Cities Made of Song, 1976

Cities Made of Song, 1976 - 2112 by Rush

"I wish that it might come to pass / Not fade like all my dreams / Just think of what my life might be / In a world like I have seen."​

There is an interesting phrase bouncing around the world of music discussion, by the name of "dad rock". Nobody can seem to precisely define this funny little term (Dad Rock, comma, the Horror of), but one apparently knows it when one hears it. Just about any rock or metal tune before 1990 can be brushed with this paint - and as generations age, that boundary creeps distressingly closer to the century mark.

In my case, any accusations of liking "dad rock" will be quite literally true: like my unfortunate sense of humor, and my less unfortunate nose, I inherited my taste in music from my dad. Growing up in the Seventies and Eighties, he was steeped in the heyday of rock's popularity and counted himself among Rush's adolescent legionaries. He perked up when I mentioned that this was the next thing I was writing, actually, and enthused at me about the album "2112", along with "Moving Pictures". Dad saw the band at the Spectrum arena in Philadelphia on 22 May 1981 when they were touring for the latter album. He recalled a haze of pot smoke wafting above the crowd and being forced to bring along his kid brother for the occasion.

At the same time, Dad was tuning in every Saturday afternoon at 3:00 to watch Tom Baker as Doctor Who. Starting in 1979, WHYY-TV, Philly's local PBS affiliate, broadcast Fourth Doctor episodes on an ever-shifting schedule, sometimes Saturdays, sometimes weeknights. The only constant was that, for four years, young Philadelphians could reliably tune in to follow the curious adventures of the bohemian Time Lord.

It's notable that during a period when Doctor Who was increasingly challenged by glossy American imports licensed by ITV, the show was beginning to find purchase in the United States for the first time. PBS affiliate stations were blazing the way, buying the license to broadcast Doctor Who on the cheap and introducing it to a new generation which became unexpectedly enchanted by this curious import.

It must have been a little shocking for fans in Philadelphia when, after WHYY Channel 12's omnibus broadcast of Logopolis on 4 December 1982, it was announced that no further adventures of the Doctor would be broadcast by the station. The expense of the license was cited as the reason for the chop from the schedules, prompting Philadelphia's very own Doctor Who cancellation crisis a couple of years early. Nevertheless, it wasn't to continue long, as an outpouring of strong fan opinion forced WHYY to reconsider. The $32,000 that the fans raised also helped to grease the wheels a bit.

The official statement from WHYY following this affair, seven months after the would-be cancellation, reads with the bemused tone of stiffs who just don't "get it, man".

"Partly because of a flood of cards, letters and calls, 'Dr. Who' will live again on Channel 12.

"Tomorrow at 6:15 p.m. the public TV station will air a 90-minute 'Dr. Who Challenge' that will feature the last show of the series that ended with Who's apparent death and the first installment of a new series in which he is resurrected as a new character. It will not be the same Who, however. Tom Baker has been replaced in the title role by Peter Davison. [...] Mike Quattrone, the station's program consultant, said many fans were upset when the British sci-fi series went off the air last year."

One imagines that Mike Quattrone had a talent for understatement.

The show would continue to enjoy popular attention and support on Channel 12 for some years, now featuring adventures from the Fifth Doctor onward, as well as other Doctors before Tom. It slipped later into the schedules in 1989, dying a quiet death with the end of the Classic series.

Sorry, this is an awfully long time to go without talking about Rush. The point I'm driving at is that, clearly, this underdog program resonated strongly with a certain segment of the young population in America. This is the same generation that was becoming enchanted by another import, this one from Canada. Guess who?

Rush had their start in Toronto in 1968, a rather low-key beginning which saw a revolving door of participants which had stabilized with guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist Geddy Lee as its core duo by 1971. Their eponymous first LP finally landed in 1974, bearing a striking resemblance to a band that sounds nothing like Rush, falling into the same Led Zeppelin knock-off territory that most hard rock bands experienced in their adolescent years. The breakout single Working Man is their sole standout track from this period. Dropping original drummer John Rutsey shortly thereafter, the band picked up Neil Peart instead, who also took over as the chief lyricist and drastically altered the band's trajectory.

With a fresh confidence and a new, progressive bent, the band put out "Fly By Night", a vastly more accomplished record than their last. As well as being quite good, it marked the arrival of Neil Peart's own philosophical leanings in the lyrical content of the band; the title of its first track, Anthem, should alert you to the fact that we're now in Ayn Randy territory.

