What I'm watching

Doctor Who and the Sea Devils

BBC DVD

This is the third series of the ninth season of Doctor Who. It was first broadcast in six weekly parts from the 26th of February to the 1st of April 1972. In this adventure the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Jo Grant (Katy Manning) encounter The Sea Devils, who are the turtle-like aquatic cousins of another ancient species from Earth's past, The Silurians.

The Doctor's arch-nemesis, a renegade Time Lord known as The Master, plots to conquer the Earth using this reptile army, and he develops a machine to summon them from the deep. Much of the action takes place on naval stations, ships, and in the underwater base of the Sea Devils themselves.

This is a typical adventure of the Pertwee years. The use of an underwater setting is interesting, but this serial is best appreciated when considered as an adjunct to The Silurians, who are arguably a more convincing type of monster.

Doctor Who and the Silurians

BBC DVD

Doctor Who and The Silurians is the second series of the seventh Doctor Who season. It was broadcast in from 31 January to 14 March 1970 in seven weekly parts, making it an unusually long story. Jon Pertwee stars as the Doctor, and Caroline John as his assistant, Liz.

The Silurians are members of an ancient reptilian species who have hibernated since the end of the dinosaur age. Along with The Sea Devils, their marine cousins, they have lain dormant while humans took over the planet. Much of the story is set in the caves they retreated into all those years ago.

In this series, the Silurians are revived by energy from a nuclear research station. Using a virus, they attempt to destroy that upstart ape called Man. Only the Doctor can save humanity...

Children of the Stones

ITV DVD

This is a series that I should have seen as a child, but for some reason didn't. Children of the Stones is a television drama produced by HTV in 1976. It was broadcast on the ITV network over January and February 1977. That's probably the reason I never saw it...mine was principally a BBC household. But that was my loss, because it is absolutely fantastic.

This is certainly one of my top favourite DVD's. I've watched it over and over again without really tiring of it. Maybe I can appreciate these things more as an adult, but there's a uniquely charged atmosphere to these New-Age pseudo-pagan fantasies; Children of the Stones combines an educated stance and a spookiness in a way that only 1970's production values could have done. It's pretty much in the same mold as The Wicker Man or the classic works of Nigel Kneale such as Murrain. It is certainly a highly atmospheric production, and has what Wikipedia describes as "sinister, discordant wailing voices heightening the tension on the incidental music...[a] chant in accordance with the megalithic rituals referred to in the story".

The series is set in a village within a stone circle, which is clearly Avebury, though it is called Milbury here. It centres around an astrophysicist played by Gareth Thomas of Blakes 7 fame, and his young son Matthew. They arrive in the village to do some research into the stones (though why an astrophysicist should be particularly qualified is left unexplained). They meet up with a museum curator and her daughter who provide a certain amount of female interest, if not quite love interest for the more recent arrivals. It soon becomes apparent that the other inhabitants of the village are not quite as they seem. It has something to do with the stones...and a mysterious squire-like figure who seems to lead it all, and a Welsh poacher who knows something he can't - or won't - explain...

Beasts

Network DVD

This is a series of six plays by the Manx writer Nigel Kneale, who is perhaps best known as the author of Quatermass and The Pit. The plays are unconnected with each other but share the same thematic content, much of which can be traced to Kneale's Manx heritage and his appreciation of the uncanny. They were filmed by ATV and broadcast on ITV in 1976. The six constituent episodes are as follows:

• 1. "Special Offer", in which a young Pauline Quirke plays a checkout girl at the heart of poltergeist activity in a supermarket.

  2. "During Barty's Party", in which the world becomes overrun by rats.

  3. "Buddyboy", where a derelict aquarium is haunted by the spirit of an abused dolphin.

  4. "Baby", the best of the bunch, which chillingly tells of how a young wife's pregnancy is compromised by ancient witchcraft.

  5. "What Big Eyes", in which an RSPCA inspector investigates a pet shop owner with ambitions to become a werewolf.

  6. "The Dummy", the worst of the bunch, where an alcoholic actor in a monster costume self-identifies too much with the role and descends into a violent madness.

The DVD contains a bonus feature, Murrain. Although this was not part of the Beasts series it was produced in a similar vein. Together with the Baby episode these two plays are the making of the DVD. Like Children of the Stones, they are a first-rate example of 1970's TV witchcraft at work.

