Doctor Who/Recap/S14/E06 The Talons of Weng Chiang: Difference between revisions

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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* [[Disposable Sex Worker]]/[[Disposable Vagrant]]: Greel identifies his victims as "a few contemptible slatterns who will never be missed"; Chang protests that they ''are'' being missed and it's getting people's attention.
* [[Disposable Sex Worker]]/[[Disposable Vagrant]]: Greel identifies his victims as "a few contemptible slatterns who will never be missed"; Chang protests that they ''are'' being missed and it's getting people's attention.
* [[Evil Laugh]]: Greel gets an amazing one in the episode 4 cliffhanger.
* [[Evil Laugh]]: Greel gets an amazing one in the episode 4 cliffhanger.
* [[Facing the Bullets One Liner]]: Leela's response to an imminent and agonizing death at the hands of Magnus Greel shows a marked difference in attitude to that of previous female companions.
* [[Facing the Bullets One-Liner]]: Leela's response to an imminent and agonizing death at the hands of Magnus Greel shows a marked difference in attitude to that of previous female companions.
{{quote| "When we are both in the Great Hereafter, I will hunt you down, Bent-Face! And put you through my agonies a thousand times!" }}
{{quote| "When we are both in the Great Hereafter, I will hunt you down, Bent-Face! And put you through my agonies a thousand times!" }}
* [[Filipinos With Firearms]]: Apparently the Philippines is a world power in the 51st century as the Doctor mentions marching with the Filipino Army as they advanced on a Supreme Alliance stronghold of Reykjavik. This is endlessly amusing to the few Filipinos who've heard about this episode (or this show, for that matter).
* [[Filipinos With Firearms]]: Apparently the Philippines is a world power in the 51st century as the Doctor mentions marching with the Filipino Army as they advanced on a Supreme Alliance stronghold of Reykjavik. This is endlessly amusing to the few Filipinos who've heard about this episode (or this show, for that matter).
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* [[Jack the Ripoff]]: The disappearances and murder of several women in Whitechapel? You guessed it. The original draft had the Doctor chasing Jack the Ripper.
* [[Jack the Ripoff]]: The disappearances and murder of several women in Whitechapel? You guessed it. The original draft had the Doctor chasing Jack the Ripper.
* [[Large Ham]]: MAGNUS GREEL!!!!!
* [[Large Ham]]: MAGNUS GREEL!!!!!
* [[M Agicians Are Wizards]]: Li H'sen Chang is a [[Stage Magician]]...and a bit more, with the technology given to him by his master.
* [[Magicians Are Wizards]]: Li H'sen Chang is a [[Stage Magician]]...and a bit more, with the technology given to him by his master.
* [[Mind Control]]
* [[Mind Control]]
* [[Nice Hat]]: The Doctor, Leela, Chang's thugs, and Greel each have one; Chang has two.
* [[Nice Hat]]: The Doctor, Leela, Chang's thugs, and Greel each have one; Chang has two.
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* [[Shout Out]]: To ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]'' ("A hatbox?").
* [[Shout Out]]: To ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]'' ("A hatbox?").
* [[Slurpasaur]]: That giant rat is played, at least in part, by a perfectly normal rat in a model sewer.
* [[Slurpasaur]]: That giant rat is played, at least in part, by a perfectly normal rat in a model sewer.
* [[Spin Off]]: Jago & Litefoot were so popular that a spinoff was briefly discussed; 30 years later, [[Big Finish]] gave them [http://bigfinish.com/311-Doctor-Who-The-Companion-Chronicles-The-Mahogany-Murderers their own story] and, in 2010, [http://bigfinish.com/Jago-and-Litefoot their own series.]
* [[Spin-Off]]: Jago & Litefoot were so popular that a spinoff was briefly discussed; 30 years later, [[Big Finish]] gave them [http://bigfinish.com/311-Doctor-Who-The-Companion-Chronicles-The-Mahogany-Murderers their own story] and, in 2010, [http://bigfinish.com/Jago-and-Litefoot their own series.]
* [[Title Drop]]
* [[Title Drop]]
* [[Those Two Guys]]: Jago & Litefoot.
* [[Those Two Guys]]: Jago & Litefoot.

Revision as of 17:18, 9 January 2014
"Doctor, you make me wear strange clothes, you tell me nothing: you are trying to annoy me."
—Leela

Doctor Who goes all Sherlock Holmes-Meets-Hammer Horror in this tale set in Victorian London. Police pathologist Professor Litefoot is investigating a body found floating in the Thames, and, with help from the Doctor, determines that hairs found on the body come from a giant rat.

Moving into the sewers to investigate, the Doctor, Leela and Litefoot discover giant rats on the loose and follow the trail to the Palace Theatre. Stage magician Li H'sen Chang has been kidnapping young girls for his master, the ancient Chinese god Weng-Chiang - in reality the 51st century war criminal Magnus Greel, who feeds on the girls' lifeforce to stabilise his molecular structure, which was ravaged by the trip through time.

Greel's "Time Cabinet" was lost in London and has been found by Litefoot, so Greel sends Chang's ventriloquist's doll, "Mr Sin" - a computerised homonculus with a pig's brain - to infiltrate Litefoot's house and retrieve it. Mr Sin succeeds, but the Doctor and friends manage to intervene before Greel can escape. He falls into his own lifeforce-extracting machine and is disintegrated, before the Doctor manages to deactivate Mr Sin.

The characters of Jago and Litefoot, along with a few others from the serial, now have their own Big Finish spinoff.

Watch it here

Tropes

  "When we are both in the Great Hereafter, I will hunt you down, Bent-Face! And put you through my agonies a thousand times!"

  • Filipinos With Firearms: Apparently the Philippines is a world power in the 51st century as the Doctor mentions marching with the Filipino Army as they advanced on a Supreme Alliance stronghold of Reykjavik. This is endlessly amusing to the few Filipinos who've heard about this episode (or this show, for that matter).
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar -- Leela has a Wet Sari Scene moment just after the giant rat sequence that apparently has not been edited out in over 30 years...
  • God Guise: Magnus Greel posing as Weng-Chiang, though he doesn't try to hide his identify from Chang to whom it makes no difference anyway, as Greel has raised him up from his humble life as a peasant to a man who performs before royalty.

 Doctor: "You know he's not a god, don't you?"

Chang: "He came to me like a god, in his cabinet of fire!"

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