The Invasion of Time

Last night I was watching a Doctor Who story from 1978 called "The Invasion of Time", which starred Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor. The Doctor returns to his home planet of Gallifrey, with his companion Leela (Louise Jameson) and robot dog K9, and immediately demands to be elected president of the High Council of the Time Lords. Once elected he demands Leela to be banished from the Time Lord's Citadel to the waste lands outside and starts shutting down the planet's defences, apparently to allow an invasion by a race of telepathic aliens known as the Vardans. The Time Lords have to decide whether the Doctor is a traitor, under alien control or whether he has some other plan in mind. To further complicate matters, a Sontaran force arrives to invade the planet as well and take over the universe. It was quite a fun story, if a bit overlong.

I was also watching a 2006 film on TV called The Return, directed by Asif Kapadia. It stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as a young saleswoman who returns to her hometown in Texas, where she finds herself haunted by strange supernatural visions. It wasn't really a horror film, more of a supernatural thriller, but not really either scary or suspenseful enough to work as either.

I only went out once today and that was to pick up my groceries for the coming week. When I got home I watched the film Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier. It tells the story of an unnamed young woman (played by Joan Fontaine) who meets the mysterious, wealthy Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) and marries him after a whirlwind romance, whereupon they move to his massive stately home, Manderlay, which is ruled over by sinister housekeeper Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson). The new wife soon discovers that Maxim and the whole estate are haunted by the memory of his first wife, Rebecca, who mysteriously drowned a year earlier. It's a very good film and very well-made.