I haven’t watched this in years and I had this nagging feeling on getting out the DVD that this story would annoy me a bit. It’s one of those that’s pretty much seen as an unchallengeable classic but I just had this feeling…
But it starts very strongly. The script is great from the off and the fact we get some global oil tycoon paraphrasing Neville Chamberlain sets the scene for a very clever script..
UNIT are back after a few stories away and they really are central to the story. The Brigadier (who looks odd in civvies rather than uniform), Mike Yates and Sgt. Benton all get proper roles in this.
The split story in episode 1 is a nice touch – The Doctor is mucking about on Metebelis 3 because the problems on Earth bore him a bit. There is also a split between Jo and the Brigadier as they progress the story without the star of the show.
The script is incredibly adult – we get Latin phrases chucked about as well as references to Frederick Nietzsche – but it's also funny from the start.
This has to be one of the Brigadier’s best stories. It’s not as if he often gets a bad one but he is just marvelous in this. His standoff with Stevens is simply fantastic.
And then there is Pertwee… Yeah, I’m biased. As I’ve said before, I don’t have favourite Doctors but I adore him. And this story is one of his best efforts. If there is anyone else in the history of television who can pull of the following punchline, I’ve never seen them:
“The moral of the story, of course, is never trust a Venusian Shanghorn with a perigosto stick”
His impressions of a milkman and of a cleaning lady are excellent and more convincing than most of the Master’s disguises…
“The Twist” is a bit of a disappointment as an all powerful, mind controlling computer isn’t exactly new. BOSS is good though. An evil, mastermind, computer that knows that has a sense of humour and knows its acronym a pisstake is worth the story alone. And a computer singing to itself while working and poking fun at it’s human minion is just superb. Whoever wrote the part for this did so with obvious relish.
I’m not going to lie, there are a LOT of double entendres in this story. The references to “Going down”, slag heaps, shafts and crevices cannot have been unintentional. And those are the most polite ones.
The story does lose one mark for quite blatant and clumsy environmental barracking. It’s possible it is the environmental preaching that annoyed me in the past but I can get past that because the script is just so good (I’m still gonna knock a point off, mind)…
Then, lastly, we have the painful ending – but painful in a good way. Jo (who basically has had marriage proposals on every planet she’s visited) finally accepts one from the irritatingly endearing professor. It’s a lovely ending as her friends celebrate but heartbreaking as you see the Doctor feeling wrenched away from her. You know it’s coming as she’s been drifting from The Doctor to Professor Jones throughout the story but Pertwee and Manning are just brilliant in the final scenes.
Great story, superb script, fantastic acting.
9/10
But it starts very strongly. The script is great from the off and the fact we get some global oil tycoon paraphrasing Neville Chamberlain sets the scene for a very clever script..
UNIT are back after a few stories away and they really are central to the story. The Brigadier (who looks odd in civvies rather than uniform), Mike Yates and Sgt. Benton all get proper roles in this.
The split story in episode 1 is a nice touch – The Doctor is mucking about on Metebelis 3 because the problems on Earth bore him a bit. There is also a split between Jo and the Brigadier as they progress the story without the star of the show.
The script is incredibly adult – we get Latin phrases chucked about as well as references to Frederick Nietzsche – but it's also funny from the start.
This has to be one of the Brigadier’s best stories. It’s not as if he often gets a bad one but he is just marvelous in this. His standoff with Stevens is simply fantastic.
And then there is Pertwee… Yeah, I’m biased. As I’ve said before, I don’t have favourite Doctors but I adore him. And this story is one of his best efforts. If there is anyone else in the history of television who can pull of the following punchline, I’ve never seen them:
“The moral of the story, of course, is never trust a Venusian Shanghorn with a perigosto stick”
His impressions of a milkman and of a cleaning lady are excellent and more convincing than most of the Master’s disguises…
“The Twist” is a bit of a disappointment as an all powerful, mind controlling computer isn’t exactly new. BOSS is good though. An evil, mastermind, computer that knows that has a sense of humour and knows its acronym a pisstake is worth the story alone. And a computer singing to itself while working and poking fun at it’s human minion is just superb. Whoever wrote the part for this did so with obvious relish.
I’m not going to lie, there are a LOT of double entendres in this story. The references to “Going down”, slag heaps, shafts and crevices cannot have been unintentional. And those are the most polite ones.
The story does lose one mark for quite blatant and clumsy environmental barracking. It’s possible it is the environmental preaching that annoyed me in the past but I can get past that because the script is just so good (I’m still gonna knock a point off, mind)…
Then, lastly, we have the painful ending – but painful in a good way. Jo (who basically has had marriage proposals on every planet she’s visited) finally accepts one from the irritatingly endearing professor. It’s a lovely ending as her friends celebrate but heartbreaking as you see the Doctor feeling wrenched away from her. You know it’s coming as she’s been drifting from The Doctor to Professor Jones throughout the story but Pertwee and Manning are just brilliant in the final scenes.
Great story, superb script, fantastic acting.
9/10