I thank them.
I enjoyed this brew and my notes say "very tasty". But one was enough for me. It was indeed refreshing and delicious but I had to find something else to follow it up. I suppose I should clarify and note that one was enough for me at that session, not in total. There's something about pine flavors paired with fruity ones that satiates me quickly. Citrus flavors are different as they're sharp and biting whereas strawberry and melon flavors from hops are really mellow and lack any kind of bite.
By no means do I regret trying this stuff. I enjoyed it one can at a time and found it to be a fine summer brau. And pine or not, it tasted damn good sitting outside after having put the mower away for another week.
Junk food pairing: Food pairing for beers with fruity hops is always difficult for me. I want something complementary yet to not go overboard with the fruit. I recommend pairing your Summer Hopfenlager with a bag of Rold Gold Flamin' Hot Honey Mustard pretzel twists.
Bad news from up north. Ryan Urban, an intrepid editor and reporter for the Barron News-Shield texted me saying that the Stone Lake Pub had burned down. This depressing photo was attached:
Sad. That was bar of my childhood summers. My dad would stop in on the way to the dump or to the hardware store or the bait shop or basically anytime we were in or cruising through town. I drank many grape and strawberry Crush's there. Or were they Nehi's?
This comes on the heel of hearing that Chicago's Gale Street Inn closed suddenly. I remember going there as a kid and think my family had been going there for decades. It was one of those places that just had been around my entire life that I was happy to be able to still go to. Well, until now.
All these places from my childhood gone. That's getting old for you, I guess.
We now move from comics back to television and the debut of the titular creatures.
Looking at my bluray set I see that the remaining TV stories from this season are all 7 parters. I am unable to remember if I've watched this story previously, though I recall them well from Warriors of the Deep where the Myrka would have made most viewers forget even the most Oscar-worthy Silurian performance. While I understand why many fans roll their eyes and/or groan at the Myrka, I don't mind it, though I think Peter Davison was onto something when he offered that it should have been shown in darker settings. Anyway, Pertwee's era begins by introducing two new antagonists that would return, though not often, I grant you.
We begin with a couple of spelunkers descending into a cavern, a rather well-lit one, at that. They hear a nasty roar that would have sent most mortals scrambling back up their rope ladder but not these guys. Rather than fleeing, they decide to investigate. One fellow moves towards the stentorian call and encounters a large dinosaur-like beastie which dispatches him with ease. His companion moves to investigate the bloodcurdling scream and, upon seeing the monster, flees like they should have in the first place.
Bessie! The Doctor is working on the beloved automobile as Liz looks on in a very fetching mini-skirt. They receive word that the Brigadier requests their company. After several decades of fandom and 3 comics of summons by the Brig, this is old hat. But, at the time, this was the debut of this start to Pertwee stories on TV.
It was here that I noticed a dramatic decline in picture quality from Spearhead in Space. A feature on the story's restoration explains. The original masters to Doctor Who and the Silurians no longer exists, having been wiped a la most or every one of the First and Second Doctors' stories. But a black & white telehoolie was made of it, i.e. - they filmed it on a TV screen, and an intrepid viewer in my hometown of Chicago videotaped its broadcast on channel 11 in 1976. So the raw material exists to do some video alchemy to produce something more or less like what was seen on TV screens back in the day. Presumably the 16mm film of Spearhead From Space is still around, hence its high quality.
Ere long the Brigadier shows up at an atomic research facility with the Doctor and Liz in tow. The place is run by a real hard ass named Dr. Lawrence. Lawrence is talking to his crew of lab-coated boffins (didn't notice any pocket protectors) trying to motivate them and have them ignore the UNIT fellows strewn about. I immediately took him to be an asshole and one that had read Machiavelli. He seemed to have had enough self-awareness to know that he wasn't loved and so figured he would be feared.
The center is deep underground and features a proton accelerator which is this big red circle in the control room. A bit HAL-like. But, unlike it (and BOSS too) it doesn't talk so there were no scenes of "I'm sorry, Doctor, I can't do that." The facility is experiencing unexplained power outages and several members of the research team have suffered mental breakdowns or other similar maladies.