For those who don't have the displeasure to be acquainted with it, Objectivism is the right-libertarian philosophy formulated by Russian-American writer Ayn Rand between the 1930s and 1960s. It's an ideology all about happiness and accomplishment, as long as you only give a crap about your own. Objectivism expounds the value of so-called rational egoism, the natural expression of which, Rand says, is laissez-faire capitalism. I won't go on, but the point is that it's a fairly stupid and socially irresponsible ideology, and so naturally has a strong following today among certain pundits and would-be intellectuals.

Unedifying political themes aside, the band's more sophisticated songs on "Fly By Night" heralded a new era for the band, which almost came to a screeching halt with the fairly underwhelming "Caress by Steel" in 1975. Alex Lifeson would reflect several years later that the icy reception to this record almost killed his confidence in the band, which struggled to fill concert venues while performing tracks from the LP. Challenged by record executives with threats that there wouldn't be a future for Rush unless they moved in a more commercial direction, naturally, the next thing they did was go further down the prog rabbit hole.

You have to admire the balls of this decision, which could very well have killed the band had they not managed to pull it off. One has the sense that Rush felt that if they couldn't make it doing what they loved, they didn't want to make it at all. As it happens, "2112" would prove their greatest success so far, providing a much-needed win for the prog camp just before the punk rock revolution was due, and inspiring a new generation of rock and metal musicians along the way.

It would probably be fair to say that technical and progressive metal in general owe a good deal of their existence to the success of this record, with members of Death and Dream Theater among others counting themselves as Rush fans in their early years. "2112" proved that a harder rock sound and a progressive bent were perfectly compatible in the right hands. And there were no righter hands in all of the world of music than Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and Neil Peart - respectively, one of the best guitarists, one of the best bassists, and one of the best drummers to ever live. Combined, they were a musical trio of uncommon power - one might even say unparalleled.

This talent is borne out by the title track, which in true prog tradition spans the entire A-side of the LP. The twenty-minute tune begins with a salvo of pounding drums and guitar, a section titled Overture in a clear reference to Tchaikovsky, complete with the fire of artillery guns. At last, it's broken by Geddy's plaintive Biblical refrain, "And the meek shall inherit the Earth," before it goes into the driving strains of The Temples of Syrinx.

With the implication of a devastating war to start us off, the story fast forwards into a tribute to the plot of Rand's novella Anthem, with occasionally eye-rolling consequences. Still, the song is never bad, as it swings through its parables about conformity and artistic expression, some of which even verge on the thought-provoking. Really, the song comes across exactly as intended: an epic rock opus meant to show off the versatility and complexity of which the band was more than capable.

The B-side isn't really worth talking about, in my opinion. Something for Nothing and A Passage to Bangkok are the only songs there that really stick in the memory. But that title track is so incredibly good that nothing else really matters, least of all the lyrics.

When I asked him about the philosophical content of the album, Dad admitted that he thought next to nothing about it at the time and internalized none of the record's themes. Despite the imperfect level of understanding, he did say that he was impressed back then by the sophistication of the songs and said that there really wasn't anything like Rush in the popular music of the time.

I was still surprised to hear him say that he didn't think there were many other Rush fans around where he was back in the early Eighties. I'm fairly sure that this is a case of the memory cheating, because I know for a fact that there would have been scads of them everywhere. It's very possible that the kind of people who were enthusiastic about Rush at the time were also the type to not be very sociable about it - all staring at their own belly buttons instead of talking to each other, you could conjecture. But whether they knew about it or not, there was a sort of kinship to be found in this shared love of something quirky and different, one which has persisted to this day even now that the band has broken up and Neil Peart has passed on.

I'm sure that Dad wasn't really aware of the Doctor Who fan battalions in his city, either, but that $32,000 of raised money really does point to a robust community. On a local level, or a global one, that bond of community over a strange little band - or a strange little TV show - can really do some marvelous things.

For example, it was Dad's interest in Doctor Who, dormant all those years, which arose again after the 2005 revival, and eventually convinced me to give the show a look. A decade later, here I am, even dorkier than the old man before me. Success?

The Face of Evil is next.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 7 May 2021.)

