FANFILM REVIEWS: TIMEBASE SERIAL 3 – PARADISE IN CHAINS
by DenValdron
STORY: After defeating the Cyberman, the Doctor ponders the costs. His contemplation is interrupted when the Tardis malfunctions, taking him to a pocket dimension outside time and space. There, he encounters a ghost, a clown, a poet, a raconteur and a strange young woman who may be in heaven or hell….
REVIEW: With Paradise in Chains, we return to the two parts serial structure they established in Regenesis.
Regenesis and Phase Four were both very different stories, like night and day from each other. But Paradise, which sees the introduction of another companion, Amaryllis, played by Deborah Reilley, is a complete departure from what we’ve seen before.
It reminds me most of Tom Baker’s Warrior’s Gate, but it’s also of a piece with Hartnell’s Celestial Toymaker, Troughton’s Mind Robbers, or McCoy’s ‘ Greatest Show in the Galaxy, or Benedetti’s Broken Doors. Essentially, this is surrealism, not science fiction, and the Doctor, rather than moving through time and space, is caught between dimensions, exploring a strange realm that is as much mindscape as landscape.
It’s highly stylized, the sets are basically almost all non-existent black backgrounds, lending the project a feel of starkness and alienation. There are some scenes we end up on natural locations, but the transitions are immediate, to show that these locations are as unreal and disconnected as the black backgrounds. The Doctor may turn around and find himself in a wooded glade, but he and the audience knows that he hasn’t gone anywhere, the emptiness and the danger lurk just beyond.
The natural locations are all set in a park – there’s shots on a bridge overlooking a stream, down a flight of outdoor steps, amid a pile of jagged boulders – all carefully or subtly chosen to reflect the Doctor’s inner sentiments. Again, you have to admire how good they are at finding really good locations, visually effective locations that aren’t simply places that the story takes place in, but that enhance and reinforce the story.
One clever move was the Tardis interior. We don’t see it at all. We know that they were building it for Phase Four. I suspect it simply wasn’t ready, but if it was, I applaud the decision not to use it. Normally it would be immensely tempting to shoot with and around it.
But it’s not that kind of story, it’s a mystery with the Doctor being isolated, and so they’ve very wisely chosen to leave it out. The Doctor is alienated and in an alien place, it would have been a mistake to put him somewhere familiar.
They work hard at building a sense of strangeness. Structurally, it’s more than a little like Warrior’s Gate in that it apparently starts off as mainstream sci fi – in both, we see a spaceship, we see a spaceship interior, we see a pilot and a prisoner.
Then all of a sudden, the pilot is simply this ghost, wandering around making random cryptic remarks. The other characters are archetypes – a raconteur, a poet, a clown, strangely one dimensional, all except for the mysterious woman, Amaryllis, who mistakes the Doctor himself for one of those pesky archetypes, to the Doctor’s own annoyance.
Rupert Booth explores the Doctor’s personality further in this serial, taking him in new directions. This is one of the pleasures in watching Booth work, he manages to grow the character, to do something different, just about every outing. This time, his character is cranky, snappish, frustrated over his experiences with the Cybermen. He really could care less about the mystery in front of him, he just doesn’t want to be bothered – Amaryllis, the ghost, the archetypes – it’s all someone else’s problem. But he can’t help but being drawn in, he can’t help but caring, and he can’t help needing to solve the mystery.
Leslie, sadly, doesn’t have much to do this time around. Christine Potter’s character barely appears, but that’s of a parcel with the spartan, almost abstract nature of the production.
What carries the production is the deep sense of mystery, and the Doctor’s process of unravelling the mystery of where he is and how this place came to be. Again, there’s a stellar performance by Rupert Booth as the Doctor, with Deborah Riley as Amaryllis an effective foil.
I really have no criticism of this. A lot of the small technical glitches, the small problems in the sound mix, or an awkward shot, or a laboured scene aren’t there or aren’t nearly as noticeable. This is probably because eschewing a lot of exterior and location work, they’ve got a lot more control over their production. The things I might complain about, like a stiffness with some of the cipher/characters are part and parcel of what’s being done – this is an abstracted, surrealist journey so it’s a lot easier to get away with things.
This is an abstract, metaphysical Doctor Who. Let me put it this way, if you liked ‘Warrior’s Gate’ then this will be your favourite as a surreal masterpiece. If Gate left you cold, this will go to the bottom of your list as a pretentious mess. Personally, I like a good mystery, it’s consistently intriguing, it explores the Doctor’s character, and in the end, there’s someting bittersweet and redemptive to it.
When watching Timebase Productions, I’ll strongly recommend watching them in order. The Doctor and his companions are going through a journey together. Regenesis has to proceed Phase Four, and Paradise in Chains has to follow. That’s not the order they were released in, but it’s the order that the overall series follows. You can watch them out of order. But it’s just more enjoyable the other way, you get more out of it.
CAST: Rupert Booth – Doctor; Deborah Riley – Amaryllis; Christine Potter – Leslie; Simon Elworthy – Minstrel; Chelfyn Baxter – Raconteur; Gavin Chilvers – Raconteur; Shaun Borthwick – Raconteur;; Jonathan Ralph – Pilot; Kevin Crennell – Jester; Philip T. Robinson – Cybermen; Richard Knapper – Cybermen; Chelfyn Baxter – Void
CREW: Lee Paterson – writer, incidental music, studio sound, costume; Rupert Booth – writer, director, lighting, camera, transport, VT Editor, titles, set construction, designer, producer; Philip T. Robinson – camera, transport, costume, titles, set construction, designer; Lee Foster – incidental music; Renny Borthwick – director, lighting, production manager; Gavin Chilvers – lighting, title; Jeanette Smedley – lighting; Arthur Banks – lighting, studio sound, set construction; Malcolm Herron – location sound, set construction; Deborah Reilley – transport, costume; Simon Elworthy – studio sound, transport, costume; Sarah King – production assistant; Chelfyn Baxter – special sound; Michael Stevenson – set construction
Timebase, 1995
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Part One
Part Two
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@DenValdron
yeah, this is not exactly a “pretentious mess” but close to it, for me? I found the woman in chains and the pilot strangely frightening -so, in that respect, it should be applauded; right from the get go I was let into the vibe of what time travel and hyperspace should be like: isolating, confusing, with the human condition made very small and fragmented? There’s a certain romance to the canon of Doctor Who; a family show with wonderful planets, interesting people, scary but not too scary creatures; a sharp but delightful focus.
Here though, it’s what I imagine the future would be like. A dream state in which there’s starkness, a fabric of expendability and disposability, an inability to communicate at the most basic levels where everything is distant, confusing and blurry. Even the flat score tends to imply a type of fugue. At one point, I thought I was in a late ’70s/’80s glam rock video without the music -Booth’s hair and outfit certainly lends it that character! Wonderful lines:
“Nothing comes, and nothing goes. But, disharmony will come from this.”
Still, at times I thought this was like a repetitive cabaret, or a Beatles jam session without the clever bits. In other words, a bit like Hades. The dramatic lighting and black arena definitely seemed like Hell! So, surreal was it.
Kindest, puro