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


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


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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[November 17, 1964] A Continuing Adventure In Space And Time (Doctor Who: Planet Of Giants)


By Jessica Holmes

Hello again, everybody, and welcome back to our adventure through Time and Space on Doctor Who! This second series is off to an excellent start, courtesy of Louis Marks, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. In excruciating detail, no less. Let’s get stuck in to Planet Of Giants, shall we?

PLANET OF GIANTS

AWOOOGA, AWOOOGA. We’re barely a minute in and already things are going wrong aboard the good ship TARDIS. As the Doctor brings her in to land, the doors start opening by themselves. Fortunately, the companions manage to get them closed and they land safely. Or do they? The Doctor is very agitated about the doors opening, but doesn’t do a good job of explaining what it is that’s bothering him. Something strange is afoot, that’s for sure.

The companions struggle to close the TARDIS doors

Something very strange indeed, as the Doctor sincerely apologises to Barbara in case he was rude to her under pressure. Goodness, he really has mellowed out, hasn’t he?

However, when they try to look outside with the scanner, it blows up, as if it were trying to display something ‘too big for its frame’. Pardon? I am quite certain that the Doctor is a bit more than 12 inches tall, yet Bill Hartnell has yet to explode out of my television screen in a shower of glass.

Oh, and apparently the reason that the doors opened during landing was the ‘space pressure’ being too high. No, I’m not sure what that means either.

Still, it’s all over now. Time to see what sort of planet we've landed on.

A rocky one, by the looks of it. So far, so normal.

And then Barbara finds a dead earthworm. Sound ordinary? You haven’t seen the size of it.

The Doctor and Barbara examine a giant earthworm.

A few moments later, Ian and Susan come upon some massive ant eggs, followed by a giant dead ant.

I think we can guess what’s really happening on this so-called 'planet of giants'.

Ominous music builds as Ian comes upon a gigantic matchbox. Prepare for me to gush over the set design quite a lot over the course of this article. It really is very good and creative, and there has been a definite step up in quality, boding well for the rest of the series. That, or they spent all the budget on Planet Of Giants, and the rest of the series will be taking place in my back garden.

Image: Ian and Susan discover a giant matchbox the size of a car.

And the points go to Susan for working out what’s going on first: this isn’t a planet of giants after all. They’ve shrunk!

So, the rock formations? Paving stones. They’re between the paving stones on someone’s charming garden path. Basically, when the doors opened during landing, the space pressure made the TARDIS and all its occupants shrink… or something. No, I don’t buy it either.

But then everything goes dark and there’s a thunderous sound, as a man walks overhead on the garden path. Susan runs to hide, but when she comes out, Ian is nowhere to be found. He fell inside the massive matchbox. And he’s stuck inside!

Watching William Russell fling himself from side to side to simulate being jostled about in the matchbox is hilarious but slightly undermines the drama of the situation.

Oh dear. Mr Regular-Sized-Human (or, as he’d probably prefer, Farrow) has a cat. That might be a bit dangerous. What also might be dangerous is the scientific research he’s involved in. Something involving a powerful insecticide, one so powerful it’ll kill absolutely everything it touches that isn’t a plant.

Naturally, he’s withholding approval on the project on account of the risk to the ecosystem. However, the financier of the project, a man called Forester, stands to lose an awful lot of money if this doesn’t go through. Farrow, however, isn’t budging.

So, what’s a man to do? He pulls a gun, that’s what.

Forester brandishes his gun.

Now we have the first indications that the dealings going on at full scale are going to be important to the Doctor and his companions, as a dead insect drops out of the sky, carrying with it a strong chemical whiff. And Barbara raises a pertinent question: can whatever’s killing the insects kill them too?

They don’t have long to worry about that, as they hear the sound of a distant cannon. Well, that’s what it sounds like to them, anyway. A few minutes later, they come across Farrow’s lifeless body, and as the Doctor notes, there’s a whiff of gunpowder in the air.

Farrow's face fills the frame. The companions are shorter than his nose.

I have to say, we’re off to a great start. Creative set design and cold-blooded murder in the first twenty minutes of story. And, what’s more, a cute little enormous kitty just showed up. What’s not to love?

DANGEROUS JOURNEY

Not to worry, folks. The Doctor and Ian know just how to avoid being eaten by a gigantic housecat. You just stay still until it gets bored and wanders off. I’ve never had a cat before, but that sounds about right.

Close-up of cat's eyes
You know what I'd like to see? A planet of giant cats.

The companions wonder if they should do something about the whole murder problem, but the Doctor points out they’re tiny and it’s not as if they can do anything right now.

Along comes an enormous leg to imperil them, and Ian and Barbara make a break for the closest shelter they can find: Farrow’s briefcase.

Up at normal scale, Forester has been joined by a scientist. He’s got a white lab coat and everything, because I suppose scientists dress like that all the time. Forester tells him that it was an accident, but the scientist isn’t fooled, concluding upon examination of the body that Farrow was shot through the heart from some feet away. There are no powder burns around the bullet hole.

Forester makes Smithers his accomplice.

Neither of them are too upset about the death of an innocent man, though. The scientist, Smithers, is more upset that this means he’ll have to scrap the research.

Smithers does have a somewhat noble motive, though. He wants to save people from famine, which is very commendable of him. Thing is, if you go wantonly killing every single living thing that isn’t a plant in your field, you’re really just sowing the seeds of a future famine that’ll be far worse. I’d think a scientist would know that, especially one specialising in research into pest control with regards to agriculture.

The men head into the lab, taking Farrow’s briefcase with them, before heading out to hide the body. Ian and Barbara don’t enjoy the ride much. In Barbara’s words, it’s worse than the Big Dipper. I have to admit, as much as I like the Big Dipper, it is a rather rough ride. Grand National (the rollercoaster, not the horse race), on the other hand, is a must-do if you ever happen to visit Blackpool.

Barbara rubs her ankle as Ian looks on.
To be fair, bumps and bruises do tend to happen when you ride the Big Dipper.

The Doctor and Susan emerge from hiding, and seeing the briefcase gone, realise that it must have been taken inside. The Doctor attempts to climb into a drainpipe, finding that it stinks to high heaven of the stuff on the dead insects. So of course they decide climbing into it is a great idea. Um, guys? Does the phrase ‘toxic fumes’ mean anything to you?

Inside, Ian and Barbara come upon some enormous grains of wheat that are covered in some sticky stuff. Not knowing what the sticky stuff is, Barbara goes ahead and touches some of it. Smart.

Unnoticed by Ian, Barbara picks up a giant seed.
You'd think after the debacle with the Aztecs, Barbara would refrain from picking up everything she sets eyes on.

Ian has a good idea about using the paperclips in the briefcase to make a chain they can climb down, and hopefully make it back to the others. Barbara would like a look in the briefcase for herself, as her suspicion grows that her hands are covered in insecticide.

Meanwhile in the pipe, the Doctor is regretting every single decision he’s made in his life. It’s not as bad as it could be, though. The chemical runoff from the lab has corroded the inside of the pipe, so there’s plenty of hand and footholds.

Back in the house, as Ian struggles to get the briefcase open, a housefly turns up behind Barbara. It’s quite a lifelike puppet, with moving joints and everything. Barbara sees it, and faints, though it’s not clear if it’s the sight of the bloody big fly or the symptoms of poisoning setting in.

Barbara is confronted by a giant housefly.
Imagine a planet of giant insects, though. I'd be having nightmares for weeks.

Meanwhile, Smithers and Forester have hidden the body, though Smithers is very upset with Forester for involving him in this whole sordid business.

Susan and the Doctor make it up the drainpipe and emerge at a plughole which is really pretty neat. We haven’t had so many unique sets before, I’m sure of it.

The Doctor and Susan stand at the rim of a gigantic plughole.
Incy Wincy Doctor climbed up the water spout…

Barbara wakes up from her fainting spell, to be told by Ian that the fly flew off, then landed on the seeds and died instantly. Well, that doesn’t bode well. Barbara, now might be a good time to tell Ian about the fact you touched them, too.