The Deadly Assassin [Doctor Who, Story 88]

The Deadly Assassin by Robert Holmes

30 October - 20 November 1976

"If heroes don't exist, it is necessary to invent them."​

As I traverse a period of the show full of people's favorite episodes, I find it difficult to form my own opinions while reckoning with decades of received "fan wisdom" (a contradiction in terms, usually, though I digress). The Deadly Assassin is one of the most beloved Tom Baker stories, but I can't say I completely understand why. It's very good, but it failed to break my top 40.

Sorry, an admission first. This is another of the small number of Tom serials that I've seen beforehand. A couple of years ago, I skipped ahead and checked out The Deadly Assassin out of curiosity. I liked it, but I was surprised that it left me cold. I hoped that watching it in order and context would improve it in my estimation, but was confused to feel no change after watching it again last week. I haven't been able to pinpoint exactly why, really.

I think that the complete lack of women in the cast didn't help. This has been pointed out a zillion times, but the Hinchcliffe-Holmes era really is quite male dominated in a way that past eras of the show simply have not been. This obviously isn't something that the production team did on purpose, but it still feels quite strange and alienating to me as I watch it now, forty-some years later.

That aside, there isn't really anything wrong with the story. In fact, the political conspiracy plot is, in and of itself, very good. The Kennedy assassination allusions jumped out to me and were quite funny. My sole real complaint in that respect would be that the Matrix concept takes away from the conspiracy plot, and that the episode and a half we spend there bring that plot to somewhat of a screeching halt. It is a funny story overall, really, coming across as a bit of a send-up of the Time Lords. It's clear that Holmes wasn't overawed by their mystique and power and so sought to make them ridiculous, which with the benefit of hindsight seems like the right move. I know this was (and probably still is) controversial among a number of fans. But really, if you want ancient and powerful civilizations not to be a little bit shit, you're watching the wrong show.

The visual effects in this story are extremely impressive for the time. For example, I thought the "earthquake" in Part Four was convincingly done, and the sequences inside the Matrix are very visually arresting. The competence of this production regime at putting the show together is undeniable at this point in their tenure. Possibly they got just a little too confident, because this is of course the story that catalyzed the complaints of professional worriers like Mary Whitehouse and led to the oncoming change of producers.

I've under-written this post a bit, but there's not a lot to say about this story that hasn't been said already. I liked it. Next?

Ah yes, it's a mid-season break, so we'll be having the 1976 music post. See you then.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 3 May 2021.)

The Hand of Fear [Doctor Who, Story 87]

The Hand of Fear by Bob Baker & Dave Martin

2 - 23 October 1976​

Fate is a funny thing. After being delayed out of Season Thirteen by constant scripting problems, The Hand of Fear just so happened to land in the filming schedule in time to see Elisabeth Sladen's departure from the series. Given the choice between this and Douglas Camfield's axed The Lost Legion script, which would have seen Sarah Jane killed off, I think I know what I prefer. As interesting as that story's concept sounds, it would have been awful to lose Sarah Jane like that, and as it is, we got many more adventures with her for the bargain.

I've had difficulty getting a handle on Sarah Jane in some ways. This is partially because of what the show was when she was introduced back in Season Eleven. She was intended then as a smart, contemporary character with the sort of job that would get her into a lot of trouble when she started nosing around the Doctor's world. By the time of The Hand of Fear, the fact that she's a journalist hasn't been brought up in half a season. I can only count two times where it was actually relevant to the plot since Tom became the Doctor: Robot and The Android Invasion. Since few of the stories have been set on contemporary Earth, it's understandable that there might be fewer opportunities, but it's seemed increasingly like Sarah Jane doesn't have a life outside of being the Doctor's companion, and her character has, as a result, been simplified in a way that's proved disappointing to me.

How much does this actually matter? Only a little. I'm left feeling complicated now that she's left, but blessed to have had her for the time we did. Elisabeth Sladen was a charming actress, and every moment with Sarah on screen has been fun. The rapport between her and Tom shone through in these episodes and added to this era's inherent charm. We'll see her again someday, but for now it's goodbye.

Interestingly, this story is actually, to an extent, about Sarah Jane despite the departure plot being grafted on late. She's put through a lot in The Hand of Fear, not least being all but possessed by the ancient Kastrian warlord Eldrad. It's a really mysterious and suspenseful plot during those first two episodes, and I like the nuclear power station setting a lot. Lennie Mayne puts in a stellar director's credit with a lot of interesting and dynamic shots.

