Spinning off to a world without tele/visual Who!

[Wayne]

TVM aside, Back in the 90's when the extent of my Dr.Who fandom was buying the BBC vids up to Season 15, (& the Dalek ones) Those of you who were 'active' fans could only experience new Dr.Who through the non-visual mediums. But if you wanted to worship at the altar of the great glass god, The nearest you could get to new Dr.Who were the video (& later dvd) spin-offs.
Until tonight, i have never actually seen any of these spin-offs, but a good while ago, a friend of mine provided me with a whole bunch of 'em for my perusal. Having completed all other various Who related viewing projects, the time has now come to give these a go.
Despite being warned by several of you that a lot of them are pretty bad, i must confess to a certain (perhaps morbid?) curiousity about them. I want to know what they're like, & i intend (for better or worse) to find out!
I don't know what came out first, but i guess it doesn't really matter about doing them in the order that they were made, so i decided to kick of with the BBV productions starring Colin Baker, as 'The Stranger', & Nicola Bryant as Miss Brown, because there's a bunch of these, & it seemed like as good a place as any to start, so earlier this evening i watched the first one.

The Stranger

Summoned By Shadows



As it kicks off we see a spaceship traveling through space, & coming into orbit around a planet. On the spaceship apparently, is a mysterious cowled figure....... So far the visual effects look very Blake's 7/80's Who. Nothing wrong with that! Although, the incidental music sounds typically horrible 80's synths.
Colin & Nicola appear almost straight away in their first scene. Colin as 'The Stranger' is sitting in a makeshift shelter, unshaven & dressed like a tramp, complete with string tied around his coat. There's a hint that they've been in some kind of relationship, & Nicola's character seems to be leaving him.



Nicola for her part, looks absolutely gorgeous, it has to be said! And i'm glad she's using her normal accent!
Cut to a scene with Michael Wisher as some sort of magician type character in terrible make-up, who pied piper like, complete with whistle, entinces some young woman (Tanya) from a mullet ridden crowd of extras, for seeminly sinister purposes unknown. All quite intriguing, so far.......
Next thing we know, Miss Brown turns up at a cocktail party at some posh house. I'm puzzled here. She doesn't behave as if she knows the people there, & without uttering a word, she lets them whisk her off to get changed into a posh dress, & fur coat...... Meanwhile, a young mute fellow (Dane) is trying to find Tanya, & eventually enlists the help of the reluctant 'Stranger', who claims to have no interest in 'human affairs any longer'. Whilst Michael Wisher's character, (billed as 'The Controller') sets Tanya to work with a bunch of other previously 'enlisted' ragamuffins, engaged in searching through rubble. What they're looking for is not made clear at this point.
Michael Wisher appears in several guises, & his character turns out to be extensions of the cowled figure aboard the spaceship, who sounds like a cross between The Black Guardian & the Emperor from 'Star Wars', who has the people enslaved via his mental powers, whilst making them search the planet for bits of old technology with which he can make his escape. It becomes clear that he's trapped in orbit, & he tries to blackmail the Stranger into helping him, by letting him know that he has Miss Brown. (It later transpires that the posh house & party are just created by mental projection.) But the Stranger agrees to help him with make repairs only if he agrees to free all the slaves under his control.
Then it all turns to shit....... We briefly see the cowled figure as some kind deformed humanoid, who's vaguely remeniscent of the Master in 'Keeper of the Traken', bathed in luminescent red light, he gradually becomes normal human looking, & then suddenly a big laser type ray fires up from the planet's surface & destroys the spaceship. Huh? Why? There's no explanation of what's going on! Did i fall asleep & miss a bit? Then at the end Tanya & Dane are reunited; as are the Stranger & Miss Brown, & i haven't the foggiest idea what happened!

Well that was an interesting experience! I'm really not sure what to make of it! It's like they chopped a bit out.
All i can say is that i thought Nicola Bryant who had a few nice moments at the party, & in her interaction with the Stranger, showed that she can actually act when she's not having to be the whining Peri all the time!
Colin Baker was ok, in a slightly going through the motions kind of way, & even Michael Wisher, who actually had the most to do, & the most on screen time in this 35min long production, seemed adequate, if slightly uninspired.
Overall, it wasn't quite as bad as i'd expected, but it wasn't great. The story was very flimsy, though. I hope the next one is better!