The story until this point has a Nu Who feel with everything being straightforward and things getting to the point quickly. Very little dilly-dallying. But it's 7 parts so there is no doubt plenty of dilly-dallying ahead.
Sharing Lawrence's annoyance with UNIT's intrusion is the center's head of security, Baker. He is not afraid to let our heroes know that they are unwelcome.
UNIT assumes control. UNIT assumes control. The Brig is to oversee security, the Doctor the scientists, and Liz personnel. Too bad for Liz. She was so capable and had so much promise in Spearhead From Space but now she's HR.
A Dr. Quinn is the lead researcher. He's more affable than his boss but his smile is hiding something, something that his fellow scientist, Miss Dawson, seems to know a bit about. Or perhaps even more.
As you can imagine, the power outages are due to the Silurians. Just as with the Cybermen in Tomb of the Cybermen, the Silurians kind of lumber around so they don't fall over their big (reptile, in this case) foot costumes but they can haul ass when needed. They've awoken from their long slumbers and are not happy to find that the Earth they once ruled is now overrun with apes.
They allied themselves with Quinn who has entered into a bargain where he gives them power in exchange for scientific knowledge. Miss Dawson is in on it too. She's apparently good friends with her superior. I wonder if there's a romance between them in the novelization as she apparently has a key to his cottage. But maybe platonic friendships were all the rage back in 1969/70. Or it was just too difficult to pull off a key party in an underground research facility.
To the story's credit, we don't get to see a well-lit Silurian until about halfway through. When we did, I noticed that they have their own musical motif on the soundtrack: the decidedly retro sound of a crumhorm. At least I think that's what it is. (It's not a shawm, is it?) And it wasn't just some dark melody to let you know these are the bad guys; there were these frantic, almost atonal runs that made me wonder if Ornette Coleman had been commissioned for the task.
It reminded me of just how normal the music in Nu Who is. The theme went from a spacey and vaguely eerie bit of electronic weirdness to a string-laden Wagnerian micro-epic. And can you imagine free jazz-like motifs on a medieval instrument in Nu Who? Unpossible.
At one point the Doctor is captured by the Silurians. He is locked in a cage in their base which has an oppressively dark color scheme that reminded me of the ones in The Brain of Morbius as well as The Babadook. I felt distinctly uncomfortable watching the scenes in the Silurian base. But we get to know the reptilian creatures a bit more beyond them being perfectly happy with their choice in paints. There's the leader, the scientist, and the tall thin Silurian who is presumably younger as he has a higher voice and is rather impetuous.
The Doctor agrees to be an envoy for peace and convinces the Silurian leader that he will do his level best to convince the humans to coexist with them.
Of course this plan fails as the Brigadier is never really convinced of the potential of the offer and the tall, thin guy kills the dear leader in a coup and assumes control. He pulls off the assassination by using his third eye which does something I'm not quite sure of but it lays the leader low. I just love it when the Silurians use their third eye because their heads wobble in a manner that makes you wonder if they're doing the St. Vitus Dance. It's just so ungraceful.
Back at the atomic lab, Lawrence has had enough of UNIT's presence so he calls in the Undersecretary of Something or Other who shows up in all of his no nonsense splendor. The actor looked very familiar but I couldn't place him. Speaking of which, Paul Darrow is a UNIT squad leader here. I did a double take when I first saw him. Not Avol yet so he dutifully carried out his orders with no jiggery-pokery whatsoever.
The new Silurian leader decides to commit genocide and has the scientist pull out an old virus that they used back in the day against our ape ancestors. They infect Baker, the security fellow, whom they had captured and let him loose.
With a virulent disease on the loose, the Doctor seeks a cure with Liz's help. There follows a scene that hit a little close to home. Lawrence is looking for the Brigadier but he ends up confronting Liz. He doesn't believe there's a disease being spread, he doesn't believe that the Silurians exist - this guy's doubt puts even Descartes' to shame. I am not convinced he even thought the power outages were genuine. He complains to Liz that his research has ground to a halt and that his staff has been subjected to compulsory injections.