I often hear it said that this story falls down a bit in the last act, but I didn't see it. The arrival on Kastria provides a nice, alien location with a lot of neat stuff going on. The concept of Eldrad arriving millions of years late after their culture has died out was very affecting; I loved the spiteful recordings from the fossilized king, and the crunching of "sand" underfoot, plus Sarah's realization of where the sand came from. Eldrad's ultimate fate was a pleasing end, too; it's a pity the Doctor's blatant sequel-bait when he said Eldrad probably wasn't dead never panned out. At least not on TV.

Speaking of Eldrad, they might be one of my favorite one-off villains in the series. I sympathize with Sarah's tongue-in-cheek remark ("Well, I quite liked her, but I couldn't stand him.") because while Stephen Thorne has pipes for days, he really isn't a patch on Judith Paris. She plays Eldrad with such an arch, alien demeanor, a wonderfully expressive performance despite being in that silly costume the whole time. Also, speaking as a transgender person, I enjoyed the fact that a big thing wasn't made of Eldrad's changing gender (or at least changing bodies), which seems quite forward-thinking for this decade.

I have to compliment Glyn Houston for his role as Professor Watson; the scene where he believes the reactor is about to go critical and he calls his family is absolutely heartbreaking. I was so pleased when he survived the story, despite a close brush with Eldrad. Oh, and there's this delightfully horrifying factoid, about which I really need say nothing:

Kind regards are also due to Rex Robinson as Dr. Carter, whose grim fate really surprised me, as well as to Frances Pidgeon in her bit part as Jackson.

The fun concepts and great guest cast made this farewell for Sarah into one of my lesser favorites, and a pleasant surprise since I hadn't heard much good about The Hand of Fear going in. The pleasant surprises basically validate this whole experiment for me. Let's hope for a few more, yes?

The Deadly Assassin is next.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 2 May 2021.)

The Masque of Mandragora [Doctor Who, Story 86]

The Masque of Mandragora by Louis Marks

4 - 25 September 1976​

A historical a day keeps the Doctor away, right? After being spoiled by these in the Hartnell years, I now tend to grab onto the rare historicals with both hands. Although Pyramids of Mars sort of, kind of counts, if you squint, The Masque of Mandragora is the first proper historical of the Tom Baker era. There will only be two others, and then the format will disappear again until The Visitation in 1982. I find this a little hard to believe; after all, period dramas are what the BBC is the best at, what they have the most existing stages and costumes for, and therefore the most bang for one's buck. The fact that Doctor Who eschewed this opportunity and went full-bore into expensive monsters and spaceship sets during a period of hyperinflation of the British pound is utterly beyond me. I'm sure my personal like of historicals doesn't factor into that confusion at all...

It's appropriate that a writer who started on Doctor Who in the Hartnell years is the one to bring us this story as his last script for the program. This was a passion project for Louis Marks, who studied Renaissance Italy academically and was surely hankering for a while to put this to use. I've done a little "studying" of my own, actually, having put a few thousand hours into Europa Universalis IV, a strategy game which takes place in the same timeframe. Therefore, I felt somewhat at home in the picturesque Italian town of, uhm, Portmeirion, Wales. Is it 2005 already?

Jokes aside, it is terribly convenient that someone decided to build a replica of an Italian village somewhere in the UK, so the outdoor crew absolutely lucked out. The sets aren't bad either, and everything looks and feels like the 15th century as it should. I once again detect the hand of the historical-skeptic Robert Holmes in some of the dialog, as a few of the lines have the same amount of florid absurdity as the ones in The Time Warrior.

Holmes and Marks aren't the only ones having fun, since Tom Baker seems to just eat this one up. If anything, he seems to be enjoying it too much, with his "salaaami sandwich" at the end being perhaps just slightly too over-the-top for my liking. I bet the kids loved it, though.

I appreciate this story slightly more for its aesthetics and execution than its script. While it's a fun idea that the Renaissance was a time caught between reason and superstition, the plan of the Mandragora doesn't make a massive amount of sense. It's a pretty good story overall, and certainly one I'll be watching again.

Looks like all I had written down aside from that were cheap cracks about Giuliano "craving for contact with men... of understanding". So hey, seems like it's just about time for me to move on to The Hand of Fear.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 29 April 2021.)