[Andrew Curnow]

I remember watching it years ago, and in fact I can't even recall whether I've still got the video or not. It was so exciting that I can't remember anything about it, except Colin looking like a tramp and Michael Wisher's hat.

I hope that's been of interest!

[Wayne]

I remember watching it years ago, and in fact I can't even recall whether I've still got the video or not. It was so exciting that I can't remember anything about it, except Colin looking like a tramp and Michael Wisher's hat.

I hope that's been of interest!

Of course!
Don't worry i'm doing this thread for my own amazement. I don't expect a stack of in depth input.

[Si Hunt]

In the cold light of hindsight, even the best of the Doctor Who spin-offs were, in my opinion, awful. They managed to combine the casts, crews and writers of Doctor Who without any of the magic of the series whatsoever, overlooking the fact that it used to be about child-like adventure, and was not a "serious" drama. The P.R.O.B.E series now laughable claim to being "The British X-Files" sums up the delusion with which these fans thought they could not just make Doctor Who, but better it.

Thus most of the scripts are so pretentious you haven't got a clue what's going on! I had "In Memory Alone" and it mainly consists of two unnamed people sitting at a train station wittering on to each other. At the end, Nicola Bryant inexplicably turns into a shop dummy as I remember! What on Earth is that all about? It leaves you with no sense of having watched something you even remotely understood.

The best ones are probably "Shakedown" and "Downtime". "Shakedown" is almost too well made - glossy and lavish, but still suffers from some hammy acting and casting (Carole Ann-Ford and Sophie Aldred and simply awful, and the scene with "the Dentist" makes you want to die). It's lavish but... somehow without charm and overly butch. "Downtime" should be scary, but isn't because it's shot at the UEA in horrid bright videotape and sunlight and has an awful, pretentious plot involving a dream and some kind of awful (now dated) thing involving computers. Sarah Jane Smith wanders in for no good reason towards the end to exchange nods and winks with Debbie Watling, and there's a really confusing scene at the end where Debbie searches for her fictional father but bumps into her real one!

The worst ones are "Daemos Rising" which is just more of the same - a confusing plot and it goes on forever. And do you ever actually see a Daemon in it? I can't remember I died before the end. "Wartime" right at the other end of the timespan features some boy dissapearing all the time while two people shout at each other.

In short, these things invariably try to do "proper" drama by having two poor actors talking mystically to each other about something the audience doesn't understand. There's ZERO identification, and it comes over as an attempt by some pompous fans somewhere to rewrite Doctor Who as some respectable, gritty supernatural drama. The possibility of it being frightening is always eliminated by crap effects and dodgy shooting - who can forget the bit in "Devil of Winterbourne" where it changes from night to day and then back again in about four scenes? That one is also so hurriedly produced that there's an inadvertantly hilarious bit where a (now well known) amateur actors bollocks make an unscheduled appearance as he climbs out of bed.

Good luck for your efforts Wayne, but these are all woeful!

Si.

[Wayne]

Thanks for that, Si!
Your overall reasoning as to why they failed to capture that Dr.Who magic would seem to be spot on, judging by the first one, but you've made what i've embarked upon sound all the more strangely fascinating, if perhaps not for the right reasons. Although, i can't say i'm looking forward to being left confused. If a viewer is left confused, then that's bad writing.
It may seem like a strange thing to want to watch these, & it may prove to be more of a 'learning about a little corner of the Whoniverse' excersise, rather than a truly enjoyable one, But i'm simply curious. I want to learn firsthand, the knowledge that many of you already have.

[Si Hunt]

For the ultimate in horrific viewing, watch the sex scene between Colin and Nicola in "The Airzone Solution"! It's just WRONG to watch the Doctor and his companion copping off!

Si.

[Wayne]

For the ultimate in horrific viewing, watch the sex scene between Colin and Nicola in "The Airzone Solution"! It's just WRONG to watch the Doctor and his companion copping off!

Si.

Now i'm really fascinated! I'd heard that he gets to snog her, but a sex scene!!
I bet she'd rather it was David Tennant.

[Dirk Gently]

I'll never forgive Colin for that scene!

[Si Hunt]

It's complete with sultry slow-fades to random body parts and serial snogging!

Si.

[Wayne]

I'll never forgive Colin for that scene!

How old was Colin in 1991? And how old was Nicola?
C'mon, you can't blame the guy! Would you have said 'no'?

