invasion of the dinosaurs

June 17, 2013

Hulking Metaphors

Jack Graham70s, colonialism, communism, invasion of the dinosaurs, malcolm hulke, reactionary politics3

From the January 2012 issue of Panic Moon. Slightly edited.

There’s no ambiguity about the dinosaurs in‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’. They’re rubbish. In other respects, however, this is a deeply ambiguous tale. The ambiguity allows the script to make some scathingly ironic political observations, but ultimately leads us to a very bleak and bitter place.

In this story, contrasting with other scripts from the period, the eco-activists are the ‘baddies’. It’s like Malcolm Hulke, influenced by the decline of the radicalism of the 60s and early 70s, was reacting against the whole idea of changing the world. It’s possible to read the people on the (space)ship of fools as a jaundiced parody of the left: a tiny, closed-off, self-appointed vanguard who plan to “guide” others while ruthlessly policing their own internal orthodoxy. But they’re also like Daily Mail readers, with their “pure bread”, their plaintive cries of “I sold my house!” and their TV room where they can go to tut at the modern world. The film in the Reminder Room blames protestors even as it shows them being truncheoned. Ruth seems more worried by “moral degradation” and “permissiveness” than she is by the mercury in the fish.

The script is full of such queasy ironies. For instance, the conspirators oppose and blame technology, but their plans depend upon it. Whitaker’s Time Scoop is high-tech stuff, powered by a nuclear reactor. We need hardly comment on the absurdity of a man sitting in a spaceship (as he thinks), waggling hand-made wooden kitchenware as proof of his non-technological simplicity! Such idealising of the pre-industrial is undermined by the medieval peasant accidentally caught in the Time Scoop. He speaks of getting his priest to burn a ‘witch’. Meanwhile his king is off sacking the Holy Land. Some Golden Age! But then feudal standards of law and order would probably be quite convivial to General Finch, a man eager to use live rounds on looters.

Are these people radicals or reactionaries? Seemingly, they’re both. However, the leaders of the conspiracy can be summed up by their prefixes. Rt Hon, General, Professor, Captain. They hide in a bunker designed to protect the government during a nuclear war. They will emerge safely after they have obliterated the world, just as the politicians of the Cold War planned to. They are the establishment, the powerful, the privileged. This is the brontosaurus in the room. Even the fake spaceship is run by ‘Elders’, one of whom is a peer.

But who are the REAL dinosaurs? Eh? Hmm? Yeah? Makes you think, doesn’t it.

Moreover, the plan of the ship-people sounds like colonialism. In the novelisation, Sarah even compares them to the Pilgrim Fathers. They will, so they think, “guide” the “simple, pastoral people” of “New Earth”. These refugees from civilisation will bring civilisation to the natives. They assume that right. They despise the ‘evils’ of modernity, yet take it for granted that they won’t replicate them because – and this is the unspoken basis of their whole plan – those evils are somebody else’s fault.…

May 22, 2012

Skulltopus 11: Changing States

Jack Graham70s, brian hayles, capitalism, carnival of monsters, feudalism, ice warriors, invasion of the dinosaurs, malcolm hulke, moreau, robert holmes, silurians, skulltopus, state capitalism, statism, the state, weird0

Before the Skulltopus series moves on to the Baker years (and beyond), I feel the need to settle accounts with the Pertwee era, particularly with Peladon. Also, I need to clarify something about the way capitalism is portrayed and perceived in – and by – Doctor Who.

The maggots in ‘The Green Death‘ are the Pertwee era’s last gasp of the Weirdesque. ‘Green Death’ is also the last Pertwee story to properly notice capitalism.

Admittedly, there is some riffing on ‘greed’ in ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’; and ‘Monster of Peladon’ regurgitates (in a reduced form) the political semiotics of its parent story. However, in these stories, while class is in evidence… class struggle even!… there is no tracing it back to anything recognisable as capitalist social relations.

I’ll get to this, but first I want to loop back to address something about ‘Carnival of Monsters’ that I should’ve mentioned previously: Vorg as an entrepreneur and how this relates to the society in which he finds himself. Firstly, Inter-Minor isn’t recognisably capitalist. The latent revolution in ‘Carnival’ – the imminent revolt of the Functionaries that President Zarb (the panicky social democrat) is trying to placate and Kalik (the fascist) wants to crush – tracks back to race (the story does some heavy riffing on race) but stops there. It comes close… at one point mentioning a strike… but we get no sense of particularly capitalist relations. There are no wages, no profits, no recognisable industrial workplaces and only the barest suggestion of a market at the very end. Vorg, like other Robert Holmes creations, can be read as an embodiment of a more likeable version of free enterprise. Like Milo Clancy or Garron, Vorg is a private operator, a colourful chancer, an individualist, a guy on the make who seems vital and amusing when stood next to grey statist authoritarians. But Vorg’s polari version of laissez faire is ultimately judged harmless, or even constructive. He gets some stick for keeping “livestock” in the scope… and it’s possible to read the scope itself as a metaphor for commodity fetishism, displaying how commodification of living people involves their compartmentalisation and alienation from proper awareness of the endless rut in which they circle. However, I think this is far more about race as an artificial construct than it is about commodification (I’ll try to address this in another post some time). And, ultimately, Vorg’s carny capitalism seems to be a potential force for change, progress and reform in the insular, ultra-statist backwater of Inter-Minor. He ends the story fleecing Pletrac… but the tone the story takes with this implies that a dose of Vorg is just what the Inter-Minorans need. To the extent that capitalism appears in ‘Carnival’, it does so through the rosy lens of Vorg.

Now, back to the post-‘Green Death’ Pertwee era.

‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ is a densely political text, hugely ambivalent and needing a great deal of unpacking. There is, as I say, some harping on about the evils of ‘greed’ and an implied anxiety about industrial pollution… but, ultimately, the story essentializes the social dystrophies of capitalism into malformations in human nature, which are (it is implied) exacerbated when people go around believing things.…

January 1, 2012

Panic on the Streets of London…

Jack Graham60s, fanzine, invasion of the dinosaurs, macra terror, panic moon, war games0

The January 2012 issue of the extremely good, fetchingly illustrated, conveniently pocket-sized and infeasibly cheap print fanzine Panic Moon will be released soon and is now available for pre-order. Click here.

This month the Editor has taken the existence of the publication very much into his hands and granted me even more space than usual. I have no less than three pieces in this forthcoming issue, looking at ‘The Macra Terror’, ‘The War Games’ and ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’.

I see all these stories as milestones in Doctor Who‘s engagement with the radical movements and ideas of the 60s. ‘The Macra Terror’ is a much-misunderstood starting point which came just before the protest movements peaked, ‘The War Games’ a subversive high point which came just after the ferment of 1968 and ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ marks the ambivalence and disillusion brought by the subsequent downturn in struggle.

There’s loads of other stuff in the fanzine besides me, so don’t be put off.…