Chris Baer

Doctor Who Project: Revelation of the Daleks

November 2, 2024 by Chris Baer

Suddenly everyone sees and knows too much!

When in doubt, roll the Daleks out. As Season Twenty-Two of Doctor Who comes to a close, the fate of the series rests in the balance. Producer John Nathan-Turner pulls out all the stops to bring Colin Baker’s debut season to a strong finish by headlining the scourge of Skaros in script editor Eric Saward’s “Revelation of the Daleks” (Story Production Code 6Z). The problem remains, alas, that the Daleks, having been on the losing side of a dozen confrontations with the Doctor over the years, each more feeble than the last, have worn out their welcome; their staccato cries of “Exterminate!” and single-minded devotion to evil lack the ability to captivate the imagination in 1985 they possessed in 1963.

By the Third Doctor’s era, some twelve years prior, the Daleks already are little more than hapless tin cans, their worn-down props in desperate need of refurbishment. Indeed, Davros himself, creator of the Daleks (alongside Terry Nation, to be sure), becomes a mere cipher of the cunning, calculating, amoral foe first seen in the Fourth Doctor’s run, and by the time the Fifth Doctor confronts him in “Resurrection of the Daleks,” Davros exists on a one-dimensional plane, all vitriol and no guile. There’s nothing new under the Skarosian sun…

But somehow, Saward, Nathan-Turner, and director Graeme Harper—helming his second “finale” story after a strong showing with Season Twenty-One’s “The Caves of Androzani“—manage the unthinkable: they make Davros and the Daleks interesting again. True to the story’s title, there’s no hiding them, and scarcely eight minutes pass before the first Dalek, in resplendent white with gold roundels and trim, rolls onto the screen, followed by Davros (Terry Molloy)—or at least his head—spinning around madly, rejoicing that the Doctor has fallen into his trap. Wisely, Saward and company realize that there’s little point in sequestering the perfidious pepperpots until that traditional first episode cliffhanger, particularly given that “Revelation of the Daleks” is the last of the two part, ninety minute stories experimented with this season. No, these Daleks are “revealed” right away, and the audience gains awareness beyond the Doctor’s own, emphasizing that they are watching something happen to him rather than experiencing events alongside him. With few exceptions, it’s only the Doctor who is unaware that Daleks are puttering about, and their matter-of-fact presence, patrolling like robotic rent-a-cops amidst humans, adds greatly to their impact.

The emphasis on seeing the Doctor recurs throughout “Revelation of the Daleks,” which follows “Vengeance on Varos” in casting the audience very explicitly at the center of a panopticon; viewers watch others watch the Sixth Doctor and Peri on screens, much as the audience itself is doing at home, and characters frequently speak upwards towards cameras mounted high on walls in the halls of Tranquil Repose, a cryo-mortuary on Necros, devoted to housing victims of disease in cryogenic suspension until cures can be found for their maladies (a concept very much in vogue in the 1980s). The TARDIS arrives on the snowy plains of this necropolis planet so that our time travellers can attend the “funeral” of Professor Arthur Stengos, a renowned agronomist, and their travel by foot to the mortuary is monitored on a screen by Davros—and also, in an exceedingly jarring subversion of viewer expectations, by a nameless DJ (Alexei Sayle), played here as an amalgamation of Wolfman Jack and any number of stereotyped American personalities, who spins tunes from Earth’s past for the frozen inhabitants of the cryo-catacombs.

The viewer really doesn’t know what to expect, a rare experience on Doctor Who, made more intriguing by rather camp segments involving the vainglorious mortician Jobel (the incomparable Clive Swift, in a role inspired by embalmer Mr. Joyboy from Waugh’s The Loved One) and his blue uniformed cadre of assistants; a highly formalized and heavily stylized agri-factory owner, Kara (Eleanor Bron) in thrall to Davros, who stands in the way of her control of the food supply for the galaxy; plus an attack on the complex by corpse snatchers seeking the very body of Arthur Stengos that the Doctor has arrived to mourn. Combined with tense, almost discordant music courtesy of Roger Limb and exceptional direction by Harper, who employs camera angles shifting from point-of-view to (barely) steady-cam close-ups of action sequences and high, long shots showing off the set work and well chosen location scenes, the overall effect is one of welcome disorientation. This is not, Nathan-Turner seems to shout, your parents’ Doctor Who…

Doctor Who Project: Timelash

November 2, 2024October 2, 2024 by Chris Baer

Purposeful travel, not aimless wanderings.

