Oh, The Places We've Seen: Part 4

Sadly, this year's trip to England will skirt the wonderful, bustling city of London, one of the great metropolises of the world. (In case you're interested, on the day we arrive in Heathrow, instead of taking the underground to London, we'll be driving our rental car in the opposite direction, toward the historic rock formation of Stonehenge). So I thought I'd reminisce with this series of posts about some of the great places we've visited on our previous trips to England, and in this post I continue from Part 3, still concentrating on the city of London.

On the day we cruised the River Thames, we boarded the river taxi from a dock located directly across from Millbank Tower. Tony Blair rented this building, for two years, to house the Labour Party, and it was from here that he launched the victorious 1997 campaign that swept the Labour Party into power. 

As the former Prime Minister said in his memoir, A Journey, the party had been out of power so long that it had to learn how to rule again, instead of just criticizing everything the majority party (the Conservatives) did. Had Jean Price, the protagonist in the TV series "No Job for a Lady," been an MP during that time, she would have found her day-to-day mode of operating changed considerably. 

It's a real shame they didn't film a sequel series, like they did with "Yes, Prime Minister." While Tony Blair accomplished much during his ten years in Number 10 Downing Street, his failure to orchestrate the return of such an educational and entertaining sitcom (or Britcom) remains a regrettable blot upon an otherwise enviable record. 

Millbank Tower also holds an important place in Doctor Who. While it features in no Dalek stories (at least none of which I am aware), it served as the headquarters of Tobias Vaughn, who uses the might of his company International Electromatics to help the Cybermen take over the world in "The Invasion." Later, it housed the World Energy Conference, which a strange alien race hopes to disrupt in "Terror of the Zygons." In order to achieve this, they send a dreaded Scarasen, better known as the Loch Ness monster, to attack the building.

Thankfully, the Doctor manages to outwit the Zygons, thereby saving Millbank Tower, and allowing this important conference to continue. But then, what else would you expect from such a wise and able Timelord?

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
The Dreaded Scarasen of the River Thames

Related Internet Links
Watch the trailer for "No Job for a Lady"
Watch "Terror of the Zygons: Part 1"
Watch "The Invasion: Part 1" (Note: this is a reconstruction of a missing episode using still photos and short film sequences. If you buy the DVD, you can see an animated version of this episode). 

Returning to London with The Saint

Saint or Stooge?  Templar or traveler?
Adventurer or Ad-libber?
Wise, or merely weary (and jet-lagged)?
You decide.

In The Saint episode “The Paper Chase,” Simon Templar walks across Westminster Bridge.  Against a dull, gray sky, Westminster Palace, also known as the Houses of Parliament, rises in the distance.  As he walks down the steps to the Victoria Embankment, we hear him intone: “London, Five a.m., Westminster.  The Embankment, a boulevard or a bedroom, depending on how Fate dealt its hand.  For those of us who are not asleep it is a time to love, pray, hate, argue, cheat, sometimes even kill.”  He walks past a man sleeping on a park bench, covered in newspapers, and pauses to stare out upon the Thames.  Already, boats ply the dark waters.  Nearby, two men argue.  Although he does not yet know it, he will soon become embroiled with those two men, when a member of British Intelligence begs him to travel to Germany to secure information one of them carries.

The Saint came before my time.  Growing up in America, I did not notice all the books written by Leslie Charteris in my library.  I did not watch reruns on the TV.  If the comic strips made their way to American newspapers, I did not notice.  When the movie version of “The Saint,” starring Val Kilmer, appeared in theaters in 1997, I knew nothing of the character’s rich fictional heritage.

Discovering this old TV series has been a joy.  Everyday, Family Network plays an episode.  Some were shot in Black and White, some in Color.  Much of the scenery grows familiar after awhile, as studio interiors and exteriors are redressed to match the current story.  Many of the same actors reappear, playing different characters.  Only the Saint remains unique, mysterious.  What is he?  Who is he?  Why do the authorities constantly suspect him of wrongdoing, yet rely on his assistance in bringing criminals to justice?  How does he manage to live such a lavish lifestyle, have so many friends, and drop anything on a moment’s notice for a person in need?  Played by Roger Moore, who would later take over the role of James Bond, Simon Templar seems a better man than the more famous secret agent.  Watching him as The Saint, I understand why I liked Roger Moore so well as Bond.  Perhaps some of the Saint rubbed off on him.  Roger Moore was certainly aware of how young people idolized Bond, and always fought to soften the rough edges of Ian Fleming's hero.  Unlike Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig, his James Bond never gloated when vanquishing an enemy.  He never smiled while others died.

The British call these dolphins.
Don't ask me why.