But that’ll have to wait, as they hear Susan calling from the sink, and begin climbing down the plug chain towards her and the Doctor.

Outside, Smithers and Forester have just finished mopping up the blood. Now it’s time to wash their hands.

Uh-oh.

Hearing the men coming, Ian and Barbara climb back up the chain, and the Doctor and Susan start heading down the pipe.

Smithers notices the dead fly, and gets excited about how effective the insecticide is, and we get into a scene which did seem a bit inconsistent to me. Forester says something about Farrow lying about the effects of the insecticide in the report, which I don’t quite understand. I thought Smithers and Forester were on the same page about Forester killing Farrow to prevent him revealing the destructive truth of the formula and putting an end to the project. Unless Smithers thinks his work is perfectly sound, and Farrow was going to turn in a false report for his own gain? I don’t know.

The point is Forester is going to doctor the report.

Meanwhile, Farrow fills up the sink and washes his hands, while the Doctor and Susan cower in the drainpipe below.

And then he pulls the plug.

CRISIS

Ian announces to Barbara (and the viewer) that the tap has been turned on with the Doctor and Susan still being in the sink. Thank you, Ian, we can see that.

Barbara fears the Doctor and Susan have drowned, so she and Ian go to find out.

Not to worry, Barbara. It turns out that the Doctor and Susan were hiding in the overflow pipe, so managed to avoid the deluge, and out they pop, reuniting the gang at last. I swear this lot get separated so often they should make a habit of holding hands everywhere they go. Or perhaps the Doctor should put his companions on a leash.

The Doctor and Susan hide in the overflow pipe
Down came the rain and washed poor Doctor out…

The sink set is my favourite from this serial. It’s quite simple, but the layout makes for some really cool looking shots, and it’s a very good replication of a kitchen sink.

Forester finishes doctoring the report, and puts in a call to Farrow’s department in Whitehall, pretending to be the dead man. However, the operator on the other end doesn’t seem convinced.

Forester uses a handkerchief to muffle his voice as he makes a phone call.
Now is not the time to be making a prank call, Mr. Forester.

Our companions continue their trek across the lab and come across a notepad, upon which is written a chemical formula. Could it be the pesticide? Barbara suggests that knowing what it is might help them find a cure for it. Nobody else sees the value in curing it if they can simply prevent it from being used, as Barbara still hasn’t told anyone about her predicament. It’s rather pertinent information, Barbara. I suppose she doesn’t want to make a fuss. That’s… very British of her. I’m so proud.

The notebook is too big to read, so they map it out into Susan’s own notebook, and discover, after a bit of chemistry talk that goes over my head, that the insecticide doesn’t wear off or weaken over time. Meaning? Once you put it on a field, there it’ll stay. Forever. Seeping into the soil, into the groundwater.

The companions stand on a large pad of paper.

To say that would be a disaster would be an understatement. Apart from the ecological collapse that would ensue, imagine eating food contaminated with a pesticide this deadly. Even touching contaminated produce would slowly kill us.

At the sound of all this, Barbara gets quite agitated, but she still, for some reason, doesn’t tell the others. Come on, Barbara. They might start getting their bums in gear if you mention the teensy little fact that you might be about to drop down dead.

It’s not as if the others haven’t noticed. They ask her if she’s all right, but she just brushes them off. It’s a bit of a contrived way of ramping up the tension. At least, I assume that’s the intention. Can’t we have the tension ramped up with everyone being tense and worrying if they’ll manage to get Barbara back to full-size before her itty-bitty insect-sized body goes kaput?

The group decides to make an attempt at using the phone. For some reason. It struck me, as I was brushing my teeth later that night (sorry, I’m feeling a bit slow on the uptake lately), that it’d be quicker to just go back to the TARDIS, get back to proper size, and then use the phone to get the authorities.

The Doctor, Susan, and Ian shout into a giant telephone receiver.
I don't know what they were expecting.

Then again, the sight of everybody bellowing down the phone, loudly and slowly like a Brit in Benidorm trying to order some sangria, is pretty funny.

It doesn’t work, of course. Worse still, Barbara isn’t doing well at all, and she collapses. She comes around before Ian comes along, but the game’s up. She tries to tell him that she’s fine, but he grows suspicious when she won’t let him touch her hands or her handkerchief, and then she passes out again. Sniffing the handkerchief, the Doctor realises she’s suffering from the effects of the insecticide.

The rest of the companions examine an unconsious Barbara.

Barbara comes around just in time for a good scolding from the Doctor for not telling anyone sooner. Thank you, Doc. I was about to climb into the screen and tell her myself. However, Barbara won’t let the others take her back to the ship until they’ve put a stop to the insecticide threat. Now, that’s very nice and noble and all, but I think it’d be a lot easier at full-scale, don’t you?

Speaking of full-scale, Forester and Smithers are finishing up their dirty business, when Smithers says he wants to go back to the lab and have another look at Farrow’s notes. Behind his back, Forester pulls the gun out again, and loads it.

Back with the companions, the Doctor and Ian are being wonderful role models for children, by which I mean they decide to start a fire in order to draw the attention of the neighbours. The Doctor quite literally giggles and rubs his hands with glee at the thought of a bit of arson. I love him.

A man listens in on a telephone call with the phone operator.

A call comes through for Farrow, but all is not as it seems, as the operator has Farrow’s superior listen with her as Forester ‘hands over’ the phone to Farrow. The pair of them agree that it sounds like he’s just impersonating Farrow.

The group are working on their arson plan. They’ve found themselves a gas tap, so now all they need to do is find a way to light it. Ian enlists Susan to help him strike a match, not an easy task when said match might as well be a battering ram.

Ian and Susan handle a giant matchstick.
And I struggle to get a normal match lit.

The plan’s simple enough. The Doctor has spotted a pressurised flammable canister nearby the gas tap. If they light the gas, the can will heat up, and eventually explode. The difficult part will be getting far enough away from the can before it goes boom.

While they’re doing that, Forester finally admits to Smithers the full truth of why he murdered Farrow— with a gun pointed at his chest. Looks like he’s tidying up all the loose ends.

The companions take cover, and the two men come back into the lab just as the can blows, scattering shrapnel in Forester’s face. With Forester blinded, Smithers grabs the gun, which is promptly taken from him by the police constable who has just materialised. Did the operator call him? I can only assume so, but that was a bit quick, wasn’t it? Or did he just hear the can explode? Pretty convenient that there was a passing bobby.

A police constable arrests Forester and Smithers.

As the companions make a break for it, the Doctor grabs one of the contaminated seeds, wrapping it in his cloak to ensure he doesn’t poison himself. The group get back to the TARDIS without any trouble, and the Doctor sets about restoring them to proper size, Ian watching in amazement as the seed the Doctor brought appears to shrink before his very eyes. Of course, the seed isn’t shrinking— they’re growing.

Now at full size and having managed to get a good drink of water, Barbara does seem to be doing better. Gee. That’s just a bit convenient. The scanner’s still broken, though, so who knows where they’ll end up next?

The companions are back in the TARDIS.
I wish I could cure all my illnesses with a sit down and a nice glass of water.

Final Thoughts

So, here we are, at the end of the first serial of the new series.

I can’t help but think that this story would have been over in five minutes if Barbara had just told everyone about the pesticide on her hands. They could have just gone back to the TARDIS to fix their size problem, then given the police a quick ring. Barbara healed, day saved, devastating environmental disaster averted. Easy.

That issue of the plot being over instantly if everyone used their brains aside, this is a very enjoyable serial. I found the three episodes to be just the right length for this story. The three-act structure is tried, tested, and approved by generations of storytellers. An issue I found with the previous series of Doctor Who was that the serials were sometimes quite poorly-paced, with some of them overstaying their welcome by an episode or two. Planet Of Giants, however, keeps up a lively pace all the way through, with no filling.

We’ve also seen a pretty excellent demonstration of the phrase ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions’. It applies pretty well to Smithers. Not so much with Forester. But with Smithers, yes. In his hopes of ending famine, he became an accessory to murder, and almost poisoned all our farmland.