Though it often feels to viewers that the Doctor’s adventures follow one after the other, significant gaps can be inferred between certain stories on Doctor Who. These lacunae offer fertile ground for writers to explore the ways the Doctor’s previous visits to a place have affected its development; at their best, as in the revelation of the Fourth Doctor’s face carved into a mountainside in “The Face of Evil,” such newly invented past interactions both deepen the stakes of the current narrative and remind viewers of our favorite Gallifreyan’s essentially unknowable history. First time series contributor Glen McCoy employs this device in “Timelash” (Story Production Code 6Y), which draws heavily on the Doctor having visited the planet Karfel in one of those heretofore unknown off-screen jaunts.

Karfel, currently under the dictatorial rule of the mysterious Borad (Robert Ashby/Denis Cary), has seen better days since that last encounter. All reflective objects have been banned, war is in the offing with another world, and a rebellion plots against the Borad, who never appears in person, only on viewscreens, attended solely by his tall, blue-skinned androids (Dean Hollingsworth). Those deemed disloyal suffer exile by means of the Timelash, a temporal corridor that, for reasons quite unexplained, leads back to twelfth century Earth. The Doctor and Peri inadvertently encounter this corridor while planning where to go on holiday, the TARDIS passing through right as Vena (Jeananne Crowley), a Karfelon councilor who has just seen her father killed and fiancé sentenced to exile, jumps into the time stream with a key needed to control all the energy on Karfel. She floats, ghost-like, through the blue box, which has the effect of briefly redirecting the Timelash to nineteenth century Earth—1885, to be precise—landing her with a clunk in the Scottish country home of one Herbert (David Chandler), an aspiring writer (hint) who happens to be conducting a seance at the time.

After the death of Vena’s father at the Borad’s surprisingly scaly hands, the ambitious Tekker (Paul Darrow, the second Blake’s 7 star to appear in as many episodes, after Jacqueline Pearce in “The Two Doctors“) takes over the figurehead leadership mantle of Maylin. He uses the Doctor’s subsequent arrival on Karfel to solve the problem of the missing key, which has vexed the Borad immensely. After the briefest of welcomes, he cajoles the Doctor into retrieving the key from the time corridor by threatening Peri. She, in turn, outwits her android captor and escapes into tunnels inhabited by reptilian creatures known as a Morlox (big hint). Members of the rebellion also hide in the tunnels, and they save her from the beast, in order to kill her as a spy. Peri survives only by name-dropping the Doctor, whose last visit has turned into a myth suppressed by the Borad, and then by correctly identifying Jo Grant’s picture in a locket given to one of the rebel’s grandfathers by the Doctor—the Third Doctor, as a hidden mural later confirms. But no sooner do the rebels spare her than one of the androids finds them.

The Sixth Doctor, meanwhile, calculates the exact moment to which the TARDIS has altered the Timelash’s end point and appears in Herbert’s hut shortly after Vena. Upon realizing that the legendary Doctor has returned to keep his “promise” to Karfel, Vena agrees to help him overthrow the Borad. Herbert, fascinated by the idea of a time machine (hint, hint), sneaks aboard the TARDIS, and the three travel back to Karfel posthaste. Tekker secures the amulet as soon as they arrive and orders an android to toss the Time Lord into the Timelash, after gloating at the Doctor’s naivety. And that’s just the first of two forty-five minute episodes…

Red Devils at 80: ASL Arnhem 2024 (MMP) Released

September 20, 2024September 20, 2024 by Chris Baer

Cover artwork detail by Nicolás Eskubi from ASL Arnhem 2024 by Multi-Man Publishing

Multi-Man Publishing, the current license holders for the Advanced Squad Leader tactical warfare system, have long engaged in charitable efforts, with their annual convention, Winter Offensive, supporting the World War II Foundation. In conjunction with the 80th anniversary of Market Garden, MMP have teamed up with the Arnhem ASL Tournament (September 12-15, 2024) to release ASL Arnhem 2024, a four scenario pack whose proceeds benefit the Airborne Museum at Hartenstein and its annex in Arnhem, the Airborne Museum at the Bridge.