[Dirk Gently]

I wasn't married in 1991, Colin was.

[Wayne]

I wasn't married in 1991, Colin was.

It wasn't real you know, Tim.
I hate to break it to you, but that police box is just a prop.

[Dirk Gently]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Wayne]

Tim clearly can't cope with the thought of anyone doing Nicola. Fictional or otherwise.

[Dirk Gently]

<he's telling lies, Doctor who is real, he's telling lies, Doctor who is real, he's telling lies, Doctor who is real, he's telling lies, Doctor who is real,>

[SiHart]

The P.R.O.B.E series now laughable claim to being "The British X-Files" sums up the delusion with which these fans thought they could not just make Doctor Who, but better it.

What I disliked about those was aside from the general ineptness of the production was the over-reliance on nasty gory effects, for no good reason at all. It was just another example of them doing things because they could, rather than for the story. As it was the stories weren't all that good either.

I rather liked The Auton Trilogy (a trilogy they finished!) They were well made, told good stories and were fairly enjoyable to watch.

Si xx

[Wayne]

More Than A Messiah



The procedings kick off with Peter Miles playing Darton, one of two characters looking through binoculars at the water, apparently for a 'mermaid', whilst at the same time, two 'tourists' are water skiing. After briefly spotting this 'mermaid'who disappears, they give up, but the so called 'mermaid' pulls the water skier, & then the driver of the speedboat under the water. All well & good, so far. Elsewhere, in a setting remeniscent of 'The Leisure Hive', The Stranger is 'relaxing' on a beach somwewhere, but the weather is awful, & Miss Brown is bored, & kitted out in coat & gloves.
It transpires that Peter Miles' character: 'Bunny' Denton is some kind of architect, who has plans to build a new city on this planet, although he's supposed to be holidaying there with his wife Charlotte. At their holiday retreat they are watched by an ape like creature, & also someone who looks suspiciously like Sophie Aldred. Elsewhere, Miss Brown stumbles upon the unconcious driver of the speedboat, who's washed up on the beach, who becomes frightened & hysterical upon awakening. Later, Bunny goes off hunting & encounters Sophie Aldred who runs off after calling him a demon & proclaiming: 'Death to you!', & meanwhile the recovering water skier, Mike, explains his situation to Miss Brown, & whilst he's trying to organize a flight home, the Space Port is apparently destroyed, somehow.
Will all these mysterious seperate events eventually gell together to form a story? We shall see!
Later, Sophie Aldred, who turns out to be the mermaid creature, encounters the Stranger who is still relaxing on the beach. They simply smile at each other! Meanwhile, Mike & Miss Brown are making their way through the forest, where after finding a slightly grotesque looking skull, they encounter the ape like creature, but then Mike is shot by Bunny, who suddenly appears.
Later, Sophie the mermaid & the Stranger are in a cave, & she gives the Stranger a bowl of cave water to drink, after which he promptly passes out, after asking her 'Who are you?'. Next thing we know, they're both stood apparently naked in the water which we are informed has relaxing properties, & then she tells him that 'He's the first', & that she's never known a mind like his, & that he's beatiful! (What the f*** is going on?) Then there's a load of pseudo-profound guff about what she senses in his mind, & she proposes that she 'joins' her on this 'planet of peace'. What a load of bollocks!
Whilst all this is going on, there's loads of boring & further inexpicable scenes, where Bunny is keeping Miss Brown & the wounded Mike prisoner at their cabin. (Why?) But Charlotte helps Miss Brown to escape to get help for Mike, whilst Bunny shouts great dialogue like: 'You're stupid! You stupid, stupid woman!'. It's fascinating how crap something can be!
In the end, the Stranger turns down Sophie the mermaids offer, but she doesn't take it well, & booms 'Stay!!', whilst someone shines a bright torch on her! Then there's further utter madness when Bunny is out in the forest taking apparently random pot shots, each of which seem to somehow hurt Sophie the mermaid who's still down in the cave with the Stranger. Huh? Don't ask me! Then she stumbles off back into the sea shouting about 'communion', before she seemingly links minds with the Stranger, senses that he loves Miss Brown, & turns herself into a double of Miss Brown. He then gives a long winded flowery speech about whether he loves Miss Brown, which is essentially saying: 'It's not that black & white', whilst she mentally attacks Miss Brown, before the Stranger tells that she won't win his friendship by killing her friends. It's stunning stuff, isn't it!
So whilst the mermaid is distracted, Miss Brown is captured at gunpoint in the forest, by Bunny. By this time, we're 40mins in, & the narrative/storyline is still so incredibly vague! Next thing we know, the Stranger & the mermaid, still in Nicola's form, are friends again, & reveals that she is this world, before collapsing in pain, & turning back into Sophie Aldred, & threatening to destroy the world by committing suicide!
Then literally the whole of the rest of the cast suddenly turn up out of nowhere at the cave, & Bunny shoots Sophie the mermaid, who dies swathed in green light, & the planet supposedly begins to die as well. The Stranger tries to talk the planet out of dying by saying he wants to stay. (in some alarming overacting by Colin Baker!) But in the end they leave the planet, & take Mike home, after Bunny is killed in the planet's death throes. (What happened to Charlotte remains unexplained.)
So get this folks: This is the 'big' explanation:
The mermaid creature was an anti-body created by the planet to protect itself from disease, & all the rest the 'were that disease'. "The only way the planet could come to terms to terms with the creatures that were trying to destroy it, was to create copies of them."