Quatermass and the Pit

Hammer Horror DVD

This is a Nigel Kneale classic and probably his best known work. Unusually for Kneale, it deals in a subject that can be classified as science fiction rather than fantasy. The film has also given Hammer an opportunity to leave gothic horror and to attempt this quite different challenge. Such a change in genre is a gamble for both of them. Science fiction fans are perhaps the most critical of audiences; they know how and when to suspend disbelief. They know the established themes, they can recognise originality when they see it, and they know the science behind it all. Quatermass and the Pit can therefore be seen as a double risk. Will Hammer and Kneale get away with it?

In my view the answer is a resounding "yes". This is a film which takes science fiction away from futuristic gadgetry and towards something more suspenseful and subtle. While renovating the Underground station of Hobb's End, a mysterious vessel is unearthed along with some strange looking humanoid skeletons. At first it is thought to be a wartime bomb that has embedded itself in some fossils, and an army disposal squad is called in to deal with it. Personally I thought it was a large bottle, but that's just the way my mind works.

All of the action takes place on Earth. In fact, most of it occurs in that London Underground station. The story relies heavily on character development rather than ostentatious displays of sci-fi technology. This is very much a Kneale trait and Hammer have brought appropriate production and direction values to bear. Interestingly they used several actors from their vampire films, including Andrew Keir in the starring role, and Barbara Shelley as Barbara Judd, one of his scientific protégés. They carry off their parts with aplomb, and it is easy to forget that Keir would more typically wear a priests garb, and Shelley a set of vampire teeth...

Quatermass has his own ideas as to the significance of the bottle from the pit. He sees alien hybridisation at work, a race memory of ancient times on Mars, and the awakening of a terrible subconscious power which threatens the Earth. He tries to convince the authorities of impending danger. The question is: will the man from the ministry listen to Professor Quatermass and stop the digging before it's too late?

Doctor Who and the Green Death

BBC DVD

Doctor Who has always occupied an unusual position within Science Fiction. This is because it has never tried particularly hard to foretell the future. Instead, it has developed a remit which lies at the juncture of popular entertainment and education. A Time Lord would be a handy mentor if history was to be caught unfolding, and this is a formula that has provided many good stories with a historical theme. More populist stories are usually set at some point in the future.The absence of either a historical or a futuristic setting is what makes The Green Death so special. It is set in 1970's Britain, not at some point in centuries long past. Nor is it a tale of pure fantasy, set at some far-flung date in the centuries to come. Instead it tells of a Britain that might be just around the corner, and it exposes a problem that contemporary audiences might reasonably have to deal with in their lifetimes.As the title suggests, The Green Death has an ecological theme. The basic premise is simple. A mining company is disposing of waste in an unsafe manner and is polluting the environment. This plays havoc with insect life and the result is...well...giant maggots.

It's been said that if corporations - which have a legal identity similar to that of a person - actually were people then they would be declared insane. This particular mining company appears to have taken that concept to an extreme, in that it is controlled by a business computer which has developed psychopathic tendencies. To this machine, productivity is everything, and the side effect of creating huge mutant insects is of no significance. The Doctor enlists the help of an offbeat scientist from a nearby eco-hippy commune, and together they develop a weapon to keep the maggots in check.

My favourite scene, and arguably the most prescient of all, is when the Royal Air Force are called in to try and bomb the maggots. It seems that the only resource that the RAF can provide is a 2 seater helicopter with a bloke lobbing grenades out the window. Full marks to the producers then for not only anticipating the environmental record of big business, but also the swathes of cutbacks that have been inflicted upon H.M. Forces.

The Stone Tape

BFI DVD

Bearing all of the hallmarks of a Nigel Kneale classic, The Stone Tape is a one-off triumph of science and the supernatural. As such it is comparable in some ways to Murrain, but the storyline is quite different.In The Stone Tape, Kneale places his focus on old-fashioned hauntings and the application of 1970's computer technology. A team of industrial researchers arrive at a new laboratory in an abandoned manor house, centuries old, with the brief of developing something that will appeal to customers, dominate the market, and set the commercial world aflame.

The discovery they stumble across - quite by accident - is a recording mechanism. Somehow it is associated with the stone in the walls...the material seems capable of recording emotion. What the team haven't bargained for is the complexity of the mechanism, the horror that has been transcribed from the ancient past, and the horror that can still be recorded and played back now...