It’s a tidy shrink-wrapped package, just four scenarios back-printed on two pieces of standard scenario cardstock, with a glossy cardstock coversheet featuring art by Nicolás Eskubi, and an equally nominal price of $10. As might be expected, the four scenarios all take place in and around Arnhem, pitting the “Red Devils” of the British 1st Airborne Division against German forces of varying quality from September 17 through 21, 1944. In keeping with the association with the Arnhem ASL Tournament, all four scenarios have a “tournament” feel to them: moderate length with a decent but not overwhelming number of counters on each side, intended to be played in fairly tight quarters—if European ASL tournaments are anything like their American counterparts!—in the span of five to six hours by players who don’t dilly-dally.

Two of the scenarios are by MMP’s Brian Youse, and two by Jens Thomander. The longest and largest, AR1 Broken Column, comes in at 8.5 turns and covers most of three half-maps which might be pushing “tournament”-length, while the shortest and smallest, AR3 Bricks in Flames and AR4 The Overlook, come in at 5.5 turns and play out on roughly three-quarters of a single board. Vehicles and guns feature in three of the four, with AR2 Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing being the sole infantry-only affair.

My picks of the scenarios have to be AR3 and AR4 by Jens Thomander, if only because they each feature French B1-bis tanks pressed into German service. One simply cannot get enough Char-Bs in one’s gaming diet!

Quite a few boards and overlays come into play on the cards, so while counter-wise only Beyond Valor, For King and Country, and Croix de Guerre (for the aforementioned AFVs) are needed, a full eight maps (20, 38, 42, 62, 67, 70, 84, and l as in Lima) are needed, plus assorted Brush, Building, Woods, Open Ground, and Orchard overlays. So, certainly one for aficionados with access to a full range of maps, including, unfortunately, an ASL Starter Kit map, l. (I know they’re fully interchangeable with standard ASL maps and that many players of the One True Game™ own a full set of boards from the junior partner, but I’m not a fan of full ASL products requiring their usage, even though most people, myself included, are playing via VASL these days anyway. Consider me old fashioned.)

ASL Arnhem 2024 is a nice pack of scenarios at a pittance of a price benefitting a worthy cause. And if it feels a bit steep, postage-wise, to just grab ASL Arnhem 2024 by itself, then do what I did and pick up the latest issue of Special Operations, complete with four ASL scenarios and a small HASL map, to help lower the per item postage while you’re at it…

Dutch Trucks: Doomed Battalions 4th Edition (MMP) Released

September 8, 2024September 7, 2024 by Chris Baer

Back in 1998, as Avalon Hill prepared to meet that great creditor in the sky, they published a few final titles, among them Doomed Battalions, a core module for Advanced Squad Leader bringing Allied Minor guns and vehicles to the tactical World War II conflict simulation system. The fabled “Dutch trucks” made it out the garage just before the doors closed and Avalon Hill became nothing more than a memory and a convenient brand name for new owners Hasbro to slap on games with a military/conflict theme. For fans of ASL, they were uncertain times, with real concerns that Doomed Battalions would be the last product ever officially produced for the system.

Fast-forward a quarter century and the current ASL license holders, Multi-Man Publishing, have just released Doomed Battalions 4th Edition, proving that their stewardship of the game system has put those fears from the late ’90s to rest.

A quick chronology and overview of the various editions of Doomed Battalions might be helpful. The First (1998) edition contains three map boards (44, 45, and the long-missing “rogue” 9), eight scenarios (83-90), plus overlays (introducing railroads to ASL), counters, and supporting rulebook pages for all the new toys; the Second (1999) edition is identical save for the company logo on the box, being a straight reprint by MMP as one of their very first projects.

