Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: Delta and The Bannermen





Doctor Who:
Delta and The Bannermen
By Malcolm Kohll

“Life? What do you know about life, Gavrok? You deal in death. Lies, treachery and murder are your currency. You promise life, but in the end it will be life which defeats you.”

The Doctor and Mel have won a trip to Disneyland 1959 for being the One billionth person to arrive at the spaceport.  Mel decides to go in the spaceship that is disguised as a bus from the 1950’s.  On board the ship is the Chimeron Queen Delta and she is running away from the Bannermen  as they want to kill her as she is the last of her kind.  The Doctor follows along in the TARDIS and it is a good thing too as the spaceship hits a satellite and is forced to land in Wales with a little help from the TARDIS.  They end up landing near a holiday camp where they decide to make camp until the ship is repaired.


The fun and games comes to an end sooner than expected as the Bannermen have arrived on Earth to get Delta and her newborn child.   The Doctor tells Murray he has to get the campers off the planet before the Bannermen arrive but to no avail as they are destroyed at lift off.  The Doctor now must come up with a plan to save the remaining campers and Delta and her child from the Bannermen.



Delta and The Bannerman is just not a good Doctor Who story at all.  In fact I find it to be one of the worst and definitely giving Time and the Rani a run for worst story in the McCoy era.   The Bannermen themselves are a pretty pathetic group of alien mercenaries that like to just rush in and attack without reason and constantly keep running into traps.  The Bannermen are not very efficient if you ask me for a group that is feared throughout the universe.  Plus they got beating up by honey bees and just stood there to get stung instead of running away right away.


Then there is the whole Billy thing.  He starts taking alien medicine to make himself a Chimeran.  Not realizing that it could kill him he just drinks the stuff up anyway so he can be with Delta.   Kind of stupid if you ask me but this story is a love story for the most part but that just seems really stupid to me.  I mean who would do that without thinking this could be harmful.


Then there is the Americans Weismuller and Hawk who happen to be working for the US government.  We all know they are Americans because Weismuller is wearing a New York Yankees hat and coat and we all know Americans all wear that.  Those two are not really all that important to the overall story and are inserted as comic relief and they are not that funny really and do not offer much comic relief. 



Mel is still screaming and this time pretty pathetically as she screams her lungs out when Delta’s daughter is hatching from the egg.  Of all the things Mel has seen screaming at the egg cracking and then the baby coming out seems to be pretty lame and just makes her seem even more stupid.  Like I said before why they made her afraid of everything to the point of screaming was very stupid from those in charge.


Delta and The Bannermen is not a really good story and thankfully the story that comes next is a lot better and has the feel of a Doctor Who story while this one just doesn’t cut it.
Grade D –

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