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Post by nucleusofswarm on Apr 6, 2019 0:55:54 GMT
In a time of political uncertainty, what better moment to talk about Robert Holmes taking on the taxman in a story that, let's be frank, is as subtle as a public steaming. Or throwing a caped toff off of a roof.
And all three are far from a bad thing.
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Post by Hieronymus on Apr 6, 2019 1:44:30 GMT
Henry Woolf (as the Collector) and Richard Leech (Gatherer Hade) both gave supremely memorable performances in roles that they clearly relished.
For years after seeing this story, I could clearly remember their voices, mannerisms, and specific lines. And that's saying something, because at that time recording a broadcast was not an option in my home. |
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Post by newt5996 on Apr 6, 2019 2:32:30 GMT
It's an incredibly memorable story which I just rewatched in my marathon (video released yesterday on my YouTube channel coincidentally) and while I don't agree with all of it's politics (the revolution straight up killing the gatherer at the end in particular even though he deserves punishment) Holmes paints a brilliant picture of an oppressive regime where overtaxation is the problem so only the richest of the rich can pay and what happens when communication between a government and its people breaks down.
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Apr 6, 2019 3:55:42 GMT
For all its lack of political subtlety, it's amazing how the story works equally well whether read from a libertarian anti-taxation perspective or from a Marxist anti-corporate capitalism perspective. It's very much on the side of the underdog and the working class whether the enemy is the taxman or the corporation that makes you work bleak, pointless hours to pay off impossible debts. There's always something enjoyable about watching the Doctor tear down the establishment. It's as much a part of the show's DNA as fending off monsters but usually remembered less.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2019 6:31:07 GMT
Pretty bold too. It's not every story that starts with the Doctor and Leela stopping a suicide attempt. I think I read the Target novelisation before I saw the story because I can remember a nice moment with Leela just before she goes into the steamer. She decides that she'll remain stoic through the ordeal. No screams. Not a whisper of suffering. She will die nobly. There's something rather ghoulish about the company charging workers to see the execution... and workers purchasing the tickets to go along to it. It's that oroborous effect of late stage capitalism ("commercial imperialism," as the Doctor puts it), where the profiteering exists to serve the profiteering. Nothing else. Even the Collector admits that after Pluto there'll be nothing left.
Ironically, given that it was written by Robert Holmes, The Sun Makers feels like the first Williams script after the transition from the Gothic trappings of the Hinchliffe era. As good as they were, here, Pluto has its own distinctive identity. The pomposity of the surroundings has that drab "design-by-committee" feeling. As though it was chosen from a fiscal statistic, rather than any sort of aesthetic quality. A bit like a Federation colony from Blake's 7, which is fitting given Pennant Roberts's later credentials in 1978. I think my favourite scene from it is the Doctor and the superheated iron poker, where he tries to bluff Mandrel that he lacks the conviction to really torture him. It's that nice bit of grey that Holmes was always rather good at, particularly with working class characters.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Apr 6, 2019 10:57:55 GMT
For all its lack of political subtlety, it's amazing how the story works equally well whether read from a libertarian anti-taxation perspective or from a Marxist anti-corporate capitalism perspective. It's very much on the side of the underdog and the working class whether the enemy is the taxman or the corporation that makes you work bleak, pointless hours to pay off impossible debts. There's always something enjoyable about watching the Doctor tear down the establishment. It's as much a part of the show's DNA as fending off monsters but usually remembered less. Agreed it doesn't fit simply into right/left categories, although a lot of commentators miss this amd see it simply as a left wing story. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2019 11:22:04 GMT
For all its lack of political subtlety, it's amazing how the story works equally well whether read from a libertarian anti-taxation perspective or from a Marxist anti-corporate capitalism perspective. It's very much on the side of the underdog and the working class whether the enemy is the taxman or the corporation that makes you work bleak, pointless hours to pay off impossible debts. There's always something enjoyable about watching the Doctor tear down the establishment. It's as much a part of the show's DNA as fending off monsters but usually remembered less. Agreed it doesn't fit simply into right/left categories, although a lot of commentators miss this amd see it simply as a left wing story. Yeah, it's a great story for discussing authorial intent vs. reader response in that regard. Sun Makers is comfortably... nonpartisan. Taxes are, after all, one of the great sureties of life. The ruling few taking advantage of the subdued many is (quite rightly) a universal concern, so the story has some nice accessibility. |
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Apr 6, 2019 14:39:50 GMT
I love this story. The guest cast are terrific and the script has some really nice dramatic touches and flourishes that are excellent. It's easily one of my favourites from the Classic run because it just tells a great story and gives the viewer a bit of meat to chew on about bigger pictures. It's also got the Doctor overthrowing a corrupt government which isn't something they get up to much since it came back.
