Meglos -Well Observed General, I Am Out On DVD Now!

[Stuart Wallis]

Yes, the list of commentators does seem a bit clutching-at-straws.

[SiHart]

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

Hurrah! Another one without a tint/colour wash!

Si. :mobile

[Andrew Curnow]

Rather good cover!

[SiHart]

No random shapes, no odd colour washes- it's the best one in an age!

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

See, it's like "The Leisure Hive". What's wrong with the proper colours that things are? Then you get a bright, colourful cover. Everything doesn't NEED to be soaked in red or green!

Si.

[SiHart]

It's the ultimate impossibility!

Si xx

[shada pavlova]

Hmm...looks like the work of Lee Binding, rather than Wannabe Briggs.

[Rob McCow]

Waggle his tail!

K-9 would be on that cover but he's too short.

[Lissa]

Hmm...looks like the work of Lee Binding, rather than Wannabe Briggs.

What does Nick Briggs have to do with DVD covers?

[shada pavlova]

I meant Clayton Hickman.


...He's bald.

That's the joke.

[Lissa]

It's obvious now you say it.

[Si Hunt]

It's the way you tell it. etc.

Si.

[Si Hunt]

I can't find this listed anywhere yet!

I'm eager to reserve my copy of "Meglos" before they all sell out.

Si.

[The Secretive Bus]

That's the best cover in bloody years! Looks like one of the painted covers from the late Targets. It's still just random elements thrown together but this one actually has a nice formation and a focus.

[Perry Vale]

I like it.

[SiHart]

Meglos is descending from the Post Office. Thanks be to HMV!

Si xx

[SiHart]

The Jacqueline Hill in Photos feature was lovely.

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

An enjoyable smattering of extras on this - the Jacqui Hill photo feature was especially lovely, but I enjoyed Prof. Obvious-Anagram-Name describing entropy in less than five minutes. Meglos Men was cute, plus the feature on Screen-Synch shows how shockingly hard it was to make two cameras move the same amount!

[Larry]

mines in the post - although i've got so many things to watch right now i'm not sure when i'll get to see it..

[SiHart]

Si xx

[Simon R]

We've almost finished this one. Don't think we can face the Entropy documentary. The other extras are okay but there's nothing here to get you moist.

[Si Hunt]

Not many comments on this one! Are you all waiting til it's cheap?

"Meglos" is bad!

I really enjoyed the first two episodes, simply because the imagary and some of the sets and acting are very colourful and impressive. The Tom/Meglos make-up is a brilliant idea and very well executed, and I actually love Meglos in all his guises - he's brilliantly manevolent. Grugger is played well, love his witty asides and it's actually a very quotable script. Tigella is very well lit and some good sets, and Jackie does a good turn sweeping in waving her sleeves around and of course her best line - "It descended FROM THE HEAVENS!".

But then, oh dear, the plot kicks in and things just get worse the further on we go, so let's work backwards from the end. The main 'threat' is that Tigella is an underground world that can't survive without their immense power source which powers EVERYTHING, the hospitals, the lighting, the heat, maybe food and air processing... if so much as one old man goes up to the surface, he'll die. Then, at the end, the power source blows up and no-one really minds! The main threat... happens. About a minute before the end. We're briefly shown a shot of some people gardening and it all ends! Also the Doctor blows up Zolpha Thura. Isn't this a bit gittish? Ok, it's stated to be a dead world, but then nobody thought that Meglos survived. Maybe the entire Zolpha Thuran race are in hibernation somewhere? The Doctor certainly doesn't appear to check. Just before that Jackie's character dies in a moronically directed scene with no narrative purpose. She hasn't changed her mind about the TARDIS lot, so why she jumps out in front of Romana is a mystery - it's a wonder she knows her name to cry it out as her last word, as they've barely been introduced. And she doesn't EVEN jump out, because the camera is looking the other way. She's just suddenly in front of her and then keels over. It's an insult to one of Doctor Who's greatest treasures that her last turn on screen is as some anonymous bit-part priestess woman who dies pointlessly practically off-camera. If she were coming back, they ought to have written a whole story about the return of Barbara Wright, if you ask me. Imagine Star Trek getting Shatner or Nimoy back, then casting them as Second Guard On The Left?

Oh yes, and the episodes are barely 20 minutes long each. Episode 4 is 18 minutes, including the recap. It's funny how both JNT and Steven Moffat seemed to struggle with episode lengths in their first years - obviously it's a skill gained by practise.

Anyway, "Meglos". It seems as if either the writers were very inexperienced (having the Doctor trapped in the TARDIS until halfway through Part 2 is a giveaway) or Bidmead tampered with things, because the script is awful and has far more holes in it than lamented stories like "Earthshock", which people always tell you doesn't make sense. For years fans have been proud that Scene Synch was trialled on this story, yet it's used in about 10 seconds of footage.

Elsewhere I really liked the first half of Meglos - a good old fashioned alien villain story, with some real ambition in the production; a half decent cast, the poor Edward Underdown aside (who has the honour of ruining some of the series best lines; not just "He sees the threads of the Universe..." but also "Is he a scientist or a believer?"/"Both. And much more."). Things go to pot in Part 4 though, and none of this is thought through, culminating in a shitey ending. Were they pushed for time? They could have shot at least five minutes more per episode to give Jackie a better send-off and explain some of the other stuff, perhaps filming the nice scene in the novelisation where the human gets snatched/returned home too.

Si.

[Lissa]

I watched Meglos a couple of months ago and concluded that none of it makes sense without adding "because it is/does" as the default answer to any question. There isn't a single bit of Meglos that actually works.

I've not watched Hamilton's bit on the DVD yet but I want to as Meglos seems to represent absolutely everything he hated about Doctor Who. It's unscientific, illogical, not taken seriously by half the cast, it uses cheap short cuts and everything revolves around a magical object.

[SiHart]

I like it despite all those things. I can't argue with any of them, and yet it's just got that certain something about it... the power of nostalgia I suppose.

Si xx