By Jessica Holmes

Where do I begin? The latest serial of Doctor Who, penned by Kit Pedler for the first two episodes and Gerry Davis for the latter two, delivers some exciting twists and turns and real surprises, one of which may change the programme forever– or spell its doom.

EPISODE ONE

The Doctor arrives at the Antarctic base of International Space Command in the year 1986. The men inside (and yes, even in 1986 it seems rocket science is a bit of a boys’ club) take notice of the new arrivals, but there’s no time to worry about them. The latest launch has run into trouble, reporting the sudden appearance of a new planet in the sky. Worse still, their ship is losing power.

I rather liked the presentation of future space exploration as an international affair. There’s men from all over the world among the staff of International Space Command, and one of the astronauts is played by Bermudian actor Earl Cameron. Nobody can do a good fake accent to save their lives, but they tried!

The new planet looks just like Earth, but upside down. It takes a weirdly long time for people to realise that. The Doctor explains that the Earth once had a twin planet, and it has now returned. How this happened is unclear. Maybe it went on its holidays.

Things really kick off when a ship from this strange planet lands just outside the base. From it emerge men with faces made of taut fabric, bodies made of machinery, and curiously human hands.

A chill runs down the spine as one looks directly into the camera. There is something about the design of this entity that feels deeply… not just unnerving, but wrong. There’s a coldness in its gaze that penetrates the very soul.

EPISODE TWO

Here we get a name for these newcomers to Earth: Cybermen, from the planet Mondas. They were like us, once. But their race was dying, so they had to augment their bodies with cybernetics in order to survive. They kept going, upgrading every inefficiency in the human body, until there is almost nothing left but the brain– and even that hasn’t been spared some tinkering. Considering emotion and empathy to be inefficiencies, they have removed them.

The result is one of the few truly nightmarish monsters to come from Doctor Who.  I think they're scarier than the Daleks. They should be naff, with their cobbled-together costumes that leave the hands visible. It’s as rough a costume as I’ve ever seen on the programme. However, every bit of it works to their advantage, visually telling the story of their cobbled-together cybernetic enhancements– you can imagine them transforming piece by piece into the horrors they are today. With their fabric ‘skin’ drawn taut over their faces, leaving them only with the suggestion of a nose, and wide, blank eyes, their visage is genuinely frightening. It’s even worse when they open their mouths, as an unnatural, almost sing-song approximation of human speech emerges from their gaping jaws.

The Cybermen tell the ground crew that it’s impossible to get the astronauts out of orbit, as the pull of Mondas is too strong. The crew don’t listen, and continue to try to no avail, as the ship explodes…for some reason.

Ben, along with Polly, a recent companion of the Doctor, has the bright idea to try nicking a gun and making a break for the TARDIS. One of the Cybermen takes the gun away and bends it in half before locking Ben in another room. Surprisingly merciful, considering they killed a couple of blokes on their way in.

The Cybermen say Earth is in danger, and to save them, they must send a message to their leaders. The energy of Mondas is almost expended, so now it’s draining the energy from Earth. Let’s not think too hard about that. It’s more magic than science.

All life on Earth will stop, but the people don’t have to die! They can go to Mondas. The implications are clear. Well, nice of them to offer, I suppose, but while I wouldn’t say no to a stronger robotic body, I draw the line at having my brain tampered with. I wonder why they bothered telling the humans, given that they have no reason to. They say themselves that everyone on Earth dying wouldn’t affect the Cybermen in any way. So why extend the invitation? Politeness?

This shot zooming out through the Cyberman's nether regions might be the weirdest I've seen in all of television.

Ben starts trying to escape, managing to kill one of the Cybermen with their own weapon. He succeeds in sneaking this weapon to the General in charge of the base. General Cutler (Robert Beatty) promptly dispatches the Cybermen holding everyone hostage. This comes as a bit of an annoyance to the Doctor, given that the Cybermen were helpfully explaining their intentions.