I also have a personal - and somewhat tenuous - connection to this story: nearly thirty years ago, a mate and I wanted to take part in a drama festival in Tasmania (it promised to be a great weekend away with a lot of our mates) so I found a short play called Number Three by the late playwright/ actor John Grillo (possibly most famous for playing the doctor who prescribes Edmund a course of leeches in Blackadder 2). It was about a lunatic - known only as "Number Three" - in an asylum who plays mind games with his nurse (I played the titular lunatic). Some years later I was glancing through the script and noted that the original cast was listed at the front of the script and the part of the lunatic had originally been played by Henry Woolf! I'm glad I didn't realise this beforehand, though, because some "Collector-ness" would have undoubtably "crept" into my performance to the detriment of the show.
(For those who are interested, we knocked the play together over a couple of weekends, took it to the festival where we received a nomination for best production and I got one for best actor. Didn't win either, but we did have a great weekend away, which was the point of the exercise.)
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Post by number13 on Apr 6, 2019 19:38:16 GMT
Agreed it doesn't fit simply into right/left categories, although a lot of commentators miss this amd see it simply as a left wing story. Presumably they've overlooked the glaringly obvious satire between the Collector and then (Labour) Chancellor Healey (for overseas fans, UK Chancellor = chief treasury minister ie chief Collector), he who set the eye-watering tax levels that Robert Holmes was having a go at. (I believe the peak rate for certain taxes was then 98% - yes, ninety-eight.) I've read that the politics of this story were 'toned down' in production or it might have been even more obvious!
Those very bushy eyebrows were the 70s newspaper cartoonists' universal shorthand for Mr. Healey. Put huge eyebrows on anything back then and the nation instantly got the reference! (I wonder if he ever saw 'The Sunmakers'?  We would have disagreed about economics, but otherwise I rather like what I know of him from his writing etc.) Also the context of the time matters a lot with this story. 1970s Britain was at the peak of industrial nationalisation, when the government was large parts of business (again, the reference is pretty clear) - docks, steel works, coal mines, lorry companies, bus companies, airlines, car factories, breweries, all telephones, etc. etc. (The Cabinet even had to decide which model of car should/not be produced at the nationalised car factories, hard though it is to believe now.) And most of the "businesses" lost money in vast quantities and ordinary tax payers paid up endlessly to fund the losses.
Robert Holmes gave us a couple of scathing satires as well as his Gothic classics - his 1980s 'The Caves of Androzani' is in part an obvious satire on the free market operating without the rule of law. (And there's a lot of 1960s satire on education and protest in 'The Krotons', hidden behind those clunky monsters!) I wonder what his 2010s take on the banks and the tech giants would have been? He's my favourite TV writer of Who and I expect he always will be.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2019 23:46:02 GMT
Agreed it doesn't fit simply into right/left categories, although a lot of commentators miss this amd see it simply as a left wing story. Presumably they've overlooked the glaringly obvious satire between the Collector and then (Labour) Chancellor Healey (for overseas fans, UK Chancellor = chief treasury minister ie chief Collector), he who set the eye-watering tax levels that Robert Holmes was having a go at. (I believe the peak rate for certain taxes was then 98% - yes, ninety-eight.) I've read that the politics of this story were 'toned down' in production or it might have been even more obvious!