"It's for their own good," Liz replies.
"Rubbish," retorts Lawrence.
This exchange gave me a real sense of déjà vu as ones like it played out countless times during Covid. Lawrence isn't really a bad guy, per se, he's more like the Rani with an almost amoral desire to do his research.
The Undersecretary returns to London infected and the disease appears to take out everyone at a train station. Not a good look for public transit. I thought of how transit got blindsided during Covid with people working from home and distancing rules.
The Doctor eventually finds a cure and devises a subterfuge to fool the Silurians into thinking the atomic reactor is about to undergo meltdown and release lethal radiation. They decide to go into hibernation once again until this whole thing blows over. Rather than laying the groundwork for peaceful coexistence in the future, the Brigadier sets off explosives which seal in the proud reptile race. The Doctor is quite unamused that the Brig would do such a thing behind his back and the story ends on a rather downer of a note. Poor Silurians. Plus the Brigadier has disobeyed the Doctor who wanted the Silurians to be left in peace to sleep away.
At 7 parts, this story has its share of filler. For instance, there are times when the Doctor explores the caves and gathers evidence to explain what's happening. By the way, when he is spelunking, he wears a lovely red cravat just like the old duffer in Spearhead From Space. So he returns to the research center, tells Liz and the Brigadier what he's discovered, and then he says, "I'm going back to the caves." There's also a scene where Liz, the Undersecretary, and Lawrence, I believe, are waiting for on the ground reports to come in so he, the Undersecretary can make some data driven decisions. We see them literally doing nothing but looking around waiting. It is a point in Nu Who's favor that they'd never do a scene like this today.
And poor Liz. Here's she largely confined to going through paperwork, though she does some forensic work in a barn in one scene. To her credit, she is knocked unconscious in that scene by a Silurian on the lam and, upon recovering, isn't the least bit intimidated or reluctant to carry on. Stiff upper lip and all that. Plus, she is the one who sees through Quinn's charade by comparing what he says about his whereabouts to a map of the area. She's capable but relegated to desk duty by the Brigadier and the Doctor sides with the UNIT commander.
A few other random observations. There were some nice POV shots of the Silurian on the lam. They had a neat tri-frame look with the top one colored red to mimic the view of the creature. I appreciate the variety they added to the look of the story. Also, the look on the Doctor's face when he is confronted by the big beastie in the caverns or when a Silurian turns its third eye on him is classic. Pertwee goes all bug-eyed and looks hilarious. And about those third eyes. It's never explained what they are or how they function. We simply see them kill via unknown means and burn through rock. Multifunctional things. The Swiss Army Knife of the ocular world.
This is a fun story despite being overlong. Bessie and the Silurians make their debut, Liz looks very comely in those mini-skirts, and the show is dealing with contemporary issues. I won't say it never did previously but what we have here really goes beyond an exciting tale of adventure with some political overtones here and there. The commentary just seems more overt now than it ever was before. The danger of atomic energy and the Silurians as the Soviets. Was screenwriter Malcolm Hulke a Communist? As in a card carrying member? If not, I recall hearing that his political views were rather far to the left.
My hope is that Liz doesn't turn out to be a proto Mel, the computer genius who never touched a computer on the show beyond hanging onto the TARDIS console now and again. She needs to do some complicated research and/or some derring do.
I did a double take when I saw these chips at the Willy Street Coop as I'd never seen a genuine potato chip from The Good Crisp Company, only their shaped and formed potato paste Pringles-like crisps. This was the third salt & vinegar chip I'd either run into or been given in fairly short order. My luck was in. I am struggling to recall if I've encountered a crinkle cut salt & vinegar chip previously. This could be a first.
The Good Crisp Company has an origin story at their website but it's short and sweet. An Aussie named Matt devised canister snacks without a bunch of allergens and that's about it. They are made in Malaysia while the cheese balls and real potato chips are made here in the United States. It is a miracle of modern technology that the crisps can be shipped thousands of miles yet arrive here in the Midwest mostly intact.
