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[February 4 1966] What A Waste. What A Terrible Waste. (Doctor Who: The Daleks' Master Plan [Part 3])

February 4, 2021 Jessica Holmes 2 Comments

By Jessica Holmes

There were times watching this serial when I began to wonder if I would ever be free. I began to fear that long after all has come to dust and the cockroaches inherit the Earth, I’ll still be there, sat in the rubble, praying for the Daleks to get on with it and put me out of my misery.

You might say I’m being overdramatic, and perhaps I am, but I can say with sincerity that I’m thankful this is the last article I have to write for this one serial.

GOLDEN DEATH

The Daleks in their time machine track the Doctor to the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, where he’s busy fiddling with the lock on his TARDIS, thinking that the Monk is still on his tail.

Steven notices the Dalek ship arrive at the building site of the Pyramids, and together with Sara goes to investigate. Unbeknownst to them, an Egyptian slave spots their coming, and hurries off to report it to his overseer.

The Doctor’s companions soon realise that it’s not the Monk who has just landed here, but the Daleks. They’re on their way to warn the Doctor when a gang of heavily-armed Egyptian soldiers ambush them.

The soldiers then attempt to accost the Daleks too, but bronze spears and bare chests are no match for ray-guns and armoured plating. The Daleks slaughter most of the soldiers, a small few managing to retreat and regroup.

Meanwhile, the Doctor finishes his repair work, puts on a stupid hat, and indulges in some sight-seeing. It’s not every day you get to see an ancient wonder under construction. He hears the familiar sound of a landing TARDIS, and sure enough out steps the Monk sporting a fashionable pair of sunglasses.

The Doctor then realises that if the Monk has only just landed, then the earlier landing must have been the Daleks!

The Egyptian guards tie Steven and Sara up in a hut, and then make the foolish decision to leave only one soldier to guard them while they go off to do something else.

Meanwhile the Monk to his displeasure comes upon the Daleks. It’s only by Mavic Chen’s intervention that the Daleks don’t immediately shoot him. Unlike the Daleks, Chen’s smart enough to notice that the Monk isn't local.

Chen presses the Monk for information, and the Monk tells him that he’s here to exact vengeance on the Doctor. With their interests aligned, Chen asks the Monk to gain the Doctor’s confidence and retrieve the Taranium core. The Monk agrees, though he doesn’t seem too eager about it.

While all that’s been going on, the Egyptian slaves have been stuffing Pharoah’s tomb full of treasures. The usual stuff like gold, jewels, fancy furniture, a certain police box…

The Monk starts searching for the Doctor, but he won’t find him anywhere near his TARDIS. No, the Doctor is playing mischief with the Monk’s ship. He strips out an important-looking component, and also fiddles with the ship’s cloaking device to make it look like a police box. It’s partly to confuse the Daleks, but I like to think that it’s mostly just because it’s funny to mess with the Monk.

Sara manages to untie herself and Steven, and they take the guards by surprise. Steven's impressed with how good Sara is in a fight. Well, I should hope so, given that killing people was basically her job for much of her life.

The Doctor confronts the Monk in Pharoah’s tomb, and the Monk ‘warns’ the Doctor about the Daleks, urging him to hand over the Taranium before someone gets hurt. The Doctor responds only with a laugh as he advances on him.

Steven and Sara arrive some time later to find no sign of the Doctor. As they wonder what has become of him, a nearby sarcophagus slides open, and a figure wrapped in cloth begins to emerge…

ESCAPE SWITCH

Steven and Sara look on in amazement as a groaning figure emerges from the great stone coffin. Is it the mummy’s curse? Nah, it’s the Monk!

But if he’s here, where’s the Doctor?

Steven and Sara help the Monk out of his wrappings as he claims that he was only trying to warn the Doctor. Oh, and he’s coming down with a bit of a headache, so if Steven could just open the TARDIS door for him that would be very much appreciated. Steven wasn’t born yesterday, so they take the Monk with them to look for the Doctor.

Rather than the Doctor, they end up finding Chen and the Daleks. The Monk wastes no time turning his coat once again and offering Steven and Sara as hostages to draw the Doctor in.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians realise their prisoners have gone missing, but can’t go after them without risking the war machines.

On the Dalek ship with Steven and Sara, the Monk explains to the irate pair that he didn’t actually betray them. The Daleks were about to kill them all, so the Monk offering them as hostages kept them alive for just a few more minutes. It’s certainly plausible, but I can’t blame Steven and Sara for not wanting to trust him as far as they could throw him.

Chen broadcasts an ultimatum from the Dalek ship, ordering the Doctor to come running pronto with the Taranium, or else.

Left with no choice, the Doctor comes to meet the Daleks, and sets up a rendezvous where he’ll hand over the core in exchange for the release of all prisoners, including the Monk. One Dalek only, no bloodshed needed. Of course the Daleks are bad at following instructions as several turn up to the meeting.

However, the Egyptians, having also heard the message, have plans of their own.

The Doctor insists the prisoners be set free first, to which the Daleks agree. He then hands the Taranium over to Chen, running for cover just as the Egyptians attack the Daleks from behind. You can’t fault them for bravery, I suppose.

It doesn’t go brilliantly for the Egyptians, but they do manage to trap one Dalek and encase it in bricks, and the whole stunt creates enough of a distraction for the Doctor and his companions to slip away and regroup. They’ve lost the Taranium core, but on the plus side the Doctor stole the directional unit from the Monk’s TARDIS, so they have a chance of getting back to Kembel and stopping the Daleks once and for all.

The Monk gets back to his own TARDIS, getting safely away from the Daleks. Good for him, he’s much too fun to kill off. He does end up stranded in some frozen wasteland though, so I doubt we'll be seeing him any time soon.

The Daleks are initially frothing at the mouth to catch the Doctor, but Chen points out to the short-tempered tin cans that they have what they came to get.

The Doctor installs the stolen component to his own TARDIS, unsure if it will work, as the Monk has a more up-to-date model. Still, it’s the best chance they have, so he bids Steven to throw the switch–

And the control room vanishes in a flash of blinding white light.

THE ABANDONED PLANET

The Daleks return victorious to Kembel, accompanied by an insufferably smug Chen. The Doctor meanwhile fears that the directional unit has failed to get them where they need to go. We’re spared a plot derailment by the realisation that the view outside looks an awful lot like Kembel, so it would seem they made it after all.

Imagine how much longer this serial would be if they hadn’t. It’d probably be another three episodes at least.

Now for the most exciting thing in the world: a cabinet meeting! The Galactic Council convenes to have a good natter and complain and grumble at each other. They note the absence of Chen and are about to kick him out of the Evil Aliens Club when he swans in acting like he’s the best thing since sliced bread. His Imperial Smugness proceeds to be so insufferable that the gang are on the verge of tearing him apart with their bare hands/claws/tentacles. Then he shoots one of them dead. Not the best way to make friends, I’d have thought.

Outside, Steven and Sara traverse the jungle, noting that there don’t seem to be any Varga plants around, and no Daleks either for that matter. Where could they have disappeared to?

Chen manages to get the Council to sit down and shut up, and they’re about to start discussing the matter of sharing power after the invasion (bit last-minute to be discussing that, I would have thought) when the Daleks show up and spoil the party.

Steven and Sara double back to the TARDIS, but the Doctor’s nowhere to be found. They go back again to look for the Dalek city. Well, that was a bit pointless.

The Daleks have taken the Council into custody, and are planning to destroy the city as they start their conquest. I’m not really sure why. If they want the Council dead they could just shoot them. They’re in a cell; it’d be like shooting rats in a bucket. Not that I’d ever do that, of course. I like rats.

Steven and Sara find the city apparently abandoned. They manage to just walk right in all the way to the central control room where the Dalek time machine sits unattended. Thinking that the Daleks must have the Doctor, they plan to commandeer the machine (never mind that they can’t work the thing) and use it as leverage to get him back. However, their message reaches not the Daleks, but the imprisoned Council. It took them a while to find a scrap of moral backbone, but by the time Steven and Sara reach them they’re eager to mobilise against the Daleks and defend their galaxies.

Steven and Sara agree to release them, and they all scurry off as fast as their spaceships can carry them, all except for one… Chen. They’re wondering what’s taking him so long when his ship blows up shortly after takeoff.

I was ready to throw a brick through the television at this point. I was not going to let them kill Chen without me even getting to see the look on his face.

With Chen apparently out of the picture and the Doctor nowhere to be found, it’s up to Steven and Sara to find a way to stop the Daleks. They spot a lone Dalek entering an underground tunnel, and are about to go after it when Chen shows up alive and well and carrying a gun.

Still planning on being the master of the universe, Chen orders Steven and Sara into the underground base.

DESTRUCTION OF TIME

Chen reveals to Steven that he too came back to find the Doctor. Not out of any sense of altruism, mind you. He believes the Doctor seeks to usurp Chen’s position with the Daleks. Chen, they threw you in a cell. You don’t have a position with the Daleks any more.

They get themselves taken prisoner very quickly. Unlike the above ground city, the underground base is very much occupied. Because he hasn’t realised that to the Daleks he’s nothing more than a useful idiot, Chen gets his knickers in a twist because these are HIS prisoners. Apparently humouring him, the Daleks tell Chen to escort ‘his’ prisoners to the Dalek Supreme.

In a move that comes as a shock only to Chen, the Dalek Supreme states that their alliance has ended. When Chen gets it into his head to start ordering the Daleks around as if he himself was their leader, they completely ignore him. Growing desperate, he shoots at the Dalek Supreme. It doesn't work.

Finally realising how much trouble he’s in, Chen runs for his life, yelling some nonsense about being immortal. Guess the pressure finally got to him.

The Doctor finally turns up, emerging from the shadows like some film noir hero. He hands Steven the key to the TARDIS, urging him to take Sara there once he gives the signal. Why? He’s going to activate the Time Destructor.

The Daleks catch up to Mavic Chen and finally wipe the smug look off his face, shooting him dead and leaving his corpse in the corridor. They come back to find the Doctor tinkering with the Time Destructor, realising with horror that they can’t fire on him without destroying it.

Using a Dalek as a shield, the Doctor and his companions back towards the exit. Once they’re out, the Doctor tells Steven and Sara to run. Steven obeys without a second thought (gee, thanks) but Sara stops, unwilling to leave the Doctor to his fate.

Sara and the Doctor make their way to the TARDIS, carrying the activated Time Destructor, as the Daleks make their pursuit.

Steven makes it safely back, but the Time Destructor is taking its toll on the Doctor and Sara. In a matter of minutes, Sara appears to have aged several decades. The Doctor doesn’t seem to be as badly affected, but perhaps that’s because he is already fairly old.

Over the next few cuts, Sara looks older and older in each one, horrifyingly withering away before our eyes.

Severely weakened by the device, the Doctor drops it, and moments later the lush forest is reduced to a barren waste. Seeing the pair on the TARDIS scanner, Steven comes running out to help, but despite his efforts he cannot deactivate the Time Destructor. Nearby, he finds Sara’s skeletal remains, moments before they crumble away into dust.

Now that’s what I call scary! Where has THIS been all serial? Sure the Daleks can zap you and that’s not much fun but it doesn’t really evoke the true horror of the Time Destructor. It’s an awesome superweapon and I’m a bit disappointed it gets as little screen time as it does.

Somehow the Doctor is still alive, which leads me to wonder if he has a much longer natural lifespan than Sara. We know he’s technically an alien, because he isn’t from Earth, but how alien?

He’s not pleased to see Steven outside the TARDIS, and yells at him to get back in before he gets himself killed. Starting to feel better, the Doctor manages to return to the TARDIS, and is virtually back to normal once he makes it inside. However, outside the Time Destructor is still working its purpose, but time is no longer flowing faster than it should. It’s flowing backwards.

The Daleks catch up, and they too attempt to destroy the Time Destructor, to no avail, as it strips away their armour, aging them down, down, down until there’s nothing left but jellyfish-like Dalek embryos writhing in agony in the dust.

I should make a list of the most disturbing fates ever to befall a character on Doctor Who. This would go at the top, I think.

The device finally ceases to work, the Taranium core having burnt itself out. The Doctor and Steven emerge from the TARDIS to survey the damage. There’s absolutely nothing left outside. Alone in the desolate wastes, they mourn Sara, wishing that she could have seen the destruction of the Daleks. Steven is more than ready to leave, having made and then lost so many friends in this fight against the Daleks. Somberly, the Doctor agrees.

“What a waste. What a terrible waste.”

You said it, Doc.

Final Thoughts

We made it! The road was long and hard, and oh how we suffered. Well, I did most of the suffering. You just read about it.

Where do I even begin?

I think the most obvious thing to address is how ridiculously bloated this serial is. It desperately needed vast structural edits, and while I know television is made on a tight schedule, it would have been better to push the serial back to later in the series if it needed more time to fix. The plot meanders, doubles back on itself, and sometimes plain goes missing for whole episodes at a time. It suffocates under a pile of not-very-interesting subplots. Hordes of characters run around, and I can recall very few of their names, let alone any element of their personalities.

I can only describe it as a mess. I can’t even think of simple fixes for all this. If I was editing this, I would tear this whole story down to its very foundations and rebuild from there.

It irritates me, because I can see the skeleton of a potentially excellent story in here. There are some fun ideas and lots of potential for interesting twists and turns, but it’s all for naught.

It’s not that I do not enjoy a sprawling plot; I happen to be very fond of The Lord Of The Rings, and you don’t get much more sprawling than that. However, while those fantasy novels sprawl with purpose (for the most part), this story meanders about like a confused British tourist wandering a foreign grocery shop in search of teabags.

The other big problem is with the character development. This is a long serial. I will leave Steven and the Doctor alone, because they do seem changed by their experiences.

I am going to first pick on Sara. Here we have a woman who is so loyal to her superiors that she kills her own brother without question or remorse. Here is a woman who has been indoctrinated all her life to follow Chen. She is ruthless and deadly enough to have become the SSS’ top agent. Weighing all this in mind, does it sound like organic development to have her fully switch sides after one little scolding from some blokes she’s only just met? And a couple of episodes later, everyone, Sara included, seems to have forgotten about Bret.

Then there’s Mavic Chen. I’ve already covered the highly questionable makeup. For the most part, he was fine, if not terribly interesting. Great, he wants to rule the universe, him and every other B-movie villain out there. And then comes his decline. Well, I don’t think decline is the word. This isn’t a man spiraling as he desperately clings to power, it’s more like he swan-dives off the cliff of sanity.

Aside from that I don’t think there’s enough for me to chew on for me to talk about any other characters. There’s practically a revolving door of side-characters, of whom I can only remember Bret (who was pretty cool) and Katarina (who I definitely think was under-used). The Galactic Council seemed pointless to me. Chen was the only one among their number that the Daleks actually needed for access to the Taranium. I don’t know their names, and I couldn’t give a fig about it. They could have done with being cut from the serial entirely, or re-written to make them actually matter to the overall plot.

We’re not going to talk about the Christmas episode.

I think the Doctor sums it up best: it’s a waste. This serial could be so much better. I had high hopes after the unexpectedly dark and serious prologue episode Mission To The Unknown. I do admire the ambition and there’s a lot of creativity on display. Sadly, however, I think my favourite parts of the serial only came at the very end. I have a soft spot for the Monk (he’s just so much fun!), and the Time Destructor was awesome to behold. For the rest of the serial however I’m afraid that it rather fell short of my expectations.

At least you no longer have to listen to me moaning about it. We’ve got what looks to be a historical serial coming up next time, and I for one will be very glad for a change of pace.

2 out of 5 stars

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 18, 1966] New Discoveries of the Old (Out of the Unknown)

January 18, 2021 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Digging it

On the Ecuadorian coast, the Valdivia archeological site is creating a great stir in the academic world. Renowned American archeologists Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers (along with colleagues from the Smithsonian) have put out a paper in Scientific American claiming the artefacts on the site bear a strong resemblance to those from Japan in the same period (c. 3000 BC).

Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers — Meggers (L) & Evans (R)

This conclusion is disputed by other archeologists, who claim the finds are of native origin, but whichever is the truth it is likely to rewrite our historical understanding. If the site is Asian in origin it shows both an advanced degree of navigation and Asian influence on the development of the Americas millennia before the arrival of Europeans.

Ecuadorian Parrot Statue — Is this parrot figure a result of Japanese or native Ecuadorian culture?

Alternatively, if the site is indeed of native finds it will add to the continued evidence of a thriving advanced Americas at a time when Egypt was still trying to domesticate the camel.