Those very bushy eyebrows were the 70s newspaper cartoonists' universal shorthand for Mr. Healey. Put huge eyebrows on anything back then and the nation instantly got the reference! (I wonder if he ever saw 'The Sunmakers'? We would have disagreed about economics, but otherwise I rather like what I know of him from his writing etc.) Also the context of the time matters a lot with this story. 1970s Britain was at the peak of industrial nationalisation, when the government was large parts of business (again, the reference is pretty clear) - docks, steel works, coal mines, lorry companies, bus companies, airlines, car factories, breweries, all telephones, etc. etc. (The Cabinet even had to decide which model of car should/not be produced at the nationalised car factories, hard though it is to believe now.) And most of the "businesses" lost money in vast quantities and ordinary tax payers paid up endlessly to fund the losses.
Robert Holmes gave us a couple of scathing satires as well as his Gothic classics - his 1980s 'The Caves of Androzani' is in part an obvious satire on the free market operating without the rule of law. (And there's a lot of 1960s satire on education and protest in 'The Krotons', hidden behind those clunky monsters!) I wonder what his 2010s take on the banks and the tech giants would have been? He's my favourite TV writer of Who and I expect he always will be. Oh, The Krotons had the very on-the-nose line of: "It is not patriotism to lead a people to a war they cannot win." Given it was 1969, could've been a passing comment on Vietnam after the Tet Offensive. It's funny, but give it a few decades and the dynatrope's teaching machines become a tearing satire of modern algorithm-driven digital interactions. The little dopamine thrill of a like button. He might not have needed to change his satire very much at all, only the emphasis would've shifted. In the 1970s, I can see it being a stand-in for recreational drug culture, the 1980/90s for video games 1, and so on. I didn't know about Healey, though. That's fascinating. The character has outlived the caricature. ( 1 - There was a lot of sensationalism around video arcades in the early 80s as places of iniquity and vice. Probably written by the same jokers that linked roleplaying games with Satanism at the time.) |
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Post by number13 on Apr 7, 2019 1:20:04 GMT
Oh, The Krotons had the very on-the-nose line of: "It is not patriotism to lead a people to a war they cannot win." Given it was 1969, could've been a passing comment on Vietnam after the Tet Offensive. It's funny, but give it a few decades and the dynatrope's teaching machines become a tearing satire of modern algorithm-driven digital interactions. The little dopamine thrill of a like button. He might not have needed to change his satire very much at all, only the emphasis would've shifted. In the 1970s, I can see it being a stand-in for recreational drug culture, the 1980/90s for video games 1, and so on. I didn't know about Healey, though. That's fascinating. The character has outlived the caricature. ( 1 - There was a lot of sensationalism around video arcades in the early 80s as places of iniquity and vice. Probably written by the same jokers that linked roleplaying games with Satanism at the time.) I bet it was a comment on Vietnam - there's a lot of topical satire in that story. (My favourite casual Holmes moment there is his barbed joke naming the Gond chief scientist 'Beta'. If he was 'Alpha', the Krotons would have taken him. )
I think the (being polite here) twaddle about RPGs was largely from the US as I recall, the same sort who later objected to 'Harry Potter' because it was "magic".  Britain was already the home of E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Alan Garner - we'd been growing up with "magic" stories for generations and we knew better!