My phone's camera has unreliable white balance so know that the chips were a bit more yellow than seen here. There were occasional brown spots, usually along the edges. The wrinkles were fairly large with lots of space between. A whiff revealed oil as the most prominent aroma followed by potato and then a hint of vinegar.
Throwing a couple into my maw, I found that they had a nice crispiness along with a slight crunch. There was a bit more salt than on your average chip and, most importantly, these babies had a potent vinegar tang that had a slight vinous taste to it. Once it dissipated a bit, I could taste a lovely, earthy potato flavor underneath.
I found these chips to be excellent. More than once I could be seen stuffing them into my mouth and reveling in acetic acid gluttony. Not being good at math, I can only hypothesize that the crinkle cutting produces more surface area for the magic vinegar powder to reside on, hence the big tang.
The actual moment of solstice for we here in Central Standard Time was last night so I am a bit late.
I found this video and was quite surprised to see an image from here in Madison appear - the Monona Terrace.
I took yesterday off from work and went on an early morning hike completely oblivious to the forecast. A few drops were falling as I set out.
Being ensconced in the woods, the light sprinkling was barely noticeable.
It was a lovely day. Still on the cool side, everything was lush and verdant, and the birds were out singing and chirping and trilling.
Then the sprinkle became a shower. I stopped at one of overlooks where I could get some shelter and checked the forecast: showers and thunderstorms. D'oh!
While I cut the hike short, the walking I did was grand! Always great to be out in the woods.
We now complete a trifecta of TV comics before moving onto a different medium. Meine Damen und Herren, better living through chemistry. Er, I mean "Insect".
A farmer in the West Country innocently dusts his crops with a new-fangled insecticide which doesn't work very well. Instead of sending the pests to meet their maker, it has the effect of making a pair of caterpillars grow to gigantic proportions. Thanks, Monsanto. But rather than taking their situation with a bit of pantagruelian good cheer, they go on a rampage.
U.N.I.T. is alerted and the Brigadier tries to enlist the Doctor who is, like last comic, grumpy and resentful of being disturbed when he's trying to repair the TARDIS with household chemicals, Bunsen burners, and surplus vacuum tubes. Thankfully strange happenings in the West Country pique his interest and away our heroes go.
One of the creepy crawlies meets its demise after being hit by a lorry while the other is captured after the Doctor douses it with riot gas. I don't know what this stuff is but score another point for the chemists as it knocks out the second creature which is taken back to a facility for study.
Cue giant ants. Who says they only have Them! in New Mexico? The pair get into a slugfest in the center of the village of Cragwell, which does not appear to be a real place. I smiled when I saw that one of the ants was wielding a cross as it went mandible a mandible with its foe.
The Doctor and the Brig get in the former's helicopter to investigate when they become the hunted. A "daddy-long-legs of horrifying size" gives chase. I did a double take because, while the text says "daddy-long-legs", the picture is of a beastie with wings that looks suspiciously like a mosquito instead of the spidery creature that I know by that name. My country and England are truly divided by a common language.
The Doctor studies the captured caterpillar and comes to the conclusion that there was a freak error in the production of the insecticide that led to this outbreak of entomological gigantism. He hastily devises an antidote just as the creature breaks its rusty cage and attempts to run. This new formula is used to dust the infected fields and all of the insects return to their normal size.
I noted that the hitherto unknown exclamation "Great powers!" has been replaced by the more natural "Great Scott!". I also felt that "Insect" presaged "The Green Death" with its giant insect beasties. If the caterpillars had been left to their own devices, would they have turned into Mothra's?
Whether I go with the DW Reference Guide or The Complete Adventures, my Pertwee season 1 venture is going to be fairly short as there are no novels and I am forgoing the Big Finish stuff. It's the 4 TV stories, several comics, and some short stories. Next up is "The Multi-Mobile", another TV comic.
