Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Episode 91)

Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Episode 91)
by David Maloney

Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Episode 91)

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DVD details

Actor: Christopher Benjamin, John Bennett, Louise Jameson, Tom Baker, Trevor Baxter
Director: David Maloney
Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 142 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-10-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Video / Warner Bros.

DVD Reviews of Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Episode 91)

DVD Review: High water mark of the "Gothic" 'Who'
Summary: 4 Stars

Not politically correct in its portrayal of the Chinese, and that owes much to its cinematic godfathers. Well written, well-acted, funny (Tom Baker and his droll way with lines!) and a perfect foil-companion. Much missed era of 'Who.'

DVD Review: Okay story, but not enough like "Doctor Who" for me
Summary: 3 Stars

In theory, "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" is a good idea: an homage to Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu, set in the "Doctor Who" universe. And in practice, it mostly works, but with two nagging problems.

1. The Doctor taking part in the pervasive racism. When the Doctor says, "Well, they are Chinese criminals" as an explanation at one point, my reaction was "What?" It's one thing to recreate the racial attitudes of a past era, but the Doctor, who has always been much more enlightened, has no reason to say such a thing.

2. The Doctor uses a gun. Admittedly, it's not the first time (he used a Dalek gun to destroy a tape in "Genesis of the Daleks"), but the fact that this time he carries it with the intention to kill (even if his quarry is a giant rat) seems to go against the previously established Doctor who prides himself on not using weapons; who uses his wits rather than violence to get himself out of trouble.

Certainly, there's a lot to like in this story: the characters of Jago & Litefoot, the wonderfully cheesy giant rat, and the wonderfully creepy Mr. Sin, played by Deep Roy. But the discrepancies mentioned above are enough to keep me from completely enjoying it.

DVD Review: CLASSIC HINCHCLIFFE
Summary: 5 Stars

Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes were the best team in this wonderful show's history. Doctor Who at it's finest!!

DVD Review: Magnus Greel - 51st Renage Time travelor
Summary: 5 Stars

1. Palace Theatre, worker, reports to Mr. Henry Gordon Jago that monster was coming out of the dark, nine feet tall, in the cedar. "It was no cat" says Mr. Jago".
2. Li H'sen Chang performs his Chinese Magic act levitating a woman high in the air. The woman is suspended by wires.
3. A small puppet called Mr. Sin says, "Don't touch me, help, murder."
4. The Doctor and Leela interfere as four Chinese are in the process of carrying off a man stabbed in the heart, a cab driver. Leela constraints one of the Chinese attackers . The Police want to question the Doctor and Leela at the police station.
5. The Sergeant tells the Doctor that girls have been kidnapped.
6. It has been four hundred years since Doctor has been in China. The Doctor recognizes Li H'sen Chang, but not before the magician administers scorpion evened killing the witness. The tongue of the black scorpion is in London.
7. The black tongue scorpion believe their God Wang Chang would return and rule the world. Wang Chang was the God of abundance.
8. Leela kills another assassin with a blow dart prior to his attempt to kill the Doctor.
9. The dead body was transported by the sewer system. The Doctor and Leela follow the tunnels searching for clues.
10. The Doctor and Leela discovers a 10 foot rat. A guardian to scare people away.
11. The cab driver Casey Buller accosted Chang inquiring about his missing wife and Chang uses his powers to force Jago to forget Buller. Mr. Buller was looking for his wife. Jago finds a glove with EB on a glove in the cedar. EB represents for Emma Buller.
12. Chang is the servant of Magnus Greel. Zygma energy is destabilizing Greel DNA. Chang is extracting energy from Mrs. Buller for Greel. Greel has been creating experiments that produce 10 feet rats.
13. The time covenant is in London. Chang has two girls that will be used to restore Greel power. The doctor discovers a spider that has had it genetic pattern disrupted.
14. Mr. Sin is a robot powered by the cerebral cortex of a pig known as Peking Homunculus.
15. Professor litefoot is attacked and knocked out by Mr. Sin, a robotic toy. Leela is kidnapped. Professor Litefoot family gained access to the Time Cabinet as parting gift from Emperor Tongzhi in 1873. The family thought it was a Chinese puzzle never opening. Greel discovers the Time Cabinet and is trying to use it to regain his normalcy.
16. Professor Litefoot asks the Doctor, "have you slept" and the Doctor replies, "sleep is for tortoises".
17. The sewer lines converge at the Palace of Theatres.
18. Greel needs the time cabinet. The time cabinet was a early time travel device from the 51st century. It was developed by the Supreme Alliance, under the impulse of Magnus Greel. The time cabinet was unsuccessful. The time cabinet used zygma beam and if overstretch it could lead too life-threatening mutations. Greel is suffering from mutations.
19. The Doctor uses a crystal known as a Trionic Lattice, as a key to open the time cabinet.
20. Leela is put in the extraction chamber but the Doctor rescue her.
21. Mr. Sin turns on Greel fearing catastrophic implosion.
22. Greel is push into his own catalytic extraction chamber, damaging it and causing it too overload.
23. The Doctor destroys Mr. Sin by ripping out the cerebral cortex.