Also, perhaps the most important factor for why I like this serial: it’s fun. Everybody wrestling with comically-oversized household objects is funny, there’s a bit of ick-factor with the giant bugs, and we’ve also got a serious murder drama subplot with an environmental twist!

It’s a scarily plausible story, tiny people aside. Modern pesticides can, and have, saved millions of lives from their boost to crop yields, but at the same time, it’s important to be careful that we’re using them safely and responsibly, with proper oversight (q.v. the troubles with DDT, and the issues brought up in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring). Honesty and integrity won out on Doctor Who, but will the same be true for us? I don’t know.

4 out of 5 stars


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[14th September, 1964] Hold Off The Execution (Doctor Who: The Reign Of Terror [Part 2]))


By Jessica Holmes

Put away the guillotine, we don’t need to be chopping anyone's head off for boring me. Not today, at least. The Reign Of Terror doesn’t magically turn into an oeuvre of magnificence at the halfway mark, but it did turn out decent in the end.

THE TYRANT OF FRANCE

Apologies everyone, my television set is playing up again, so there’s a chance that I’ll have missed some details in this episode, but hopefully it won’t be anything too important.

So, in the previous episode of The Reign Of Terror the Doctor got himself a pretty fantastic hat and managed to blag his way into a meeting with Robespierre, so they can talk about how fantastic his hat is. Or lists of people whose heads have been chopped off, but I think the hat should take precedence.

Lemaitre gives Robespierre the execution list.

So, how does this meeting go? Entertainingly. Not one to hold his tongue, the Doctor immediately starts debating a hostile and suspicious Robespierre on the benefits of his Reign Of Terror. I rather admire his guts. Come to think of it, it’d be pretty funny to see the Doctor popping about through time to give tyrants a good scolding. As for Robespierre, he’s showing signs of paranoia, convinced that even his allies are plotting his downfall. Well, Max, if you are going to insist on guillotining everyone who so much as looks at you funny, what do you expect?

Oh, and we actually have a name for the other man, now. The one the Doctor came with. He’s called Lemaitre. Translates to ‘the master’. Quite a good name for a villain, I’d say.

Back at the maison, Susan is still feeling poorly, the poor love, but she’s brought some brandy, so she’ll feel even worse in a second! According to Barbara, a short while earlier Susan kicked off all her clothes and was found shivering upstairs, which sounds to me like she’s suffering from hypothermia. Leon is wary of calling a physician for her (after all, we only know one Doctor we can trust), but after some thought he decides to risk it for her. Good old Leon.

Jules carrying a body through the window

Outside the maison, Jules and Jean (did I introduce Jean last time? I can’t recall. Introducing: Jean) are smuggling a body into the house. Just when we start to worry what sort of people Barbara and Susan have fallen in with, they pull back the tarp covering the body to reveal that it’s Ian!

At the prison, Lemaitre says the Doctor made a good impression on Robespierre. I’m not sure I’d say the same, but if he says so. The Doctor tries to make his excuses and leave, but Lemaitre insists that the Doctor stay, and calls for the jailor to arrange accommodations.
Well, I hope he enjoyed his little game of dress-up.

Remember the treacherous tailor? He’s still here, and now he’s got Lemaitre all to himself. The Doctor tries once more to leave while Lemaitre is busy, but the jailor pulls a gun on him. If he were to let the Doctor go, it’d be his neck on the line.

Dear, dear, Doctor. You’re in trouble now!

Back at the maison, Ian is coming around, and joyfully reunites with Barbara. Does anybody else think they might be a little more than friends, or is that just me? Now conscious, Ian takes the opportunity to ask Jules if he knows the Englishman his dead cellmate told him to look for, one ‘James Stirling’. Unfortunately, Jules hasn’t a clue, which is a shame, because Ian had gone looking for Jules in the hope that he would. Unfortunately for Ian’s poor head, Jules found him first, and, thinking him an enemy spy, clobbered him. That man is going to have serious brain damage before long.

Jules posits that ‘James Stirling’ is an alias, though if anyone knows him, it’d probably be Leon. In fact, for all they know Leon might actually be James. It’s easy to pretend to be English when everyone in France speaks in Recieved Pronunciation. Not that I’m complaining. I find using English regional accents to be vastly preferable to forcing the actors to attempt a dreadful foreign accent. A lot of films and programs do it and it drives me up the wall.

Sadly, Susan is getting worse, and the physician won’t come, so Barbara has no choice but to take Susan herself. The physician takes a bit too much of an interest in how Susan came to be ill, but eventually decides that a spot of blood-letting should do the trick, to the womens’ horror. I mean, what were they expecting? Panadol?

Susan reclines on a couch as Barbara watches over her.

They’d probably do better to just make her some hot water with honey and lemon.

See, here’s the problem with time travel to the past: lots of diseases that the modern immune system doesn’t know what to do with. I hope the Doctor got Susan her vaccinations when they landed on Earth. Imagine if she were to come down with smallpox, or TB!

It seems that Leon was right to be wary about trusting a physician, because the medical man, on the pretence of fetching leeches (lovely), heads up to the prison and turns the women in! Having locked the door behind him, the women are sitting ducks when the soldiers come to arrest them.

Well, with them free, there wasn’t anyone for the rest of the characters to make a daring rescue of, was there?

Ian begins to worry that they’ve been a while, but he has a meeting with Leon to keep, so he heads off in hope of tracking down the mysterious James Stirling.

Back in chains, Susan’s chucked into a cell, and Barbara is marched off for questioning…to none other than the Doctor!

Ian arrives at the crypt of an abandoned church, which is a cool place for a clandestine meeting if I ever saw one. The set’s rather good too. There’s a better attempt at the illusion of size here than we’ve seen in a lot of other sets on this programme.

The set of the crypt, with the background painted to create the illusion of depth.

However, while we’re all admiring the set, a bunch of soldiers turn up. Ian’s walked right into a trap.

Leon, you scoundrel!

Leon points a gun at Ian, offscreen

A BARGAIN OF NECESSITY

The following week, my television continued to act up, rendering visible perhaps one frame in twenty. I tried hitting the top of my tv with a mallet, but it didn’t seem to do anything. Ah, well.

Ian captured, Barbara and Susan in chains once more — things don’t look too good for our companions. So, it’s the perfect time for Barbara to have a nice catch-up with the Doctor. Lemaitre tries to listen in, but the jailor arrives to summon him to a meeting with Robespierre. Lemaitre reluctantly agrees to go, but orders that Susan must be kept in the prison on pain of death. He knows something.

Barbara and the Doctor plot her escape.

With Lemaitre gone, the Doctor reveals his cunning plan to spring Barbara from prison. Get ready. It’s very complicated. She’s going to walk out the front door.

See? Complicated. But it’s actually brilliant, wait and see.

The Doctor spins a tale to the jailor that Barbara is actually deeply involved in the grand conspiracy against Robespierre. So deeply involved, in fact, that she knows the names of every traitor in France! Of course, she’d rather die than give them up, but the Doctor and the jailor are clever, aren’t they? What they’ll do, is they’ll let her escape, and then, when she runs off to her traitor friends, they can follow her, and arrest the whole lot!

Now, a person slightly smarter than a guinea pig would probably be able to see through this plan, but that’s part of why I love it. I love the Doctor’s ability to talk utter nonsense with such authority that it sounds perfectly reasonable.

Down in the crypt, Leon’s giving Ian the trademark villain speech, revealing that he’s always been loyal to the revolution. He thinks that Ian’s in on the English spy ring, so demands that Ian tell him the truth.

Well, you asked for it, Leon.

For reasons nobody could ever hope to fathom, Leon doesn’t believe Ian when he says he’s from the year 1963, and his soldiers are on the point of shooting Ian when Jules arrives, having come back to the maison to find it empty.

A fight ensues, and it might have been exciting, but my television chose that moment to stop showing the picture, leaving me with a bit of generic fight music and the occasional grunt, ending with a gunshot, which I assume hit Leon, because the next time I can actually see the scene, Leon’s dead and Jules is Ian’s knight in frilly armour.

