Day 269 — September 26th 2021
The Leisure Hive Parts Three and Four
The Leisure Hive — Part Three
Shall we talk a bit about costumes today? After all my banging on about whether or not the series felt different overnight yesterday I forgot to even mention one of the other changes — Tom Baker gets a complete overhaul of his costume for — really — the first time ever.
I always thought there were three main costumes for Baker’s Doctor Who. There’s the corduroy jacket he wears in Season Twelve with a cardigan, the look he sports for the next five years, and then the Season Eighteen outfit. I’ve been surprised this time around to see that there’s a much more gradual shift between his Season Twelve appearance and what follows, and a lot more variation than expected in the outfits which followed.
This burgundy ensemble still feels like a huge departure, though, and I’m not entirely sure that I know what to make of it. I’ve always thought of this as my favourite of Baker’s costumes. It’s the version I’ve got in figurine form on a shelf in the hall. But as I’ve watched over the last few months I’ve found myself taking more of a shine to some of his other ones. Now we’ve reached this one… well, I think I need a bit longer with it to make my mind up.
On the one hand it’s very smart, and I love the colour. On the other the whole thing swamps Baker a bit too much, which is an issue I had with his appearance around Season Fifteen too. I wonder if that matters less here because the overall costume is more carefully put together? I’ll reserve judgement for now and see how I feel as the season goes on.
Something which I know I’ve enjoyed in this episode is Baker’s performance. I’m always surprised to remember that he spends this entire third episode (and a big chunk of the fourth, too) in the old age make up. It feels like the kind of thing they might do as a cliffhanger shock and then reverse right away, so I have to give them credit for the commitment to the idea. Baker’s clearly a fan, too, because he’s giving so much more to his performance here than usual. The moment when he first catches sight of his reflection is lovely, and it’s beautifully shot.
The costumes in this story — including Baker’s new outfit — are the work of June Hudson. Because of a quirk in the way that responsibilities fell during production at this period, she was also responsible for the overall design of the aliens in the story — in this case both the Argolins and the Fomasi. The former are really brilliant. I love the hairstyles, and they’re a rare example of a Doctor Who species which all look alike while retaining unique identities. If I’ve any complaint to make about them, it’s that I prefer the white robes worn by the background attendants to the bold yellow ones the main cast are sporting.
As for the Fomasi… well, the design is nice enough, and I really like the way the eyes swivel round on little mounds as the creatures look around. They look fantastic when shot in darkness and close up, trying to build them up as a sinister monster. But this episode gives us our first look at one of the creatures in all its glory, and it’s a bit of a let down. Put simply, it looks like a man in an ill-fitting monster costume. It’s a shame, because I’d been looking forward to the reveal on the strength of the build up yesterday. There’s one shot in particular here where the poor extra forced into one of the suits stands sort of slumped next to Tom Baker and it’s like watching a Doctor Who parody rather than an actual episode.
3/10
The Leisure Hive — Part Four
There’s a lot of ideas in this story which I really like. The war which only lasted 20 minutes but destroyed a world and a race. The idea that the opposition might win in the end because they can afford to buy the planet of their enemy. I love the cliffhanger to Part Three in which a man’s head gets torn off to reveal that he’s actually a lizard alien in a human disguise.
Part Three also contains the twist that Pangol is the first in a new breed of Argolins and represents the future for their race. It was a good twist because it fits in narratively and I’d completely forgotten about it from my last viewing. I got to sit here and say ‘ooh, that’s clever’ out loud to myself. This episode ramps up his madness by having himself seize control of the planet and launch his clone army. You certainly can’t accuse The Leisure Hive of being short on ideas, and that’s before we even mention the other brilliant cliffhangers in which our hero is torn apart and aged 500 years.
And yet, I can’t really claim to actually be enjoying the story. I’m just about keeping up with it, but I’m bored. There’s times where it looks really glossy and interesting — usually when they turn the lights out — but there’s other moments where it all looks so incredibly flat and drab. Much like the previous three episodes, this one isn’t in a massive hurry to go anywhere, and drags itself along.
Until, that is, the final couple of minutes where it suddenly races towards the end. Pangol runs into the machine and… well, that’s it. Happy ending. He’s reduced to a baby with a chance to start again (‘this time I must try to bring him up properly’, says his mother). Mina is brought back from the brink of death, but there’s no time to focus on that. In fact, it’s not even mentioned. She’s just there carrying on as though nothing happened. We even get the reveal that the good Fomasi — which were thought killed off a few minutes into this episode — are safe and well after all, and have just been keeping out of the way for a bit. Doctor Who bundles Romana into the TARDIS and they’re off. The end. As a final scene it feels so tonally out of place that I had to skip back and watch it again because I thought I’d missed a bit. I hadn’t.
Sadly it’s another 3/10 for this one.
Tell you what, though, I reckon Russell T Davies watched this story just before he started work o n bringing Doctor Who back. The Fomasi remind me massively of the Slitheen. They’re both large green aliens squeezing into the skin of a human to impersonate them. Both this story and Aliens of London feature a scene in which a character discovers one of these skins discarded in a cupboard. Both species are running plans which involve turning a profit, and Margaret’s reversion to an egg in Boom Town has more than a few shades of the ending here. Even the shot of Stimson being attacked by a Fomasi claw feels like it’s homaged in Revenge of the Slitheen.
There’s a DVD of The Leisure Hive playing on one of the screens in The Long Game — it’s tempting to think that’s the team acknowledging a debt…!
