Doctor Who Review - The Talons of Weng-Chiang 

I always presumed when the Doctor said that line he was being sarcastic of the attitudes of the time.

The thing about Weng-Chiang is that the character is based on a real historical figure, an American stage magician who impersonated a Chinese man for his whole career. There were actually two competing "Chinese magic" acts (preformed by white men) in London at that time, so in that context it is less a choice to do a racism and more of a commentary on the very racist era when the story is set.

It is set in 1892 because the book Lightfoot is reading was printed in February of that year.

As for the mystery not being solved,you do not watch or listen properly,missing the fact that the girls being abducted are having their life force used to keep Magnus Greel alive. As for Chang he is Eurasian,his mother Chinese and his father European,as stated in the story.

'Talons' has undeniably aged horribly, but looking past the unfortunately racist elements (which really could've been prevented at the time), it has an inventive premise, an excellent cast and a wholly unique atmosphere, and for a six-parter, the pacing is great. It is because of this that 'Talons' is my all-time favourite Doctor Who story. 10/10

I think you forgot to mention The Horror Of Fang Rock. That story is entirely period set and has a continual dark, gloomy location.

A great mix of Dr Who meets Fu Manchu, Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper plus a pretty interesting villain in Magnus Greel and, yes, I think it would have been better if someone like Burt Kwouk had played Chang.

The stunt team had to dress up some of the members because they could not find Chinese stunt men, it was mentioned in the audio commentary of the DVD set. Fortunately, that has changed over the years. Stuart Fell actually doubled for Katy Manning in The Sea Devils because there wasn't a female stunt artist that matched her build, (although Stuart doesn't really match her build either, but he did a good job.

I adore this. FYI I visited the set during this (unfortunately the sewers Rat sequence lol) and met up with a certain Mr Baker marching down the BBC studio corridors in full 'Sherlock' outfit, and bloody impressive he looked too! Costume designs by John Bloomfield who really knew his stuff! He used such a mixture of rich textures in the Doctors coat that it looked incredible in real life. Oh and 'not making excuses, but....A) It was a different era back then the TV landscape was lot different to what it is today, but I also suspect they were (not exactly parodying) but treating the subject matter like you would have seen in old movies such as Hammers Fu manchu etc, etc. Yes, not good, but not the worst imo either as I actually think Changs character is fairly sympathetically handled for the time. You actually care when he meets his fate in the end. Sorry. We as a society learn and then move on so imo and don't repeat this kind of thing ever again.

My all time favourite. Never been beaten.

Apart from some obvious flaws, this is one of my top 5 tom baker stories. Love louise jamieson's performance as leela here too not fitting in to the culture of the era. 'why are you making fire in you're mouth?' 8/10

One of my favorite episodes followed up with Fang Rock. Really dark with a dying Chinese overdose on opium. Plus Deep Roy is in it too

As far as an Englishman playing a Chinese character, there is the fact that perhaps there were no Chinese actors who could bring the desired “gravitas” to the character, so they went with someone who could act the part and used horrible prosthetic makeup to try and make him look Chinese. A Chinese actor who couldn’t bring the character to life likely was a worse option. Also, the “Chinese ruffians” comment made by the Doctor could be seen as his giving assurance to the victim and not so much an attack on Chinese people. As it was a “one off” comment, it’s hard to divine the Doctor’s intentions.

A strong review of a strong story, bit sad to see this era come to an end :(

I believe Dr Who's 1972 story 'The Mind of Evil' has a Chinese actor playing a Chinese dignitary - so yes this is a disappointing regression using a white actor.

I admit to this being a massive guilty pleasure. I can’t ignore the racism in the story. I am however a sucker for scary stories in a theater setting. Also Jango and Litefoot are a rad duo

The victorians were effed up especially this was in the backdrop of the opium wars (hence the comment on Tong wallahs) and Magnus Greel was a colonialist fascist from the future. So it’s contextualised in that context. The Doctor tries to talk to them in Mandarin, that was kind of cute supposing that they knew what he was saying or wanted to reply. So Robert Holmes did make an effort. Burt Kwouk would have great as the magician Li Hsien Chang who’s actually a fraud.