Still, it’s bought them some time to radio their commander in Geneva and fill him in on what happened. It’s then that they learn another astronaut was sent into orbit to try and rescue the others. It's the General’s son.

The whole team starts scrambling to get him down, but there’s something else on the radar. Hundreds of spaceships in formation, heading right for Earth!

EPISODE THREE

The whole planetary energy-draining thing hits the Doctor first, with him collapsing mere moments into the episode. He spends the following twenty minutes having a nice nap.

Desperate to save his son, General Cutler decides that the only way to save Earth is to ensure the destruction of Mondas. He will have to use Earth’s greatest weapon… the Z-bomb. A planet-destroying bomb doesn’t sound that useful to me, but I can think of a couple of countries who would probably want one.

He can’t actually get express permission to use the bomb, but apparently there are no safeguards against him using it anyway. Ben and Polly urge him to wait, as the Doctor has a hypothesis that eventually Mondas will absorb too much energy from Earth and disintegrate. However, the General is unwilling to leave it to chance, even if the blast from the bomb would also kill everyone on the side of the Earth facing Mondas. Of course, he’ll be careful to ensure his son’s spacecraft isn’t on that side.

With the General beyond reason, Ben and Polly turn to the only other authority figure on the base, the head scientist Barclay (David Dodimead). Barclay clearly has doubts about the General’s plan, and it doesn’t take long for Polly to convince him to help her. Having designed the base, Barclay is able to show Ben and Polly a convenient ventilation shaft that leads right to the missile silo. With instructions from Barclay, Ben slips into the silo and tampers with the bomb. However, the General catches him red-handed, and gives the order to launch the missile.

EPISODE FOUR

It turns out that Ben was successful in sabotaging the missile as it fails to launch. Oh, and the Doctor’s feeling better now. Goody!

The General, rather put out, pulls a gun on a defiant Barclay, but his son gets in contact before he can bark any more orders. However, when the base loses the capsule’s radio signal, the General immediately assumes the worst. Convinced that his son is dead, the General threatens to kill the Doctor for causing the delay in the launch. I suppose he missed that the Doctor was napping through that whole incident.

Luckily for the Doctor, more Cybermen burst in before the General can do him any harm, and shoot General Cutler dead.

The Doctor thanks them for saving his life, and offers them a chance to save their own. Mondas is doomed, but the Cybermen don’t have to die with it. If they ask nicely and agree not to go around shooting people, they could all come and live on Earth in peace.

Well. I think various governments might have a thing or two to say about that, but it’s an idea. The Cybermen agree to think about it, but they’d like the missile to be disarmed first, which is a fair enough request. What feels less fair is their insistence that they take Polly as a hostage, but the Doctor agrees to that too, in the interests of keeping the situation under control.

Nobody bothers to ask Polly what she thinks.

However, it soon turns out that the Cybermen have not been honest about their intentions. They’ve landed all over the world, and they’ve decided they’d rather keep their own planet. They’ll save it by destroying Earth with the Z-bomb.

Gee, who would have thought having a planet-destroying weapon could possibly be dangerous to the survival of the planet we live on?

The idea is that with Earth gone, Mondas will stop absorbing its energy, and it won’t disintegrate. I don’t suppose they’ve thought about the colossal release of energy involved in a planet-destroying explosion. The Doctor manages to warn Ben and the others, who are currently disarming the bomb, against helping the Cybermen. It’s then that Ben realises that there must be a reason that the Cybermen are using humans to handle the bomb. What if the Cybermen are vulnerable to radiation?

Aren’t we all?

Having had enough of the Doctor’s meddling, the Cybermen take him on board their ship, where his health immediately takes a turn for the worse.

Ben, meanwhile, comes up with the bright idea to use the fuel rods from the on-site nuclear reactor as a weapon against the Cybermen. And these men of science go along with it.

I’m starting to get the feeling that science wasn’t the writer’s best subject at school.

The radioactive death-stick does the job nicely, and Ben somehow gets back to the control room without coming down with a nasty case of acute radiation poisoning, managing to get rid of all the Cybermen on the base in the process.