The Brigadier has brought a thoroughly uninterested Doctor along to a demonstration of the Multi-Mobile, a new mechanical marvel which is a squat, flat tank, basically. It reminds me of the creepy crawler hoolie that NASA uses to haul the space shuttle to the launch pad. The Doctor is suitably unimpressed as the demonstration of the vehicle's mad brush burning skillz comes to an end and the crew of the hulking mass of steel take a well-deserved pee break.
But leaving the vehicle unattended opens a window of opportunity for three scofflaws who commandeer the behemoth. U.N.I.T.'s initial attempts to stop the beast with a tank and some armored vehicles prove ineffectual. The same goes for an aerial strike.
Soon enough the Doctor figures out that the hijackers' destination is the British Nuclear Defence Centre. A little bit of cipherin' later, he calculates that the Mobile will run out of fuel a few miles short of its target. A plot is hatched whereby U.N.I.T. would lay in wait at the petrol station most likely to be visited by the Mobile and ambush the villainous hijackers when they attempt to refuel.
Things don't go according to plan but the Doctor comes through in the end by dropping a couple sugar cubes into the fuel tank. The sucrose sabotage proves successful.
I was impressed with this one in that it seems its creators actually watched the show. Or had better notes. Or read what they were given. When the Doctor is all pouty and in a huff about being at the demo when he could be back at the lab chillin' with Liz, Lethbridge-Stewart reminds him of the Brigaderian bargain they struck at the end of "Spearhead From Space": the Doctor helps U.N.I.T. in exchange for spare parts to tinker with.
While none of these TV comic have been good, at least they've become largely inoffensive. No, that's not totally fair. The Third Doctor in these comics so far really isn't too far removed from one seen on TV, er, bluray. Hopefully the ones in the Annuals follow suit.
Today is Juneteenth, a day to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.
You can listen to the stories of formerly enslaved people online and get first-hand accounts of life under slavery.
There's an interview here from 1975(?!) It's strange to think that there was still a formerly enslaved person alive during my lifetime.
Here in Madison there will be various Juneteenth events but I suppose the main one is the Juneteenth Freedom Parade which, I believe, ends at Penn Park where the big party happens. More info here.
I've been listening to some Staple Singers today and you should too.
For my previous Doctor Who marathons, I used the chronology at the Doctor Who Reference Guide. Since I had a good thing going, I returned to it in preparation for the Third Doctor only to discover that it had gone offline. Thankfully the Wayback Machine has it archived. But, in my panic to find a replacement, I ran across Andrew Kearley's site, The Complete Adventures. This site has the advantage of not only being online but also of being more current. There are newer Big Finish adventures, which I am not listening to in my marathon, in Kearley's timeline that were never added to the Reference Guide but also newer comics, which I will endeavor to read.
I noticed some differences in ordering between the two sites and so I've opted to throw a little Reference Guide in here and some Complete Adventures there for my marathon. Whatever discrepancies they have, they both list "The Arkwood Experiments" as the story that follows "Spearhead From Space".
"The Arkwood Experiments" is a TV comic from early 1970. I've run into these comics before during my earlier marathons and like pretty much every First and Second Doctor comic from their eras, they were almost uniformly bad. It was apparent that their creators had never watched the show and instead were given a paragraph long synopsis of it along with some publicity stills and told to go off and make comics. Would that be the same here?
Pertwee's elongated face in the first panel has a slightly caricaturish feel to it plus he's got a big grin so we've got a whole new feel already.
The Brigadier calls the Doctor to ask for help with a bit of bother down at the local zoo. It seems that either the animals have jointly declared Opposite Day or something is quite amiss. While a panther and lion are both meek as a pussy, the birds attack anyone who dares enter the aviary while the penguins are the most murderous since the giant electric one that Scott ran into in the Sahara.
It turns out a 10 year-old boy named Cedric Mathews used the zoo animals as, er, guinea pigs, to test a new drug he has concocted that he hopes will turn boys his own age into "raging hooligans". One wouldn't think a wonder drug would be needed to accomplish this.