Trying to rediscover and reinterpret is just as important in science fiction as it is in archeology. As such I was excited to discover Irene Shubik was reviving the format of ABC’s Out of This World for a series on BBC2, under the new title Out of the Unknown.

Travelling Into The Unknown

There are a couple differences between Unknown and World I want to point out before we start. Firstly, there is the obvious format point, that there is no longer a presenter to introduce each story as we usually expect on these anthology shows (although apparently a robot was considered for some time). More importantly are the stories themselves. Whilst World tended to choose faster paced stories more likely to entice the casual viewer (e.g. Asimov’s Little Lost Robot and Dick’s Impostor), Shubik seems to have selected more slower and meditative pieces, to really explore concepts.

As this is an archeological dig, I want to divide this series into three periods:

Episodes 1-4: An Emerging Concept

I think it is appropriate to start with the opening shot of the first episode (No Place Like Earth) of a lone human sailing across a sea on Mars to visit a native Martian. This divided viewers with some annoyed that the series was taking such an unscientific approach, whilst others loved the fairy tale quality of this fable. Personally, I was in the latter camp, just enjoying seeing something very different from the usual.

For those unimpressed with Wyndham, they got to enjoy The Counterfeit Man, which felt like a hangover from Shubik’s previous series. It is a tense tale of an alien impostor on a spaceship heading back to Earth and the attempts to discover who it could be. But there seemed little point to it other than atmosphere.

The same can be said of the first of the two original contributions to the series, A Stranger in the Family, which would probably not feel out of place in New Worlds magazine. Telling of a teenager with incredible psychic powers and the corrupt means to which they are put. It is certainly unnerving, but comes to naught except showing the corruption of power.

The final of this early quartet is The Dead Past from Shubik’s favorite writer, Issac Asimov. In this we get one of the best encapsulations of the strengths and flaws of the early period. It is a faithful adaptation of a problem story with a twist in the tail and gets across the themes of nostalgia and privacy, with good actors bringing it to life. However, it does not stray from the text by more than half an inch and the episode is largely just people debating ideas in front of dull backgrounds.

It is notable that with these four stories together you get many of the standard concepts used in science fiction writing. An Earth apocalypse, alien worlds, oppressive society, doppelgangers, spaceships, psychic powers, time travel, dangerous inventions and more.

If nothing else this gives viewers the vocabulary to help them through what is to come.

Episodes 5-8: The Dark Ages

Sucker Bait by Isaac Asimov – Dark in more ways than one

Unfortunately, this is where things start to go wrong.

There are some technical issues we need get out of the way. Halfway through the transmission of Time In Advance the broadcast cut out, and we were instead treated to some Joan Baez music whilst we waited for the problem fixed. Also, the lighting in much of Sucker Bait was just abominable, even on the new 625-line broadcast resolution, it was impossible to tell what was going on in some sections. I found I had to rely instead on the dialogue and I had trouble really understanding what was happening on screen.

However, the real problem with the stories selected and the direction the production team take them. Time In Advance by William Tenn is an inherently silly concept to begin with. What if you could serve time on a hazardous planet in exchange for a free pass for a future crime? The conclusion being, maybe the crime you committed wouldn’t go as planned. And whilst the technical issue above may have resulted in things being missed by myself, the whole logic played out in front of us seemed contrived.

The second original play also seems to have no direction to it. Come Buttercup, Come Daisy, Come…? is the story of a man obsessed with his tropical flowers, sent to him by a mysterious advert, which may be eating people… or he may just be mad. Neither conclusion would be satisfying nor make much sense. When silly spy comedy The Avengers does something better with the concept, you probably should take another look at your scripts.

Fox and Forest — The Fox and The Forest by Ray Bradbury – A significant lack of growth

However, the two worst offenders are from the two biggest names, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. Neither The Fox and The Forest, nor Sucker Bait have enough in the original text to justify their inclusion here. Bradbury’s piece is barely more than a vignette and Terry Nation seemed to think the best solution was just to keep stretching the plot out until the conclusion without adding anything more.

Sucker Bait, on the other hand, is a long novella, but the story is largely told through arguments in small rooms on a dingey spaceship. Whilst this may be fine for a piece of text (although I personally dislike the magazine serial) it does not make for compelling television. What is worse, the main character is a human computer, meaning most of the expositing we are getting is from someone meant to lack normal characteristics and mannerisms.

It would be easy to conclude at this point the series had fallen down without hope of getting up. However, after these missteps, something wonderful happens.

Episodes 9-12: The Renaissance

Andover and the Android and The Midas Plague succeed in a similar way. The writers (Bruce Stewart and Troy Kennedy Martin respectively) are much more willing to take liberties with the original stories to great effect and produce dark satirical comedies. Both of these episodes, I would argue, are better than the original texts. The Midas Plague, in particular, should be called out for its excellent use of modern maxims turned on their head to highlight the ridiculousness of our consumer society.

Our own John Boston gave the short story of Some Lapse of Time a four-star review and it is indeed an excellent choice to adapt, by combining a creepy atmosphere, an unfolding mystery and a single concept added into a contemporary society. However, this adaptation tightens up some of the looseness of the original story and Roger Jenkins excellent direction of the dream sequences really helps connect everything together.

Finally, Thirteen to Centaurus is a fantastic character piece, using largely the same story as was published in Amazing (which was given four stars by John once again) albeit with a different ending, we get to see the multiple twists in the tale unfold. But the excellent performances by Donald Houston and James Hunter, elevate this story into an excellent character study where we see power dynamics invert and their senses of reality change.

A Rich History

The Midas Plague by Frederik Pohl – Join the robots in toasting a successful first series

Overall, watching this series is like reading a great anthology. Not all stories will be to my tastes, but they are varied enough to complement each other and give a good picture of science fiction. A second season has already been commissioned, and so, just like with many of the other British anthologies that are ongoing, I look forward to the next release.

One last addendum, whilst the BBC appears to be hopeful of a US sale, others are not as optimistic. Isaac Asimov writing to Shubik:

It does make me long to see the show. I am terribly afraid that you haven’t made any of them sufficiently badly to interest American TV producers.

Let us hope The Good Doctor’s cynicism is not warranted and this gem of a series can be shared with the rest of the world.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 10, 1966] Kingdom Come (Doctor Who: The Daleks’ Master Plan [Part 2])

January 10, 2021 Jessica Holmes Leave a comment

By Jessica Holmes

Hello, everyone! I hope everyone had a nice time over the holiday season, because I had to watch some pretty DULL television. Will this serial ever end?

COUNTER PLOT

To refresh your memories, we last saw the Doctor and Steven at an experimental station on Earth, where they’d come to attempt to warn humanity of the impending Dalek attack with their new ally, Bret Vyon. However, their luck ran out as they failed to find any allies. They were soon caught by the Space Security Service’s top agent, Sara Kingdom, who shot Bret in cold blood. Now the Doctor and Steven flee through the facility, pursued by Kingdom as they try to keep the Taranium core from landing in the Daleks’ clutches.

The pair run into a dead end, and Kingdom corners them in a large chamber. Large reflective dishes line the room, which also contains a weird mouse cage with all sorts of equipment attached to it. Meanwhile, a couple of scientists are about to start an experiment…

The picture distorts, the three’s faces disturbingly twisted in apparent agony… and then they’re gone. Where to? Far, far away.

Well that's absolutely terrifying.

Karlton (that was his name, right? Not ‘Baldylocks’, as I seem to have jotted down in my notes) comes to supervise the scientists as they confirm that the mice made it to their destination in one piece. He reports the good news to Mavic Chen, who is beginning to worry about the prospect of the Daleks turning on him. Karlton has an idea, however. They could always try putting a spin on it. What if they didn’t LOSE their prisoners, per se? Karlton's idea is to claim they did it on purpose. Now the fugitives can be dealt with without drawing the attention of any Earth authorities. Reassured, Chen gives a silly little villain speech. Something something Daleks, blah blah universal domination, extra ham and cheese.

Meanwhile, far, far away…

The Doctor wakes up on the planet Myra looking terribly confused but more or less fine. Not bad, given he was just taken apart atom by atom and then put back together again.

Something invisible and growly paws at an unconscious Kingdom, until Stephen leaps to his feet and wisely confiscates her weapon. The Doctor hears the invisible beast, and we get a glimpse of huge clawed footprints stamping through the sand. The three join up, and the Doctor sternly warns Kingdom that she better hadn’t get up to any funny business. Ever a pragmatist, Kingdom agrees to be on her best behavior.

The Daleks meanwhile are already moving to recapture them. They land on Myra, soon coming upon the mice in their cage.

Apparently Daleks have never seen a mouse before. When they first see the little furry friends their immediate assumption is that they may be hostile. It’s funny… until the Daleks blow the mice to kingdom come.

Meanwhile, the Doctor gets into a fight with a bush, and Stephen gives Kingdom a jolly good telling-off for killing Bret. Kingdom tries the old ‘just following orders’ excuse, which absolutely does not fly with Stephen, as well it shouldn’t. She feebly tries to tell him that the Taranium is for spreading galactic peace, so I guess she’s gullible as well as lacking in moral backbone. Or brainwashed, which might be the most likely case, given her revelation that Bret was her brother. Good grief, Sara. Talk about a sibling rivalry…

The Doctor tells them about the invisible monsters, and has more bad news: they’re surrounded.

Back with Chen, he’s thinking up a contingency plan. The combined forces of the Solar System might be able to destroy Kembel if it came down to it. It wouldn’t be universal domination, but he might be able to wield enough power to take control of the whole Milky Way, which is a start.

On Myra, the Doctor is guiding Stephen on how to take out an eight foot tall invisible monster when a Dalek turns up.

It appears that the Daleks have won.

CORONAS OF THE SUN

I did a double take when the titles for this episode came up, as it appears that Nation’s getting a little break this week, with Dennis Spooner taking his spot in the writer’s chair.

Anyway, where were we? Ah, yes. Certain doom.

With the Doctor refusing to hand over the Taranium, the Daleks are about to open fire. Conveniently the invisible monsters choose that moment to attack, distracting the Daleks long enough for the fugitives to flee.

It’s an ingenious way to save on budget (no need for costuming or hiring additional actors!) but there's a big problem with having a fight with a bunch of monsters that aren’t actually visible. It's really boring to watch. It looks more like the Daleks getting into a tussle with some innocent bushes.

Back on Kembel, the Dalek commanders are growing impatient at the lack of progress. In a stunning display of leadership, the black Dalek orders another Dalek to order THOSE Daleks to retake the Taranium. Which is what they’re already trying to do. Is telling them again supposed to make them more successful? It’s like being nagged to do the dishes when you’re literally elbow deep in suds and soggy bits of potato skin. No wonder the Daleks are always so cross if their commanders are like this all the time.

The travellers come upon the Dalek ship, and in a stroke of luck (or plot convenience), there is only one Dalek on guard. The Doctor pretends to give himself up, as Steven and Kingdom sneak up behind the Dalek and slap mud on its eye-stalk. With the Dalek blinded, they steal the ship and fly off just as their pursuers realise what’s happened.

Wait.

I am getting the weirdest sense of deja vu.

Is Kingdom going to end up flying out of an airlock next?

Not yet knowing about this escape, the Daleks bring Mavic Chen in for a scolding. He tries to give them the spin Karlton came up with, but they aren’t having any of it. I have to give the man credit for having the guts to give a Dalek backtalk, as he points out that it wouldn’t be a problem if they hadn’t lost them in the first place. Then he even gets to gloat as the Daleks learn that the fugitives escaped yet again. This time the Daleks have nobody to blame but themselves.

En route back to Earth, the Doctor starts making a copy of the Taranium core to fool the Daleks. However, moments later the group hear a strange noise and find that their ship is changing course.

No, I haven’t got my notes mixed up from the last article. We’re just recycling plot points now.

Rather than landing on a prison planet, Steven averts a pointless plot diversion by ripping out the navigational component that’s controlling the ship. The Daleks won’t be stopped that easily, and use a magnet beam to start dragging them back.

Why didn’t you use that in the first place?

The Doctor completes his copy of the Taranium core, but without a charge it won’t fool the Daleks. However, Steven has the bright idea to plug it in to the ‘gravity force’ from the ship’s power centre. I have absolutely no idea what he is on about. I suppose it’s some science-fictiony power source. However, they don’t use this ‘gravity force’ any more, instead using ‘reliance power’. The others tell Steven he absolutely should not do anything of the sort, so naturally he goes ahead and deep fries himself.

Don’t worry, he’s not dead, but he’s stuck inside a force field. At least his idea did actually work, and the fake Taranium core is good to go.

The ship lands, and the three exit, Steven carrying the fake Taranium core. The Doctor insists that they do the handover outside the TARDIS. The Daleks, unwilling to risk losing the Taranium, agree. Seeing Chen with the Daleks, Kingdom calls him a traitor. Gee, it didn’t take long to break down a lifetime of brainwashing.

The Doctor and Kingdom head into the TARDIS, and Steven hands the Taranium core over. Because they’re rude, the Daleks immediately fire upon him.

Don’t worry, he’s still not dead.

Force field related accidents can have silver linings. The Dalek blasts have now destroyed the shield, but Steven is interested in investigating further. After all, it could be handy to have a Dalek-proof shield. The Doctor scolds him like a cross teacher for his folly.

The TARDIS lands somewhere else, but where? The scanner is broken, and according to the Doctor’s instruments the outside atmosphere is toxic.

Looks like we aren’t out of trouble yet.

THE FEAST OF STEVEN

Just so you know, we’re back with Nation again.

The gang land outside a police station on Earth, drawing the attention of the local bobbies, who are wondering where this box came from and who this funny little bloke is who just stepped out of it. The ‘toxic atmosphere’ is just modern air pollution, which is fairly accurate, if a little overdramatic.

Oh, and it’s Christmas. You can tell because the coppers on patrol are absolutely murdering Good King Wenceslas.

Steven steals a police uniform to rescue the Doctor from the coppers. Mildly comedic antics ensue as the police try to ascertain who the Doctor is and where he came from.

They manage to get away without too much hassle. In the meantime Kingdom repairs the scanner, narrowly avoiding an arrest on grounds of ‘loitering’ when a policeman catches her climbing all over the phone box. Piling into the TARDIS, they’re soon off again. When they next land they see a horrific sight outside: a dastardly villain is about to saw a woman in half!

That’s how it appears, anyway. They rush out to save her, only for it to become apparent that this is all just a big misunderstanding. They’re on a movie set! The three get separated in the ensuing uproar, with Steven being mistaken for a Keystone Kop, Kingdom hiding in a trunk, and the Doctor being mistaken for an expert on Arabian customs.

It’s a busy studio, that’s for sure.

Oh, and there’s a wild Charlie Chaplin wandering about the place.

The three do manage to find each other again, poor Steven and Sara being very confused about the whole affair, and the Doctor proclaiming “It’s a madhouse! It’s all full of Arabs.”

Honestly I don’t even know what to say to that. I’m baffled. It’s an oddly racist thing to come out of the Doctor’s mouth, apropos of nothing in particular.

After meeting Bing Crosby (don’t ask), the gang leave again, leaving everybody on set very impressed with the clever special effect. Safely on their way, the Doctor treats Steven and Sara to a little Christmas tipple.

…And then he turns to the camera and wishes a happy Christmas to everyone at home.

That was very weird and I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen. If you like, you can pretend this whole episode didn’t happen and lose nothing of value. It’s more entertaining than Monopoly, at least, but that’s not exactly high praise.

VOLCANO

Nation’s out, Spooner’s in. It’s getting hard to keep up with all this switching.

So, there’s Daleks in this serial. Remember them? Daleks don’t do Christmas, so they went right ahead and fitted the fake Taranium core into their Time Destructor. Chen’s in a smug mood. He's always in a smug mood, but right now he's extra smug.

The Daleks need a test subject for their device. To my disappointment they don’t pick Chen, but one of the other delegates, who actually volunteered for some reason.

Meanwhile, the Doctor realises that someone's following the TARDIS.

It doesn’t take the Daleks long to work out that the Time Destructor doesn’t work, and that the Doctor tricked them. Chen’s smugness melts away when the Daleks turn on him, but in a surprising display of patience they give him one last chance to lead a team of Daleks and pursue the Doctor by time machine– wait, haven’t I already seen this serial?

And now for some cricket. The commentators react to the sudden appearance of a police box on the field with little more than mild curiosity, even though it is the only interesting thing to have happened in a game of cricket since the invention of the sport.

Still, it is quite funny.

The TARDIS departs, and its next destination is an active volcano. Not to nitpick (as if I ever do anything else) but the air out there's probably a tad worse than a spot of smog. It’s a cool setting though and we’re not here for an impromptu vulcanology lecture, so I’ll let it slide.