Back at the prison, things become amusing when the jailor asks the Doctor why he isn’t tailing Barbara, and the Doctor retorts asking HIM why HE wasn’t doing it. Whoopsie-daisy! Piling on, the Doctor actually tries the same trick on the jailor again, but to let Susan out this time. As funny as it would have been had he agreed, it’d be a bit convenient, so of course the jailor refuses. He’s not going to risk his neck!

Lemaitre goes to meet Robespierre, who fears that the Convention will turn against him at their next meeting, on the 27th of July… 1794. Hands up, who knows their history?

(Is it still paranoia if they really are all out to get you?)

Now it’s time for Historical Nitpicking With Jessica, where I answer the historical questions that literally nobody asked.

It’s about the date of the meeting: July 27, 1794. This is absolutely correct…by the Gregorian calendar. However, during the Reign Of Terror, France was not using this calendar. They were on the French Republican calendar, so for them, the date was 9 Thermidor. Weird, I know. What’s even weirder is that aside from the timing of the start of the year (the autumn equinox rather than the summer solstice), the French Republican calendar is identical to the ancient Egyptian calendar. Just thought that was interesting.

I would call the French calendar and their decimal time ridiculous, but then I remember how English money works, and how we measure distance, and how an English mile is actually how far Charles II could run in a three-legged race before falling over (or something), so perhaps I shouldn’t throw stones.

Ian makes it back safely, and meets up with Barbara, who is also safe now. They think the Doctor’s antics are pretty funny. And they are. It rather spoils the mood, however, once Jules tells Barbara what happened with Leon. To the men’s surprise, Barbara feels quite sad for him. To them, he was a traitor, but to the Revolution, he’d have been a hero. After all, the Revolution did have a point. Perhaps too sharp a point, but a point all the same.

See, Barbara gets it. History is a bit more nuanced when you look at it from the outside. There’s a difference between believing that a republic would be better for everyone than a monarchy, and wanting to chop the heads off anyone who looks a bit too posh.

Back at the prison, the Doctor lets Susan out, but Lemaitre catches them as they try to escape, and the scene following is a bit awkward, with a noticeable line flub from Hartnell (not for the first time, but I usually give him a pass as it works for the character), and a strange bit of awkward silence which made me wonder if somebody forgot their line or wasn’t on their mark.

Lemaitre reveals to the Doctor what he knows

Once we’re off smoothly again, Lemaitre shows the Doctor the ring the tailor gave him. Lemaitre’s quite a bit smarter than the poor jailor. He’s known full well that the Doctor wasn’t who he claimed to be, and strongly suspected his relation to Susan, which is why he was determined to hold on to her. And now he has iron-clad leverage over the Doctor.

Back at the house, Jules explains to Ian and Barbara that he’s not actually of the aristocracy, he’s just against those who would rule by fear, which is fair enough, I’d say.

As he finishes up the explanation, along comes the Doctor… with Lemaitre.

The Doctor brings Lemaitre to Jules, Barbara and Ian

PRISONERS OF CONCIERGERIE

This one is actually genuinely good. Even more so because my television started working again.

Dun dun duuuun, Lemaitre has arrived to crash the party, sweeping in and explaining at everyone just how clever and cunning he is. So clever and cunning is he, in fact… that he is James Stirling.

That did catch me off guard, I have to admit. It certainly explains the accent.

Lemaitre/Stirling says that he can get safe passage back to England for everyone as soon as his business in France is concluded, and asks Ian what was the message he needed to deliver. Ian wracks his brain to remember it, and they piece together that it was a coded message giving away the location of important meeting which Paul Barras will be attending.

Time for a little espionage. They go to the inn, and pose as staff. Ian dusts off his acting skills and I absolutely love it. He goes to the trouble of putting on a fake voice and everything. I think somebody may have been part of the drama club at Coal Hill!

Barbara and Ian in disguise as innkeepers.

Barbara, on the other hand, is as awkward as anything, and simply asks Barras how many people he’s expecting to meet. Fortunately he doesn’t suspect anything, and tells her it’s just the one, and here he comes now.

It’s Napoleon Bonaparte.

Yes. Really.

A cool reveal? Yes. Ahistorical? Absolutely.

I will leave it to you to decide which is the more important factor in your mind. At any rate, it’s little more than a historical cameo, as he’s only in the episode for as long as it takes to promise Barras his support in return for a role as Consul, and then he swans off to make his own history.

Napoleon Bonaparte conspires with Paul Barras to bring an end to Robespierre and his Reign Of Terror

I hope we get an episode centred on Napoleon some time in the future. Well, I could write a list of historical figures I’d like to see an episode based on, but it’d take me all night.

Stirling is aghast to learn of Napoleon’s intentions, knowing that being Consul won’t be enough for a man like Napoleon. He’s absolutely right, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Or is there?
Well, no. We know that. The Doctor and Barbara know that. Nevertheless, Stirling rushes off to try and prevent the arrest of Robespierre.

Now, I do think this is a bit of a missed opportunity. Had the earlier episodes been better paced, I think this turn of events would have been interesting to devote more time to, with Stirling (and possibly the others) trying to save Robespierre as history stubbornly refuses to be knocked off course. Instead all we get is the same old stuff about history being unchangeable. I am simply intrigued as to how exactly that works. What would happen if, for example, I grabbed myself a musket, aimed it squarely at Napoleon’s head, and fired? Will some unknown law of Time make the gun misfire?

The Terror comes to an end as Robespierre is hauled into the prison, clutching his wounded jaw.

History progresses as it’s written. Robespierre is arrested, shot in the jaw, and hauled off for his appointment with Madame Guillotine, bringing the Reign of Terror to an end. The Doctor returns to the prison and orders that it be made ready for Robespierre and his allies, which of course means clearing out the old cells, which means freeing Susan!

I do think it’s a shame that Susan had nothing to do in this serial other than sit and wait to be rescued.

Back at the TARDIS, Ian, much like myself, wonders what would have happened if they had tried to contact Napoleon and tell him about the future. According to Susan, he’d have lost the information, or forgotten it. I suppose that means we aren’t likely to see time paradoxes and alternate timelines in Doctor Who.

Final Thoughts

All in all, I think the second half of this serial was much better and more interesting than the first half. However, I think that Robespierre should have been given more of a focus in this serial. Imagine watching him unravel as his Reign Of Terror comes to a close and the vultures start circling, not in just a couple of scenes, but gradually, over the course of the story. To add to that, I’d have liked to have seen more of the coup against him, beginning earlier in the story, rather than in the last episode. It was the most exciting bit of the plot and it had hardly any time devoted to it.

All the same, I think the serial did redeem itself. It’s not one I’m a big fan of, but it’s not quite as rage-inducing as that one with the stuck button, which makes it okay in my book.

And with that, this first series of Doctor Who comes to an end. I’ve certainly enjoyed the ride, and I hope you’ve been entertained by my ramblings. Though perhaps not as educational as was first intended, Doctor Who has turned out to be an interesting science fiction programme with a real charm to it, and it has tremendous potential in the future. The only limit is the imagination.

As the crew head off to their next adventure, we end on a rather nice quote which, to me, captures the essence of Doctor Who.

“Our lives are important, at least, to us. But as we see, so we learn … Our destiny is in the stars, so let’s go and search for it.”

Next Episode: Planet Of Giants

3 out of 5 stars

 


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[August 23rd, 1964] The Reign Of Boredom (Doctor Who: The Reign Of Terror [Part 1])


By Jessica Holmes

Ready for another historical episode? This serial of Doctor Who comes from the mind of Dennis Spooner, who I don’t think we’ve had a story from before. Interestingly, this is the first Doctor Who serial to be partially shot on location, instead of the airing cupboard at the BBC they usually use.

I want to start with a couple of things. One: I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on the French Revolution. And two: my opinion on this episode is objective fact and I shall not be tolerating any dissenters.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

A LAND OF FEAR

The TARDIS lands in a nice spot of countryside, and in keeping with his promise at the end of the previous serial, the Doctor curtly informs Ian and Barbara they can go now, and not to let the door bang their backsides on the way out. However, considering this is the Doctor we’re talking about, Ian and Barbara aren’t about to just waltz off when they’re not even sure they’re on the right planet, so Ian manages to coax the Doctor out for a drink while they scope out the area.

