Tag: Tom Baker

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles

adapted by Alexander Baron; dir. Peter Duguid (BBC, 1982)

DVD cover: “The Hound of the Baskervilles” adapted by Alexander Baron; dir. Peter Duguid (BBC, 1982)

A watchable if unadventurous four-part adaptation. Tom Baker’s search for Holmes’s mastery has him deliver lines with commanding eloquence but often a fraction of a second early. Terence Rigby makes for an unsteady Watson, balancing things out with delays of corresponding magnitude.

Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora

Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora

by Louis Marks; dir. Rodney Bennett (BBC, 1976)

DVD cover: “Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora” by Louis Marks; dir. Rodney Bennett (BBC, 1976)

Tom Baker is in fine fettle as the Doctor swashbuckles around a rather small-looking historical adventure, countering an alien threat that he himself has enabled. Elisabeth Sladen brings matchless nuance to her performance. Giuliano narrowly survives a foreshadowing of Blackadder’s Lord Percy.

Doctor Who: The Doomsday Contract

Doctor Who: The Doomsday Contract

by John Lloyd; adapted by Nev Fountain (Big Finish, 2021)

Release cover: Doctor Who - The Doomsday Contract by John Lloyd; adapted by Nev Fountain

Originally commissioned during Douglas Adams’ tenure as script editor, The Doomsday Contract exhibits a Hitchhiker’s tonality but without quite the same zest. Tom Baker gives it some welly but the denunciation of bureaucracy via reductio ad absurdum seems a bit old hat.

Doctor Who: The Mind Runners

Doctor Who: The Mind Runners

by John Dorney (Big Finish, 2018)

Dorney_Mind Runners

Dorney engages in capable SF noir world-building while scripting lovely dialogue for Tom Baker and Louise Jameson (both of whom are in fine form). The story, however, is not self-contained, and its antagonists are in the usual advanced stages of expository megalomania.

 

 

Doctor Who: The Crowmarsh Experiment

Doctor Who: The Crowmarsh Experiment

by David Llewellyn (Big Finish, 2018)

Llewellyn_Crowmarsh Experiment

Leela is attacked during one of her adventures with the Doctor, and wakes up in a research institute for implanted dream consciousness. Which of her realities is genuine? Perfectly pitched performances by Louise Jameson and Tom Baker. A nice idea cleverly executed.

 

 

Dr. Fourth

Dr. Fourth

by Adam Hargreaves (BBC Children’s Books, 2017)

Hargreaves_Dr Fourth

The Fourth Doctor is well drawn and characterised. Sarah Jane is less becoming (a generic pink ball) and the inclusion of a no-hoper Dalek is incongruous even within the unfolding romp. Still, this captures the frivolous sangfroid element of Tom Baker’s era.

 

 

Doctor Who: Scratchman

Doctor Who: Scratchman

by Tom Baker with James Goss (BBC Books, 2019)

Baker_Scratchman

A novelisation of the film script that Tom Baker and Ian Marter wrote back in the 1970s. The content is dark verging on horror, yet the tone is very much Baker’s latter-day staple of bemused, gently deadpanned, Doctor as lost man-child comedy.

 

 

Doctor Who: Ghost Ship

Doctor Who: Ghost Ship

by Keith Topping (Telos, 2003)

Topping_Ghost Ship

Told in the first person, supposedly from the perspective of the Fourth Doctor, this serviceably atmospheric, potentially wonderful novella reads, unfortunately, as if a 40-year-old Englishman has sat down with a framed picture of Tom Baker on his desk and started rambling.

 

 

Derelict Space Sheep