Aside from using the exclamation, "Great powers!"(?!), the Third Doctor here is not wholly un-Third Doctorish.
Reflecting the TV show at the time, I think this may be the first Doctor Who comic set on Earth. Contemporary Earth, at least. A slight story to be sure but it was funny to see our hero flee from a waddle of savage penguins.
It's been almost two years since I've done a Doctor Who marathon. I had meant to delve into the Third Doctor's tenure months ago but then heard about the release of Pertwee's first season on bluray so I waited for its release. That being done, the fun can begin.
The previous Doctors each had 3 seasons but this would be a fiver. I also think the Third Doctor has had a few more novels written about him than his predecessors. Short stories and novellas I'm not so sure of. I was looking forward to jumping into the Pertwee era as it had been a while since I've watched any classic Who and hadn't read much of it in the past year and a half or so either. Plus Pertwee was my brother's favorite Doctor and so I took some comfort in knowing he'd be watching and reading along with me over my shoulder throughout this little endeavor.
When I left off, the Second Doctor was falling headlong into a black void courtesy of some vengeful Time Lords. Jon Pertwee's time on the show began with "Spearhead From Space" and the Doctor falling out of the TARDIS and onto a patch of wildflowers who were probably not happy to be squished by a rogue Gallifreyan. But at least he fell in color!
Not only was it in color, but the story was shot exclusively on 16mm film. And so the visual style is akin to Nu Who's cinematic approach, utilizing a single camera instead of 3. Not only that, but we get a country ton of location scenes with studio sets being kept to a minimum. I never knew why until a day or two ago when I looked it up: apparently shooting on location allowed the show's makers to avoid getting tangled up in a labor action of some kind which apparently only affected BBC HQ.
Legendary Doctor Who scribe Robert Holmes penned the script and the story opens with a shot of a radio tower before cutting to a control room with some fellow diligently looking at a radar screen. His direct superior, a woman no less, enters and I noticed her tie clip - U.N.I.T.!
I also noticed the video quality which was sharp and clean. Perhaps a bit too clean as there seemed to be less grain than I recall seeing previously. It appears to have been upscaled and the frame rate boosted too. Maybe not 48 FPS like The Hobbit but the motion appeared to be smoother than the show ever was on broadcast TV.
The guy watching the radar notices some thingies descending to Earth and landing in sector 5 - Epping. You bet part of my brain started singing "Yes, it's the battle of Epping Forest..." We then cut to an old duffer in sector 5 who witnesses the thingies land and he is adorned with a lovely red cravat. The script continues on its merry way of introducing us to all of the main characters and plot threads. The TARDIS then lands and the Doctor falls out as noted above. In the back of a car Liz Shaw is being taken to her latest assignment - at U.N.I.T. HQ. I noted how the music went from that typical minor key oboe stuff to something jazzy and perky for Liz's intro.
Swinging London meet stodgy military man. Liz is brought to the Brigadier's office and he looks slightly uncomfortable, slightly anxious commanding from behind a desk. It is here that I noticed the use of short lenses. The scene wasn't full of shots and reverse shots but instead we get some nicely composed frames with both speakers in it at the same time with one in the foreground and another in the background. Some nice depth of field here.
The Doctor spends basically all of episode 1 and a good chunck of episode 2 at the hospital in a self-induced coma. While not an ultra-salutary Zero Room, the place has some gorgeous wood paneling and wainscotting going for it. It's hard to blame him, really. He was forced to regenerate, had some of his memory wiped or hidden, at least, and was exiled to Earth in a non-operable TARDIS. He eventually wakes up and effects an escape but not before taking a shower and stealing some aristocrat's duds and an antique car. I guess this is where the Doctor develops a fondness for older automobiles. Bessie, here we come.