Their pursuer shows up at last, and it’s not the Daleks, as you might suspect. No, it’s the Monk!

Nice to see him again, even though he’s up to no good as usual. He and the Doctor exchange pleasantries, and the Doctor doesn’t seem very surprised to see the Monk again. It’s all quite affable until the Monk says he locked the Doctor out of his TARDIS when nobody was looking. They laugh at first, then realise that the Monk was being serious. He’s still a bit touchy over the Doctor stranding him in 1066.

Still, it only takes about a minute for the Doctor to get back into the TARDIS. He uses that big ring he wears to do something vaguely sciency sounding that I’m quite sure is pure gibberish cooked up for plot convenience. Or maybe he just hit the door really hard and didn’t want to admit to using brute force.

With the Monk quite put out that the Doctor got away so easily, the gang departs. I think we’ll be seeing him again before very long.

Next stop: London, New Year’s Day, 1966. Time to raise a glass and mumble the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne (because who actually knows all the words?). With the Daleks tracking them, it might be the last new year any of our travellers see…

Final Thoughts

Well, large sections of that were a bit pointless, weren’t they? The serial continues to plod onwards, recycling plot points from earlier in the very same story. It now begins to feel like a retread of The Chase. I didn’t much care for The Chase, so my opinion on this serial continues to sour.

I find it very strange that everyone seemed to forget that Kingdom killed her own brother in cold blood. One moment Steven’s scolding Kingdom in the swamp, and the next they’re sharing a brandy after a little jaunt around Hollywood without a care in the world. The pacing and sense of urgency is all over the place. It’s becoming plainer with every episode that this story is terribly bloated and does not have enough ideas to fill its runtime.

I’m not even going to address the asides made directly to the audience.

Hopefully I’ll have a bit more nice to say next time, when I’ll have the benefit of looking at the big picture and seeing how it all fits together. Realistically speaking however, I think that might be too much to ask for.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 6, 1965] Are You Sitting Comfortably? Then I'll Begin (Doctor Who: The Daleks’ Master Plan [Part 1])

December 6, 2020 Jessica Holmes 2 Comments

By Jessica Holmes

Buckle up, everyone. We’re about to start the longest serial of Doctor Who yet. I hope you’ve got a comfy chair and a pot of tea.

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS

Poor Steven isn’t feeling too well since his run in with the sharp end of a poisoned sword, so the Doctor leaves him in the care of Katarina while he goes to search for an antitoxin.

Wait, no, apparently we’re not following that, we’re following two blokes called Bret and Kert, who are sitting in a rainforest and trying to contact their superiors.

Nope, no, we’re actually watching a couple of nameless bald men doing… something or other. To be more accurate, we’re watching a couple of people watching the bald men and having a nice chat rather than paying attention to the call coming in. It seems that the men we just saw were from the Space Security Service that those men were from in that one-off episode a few weeks ago, come to search for their long-dead comrades.

The fate of the universe can wait though, because the people in the control room are busy watching a television interview with a man with very silly eyebrows. This is Mavic Chen, and he’ll be important later. From the name and the lousy makeup, I think he’s meant to be Chinese. The makeup’s distracting and more importantly, racist. There’s no excuse for this sort of thing, common as it may be. At least they had the good sense not to give him a ridiculous fake accent.

Chen’s banging on about how the solar system has enjoyed tranquility in recent years, promising that they can look forward to an everlasting period of peace and prosperity that will spread throughout the universe and it’ll be sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, et cetera. Laying on the dramatic irony pretty thick, aren’t we?

In the jungles of the planet Kembel, the two men begin to fear that something’s following them. I will give you three guesses what that something could possibly be.

Surprise! It’s a Dalek.

Injured, Kert tells Bret to go on without him, and he bravely goes to face the Daleks — who promptly shoot him dead.

Bret flees through the forest, tripping over his own feet and dropping the transmitter, breaking it. Well, it’s not very well made if it broke that easily. He should get his money back. He’s on the brink of despair when the TARDIS materialises close by.

The Doctor and Katarina emerge, and the Doctor sends Katarina back inside to look after Steven while he searches for some antitoxin. Finding the door locked, Bret follows after the Doctor, and orders him at gunpoint to hand over the key.

Inside the TARDIS, Katarina tends to Steven, still under the impression that she’s dead and travelling through the underworld. Bret enters the TARDIS, and Katarina, bless her, thinks he’s come to help, and he tricks her into locking the Doctor out of the TARDIS.

However, he doesn’t get away with it for long, because like an absolute numpty he left the key in the door and didn’t pay enough attention to Steven, who whacks him over the back of the head when he’s not looking.

Bret doesn’t strike me as one of the SSS’ best operatives. James Bond, he is not.

As the Doctor lets himself back into the TARDIS, a spaceship passes overhead, and at the Dalek base the Daleks prepare to receive guests.

The Doctor restrains Bret in the TARDIS with a ‘magic chair’ (magnetic), but the cross-examination will have to wait, because he still needs to look for the city he spotted in his earlier foray into the forest. He narrowly misses a Varga plant as he explores and soon comes upon the skeletal remains of Corey, his tape recording lying just a few feet away from him.

He collects the tape and proceeds to the city, where he realises to his horror who the occupants are.

Back in the TARDIS, Bret inquires as to what’s wrong with Steven. When Katarina explains he has poison in his blood, Bret actually makes himself useful and offers her the use of some tablets he has to hand. Katarina decides to trust him and gives Steven the medicine. Let’s just hope it doesn’t backfire.

As the Daleks greet their guest and newest ally, Mavic Chen, the Doctor hurries back to his ship, only to find the door open and a gang of Daleks surrounding the box.

Uh-oh.

DAY OF ARMAGEDDON

Hiding in the bushes, the Doctor watches from a distance as the Daleks examine his ship. They speak of something called Operation Inferno, which will require them to retreat to a safe distance.

Meanwhile, Mavic Chen makes a friend. Say hello to Zephon, the master of the Fifth Galaxy.

Zephon expresses surprise that Chen, being from our solar system (Why is our solar system THE Solar System? Surely any system with a star and things orbiting that star is a solar system, isn’t it? Why do we qualify for the definite article?) is allying himself with the Daleks. Well, being in charge of one star system is nice enough, but Chen has greater ambitions.

The Daleks are all too aware of Chen’s ambitions, which is why they’re planning to exterminate him and all their other accomplices when they’ve outlived their usefulness. That sounds very in-character for them, but I don't know how pragmatic it would be, considering that the galaxies the leaders represent would likely consider the Daleks' actions to be an act of war and retaliate in kind.

Stephen wakes up in the forest feeling very confused, but looking a tad healthier. The tablets seem to have worked. He has Bret and Katarina to thank. When the Daleks came, Bret convinced Katarina to release him so that they could all escape. The Doctor finds the group, and Katarina fills him in on what happened while Bret spies on the Daleks, who have flamethrowers now.

The Doctor and Katarina help Steven limp back towards the TARDIS before the flames reach them (wait, I thought it was his shoulder that was hurt, not his leg?), but Bret points out that it’s probably a trap. I suppose they’ll have to just stay put and roast then.

Stephen and the Doctor start bickering over what to do until Bret interrupts and tells them essentially to shut up, leaving the Doctor speechless for once in his life. He recovers quickly.

The Daleks get to work burning the forest. I obviously need more sleep because for a moment I thought they were toasting marshmallows on the fire. In my defence, the Dalek flamethrowers are shaped just like a marshmallow on a stick.

The fire slowly catches up to the gang as the Doctor and Bret have another bickering match, and the Doctor finally comes up with a third option: hide in the Dalek city. It’s the last place they’ll expect!

Chen has a chat with Zephon before the gathering of PT Barnum’s freakshow rejects comes to order, with Zephon waiting outside a while, for plot convenience’s sake I presume.

The Doctor and company arrive at the Dalek city and admire the pretty shiny spaceships, at least until Bret recognises Mavic Chen’s. He's deeply troubled, but the others see their getaway vehicle: they decide to steal it.

Along comes Zephon, and they run for cover. Come to think of it, I suspect that he might walk like that because the chap in the costume can’t actually see where he’s going. Bret subdues him, and the Doctor steals his clothes so that he can disguise himself and sneak into the meeting. I’m in awe at the sheer audacity of the plan. He gives Bret the tape for safekeeping before he goes, and even Bret, who doesn’t particularly get along with the Doctor, is impressed with his courage.

While the others go to steal the ship, the Doctor arrives fashionably late to the meeting. He learns that the Daleks have almost completed something called a Time Destructor, which needs only a core and it’ll be ready to use. Mavic Chen smugly presents the core, an emm of pure Taranium, the rarest substance in the universe.

Outside, Zephon wakes up and begins to struggle against his restraints as the others barge onto Chen’s ship and start tying up the crew.

All seems to be going well, until Zephon manages to set off an alarm. It might be a blessing in disguise however, as in all the pandemonium the Doctor is able to swipe the Taranium core from under Mavic Chen’s nose.

He’ll have to hurry, though. Bret’s about to take off– and he’s not planning to wait for stragglers.

DEVIL’S PLANET

The Doctor shows up in the nick of time, and off they go, fleeing the Daleks. The Daleks don’t fail to notice them going, but refrain from blowing the ship out of the sky. They’ve realised that the Taranium core is missing, and they need to get it back.

Chen’s all too happy to throw Zephon under the bus for the loss of the core. Sure, it was Chen who went and left it unattended on the table, but the Daleks see fit to blame Zephon, as it was his lateness to the meeting that allowed the Doctor to infiltrate it and steal the core. The Daleks find him guilty of negligence, and execute him for his failure.

Born diplomats, the Daleks are. Really this should start a war but apparently Zephon's galaxy won't mind their leader being murdered.

On the ship, the Doctor’s coming to like having Katarina around. She learns by watching and listening, sparing him from constant questions. He’s eager to teach her though, and I find his enthusiasm endearing.

They finally get around to playing the tape, which doesn’t really tell them anything new but will come in handy when urging Earth to take action, and the Doctor proclaims that “The Daleks will stop at anything to prevent us!”

Well, if that’s the case, all you have to do is mildly inconvenience them and they’ll leave you alone. I’m well used to Hartnell’s line flubs by now, but that one did amuse me.

The Daleks make their move as the ship passes by a prison planet, Desperus, an entire world used for dumping convicts. Basically, it’s Space Australia. Sorry, Kaye. I couldn’t resist.

Then the Daleks force the ship to land on Desperus, where a gang of convicts soon learn of the ship’s arrival and begin plotting to take it for themselves.

As the rest of the crew work on getting the ship up and running again, Katarina spots lights in the distance. It’s the three convicts, Kirksen, Garge and Lars, approaching. Kirksen ends up being waylaid by an aggressive bird, and the other two carry on without him.

In preparation for their arrival, the Doctor drops a cable from the ship into the murky swampwater beneath the entrance, and Katarina activates the current as Garge and Lars attempt to approach. There’s a flash of light and both men scream, then drop down unconscious.

It’s not long before the ship’s ready for takeoff once more, and Bret notices that the outer door is open for some reason, but it’s probably nothing to worry about. The crew leave Desperus as the Daleks crash-land, and it looks like everything’s going brilliantly for about five seconds.

Then Kirsken pops out of the airlock, grabs Katarina, and all hell breaks loose.

THE TRAITORS

Holding Katarina hostage, Kirksen demands to be taken to Kembel. It wouldn't be my first choice for a hideaway, that's for sure. I don't do well with humidity or screaming Nazi space monsters with cooking and plumbing tools for arms.

Back on Kembel, the Daleks receive a message from the pursuit fleet, saying they’re ready to continue the mission. The Daleks kindly take the burden off their plungers and tell Chen to go instead, having worked out that the fugitives are heading for Earth. With that settled, the Daleks treat the pursuit ship with patience and understanding, inviting them to return to Kembel.

Of course, the moment they break communications, they order the ship blown up as punishment for failing the mission. I think a lot of us have had bosses like that.

Back on the stolen ship, Bret obviously isn’t about to turn and fly back the way he came. He tries to catch Kirksen off guard with a sudden change of direction, but it doesn’t work, causing Kirksen to retreat into the airlock, dragging Katarina with him. They could open the exterior doors and rid themselves of him, but that would kill Katarina too. However, he’s not coming out until they agree to take him to Kembel. The longer they take to make a decision, the longer Katarina’s in danger from him. He’ll kill her if they don’t change course.

The Doctor finally cracks and orders Bret to do as Kirksen says, with Stephen backing him up. However, there’s one person whose opinion nobody asked, and she’s taking matters into her own hands.

Katarina manages to get one arm free of Kirksen’s grip, reaching desperately for something on the wall. By the time the others realise what she’s about to do, it’s too late. The airlock blows open, sucking both Kirksen and Katarina into the vacuum of space.

At last, a moment of silence as everyone processes what just happened. Stephen isn’t sure that Katarina did it on purpose, but the Doctor gives her more credit than that, and I happen to agree with him.

“She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. She wanted to save our lives and perhaps the lives of all the other beings of the Solar System. I hope she's found her Perfection. Oh, how I shall always remember her as one of the Daughters of the Gods. Yes, as one of the Daughters of the Gods."

Excuse me, I have a little something in my eye. Does this count as the first death of a companion? She wasn’t around for very long, but do you need to be to count as a Companion? To me, if you’ve travelled in his TARDIS by the Doctor's consent, you’re a companion, even if you were only around for a handful of episodes. It’s a proper punch to the gut. We always assume, don’t we, that whatever happens the Doctor and his closest friends will always make it out alive. Here is a stark reminder that travelling with the Doctor is not safe. A single lapse in judgement can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

It’s a bit of a pity, because I thought Katarina still had a lot of potential. I suppose that makes it even sadder in a way. The Doctor was so keen to show her the wonders of the cosmos, and now she’ll never get to see them.

And just to rub it in, there’s a shot of the poor girl’s lifeless body drifting away through the void. I hope it was at least quick.

Let’s check in with the baddies. With the threat of the ultimate punishment for failure hanging over his head, Chen meets with his subordinate Lizan, and Karlton, the head of the Space Security Service. He tells them to recall all available agents to Earth so that they can catch Earth’s greatest traitor: Bret Vyon.

It turns out that Karlton is in on the plot with Chen to sell Earth out to the Daleks. Chen will be at the Daleks’ right hand, and Karlton will be at Chen’s, if all goes according to plan. Karlton puts one of his best agents on the job, Sara Kingdom. The actress might look familiar to you if you also watched The Crusade earlier this year.

The Doctor and company make a bumpy landing at the ‘Experimental Station’, and Bret cautiously leads the group inside, where he hopes to meet with someone he can trust with the information.

Chen briefs Kingdom on her mission, conveniently leaving out the bit about the Daleks. She’s apparently unwaveringly loyal, but there’s no sense in risking it.

Bret fills his ally Daxtar in on the things they’ve learned, and it seems that Daxtar is eager to help. However, when Daxtar asks about the whereabouts of the Taranium, the Doctor realises he’s not to be trusted. Why? Because they never mentioned that the core is made of Taranium. Bret turns on his ally, and shoots him dead before the Doctor has a chance to find out who else might be in on the conspiracy, prompting the hero’s anger.

Moments later, Kingdom shows up. It would seem that she and Bret know one another. For a moment, Bret is pleased to see her, hoping that she might be on their side. All hopes are dashed when she demands the Taranium. I don’t think Bret is a very good judge of character.

Bret struggles with Kingdom, buying the others enough time to get out, but leaving him alone with a woman even more trigger happy than he is. He barely gets his hand an inch towards his gun before Kingdom fires on him, killing him instantly.

We’re racking up quite a body count of major characters, aren’t we? I don’t know that I’d call Bret a companion, as he only appears in this one serial, unlike Katarina who was introduced at the end of the previous serial. Additionally, he never actually travels in the TARDIS. He tries, but just ends up tied to a chair, which doesn’t count. I had quite liked having him around, though. It might have been interesting to see how his character might have developed.

With Bret dead and the Doctor and Steven on the run, Kingdom orders her subordinates to secure all the exits. The fugitives must be killed on sight.

Final Thoughts

This would be a much better start to the serial if it didn’t take so long to get to the point. This serial could have benefited from a more ruthless editor: I often noticed scenes that would have benefited from being trimmed down, and a fair amount of characters telling one another things that the audience already knows.

How will it turn out? Will the story unfold into a grand epic, or a bloated mess? We’ll have to wait and see. I just know that, with eight episodes more for me to write about, I’m going to need to drink my body weight in coffee.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[October 10, 1965] Doctor Where? (Doctor Who: Mission To The Unknown)

October 10, 2020 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

Probably weren’t expecting me to be back so soon, eh? We’ve got a very, very unusual story this week, courtesy of Terry Nation. Why is it so unusual? Let’s find out.