Doctor Who, Season Thirteen

Well, I just spent a few sentences in the previous post talking about some of the things that bothered me about this season, so I might as well spend the actual Season Thirteen post extolling its virtues. There's a sense of confidence to this season that was missing from the previous, probably because Season Twelve was a transitional period, full of stories commissioned by the previous team. Philip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes are clearly doing their level best to scare the hell out of the kids watching at home, and to their credit, I can tell it worked like a charm.

With the exception of the fairly dull Android Invasion, every episode this season is a good one, continuing the good streak that's been (mostly) uninterrupted this decade. Here's hoping our eighth Seventies season will keep that going!

Here's the score breakdown:

Terror of the Zygons - 9.00
Part One - 9.00
Part Two - 10.00
Part Three - 9.00
Part Four - 8.00

Planet of Evil - 7.50
Part One - 8.00
Part Two - 7.00
Part Three - 7.00
Part Four - 8.00

Pyramids of Mars - 8.00
Part One - 9.00
Part Two - 8.00
Part Three - 8.00
Part Four - 7.00

The Android Invasion - 6.50
Part One - 8.00
Part Two - 7.00
Part Three - 6.00
Part Four - 5.00

The Brain of Morbius - 10.00
Part One - 10.00
Part Two - 10.00
Part Three - 10.00
Part Four - 10.00

The Seeds of Doom - 10.00
Part One - 10.00
Part Two - 10.00
Part Three - 10.00
Part Four - 10.00
Part Five - 10.00
Part Six - 10.00

Best episode: The Seeds of Doom, Part Two - 10.00
Runner-up: The Brain of Morbius, Part Four - 10.00
Worst episode: The Android Invasion, Part Four - 5.00

Season Thirteen average: 8.62

Best guest appearance: Gabriel Woolf as Sutekh (Pyramids of Mars)
Best special effect: The Zygon costumes (Terror of the Zygons)
Best musical score: Terror of the Zygons (Geoffrey Burgon)

That's all for now. Back again soon, once I've watched The Masque of Mandragora.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 27 April 2021.)

The Seeds of Doom [Doctor Who, Story 85]

The Seeds of Doom by Robert Banks Stewart

31 January - 6 March 1976

"The time has come. Animals have ruled this planet for millions of years. Now it is our turn."​

Here's another classic story which I first encountered through my abortive randomized marathon. My opinion of this story hasn't dimmed at all since the first viewing, although having a somewhat better sense of the context this story came out in has given me some new thoughts. Stay tuned...

Notably, this is the first time since Hinchcliffe's and Holmes' overhaul of the season formats that we actually get one of our six-episode finale stories. I'm interested to point out that rather than one six-part story, with all the longueurs that would imply, in this instance we have two serials stapled together. There's our first two episodes, a chilling introduction to the Krynoids in the Antarctic base, and then the remaining four episodes with the struggle against Harrison Chase. This seems like a natural usage of six episodes to me, and it helps to keep this story from feeling like it goes on too long.

I do love a good Antarctica plot. Our seventh continent is a subject that's always fascinated me; the few hardy creatures that can survive the harsh conditions, the human expeditions, and the lengthy geological history are all quite intriguing. I think a part of the appeal is the mystery, the idea that there's a whole continent on the other end of the world with no people, and untold secrets buried under ice sheets millions of years old. This is great horror fodder, which is of course why John W. Campbell, Jr. set his landmark horror novella Who Goes There? in the icy wastes of the last continent. More famously, of course, this novella was adapted into the 1982 movie The Thing, but we aren't quite there yet.

Although it's not a patch on John Carpenter's grotesque masterpiece, this is still a delightfully horrifying experience. Much like the Varga planets from Mission to the Unknown many years ago, the Krynoids are pure body horror, and certainly one of the scariest monsters the show has had so far. I'm really surprised that they've never come back; I bet you could do something fun with them today now that ecological collapse is such a big issue.

It's as much the side characters as the monsters who make this story. The self-centered but ruthless mercenary Scorby is an amusing foil for the Doctor and Sarah, Harrison Chase is the best sort of over-the-top villian, and Amelia Ducat is just a bundle of laughs. It's really the Doctor that troubles me the most. Both of the stories that Robert Banks Stewart wrote are very good, but I sort of get the sense that he didn't have a firm grasp on the Doctor as a character. Sure, the Doctor wouldn't actually snap someone's neck or shoot at someone, but seeing him feign doing both is just wrong, especially played straight like this.

