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Talons of Weng Chiang is one of the classic gothic stories of the Phillip Hinchcliffe era. He mixes Jack the Ripper, Phantom of the Opera and Sherlock Holmes into a bold, exciting story that never disappoints. Weng Chiang turns out not to be the Chinese mesmerist or his dummy, but an alien criminal from the future, sometimes known as the Butcher of Brisbane, who took possession of both and used them as pawns in his attempt to revive his ailing body. Pure magic. Plus The Doctor speaking Mandarin. 10/10
Commentary Commentary is by Louise Jameson, Phillip Hinchcliffe, David Maloney (Director), John Bennett (Li H’sen Chang) And Christopher Benjamin (Henry Gordon Jago). This is actually far too many people to do a commentary and it really does seem too fragmented as they try to comment. The fact that Dudley Simpson, composter of Doctor Who music is the conductor in the theatre is a lovely anecdote, but a lot of the early part of the commentary waffles a bit until Bennett and Benjamin find their feet. They seem not to have done a commentary before. Bennett’s comment that an Englishman playing a Chinaman would not be tolerated now is important. Most of the rest of the commentary is discussion about the locations and the film versus studio debate. 9/10 Whose Doctor Who is a rather dated, but rather interesting documentary from the 1970s introduced by Melvin Bragg, which tries to examine the psychology of Doctor Who. Some of the points made by psychologists and educationalists are very interesting and still valid in context with the modern series. Others seem to have missed the mark, especially the theories about boys and girls and how they view science fiction. Doctor Who was, in their view, aimed at boys, and girls who liked it were acting against their gender. I thought most of the children and parents interviewed were too middle class – or were putting on posh accents for the TV and not acting true to type. The view from some council estates and terraced streets might have been interesting. I would be very interested in a further study on the same basis now. 10/10 Behind The Scenes is a series of extremely bad, fuzzy sequences with
counter on screen, of filming some of the set pieces of Talons of
Weng Chiang, particularly the scenes at the Professor’s House.
It is actually very distracting trying to watch because of the quality.
7/10 Blue Peter Theatre is a compilation of several episodes of Blue Peter presenters making a puppet theatre with Doctor Who characters that could be cut out of the Radio Times. It is truly awful stuff. Don’t even look at it. 1/10 Phillip Hinchcliffe Interview – with the red-headed Irishman in a blazer on Pebble Mill whose name I cannot remember and the smarmy dark haired man with the middle-England accent who was even more forgettable. There is a Dalek in the background, which just goes to show how trivial they treated it. The reason for the interview was to preview the Melvyn Bragg documentary which was going out on the following Sunday. It really did nothing but skim over the issues that Bragg covered in depth. It is purely a way of promoting the documentary. And they make the irritating mistake of talking about ‘Doctor Who’ as the name of the character. 7/10 Trails and Continuity – WHY BOTHER? 0/10 TARDIS CAM No. 6. A strange animated sequence with the TARDIS floating around some alien space ship and something like a space whale which has never been seen in Doctor Who as far as I know. Though I might put it into one of my own stories one of these days! I’m not sure I get the point of it. 8/10. Photo Gallery - lots of black and white stills, especially of Leela and some colourful portraits of everyone involved. 8/10 Again the annoying two disc formula which I don’t think there is any call for since the extras were quite poor, anyway. But Talons of Weng-Chiang is such a fabulous story, so well made for its time that these shortcomings can be ignored. 9 out of 10
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