MISSION TO THE UNKNOWN

We see the man from last week’s preview waking up in the middle of the forest, and saying he must kill. Kill who? Well, that doesn’t really matter. The killing is the important part. Don’t get too attached to him.

Nearby two men, Cory and Lowery, are trying to repair their spaceship. They are apparently with the UN Deep Space Force. I don’t know what that is but it certainly sounds cool. They’re starting to wonder where Garvey, the other bloke who woke up with a craving for murder, has vanished to. He shows up before long, and corners Lowery alone outside the ship. However, before he can kill him, Cory pops out and shoots him dead.

Rather than reacting with gratitude, Lowery is very upset with Cory for shooting his friend without giving him a chance. Cory makes a reasoned and sensitive response to his protest, introducing Lowery’s cheek to the palm of his hand.

He then shows Lowery the thorn behind Garvey’s ear. It’s a Varga thorn, he says, and this is what drove him into a murderous state.

The pair go inside the ship, and outside, Garvey’s hand starts to move, the flesh beginning to mutate into something else…

Inside the ship, Cory fills Lowery in on information he probably ought to have been given in the first place, but then again, if he already knew it then there wouldn’t be an opportunity to do an exposition dump. Cory is an agent with the Space Security Service: licence to kill, naturally. About a thousand years have passed since the last Dalek invasion of Earth, but they’ve been rebuilding their power in the meantime, and just last week a Dalek ship was spotted in local space.

As Cory explains all this, a now-transformed Garvey rises from the dead. He is more plant than human now.

Cory goes on to explain that he’s investigating this planet because, as the most hostile planet in known space, it could be a hidden base for the Daleks. Bringing up the thorn again, he tells Lowery that it’s a Varga thorn, and the Varga plant only grows naturally on the Dalek homeworld of Skaro. Logically, if there are Varga here, the Daleks must be too. Well, thinking about it, they could have been here, done some gardening, and then left, but he doesn't seem to consider that.

Sure enough, in the next scene we see a few Daleks. They’re expecting to receive emissaries from seven planets soon. Before they can hold their meeting, however, they’ll be needing to do something about the alien spaceship they’ve found. They’re going to destroy it, and any occupants. Big shocker, there.

The human astronauts are in big trouble as they set up their rescue beacon outside the ship. They’re surrounded by Varga, and the Daleks are closing in on their position.

Spotting a huge rocket ship flying overhead, Cory surmises that something very big is going on here, and if the Daleks are involved then the whole galaxy is in danger. They need to record a message and send the rescue beacon as soon as possible.

Before they can send it however, they hear the approaching Daleks, and grabbing the rocket they head for the cover of the jungle.

The Daleks find the human ship and set out to search for the crew, but not before blowing their vessel to smithereens.

As the pair move through the jungle, disaster strikes when Lowery brushes against a Varga, and it pricks his hand. Frightened, he conceals it from the other man. Have you watched no horror flicks ever, man? Everyone knows that nothing good ever comes of concealing the fact that you're about to turn into a bug-eyed monster/zombie/shrubbery with legs.

Meanwhile, an assortment of strange alien envoys are meeting with the Daleks. However, the meeting can’t begin as one of the aliens knows of a hostile influence on the planet, but the Daleks assure them that the humans are in the process of being hunted down and destroyed.

The assembled aliens agree to an alliance with the Daleks in a historic first which is very bad news for the rest of the galaxy. They represent the greatest invasion force ever assembled, and where are they planning to begin? Earth, of course.

It’s a very nice planet but why are aliens always so obsessed with it?

It’s interesting to me at any rate to see Daleks making alliances with other powers in space. They always seemed like loners to me, but I suppose pragmatism wins out in the end. I'll be curious to see how this all turns out. I wouldn't be surprised if the Daleks turn on their allies as soon as they outlive their usefulness.

Things go from bad to worse for the humans, as Lowery is quickly succumbing to the Varga’s poison. Cory returns from scouting to report having found a Dalek city hidden in the jungle, and he heard an announcement that the invasion of the galaxy is about to begin.

However, the Varga venom has consumed Lowery, leaving Cory with no choice but to shoot him dead as he reaches for his gun. Alone and with the Daleks fast catching up to him, he hurriedly records a message to warn the rest of the galaxy.

And then the worst-case scenario happens.

As he tries to attach the message to the beacon, the Daleks surround him. With a cry of ‘Exterminate!’ they blast him with everything they’ve got. Moments later, Cory lies dead, and his message will never be sent.

The galaxy won't know what hit it.

Final Thoughts

No, really. That’s it. That’s the whole story. This is the first Doctor Who story to be a single episode long. Not only that, it’s the first one in which neither the Doctor nor his companions make an appearance. I suppose he got his day off after all!

And to top it all off, this is the only episode so far in which the baddies win.

It is surprisingly dark. Doctor Who has never really shied away from character death, but it’s normally just the bad guys and one or two goodies at most that end up kicking the bucket. If this is setting the tone for the upcoming behemoth of a serial, which will also be by Terry Nation and featuring the Daleks, then we might have some grim television ahead of us.

Don’t get me wrong, though— I like it. It does admittedly feel more like a prequel to a bigger story than an actual standalone story of its own, but it’s tightly paced, they’ve managed to squeeze in a little characterisation which is pretty commendable given the very short runtime, and the Daleks are back to feeling like a real threat again, plus a tease of a number of other potentially interesting enemies.

It looks like our pal the Doctor is going to have his work cut out for him. We’ll have to wait and see how he gets on…

And for one final thing, I hear that this is Verity Lambert’s final episode as a producer on Doctor Who. I think we all owe her a big thank you for her role in bringing the show to life in the first place, and as a woman I thank and commend her for being the BBC’s first woman producer, paving the way for the many talented women who will follow in her footsteps. Thank you, Verity, and we all wish you the very best of luck for the future.

4 out of 5 stars

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 28, 1965] An Hour Of My Life I Will Never Get Back (Doctor Who: The Chase [parts 4-6])

June 28, 2020 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

The title of this article says it all, really. This serial is… well, it’s really quite something, and I don’t mean that in a good way. So, to recap: the Daleks are chasing the TARDIS through time and space, taking them to exotic places like a desert world beset by monsters, a mysterious ghost ship, and… a New York tourism hot-spot. Let's see where they wind up next.

JOURNEY INTO TERROR

Well, here we go, I suppose. The TARDIS makes a landing in a dusty old mansion, and the Doctor drags Ian off to explore while the women make the much more sensible choice to stay near the TARDIS. The mansion is quite thoroughly spooky, infested with bats and goodness knows what else.

It doesn’t take long for things to take a creepy turn, as skeletons drop from the ceiling and ghosts rudely barge through people.

And then Frankenstein’s Monster shows up.

No, really.

The Doctor and Ian find a laboratory upstairs, and within, a familiar scene: the strange machinery, the lumpy shape under the tarp. And then the monster rises, giving the pair quite the fright.

Meanwhile, downstairs…

I cannot believe I’m typing this.

Downstairs, Barbara and Vicki meet Count Dracula.

He doesn’t do much other than introduce himself and then leave. In the time Barbara takes to see where he went, Vicki manages to disappear, and a woman appears on the balcony above to scream something unintelligible. Nope, I have no idea what her problem is.

Anyway.

Barbara leans into a moving wall because no haunted house is complete without a few secret passageways.

Upstairs, the men note that something feels strangely familiar about the house. Oh, like the numerous public domain characters running about the place?

I’ll bet you Walt Disney had something to do with this.

The Doctor comes up with a theory on this house being some sort of physical manifestation of the collective fears of humanity. I don’t know what the physical manifestation of existential dread would be, but perhaps that’s a bit too heavy for teatime telly.

If his theory is true, the Daleks shouldn’t be able to land here, seeing as it's all just a figment of the imagination.

And a couple of minutes after making his case, the Daleks land. So much for that, then.

Ian and the Doctor can't find the women downstairs, and beginning to worry they reluctantly venture back into the laboratory, where a Dalek politely asks Ian where the time travellers are.

Let’s just take a moment to process this. You mean to tell me that the Daleks have been chasing these humans across time and space for three and a half episodes, and don’t even know what they look like?

Ian and the Doctor scarper as Frankenstein’s Monster rises to do battle with the Dalek. Now, there’s a sentence I never imagined writing. Time to place your bets, folks. Who would win, the Monster or the Dalek?

You might be surprised.

The men make it back downstairs, where they manage to meet with the women again. Where did they go and how did they get back? Pssh, who cares? It’s time for the Hammer Horror showdown.

A Dalek arrives on scene to accost the gang, but before it gets the chance to blast them to kingdom come, Count Dracula pops out. The group make a run for it while the Dalek is distracted, Vicki stopping to warn the Count of the grave danger he’s in. Bless.

However, she needn’t worry, as the Dalek’s blast does nothing at all to him. Well, I say she needn't worry, but that's not quite true. The Count's fine, but the Doctor's neglected to do a headcount and the TARDIS just left without her.

Then things really descend into madness.

As the Count repeatedly informs the Daleks ‘III AAAM COOOUNT DRAAACULA’, Frankenstein’s Monster tosses the plunger-toting menace about like dustbins, and the woman on the balcony incessantly screams gibberish. Amidst the chaos, Vicki sneaks aboard the Dalek capsule.

The Daleks, realising they’re beaten, beat a hasty machine into their own capsule. So, that wild fever dream is over. What was really going on, though?

The Doctor stands by his theory, but Ian thinks a simpler explantation is more likely. Sure enough, he’s right, though he'll never know it.

The cameraman lets us in on the secret by panning the camera down to the the ticket stand for ‘Frankenstein’s House Of Horrors’, $10 entry, which further signs indicate was the highlight of the "1996 Festival of Ghana." Well, it would have been if the event hadn’t been "cancelled by Peking."

I only have more questions now.

So, anyway, aboard the TARDIS the adults eventually realise they’ve left their ward behind. Mr Chesterton and Miss Wright, I am very disappointed in you. You’re meant to be the responsible ones.

Aboard the Dalek ship, they’re in hot pursuit, and about to deploy their secret weapon: a ‘perfect’ robot copy of the Doctor.

I will get to this in a moment.

Vicki attempts to contact the TARDIS to no avail. The rest of her team are feeling tremendously guilty as well they should. However, they apparently can’t go back for her for important time-travel reasons, but if they could capture the Dalek ship, they could get her in that.

Let’s just go with it.

On the Dalek ship, the roboDoctor is almost ready. Or perhaps I should call him Roboctor? Let’s have a look at him.

A perfect copy, the Daleks insist. Sure, apart from the face, the height, the build, the general bearing, and, well, everything about him. Hartnell voices him in a very dodgy dub. I don't know why he couldn't just play the doppleganger fully.

You know what? I’m going to call it Doctor What.

The final shot rolls in as Doctor What affirms his orders to infiltrate and destroy and this time… he is played by Hartnell. I despair. Why? I just do not understand. It’s so jarring.

Stick around, we’re not done yet.

THE DEATH OF DOCTOR WHO

It might well be if things carry on like this.

The TARDIS lands in a swamp populated by walking mushrooms that are scared of bright lights. That’s neat, I suppose.

There’s a trail of lights overhead, which the companions decide to follow, reasoning that this might be a decent place to fight the Daleks. The Daleks arrive soon after and decide they should kill anything that moves, because of course they do.

Vicki creeps out from hiding and flees into the swamp, promptly running into a walking mushroom. It doesn’t kill her because ‘killed by a giant mushroom’ is too embarrassing a fate to foist upon any character. The universe won't abide it.

The rest of the group find a cave at the end of the trail of lights, and in it they find a sort of glowing wand which they can use to ward off the mushrooms. It’s more of a glorified torch than a weapon, but that doesn’t stop Barbara waving it about and making adorable shooty sounds.

Ian’s been toting the Doctor's device around since they left the TARDIS, but the Doctor warns everybody that they can't use it in an enclosed space. Honestly I’m not convinced that it isn’t just a transistor radio. You could do some damage if you threw it hard enough at someone’s head, I suppose.

Vicki manages to fight off the giant mushroom because, well. It’s a mushroom. She finds the TARDIS, but it’s locked, and the mushroom is still following her. Maybe it just wants to be her friend? Consider the mushroom’s feelings, Vicki.

Having tried absolutely nothing to get out of her situation such as, I don’t know, running away and looking for the others, Vicki is all out of ideas. And as you do when you run out of ideas, she starts screaming her head off.

Though they’re probably miles away, the rest of the gang hear her, and the men run out to see what’s making that dreadful racket. With them gone, Doctor What slips into the cave.

The Doctor and Ian find Vicki unconscious with a mushroom standing over her. Now, this looks bad for the mushroom, but I have to reiterate that it’s a mushroom and probably can’t hurt anyone, unless Vicki tried eating it, I suppose. I bet she just fainted.

Doctor What continues to frustrate me as the episode keeps flipping between having him played by Hartnell and Hartnell's double. It’s just so visually confusing.

Doctor What tells Barbara that Ian’s dead, and she could try acting a little sadder if you ask me. He lures her out of the cave to look for his body, and the real Doctor and Ian come back to find her gone. While Ian goes to look for her, the Doctor stays to look after Vicki.

However, upon awakening to find the Doctor leaning over her, Vicki panics and hits him, thinking that he’s Doctor What. It’s then that Ian returns, and they work out what must have happened to Barbara.

Ian manages to have an appropriately horrified reaction to Barbara being in mortal danger, and runs out to look for her.

Hearing Ian calling out for her, Barbara is overjoyed to realise he’s alive, but her joy turns to horror as Doctor What attacks her. Luckily Ian’s soon on the scene and Doctor What beats a hasty retreat.

They return to the cave, but the gang seems to have acquired an extra Doctor.

One tries to attack the other, but Ian intervenes, to which this Doctor threatens him too. Well, that was a clever idea, wasn’t it? The very-obviously-not-Hartnell Doctor watches from the sidelines, urging Ian to destroy the ‘fake’ Doctor with a rock.

However, before Ian gets the chance (he didn’t even pause to think!), Barbara realises the deception and stops him.

Now comes the one point in the serial where there’s any point to using the double: a Doctor fight!

Ah, but which Doctor won? Now, that would have been fun to play with, but nothing comes of it, so I’ll chalk this up as a missed opportunity.

The Daleks find the TARDIS, but come under attack by a mushroom and decide to call it a night. Meanwhile, the companions get some rest. Their presence hasn’t gone unnoticed, however. As they sleep, a camera descends from the ceiling and observes them.

Upon awakening, the companions spot a city suspended high above the canopy. It’s a nice design, very organic, so a thumbs up from me to the art department.

However, they might pay more attention to the sights at ground level, as the Daleks have found their cave.

Ian comes up with the bright idea for the Doctor to pretend to be the robot, and as the group argues over whether that’s a good idea (and decides that it’s not), the Doctor, listening in the background, heads outside to give it a go. I’m proud of him. He’d never have taken a risk like that back when he first met the Daleks, now here he goes putting himself in danger to help his friends.

Still, the companions weren’t wrong when they decided it was a bad idea, as it only takes a Dalek about ten seconds to realise that the Doctor isn’t a robot, and the Doctor flees back into the cave as the Dalek shoots at him, shaken up but unharmed. Ah, well. It was worth a try.

He’s about to use his device as a last resort when the rear wall of the cave opens up to reveal a massive Christmas tree ornament. This thing is called a Mechanoid, and it sounds like a Dalek that’s lost its voice from all the screaming. With no better options, the gang decide to follow it.

There’s one good thing I can say about this point of the serial: one more episode and it’s over!

THE PLANET OF DECISION

The group follow the Mechanoid into a lift, and it’s just as awkward as any time one shares a lift (or ‘elevator’ for the Americans) with a perfect stranger, with the Mechanoid ignoring any and all attempts at small talk.

The Daleks are momentarily confused to find the cave empty, but soon realise that the group must have escaped through a wall somehow.

The lift arrives at its destination on the elevated walkway, and the group begin to make their way to the city. The Mechanoid meets another Mechanoid and they perform a strange gesture which could be a greeting, but could just be a result of them being too bulbous to move past one another.

The Mechanoid takes them to a building and ushers them inside, where they find a bed, some scaffolding, and a man by the name of Steven Taylor. You might find him a little familiar, as his actor, Peter Purves, appeared a few episodes ago as the man from Alabama at the top of the Empire State Building.

