Doctor Who: 8 Tom Baker Stories To Celebrate In January
3. Underworld (1978)
They couldnt all be classics, could they? If you are trying to find something to celebrate about this story, though, you can at least give it props for trying. Bob Baker and Dave Martins riff on Jason and the Argonauts provides a fascinating plot, telling us more about the Time Lords and, despite its flaws, explaining that whole non-interference policy that the Time Lords claim to follow (but never do, apparently). However, once the Minyan ship finds the P7E at the centre of its own planet, the entire story falls into a weird sort of uncanny valley effect in which, at their best, the heavily chromakeyed backgrounds look almost right, but not right enough. Then someones foot ends up on the wrong side of a rock and the whole thing falls apart. Youd be forgiven for thinking the series producers decided to try some bold new innovation with the technology but it was just the opposite: there was no money to make this one, hence the need to matte all of the actors into the premade backgrounds. It can be celebrated as a bold experiment, if nothing else, even if the end results make it difficult to watch at times. And speaking of difficult to watch
Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