Dovetailing into that, as good as this story is, in its context it makes me realize that Season Thirteen has seen not just a shift in the tone of the series, but the core message. That is to say, there really isn't one. Almost every story this season has been about there being relentlessly inhuman monsters, and someone needing to stop them. This isn't really a demerit on any of the stories individually, least of all this one (one of my favorites so far, for the record), but it undeniably feels like a step back after the more sophisticated themes of the Pertwee era. Having that great spirit of adventure from the 1960s back is great - but did we have to get the monster morality back, too?

We'll be wrapping up this brilliant but slightly troubling season in the next post. See you then.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 27 April 2021.)

The Brain of Morbius [Doctor Who, Story 84]

The Brain of Morbius by Terrance Dicks & Robert Holmes

3 - 24 January 1976

"Solon, I think of nothing else! Trapped like this, like a sponge beneath the sea. Yet even a sponge has more life than I. Can you understand a thousandth of my agony? I, Morbius, who once led the High Council of the Time Lords and dreamed the greatest dreams in history, now reduced to this, to a condition where I envy a vegetable."​

There's nothing Bland about this story, Robin or otherwise. (Though by misreading the title slightly, as I seem to keep doing, one might be forgiven for watching it and wondering which one is Brian. Maybe "Brian Who" is the Doctor's full name?) As I've mentioned before, I try to write out the actual names involved rather than the officially credited writer. Because of the high volume of rewrites in this period, I seem to be running into these pseudonyms more frequently. Aside from Condo not being a robot in the broadcast version, I've never been able to find out exactly what parts of this script were Dicks', and which were the additions from Holmes. Whoever wrote it, The Brain of Morbius is a great story, and I couldn't help but to notice just how much it goes out of its way to rock the canon boat.

For starters, we get the first major Time Lord loredump from Robert Holmes, as we find out that Karn is a nearby planet to Gallifrey, and the immortal Sisterhood of Karn are like the distaff counterparts of the (pointedly male-dominated) Time Lords. They have a long sort of on-again, off-again relationship, having cooperated in the past to defeat the dictator Morbius, but are now distant and mistrustful toward each other. The Sisterhood themselves are a fun concept in and of themselves, resembling an ancient Greco-Roman cult, complete with creepy rituals and chanting, plus interesting costumes. From their number, I thought Ohica was quite good, but Cynthia Grenville as Maren left the greatest impression on me of the lot. Her death in particular was quite affecting.

But I simply cannot talk about guest stars without shining a light on this week's best character, that most noble of players, that goliath of the small screen!

Yes, I'm talking about the mutant Solonian who's killed by Condo at the start of the story.

Well okay, you got me, I wasn't actually going to bang on about that, even though I think it's weird that the Doctor calls it a Mutt. The whole point of The Mutants is that they, well, aren't exactly mutants. I guess "Solonian" wouldn't have done, since one still presumes no relation to this story's mad scientist. (Jury's still out on Vishinsky, though.)

BS aside, yeah, Philip Madoc, eh? He elevates every single Who that he's in, and the amoral surgeon Mehendri Solon is one of his most memorable turns yet. Civilized and intelligent, but with a clear touch of madness, he's not quite a match for the Doctor, but still an intriguing villain just the same. The classic dynamic between him and his all-but-hunchbacked sidekick Condo makes for a lot of entertaining moments. The Doctor is also on fine form in this story, full of wit; I was particularly fond of his line about "The impossible dream of a thousand alchemists, dripping like tea from an urn." Very poetic stuff.

Everyone talks about the mental duel between the Doctor and Morbius, and all those spare faces that pop up. This is extra topical these days, and accordingly I was extra amused to see them in their own context. "How far, Doctor? How long have you lived?" It's an ambitious attempt to add an even more mythical dimension to the character. Hey, if we're still bickering about it 40 years later, then it must have been a good one.

The central message of this story also resonates, that of death being preferable to stagnation. The unchanged Sisters, and Morbius grasping for his un-life long after his time, clearly show the appalling banality of clinging to things past their expiration date. Doctor Who is a program that fundamentally favors change, a refreshing attribute as far as I'm concerned. It's a theme which I expect to come up again, so watch this space.

All told, one of my favorites so far. Admittedly I've struggled to write this one up, so if it seems a bit bare, don't put it down to a disregard for the story. The Brain of Morbius is brilliant. The Seeds of Doom will be next.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 26 April 2021.)