Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive (Story 110)
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DVD details
Brand: Warner BrothersDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 86 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-06-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Video / Warner Bros.
Product features:
- The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana decide to forego Brighton beach and take a much-needed holiday on the pleasure planet of Argolis. Ravaged decades before by an interstellar war, Argolis now hosts the Leisure Hive - an ideal retreat for tourists from all over the cosmos. (Episodes 1-4, 86 mins) Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?TELEVISION Rating:?NR Age:?794051221728 UPC:?794
DVD Reviews of Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive (Story 110)
DVD Review: Why the format changed.
Summary: 5 Stars
I just can't review this as a mere story. The behind the scenes for its development are far more considerable, and knowing the context of the time is as relevant as anything else. So please bear with me.
In 1980, the media was endlessly criticizing "Doctor Who" as becoming more silly and repetitive. Incidental music was recycled, and the whole thing needed a revamp. My intent in this review is to adumbrate the details of the time and why "Doctor Who"'s format was shaken up considerably, while at the same time critiquing this first episode under the new producer's reign.
John Nathan-Turner, who had worked on the show in various aspects as far back as 1969 (floor assistant for "The Space Pirates"), was promoted producer.
Noting how silly the show had become, he sought to make it more serious - but allowing the Doctor to retain his wit for when it fit in the story, rather than the element of making jokes at the audience. One such joke where silliness was out of hand was in the previous year's story, "Nightmare of Eden". Cornered into a wooded alcove by some monsters, the Doctor is heard yelling "My arms, my legs, my everything!" as if he's addressing the audience rather than the scene the character was in. Fast forward to "The Leisure Hive" and such silliness is gone. But the humor remains. In one of the show's best moments, a murderer used the Doctor's scarf to strangle someone to death. The prosecutor states "His scarf killed Stimson!" The Doctor retorts, "Arrest the scarf then!" We know he's being funny, but the humor flows with the script and with the characters rather than the actor making a joke just for the audience.
John was a shrewd man, in ways. With Romana, he saw in "The Horns of Nimon" she could be a very vocal, moral person who wanted to fight wrongdoing. As "The Leisure Hive", and later stories, prove, this trait was expanded upon and works to GREAT effect. (Indeed, Romana's swansong features this element of her persona as well...)
By 1980, Dudley Simpson's music felt worn out and recycled. John wanted to update the music to fit the new decade society was entering. Dudley, who had worked on the show for roughly 15 years, was let go. John brought in artists from the (now defunct :( ) BBC Radiophonic workshop. It was modern, it was pacey, yet at the same time it had the flair worthy of "Doctor Who". And it works beautifully. The Radiophonic workshop was used as far back as the show's very start in 1963. A brilliant move.
John also felt the show deserved some more educational value; albeit not in the form of history but in science. More children of the time preferred watching the glossy and equally vapid American show "Buck Rogers" (you know, the guy is frozen in 1987, wakes up 500 years later thanks to sexy aliens and has to teach the dumb humans how to boogie their booty to disco and make friends with an oddly shaped robot...) Their loss; WHO now managed to incorporate some science and engineering ideas into its format. While it's true "The Leisure Hive" takes these new ideas heavyhandedly, with later episodes being more even tempered, there's still a lot of detail that holds value over time. How many series and stories of the time (or now!) that deal with nuclear conflict, sterlization, farewell gestures, and so on, with the depth sci-fi should allow by default -- and not being an exception to.
Even the direction; JNT was ambitious early on and the directors he brought in has it showing. Feature film techniques, depth of field, and angles were brought in when possible to help give an updated look. It's visually stunning, in its way.
The show simply HAD to change, to meet the call of the critics and the call of the future. To fade away would be unworthy of such a show (ironic as the BBC ultimately let that happen, deliberately) and, more to the point, WHO's audience was growing up and John felt the show should grow and grow up with it. And "The Leisure Hive", warts and all, is the first example of this change. Subsequent episodes are much more worthy of representation, but there's still a lot in this first story under the new producer that really shows just how much change was in store. It's impossible to critique one without the other, and despite the story's failings, it's still an overall success for where JNT wanted to take the show - as later episodes instantly prove (check out "The E-Space Trilogy" and "New Beginnings" box sets for much more).