“The Paper Chase” comes as something of a surprise.  Although it would return to some of those familiar sets, the episode offers us a few new production locations.  Simon Templar boards a train, and like James Bond, soon engages in a fight-to-the-death as he travels to Germany.  But my favorite moment of all is the beginning, when he steps off Westminster Bridge and onto the Victoria Embankment.  For I have been there too.  At the time, my thoughts might have been on Doctor Who and Monty Python, but I walked those same steps, passed those same light posts, and watched the boats traveling the same river.  When next I return to England, and visit London, I shall return to that place so immortalized by the TV shows I love.  I may not be dressed in a tuxedo, and I may not be drafted by British Intelligence for an important mission, but my visit there will still be rich with meaning. 

Perhaps this time I’ll even ride the London Eye, the famous ferris wheel erected to celebrate the Millennium.  That’s probably the only thing Simon Templar couldn’t have done back in 1960s London.  But only because it did not then exist.

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

Westminster Bridge in Color,and in Black and White

Monty Python on WestminsterBridge

Keeping an Eye on the RiverThames

Related Internet Links

A photo collection of architectural details around London

   

Westminster Bridge in Color, and in Black & White

Having left behind the statue of the rather complex man Richard the Lionheart, the Palace of Westminster so rich in design and ornamentation, and its famous clock tower known as Big Ben (such an icon for movie-makers and TV directors), it came as a shock to find myself suddenly approaching Westminster Bridge.  Just one of many that span the River Thames, the bridge welcomes one with its elegant simplicity.  Like its sister, Lambeth Bridge, one of its original purposes might have been to provide the monarch a direct route between Lambeth Palace and the Palace of Westminster, but the colors the two are painted (green for Westminster, red for Lambeth) suggest that the modern politicians’ Houses of Commons (upholstered in green) and that of the Lords (upholstered in red) now wield the most influence over this island nation. 


I feel a strong sense of belonging as I walk across it, watching the boats cruise beneath me in the Thames, and enjoying the busyness of the cars and the double-decker buses that transport London’s eight million citizens and countless visitors to their destinations.  I try not to impede my fellow pedestrians, who stream around and past me, surging along the wide sidewalk at this city’s usual frantic pace.  I pause for long moments to capture the perfect view of this bridge in my camera, or to photograph other nearby landmarks.  I make way for those standing in line to buy a sausage or roasted peanuts from a man working off a barbecue grill fashioned from half of a metal drum.  But along with what I see, other images rush to my mind, visions that enrich my sense of presence, of the history of this stretch of metal and concrete upon which I stand.

In “The Dalek Invasion of Earth,” the Doctor and his companions have become seperated.  Barbara throws in her lot with the resistance in London, led by an injured scientist named Dortmun.  She joins an attack on the Dalek spaceport, using new bombs created by Dortmun.  But the bombs fail to injure their enemies, and their attack becomes a rout.  With the resistance in tatters, Daleks scour the city, no longer taking captives, but killing any humans they find.  Barbara and her friend Jenny must get the wheelchair-bound Dortmun out of the city.  But in order to leave London, first they must cross the River Thames.


On a bright, clear morning, Barbara and Jenny push Dortmun along the walkway which hugs the Thames.  They help Dortmun climb from his wheelchair and up the stairs to the top of the bridge.  They look in every direction for the Dalek patrols.  Then, each woman places both her hands on one of the wheelchair handles, digs her feet into the pavement, and together, they propel the injured scientist across the bridge, toward the Palace of Westminster and beyond.


Although “Doctor Who” has transported us to so many places in time and space, for me, this moment stands out.  Filmed in Black & White, and accompanied by a sparse, martial beat, the camera carries us along on the group’s desperate flight.  The group races past notable landmarks, barely avoiding Dalek patrols.  For the most part, the camera focuses upon Barbara, Jenny, and Dortmun, upon the wheelchair’s spinning wheels and the women’s racing feet.  Sometimes, all we see is the shadow the group casts as they travel a bridge and roads devoid of all other human activity.  It is one of those moments that vividly captures the group’s desperation, their hope, and their valor.  Like a red-hot branding iron, that film sequence has burned it way into my memory.  Now I find their desperate flight superimposed upon the normal activity of contemporary London life.


I know it is just another bridge, one of many that transports pedestrians, cars, and tour buses across the River Thames.  I understand that it is just another place that has served as a location shoot for a TV show or a movie.  It is just a span of metal and concrete, not worth mentioning when compared with the city’s other sights and attractions.  And yet, because of that singular moment in Doctor Who, Westminster Bridge has become so very much more.


Flooded with images both past and present, reality merges seamlessly with the fiction I hold so dear.  I am complete.