I’ve had a really good time watching Mawdryn Undead.
But if I’d been asked about this adventure some 40 odd years ago the answer would have been entirely different. You’d have got the word ‘boring’ at some point in the review and I would probably have complained about the lack of space battles, laser guns and lightsabres. At the time, I was something of a Star Wars junkie, but that’s no excuse.
Yet time has passed, and the world has moved on.
Star Wars has long since been purchased by the ‘House of the Mouse’ from Lucas, our beloved Doctor Who was off the air for 16 years before coming back for the last 20, and more recently it seems that Snow White is attempting to get a solo career off the ground while trying to ignore the dwarf backing band that had once been such an important part of her story.
I’ve changed, of course. My beard is as white as the page on which I now type and I’m supposedly at an age when I’m considered to be a grown up. There are some 50 years under my belt, which strains to hold back the balcony that hangs over an increasingly forlorn play area. The comfort of elasticated pants is preferable to the pain of skinny jeans. But fear not, all is not lost. My old eyes have learned to look at things in a fresh way. Most, if not all of, my attitudes and views have changed. Experience has taught me that it’s wise to give things a second chance.
Apart from the Acolyte. Lines do occasionally need to be firmly drawn.
As far as Mawdryn Undead goes, I’ve found it to be an intelligent piece of sci-fi. It’s got the classic “let’s separate the Doctor from his companions” storyline, though with the twist of it being in the same place but at different moments of time.
All of which is very nicely done.
It starts off with the most unusual piece of Grand Theft Auto that I’ve ever seen. Turlough, the boater hat-wearing car jacker, persuades the nice but very dim Hippo to join him in the crime. Now, I’ve played San Andreas and Liberty City to death, but I’ve never had the option of wearing a pimped-out boater whilst taking care of business!
It goes without saying that I love Valentine Dyall’s performance as the Black Guardian.
The man had a voice so deep that it made Barry White sound like Mickey Mouse on helium.
He’s just so very, very… eeeeeevil.
Wearing black with what I hope is fake fur trim and a crow on your head is hardly the best way of disguising your true nature. Actually, how can it be fake fur? He’s the Black Guardian, for heaven’s sake! So, it must be the fur of some small innocent puppy which he’s gleefully skinned while delivering a particularly deep throated rendition of ‘Zip-a-Dee Doo Dah.’
Even better is Turlough! What a wonderful, lying, selfish, and cowardly little turd he is!
He tries to double cross just about everyone and still gets a berth on the TARDIS! It’s a good job that Peter Davison is on niceness overload. I can’t imagine the other incarnations being so forgiving. Colin Baker might have ‘allegedly’ thrown the worm into a vat of acid while Christopher Eccleston would dump him back on earth, like Adam Mitchell, with a hole in his forehead that would occasionally burst open to display the message, ‘I am a tw*t.’
All credit to the whole cast for their performances. Tegan and Nyssa work well as a team – a bit of fire and ice in the personality stakes is always a welcome contrast. And hats off to Mawdryn himself, David Collings, who puts in a good show as the baddie who’s not really that bad. He is often mentioned as an actor who could have made a very good fist of playing the Doctor and I can see why. But the make-up that he wears for Mawdryn would have to go. I’m not sure if a Saturday tea-time audience would ever really take to a mutated hero whose pulsating gooey brain can be clearly seen at all times.
Then again, a lot of people like Graham Norton.
But the real star is the Brigadier. In many ways I think that this is one of Nicholas Courtney’s best performances. I like the flashbacks to UNIT and his adventures in the past. The eventual appearance of his famous moustache comes as something of a relief. The Brig just doesn’t quite look like the Brig without it. Apparently, the moustache was double booked at the time of the production. It had three days available to apply itself to Nicholas Courtney’s upper lip for the filming of the Brigadier in his Silver Jubilee year incarnation but was then contracted to appear in a musical version of Puss in Boots that was taking place in Rhyl.
At the end of it all, I’m still thinking that it was a little bit cruel of the Doctor to leave the Brig in such a poor state: even though it all works out, our hero basically runs off and leaves his friend just before the start of a full-on mental collapse. Without so much of a kind word, hug, or even the offer of a box of Prozac.
Nonetheless, all things considered, I have to say that Mawdryn Undead has been nothing but a joy to watch. First time round, back in 1983, I might’ve been a bit too young to appreciate it properly. I can see it more clearly now. It’s a good story that was put together with a lot of hard work and respect for the genre. Proper ‘grown-up’ Doctor Who that leaves us with more than a few questions.
What’s going to happen with Turlough? How will the Doctor defeat the Black Guardian? And what exactly happens to our beloved Brigadier?
How does he go from the depressing cricket pavilion accommodation to the mansion we see in Battlefield? Now there’s a story to be told – does Doris have money or is it a case of Grand Theft Brigadier?
