The Friday Docback Basks In The Glow Of 'Dragonfire'!! DOCTOR WHO Story #147, A Report From Last Weekend's BBC Home Entertainment/Alamo Drafthouse, Aint It Cool News 'Daemons' Screening, A Preview Of Season/Series 7 Daleks, More!

 

That’s a great and poignant set-up for a companion, and Aldred (who had never performed on-camera before this story) wears it well...confidently holding her own against the larger-than-life likes of Peel’s Kane and Tony Selby’s reprisal of Sabalom Glitz (introduced in “The Mysterious Planet” - C. Baker, Story # 143).  The performances of both characters are earnest, welcome, and sometimes luminous - but the nature of their roles themselves points to this story’s greatest shortcoming in the eyes of many fans:  derivation.   

 

As presented, Kane is more or less a DOCTOR WHO’s equivalent of BATMAN’s Mister Freeze - albeit without a suit or technological trappings.  He requires (and seems to thrive on) the super-coolants which are the heart of his operation.  His allergies to heat are disabling and even fatal,  he’s able to freeze objects with merely a touch, and he worships the the visage of long lost woman he once admired.  That’s Mister Freeze, more or less.  

 

 

Similarly, it’s hard not to compare Selby’s Glitz - a reckless, card-playing, constantly-in-trouble, anti-authoritarian pirate/smuggler/entrepreneur - to both STAR WARS’ Han Solo and (more appropriately) STAR TREK’s Harry Mudd.  Selby brings admirable humor, charm, and timing to his part...but it’s a role we’ve seen before, several times over.  Not unlike the “dragon,” which here looks like a low-rent Queen from the ALIEN films.  A good thing in this case, as the creature is ultimately hunted by soldiers with big guns and trackers...ALIEN-style. In for a penny, in for a pound I suppose.  Less room for confusion that way.  

 

So, in “Dragonfire,” we have an unlikely collision of conceits from three or four mainstream franchises...which admittedly sounds like a very bad thing at face value  If this is the case, why does this story remain worthwhile on the whole?  

 

As we’ve discussed a number of times here on the Docbacks, the presence of derivation / “conceits” are not necessarily negative.  The original STAR WARS found inspiration in a number of prior sources, including DUNE and early Kurosawa films like THE HIDDEN FORTRESS.  The original STAR TREK was, at the very last, influenced by a few Westerns, ‘50s genre fare like FORBIDDEN PLANET, and perhaps even (and this is my musing...I have no evidence to support this...and the timing may not align correctly) a German space exploration series called RAUMPATROUILLE.  There’s some BEOWULF in ALIENS, as another example.  And the list goes on.  Science Fiction, perhaps more than any other genre, is easily influenced and shaped by what has come before.  Thus, bashing together conceits often doesn’t, by definition, feel like too significant a travesty.  But how such conceits are merged and used...i.e. how organic they become within the new “whole” being created...becomes the critical factor in the effort’s success.  The immediate “universe” of “Dragonfire” makes sense, and feels rational enough, despite its sometimes familiar trappings.  Thus, derivation ultimately serves the story at hand quite nicely, and scripter Briggs wisely throws enough curve-balls to effectively counterbalance the potentially bad aftertastes of such aping.  A dodgy and dangerous game to be sure, but a challenge which is nicely met here. 

 

McCoy’s Doctor attempting to distract and confound an apparently thuggish guard, only to find himself reversely distracted and confounded by the man’s unexpectedly existential, philosophical nature, proves one of the more humorous McCoy era sequences I’ve experienced thus far - for my money, nothing’s funnier than flummoxing one’s hero.  Lovely effects work in Part Two features a pan downward from the frozen spires of Iceworld...across Svartos’ desolate and darkened surface...to the opposite crescent of the planet, which is radiating luminous heat.  A nicely conceived and strongly executed moment.  Briggs’ audacious inclusion of a brief side adventure, featuring outgoing companion Mel and new companion Ace in protracted sequences together before Mel’s exit from the show, is to be commended for both it cleverness and audacity.  A fascinating means by which we say goodbye to one friend, and greet another.  

 

On Iceworld, not even rampaging cryo-mercs and mysterious laser-pulsing 'dragon' monsters can keep sweet Stellar (Miranda Borman) from her milkshake.  

 

 

Zippy, visually distinctive, and interesting (in a comic book sort of way) throughout, “Dragonfire”  never achieves any meaningful level of gravity, and often feels like it’s merely skirting compelling notions rather than investing in them fully.  But to clumsily paraphrase BABYLON 5’s J. Michael Straczynski, part of telling one's story well involves knowing how to go in with guns blazing and get the hell out of there.  This approach is exactly what “Dragonfire” banks on, and, all things being equal, the gamble pretty much pays off.  

 

The newly restored “Dragonfire” is available on DVD HERE in the U.S. and HERE in the U.K.  

 

 

 

 

 

Special Features include...

 

 

 

Fire and Ice (35:07)

 

A look at the making of this episodes, featuring insight from...

 

-- Andrew Cartmel (Script Editor) 

 

-- Ian Briggs (“Dragonfire” writer) 

 

-- Chris Clough (“Dragonfire” director) 

 

-- Edward Peel (Kane) 

 

-- Sophie Aldred (companion “Ace,” introduced in this story) 

 

-- Sylvester McCoy (7 th Doctor, archive interview) 

 

** Discusses how “Ray” (Sara Griffiths - “the motorcycle girl” in episode “Delta and the Bannerman”  - the story preceeding "Dragonfire" ) was actually a test run for a possible companion.  

 

** Aldred discusses getting the part of “Ace” and going to work in the role despite never having been in front of a TV camera.  

 

** Cartmel sees “Ace” as an archetype of tenth Doctor companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper).  

 

**  Sylvester McCoy’s audition piece (which was later re-purposed to be part of Mel’s exit scene) .

 

**  A discussion of the Doctor’s cliff-side bizarreness (mentioned above).

 

**  The villain was originally named “Hess,” but producer John Nathan-Turner wanted the name changed to disassociate the character from the Nazi war criminal of the same moniker. 

 

** DIscussion of controversy surrounding the story’s rather graphic dispatch of Kane. 

 

 

 

Deleted and Extended Scenes (9:57) 

 

 

 

The Doctor’s Strange Love (15:44) 

 

Simon Guerrier with Josie Long and Joe Lidster.  A discussion ot previous genre titles which may’ve influenced “Dragonfire.” 

 

 

 

The Big Bang Theory (12:33) 

 

Danny Hargreaves (a DW Special Effect Supervisor) discusses explosions and action seen throughout DW’s history.  

 

 

 

Photo Gallery (4:48) 

 

 

 

PDF

 

Radio TImes Listings 

 

 

 

Coming Soon (1:37) 

 

 

The forthcoming DVD of “Death to the Daleks”  (Pertwee, Story #72)