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Downtime
UK 1995
produced by
Keith Barnfather for Reeltime Pictures, Dominitemporal Services, Tropicana Holdings
directed by Christopher Barry
starring Nicholas Courtney, Elisabeth Sladen, Deborah Watling, Jack Watling, Beverley Cressman, Mark Trotman, Geoffrey Beevers, Peter Silverleaf, John Leeson, Miles Richardson, James Bree, Kathy Coulter, Alexander Landen, Jonathan Clarkson, Miles Cherry, Richard Landen
written by Marc Platt, music by Ian Levine, Nigel Stock, Erwin Keiles, Yetis designed by Julian Vince
Doctor Who spin-off, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sarah Jane Smith, Victoria Waterfield, Professor Travers, Yeti
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling) would do anything to bring her
father Professor Travers (Jack Watling) back from the death, and
"everything" includes helping an alien intelligence build up a
powerful company, New World, that on the outside seems to be a bit
like a hippie cult dedicated to better the world in any which way, but on
the inside, there's something much more sinister going on - even if
Victoria refuses to see that. One who does see though is the company's
chief programmer Daniel (Mark Trotman), who one day makes a daring escape
from company premises to hook up with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart,
formerly head of UNIT, a top secret UNO subsection to defend earth against
extraterrestrial and supernatural threats. Nowadays, he's retired though
... and has spent the last few days in some sort of weird limbo where he
gets bits and pieces of information about what's going on, and he can't
but help to come to the comclusion there's something sinister going on
with New World. Anyways, eventually Daniel, the Brigadier, Harrods
(Geoffrey Beevers) - a former soldier turned bum who has saved Daniel's
life -, and the ubiquituous investigative reporter Sarah Jane Smith all
convene at the Brigadier's daughter Kate (Beverley Cressman) for one
reason or another, to find out that she has her hands on the object that
will bring Professor Travers back to life ... and thus the New World
people are quick to retrieve it at gunpoint and shoot Daniel dead in the
process. It's only when her father is revived and not at all the man he
once was but a power-hungry villain that Victoria comes to the conclusion
it might not have been such a good idea after all, but then it's too late
- or is it? Thing is, the Brigadier and Harrods have made their way into
New World headquarters, Kate and Sarah Jane follow them closely, Victoria
has switched sides, and Daniel comes back as a ghost to advice everybody.
And in the end, not even New World's fluffy robot monsters, the Yetis, can
keep the company from collapsing and the alien intelligence being driven
from our planet when our heroes destroy the company's mainframe ... The
cast of this film is probably enough to give a die-hard old school Doctor
Who fan goosebumps, and it's most certainly cool to see this
guys playing their old characters again in a tale set in the Doctor
Who-universe - without ever directly mentioning the Doctor
though - telling a story not at all dissimilar in style to the series.
That all said, the movie as such is less than perfect, it's just too
confused in concept, too complex for its one-hour running time and too
convoluted to give one the chance to follow the thing properly. Plus, the
story's resolution is somewhat less than satisfying. That all said, the
film's quite a bit of fun for the fanboy still, but a more streamlined
story, more emphasis on atmosphere (only the sequences set in limbo are
atmospheric at all, actually), and maybe even a few less characters to
follow would have done the movie loads of good ...
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