DVD Review: Another classic from the Tom Baker era
Summary: 5 Stars

This is one of my favorites and would mark the end of producer Philip Hinchcliffe's work on the show as well as season 14. This would also mark the end of Leela's first season on the show although she wasn't there for the whole season. John Nathan-Turner who would become a producer later on joins the crew here. The story itself is set in Victorian England with The Doctor dressed as Sherlock Holmes. This story has also drawn alot of attention for it's display of what some consider racist attitudes towards the Chinese with the show actually being pulled off of some channels. This is a show that the pc police certainly wouldn't let be made today.

Description of Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Episode 91)

The Doctor brings Leela to Victorian London to meet her ancestors (though Agincourt might have been more her style). The TARDIS materializes in the darkest heart of the city, where life - and death - is anything but dull. A hapless cabbie is slain by agents of a secret Chinese cult. Young women are disappearing at an alarming rate, and Li H'sen Chang, the Palace Theatre's celebrated magician, may know more about that than he admits. Li H'sen's ventriloquist dummy, Mr. Sin, appears to have a life of its own, and the rat problem in the sewers is bigger than anyone can imagine.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Commentary by producer Philip Hinchcliffe, director David Maloney and actors Louise Jameson, John Bennett and Christopher Benjamin
Documentary:Whose Doctor Who - 59-minute documentary presented by Melvyn Bragg
Interviews:Philip Hinchcliffe interview (Pebble Mill, 1977)
Other:Blue Peter: Make Your Own Doctor Who Theatre; Behind the Scenes - 24 minutes of raw footage; Howard Da Silva intros/teases; TARDIS-Cam No. 6
Photo gallery
Production Notes
Theatrical Trailer:Trailers and continuity announcements

"The Talons of Weng-Chiang" is one of the very best Doctor Who stories, a six-part adventure set in a gothic Victorian London inspired by The Phantom of the Opera and Sax Rohmer's tales of Fu Manchu, with nods toward Jack the Ripper, Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes. The final story from the Golden Age of the show, Philip Hinchcliff's three-year tenure as producer, the tale boasts superior production values and a bizarre storyline involving a time-traveling war criminal, giant rats in the London sewers, and a malevolent ventriloquist's doll with the brain of a pig.

Pitted against this flamboyant madness, largely centered on an East End music-hall run by the self-important Henry Gordon Jago (a memorable performance by Christopher Benjamin) are Tom Baker's fourth Doctor, in pre-self-parody top form, and Louise Jameson's Leela at her primal best. There's strong support from Trevor Baxter as the Watson-like Professor Lightfoot, and John Bennett as the villainous Li H'sen Chang. Really helping matters is the first-rate direction from David "Genesis of the Daleks" Maloney, evoking a creepy atmosphere in a fantasy London of shadows and fog. "Weng-Chiang" was the pinnacle of gothic Who and still remains highly enjoyable entertainment. --Gary S. Dalkin

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