Hearing some loud bangs as they leave the TARDIS, Ian rummages around in the bushes and drags out a small boy, who kindly informs them that they’re in France. To be fair, it’s not far off from Old Blighty. Get a ferry from Dover and you can make a day trip of it.

The boy runs off, and the others track him to a deserted house.

Ian and Barbara admit to themselves that they wouldn’t really be disappointed if they weren’t in England in 1964. Or should they come back to 1963? I’m not sure if it’s been as long for them as it’s been for us.

Finding the house empty, the companions promptly start plundering the owners’ belongings. Aside from some fancy frocks and dusty candlesticks, they find documents signed by Robespierre…and realise where and when they are.

And just to round things off, while exploring alone (always a bad idea) the Doctor gets a nice whack over the back of the head.

Meanwhile, the rest of the companions are helping themselves to some contemporary clothes. The garments look quite accurate to the location and time period, though I couldn’t say if the lack of corsets is excellent historical attention to detail (the corset having fallen out of fashion during the revolution in favour of simpler garments), or simply a lack of budget or modern clothing standards getting in the way of accurate period costuming.

That might all be a bit nit-picky, but I think the Doctor would appreciate my twaddle on whether or not everyone should be wearing a corset. This is, after all, his favourite historical period. I don’t know what that says about him but I think we should probably keep him away from any members of the aristocracy, just in case.

Oh. Too bad, because a couple just showed up. This farmhouse, it turns out, is their hideout. I’m not going to tell you their names because for one, I didn’t catch them, and for two, they’ll be dead in a couple of minutes so there’s no point.

They prepare to make a brave stand as a gang of soldiers come to capture them, only for one of them to chicken out and run outside, necessitating the other to come out and rescue him. He’s doing well at persuading the soldiers not to shoot them, right up to the point that he tells them that even if they have uniforms, they’re still peasants underneath.

To literally nobody’s surprise, that’s not a very clever thing to say to a bunch of gun-toting peasants.

R.I.P, French blokes whose names I don’t know.

Meanwhile, Ian’s trying to find where they stashed the Doctor, who is still out cold, but the soldiers barge in before he can, and drag everyone (except the Doctor, who is still having a nice nap) out into the courtyard.

The Doctor finally wakes up just as the soldiers are about to execute his mates. However, their leader persuades the men that they should take the companions to Paris, where they’ll be rewarded for delivering them to ‘Madame Guillotine’. How nice.

Before leaving, they decide to burn the house down, just to be thorough. Things sure don’t look good for the Doctor. Pity I literally don’t care. Of course I always know the Doctor or whoever is imperiled in the cliffhanger-of-the-week is going to be fine, but I am usually enjoying the episode enough that I can suspend my disbelief.

I didn’t know 24 minutes of television with multiple shootings and a house burning down could actually be this boring. Yes; this is the end of the episode! Is it just me, or would all these events normally take place within the first fifteen minutes?

2 out of 5.

GUESTS OF MADAME GUILLOTINE

I think I like the title more than I like the episode.

With the Doctor being slow-roasted French-style, the companions arrive in the city of lights, and Paris gives them a lovely warm welcome, by which I mean they’re immediately sentenced to death for being in the company of traitors of the revolution.

There we go. Show’s over, everyone’s dead.

…Sadly I don’t think I’ll get out of doing this write-up that easily.

Unfortunately there’s a backlog of necks that want chopping, so Ian, Barbara and Susan are going to have to wait a bit, in the company of a delightfully charming jailor who makes creepy implications about what Barbara could do for him to secure her release. Barbara gives him a slap instead. That’s my girl. Susan, on the other hand, wallows in misery, convinced everyone’s going to die. Tsk.

Oh, and the Doctor’s alive too. The little boy from last episode went into the house and dragged him out, which is nice of him. Don’t expect him to stick around, though, nice as it might have been for the Doctor to have a plucky young sidekick. The Doctor’s off to Paris!

On a real, actual road! With real sky! And a fake Bill Hartnell! Two out of three isn't bad. See, they didn't actually have the budget to transport any of the cast out to the filming location, so they had to make do with a double shot from a distance. That's pretty neat!

Ian, meanwhile, is sitting in a cell with a chap who is not feeling his best. He’s got a nasty gunshot wound, and it’s clear he’s not long for this world. The wounded man tells Ian to find an Englishman in Paris, who is in the city to gather information. There’s a war coming between England and France, because the day ends in a Y. I can’t even remember which historical war they’re gearing up for. There’s too many, and a ridiculous number of them are simply called the ‘Anglo-French War’. We’ve been at war, or preparing for it, pretty much ever since that William bloke paddled across the Channel.

I digress. The man imparts his wish, and dies, and I swear this should be more interesting to me than it is. It’s just not doing anything for me.

Out in the sunshine, the Doctor is having a nice walk in the countryside, and comes upon some ‘tax-dodgers’ being forced to work on the road. He tells their foreman that they might work faster if he actually picked up a pick. Astute observation, Doctor, and a great way to illustrate the difference between intelligence and wisdom, as this makes the foreman take offence, and investigate the Doctor's lack of travel papers. No papers, eh? Probably up to no good. And what do we do with people who are up to no good? We put them to work!

In Paris, Barbara and Susan are making progress on digging their way out of their cell. It looks like the ladies might be coming to the rescue.

Meanwhile, the man who was commanding the soldiers who captured the companions (I’m sorry, I didn’t hear his name) has come to investigate the death of the man in Ian’s cell, and asks if he and Ian spoke before he died. Ian lies to him, and says that they didn’t, but the jailor tells the commander otherwise, though he didn’t hear what was said.

Back in the ladies’ cell, Susan and Barbara find some rats in the hole they’ve made, and go into hysterics, because we womenfolk literally melt if we see a rodent, don’t you know? I don’t know. You cross the universe fighting priests who cut people’s hearts out and bug-eyed monsters and pepper-pots with death rays, and you go to pieces over a few rats?

Look. I’m scared of spiders. But if I’m going to be decapitated in the morning, and the only way out of it is to crawl through a tunnel filled with tarantulas, I’d absolutely, positively, definitely…get my last rites in order and sort out a will.

Perhaps I can’t really talk.

Meanwhile in the countryside….

Sometimes I do wish the characters would stay together for longer than five minutes so I don’t have to come up with a new way to re-introduce them every other paragraph to prevent things getting repetitive.

But meanwhile à la campagne, the Doctor gets in a boring and stupid and unnecessary scene that, unless there is some deep meaning in it that I’m too thick to get, is there just to pad out the episode. This whole thing with the roadworks is so pointless.

The Doctor distracts the foreman by making him stare at the sun, then steals his money, throws it on the ground, and while the foreman is digging through the soil, whacks him over the back of the head. Our hero, everyone!

Okay, so he was actually using the foreman’s greed against him by making him think he’d found a treasure trove, but he still knocked a man out cold while he wasn’t even looking.

To be fair, I was already thinking ‘why not just hit him with your pick’, and then he did, but that doesn’t reflect well on either of us.

Back in Paris (see? This is what I mean), the guards come for Susan and Barbara, and they’re taken with a bunch of other prisoners to the guillotine.

And all Ian can do is watch helplessly from his cell.

And how have I managed to write so much about an episode of little substance?

2 out of 5.

A CHANGE OF IDENTITY

Let’s introduce this one with a little scrap from my notes:

My chippy tea is going cold and I’m having to watch this.

Jessica from the past, you put it into words.

At least we’re finally getting to the bit where people’s heads start getting chopped off. Please?

The Doctor makes it to Paris, just as the women are on their way to have a little off the top, though of course he doesn’t know that.

In an alleyway, two men, noblemen by the looks of it, are lying in wait for the prisoners and soldiers heading their way.

And back in prison. Oh, back in prison. I can barely bring myself to go on. The jailor leaves the key to Ian’s cell…in the lock. Of Ian’s cell. And then rushes off because the commander chap is calling him. Leaving Ian free to grab the key-ring, nick his key, and put it back how he found it before the jailor remembers what he did with the keys.