"Doctor Who" was reborn and it showed. It had the looks, it answered critics' complaints, it still had great monsters, it had a new and deeper insight on sci-fi concepts (some using real science again), and was intelligent. Did it grab viewers of the time? Depends on the child, but the existing ratings figures showed WHO's revamp wasn't much noticed. Not until the 5th Doctor's arrival did anybody really look. Was it because of the new producer, or was it because people were tired of the show's silliness and other criticisms? Perhaps both, and as I am a rabid fan of Tom Baker's final year, I still want to be objective about this story: Most kids won't understand high school or early-college concepts. But then, WHO's new audience was supposed to be older, more intelligent teenagers. I just don't see a problem with that; mainstream shows are typically banal to begin with, but it's not like anybody in the media gave a fair warning about the changes that were taking place.
But the only real negative on the general revamp of the format is one simple question...
...mark.
"The Leisure Hive" featured the Doctor's outfit now showing question marks on the lapels. There are numerous reasons for this, from character-centric (the Doctor's symbol, like how Superman (Kal-El) had the funky letter "S") to pragmatic marketing; a "?" symbol being more readily recognizable as a logo. The ? mark is partly shrouded in the costume with similar colors, not to mention the scarf... but later eras make prominent use of the ? symbol, it sticks out, and that's when the real arguments begin. Check out another "Doctor Who" story, "Delta and the Bannermen", where I describe just how ridiculous the ? symbol was overused...
And now, because I want to be objective and, besides, it's more fun to complain, the story is far from being perfect:
One of two real problems I have with the story is simple: No explanation for the Doctor's changes in persona. Looking back, I think it can be pieced together. Between "The Horns of Nimon" and "The Leisure hive" is "Shada". Meant to be a season ending extravaganza where the Doctor has to stop one of his own from traveling to the Time Lord prison planet and wreaking havoc, this story could be the epiphany that saps the Doctor of his more comedic nature and makes him more brooding. With "Shada" being scrapped thanks to a strike, the story was never made and viewers were shocked to see the Doctor's new, more serious nature. The story doesn't acknowledge or reflect any event(s) that humbled the Doctor, but with hindsight we can piece enough together and get on with life.
The other is: Episode recaps to the previous episode's cliffhanger often are a minute in length. Episode 4 takes two minutes. I have to blame this on lack of story material/empty padding, as several scenes in the story have no purpose except to waste time (e.g. just how many times we need to see the shuttle arriving bit when it looks like a close-up of a radio microphone circa 1950 instead of a spacecraft from the docking port POV.)
I suppose I should also bleat over the fact the alien Foamasi, big fat lizards with huge honkin' eyes, can squeeze into human skinsuits (unless they're the carcasses of humans, but that would be too grizzly and that level of grim violence wasn't yet introduced into the show...)
And, of course, for kids and casual viewers, they're not going to care about aliens blowing each up in war and making farewell gestures. A shame; this is the stuff that really makes good sci-fi. Allegory without being direct, without being obvious, without being patronizing, and without being preachy. And it's storytelling based on fictional events. We know what nuclear war can do but we don't need to live it in order to understand it and feel for the Argolin plight. The story takes the idea of nuclear war and actually DOES SOMETHING with it, with sci-fi concepts, instead of taking the idea and regurgitating it on itself in a continuous drunken stupor and taking place on Earth circa (insert today's year) because apparently only modern day audiences can fathom what happens to people on Earth in the here and now. Or so modern day producers keep telling people... hmmm...
Rest in peace, John. I saw what your intentions were and most of them were genuine and good. Your era (1980-1989) has some of the most creative stories the show ever had, thanks to the level of detail the show offers by default. Except the ? mark and how it became a parody of whatever intentions were initially devised, but nobody's perfect...
DVD Review: "The birth of the new Argolis must be recorded by history."
Summary: 5 Stars
With this storyline, "Doctor Who" embarks upon its tumultuous trek through the 80's with a bang. Starting of course with a new opening sequence complete with a revved-up version of the theme music. I still remember how this surprised me when I was watching the show on PBS in the late 1980's; it seemed excitingly up-to-date, and, well, like most things that are self-consciously up-to-date, it's rather dated now. Pleasantly so, like a hit song by Duran Duran that you haven't heard in ages, but in any case it's rather emblematic of a fairly noticeable shift in the show's long history.