Honestly, Steven might be the one new character in this whole serial I don’t loathe. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I really rather like him. He’s a little odd, as anyone would be after two years of isolation, but he’s a nice bloke and good-humoured.

Steven explains that Earth decided to colonise this world about fifty years ago and sent the Mechanoids on ahead to get started on the building, but then humanity got itself involved in another war and all plans for colonisation fell by the wayside. Cool, but I have to ask how do the Mechanoids build anything? Look at them! They’re less dextrous than Daleks, and that’s saying something.

He’s been their prisoner since he crash-landed two years ago, and it looks like the companions are the new exhibits in the Mechanoids’ human zoo. Why are the Mechanoids keeping people like zoo animals? Honestly no idea.

The Daleks manage to get at the lift shaft and head in, despite reservations about the potential firepower of the Mechanoids. I think the Daleks might have been humbled a little by their string of misadventures.

It turns out that the scaffolding in the human pen leads up to the roof, which is unguarded. That’s all well and good, but it’s 1500 feet up. Bit of a big jump.

The Doctor finally thinks to mention that he has a functioning spaceship, giving Steven hope that they might finally escape. Ian finds a coil of cable, and while he unravels it, the Doctor reports to the girls the plan to climb down. They aren’t terribly keen, to say the least.

However, they don’t get chance to protest too much, as the Daleks arrive at the city for a showdown with the Mechanoids. Everyone rushes onto the roof and prepares to get going, as the Doctor primes his device, leaving a little something for the Daleks to remember him by.

They have to blindfold Vicki and tie the cable around her waist to get her down, but otherwise that part of the plan goes without a hitch as the Doctor’s device explodes and incapacitates exactly one Dalek. However, Steven realises he left his lucky stuffed panda mascot behind and rushes back into the burning building to look for it.

Oh, and the Daleks and Mechanoids fight. Being as awkward and unwieldy as the pair are, it’s about as thrilling as you’d expect. The Mechanoids do have flamethrowers though, which I suppose is neat. Honestly I’m rooting for the Daleks in this fight, because I find the Mechanoids’ voices that annoying.

The companions make it down to the forest floor sans Steven, and moments later the city collapses in flames.

The group make it to the Dalek time capsule, and find it empty. They’ve won.

So, what do you do with a spare time-and-space-ship? You go home in it, that’s what.

Though it seems the programme forgot about it long ago, Ian and Barbara have been trying to get back home since they first came aboard the TARDIS, hindered by circumstance and the Doctor’s dodgy piloting skills. Here’s their chance to get home, and they’re going to take it.

I am deeply, deeply annoyed that this couldn’t have come at the end of a better serial.

At least Steven turns out to be alive after all.

The Doctor is apoplectic at the suggestion of the teachers piloting the Dalek ship home, citing the immense risks involved. And, well, I think he got rather used to having them around.

It gets quite heated as Ian complains that he’s tired of all this aimless drifting through space, which is basically the Doctor’s entire way of life. The Doctor insists he’s been trying to get them home all this time, seeing as he never wanted them aboard to begin with.

It’s only when Vicki intervenes and reassures the Doctor that she won’t leave him alone that he finally relents and shows the teachers how to work the machine.

The Doctor and Vicki leave them to it, the Doctor saying that it’s fifty-fifty whether they make it or not. The Dalek machine dematerialises. Did they make it?

Welcome to London, 1965. Newest arrivals: Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.

Ian sets the machine to self-destruct and then the pair run off into a photo montage in which they’re attacked by pigeons, make silly faces and just generally lark about London like a couple of drunken students. It’s sweet seeing them being so overjoyed to get back home, and when they eventually flop onto a bus seat and ask for the wrong fare, Ian has the perfect answer when the conductor asks him if he’s been living on the moon: “No, but you’re getting warm.”

The Doctor and Vicki survey them on the Space Telly, and though Vicki is thrilled to see they made it safely, the Doctor is thoroughly down in the dumps. Tearfully he admits that he shall miss Ian and Barbara, and I think my heart just broke a little bit.

Final Thoughts

I think we can all agree that that ending deserved a better serial than The Chase. Ian and Barbara deserved a better final story than The Chase. William Russell and Jacqueline Hill certainly deserved a better serial to end on.

I think I’ve gone on for long enough about this serial’s many failings: the meandering plot, the frequent slow moments, the way it renders the Daleks as more of a joke than a menace, and that’s without mentioning the Dracula in the room. Oh, and the humour's pretty weak, too.

So, that said, let’s give Ian and Barbara some love. I noted earlier that I don’t think the Doctor would have pulled his stunt with the Dalek had this situation come up back when he first met them. What changed his character for the better? Ian and Barbara. Back in The Daleks, they’d barely met him, yet they’d already stopped him from acting on his worst impulses in the previous serial, steering him away from homicide. From the start they’ve been the moral backbone of the show, supporting the Doctor as he developed one of his own. The character we see in this serial is almost an entirely different person from the selfish, grouchy man in the junkyard.

For much of the show’s run, I’ve seen Ian and Barbara as the only real adults in the group. While they were introduced to the show to give it an educational component, I think we can agree the scholarly side of that has fallen by the wayside. What didn’t, however, was the moral education they gave both the audience and the other characters. They constantly challenged the Doctor and the people they met to rise to a better standard. And although we can’t say for certain the impact they left on all the people they left behind, the result with the Doctor speaks for itself.

It would have been easy for Ian and Barbara to have become irritating and sanctimonious, but they managed to remain thoroughly likable throughout their travels. Part of that must surely go to the talent and charm of Russell and Hill, who I’m sure have long, successful careers ahead of them. They made a fantastic pair. Though I’m sad to see them both go, I must admit that it makes sense, as having one without the other wouldn’t be the same.

So, thank you, Ian and Barbara. Thank you William and Jacqueline. And thank you all for your continued interest in all things Doctor Who.

2 out of 5 stars

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 6, 1965] The Dawdle, More Like (Doctor Who: The Chase [Parts 1-3])

June 6, 2020 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

Well, it had to happen eventually. It’s impossible for a writer to knock it out of the park every time, and Terry Nation has batted his first foul ball. I think that’s the metaphor, anyway. But yes, his streak is over, giving us a rather tiresome story, The Chase, that I now bear the burden of talking about for a couple thousand words.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

THE EXECUTIONERS

I was very excited going into this serial, as of course the Dalek stories we’ve had so far have also brought with them some societal commentary, and I am a big fan of that sort of thing. A bit of running around and zapping things is fun, but if you can give me food for thought at the same time I’ll fall madly in love.

This is not one of those stories.

The first half of the first episode is more or less dedicated to watching the companions watching television IN SPACE. Remember the Time And Space Visualiser the Doctor picked up from the museum? Yes, he gets it fixed so they all gather round to watch historical events across time and space. Because surely that’s much more fun than just using your time machine to visit these places in person. They snoop on the court of Queen Elizabeth I, watch Abraham Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address, and at Vicki’s request, they tune in to Top Of The Pops to watch The Beatles. Don’t get me wrong, I like the lads from Liverpool, but this is just pure filler. It serves no purpose whatsoever and honestly it’s quite boring.

Didn't your mothers ever warn you not to sit so close to the telly?

So after all that, the plot finally starts to move, as the TARDIS lands on a desert planet, sand dunes stretching far as the eye can see. The Doctor and Barbara stay by the TARDIS to catch some sun, while Ian and Vicki go exploring. Vicki finds some strange, bad smelling substance on the ground, and she and Ian follow the trail, not knowing that there’s something alive in the sand.

Back at the TARDIS, Barbara hears an awful noise. No, it’s not the Doctor’s singing. The Time And Space Visualiser (gosh, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it? Let’s just call it a Space Telly) has picked up the Daleks in pursuit.

Cue a rather awkward scene in which the Dalek explain their plans for assassinating the TARDIS crew to one another, for nobody’s benefit but the audience. It’s a terribly clumsy way to deliver exposition, and the scene doesn’t get any better as we watch them silently file into their time capsule one by one. There are loads of them and I aged five years in the time it took.

So now that I’m pushing thirty and the Daleks have finally got into their time capsule, the Doctor and Barbara realise it’s time to get going, and fast. However, Ian and Vicki have wandered far away by now.

Vicki finds the end of the trail, and though at first glance nothing seems to be there, Ian finds some sort of ring in the sand, not unlike a door handle. After some deliberation over whether it’s a good idea to be pulling on things without knowing what they are, Ian goes ahead and tugs it, yanking the ring out of the ground, and opening up a hidden passageway.

There's a monster in the shot, honest.

Ever the responsible adult, Ian lets Vicki go in first, and they almost immediately run into a big ugly monster. I give it five minutes before Vicki gives it a name and tries to adopt it as a pet.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Barbara struggle through a sandstorm in a fruitless attempt to find the two, and once the storm has cleared, they realise to their horror that the landscape has changed entirely, and they can no longer find their way back to the TARDIS.

Worse, however, is the familiar shape rising from the sand…

Eh. It was a lot cooler when they had Daleks coming out of the Thames. So yes, that was a sequence of events. Calling it the beginning of a story feels a bit too generous. I call it a big load of nothing.

Let’s see where The Chase goes from here.

THE DEATH OF TIME

The music accompanying the episode titles in this serial is so ill-fitting it makes me cross. It’s just this weird jazzy sounding thing. I have no idea what tone it’s trying to set, but whatever it is it’s failing abysmally.

Spotting additional Daleks approaching over the dunes, the Doctor and Barbara flee, only to run into a bunch of humanoid fish people, because who else would you be expecting to find in a desert?

Ian and Vicki run away from the monster in the tunnels. I’m not sure it was really making much of an effort to get them.

The Daleks start murdering any local unfortunate enough to wander within shooting range, and identify the planet as Aridia (because it’s arid, get it?).

The Aridians, or fish people as I called them, seem to be a friendly sort (or at the very least not actively hostile), and they give the Doctor and Barbara the standard speech they get from just about every alien culture they come across. Or at least, that’s how it feels. You know the one, it’s about the world once being all lovely then something bad happened and now it’s rubbish so gee, it sure would be nice if someone were to drop in and help us right about now.

Also, they can’t act for toffee. You can’t argue that it’s some sort of artistic choice, like you could with the bee people who communicated through a mixture of weird sing-song voices and interpretive dance.

The Aridians are not like that. They are just plain bad. I’m talking drama-club-at-the-village-hall bad.

Through this haze of weird line delivery and overwrought emoting, the Aridians explain that this was once a watery world where they lived in cities beneath the sea, but the suns moved closer (oh, there are two suns) and the seas dried up, killing everything except the Aridians and the dreaded Mire Beasts.

The Aridians realise that Ian and Vicki must have found their way into one of the old airlocks leading to the city, which is very bad news as they’re about to blow up the tunnels to trap the Mire Beasts.

The group rushes to try to find them, but they’re too late. As a Mire Beast attacks Vicki, the charges go off, sending rubble crashing onto the Mire Beast, killing it stone dead, and knocking Ian unconscious. Vicki runs to look for help, as meanwhile the others arrive to the gates of the city. Though the Doctor is hesitant to involve the Aridians in his troubles with the Daleks, the friendly fish people assure him that they just want to help.

Daleks are keen detectorists.

Elsewhere, the Daleks find where the TARDIS is buried and continue to narrate their own actions. With this much padding, I have to ask if Nation originally wrote a three-or-four-episode serial and was asked by the BBC to stretch it out to six. It’s completely sucking all the tension out of the story.

In the city of the Aridians, the Doctor and Barbara get their first hot meal in a while, though Barbara is too anxious about the others to eat, and the Doctor notes that the food has an odd taste. Now, ordinarily I would take this as a hint that they’ve been given something horrific to eat and that the Aridians have some dark secret behind the friendly facade, but it appears to be a red herring, as nothing comes of it.

Still, I have to wonder what exactly the Aridians are eating if there’s no land suitable for farming and all the animals have died, and they said themselves that they can’t kill the Mire-Beasts, so they can’t be hunting them. So that just leaves…. Well, I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

However, the Daleks learn that the Aridians are sheltering the Doctor, and issue an ultimatum: either they hand over the Doctor, or the Daleks will destroy the city. The Aridians have no choice but to hold the Doctor and Barbara as prisoners while they decide what to do.

Vicki manages to find her way back to the TARDIS, discovering that the Daleks have dug it out of the sand with the unwilling help of some Aridians, who they promptly murder once the work is finished. I’ve heard of bad bosses, but that takes the cake.

The Daleks start bombarding the TARDIS, but to their frustration the little wooden box is impervious to their weapons. Appearances, after all, can be deceiving.

The Aridians come to the decision that they have to hand the Doctor and Barbara over, even though I wouldn’t trust a Dalek as far as I could throw one.

Ian wakes up from his little nap (being unconscious for that long, that man needs his head checking out) and gets up to search for Vicki, who has just been snatched in the tunnels by an Aridian.

In the city, Barbara notices dust coming from a bricked-up doorway. It’s apparently blocking off a section of the city that was lost to the Mire Beasts. It’s rather shoddy work considering it’s meant to keep literal monsters at bay. The Aridians drag Vicki in, and she tells them what she saw. However, before they can discuss plans of escape any further, the Aridians come to collect them for the handover to the Daleks.

It’s at this point the Aridians’ shoddy brickwork comes back to bite them. A tentacle bursts through the wall, ensnaring Barbara. In the ensuing struggle, she manages to break free. The companions flee the scene, leaving the Aridians to their fate at the tentacles of the Mire Beast. See, this is why you check reviews before hiring your builder.

Hm, maybe it should have stayed in the shadows.

The Daleks issue the Aridians a further ultimatum upon learning of the companions’ escape. They have one hour to recapture them, or the Daleks will destroy the city. For a Dalek, that’s a surprising display of patience.

The Doctor, Barbara and Vicki run into Ian in the tunnels. Ian comes up with a plan to evade the Daleks and get back into the TARDIS. He asks for Barbara’s cardigan (nicely, this time) and the Doctor’s coat, and uses them to construct a simple pitfall trap.

While the women wait for their chance to make a break for it, the Doctor and Ian catch the attention of the Dalek on guard. The stupid thing blunders into the trap, and the companions make a break for it, their ship dematerialising as the Daleks open fire.

This is actually a decent and fun scene. I have to call attention to it, because those are so very rare in this serial.

Other than that, all I can really say about this episode is…nothing, really. Not particularly bad, not particularly good, mostly dull with a good bit or two. It garners a shrug and a ‘eh’. It exists.

FLIGHT THROUGH ETERNITY

The TARDIS flees through time and space, while the Daleks waste a lot of time talking about their plans to follow them at once rather than just doing it. It’s an absolute tension killer.

Inside the TARDIS, the companions’ celebration of their escape gets cut short when the Space Telly detects another time machine pursuing them again.

Also, there’s a really obvious cardboard cutout on the Dalek ship. Look, I don’t mind being creative to stay in budget, but if you’re going to use a cardboard cutout, stick it in the background of a shot.

The TARDIS needs to land for…some reason, and the Doctor plonks it in the land of stock footage. Gee, I wonder which city this is?

Oh, of course, it’s New Amsterdam.

Silly me.

To the people of the United States of America: I apologise for the travesty that is to follow. I’m talking about the accents. Oh, boy. The accents. They are absolutely atrocious.

Well, at least we’re now even for Mary Poppins.

There’s yet! More! Padding! As a tour guide shows a bunch of tourists the famous New York landmarks from the top of the Empire State Building, which is where the TARDIS has just materialised.

'Maybe if we ignore him long enough, he'll go away.'

Upon emerging from their ship, they meet a man from Alabama who embodies just about every stereotype about American southerners you can imagine. It’s honestly embarrassing. He’s a friendly enough chap though, telling Barbara that the current year is 1966. He's very curious about how they appeared seemingly from nowhere. The companions manage to brush him off and depart, but the Daleks arrive moments later, demanding to know where they went.

In the greatest display of patience I have ever seen, the Daleks don’t just shoot him for being annoying. He thinks this is all some Hollywood lark.

That's not a microphone, buddy.

Back in the TARDIS, the companions learn the Daleks are still hot on their heels. They need to find a way to fight back.

The next landing spot is a nineteenth-century sailing ship somewhere off the Azores, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Barbara can’t resist having a look around, leading her into trouble when an officer accosts her. Luckily for Barbara, Vicki soon comes to give the officer a good whack on the head. Hearing someone else coming, Barbara tells Vicki to hide. Vicki gives the newcomer a good whack, before realising it was just Ian. Poor Ian. It’s a wonder he has any functioning brain cells left.