'More Than A Messiah' certainly fits into Si's description above. What a pretentious load of toss! There is some sort of concept there, but it's so vague & poorly written the whole thing actually becomes entertainingly bad! Not a story i shall ever bother to watch again, but at least it's memorable for being so poor!

[Dave Tudor]

I've got a handful of BBV/Reeltime videos, and, perhaps tellingly, I've never watched any of them more than once.

Some of them I've seen even fewer times.

[Si Hunt]

I'd feel bitterly dissapointed if I met a real life mermaid and it turned out to be Sophie Aldred.

Si.

[Simon R]

Sophie probably smells like a mermaid, of cockles, whelks and scampi.

[Dirk Gently]

I like eating cockles & scampi.

[Wayne]

I couldn't face another one today.
Back to 'work' tomorrow, though. I shan't give up! Never! Never!
I notice Nick Briggs wrote the next one. Whether that means an improvement or not, i don't know.

[Wayne]

In Memory Alone



An alien ship detects a needed power source & crash lands at what appears to be a disused railway station, where some sort of hovering robot is despatched. There's a mannequin on the platform, which miraculously turns into Miss Brown, who doesn't seem to have a clue where she is, or what she's doing there. (Can you sense what i'm sensing? Here we go again, then....) The robot appears on a train collecting tickets, in which another mannequin is seated, which suddenly turns into the Stranger, who also doesn't know where he is, or who he is.
Then Nick Briggs turns up as an odd looking city type on the platform & starts insisting that he & Miss Brown must catch the train. Meanwhile an 'evil' sounding laughter keeps eminating from the station's intercom. Whilst the Stranger is tampering with some equipment on board the train, the train momentarily disappears before arriving at the station before it disappears again after the Stranger disembarks.
The Stranger & Miss Brown spend an indeterminably lengthy amount of time trying to figure out where they are, & who they are, & at one point Nicola Bryant accidently slips into her American Peri accent, whilst they're constantly being observed by the odd passenger, who eventually attacks the Stranger for 'not obeying the rules'. In the meantime, Miss Brown is questioned by the robot, who doesn't know what it's doing either, because it's program has been erased, & meanwhile the odd passenger is revealed to be a hologram.
Eventually they discover an alien in a survival suit, who has the same face as the holographic passenger. The alien begins to burn up & decompose as soon as it's exposed to the atmosphere. But it attacks the Stranger & Miss Brown, during & after which there's about 5 mins of gobbledygook about matter transference & holograhic this & that, which apparently passess for some sort of explaination, but quite frankly it's all gone way over my head.
Basically, you get the impression that this is desperately trying to a 'Sapphire & Steel' type story that grounded in hard Sci-Fi. There is a concept in there, but believe you me, it's actually a really poorly realised story that's struggling to explain itself, & whilst doing so, it completely fails to be entertaining on any level whatsoever.
Another cracker, then!