An great review once again. I focused abit on the racism element in my own review and im not going to deny it is a racist story on various levels. However not for one minute am i condoning it but the Production team were working in elements they could get away with in the 1970's on TV. If you go back through British TV during the 1970's there are many racist elements on shows broadcasted in the prime time slots at the time, The Black and White Minstrel Show, Curry and Chips (Spike Milligan making himself look Pakistani/Indian), Dad's Army (Corporal Jones' description of the natives when fighting in the Sudan), Fawlty Towers (not necessarily the Germans but the Major's description of Black African people). Victorian East End London was a very diverse area due to it's proximity to the docks and ships coming in from all over the world and I imagine White Londoners would have used a lot of racist remarks towards anyone not White/British at the time. Robert Holmes' stories have always tended to have a rich texture in terms of the dialogue and I wonder if he was trying to buy into Victorian East End London dialogue when writing this story. Compared to television production today none of this quite rightly would have been deemed acceptable and it is a shame the racial elements tarnish this story somewhat as it is an absolute classic.

I think Tom Baker is the voice of the muffin man at the end

It is my fave Dr Who story .

Yeah, i was highly disappointed when studio could found a Chinese actor to play the Role. It's not first time used white actors in makeup as Chinese.

Much as I think this story is indefensibly racist, I do think the line "I understand we all look the same" is very clearly supposed to be sarcastic. Chang is clearly ironically repeating something he must have heard white people say hundreds of times. Honestly, Chang would actually be a pretty fascinating and complex character if only he were played by someone who actually was Chinese. The way he deliberately speaks in broken English while performing and the way he's inherently seen as a suspicious outsider by everyone are actually fairly decent commentaries on race; but of course the story is still obscenely racist no matter how you square it.

One of the most unique stories this show has ever told, with one of Holmes’s best script, impressive production values, and strong performances. Though ruined by the overt racism (doesn’t matter if it’s meant to parody similar stories of the time or from that time), some out of character moments, and hinchcliffe deliberately making the story so violent and expensive to get back at the bbc for firing him that it affects the next season (making him out to be so petty and ruining his legacy that he would purposely hurt the show). If there aren’t any Asian actors you could have just changed the script to make the character African or a European country that wasn’t as well known at the time.

I'd like to point out two things about this - possibly, other people have already, given that this review is a year old, but I'd like to give my two cents, anyway. Firstly, some stories are actively about race and racism, and some aren't, even if racism is present as a background element. In period pieces, there are often a lot of dancing around these issues to make their characters seem more sympathetic, but the fact is, a lot of these attitudes were baked into the culture of Victorian England, and the characters from this time (which, in this case, is most of them) are simply reacting to these situations the way most Victorians would have. It may be a bit unsavory by modern standards, and there's no denying that a lot of the statements they make ARE racist, but they are normal by the standards of the time. We are far too thin-skinned about the past these days, in my opinion - we don't have to like its more unsavory bits, and we don't necessarily have to wallow in them, but we need to accept past eras as they actually were, good and bad, and present them as such. Second, 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' is a clear pastiche of the Fu Manchu novels, and other, similar stories - they have an unmistakeable atmosphere that the show evokes very well. Now, I don't know the precise circumstances surrounding the casting of Chang, but I do know that the character of Fu Manchu has never been played by an actual Chinese man; he has always been played by white men in Asian makeup. I'm not defending this practice, mind you, but that's how it was, and we did get some truly legendary actors in the role, such as Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff. As such, Chang's casting (which would not have been anywhere near as controversial back then; remember, it was not too terribly long before this came out that we got a movie where John Wayne played freakin' Genghis Khan) may well have been an intentional nod to 'Weng-Chiang's inspiration. Like Fu Manchu or not, there is no evoking his stories without him or someone like him, and between Chang and Weng-Chiang himself, we do get a reasonably creditable faux-Fu.

Good review. It’s a good story just difficult to watch now due to the racism.