The women manhandle a dazed Ian back onto the TARDIS, which vanishes as the officer wakes up. He informs the captain of what he found, and the captain rallies the crew to search the ship. However, it’s not long before the Daleks show up, terrifying the sailors so much that they leap overboard, which strikes me as a bit of a silly thing to do.

The Daleks search the now-abandoned ship, finding no sign of the TARDIS, and continue the chase. We then have a long, long series of shots of the abandoned ship. It's the Mary Celeste.

The TARDIS whizzes off into time and space, but they’re losing their lead on the Daleks. They’d better hope that the Doctor manages to finish his secret weapon before the Daleks catch up.

Final Thoughts

Here we are. That was the first half of The Chase. Suffice to say, I am underwhelmed. There’s no interesting philosophical or social angle. It’s not even an exciting prolonged chase sequence. There are far too many lulls in the action and too much obvious padding.

The Daleks feel completely ineffective. They spend too much time dithering to seem like an unstoppable force of death.

The Aridians were just rubbish. Although we haven’t seen any real conclusion of what happens to them, frankly I just don’t care.

Even as an adventure, a romp, this serial doesn’t work. Let’s compare it to The Keys Of Marinus, for example. Both serials involve the companions travelling in rapid succession from one place to another. However, The Chase is more of a whistle-stop tour than a real adventure. In The Keys Of Marinus, the companions had some sort of obstacle to overcome at each destination. After Aridia, they bounced from one location to the next. There’s no real reason for them to have got out of the TARDIS at all in New York or on the ship, other than to trot out a few new sets and some dodgy accents. Then they just get back in again and leave. That’s not an adventure, that’s tourism.

I do hope that the serial improves from here. However, past experience would indicate that a serial which starts poorly ends poorly. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 27th, 1964] No tears, no regrets, no anxieties (Doctor Who: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Parts 4-6)

December 27, 2019 Jessica Holmes 6 Comments

By Jessica Holmes

Hello, hello, everyone, I hope you’ve all had a lovely winter holiday. So, let’s recap: The Dalek invasion of Earth is well underway and everything is going wrong. That’s the gist of it. Can the Doctor and company make it right? Let’s see.

THE END OF TOMORROW

Tick tock goes the bomb, counting down the Doctor, Susan and David’s last few minutes. To make matters worse, the Doctor’s still woozy, and he passes out when he’s most needed, so Susan and David have to try and disarm the bomb themselves. David uses some acid from Dortmun’s acid-bomb to get through the casing of the device, melting through it in seconds flat. Once the casing is removed, David manages to remove the activation mechanism. Crisis averted.

Now they’re no longer about to be blown to bits, David takes charge, because…well, he’s the only available bloke, I suppose. Anyway, David decides that the Doctor should hide while he and Susan look for a way out of London.

Meanwhile, Barbara and Jenny are preparing a lorry. Suppose it’s handy they went to a transport museum!

Ian and Larry are on the road, and they spot a bunch of human slaves towing along a cart for the Daleks. Has all the coal run out or something? I know, I’m nitpicking the logistics of the Dalek invasion.

Ian and Larry get spotted by one of the workers, a man called Wells, who manages to cover for them with some quick thinking when a Roboman asks what they’re doing. The Roboman still demands they come with him, and hits Wells. Ian and Larry stop to help, but the Roboman orders them to desist. When they don’t, he says ‘You must obey orders!’ to which Ian snaps back, ‘Get new orders.’

It seems to fry the robo-bloke’s head a bit. He’s still mulling it over as they escape. I don’t know why; perhaps the Robomen just aren’t very bright.

The Roboman eventually gets himself sorted out and comes to apprehend the men, only to be clobbered over the back of the head by Ian for his troubles. Safe for now, Wells tells the men about a smuggler called Ashton who might be able to help them get out of the work camp.

Back in London, Barbara and Jenny are taking their time getting out of the city. Jenny is frustrated that Dortmun would throw his life away just to prove a point. Barbara retorts that he sacrificed himself so they’d have a chance to escape and thwart the Dalek invasion. The Daleks seem to have assumed that Dortmun was alone, so haven’t come poking around. Because apparently the Daleks only have a couple of brain cells between them.

It seems like a bit of a weak justification for killing off the only disabled character, if you ask me. It’s almost as if it was just more convenient to kill him off. No need to keep lugging a wheelchair around. Sorry if I sound a bit cynical, but we wheelchair-users don’t tend to be included in adventures, and when we are? Things like this happen.

Later on Jenny and Barbara’s road trip, they come to a gang of Daleks blocking the road. Does Barbara stop? Try a different route? Nope. Barbara doesn’t even slow down. The Daleks tumble like bowling pins, and there isn’t even a scratch on the lorry! Poor Dortmun. Bloke works for years perfecting acid-bombs that don’t work, and some 20th-century lorry makes scrap of the Daleks.

On the Dalek saucer, they prepare to intercept. Hearing the saucer coming for them, Barbara and Jenny leap from the vehicle, just before a ray from the saucer turns it into a toy lorry which then blows up. Oh. Oh, sorry. Same lorry, bad model. My mistake.

Down in the sewer, Susan and David ran into Tyler, who warns them that the sewers are full of alligators. Yes, alligators.

He decides to lead the two back to the Doctor, and curtly informs Susan that he hasn’t seen Barbara or Ian. Susan laments his apparent lack of caring, and David explains that he resists getting at all close to people, because he’s known too much killing. Or maybe, Susan, he just has a bit more on his mind at the moment than exchanging pleasantries.

David assures Susan that one day the Dalek invasion will be over, and they’ll be able to have a fresh start.

Up in Bedford, Ian and Larry hear an unearthly growl, and we can see… something skulking in the back of the shot. It took me a moment to decide whether or not it was just part of the set. That was until it moved. It slithers away at Ian’s approach, leaving the men none the wiser as to what on Earth they just heard. The men head off, meeting up with Ashton the smuggler, a terribly friendly chap who greets them with a loaded pistol.

Luckily for them, Wells turns up and vouches for the pair. Ashton relents and they sit down to have some food.

Ian asks what the thing is outside. It’s called a Slyther, and is something of a pet to the Daleks. It eats people. Of course the Daleks like it. Where did it come from, though? Is it the only one of its kind? We will never know.

Meanwhile in the sewer, Susan almost gets herself eaten by a young alligator. It’s actually quite cute. Entirely the wrong takeaway from the scene, I know. Tyler fires on the alligator, and also manages to find the Doctor.

Look, he's only a baby.

Meanwhile, the blokes are finishing up supper when a rubbish prop… hand? Tentacle? I’m not sure. A prop whatever-it-is pops out and grabs Ashton.

It turns out that the Slyther was a lot scarier when we couldn’t really see it. It looks more like a bloke stuck inside a tattered sleeping bag than the monstrosity suggested by the excellent audio effects. To say it’s a letdown is an understatement.

The men make a run for it, but Ashton is lost to the Slyther. However, Ian and Larry don’t get far before coming to the edge of the quarry, and the Slyther is a quick eater.

THE WAKING ALLY

So, the Slyther’s closing in on Larry and Ian. Larry almost falls off the cliff, but catches himself on a conveniently placed waste bucket, which Ian hops into and helps him up. The Slyther hops over too, and there’s a little scuffle before it falls off, to its doom.

Well. That was a bit of a damp squib.

What is the point of teasing a scary monster if the monster turns out to be a) not scary, and b) defeated a couple of minutes after it turns up?

I suppose it was just there to pad out the runtime, but I would rather have no monster and a shorter runtime than a rubbish monster that couldn't even scare a baby. I doubt any of the kids watching stayed behind the sofa for very long once the Slyther appeared in the flesh, that’s for sure.

Larry wants to leg it, but Ian says no, because someone might have heard them. All the more reason to run, I’d have thought, but if they did that then the next bit of plot wouldn't happen. The waste bucket starts moving.

Down in London, the Doctor’s recovered, and the gang are being pursued by Robomen.

Once the Robomen catch up, we see why humanity is in such dire straits: the resistance is absolutely rubbish at fighting. Susan and the Doctor have to intervene to save David and Tyler from the Robomen, and the Doctor also saves one of the Robomen from Tyler, who was about to shoot him. Oh, you never take lives except when yours is threatened, Doctor? What about that cave man?

No, I’m never going to let that go.

Barbara and Jenny run across a woman and her daughter who have been scratching out a living making clothes for the slave workers. It’s not much of a living, as they’re starving and beside themselves with joy when Barbara offers to share her food. In return, the mother offers Barbara and Jenny a bed for the night. However, the daughter excuses herself and runs out on an errand. Suspicious.

And just look at Jenny's balaclava.

Meanwhile, Ian and Larry are on the long ride down the mineshaft. So long, in fact, it’s started to get noticeably warmer, and the pressure is increasing.

Back with the women, they’re chatting about London as the daughter comes back, with a Dalek trailing behind her. They’ve turned the women in, collaborating with the Daleks in return for some fruit and sugar.

Down in the mine, Ian decides to go and see if he can find the main shaft, but a bunch of slaves being escorted by Robomen come along, so he and Larry decide to blend with the group.

However, a Roboman stops them, and Larry recognises him as his brother, Phil. Phil, however, doesn’t have a shred of humanity left within him. Larry tells Ian to run while he’s got the chance, before grappling with Phil as his brother turns his electric whip on him, electrocuting the both of them. Poor Larry. Poor Phil.

At least David and Susan are having fun. They’re in the countryside throwing fish at each other. What ever happened to just going on a date? All this fish-throwing must have an aphrodisiac effect, because before very long they’re kissing.

The Doctor turns up before the couple can corrupt the youth any further, and explains his hypothesis on the Dalek invasion: it’s to do with the mining operation. Well, duh. He then starts banging on about ‘controlling the flow of living energy’ and ‘tampering with the forces of creation’. So much for being a strict man of science.

Down in the mine, Ian is evading the Robomen when a slave patrol comes along, and he spots Barbara amongst them. Don’t worry, Ian. She’s not panicking.

In fact, she’s just realised she’s still got Dortmun’s notes. They’re a handy bargaining chip to get Barbara a meeting with the top Dalek brass, where she’ll tell them all about the rebel plans for attack.

Don’t worry. She’s got a plan… probably.

Now we get to meet the head honcho, the Dalek leader, the one with the creative name. It is called…the Black Dalek.

Because it is black. And a Dalek.

But now we’re going to find out the true purpose of the Dalek invasion.

The Daleks are going to blast open a fissure in Earth’s crust, which will blow a hole in it, and allow the Daleks to remove Earth’s molten core, removing the magnetic and gravitational effects. Why? So that they can fill Earth back up with a power source (because apparently the immensely hot ball of solid iron surrounded by liquid metal surrounded by lots of hot squishy rock wasn’t enough of a power source) which will enable the Daleks to pilot the Earth around like a spaceship.

Where do I even begin?

Well, Earth is in layers, so I’ll pick it apart in layers. I apologise in advance; I’m going to go on a bit. You might want to get comfortable.

The Crust Of The Matter

For one thing, England’s an absurd location to start digging. For another, you expect me to believe that manual labour dug all the way through a couple of dozen miles of rock, perhaps more? Just think of the heat and pressure the men working in our deepest mines today have to endure. Never mind the impossibility of digging through the semi-solid mantle, or the matter of what on Earth you’re going to do with all the liquid metal from the outer core, or the solid inner core.

And that’s just the logistics.

Spaceship Earth

Why. Just… why? You’re a technologically advanced civilisation, why not build your own planet-sized space station? And why Earth? Earth surely isn’t the only celestial body this side of the galaxy with a load of squidgy rock and metal in the centre. Why not go somewhere uninhabited and use machinery to mine?

Oh, and how is this Earth-ship even going to generate thrust?

This is giving me a headache.

Why, Oh Why, Oh Why?

Why do I care so much about the silly spaceship thing? Because it is a let-down.

It is such a disappointing a motive. Had this plot turned up in a different serial I think I would have appreciated how silly it is. I like silly sci-fi. However, here it’s created something of a mood whiplash, and watered down the story.

See, it really does seem completely absurd when you consider the fact that the Daleks are quite obviously based on the Nazis.

I don't think the symbolism could be any clearer.

The parallels to the Nazi regime and their occupation of Europe have been explicit and well done throughout the serial. For example, we have the genocide of large swathes of the human population, we have the survivors being imprisoned in forced labour camps, or being subjected to barbaric medical experiments. This parallel is what makes Daleks scary. I must give Nation credit, because he has clearly put a good deal of thought into it.

I can only suppose that Nation wanted to give us a more concrete reason for the Dalek invasion than ‘they want to get rid of us’, which is generally more satisfying in a narrative, but I think that weakens the parallel. Because sometimes conquering isn’t done for wealth or land or whatever material purpose, though those are bad enough. Sometimes it’s done in the name of getting rid of the people you feel are inferior, so you can claim supremacy. Isn’t that so much more powerful and horrifying?

It does make me wonder if someone higher up the food chain held Nation back from properly following through on the allegory he’s been building for the last few episodes. After all, it’s not exactly family-friendly. However, I do think that it would have been an important thing to show the children watching: the danger of ideologies based on supremacy and hatred going unchecked, and coming to their natural conclusion.

It's about applicability to real life. I don't think there are many people out there who want to scoop out Earth's insides and turn it into a space ship. However, there are many people out there, too many, who would gladly inflict unspeakable atrocities and indignities in the name of advancing their ideas of their own so-called superiority. There was an opportunity here to illustrate this in the Dalek invasion, but it wasn't taken.

Okay. I am done ranting. I promise.

So, where were we? Ah, yes. In the control room. They’re about to launch a device to blow the Earth open. And now, because we’re really getting quite silly, we see the device. Ian’s hiding in it. And of course, he gets trapped.

Bon voyage, Ian.

This is a weaker part of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth. The tonal issues are a real problem. We go from ‘a starving family betray their fellow man in exchange for food’ to ‘the evil plan to turn Earth into a spaceship’ in the space of a few minutes.

FLASHPOINT

Where do you think you're going? I have more to waffle about.

Ian manages a narrow escape from the capsule thanks to yanking every wire he can find, and starts climbing down the cable. However, the Daleks have caught on to his presence, and one severs Ian's escape route, sending him plunging into the mineshaft. Somehow, this doesn’t kill him.

Barbara and Jenny are brought before the Daleks, who now have everything they need, so they can go about enacting their ‘final solution’ and exterminate all the humans. See what I mean about the clear metaphor?

Barbara realises that if she could commandeer the communication device the Daleks use to control the Robomen (it’s basically hypnosis with a silly hat), she could give the Robomen new orders.

Now Barbara has to bluff. It took me a moment to realise what she was doing, but it’s pretty wonderful. She’s a history teacher by profession, remember? And the Daleks haven’t been reading up on theirs, so they’re oblivious as Barbara starts concocting a tall tale of a rebel attack, pieced together from snippets of Earth’s military history, from the Punic Wars to the American Civil War. I love her.

In a moment of distraction, Barbara tries to give orders to the Robomen, but the Daleks foil her and restrain the women.

Outside, the Doctor and Tyler are surveying the dig site. The Doctor gives Susan and David orders to use their remaining bombs to sever the cables carring things to and from the mine.

Deep in the Earth, Ian wakes up, and finds a way out of the mine shaft. Rather than make good his escape, he finds some discarded mine supports and uses them to block the shaft. This comes in useful moments later, when the Daleks fire the device. It becomes stuck on the blockage, preventing the Daleks' plan coming to fruition, and leaving them none the wiser.

The Doctor and Tyler make it down to the Dalek command, somehow. There was something about disabling the alarm systems. Seems a bit too easy if you ask me.

Then again, Daleks do seem oblivious, as they don’t spot the two hiding in their peripheral vision.

For heaven's sake, it looked right at him.

Soon enough the Doctor manages to rescue Barbara and Jenny. He’s aghast when Barbara tells him the ultimate goal of the Dalek invasion, because 'it’ll upset the entire constellation'. Earth isn't a star, Doctor. And constellations change. Because stars move.

I’m beginning to think that Nation is good at sociological stories, but maybe not the ‘science’ bit of science fiction.

I know. I am no fun.

The Doctor shows the women security footage of David and Susan working to destroy the mine cables, in the hopes of immobilising the Daleks.

However, a Dalek has spotted the Doctor and company, and is moving in for the kill.

Susan and David do their thing in the knick of time, which makes the Dalek overheat, for… some reason. I have to admit that the sight from the Dalek’s eyestalk as it approaches, with the Doctor staring it down, is pretty cool.

Barbara shows the Doctor the thing that controls the Robomen. I LOVE her Dalek impression. Oh, I have a little thing for you to try: shout directly into an electric fan. It makes you sound just like a Dalek and provides hours of amusement.