In fact, it's extremely difficult to evaluate "The Leisure Hive" on its own terms instead of as the starting point of John Nathan-Turner's extended tenure as producer. For one, because his fingerprints are all over it. He seems madly intent on redesigning and reinvisioning everything from the Doctor's scarf (toned down to burgundy) to his pet (K9 is written out in what seems like a rather malicious joke). Sometimes he seems almost prophetic; his emphasis on prominent instrumental music with a greater variety of texture and his insistence that the special effects be as top-notch as possible is very much something taken for granted in television today and can readily be seen to great effect in the new "Doctor Who" series now running. But then again, sometimes he seems to be working at cross purposes, toning down the wonderful "undergraduate humor" that Tom Baker brought to the role and which tends to appeal to adults while attempting to make the show more sophisticated by incorporating undergraduate astrophysics (tachyons in "Leisure Hive"). Anyway, at least Romana's still around, so we are given some modicum of continuity.
Now, as for "Leisure Hive" itself, it's lots of hits with a few misses. Again, as with the new opening, the first thing that catches your eye is that it's eye-catching. This is a visually rich storyline with intriguing sets full of exotic colors, and the make-up for the Argolins who run the Hive is aesthetically pleasing and convincingly alien. A clear "Cold War" ambiance informs the tale's historical background: a very brief but extremely devastating war leaving a planet (Argolis in this case) infertile and its people sterile. Similarly to "The Armageddon Factor," it's really fascinating to see how the anxieties of the nuclear arms race translated into a science fiction idiom so that the dire absurdities and fearsome consequences of the situation could be explored without hitting too close to home. The story itself intriguingly deals with serious issues of xenophobia and fascism as well as cultural heritage and corporate exploitation--unfortunately, where these two story elements converge the plot tends to blur somewhat incoherently, as if one more round of editing was needed to tighten up the script just so. However, the directing is creative and expertly evokes depth and tension while the acting is quite excellent, especially Tom Baker's perfect rendition of the Doctor prematurely aged 500 years older.
It must be said too that the extras on this DVD are unusually interesting, especially since they're on the very same disc as the episodes (so as not inflating the wallet damage). In lots of DVD extras out there today, the cast and crew all describe each other as geniuses and go on about how they were all like one big happy family. Which is both unbelievable and boring. Not here, though. the interviewees are delightfully frank, straightforward, opinionated, and critical (in the true sense of the word), and listening to them discuss the significant shift in "Doctor Who" marked by "The Leisure Hive" and their involvement in it is a real eye-opening experience. Their candor is appreciated. So kick back and enjoy this reasonably fine "Doctor Who" moment at your leisure.
DVD Review: An Anti-War Monument
Summary: 4 Stars
The Leisure Hive: A resort where the different races of the universe can gather and learn about each other, to co-exist, to learn what it's like to be the foreigner, to abhor war... Then came the Islamic ones and did what they do best, blow up the Hive!DVD Review: The turning point
Summary: 5 Stars
Dr. Who was always rather bizarre when I started watching in college. This was the episode when a true master took hold. From here on, it was a definite enjoyment, not just a moment of watching twisted reality.DVD Review: A mixed bag
Summary: 2 Stars
The Leisure Hive by David Fisher is a mixed bag. The story came toward the end of the Tom Baker years, after Tom had begun to rely increasingly on his personal style of comedy (which I personally think is brilliantly funny). Tom ad-libbed many of his lines by this point, and some Doctor Who directors found him somewhat difficult to work with. Some, such as John Nathan-Turner, had begun to feel that Doctor Who, once a sci-fi show full of ideas, had slowly become "The Tom Baker Show," a half-hour pop culture phenomenon in which Baker pranced around and cracked jokes. When John Nathan-Turner took over as producer (I believe The Leisure Hive was his first story as producer), having felt that Doctor Who had become too jokey and silly for its own good, he immediately had some changes to make. First, K9 was killed off instantly. Many people, including Tom Baker, did not like K9, and some felt that the robot dog only made the show more childlike. Nathan-Turner wanted to get the show back to its roots a bit, placing greater emphasis again on the sci-fi element of the show. Further, he wanted the sci-fi in the show to extend beyond mere gobbledygook, hopefully incorporating ideas from real science. Hence all the tachyon talk in The Leisure Hive. Tachyons are actual hypothetical constructs from physics, and Fisher's story used the concept to good effect.