Two 80s lost stories tapped into the 'games are evil' vibe of course - 'The Nightmare Fair' depicts addictive arcade games as a tool of the Toymaker and 'The Elite' shows games as a brainwashing/training method for a fascist regime.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2019 1:57:49 GMT
Oh, The Krotons had the very on-the-nose line of: "It is not patriotism to lead a people to a war they cannot win." Given it was 1969, could've been a passing comment on Vietnam after the Tet Offensive. It's funny, but give it a few decades and the dynatrope's teaching machines become a tearing satire of modern algorithm-driven digital interactions. The little dopamine thrill of a like button. He might not have needed to change his satire very much at all, only the emphasis would've shifted. In the 1970s, I can see it being a stand-in for recreational drug culture, the 1980/90s for video games 1, and so on. I didn't know about Healey, though. That's fascinating. The character has outlived the caricature. ( 1 - There was a lot of sensationalism around video arcades in the early 80s as places of iniquity and vice. Probably written by the same jokers that linked roleplaying games with Satanism at the time.) I bet it was a comment on Vietnam - there's a lot of topical satire in that story. (My favourite casual Holmes moment there is his barbed joke naming the Gond chief scientist 'Beta'. If he was 'Alpha', the Krotons would have taken him. )
I think the (being polite here) twaddle about RPGs was largely from the US as I recall, the same sort who later objected to 'Harry Potter' because it was "magic". Britain was already the home of E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Alan Garner - we'd been growing up with "magic" stories for generations and we knew better!
Two 80s lost stories tapped into the 'games are evil' vibe of course - 'The Nightmare Fair' depicts addictive arcade games as a tool of the Toymaker and 'The Elite' shows games as a brainwashing/training method for a fascist regime.
I never noticed that! Gosh, that's clever.  I don't know if it's a combination of casting, writing or (most probably) both, but the cast are a lot of fun in Krotons. Beta's solution to just pour more chemicals into the broth until it explodes is nicely on par. There's a lot bubbling away beneath the surface with the supporting characters that all rises to the surface come "Episode 3". It's nice that D&D players got the laugh last on that. The references just went underground like film noir before it with baatezu and tanar'ri standing in for their devils and demons. The result is a rich, delicately cultivated bit of worldbuilding that's lasted at least five editions now.
They're both rather fun, aren't they? The thing I like about them in their approaches is that they highlight games as an instrument of distraction, rather than an evil in and of themselves. An opiate for the masses, not unlike the docility gas in the atmosphere for Sun Makers. The Elite use it as a means of depersonalising their enemy. Click on the heads, focus on the high score and don't think about the consequences. Similarly, The Nightmare Fair has the Toymaker use it as both a means to an end and a diversion. Noise! Lights! Big distractions! However, the Doctor is still able to untangle it in the end. There's a desire to return to the frivolity (minus the danger) at the end of the story. Who knows? They might've dropped by their local arcade for a spin. |
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,661
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Post by shutupbanks on Apr 7, 2019 3:15:16 GMT
Agreed it doesn't fit simply into right/left categories, although a lot of commentators miss this amd see it simply as a left wing story. Presumably they've overlooked the glaringly obvious satire between the Collector and then (Labour) Chancellor Healey (for overseas fans, UK Chancellor = chief treasury minister ie chief Collector), he who set the eye-watering tax levels that Robert Holmes was having a go at. (I believe the peak rate for certain taxes was then 98% - yes, ninety-eight.) I've read that the politics of this story were 'toned down' in production or it might have been even more obvious!
Those very bushy eyebrows were the 70s newspaper cartoonists' universal shorthand for Mr. Healey. Put huge eyebrows on anything back then and the nation instantly got the reference! (I wonder if he ever saw 'The Sunmakers'? We would have disagreed about economics, but otherwise I rather like what I know of him from his writing etc.) Also the context of the time matters a lot with this story. 1970s Britain was at the peak of industrial nationalisation, when the government was large parts of business (again, the reference is pretty clear) - docks, steel works, coal mines, lorry companies, bus companies, airlines, car factories, breweries, all telephones, etc. etc. (The Cabinet even had to decide which model of car should/not be produced at the nationalised car factories, hard though it is to believe now.) And most of the "businesses" lost money in vast quantities and ordinary tax payers paid up endlessly to fund the losses.