But Barbara doesn’t have time to have fun making silly voices . She orders the Robomen to turn on the Daleks. Vive la résistance!

Ian reunites with the gang, and on the surface, we see Robomen literally throwing Daleks around as everyone legs it out of the mine.

The Doctor is pretty sure that the Daleks’ plan won’t work with the bomb jammed, but it’ll still be a bloody big boom, so they’d better evacuate.

The music’s not bad here. It’s a bit basic, mostly just a repeating rising scale, but it does the job of creating tension quite nicely.

The device activates, and sure enough it is one heck of a bang. Through some pretty obvious stock footage, we see the gargantuan plume that billows from the mine, and the molten rock now surging to the surface.

And it turns out that the Dalek saucers were caught up in the plume, so they’re all gone. You're telling me every Dalek on the planet was hovering over Bedford? Whatever. I’m pretty sure that means that the blast should have killed the gang, who were watching from a nearby cliff, but let’s just enjoy the spectacle.

And with that, it’s all over. Well, the Dalek invasion of Earth is, anyway.

It looks like the TARDIS survived the firebombing, proving itself to be a sturdy little ship.

Susan, however, is quite morose. She doesn’t manage to spit out what’s upsetting her to the Doctor, but being her grandfather, he knows something’s wrong, and gives her a hug.

They have a little talk where there’s a lot more going on than what’s actually said aloud. It’s like they’re dancing around the issue, Susan all but screaming that she wants to stay, the Doctor realising that his granddaughter isn’t a little girl any more, all while on the surface they're talking about a broken shoe. The Doctor excuses himself to go check on the TARDIS and ostensibly repair Susan’s shoe, pausing for a moment to look back on her and David, together.

With the Dalek invasion over, David’s dreams of being able to build a new world have finally come true. He’s going to work the land, and he wants Susan to come with him. Poor Susan is on the verge of tears as David begs her to stay.

Her grandfather needs her. However, with David, she could have what she’s always wanted: her own place in the universe.

It’s a heart-wrenching dilemma, and well acted by Carole Ann Ford.

And it’s one the Doctor is all too aware of. In the end, he takes it out of her hands.

With Susan still outside, he shuts and locks the TARDIS doors. What follows is, in my opinion, one of the most wonderful speeches anyone in Doctor Who has ever given. It’s so full of love and confidence that Susan will thrive without her grandfather. It’s like the essence of growing up distilled into about thirty seconds of dialogue.

I will transcribe a few lines for you, because it is a special piece of dialogue:

One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

Once the TARDIS is gone, Susan looks up in the sky, forlorn, as if hoping to spot that big blue box. David offers her his hand. She takes it, lets her TARDIS key fall to the ground, and they walk off hand in hand.

It’s a very bittersweet moment. Susan gets her time, her place, her love, but she has to leave the Doctor and her friends to build a new life on a planet scarred by the Dalek invasion. But in this grief comes the opportunity to create something new, and that’s quite beautiful.

Goodbye, Susan.

Final Thoughts

So, that was The Dalek Invasion Of Earth. What a serial! Though I must admit, I found the first half stronger than the second half, which would have been a bit disappointing had it not been for that wonderful speech.

I had planned to save the examination of the Nazi parallels for this section, but I found it more relevant earlier. I’ll just re-iterate the main points: the Daleks are clearly Nazis, and it’s not shy about showing the horrors of Nazi oppression. However, the silly thing with the Earth-spaceship dilutes the overall symbolism of fighting nationalist imperialism.

Of course, some might disagree with me, that giving the Dalek invasion an absurd goal actually undermines them, taking them (and fascists in general) down a peg or two. Or perhaps some may think going too far on the Nazi parallels may be too dark for teatime television, and that the earlier bits are enough. That’s fair.

Susan’s finally got some meaningful character development, but it did come at the cost of losing her from the TARDIS crew. I wonder how this will affect the group moving forward?

With Susan’s departure also comes the departure of the talented Carole Ann Ford. She really brought Susan to life, and I’m sad to see her go.

Here’s wishing her the best of luck in her future endeavours, and hoping that she pops back in from time to time for a guest appearance.

Until next time, then. See you all in the new year.

4.5 out of 5 stars

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 7, 1964] Panic On The Streets Of London (Doctor Who: THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH)

December 7, 2019 Jessica Holmes 3 Comments

By Jessica Holmes

Are you ready for the most ambitious serial Doctor Who has yet done? I hope so, because that’s what I’ve got for you today: The Dalek Invasion Of Earth! We’re welcoming Terry Nation back into the writer’s chair, and coming face to face with a familiar foe.

WORLD’S END

A promising title if I ever saw one.

There are two things you’ll immediately notice when this episode starts: one, the bloke with the silly helmet, and two, the great big poster informing us that it is forbidden to dump bodies in the river. Well, I’d have thought that was a given, but I guess not, because without so much as a glance at the poster the man walks down to the water, rips off his helmet, and drowns himself.

Moments after the man’s body goes floating off, the TARDIS arrives, and the gang pile out to see what’s what, and come to the conclusion they’re in London. Probably.

No sooner have they started looking around than there’s a terrible rumble, sending a bridge collapsing on top of the TARDIS. It’s not the most subtle way the gang have been kept in a location long enough for a story to happen, but I’ll take it.

Susan hurts her ankle trying to climb a wall, and being the caring, nurturing grandfather he is, the Doctor scolds her for being irresponsible and threatens her with “…a jolly good smacked bottom.”

Susan is how old, now? Fifteen? Perhaps Sixteen?

I don’t even know what to make of it.

I didn’t take the Doctor as one for corporal punishment. If we pretend the incident with the rock and the caveman didn't happen, he’s pretty pacifistic. So, yes. Weird.

Moving on!

The Doctor and Ian go off to a nearby warehouse in search of cutting tools, and we’re shooting on location again! It’s nice to let the actors stretch their legs. They don’t like being cooped up. In the warehouse, the Doctor finds a calendar, and at last we know the year they've landed in: 2164.

Back by the river, Barbara spots the man from earlier floating in the water, and as she scrambles away, a stranger accosts her, urging her to come with him.

In the warehouse, Ian and the Doctor discover a body, wearing the same strange helmet as the man in the river. The doctor theorises that it’s an ‘extra ear’ for picking up high-frequency radio waves. Upon closer examination, they realise this man was stabbed to death. Things are looking a bit grim in future-London.

The Doctor and Ian can’t disturb the dead for long, as a strange noise outside calls them to the window, where they spot an actual flying saucer.

Why are alien spaceships always saucers? How do they even launch? Do the little green men throw them from a mechanical arm like an intergalactic space frisbee?

Susan and Barbara arrive at some sort of hideout, where they meet a bunch of men who are part of an underground resistance movement. They’re in need of cooks. I am going to be very generous and assume that everyone else is too busy to cook, and that they weren’t just waiting for a woman to turn up so they could have something other than spam.

I’ll get around to introducing people properly when they become relevant to the plot. It’s hard to keep track of names when lots are thrown at you at once. Even harder when everyone talks fast and their diction isn’t quite clear. I did spend longer than I’m proud of referring to each character in my head as ‘that guy’, or ‘that other bloke’.

Up rolls another chap, and I mean that literally because he uses a wheelchair. This is Dortmun, and he’s a scientist. Am I imagining things or are folks who use wheelchairs in sci-fi always the sciency type? Or evil. Or both.

Barbara’s introduced to him with the fact she can cook, and when Susan is asked what she can do, she responds, “I eat.” I wish she was funny like that more often. Sometimes I wonder if the writers forget she’s a teenager, because she doesn’t do much teenager-ish stuff, like this sort of backchat.

Back by the river, Ian and the Doctor spot the ‘no dumping bodies’ poster, and the Doctor’s only comment is that it’s a stupid place to put a poster, under a bridge where nobody’s likely to spot it. Great sense of perspective you have there, Doc.

They don’t get to ruminate on the sign for long, as they find themselves surrounded by a whole gang of men wearing those strange helmets. They don’t look at all friendly. Ian decides to try the diplomatic approach, but all that gets is a bunch of raised whips (of all the weapons, why a whip?) and a droned order for them to stop. The two prepare to jump into the river and swim for it.

However, there's something in the water…

The surface ripples, and out comes a familiar eyestalk, followed by a plunger, and the Doctor and Ian turn to find their way blocked by none other than a Dalek. The reveal is absolutely fantastic, and a delightful/horrifying surprise. Well, if you didn’t know the title of the serial, that is.

Now we’re cooking on gas.

THE DALEKS

The Dalek, having made a suitably dramatic entrance, questions the robo-men (yes, that’s what the men with helmets are called, and yes, I do think it’s a very silly name) as to why these two humans were allowed to get so close to the river. I wonder why they’re so keen on keeping people out?

The Doctor gets lippy as per usual with the Dalek, who informs him that it’s heard that kind of talk before from many different leaders of humans, and all were destroyed. Because the Doctor has more gob than sense, he keeps on taunting the Dalek that you can’t really be the master of Earth unless you’ve killed everything else on it, which seems to get under the Dalek’s metal skin. After all, it’s only the humans they’ve conquered. They’re not the masters of the dung beetle. Or the guinea pigs.

Down in the rebel hideout, we see about a dozen or so members of the resistance. Ah, I’ll let them off on the cooking thing, then. They aren’t all blokes. Mostly, but not all. There’s a very brisk blonde woman who seems to be in a leadership role. She’s Sally.

Meanwhile, Dortmun and Tyler, a resistance fighter, are discussing an attack. Tyler is of the opinion that it’s a stupid idea, doomed to failure. I don’t know. Just climb some stairs and throw rocks at their eyestalks. What are they going to do, scream at you?

Dortmun, however, has perfected a new bomb, that should in theory destroy the Daleks’ outer shells. However, he insists it doesn’t need testing because it works on paper. Sure, Dortmun. That’s how science works. No need to test your weaponry to make sure it a) won’t blow up in your face, and b) will actually kill whatever you want dead.

No wonder the Daleks took over.

Ian and the Doctor arrive at the flying saucer they saw before, where there’s even more Daleks about. Ian is confused, as when they last met the Daleks, they were all destroyed. However, as the Doctor points out, that was about a million years in the future. The Dalek invasion of Earth is a much earlier part of Dalek history. Time travel is fun!

These Daleks have discs on their backs, perhaps accounting for their increased mobility, as if you recall on Skaro they could only move on metal. As an invasion force, they’ve had to adapt. I don’t know why they didn’t keep that adaptation into the future, but there you have it. I mean, there's an obvious Doylist explanation, that being 'the Daleks were meant to be a one-off villain', but that's not as fun as speculating the in-universe reasoning, is it?

Back in the resistance hideout, Susan makes the acquaintance of a young rebel, David. David examines some headgear recovered from dead robo-men, and Jenny explains to Susan that the robo-men were once Dalek prisoners, before they were operated on and turned into mindless drones to aid the invasion. The same thing happened to her brother. However, the effect of the operation eventually wears off, so over time, the robo-men lose their minds and start trying to kill themselves. That’s what the man who jumped in the river was doing. What a truly grim idea.

On the Dalek ship, the Doctor and Ian remark on how impressively built the saucer is, and how inescapable it seems. Or it might just be that they really want the viewer to notice how nice and big and not-made-of-cardboard the set is. Still, the Doctor has hope that he can figure a way out of this mess. However, the Daleks are taking an interest in him, and his clear intelligence.

The Doctor and Ian are shoved in a cell with a man called Craddock, who is a total pessimist, but does give us a lot of useful exposition. Ready? Here we go.

The Dalek invasion of Earth began with a bombardment of meteorites about ten years ago. Then, after the showers had passed, people started dropping dead of some strange new plague, absolutely devastating the human population, and wiping out the continents of Asia, Africa, and South America.

All that remained of human civilisation was divided up into little communities of survivors, too small and spread too far apart to mount any sort of resistance.

Then the saucers started landing, and the Dalek invasion of Earth began in earnest, razing cities to the ground. The few humans left were either captured and made into robo-men, or shipped off to toil in mines.

The only thing they don’t know is why. What is it the Daleks want? For some reason, the Daleks are making humans dig a deep hole in the ground in Bedfordshire. Why Bedfordshire? I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s in Bedfordshire. Bedford, I presume. Look, I’m a northerner; we don’t pay much attention to anything south of Birmingham.

The Daleks make a final ultimatum to the rebel humans. Surrender, and they will be spared. Rebel, and the Daleks will destroy London, and with it all the males, females, and "descendants". Honestly I’m a little surprised there are many kids left in this harsh world. This is a genuinely dark serial, and do you know why? It's because it feels real.

There’s nothing here that hasn’t happened in the real world, only with us it was humans doing it to other humans in the name of land, wealth, or ideology. Genocide, torture, slavery. It's all-too-familiar, and may hit uncomfortably close to home for some viewers.

So, the strike against the Daleks will go ahead as planned. If it succeeds, it might just be the kick up the backside humanity needs to turn the tide of the war.

But how will they get close enough to the Daleks? Barbara has a plan. Some of the rebels will don the robo-men’s headgear, and escort a bunch of 'prisoners' right into the Dalek ship. They won't know what hit them!

In the saucer, Ian finds a Thing. I’ll call it the puzzle-box, because I was puzzled watching the whole thing. There’s a magnet inside, and with some faffing about with a magnifying glass, another magnet, and some light, the Doctor manages to get it out. With the two magnets, he’s able to break the magnetic lock on the cell door. However, his success is short-lived, as it turns out that the Daleks put the puzzle-box in the cell as a test to find prisoners intelligent enough to turn into robo-men.

Night falls, and the rebels prepare to attack, while inside the saucer, the robo-men prepare the Doctor for his operation.

Hold on a moment. I have to adjust my glasses, because unless I’m very much mistaken, I believe some of those Daleks aren’t Daleks at all. In fact, I think they might be cardboard cutouts. They’re in the shadows, but when light passes over them they appear curiously flat. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss it thing, so I think it’s quite a clever way to make the invasion force look bigger without breaking the budget.

And the attack begins! Barbara, David and Susan start lobbing bombs, and in the ensuing chaos the rebels slip aboard the ship.

However, the Daleks order the robo-men to proceed with the Doctor’s operation as planned. He’s unconscious, on the table, and the operation is about to begin.

DAY OF RECKONING

These episode titles are quite biblical, aren’t they? I suppose that’s one way to get the kids into church. ‘Go to Sunday School or the Daleks’ll getcha!’

The rebels find and release the Doctor before it’s too late, but an absolutely awful high pitched whistle distracted me from the struggle. I don’t know what the sound effect was supposed to be, but it made my ears very unhappy.

Ian rushes into the ship to help the rebels escape, and Barbara leaps into the fray. What follows is a battle that could do with some more foley work, as there’s no real sense of impact whenever bombs go off or someone gets hit with a Dalek deathray. The ray makes a noise, yes, but not at the point of impact. The result is a scene which looks and feels not like a hard-fought battle with lives on the line, but like a bunch of people throwing themselves around a soundstage.

The music’s annoying too. It’s very repetitive. While repetition can be used to great effect in a score to create a sense of tension, it isn’t here. It's just irritating.

After the battle, most of the rebels are dead or wounded. Dortmun’s bombs were useless. What's worse, Barbara is the only companion to make it back to the rebel hideout. The others are nowhere to be found.

However, Dortmun still has hope for his ultimate bomb. He prepares to head across London to the Civic Transport Museum (the most alluring and exciting of all London’s museums) to work on his weapon.

He’d better be quick about it. The Daleks aren’t going to forgive an attack like that. Their saucer departs, and we spot a member of the missing gang: Ian! He’s alive, for now, and his suit is in surprisingly good condition.

Along comes a robotised Craddock with a rebel prisoner in tow, Larry, and Craddock informs Ian that he’s to be robotised. But Ian's not going down without a fight!

In the struggle, Larry succeeds in ripping Craddock's headgear off, killing him. With the immediate threat dealt with, he and Ian hide the body, and crawl into a hiding space under the floor.

Meanwhile, Susan is alive, and on the run with David. They listen in horror as they hear some unseen survivor running from the Daleks, screaming for the family they killed, and his agonising execution. It’s quite a harrowing scene that has echoes of real, recent history.

Traumatised, Susan proposes to David that he could come with them in the TARDIS, and get away from this horrible invasion. However, he says he can’t just run away. This is his planet. His fight.

It’s a bit of an alien concept to Susan, who has never really belonged in any time or place.

They run into another survivor, and who should he have with him but the Doctor! He doesn’t look too good, but at least he’s alive.