[Wayne]

The Terror Game



This one seems to carry on straight from where the last one left off, with the sudden appearance The Stranger, dressed in the same suit that he wore in 'In Memory Alone'. Nicola Bryant obviously decided that she could move onto better things, as her character Miss Brown, does not appear, bar a flashback sequence to the previous story.
Much to my surprise, i immediately recongnise the location in Nottingham, as this was filmed about 2mins walk from where i live! The indoor location for this film seems to've been a nightclub which is no longer standing, called 'Bobby Browns', which is a venue i went to in the past, to see a couple of jazz gigs. Small world, i guess. So anyway, the Stranger appears, & surprise surprise, he doesn't know why he's there. Here we go again.......
We are soon introduced to the characters of Egan & Saul, played by David Troughton & John Wadmore, respectively. The presence of David Troughton raises the bar because he's immediately convincing as a hard looking sort of bloke who's embroiled in some sort of plan to kill someone. Meanwhile, the Stranger seems to be having some sort of flashback sequence which portrays him as some sort of assassin, before he's jolted back to the present by the appearance of Tamora Hennessey played by Louise Jameson, complete with her Eastenders accent.
Whilst Egan & Saul make mysterious references to things unknown, & checkout a location for their planned assassination, Tamora flirts with the Stranger & offers him a place to stay, & shortly after, she's seen spying on him via the security camera system, & we see a fleeting glimpse of a figure tied up in a locked room. Eventually, Egan & Saul bump into the Stranger, & they seem to know who he is, but that's more than the Stranger knows!
Meanwhile Tamora is seen communicating through what looks like a computer augmented with alien technology, saying mysterious things like 'No further contact with the estranged preceptor cell'. All very illuminating...... Elsewhere, Egan & Saul are roughing up the Stranger trying to get info out of him, with mysterious questions like: 'Did the protectorate send you to saboatage this mission & infiltrate this cell?' In the meantime, Tamora is feeding the hostaged figure, & Egan & Saul use alien tech to scan the Stranger's mind, where we see Miss Brown, who is identified as a 'Custodian', & Egan refers to something called the 'Estrangement Programme', - the deliberate erasing of the Stranger's memories, etc...
Then all hell breaks loose, (in a fashion) & the Stranger has another flashabck sequence to himself as an assassin, where he kills a woman, & after a scuffle with Egan, he blurts out that he's here to kill Raven. (Who? - This must be the hostage tied up in the locked room, but exactly who he is, is yet to be revealed.) Meanwhile, Tamora is still communicating with her superiors. She refers to the Stranger being in the hans of the 'cell', & she's unsure whether his 'correction program is intact', but she can't intervene without risking detection. Elsewhere, the Stranger's memories have returned to him. He refers to himself as a 'terrorist & a murderer', but Egan says: " You're a Preceptor. You're fighting for justice!"..... blah blah blah 'dimnsional web', blah blah blah 'transverse point' & loads of other mysterious cosmic stuff.......

In the end, it does finally acheive some kind of sense, actually:
It transpires that The Stranger is in reality, an alien bieng from another dimension called Soloman, where he's the leader of a Preceptor terrorist cell on an assassination run in this dimension. Egan & Saul are fellow members of the cell, & Tamora turns out to be an agent of the Protectorate, who's been tracking Egan & Saul. Apparently, Soloman was captured by the Protectorate & they initiated a Correction or 'Estrangement' Programme, which included wiping his memories, & Miss Brown, a Custodian (a sort of policeman, i assume), was assigned to keep an eye on him. Egan & Saul are part of a mission to kill this Raven character, & when Soloman (The Stranger) turns up after being missing for a long time, they think that he may've betrayed them to the Protectorate. These beings are able to travel through different dimensions by 'transversing' a 'dimensional web'. Ultimately, Egan & Saul abandon the assassination mission & escape into said dimensional web, leaving Soloman to be apprehended by Tamora. But he also manages to escape in the web, but is soon pursued by Tamora, which is where this story finishes.

Well this one has proved to be the best one, so far. If only because it did finally start to make sense about 10mins from the end. We now know who the Stranger is, But i feel as though 3 stories have been wasted getting to this point. Even this one was annoying for 3/4 of the way through, but at least David Troughton & Louise Jameson managed to breath some life into it, & assuming the next one carries on from this point, then at least i'll have have half a chance of knowing what's going on with the characters in the next one. Some slight improvement then!

[Simon R]

I think I've got The Terror Game. Bizzarely they were selling it in Woolworths a few years ago for about 20p. I bought it. I watched it. I can remember not one thing about it.

Someone on O.G. once described the Who spin-offs as being cheap and porn like. I know what they mean.