For the Third (2009) edition, MMP folds the contents of The Last Hurrah into the box, providing a single module source for Allied Minor troop, gun, and vehicle counters. All prior Doomed Battalions content appears, with boards 11 and 33 added along with updated rulebook pages from both earlier modules, the scenarios from The Last Hurrah (43-50), and eight additional scenarios (137-144), all featuring Allied Minors and previously published in other AH/MMP products.

This new Fourth (2024) edition takes everything from the Third edition and turns it up to eleven (Module Eleven, that is!), adding eight more previously published (and renumbered) scenarios (307-314), with known errata incorporated in all thirty-two scenarios included in the box. The counter artwork also comes up to the current standard, with new infantry types introduced for the Poles, added in conjunction with MMP’s forthcoming Polish Eagles project on Polish forces throughout the war. (A new Chapter A footnote indicates that testing for Polish Eagles revealed a need for slightly more robust Polish troops.) Rules for those troops—which are not retrofitted to earlier scenarios but enter the system officially for future use—plus additional rules added to the system in Twilight of the Reich, and some new charts, round out the updated components.

So, for those keeping track at home, Doomed Battalions Fourth Edition comes with five geomorphic maps in the now-standard “Starter Kit” cardstock style (9, 11, 33, 44, 45); thirty-two scenarios (43-50; 83-90; 137-144; 307-314); four countersheets featuring half-inch and five-eighth inch counters with updated artwork; three sheets of terrain overlays; updated rule pages for Chapters A, B, and H; and two updated charts (Ch. B and National Characteristics) thrown in for good measure. Good thing it’s a decently big (2.5″ deep) box, with cover artwork of a wee tankette under fire by Ken Smith.

Just examining at the fresh additions to this edition, the new countersheets, featuring the last of the core system counters to receive the new, crisper artwork and printing, look quite sharp. I do worry slightly about new Polish infantry counters, with a tiny white eagle on a red field in the top left corner to differentiate them from other Allied Minor counters. The standard ASL counter is a model of spatial efficiency, and the insignia feels ever so close to the corner’s edges; as ever, MMP’s printing is top notch, so there’s no danger of the insignia falling into the die cut gutter, but for those who consider counter corner rounding to be amongst the noblest of arts, there’s a danger that the practice might snip the eagle’s wings, so to speak. Also of note on the new countersheets are some errata counters for misprints in Twilight of the Reich and a few revised Axis Minor counters.

The fresh scenario additions reach beyond the usual assortment of reprinted cards from The General and various Annuals/Journals, picking up some long out-of-print gems from packs like Out of the Bunker and Out of the Attic 2, which are notable themselves for bringing some third-party scenarios into the official fold. All thirty-two cards here, on standard cardstock, have, as noted, received errata and balance passes. The pick of the actions include 43 Into the Fray (starring a baker’s dozen Polish Uhlan squads on horseback against German armor); 90 Pride and Joy (with possibly the largest cavalry charge in the game as twenty-four Greek squads ride against dug-in Italians); 137 Italian Brothers (a rare-for-its-time Spanish Civil War scenario pitting Italians on the Nationalist and Republican sides against each other); and 313 Airborne Samurai (Dutch defenders in the Celebes holding off a Japanese air drop with air support).

Indeed, Doomed Battalions provides a wealth of early-war scenarios, full of tin-can tanks and more than a bit of valor from soldiers fighting against against more numerous, better equipped foes. If you’re tired of Shermans slugging against StuGs and Tigers taking on T-34s, if you enjoy digging through Chapter H to see just why there are port and starboard turret counters in the mix, this is a mandatory module. Ownership of much of the rest of the ASL system is, as ever, needed to play all of the scenarios included, just by dint of the number of boards and overlays represented on the cards. But with only two PTO scenarios (one of which features the sole British appearance), one featuring Axis Minors, and none with the Americans, you can probably get by, counter-wise, with just Beyond Valor and Hollow Legions—boards and overlays, of course, notwithstanding.