However, as I said at the beginning, The Leisure Hive is a mixed bag. Though the story is very good; unfortunately its execution is somewhat shoddy. As stated above, many had complained that Tom's humor was getting in the way of the show; I however think that his humor was part of his character, and never found that it got in the way of anything. His wit and ad-libbed banter, and his remarkable ability to rewrite parts of the script in his head on the spot, were reliable assets. His dialogue was often better than what was written, and, again, the man is just plain laugh-out-loud hilarious. Interestingly, the episode the many refer to as evidence that Baker's Who had become too jokey, Nighmare in Eden, was actually a great story about drug use with some very adult aspects to it, but I digress. Recreate his character a bit they did, including giving him his new, grand, burgundy outfit with ever larger scarf. Not a bad change, I must admit. This is also the first episode to feature the "starburst" opening, complete with the new title music by Peter Howell, who had been told that what was wanted was something that sounded more like dance music.
Now, what's wrong with The Leisure Hive? Well, for starters, a great irony occurred. Producer John Nathan-Turner wanted to "update" the show; he thought much of it looked dated and he wanted to "bring it into the eighties." The irony is that many of the changes they made to "update" the effects really only further dated the show! For example, the new synthesizer music by the BBC, though some of it was quite good, seemed, compared to films today, much more dated than Dudley Simpson's previous scores. The Leisure Hive producers also spent a lot of money on a new computer process called Quantel, which gave us all those effects of heads and arms and whatnot separating from bodies in the regenerator. Though this was doubtlessly very cutting edge at the time, it looks very poor today, poorer even that many special effects found in much older episodes of Doctor Who. The special effects in The Pyramids of Mars, for instance, a much older episode, are much better than in The Leisure Hive. (It must be added though that budget cuts had something to do with that.) The outfits for the reptile race of the Foamasi are downright awful, some of the worst in the whole history of Doctor Who. If one looks closely at these big fabric beasts one can actually see the human actor's face through the holes in the reptile's head.
Fans of Who shouldn't make issues out of the effects though. The bad special effects I have always felt only added to the charm of the show, and may have even kept the show's quality up there in terms of forcing writers to write around budget difficulties. The big problem with The Leisure Hive is that it is actually boring, which is never a word I usually associate with Doctor Who, one of the most brilliant and fantastic shows in television history. It makes one yearn for the Hinchcliffe/Holmes years, which brought us such goodies as The Seeds of Doom and The Talons of Weng-Chiang. It is interesting that hot head Nathan-Turner wanted to take the show back from Tom Baker, and yet, it was in Nathan-Turner's hands that the show ultimately fell apart. He was producer for far too long.
Description of Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive (Story 110)
The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana decide to forego Brighton beach and take a much-needed holiday on the pleasure planet of Argolis. Ravaged decades before by an interstellar war, Argolis now hosts the Leisure Hive - an ideal retreat for tourists from all over the cosmos. (Episodes 1-4, 86 mins)DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
Featurette
Interviews
Music Only Track
Other
Photo gallery
Production Notes
Particularly significant in terms of Doctor Who's history, The Leisure Hive marked an end to Who's descent into vaudeville, and heralded the entrance of new hotshot series producer John Nathan-Turner. The opening long, slow pan across a wintry beach, on which an autumnal Doctor sits slumped, immediately declares the show's serious intentions. The narrative itself is an erudite discussion on fascism and racism taking in regeneration, megalomania, cloning, and a series of Agatha Christie-esque murders. It's the style, rather than the story, however, that's most prominent in The Leisure Hive: along with his new sober ambitious approach, Nathan-Turner brought a new theme tune, a new logo, a striking red costume, and a new title sequence--one that, tellingly, moved away from the enclosed time tunnel to show the vastness of space opening up. Productions values are also high: the Quantel effects are impressive even now, and the performances are quite stunning, particularly Baker's as the prematurely aged, infirm Doctor.
By dispensing with the clowning and with what he termed "Douglas Adams's undergrad humor," Nathan-Turner reinvigorated a show that was becoming stale. The diegetic rebirth brought about by the Regeneration Drive at the show's denouement is an apposite motif that was emblematic of the rebirth of the show itself--The Leisure Hive truly represented a new beginning for Who. --Paul Eisinger
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