THE COMPLETE DOCTOR WHO. John Muir, McFarland Press, 2002, 2nd Ed. page 358-359.
In that strange experiment which was the Paul Burton 'New Doctor', Vienna, 1913, stands out. It consistently appears in 'top ten' or 'top twenty' lists of Best Doctor serials, save only those purists who (not without reason) exclude the 'Millenium Productions' adventures.
Whether Paul Burton is considered a real Doctor, or merely part of that strange non-canon fraternity that includes Peter Cushing, Maurice LaMarche, Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant and Trevor Martin, everyone admits that Vienna, 1913, is something special.
What's so special about it? Well, to start with, sheer audacity. They say with Doctor Who, it's go big or go home. It's hard to think of any other Doctor Who that went bigger. A less ambitious production might have been content to have Hitler as a star villain. Or Stalin. Or even wimp out with thinly veiled proxies. But Vienna, 1913, boldly has them both, plus Trotsky, and Tito, and even Freud. All this, inspired by the historical fact that all these men did actually live within a few blocks of each other during a few months in 1913, an astounding historical coincidence.
It doesn't stop there, it throws in a couple of time travelling future criminals, borrowed from German expressionism (and footage from Metroolis) and an army of Nazi robots. It's the sheer audaciousness that overpowers. It doesn't just go over the top, it goes orbital.
Something less, something more careful or cautious would have been merely ridiculous. But the sheer insanity of the premise, the cavalcade of historical villains and science fiction bogeys is overwhelming. Disbelief is not simply suspended, it's bludgeoned unconscious with a jawbone of an ass. If for nothing more than sheer camp high concept, then Vienna, 1913, was an instant classic.
Beyond that, the story, absurdity notwithstanding, is original and well told. The characterizations are deft. The acting is solid. There's not one aspect of the production that suffers. Even the Twins, who did so much to drag down Monsters of Ness, are well deployed here. Stalin and Trotsky suffer, they're played as superficial villains, Stalin the plodder, Trotsky the hysteric.
The performance of Clive Barrow as Hitler, on the other hand, is brilliant. Barrow's Hitler starts out almost likeable, an insolent opportunist, confident that he's smarter than his employers. It's this arrogance, opportunism and a willingness to betray that leads Hitler to rise through the story, from lowly henchman to the central villain, to the point where he almost seizes control of the Tardis, and morphs smoothly into the monster we all know from old newsreels.
This is also where David Burton really comes into his own as the Doctor. Much is made of Burton as a 'comic' Doctor, recalling the Douglas Adams period for Doctor Who.
But it's interesting to see, beneath the comic asides, how serious the Burton Doctor is when he needs to be. He's not comic at all in the presence of Hitler or Stalin, there's no mugging for the camera. He's still got his humour, his one liners. But in their presence, you can tell its forced, he doesn't mean it. He interacts with the villains with a clearly transparent cheer. Indeed, with Hitler, there's one rivetting scene where as Hitler turns his back, Burton's Doctor stares at Hitler's back and the mask drops, and you know that he dearly wants to kick him down the stairs in that moment.
Burton's Doctor sails through the serial with a genial ease. He's often witty, frequently observant, and entirely willing to address the camera directly. But he gets away with it. He's never a clown, as Patrick Troughton occasionally played. His Doctor never invites us to laugh at him, but rather with him. Burton's Doctor is reminiscent of Sidney James characters from the Carry On movies, a character with a keen eye for foibles, and a sense of pleasure in life's absurdity, but is somehow never malicious.
Vienna, 1913, is really the only full serial of the New Doctor. All of the other adventures are one or two part episodes. It was only with Vienna, 1913, that we got to experience the New Doctor on the same terms and with the same room to perform as the classic series. More's the pity.
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The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story
Hayran KurguThis is a Doctor Who fanfic, like you've never seen before. Not a Doctor Who story, not quite, although it contains Doctor Who stories. It's an alternate history story about the making of Doctor Who... Or about a particular version of Doctor Who...