They’re about to start luring in other Cybermen with their own communication devices, but Mondas chooses that moment to conveniently melt. With it the Cybermen also disintegrate, having been reliant on energy from Mondas.

Oh, and it turns out that the General’s son is alive after all. With the Cyberman menace gone for good, he can come back home.

Ben rushes to the cybership to rescue Polly and the Doctor, and finds the old fellow unconscious. He manages to rouse the Doctor, who seems in a bad way. Agitated, the Doctor hurries back to the TARDIS.

And then something happens.

Something weird.

The Doctor collapses to the floor as the TARDIS takes off, and the screen brightens until the Doctor’s face is completely obscured. As the light fades away, the Doctor is gone.

No, not gone.

Replaced.

There’s a man lying in the exact same spot– but it’s definitely not the Doctor.

Final Thoughts

It’s safe to say I liked this serial well enough. The Cybermen are a great enemy, but the plot doesn’t do much for me. It’s fine, I just don’t think it really uses the Cybermen to their full advantage. They feel almost tangential to the whole plot, and ultimately the Doctor defeats them by…wasting time. Not a terribly interesting resolution.

What I really want to talk about is what in the world just happened to the Doctor? I’m sure I made half the neighbourhood jump with my sudden outburst of ‘WHAT?!’ at the end of the final episode.

Where did he go? Did he go anywhere, or is that man in fact our same dear old Doc? I don’t know what to make of this development.

It’s no secret that Mr. Hartnell’s health has been rather up-and-down of late (in fact, his absence in Episode Three was due to ill health), and I had wondered how much longer he’d be up to continuing with the programme. Certainly I’d rather that he takes care of his health than continue to force himself through an intensive filming schedule. A friend of mine did find a tiny notice in the Manchester Guardian that mentioned that Mr. Hartnell was to be replaced by Patrick Troughton, and there have been rumours flying around, so I suppose the departure isn’t that much of a surprise.

I think what really flabbergasts me is the suddenness of the changeover. We’ve barely even started the new series, and the lead’s gone and vanished! If we are to assume this new man is in fact the Doctor (which seems more likely, what with the name of the programme), what does that mean for him as a character? Is he more-or-less a new person, having nothing in common but a name? I hope not.

I’ve grown attached to the Doctor as portrayed by Mr. Hartnell, and I don’t think I like the idea of him being effectively replaced and all of his character development wiped away. He’s just done such a good job! Even when the Doctor was a grumpy so-and-so, he was still fun to watch, and I loved his ability to balance the Doctor’s mischievous side with his more serious moments. There’s a warmth and wit to his portrayal that reminds me of my grandpa. It might sound childish, but I don’t want them to get rid of my TV-grandpa!

At the same time, having another actor do an impression of Mr. Hartnell’s Doctor seems sure to invite comparison, and I can’t imagine it would be favourable. I’m familiar with Patrick Troughton, having seen him on television a fair bit, but he’s a rather different kind of actor from Mr. Hartnell. A different temperament altogether. He’s younger for one thing, so will he have the same gravitas? Still, I’m not going to judge the new chap until I’ve seen him in action. I’m sure he knows he’s got some big shoes to fill.

There’s little point in speculating much about how exactly this process works within the actual story. It’ll be a weird vaguely-scientific thing I’m sure, probably to do with the TARDIS.

What does this mean for the programme, though? Will people still want to watch without the real Doctor? The new fellow doesn’t look anything like Mr. Hartnell, so the kids are surely going to notice.

Honestly, I’m at a loss. I don’t know if this is a good thing, or a bad thing. Will this open up new avenues for the Doctor’s story, or is it doomed to failure?

I’m sad to see William Hartnell go, most certainly, and I wish him the very best. Thank you, Mr. Hartnell, for three years of being our Doctor.

Still, I must admit…. I’m incredibly curious to see what comes next.

5 out of 5 stars