We learn that what the U.N.I.T. radar operator saw was the second volley in a few months of these glowing 12(?)-sided shapes that were power units. They reminded me of those old Tupperware Shape O Sorter Balls - and that the bad guys had taken over a plastics factory. There's a nice scene where someone at the hospital says in reference to the Doctor, "Something odd about his face" and we cut to a doll's face being made. I have to admit that I had no recollection of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" playing over the initial scene at the factory. Considering that song was released around the time "Spearhead From Space" was being shot/assembled, this is a notable injection of contemporary pop culture into a Doctor Who story. Thankfully no one thought it a good idea to feature any Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac in "The Robots of Death" or "The Talons of Weng-Chiang".
We are eventually introduced to the Nestene, a nasty non-corporeal alien who likes to invade other planets. The Nestene apparently ran into Mr. McGuire at some point because they have a thing for plastics. And so they chose to take over Earth by using armed, cravat-wearing mannequins - Autons, some of whom are in the form of various government officials.
The Doctor jury rigs a gizmo out of various parts found at U.N.I.T.'s lab that can deactivate Autons. (Nowadays this would simply be a new function of the sonic screwdriver.) He and Liz, with U.N.I.T.'s help, would infiltrate the factory and put paid to the Nestene's fouls plans. But not before a bunch of Autons posing at shop window mannequins
rampage through the streets killing helpless people, including about
half a dozen queuing at a bus stop in an orderly line the likes of which
has never been seen in this country. In the end, though, the fine citizens of Epping could once again safely window shop for cravats.
"Spearhead From Space" was a ball of fun. At 4 episodes, it may be the shortest story Pertwee ever did. The Third Doctor is friendly and charming yet also a bit haughty. While he may be suffering from memory loss, he hasn't forgotten that he's superior to humans. Liz is skeptical in a Dana Scully kind of way as well as sassy and sarcastic which made it seem like had she traveled back from the 1990's. She's also smart and highly capable. (Also like Scully.) No signs of screaming and cowering in the corner here. A nice feminist counterpoint to the Brigadier's more Victorian(?) demeanor.
There are some nice low angle shots here and I think these along with the glasses worn by various male characters gave the story a vague but palpable The Ipcress File vibe. I wonder who the costumer was. Did this person work on Doctor Who before or after "Spearhead From Space"? I don't recall seeing so many cravats on the show in any other story.
It's not quite true that the Nestene sought to take over the Earth only with maniacal mannequins. It was also growing a big tentacled beastie in a tank at the factory. Although cheesy looking, I loved it, especially what looked like an eye in the center of the malicious membrane adorned with green slime. The giant tentacles that it sports at the story's climax looked straight out of a Muppet adaptation of a Cthulhu tale. A classic Who moment.
I found it interesting that it took about half the plot for the viewer to be told just what the good guys are up against. Similarly, going into the final episode I didn't have much of a feeling that things were coming to a head. The Doc, Liz, and the Brigadier were still sorting things out as opposed to devising a masterplan.
It also occurred to me that it was the Nestene and their Autons who were the bad guys in the first episode of the resurrected Doctor Who 20 years ago. That was their first TV appearance since the Pertwee era and it got me wondering if I shall encounter them in a comic or book at some point in my marathons.
We got some rain last night and, when I woke up, it was cloudy but yesterday's heat had been sent packing. I went on a morning trek hoping that I wouldn't get rained on.
My neighbors' chickens were out enjoying the yard and, I presume, the cooler temperature.
The woodpecker at the other side of the yard was peeking out and perhaps contemplating its day.
On my way down to Starkweather Creek I took in some sweetly scented pine air.
The creek was rather still but the birds were singing their post-breakfast choruses.
I made my way to the bike path and spied a mallard hen in the distance. It wasn't until I got home that I noticed she was with a duckling or two.
Lots of bunnies about.
As I was headed home, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds all-too briefly.
Scenes from a trio of recent walks around the neighborhood. I've been trying to get into the habit of taking a walk before I start work when I work from home. Most of these are from those early morning strolls.
I tried to do something symmetrical but slightly off with this one.
I tried to get a good converging lines-perspective thing here. Not great, unfortunately.
Not sure what kind of bird this is. It ripped off a length of grass and took off.