Robert Holmes gave us a couple of scathing satires as well as his Gothic classics - his 1980s 'The Caves of Androzani' is in part an obvious satire on the free market operating without the rule of law. (And there's a lot of 1960s satire on education and protest in 'The Krotons', hidden behind those clunky monsters!) I wonder what his 2010s take on the banks and the tech giants would have been? He's my favourite TV writer of Who and I expect he always will be.
Something else that I've noticed with Holmes' stories - and it really stands out here - is that he has an awful lot of characters compared with some other writers: with many stories you get the regulars and a few supporting characters, but with Holmes, everyone who has a line has a personality and a story that contributes to the whole and makes the world feel a little more populated and real. That's largely, I suppose, because he was brilliant with dialogue and gave actors a bit more scope with their lines than other writers. Even exposition scenes like the Doctor being trapped in his straitjacket and learning about the drugs in the atmosphere doesn't feel quite so obviously like an "As you know, Bob" moment mostly because Bisham is talking about how it affected him specifically rather than the population at large. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2019 6:30:16 GMT
Presumably they've overlooked the glaringly obvious satire between the Collector and then (Labour) Chancellor Healey (for overseas fans, UK Chancellor = chief treasury minister ie chief Collector), he who set the eye-watering tax levels that Robert Holmes was having a go at. (I believe the peak rate for certain taxes was then 98% - yes, ninety-eight.) I've read that the politics of this story were 'toned down' in production or it might have been even more obvious!
Those very bushy eyebrows were the 70s newspaper cartoonists' universal shorthand for Mr. Healey. Put huge eyebrows on anything back then and the nation instantly got the reference! (I wonder if he ever saw 'The Sunmakers'? We would have disagreed about economics, but otherwise I rather like what I know of him from his writing etc.) Also the context of the time matters a lot with this story. 1970s Britain was at the peak of industrial nationalisation, when the government was large parts of business (again, the reference is pretty clear) - docks, steel works, coal mines, lorry companies, bus companies, airlines, car factories, breweries, all telephones, etc. etc. (The Cabinet even had to decide which model of car should/not be produced at the nationalised car factories, hard though it is to believe now.) And most of the "businesses" lost money in vast quantities and ordinary tax payers paid up endlessly to fund the losses.
Robert Holmes gave us a couple of scathing satires as well as his Gothic classics - his 1980s 'The Caves of Androzani' is in part an obvious satire on the free market operating without the rule of law. (And there's a lot of 1960s satire on education and protest in 'The Krotons', hidden behind those clunky monsters!) I wonder what his 2010s take on the banks and the tech giants would have been? He's my favourite TV writer of Who and I expect he always will be.
Something else that I've noticed with Holmes' stories - and it really stands out here - is that he has an awful lot of characters compared with some other writers: with many stories you get the regulars and a few supporting characters, but with Holmes, everyone who has a line has a personality and a story that contributes to the whole and makes the world feel a little more populated and real. That's largely, I suppose, because he was brilliant with dialogue and gave actors a bit more scope with their lines than other writers. Even exposition scenes like the Doctor being trapped in his straitjacket and learning about the drugs in the atmosphere doesn't feel quite so obviously like an "As you know, Bob" moment mostly because Bisham is talking about how it affected him specifically rather than the population at large. It's very naturalistic, yeah. The closest he might've gotten to an 'As you know' moment was The Mysterious Planet with Glitz and Dibber, but even that's framed as: "Bob, if I have to explain this to you one more time, I'm going to burst a blood vessel." |
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We would have disagreed about economics, but otherwise I rather like what I know of him from his writing etc.)
Britain was already the home of E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Alan Garner - we'd been growing up with "magic" stories for generations and we knew better!
I don't know if it's a combination of casting, writing or (most probably) both, but the cast are a lot of fun in Krotons. Beta's solution to just pour more chemicals into the broth until it explodes is nicely on par. There's a lot bubbling away beneath the surface with the supporting characters that all rises to the surface come "Episode 3".