For owners of the first two editions of Doomed Battalions, this new edition is pretty much an automatic upgrade, featuring everything you already love and lots more of it. The value calculus for Third edition owners is perhaps more complex. It’s been fifteen years since the Third edition came out, and the state of the art has improved, so for the updated counter artwork alone, I would recommend a purchase—they just look better. The revamped Polish troops, too, will certainly find their way into new scenarios, though one expects the forthcoming Polish Eagles module will also contain them. The new charts, as up to date as can be, also add to the appeal, and the additional scenarios feel a welcome addition to the binder. It’s certainly not a cheap upgrade at US$172 retail, but the contents justify the price. Still, there’s nothing here that invalidates the Third edition in any real way, and one assumes that the refreshed rules pages will make their way to the electronic version of the ASL Rule Book in due time.

It’s nice to have Doomed Battalions back in print. One must wonder, indeed, after four editions, if more Dutch trucks and Belgian tanks and Greek field guns exist in cardboard form than ever did in real life…

Doctor Who Project: The Two Doctors

October 2, 2024September 2, 2024 by Chris Baer

My companion is not for sale!

Nostalgia carries a weight out of proportion to its actual heft, and no story in Doctor Who demonstrates the siren song of the past so clearly as Robert Homes’ “The Two Doctors” (Story Production Code 6W), bringing together Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor alongside Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor in three forty-five minute episodes stuffed with Sontarans, space stations, Spain, and a Scottish accent courtesy of Frazer Hines’ Jamie. The success (and publicity) of the recent “The Five Doctors“—originally to have been written by Holmes before Terrance Dicks took over the scripting duties for various and sundry reasons—almost certainly helps drive producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward’s desire to have Troughton and Hines return yet again to a show which, between the airing of the second and third episodes of “The Two Doctors” in late February 1985, finally receives its cancellation notice.

The axe doesn’t quite take this time around, leading instead to the odd structuring of the forthcoming Season Twenty-Three, but the incessant threat of impending doom leading up to this near demise must be seen as a factor in the constant recycling of old friends and foes alike, with several stories penned by trusted hands from the series’ past, such as Holmes, and four of the six stories in Season Twenty-Two featuring returning characters from Doctor Who‘s greatest hits collection. But upon seeing the Second Doctor and Jamie, initially shot in black and white before shifting to color, one cannot deny a sense of immediate delight. Nostalgia tugs at the hardest of hearts, after all, especially when two hearts are involved.

Nearly ten minutes elapse from the beginning of the story to the first appearance of the Sixth Doctor and Peri, with the opening scenes devoted to the Second Doctor and Jamie, who have arrived at Space Station Camera on an errand from the Time Lords. The dating here is fuzzy; the characters obviously have aged along with the actors, though this concern was entirely ignored in “The Five Doctors,” but given the reference to having dropped Victoria off to study graphology, the events here ostensibly occur between “The Evil of the Daleks” and “Fury from the Deep” from the perspective of the Second Doctor, that being the range of Victoria’s TARDIS tenure.

For the second story in a row (though “The Mark of the Rani” comes after “The Two Doctors” in terms of production dates), a group of incredible intellects serves as the initial locus of the action, with Space Station Camera, a pure research facility funded by the Third Zone governments and led by Joinson Dastari (Laurence Payne, channeling a somewhat glam Karl Lagerfeld), hosting the scientists Kartz and Reimer, whose time travel experiments have drawn the ire of the Time Lords. The Second Doctor, as an exile, is dispatched by Gallifrey to unofficially express their displeasure at this tinkering with the time continuum, but scarcely before he can finish haranguing Dastari, the Sontarans attack the station. Their assault is aided, for reasons initially unexplained, by Chessene (Jacqueline Pearce, better known as Servalan on Blake’s 7), a technologically augmented “Androgum” bio-engineered to “mega-genius level” by Dastari.

The appearance of the spherical Sontaran battle cruisers comes with little fanfare, as though the mere mention of the Sontaran threat should resonate with the audience. As has been typical of Nathan-Turner and Saward’s aegis, however, they forget that not everyone has a well-worn copy of Jean-Marc Lofficier’s two volume Target Programme Guide or Peter Haining’s Doctor Who: A Celebration at hand. This menacing foe last appeared some seven years previously, in “The Invasion of Time,” where the Fourth Doctor fed them to carnivorous plants that just happen to grow in the TARDIS’ arboretum. They’re hardly household names in 1985. For those who caught the sole airings of the three prior Sontaran stories, the sight of a gloved, three-fingered hand holding a ray-gun stick brings a frisson of knowing pleasure; for everyone else, as with the Silurians and Sea Devils in “Warriors of the Deep,” it’s just another made-up word in a story rife with technobabble and typically dense Holmes-ian world building. Indeed, so little significance is placed on the revelation of the Sontarans—strangely, given that Holmes himself debuted them in “The Time Warrior“—that the first time viewers see one in full on screen (Varl, played by Tim Raynham), he is standing in the Spanish sun, in a villa just outside Seville…

Doctor Who Project: The Mark of the Rani

September 2, 2024August 2, 2024 by Chris Baer

It’ll be something devious and overcomplicated.

Every great hero comes matched to an equally great adversary: Holmes and Moriarty, Superman and Lex Luthor, Tom and Jerry, Kirk and Khan. For the Doctor, that iconic foe, that near-platonic opposite, comes not in the form the Daleks or the Cybermen, worthy opponents though they may be, but in the Master, the renegade Time Lord gifted with all the Doctor’s own advantages, from intellect to regeneration to a TARDIS. Their duels hold legendary status in Doctor Who, but also show a decidedly one-way record of victories in favor of Gallifrey’s favorite son, making for rousing storytelling but rather anticlimactic narratives. Pip and Jane Baker, established British TV writers penning their first of several Doctor Who tales, introduce a complication to the usual pas de deux in “The Mark of the Rani” (Story Production Code 6X), adding the Rani (Kate O’Mara), an amoral, exiled Time Lord, into the mix with their two episode, ninety-minute story, turning the typically double-sided affair into a Time Lord triangle. She doesn’t like either of them one bit, and the feeling is mutual all the way around.

A brilliant chemist, the Rani sets up shop in a Victorian mining town during the tumult of the Luddite riots, draining a brain fluid from miners who think they are going for a bath after a long shift; the chemical activates the brain’s sleep centers, and without it the victims turn into rambunctious, hyperactive louts whose behavior can be attributed to the machine-mashing Luddites, allowing her scheme to go unnoticed. (Her need for the chemical is off-handedly attributed to a planet she rules, where her biological tinkering with the inhabitants has prevented them from sleeping.) The setting, filmed partly on location at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust in Shropshire, plays to the BBC’s talent for clothing extras in period costume, and the sheer number of sartorially accurate people director Sarah Hellings has running around the streets and mineworks of Ironbridge’s preserved Victorian town in the opening minutes sells the reality of the time and place wonderfully, as well as if not better than any of Doctor Who‘s other “historical” stories.

If we’re in Earth’s past and the Master (Anthony Ainley) is involved, then odds remain good that he’s seeking, in Peri’s words, to “pervert history” in order to bend the planet to his will. An assemblage of geniuses, gathering at the behest of George Stephenson, one of the main sparks of the incipient Industrial Revolution, provides the Master with the opportunity to shape the course of events on Earth to create “the platform for the most devastating power in the universe,” answering only to him. The regenerating elephant in the room, the little matter of the Master’s seeming demise in “Planet of Fire,” is brushed past with a quick quip: “I’m indestructible. The whole universe knows that.” And, as ever with the Master, he cannot simply enact his plan, instead drawing the Doctor’s TARDIS off-course so that he might get his revenge on his nemesis as well. As events transpire, revenge may be a dish best served cold, but the Master keeps dropping it on the way to the table.

The Sixth Doctor and Peri thus appear on the scene, with Peri already dressed for a trip to Kew Gardens in the same era, the Master’s efforts changing only the physical, rather than temporal, location of the TARDIS’ landing spot. Before long they intervene in an attack by the Rani’s victims on a cart transporting machinery to George Stephenson (Gawn Grainger). The assailants all have a garish red circular mark on their neck from the Rani’s experiment, the eponymous Mark of the Rani, which draws the Doctor’s interest keenly. They set into town to meet Stephenson, with the Doctor eventually figuring out that the bath house is at the center of it all. So he decides to scruffy himself up and take a dip…