I don’t even have the will to make a joke or be annoyed about it. It’s just not worth it.

Out on the streets of Paris, the horse towing Barbara and Susan on their way to certain doom throws a shoe, and Barbara plans to make a run for it when the guards unhitch the horse. Susan, however, has suddenly developed a very inconvenient illness and so can’t be running off anywhere, and Barbara, bless, won’t leave her.

Luckily the two men are nearby to save them because goodness knows they couldn’t possibly have rescued themselves in the face of this sudden narrative contrivance.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is shopping for new clothes. This is Paris, after all. Being in possession of no actual money, he trades in his old clothes and also a rather ugly ring, in return for…well. Wait and see.

Barbara and Susan make it to a safehouse. The blokes who saved them are called Jules and Jean, and they are posh, upper-class, and might as well have a dotted line around their necks labelled ‘chop here’.

Ian, meanwhile, is escaping, but not without notice.

I’ll just say, it’s not a very thrilling escape when the jailor is passed out on the floor and the only conscious witness is presumably hoping Ian will just lead him to the English spy, and so doesn’t lift a finger.

Susan and Barbara tell Jules and Jean about the farmhouse and the men they met there. They realise that their escape route has been compromised. A messenger arrives for them, a man called Leon.

Back in the dungeon….

Forget everything mean I’ve said about this episode. It’s just redeemed itself.

Behold the Doctor’s new outfit:

Besides being a genuinely funny reveal, the Doctor’s new outfit serves another purpose. It enables him to walk right into the prison in the guise of a regional officer, and interrogate the jailor as to the whereabouts of Ian, Barbara and Susan!

He learns of their escape, but before he can go off to be their knight in fabulous plumage, along comes the commander, who asks to see the Doctor’s papers. Of course, the Doctor remembered to forge some this time (perhaps the only worthwhile thing to come out of his little interlude in the countryside), so he’s not rumbled…yet.

However, the commander is on his way to have a chat with Robespierre himself about the execution lists, and extends an invitation to the Doctor, who can’t very well say no.

At least that might be interesting next time.

In what the French call le safehouse, Leon and Barbara make small-talk. Barbara tells him that she’s English, which he takes as an encouraging sign that she doesn’t really have a side in the whole revolution thing.

Look, she’s a history teacher. I can bet you she has opinions.

So that’s nice. And dull.

However, back at the prison, qu’est-ce que c’est? Or, as the English prefer to say, what is this that this is?

It’s the man from the clothing shop. He informs the commander that he has evidence of a traitor, and then (all together now), dun dun DUUUUUUUN…!

He produces the Doctor’s ring.

See, this is why I don’t wear jewellery. You never know when a duplicitous merchant of clothes might buy it off me and use it as evidence of me betraying the ideals of the revolution.

Okay, that’s it. I’m free. For now. I really hope things start picking up next time.

2 out of 5.

Final Thoughts

Well, having spent quite a lot of this review just making my own stupid jokes, how engaging do we think I found this serial so far?

Not very.

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but if I was going to hazard a guess, I would say that it’s the pacing. There is not enough plot here to stretch over a six-part serial, and so in dragging out individual plot points that might actually have been interesting in a more densely-plotted story, all the flavour is drained out of them. Think of it like jam scraped over too much bread.

Now, that’s not to say that a story must have a dense plot to be good. Not by any means. However, what a good story may lack in plot it absolutely must make up in terms of interesting character insight and development, and apart from the core cast, I don’t even know the names of any other characters here! The jailor’s a drunken lecherous lout, an embodiment of contemporary Royalist stereotypes about the Revolutionaries, right down to the tatty uniform. The commander? Well, I’d give you my judgement only I don’t have one. I don’t recall one thing about him! As for the young aristocratic men, they seem nice enough but about as interesting as white bread. At least the men in the first episode had the distinguishing characteristics of being a snob and a coward. Not the best characteristics, but I remembered them, didn’t I?

We’ll have to see how the rest of the serial pans out for me to lay down any greater judgement one way or another, but between you and me? I wouldn’t hold my breath.


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[August 5, 1964] A Bit Of A Flub (Doctor Who: The Sensorites [Part 2])


By Jessica Holmes

So, where did we leave off last time we watched Doctor Who together? Let me check my notes. I can’t tell aliens apart, psychic powers are a bit rubbish, and Ian’s come down with a nasty case of Dramatic Cough of Doom Syndrome (or DCDS for short. It’s pronounced like the sound your typewriter makes when it gets jammed).

A RACE AGAINST DEATH

I hope Ian’s got his affairs in order.

With his life hanging in the balance, the Doctor and Susan go over everything they've done since arriving on the Sensesphere, and realise the only thing Ian did differently to them was drinking the local tap-water. Tsk, tsk. They do tell you in all the travel brochures not to do that.

Meanwhile, John’s having his brain fixed, and the city Administrator comes in to whine about it. He was the one who wanted to disintegrate everybody last episode, if you recall. He doesn’t seem to like anything about the humans. Not their names, which he reckons are absurd (cheek!), not their culture of egalitarianism (though I could dispute that), and not their stupid, ugly faces (pot, kettle!)

The conversation turns to Ian’s troubles with the water, and of course the Administrator doesn't believe that there's anything wrong with the water supply. No, Ian must be a great big faker.

John perks up a bit at this talk of the water, and goes off on his Goodness detector powers, yelling 'EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL' at the Administrator. Shockingly, nobody pays him any mind.

And then he conks out. Well, at least he tried.

Carol comes along and asks how John is. The Admin gets his knickers in a twist over this. How dare she assume he's a mere doctor when his collar of office CLEARLY marks him as the city Administrator! She apologises and says that without the collars and badges, the humans would be unable to tell the Sensorites apart.

Gee, I wonder what’s going to happen with that.

We rejoin the Doctor attempting to convince the First Elder to let him back onto the TARDIS so that he can make use of the facilities aboard to cure Ian. It’s not going terribly well. The First Elder tells the Doctor he can use the lab on the planet, or no lab at all, prompting the Doctor to decry him as a fool in such a way I think he started to turn into an owl mid-phrase.

His hoot of indignation doesn’t go down well with the Sensorites, who interpret it as an acoustic attack. Susan apologises and gently explains that they didn't mean to use sound as a weapon. She's doing a really good job as a mediator, what with her gentle nature and her psychic abilities.

So of course the Doctor just leaves her behind to nurse Ian and leaves to check out the lab.

The Sensorites say they've tested the water and found nothing, but the fact remains that the current death rate is three in every ten citizens. Last year it was two in ten. Well, sounds like it's on the rise, whatever's going on.

Eventually, the Doctor finds atropine poison in the water in certain districts. Why only some districts, and why is the poison not always present when tested for? That’s not clear right now.

With the poison identified, it’s a simple job working out the antidote. The Doctor orders that the first batch of the antidote be sent to the First Elder's quarters and given to Susan, who can then administer it to Ian.

Well, that was easy. All’s done and dusted, right?

Wrong.

The antidote never makes it to Ian. Instead, on their way to deliver the antidote, the courier is waylaid by the Second Elder…or so they think. The real Second Elder is actually tied up in the disintegrator room, missing his sash of office. Who’s parading it about? Who do you think?

While that’s going on, the Doctor travels to the entrance of the aqueduct. It gets even more mysterious when it turns out that for some reason, the Sensorites can't seem to light it up, so it's kept in perpetual darkness. Hence, they instinctively avoid it. This seems fishy.

The Doctor insists on going in, but the Sensorite scientist tries to dissuade him. There are monsters in there. They've heard them.

Monsters in the dark, you say? That’s only going to encourage him.

The scientist reports back, and Ian, though literally dying right now, insists that the Doctor needs help, and he tries to get up and go himself. See, this is why I love Ian. Poor bloke is at death's door, feeling like absolute rubbish, but he still steps up when he thinks a friend's in danger.

Ian and Susan arrive safely at the aqueduct, which is pretty impressive considering Ian’s been drifting in and out of consciousness for most of the episode.