The man drops off the Doctor and hurries on his way. He’s making for Cornwall. It's quiet down there. The weather's pretty nice too. Lovely spot for a summer holiday. He gets about ten paces before running straight into some Daleks.

Elsewhere in London, Barbara and Jenny are helping Dortmun get across the city, which even in the 2200s still isn’t properly wheelchair accessible.

But this sequence is the best part of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth (so far). Why? Well, see for yourself.

Daleks outside the Palace of Westminster. Amazing. Absolutely iconic and I mean that sincerely. I want a poster of this. I want it on a T-Shirt. I want it printed on a mug.

Cue the montage! Daleks in Trafalgar Square! Daleks at the Albert Memorial! This is what location shooting is for. I don’t care if the rest of the series takes place in my shed, it’s worth it to see a Dalek surrounded by pigeons, further proving that Daleks are not the masters of Earth, because pigeons bow to no man, or alien pepperpot.

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see Daleks at Buckingham Palace, which makes me very sad.

Anyway, they get to the museum and Dortmun perfects his bomb, now totally guaranteed to pierce the Dalekenium casing of the Daleks. Bit on the nose, but fair enough.

He’d like to run it by another scientist, though. He’s learned from his earlier mistake. What he needs is a Doctor. Barbara theorises the Doctor might have started heading north to the mines, while Jenny, ever optimistic, is doubtful he’s even alive.

All the same, there’s nothing left for them in London, so the group decide to start making for Bedford. However, before they leave, Dortmun slips away, leaving his notes behind, and goes to face the Daleks. He rises from his chair (yes, ambulatory wheelchair users exist, and I’m glad that the episode doesn’t make a huge deal of it), and lobs his new bomb at the Daleks. They gun him down without hesitation.

I'm not sure if his bomb really worked. There was an explosion, but I couldn't tell if it did any damage. What I’m also unsure of is why he did it. He might have limited mobility but he’s by no means expendable. They don’t even know if the Doctor’s alive! What if there’s nobody to take over his work?

It strikes me as a senseless sacrifice.

Elsewhere in London, the Doctor is regaining some of his mobility. Susan wants to head north to meet with David, but the Doctor would rather head back to the TARDIS, causing them to butt heads as the Doctor questions whether Susan still respects his authority.

David comes back, and reports sightings of Daleks on the river. The Doctor, appearing to have had a change of heart, decides that when he’s more mobile they should start heading north as planned. I’m not sure what changed his mind, but as I think I’ve said before, it’d be a bit of a rubbish story if they just went back to the TARDIS and vworped off whenever they got into trouble.

On the saucer, Ian’s talking to Larry, who mentions something about the Daleks possibly wanting to get at Earth’s magnetic core, as the ship lands. Welcome…to Bedford! It’s not the most exciting spot to pick as the epicentre of an alien invasion, but there you go.

Back in London, some robo-men come along, carrying something heavy. The Doctor, Susan and David have yet to leave, so they hide, and listen, as the large box begins to tick.

It would appear they're sitting right next to a bomb!

So ends this episode, which in all honesty I found a bit limp. Once it was established that the main characters all made it through the battle, most of the plot threads were stuck spinning their wheels, taken up by characters discussing whether or not they should go to Bedford. However, the chase sequence through London saved it and turned it into my favourite of these three episodes.

Final Thoughts

What a serial! This is definitely the most ambitious yet, the sort of story you’d normally only see on film. It has an impressive scope and sense of scale; most stories up to now have only concerned a few dozen people at most. This concerns the future of humans as a species! The Daleks look absolutely great, as does the interior set of the Dalek saucer.

We’ve also got some interesting characters knocking about. Except David. Sorry, Susan, I know you like him, but he’s dull as ditchwater. Sally and Dortmun, on the other hand? I'd be interested in getting to know them better.

I’m going to hold fire on a more in-depth analysis of the story, the world, and the Daleks themselves until I’ve seen all there is to see, but believe me, there’s a lot to dig into here. Not only is this a big story on the surface, I do believe it to be even bigger on the inside. I’m genuinely excited to see where this goes from here, and to come back here and prattle on about it later this month.

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[May 20th, 1964] Completing The Collection(Doctor Who: The Keys of Marinus, parts 4 to 6)

May 20, 2019 Jessica Holmes Leave a comment

By Jessica Holmes

We’re halfway through our adventure across the planet Marinus, and we’ve seen some extraordinary sights so far: acid seas, screaming trees and brains with weird eyestalk things. Soon to come is a lot of snow, caves of ice and most extraordinary of all…a courtroom!

Let’s get stuck in, shall we?

THE SNOWS OF TERROR

We rejoin Ian and Barbara freezing on the mountainside. Fortunately for them, a trapper finds them and brings them to his cabin, where he gets them warm drinks and gives Barbara a rather tender hand-rub, ostensibly to stave off frostbite.

I don’t know enough about frostbite to say whether that’s a good treatment or not, but it did strike me as creepy.

I can’t speak for Barbara, but if I passed out on a mountainside, woke up in the cabin of a complete stranger, who then started caressing my hand, I wouldn’t have alarm bells going off in my head, it’d be an air raid siren.

They learn from the trapper that they aren’t the first to come to his cabin. He saw Altos not long ago, and aided him as he went up the mountain to look for Sabetha and Susan.

Off Ian goes to look for him, leaving Barbara with the trapper.

‘There,’ he says. ‘We’re alone.’

Oh, boy. Looks like my misgivings weren’t unfounded. Ian soon finds Altos slumped unconscious in the snow, with his wrists bound.

Back at the cabin, things are getting uncomfortable. Barbara, growing wary of the trapper, finds Sabetha’s chain as she pokes around the cabin, along with a number of wrist dials.

Barbara is ready to defend herself if the trapper tries anything, but she's got nowhere to go, and he has all the time in the world. Is this really appropriate for a family show? It’s giving me a bit of a queasy feeling.

Thankfully, Ian and Altos get back to the cabin just in the nick of time. With the trapper overpowered, Ian forces him to lead the way to where he last saw the girls, who are trapped up the mountain in an ice cave.

The group arrive to find the cave empty, so they head deeper into the labyrinthine passages to discover where Sabetha and Susan have gone. The trapper is reluctant to enter; there are demons in these caves.

Crossing a wobbly rope bridge over a crevasse, Susan and Sabetha come to a chamber, within which is a bunch of what look like medieval knights. Are these the demons the trapper was talking about? They don’t look demonic to me. The second group arrive at the same bridge, and all but the trapper cross over, meeting the girls as they come back the way they came. Hurrah!

You can see where this is going.

The trapper sees an opportunity. Everyone else is on the other side, so there’s nothing to stop him untying the other end of the bridge, leaving the others stranded.

I am shocked, shocked at his betrayal.

The group decide to look for something they can use to make a makeshift bridge, which leads them right back to the cavern with the knights/warriors/extras from the set of Becket.

They're all stood around a block of ice, and in the middle of the ice is the key. That’s handy. Half of the group work on sorting out the bridge problem, while the others see if they can find a way through the ice. Running around the ice block is a pipe which brings up hot water from volcanic springs under the mountain, melting the ice in a jiffy. Funny how these things work themselves out.

However, the key isn’t the only thing to thaw out. The knights wake up from their nap, and advance on the intruders.

Very…

Slowly.

Ian fights to delay the warriors while the others cross the crevasse with the newly-restored bridge, which seems a bit pointless given that I’m pretty sure I could outpace the warriors, and I’m barely mobile!

Back at the trapper’s cabin, he’s admiring his trinkets when the others return to reclaim their property. Fearing the consequences of his actions, the trapper flees, then comes charging back inside, screaming that the devils are on the march, and they're coming here!

The trapper gets his comeuppance at the end of a sword, and with no time to spare, it’s off to the next destination: the inside of a bank vault.

Well, that’s a bit dull.

What’s not dull, however, is what’s in it: the key!

Oh, and also a dead body.

Ian, having arrived alone (why? I’m not sure), notices the key, but as he investigates, someone clouts him over the back of the head, plants a club in his unconscious hand, and steals the key.

I didn’t enjoy this episode as much as the previous few. It’s fine, but it’s nothing special. A lot of it felt a bit clunky, and in what is perhaps only an important metric for me, but something I weigh quite heavily in my ratings, it wasn’t as fun to write about.

3 out of 5

SENTENCE OF DEATH

Ian wakes up with a hell of a headache to find out that he's not alone. In the vault with him is a man, Tarron. However, this isn’t a friendly wake-up call. Tarron’s an investigator, and Ian’s under suspicion of murder.

Unable to convince Tarron that he didn’t commit the crime, Ian finds himself charged with murder. I was quick to yell at the television that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and do you know what, I think it must have worked, because a moment later Ian says so too.

However, we are on another planet. Here, Ian’s guilty until proven innocent.

Ian’s not totally out of luck. The others manage to find him, and what’s more, the Doctor has been brushing up on the local legal system and will serve as his representative.

Proceedings commence, and no matter where in the universe you go, the officials of the court will always wear very silly head coverings. Proceedings halt a minute later, when the Doctor submits a motion to examine the evidence before proceeding with the trial, which is granted.

I adore a good legal drama, but is the average young member of the audience going to be quite as enthusiastic?

It turns out that the murdered man was Altos' friend. He’d met up with the Doctor earlier. They'd met and arranged to get the key, but for some reason he went early. Someone else must have known about the plan and killed him before he could.

But what happened to the key? If it had been taken from the room, it would have been detected, wouldn’t it?

The Doctor has an idea about who did the killing. The solution lies in the escape plan. Rather, that there wasn’t one. The killer didn’t get away, but instead, pretended to be first on the scene. So, who did the deed? The relief guard, Ayden.

Now they've got to prove it.

Ayden’s wife Kala can’t give them any information, but when Ayden arrives home, he promptly puts his foot in his mouth by denying the amateur detectives’ assertion that they know where the key is hidden.

This is why you don’t talk to any sort of police without your solicitor with you. After Ayden’s dreadful impression of an innocent man and their ejection from the house, Susan and Barbara listen at the door, and hear Ayden strike his wife for having the gall to talk to them.

What a charmer.

The Doctor, relishing his role as lawyer, treats the court to a dramatic opening statement, then calls Sabetha to the stand. He asks if she knows where the key is, and in a clever bit of trickery, she produces one of the other keys from her pocket, bamboozling the audience.

Cue a stunned courtroom, and a flabbergasted Ayden, who Sabetha identifies as the man who gave it to her. He denies the accusation, insisting that she can’t have found the stolen key, before stopping himself with his foot already firmly lodged in his gob. He might as well run around screaming ‘I’m guilty!’

Caught up in his lie, Ayden attempts to flee the courtroom, but the guardians catch him, and as he is about to confess, there’s a bright flash, and Ayden drops down dead.

Have their hopes of finding the final key died with Ayden?

That’s something to worry about later. Let’s keep Ian’s head off the chopping block for now.

The prosecution submits that Ian made Ayden help in his scheme, and killed him to protect the secret. The judges concur, and it looks like Ian’s fate is sealed.

While this is going on, Barbara and Sabetha leave the chamber with a guardian, who delivers a message: there will be another death if they disclose where the key is truly hidden.

The phone rings, and it’s Susan on the other end. She’s in trouble!

This part of the serial had some nice twists and turns, but again I have to say I’m not sure how much a child would be likely to enjoy the courtroom scenes. Also, it rather disrupts the pacing of the story, as all the little adventures up to now have been wrapped up in a single episode, yet this story doesn’t seem to be anywhere near its conclusion.

All the same, I liked it a lot, and I’m the one with the power over the ratings, so I’ll give Sentence Of Death 4 out of 5.

THE KEYS OF MARINUS

With Susan’s life hanging in the balance, Barbara, Altos and Sabetha must find her, ideally before Ian is executed.

Ayden’s widow denies knowing anything and breaks down in tears in a touching display of grief, which ceases the moment they leave. She struts over to the closet, opening the door to reveal Susan tied to a chair. I wasn’t expecting Kala to be involved, to be honest, but that’s what makes it a good twist.

Clever Barbara realises that Kala somehow knew that she’d spoken to Susan on the telephone. But how could she? Barbara never mentioned the call to her, and Kala wasn’t with Barbara when she received the call, therefore she must have been with Susan. Barbara goes dashing back, arriving just in time to stop Kala putting an end to Susan’s short life.

Things aren’t looking so good for Ian, however. The Doctor is all out of options. While speaking with the prosecutor, complimenting one another on their legal skill, one of the court officials enters the room, bringing the evidence for storage. There's a lingering shot of the murder weapon, the club.

Is it bad that it took up to this point for me to twig where the key is hidden?

Barbara contacts the authorities, and Kala is arrested. However, in her statement she states that Ian was her accomplice.

It’s not over yet. Susan has an ace up her sleeve: she overheard a telephone conversation between Kala and her true accomplice while in captivity. The accomplice is coming to the court to collect the key. There's an opportunity to catch him red-handed!

The Doctor watches, hidden, as an unknown figure comes into the courthouse, unlocks the evidence cabinet, and retrieves the murder weapon, inside of which is the key. I am very pleased that I managed to solve a mystery aimed at children after being all but told the answer. I am very clever.

And who is the mystery figure? None other than the prosecutor himself.

Ian’s free to go, the court allows the group to take the key, and now it’s back to Arbitan, but I don’t think they’re going to like what they’ll find.

Sabetha and Altos arrive ahead of the rest of the group, and are quickly apprehended and interrogated by the Voords. They do what they can to resist, but when Sabetha’s life is threatened, Altos cracks and admits that the Doctor has the final key.

The leader of the Voords, Yartek, begins inserting the keys into the Mind of Marinus, while another Voord heads out to find the Doctor. He’s no match for them, and the Doctor and company realise that something has gone terribly wrong. The Doctor entrusts Ian with the key, and the group splits.

Ian and Susan head to the main chamber, where they meet Yartek, who has disguised himself as Arbitan. Poorly.

To my great frustration, Ian hands him the key. I spent a good while shouting things at the television, things which I had better avoid repeating here.

So, I felt quite the fool when Ian reveals a few minutes later that he knew full well that he wasn’t speaking to Arbitan and gave the imposter the fake key he found back in The Screaming Jungle.

Inserting the key into the machine causes things to a tad wrong, by which I mean it goes boom.

With the threat dealt with, it’s time for the (frankly boring) goodbye scene. The Doctor imparts a few words of encouragement to Sabetha, who doesn’t seem as upset as you’d expect about the death of her father, and the inherent terror of the Mind of Marinus is left unexamined. The closest we get is the Doctor saying that machines shouldn’t rule over men, but that’s it.

I find that disappointing. Perhaps if the murder mystery had been confined to a single episode, there could have been a chance this episode to see the Mind of Marinus in action, and have an exploration of its virtues and drawbacks.

So, this was not the most satisfying conclusion to the story. It did the job, but that’s all.

3 out of 5 for the episode The Keys Of Marinus.

Final Thoughts

Here we are at the end of another adventure. So, what do I have to say about The Keys Of Marinus?

We’ll start with the good. I did genuinely enjoy this serial. It was a fun story, with lots of twists and turns, and for the most part very well paced, with some interesting and creative concepts on display.

However, it lacks the depth of Nation’s previous work in The Daleks. I think that this may be due to the fact that the Daleks had a Big Moral Question: is pacifism always the right choice? However, it only sustains this question because we have the same enemy and the same setting throughout, keeping the question always relevant to whatever situation the characters found themselves in.

With the exception of the first and last episodes, The Keys Of Marinus has little to do with the machine at the heart of everything, other than the keys to make it work being ‘plot tokens’. It feels like a tease to make the machine so interesting and leave it by the wayside. There aren’t even any thematic ties between the episodes that I could see, which could have served to add some depth to the story.

Is it fair to compare the two? I don’t really know. Part of me says no, that this story is meant to be more like an old adventure serial, but then another part of me asks why these thrilling adventures can’t also have depth or make us think.

I also found the first half of the serial more engaging than the second half, and I must add that I found the characters of Altos and Sabetha quite boring. They certainly participate in the plot a fair amount, but I couldn’t tell you anything about them.

Still, I did like the serial despite the issues I had with it, which are quite minor in the grand scheme of things (it’s certainly no The Edge Of Destruction), and I don’t think they’d make a lick of difference to the younger members of the audience.

Time to tally up the scores, leaving us with 3.75 for The Keys of Marinus as a whole.

Until the next adventure then, and looking forward to more stories from Terry Nation, ta-ta for now.

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1964, dr. who, the keys of marinus, jessica holmes, science fiction, television, united kingdom, terry nation

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The Crust Of The Matter

Spaceship Earth

Why, Oh Why, Oh Why?

55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction