Doctor Who Project: The Tenth Planet

by
Doctor Who Project: The Tenth Planet

I don’t understand it. He just seems to be worn out.

As Doctor Who stories go, quite a lot is asked of Kit Pedler’s “The Tenth Planet” (Story Production Code DD). In addition to delivering a ripping near-future yarn about cybernetic invaders from a twin-Earth, the story also needed to usher out William Hartnell’s First Doctor in a fitting and dignified manner. Pedler, with assistance from story editor Gerry Davis, manages both with some aplomb. Not only do we get the Cybermen, more frightening here in their debut story than in any future iteration, but also, Hartnell is given the chance for the virtuoso exit he richly deserved.

The TARDIS again finds its way to Earth, skipping from seventeenth century Cornwall to twentieth century Antarctica, though in 1986, twenty years in the future from Ben and Polly’s time, much to their dismay. With plenty of warm coats in the TARDIS wardrobe to choose from, our time travellers merrily pop out onto the ice cap for a visit, only to be apprehended by soldiers from the International Space Command, at whose polar base the TARDIS had landed. The commanding officer, General Cutler, has no time to interrogate his guests, however, as a space capsule on a routine mission has run into trouble. Some outside force is pulling the astronauts from their planned orbit. And the Doctor knows just what has happened.

Ben, Polly, the Doctor, and the South Pole

In order to prove his knowledge of events, and thus potentially to help, the Doctor gives a scientist at the base a piece of paper noting that the problem stems from the sudden appearance of another planet—the Tenth Planet—in Earth’s vicinity; and not just any planet, but Earth’s long-lost twin, Mondas, with the same continents (and continental drift), only upside down. What’s more, the Doctor knows that Earth is about to receive visitors.

Hello, I'm a Cyberman

The Cybermen are on their way. They don’t want much, really. Just to drain the Earth of all of its energy and then destroy it.

Read more

Road Bites: Steak ‘n Shake Burgers and Chili

by

Unquestionably, burgers represent the quintessential American road bite, ideal for eating on the go. You can’t travel down a byway or highway without passing a burger joint. If you’re unlucky, you wind up stopping at a national chain with its predictable (often comfortingly so) national burger; it’s the regional chains that provide the perfect melding of franchise familiarity with local sensibilities. On a recent trip to Greensboro, NC, I stopped at a chain that hails from the midwest, venerable Steak ‘n Shake, famous, as they say, for steakburgers.

Steak 'n Shake Double 'n Cheese

The double steakburger with cheese didn’t quite match the beauty shot from the menu, but there’s no ignoring the smashed ground beef patty with those great crisped edges. The meat was moist and flavorful, the vegetable toppings reasonably fresh as well. I’m not a burger connoisseur, but amongst fast food offerings, Steak ‘n Shake wins the prize, and at $4 for the burger and a side of thin (though somewhat wan) fries, well, I’m glad that there isn’t one within easy driving distance of home base, else I’d be eating there quite a bit.

I spent several youthful years in the midwest, and my childhood memories of Steak ‘n Shake revolve mostly around the chili five-way. That’s all I would eat when I went there as a kid, and the thought of having it again drove me to stop here.

Steak 'n Shake Chili Five Way

Sampling it as an adult, I realize how much difference nostalgia makes. Steak ‘n Shake chili five way isn’t my beloved Cincinnati five-way — the meat here is coarser ground and on the bland side, without much spice or flavor. My dish didn’t have much in the way of onion or cheese, either. I wasn’t anticipating a Skyline abundance of cheese and ground beef, but for the price, I was hoping for a larger portion (and I thought there would be packets of oyster crackers and chili sauce in the Takhomasack). It was fine, tasty enough, but not up to the madeline of my expectations.

I’ll still stop at a Steak ‘n Shake over, well, any other regional or national burger chain, but I’ll stick with the justly famous steakburger. Certainly easier to eat on the road than the chili. Oh, and the shakes. Those are pretty damn good, too.

Beer Notebook: Flying Dog’s Dead Rise Summer Ale

by

Flying Dog Dead Rise Summer Ale

Spices in beer don’t typically impress me. I’m not looking to a beer for coriander or clove, and I’ll take just about any style over a wheat beer. But when I heard that Flying Dog, out of Frederick, Maryland, had teamed up with the folks behind Old Bay Seasoning to create Dead Rise Summer Ale, well, I needed to sample this unlikely pairing.

For those not in the natural habitat of Old Bay Seasoning, imagine a salty paprika mixture, rust red in color, typically sprinkled on crabs with abandon and rather tasty on popcorn as well. It’s a bold taste, pronounced but not spicy-hot, one that can dominate, so to pair it with a drinkable beer is a testament to the brewer’s art.

Termed a summer ale, Dead Rise is a wheat beer with a characteristic clove and banana aroma tinged with just a hint of paprika. It drinks quite smoothly, again apropos of a wheat beer, and the effect of a quaff is not unlike eating Utz’s “Crab” Chips, which are coated in a similar spice mixture, the bready nature of the wheat beer capturing the flavor profile of the chips. Which is not to say that drinking Dead Rise is like drinking potato chips—it’s a quite drinkable beer with a very slight paprika aftertaste on the palate. The Old Bay Seasoning sneaks up on you rather than forcing its presence onto the scene.

I had hoped for an unfiltered beer, with succulent paprika sediment, but alas, this is a filtered brew. At 5.6% ABV and restricted to the summer season, Dead Rise would make a nice accompaniment to a cook out. Given my general aversion to wheat beers, I’m not likely to pick up another six pack of this beer, but it’s another bold experiment from Flying Dog that does what it says on the tin…er, bottle.

Doctor Who Project: The Smugglers

by

My dear boy, it could be a great deal worse.

From the swinging Sixties, we head immediately to the swinging Sixteens—hundreds, that is—to open the fourth season of Doctor Who. Brian Hayles’ “The Smugglers” (Story Production Code CC) deposits the Doctor and his two new companions, Polly and Ben, on the coast of seventeenth century Cornwall, caught between pirates on one side and the titular smugglers on the other. The sense of youthful vigor Polly and Ben brought to the prior story carries through here, and the Doctor seems pleased to watch his young charges discover that they have, indeed, travelled through space and time. The youngsters scamper up from the beach where the TARDIS has landed, and the Doctor follows along after them with some glee. He displays considerable anger upon discovering them in the TARDIS, but his actions here belie his true feelings.

Landing on beaches with new companions has become standard procedure for the Doctor—Steven’s first disembarkation from the TARDIS was on another British beach—but one wonders why the Doctor, for all his knowledge, tends to forget that tides go both out and in. With the TARDIS trapped by the tide, the three time travellers must find shelter for the night and walk right into…the Curse of Avery’s Gold.

It’s not truly the tide that traps them, though; the Doctor decides show off for Ben and Polly, and that behavior embroils them in the intrigue. The local churchwarden initially wants nothing to do with them, being distrustful of strangers and suspicious of any who might come from the sea. As a demonstration of his savoir faire, the Doctor charms and flatters the nervous layman, so sufficiently that entrusts the Doctor with a deadly secret:

If you should this way again and find me gone, remember these words: This is Deadman’s Secret Key: Small[beer], Ringwood, Gurney.

Shortly after the three head to the local inn, a burly pirate named Cherub emerges from hiding, having seen the churchwarden whisper in the Doctor’s ear. Our churchwarden turns out to be a former pirate, and Cherub wants the secret. Cherub is quicker with his knife than his tongue, though, and kills the churchwarden, leaving only one source for the clue to finding the legendary treasure of Avery’s Gold: the Doctor.

A non-cherubic Cherub

And what do Polly and Ben think of their sudden appearance in the seventeenth century? Ben has no second thoughts about employing Cockney slang on random inn patrons, while Polly just wishes everyone would stop calling her “lad” and thinking she’s a boy, a nice riff on her short-cropped hairstyle and Sixties-stylish pants-suit. These, then, are not your parents’ companions. Until, of course, the Doctor is kidnapped by the pirates and the companions get framed for the murder of the churchwarden and thrown in jail, where Polly yells, much like Susan, upon seeing a rat.

Read more

Grandmother Goes to Washington: DC’s Pizza Parts & Service

by

The team behind Taylor Gourmet recently unveiled their new entry in the Washington, DC, pizza wars, the awkwardly titled Pizza Parts & Service, named in honor of the location’s prior use as a garage. Makes you glad they didn’t take over a fishmongers. The location more recently housed the lamented Taylor Steak & Ice, purveyors of a most satisfactory rendition of the Philly Cheesesteak. After sampling one of PP&S’s pies, I kind of wish they’s stuck with the steaks.

Grandmother style pizza from Pizza Parts and Service

I ordered delivery for one of the suggested combinations, the #2—pepperoni, sautéed onions and peppers, pepperonici, mozzarella, and pecorino romano—”nonna” style. These grandmother style pies are generously topped, and the quality of ingredients, a Taylor hallmark, can’t be beat. As befits a grandmother pie, the cheese browned properly at the edges, making the corner slices the ones to grab. At $24 delivered (before tip), it’s about on par with other high-end pizza joints, but if you try to configure your own pie, you’ll quickly run up a serious bill. Circular pizzas are also available, but the “nonna” is the real gimmick here, a style mostly unavailable locally.

The pie was good, but it didn’t quite make it to great. Never let it be said that I oppose grease on a pizza, as I still fondly recall the sheening pools that formed on the pies at one of DC’s finest pizza dives, Vesuvio’s in Dupont Circle, but the “nonna” had just a bit too much relative to the crust’s ability to carry it. I realize that this kind of pie uses a fair bit of oil in the dough, but I was hoping for something closer to the tomato pies one finds in Philadelphia, which share a similar crumb but don’t have that much grease. Perhaps I’m just not a fan of the grandmother style.

In any event, the Taylor team has served up a fine addition to the DC pizza landscape in Pizza Parts & Service, but with other mid- to high-end options out there that are less expensive for the build-your-own camp (albeit without quite the quality of toppings), I’ll stick with my usual pizza delivery service while impatiently awaiting the promised arrival of cheesesteaks on the Taylor Gourmet menu.

Doctor Who Project: The War Machines

by

Well, hardly a specialist, sir, but I dabble. Yes, I dabble.

Doctor Who‘s third season ends as the entire series began, in 1960s London, and in many ways, the season’s final story, “The War Machines,” (Story Production Code BB) takes its meager strengths from being set in quite familiar surroundings. Ian Stuart Black’s tale of an artificial intelligence bent on destroying its organic creators could easily have transpired on some distant planetoid in the far future, but such a danger arising from a laboratory atop the newly completed Post Office Tower in London just at the point when computers were beginning to make inroads into public consciousness provides sufficient narrative impetus that we can almost ignore the sloppy plot.

The Post Office Tower . . . of Doom!

Writing his second Doctor Who story, Ian Stuart Black again shows no sense of familiarity with (or worse, no respect for) the series’ norms and established precedents. The Elders in his “The Savages,” aired immediately prior to “The War Machines,” track the Doctor through space and time somehow, which the Doctor himself has not yet accomplished through three seasons, while here the villain of this story, the awakened computer WOTAN (Will Operating Thought Analogue), refers to the Doctor as, egads, “Doctor Who.” In “The Savages,” at least, Black has characters specifically note that they do not know the Doctor’s name; here, even henchmen spout the offending phrase:

Professor Brett: Top priority is to enlist Doctor Who. He has advanced knowledge which WOTAN needs. Doctor Who must be enlisted into our services tonight.

Much about this story suggests a break from past precedent and the dawn of a new era, as the production team was obviously complicit in this breach of naming protocol. After three seasons of not being able to get back to contemporary London, the TARDIS materializes there with nary a remark from the Doctor. He merely pops an “Out of Order” sign on the rather beat-up looking police box door and, sensing that something is very “alien” about the Post Office Tower, arranges confabs with the leading scientists and civil servants of the day.

A Broken TARDIS?

We have no lead-in from a prior story—and no lead-out from this story to the next—to explain why and how the TARDIS has arrived at the next destination. The Doctor just shows up, senses something is wrong, fixes it (ostensibly because he has nothing better to do), and disappears. Even the interactions here with the military, a first, will become commonplace in the next eight seasons. A format has arrived. Even the episode titles are different, in a computer font with an animated effect. To go along with this change in sensibility, two new companions arrive, every bit products of ’60s London, and one companion is almost literally sent out to pasture.

And how does the Doctor fix a maniacal computer bent on the eradication of the human species? With punch cards, of course.

Read more