Inside the aqueduct, however, things are amiss. There’s deadly nightshade growing all around!

Belladonna? On another planet?

Hold that thought. Something just roared off-camera.

KIDNAP

Ian and company find the Doctor unconscious, with his jacket torn to shreds. What on Earth (or rather, the Sensesphere) happened to him?

Oh, and apparently Susan went all the way back to the laboratory and got more antidote. That explains why Ian seems to be so much better. I was beginning to worry my grandpa might actually be right about the health benefits of a brisk walk in the fresh air.

John tries to warn Carol of the plotters threatening them. The doctor (no, not that one) treating him thinks it's impossible. It's just not in the Sensorites' nature. On the bright side, they’re getting closer to fixing his mind.

The Sensorite doctor explains that, in essence, the bit of John’s brain that controls fear is broken, leaving him afraid all the time. Poor John. I get how he feels.

The Administrator continues with his plotting, forcing the Second Elder to summon the Senior Warrior and tell him to bring the firing key for the disintegrator. Before the Administrator can put it in, however, the Second Elder snatches it. He's killed in the struggle, but not before breaking the key.

Will that stop the Administrator? Of course not. He turns the situation to his advantage immediately, and toddles off to tell the First Elder that his second is dead, and what’s more, his associate saw the whole thing, and has proof of what happened.

Who murdered the Second Elder? The Doctor, of course!

They produce the broken firing key as evidence. His minion claims that the Second Elder was carrying the firing key through the courtyard, where he was set upon by the Doctor, who took something from his jacket and struck the Second Elder dead with it.

To be clear, they’re talking about the jacket that was torn to shreds at the start of the episode.

So the charge immediately falls apart, the mook is arrested for bearing false witness, and most importantly we don't have to sit through some utterly tedious plot of proving the obvious. Thank heavens.

Now the Admin starts up a story accusing the poor dead Second Elder of everything he himself is guilty of, which everyone buys hook, line and sinker. For his loyal service, the First Elder rewards the Administrator with a promotion to Second Elder, for real this time. I’m still going to keep calling him the Admin, however, to avoid confusion. It’d be much more helpful if he was just called Kevin.

John, meanwhile, seems to be on the mend. Gosh, he's actually smiling. Wouldn’t it be nice if mental illness was so easily treated in real life? On the downside (because there has to be one, hasn’t there?), his memory of his time with a frazzled brain is quite fuzzy.

But on the upside, while examining the items left behind by the humans who came to the planet years ago, someone brings up the city Administrator, giving Susan a bright idea. She asks John what it was about the one particular Sensorite he tried to warn everyone about. Something different about his clothes? His…collar?

And the penny drops.

The Admin, meanwhile, has released his minion from prison, and has him tamper with some devices.

The Doctor and Ian report their findings, and announce their intentions to make another expedition into the aqueduct. The Doctor also asks that Barbara be brought down to the planet's surface. I don't know why she didn't come with them in the first place. I can only assume that her actress was unavailable for filming.

They're given weapons, but it's the ones that the Admin had his minion fiddle with. He also manages to get his hands on the plan of the aqueduct that the Doctor is going to be using, and has it altered. Not only will Ian and the Doctor get hopelessly lost, they won’t even be able to defend themselves from whatever they encounter down there.

The First Elder laments over the death of his original second, and realises that if the humans didn't kill him, it must have been a Sensorite. But who? And why?

Carol and John begin to wonder where the Doctor and Ian are. Carol decides to go and see where they're at. Now that John’s better, we can see how smitten he is with Carol. It’s written all over his face.

That’s a pity. He’s going to be so upset when Carol doesn’t come back from her investigation.

A DESPERATE VENTURE

Carol falls into the clutches of the Administrator, who forces her to write to John and tell him that she’s gone back to the ship.

Cut to John reading the letter and not being at all convinced. More importantly, however, Barbara’s back! I’m sure she’ll sort this all out. It can’t be a coincidence that this is the final episode of the serial.

The First Elder agrees the letter is dodgy, but still clings to his belief that no Sensorite would have nefarious intentions, prompting John to very nearly lose his temper with him. It doesn’t really matter what the First Elder believes or doesn’t believe. Carol’s in danger, but they have all the clues they need to find her. The ink on the letter is still wet, so they realise it was written very recently, so it must have been written inside the palace, and according to the First Elder, only one room of the palace would make a suitable hiding spot: the disintegrator room.

Back with Carol, the Admin’s accomplice is being a nasty little git and gloating at her, but who should pop up over his shoulder other than John!

Bear in mind, however, where they are. The accomplice has but to touch Carol with the disintegrator device and she’ll turn to dust. However, while the accomplice’s attention is focussed on John, Carol yanks out the power lead to the disintegrator.

I suppose the Administrator couldn’t find himself a more competent accomplice.

Along comes the First Elder to arrest the minion, and thankfully he’s not so naive as to think this traitor acted alone, as he discusses with our friend the Administrator in a delicious little bit of dramatic irony.

Luckily for the Administrator, his accomplice is a loyal servant who refuses to confess who he’s working with. Unluckily for the minion, the Administrator is perfectly happy to throw him under the bus.

With all this sordid business wrapped up (or so they think) Barbara asks for a map to the aqueduct, so that she can lead a rescue mission for the hapless blokes.

Barbara had better hurry, because Ian and the Doctor aren’t alone in the dark. However, this labyrinth of tunnels has no minotaur– it has a man! Perhaps not all of the first humans to come to the Sensesphere perished, after all.

Back at the palace, Barbara asks to use one of the mind transmitters so that she can communicate with Susan as she travels through the aqueduct. The First Elder is impressed that Susan can psychically communicate without the transmitter. She says she's always been able to read the Sensorites' minds, but only when they allowed her to.

I wonder if, now that we're comfortable with the main cast, the writers of Doctor Who are going to continue building the mystique of the Doctor and Susan. After all, this whole adventure started because they were mysterious, and because Ian and Barbara were nosy. Who knows what sort of things might start coming out about them, and what new questions might come up?

In a quiet moment as Barbara prepares to leave, Susan and the First Elder get time to talk about more personal matters. The First Elder can sense that Susan is torn between wanting to go home, and an insatiable wanderlust. Susan hasn’t seen her home planet in ages. The sky is a burnt orange at night, and the leaves on the trees are silver. It’s definitely an alien world. And a beautiful one, by the sounds of it. I hope we get to see it.

Ian and the Doctor continue blundering around the aqueduct, and soon run into more company, although the Doctor doesn't immediately realise it, because he's too busy enjoying the sound of his own voice.

Barbara arrives at the entrance to the aqueduct, and takes the opportunity to test out her long-distance communication with Susan. It works, but Susan asks that she say her words aloud as she thinks them. It makes it clearer for her, she says. Cheers, Susan. It’s a lot clearer for me, too. I don’t understand the language of slide-whistles, or whatever they’re using to make the psychic sound effect.

Oh, we've got yet another human living in the aqueduct. It would appear that Ian and the Doctor have stumbled upon the three humans who were presumed to have perished in the spaceship explosion. This last human is known as the Commander, but he doesn’t look like one. He’s certainly not any cleaner than the others, to say nothing of his posture.

It seems these chaps are the culprits in the whole matter of the poisoned water supply, poisoning the supply to random sections of the city at random times using a logic only they can follow. For some reason, they think they're at war with the Sensorites.

Hold on a moment. They’re performing chemical warfare on a civilian population with the intent of destroying said population. I suppose we don’t have the Geneva Convention in the future?

The Doctor and Ian lie that the war is won and the planet is theirs. Unfortunately, the Commander gets quite defensive when Ian mentions the richness of the planet’s resources, fearing that he might get cheated out of his spoils. It looks like things might get quite nasty, and then to add the cherry on top, Barbara turns up with John. It takes some quick talking and faster thinking from the Doctor to get them all out of this mire and out of the aqueduct, where the Sensorites are waiting to take the ragged humans into custody.

