Monday, February 21, 2011

Target: Black Orchid

Ann finds sleeping at Cranleigh Hall difficult because of the chimes of the chapel clock.

Charles' opposing captain offers to delay the start of the match so that the home team don't have to bat on a damp wicket. Charles sportingly declines. I don't understand this bit - Charles has won the toss and decided to bat, then his opponent offers him a concession? They both clearly understand that the damp will favour the fielding side, so why did Charles choose to bat in the first place?

One reason that he declines is that 'many of his tenants were engaged in voluntary tasks in a complicated administrative process that would be severely embarrassed by the smallest postponement.' Is this code? It could almost be a Pip'n'Jane effort. Though come to think of it, if they'd written it, it would say 'A complicated administrative process engaged in by many of his tenants was likely to be severely embarrassed by the smallest postponement!'

It's 1.30pm, not 3pm, when the TARDIS arrives. It was 560 years ago that the Doctor wanted to be an engine driver (he must have been at least 200 years old then, nearly as old as Romana). Adric spots a Bisto advert, with steaming pie, on the station wall - it makes him feel hungry.

Tanner's 'You are the Doctor?' leads to the following narration: Tegan frowned, Nyssa pouted, Adric giggled and the Doctor smiled. It's like the end of a Star Trek episode: Kirk deadpans, McCoy blusters, Spock raises an eyebrow.

Puzzled by Tanner's attention, Nyssa wonders 'had she a smut on her nose?' She seems well acquainted with the risks of steam-era train travel, for someone who'd just heard about it a page ago.

At this point the Doctor goes off into a long reverie about feudalism and how 'his Lordship' would be known in the area as 'the master', which causes him a mental wince. A bit contrived I think.

Tegan's accent is described as 'from the Bronx via Queensland'. I have no idea what this means. Is Tegan originally American in this version?

There's a scene in the dressing room where the Doctor meets his team-mates and pads up. Meanwhile Tegan is drinking champagne and Adric is stuffing his face, in rehearsal for later. Tegs has to explain what a 'duck' is, and sundry other cricketing terms. The cricket pitch, by the way, is in the Cranleigh Hall grounds. I had not picked this up from the screen, I assumed it was the village pitch.

The Doctor breaks the record for the fastest century (34 minutes). Sir Robert insists that it counts as first class because the Cranleigh side are playing a minor county. Eventually the Doctor gets 148 runs. Tegan spots the Indian in the trees while this is happening. Alan Border gets a name check.

When the other side go in to bat, the Doctor gets a hat-trick, and takes at least 4 wickets altogether. After the victory, Tegan asks him if he has Australian blood, and he says he learnt the rudiments of the game there - from a young Don Bradman. Oh come on.

Sir Robert is also Lord Lieutenant of the county (a ceremonial office which doesn't mean he is a lord, but then Terence Dudley doesn't say he is.)

At the offer of drinks inside the Hall, there's a digression about British and American interpretations of cocktails. It's a maid who waits on them with drinks (not Brewster) and Tegan is forced to see a parallel between the maid's job and her own tasks on the aircraft.

When the Doctor sees Ann for the first time, he doesn't say 'Great Scott' but 'Great Gallifrey!'

There's a scene where Ann and Charles visit the 'museum room' to choose costumes for the TARDIS crew. Adric's is a Roundhead costume, by the way. When they've left, George enters and takes an executioner's mask, which he wears to the Doctor's room to steal the costume.

Tegan asks Nyssa to demonstrate ritual Traken dancing, but she says it would be laughable to do it on her own.

Dittar has some more lines - mostly the sort of thing you'd expect, like 'I can smell [George]' and referring to the fancy dress ball as 'the ceremony of the masks'.

Adric is asked to dance - by a handsome young man, who's embarrassed when he discovers his mistake. I think his costume is supposed to be befrilled and more elegant than that seen on screen. Nyssa envies it, during an abortive dance he has with her. Then she goes off with Humpty Dumpty, whose egg-like shape reminds him it's time to get stuck back into the pies. Brewster the butler is pleased to see someone appreciating the food so much. He does not say 'Where's James with that bucket?', which is good, because on screen it sounds like he's requesting a bucket for Adric either to eat out of, or be sick into.

It's Ann, not Nyssa, who says 'Can't I?' to Adric. Then she makes him try the Charleston too, and suddenly he starts enjoying himself. Later we see him waltzing. Bless him, it's almost as if he could understand something other than food and maths.

The Doctor's encounter with Lady Cranleigh and Dittar in the secret passage leads to this unusual sentence: 'Lady Cranleigh drew level with him, her beautiful face coping with a tense smile.'

Ann sees the Unknown weep when they're in the attic room, and loses her fear of him. Lady Cranleigh takes her off for some brandy, and part explains to her what's going on, except that she says the Unknown is a survivor from another expedition.

Sir Robert, after failing to get the Doctor to identify himself, asks 'Then you weren't sent here?' The Doctor isn't sure, because 'it wouldn't be the first time that the Grand (sic) Council on Gallifrey had seen fit to nudge the TARDIS towards moral intervention.' That's true enough, but he also 'remembered the Master's attempt to topple King John of England.' I presume this must be a previous plan of the Master, setting the scene for a second attempt in The King's Demons in one series' time?

The Doctor tells Sir Robert about the secret rooms, not just the cupboard. So Ann knows Lady Cranleigh's denials are lies. There's then a confusing scene where Charles appears to have confessed everything to her, but you later realise he has merely confirmed his mother's part explanation. He phones London, by the way, not vice versa.

Sir Robert begins to suspect that the TARDIS crew are foreign anarchists, possibly connected to the Siege of Sidney Street.

On the way to the station the companions discuss escape, and the death penalty. Tegan warns Adric that, being under age, he'll be kept in prison till he's 21, and hanged then:

'But that's illogical!'
'Think yourself lucky! If we’d got here a hundred years earlier we'd be packed off to my country.'


Back at the Hall, Lady Cranleigh and Charles' argument is different: she doesn't say that the Doctor will come to no harm because he is innocent, but that 'we are not without influence.' Given that the Chief Constable is her friend, and he's just arrested the Doctor for murder, I think she's being a bit optimistic here, unless there's a cousin who's a judge or the Home Secretary or something.

Sir Robert gets a general tour of the TARDIS, including the cloisters.

George does not kill Dittar, and he drags him out of the flames too.

The narrator maintains strict propriety with regard to titles; as soon as everyone knows who George is, he's referred to as the ninth Marquess, and Charles is demoted back to Charles Beauchamp.

The Doctor appeals to George as 'a man of science and a man of honour'. George doesn't recoil from Charles' approach, rather he's startled by the latter's words, and falls off the roof accidentally.

There's no mention of the fancy dress costumes in the final scene. And the Doctor oddly says 'it will be treasured always', not 'I'll treasure it'.

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