With everyone safely back at the palace, the First Elder sadly laments that their minds must have been broken from all the exposure to the Sensorites’ psychic signals, so they were left playing their little game of war, and the innocent Sensorites of the city ended up paying the price.

And what of the Administrator? The discovery of the tampered map has revealed the Admin's treachery, so he's been banished.

Sadly we don't actually get to see the scene of all his schemes coming crashing down, some satisfying confrontation where everyone reveals themselves to be alive and produces evidence of his duplicity, and he's left with nothing to say before being booted out in disgrace.

I’d give bonus points if he got zapped with the disintegrator weapon which appears to be little more than a jammed Chekhov’s Gun.

Back in the TARDIS, Susan laments that because of the high-frequency signals on the Sensesphere (whatever that's supposed to mean), her latent psychic abilities won't really work anywhere else. Still, she clearly has potential in that area, so the Doctor promises her that they'll see if they can refine her abilities back at home.

Home? Could we perhaps get to see the Doctor and Susan’s homeworld?

It’ll be a wonder if he ever manages to find it with his navigational skills, but I wouldn’t say that to his face.

Not going by his reaction when Ian makes a good-natured quip that at least the human astronauts know where they’re going. He declares he’s going to put Ian off the TARDIS. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Touched a nerve, eh, Doc?

Final Thoughts

Here we are, at the end of another serial. I think the first half of this serial was the stronger, as the exploration of the mental effects of telepathy was more interesting there, but in the second half, the Sensorites just stick John in a machine to fix his brain and that’s that.

Also, I know the earlier humans had been mentioned before the reveal, and that the Sensorites weren’t sure what had happened to them, but I liked my own personal theory on what was happening with the poison better than the actual explanation.

A bunch of humans running around in the aqueduct like Gollum, fighting an imaginary war against the tricksy Sensoriteses? It’s not that it doesn’t make sense. It does, it makes perfect sense. It’s also just not terribly interesting.

Now, consider this: what if this had turned out to be the Administrator’s doing?

Nothing seemed to really be made of the fact that there’s a caste system in this society. Sure, we have the word of the elders that everyone’s happy in their place, but I’m sure that’s been the majority opinion of the ruling class in every heavily stratified society ever. It would not have surprised me one bit if it had turned out that the Administrator was targeting certain sections of the city in order to keep the hierarchy in place. Dark, yes, but thematically fitting.

Frankly, the ending was a bit naff. The humans in the aqueduct are introduced and dealt with too quickly for it to feel at all satisfying. There was justice for the Administrator, but I like to actually see events happen on-screen rather than just be told about them.

One more comment before I start saying nice things:

There are quite a few obvious line flubs in this serial. Did they genuinely run out of budget to reshoot, or at least over-dub?

Okay, now I’ll be nice.

As I said before, I liked the first half better than the second, but that was a really solid first half. I also got quite attached to the minor characters, which I don’t often. Especially John.

Though some opportunities were missed, there was some intelligent writing in this serial, with real consideration being given to the negative effects of mind-reading. It could be a public service announcement from the future against the perils of careless telepathy. And, as I believe I mentioned in my last review, I liked the bit of (intentional or not) societal commentary in how the astronauts treated John before he got treatment for his affliction.

It was also exciting to learn a little bit about where the Doctor and Susan come from, and I’m eager to learn more, hopefully sooner rather than later. Not too soon, though. That’d take all the fun out of speculation. Maybe they’re from a future Mars colony? They do look human, after all, and are from, as Susan put it: “…Another time, another world.”

This was an enjoyable enough serial, but I don’t think I'd have any particular urge to watch it again (if it is ever rerun). Still, I’ll be happy to watch more offerings from Peter R. Newman in future.

Until next time, then!

3 out of 5 stars


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[July 12th, 1964] Mind Over Matter (Doctor Who: The Sensorites [Part 1])


By Jessica Holmes

Can I admit to something silly? I am a little bit scared of mind-readers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually believe in telepaths. Then again, who knows what sort of freaky experiments certain entities get up to.

I just think the idea of someone reading my mind, or even manipulating it, is one of the most horrifying concepts out there.

And it looks like Doctor Who agrees with me.

STRANGERS IN SPACE

Before setting off on their next adventure, the companions take a moment to reflect on how far everyone has come, in the literal and metaphorical senses.

"Yes, it all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a…great spirit of adventure!"
The Doctor

Nice quote aside, the conversation feels a bit like it was yanked out of a children’s television programme, where the viewer needs the moral of the story spoonfed to them. It doesn’t belong at the start of this serial, for another thing. It just feels wrong for the pacing. We should be diving head-first into an adventure, not cautiously dipping a toe.

After stumbling over that scene, we can at last slide into the next adventure. Where has the TARDIS landed? A spaceship! And what should they find but a dead bloke slumped by the controls.

Bodes well, doesn't it?

There's another crew member nearby, also dead. Both are still warm.

Sensing danger, the companions turn back to the TARDIS, when the dead man suddenly moves.

The not-so-dead man grunts out a request for an unknown device, which revives him within seconds. He tells Barbara to use it on the dead woman, Carol. The man, Maitland, explains the device is a heart resuscitator, and that they weren't dead, just very deeply asleep.

Maitland explains that they’re orbiting a planet called the Sensesphere. Its people have been preventing them from leaving this region of space. How? By controlling their minds. Whenever the astronauts have tried to get past them, the Sensorites have used the control they have over the astronauts' brains to put them into a death-like sleep.

While he explains, we cut away to see a mysterious hand probing at the keyhole of the TARDIS, before waving an unknown device in front of it.

When we cut back, Barbara catches a whiff of something burning, and by the time we return to the TARDIS, the device has managed to extract the lock, as the Doctor and company discover a few minutes later, when they attempt to leave before running into any trouble. That’ll be the day.

No time to worry about that now, as the ship begins barrelling towards the surface of the Sensesphere. It’s only with the Doctor’s intervention that the ship doesn’t go smashing into the surface of the planet, leaving Maitland to wonder why he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

The Doctor postulates that it was the Sensorites' doing; an exercise in fear, to remind everyone that they could take control of their minds and kill them with ease, if they wanted to. However, it seems that the Doctor and his companions are immune to their influence.

Puzzled, the Doctor asks the astronauts if they've ever seen any of these Sensorites. Carol informs him that John, the third member of the crew (who we have yet to meet) has. However, when the Doctor expresses his desire to talk to John, he’s firmly shut down by Maitland.

Susan and Barbara go off to look for a drink, but someone closes the door behind them, and it’s not long before they find themselves trapped with a man who we can only presume must be John. The fellow doesn’t look particularly well as he shuffles about, blank-faced and glassy-eyed.

When Ian wonders aloud where the women have got to, the astronauts dart for the doorway Barbara and Susan just went through, but find it locked. They remark that they should have warned them. That your crewmate is a zombie? Yeah, probably worth mentioning!

Carol admits to Ian that John's brain has been pretty much turned to mush by the Sensorites. He gets violent sometimes, and is frightened of strangers.

This doesn’t bode well for Barbara and Susan, who have just been cornered by him. Rather than attack them, however, he breaks down in tears and asks who they are. Barbara, he says, looks like his sister. Have they come to help him?

Oh, poor bloke.

He's clearly just frightened and upset, so being decent human beings Barbara and Susan do what they can to comfort him.

I sense a metaphor here for the treatment of the mentally ill. Think about it. The other astronauts have locked him away, they're terrified of him, thinking him violent, when the poor chap is just scared, confused and unhappy.

A god-awful noise distracts the others from their attempts to break through the door, probably for the better. The last thing John needs is any hostility. There's something outside the ship, approaching fast.

Here come the Sensorites.

A pretty good start to the serial, with a nice build of tension and dread. Interested to see where it goes from here. 3.5 stars out of 5.

THE UNWILLING WARRIORS

Everyone tries to remain calm, but the astronauts seem a bit too good at it. They're completely frozen.

John breaks down again and starts speaking in response to an unseen voice. He's refusing to do something for them. To frighten Barbara and Susan. But why do the Sensorites want him to frighten the women?

It seems that the key to resisting the Sensorites is not allowing yourself to give in to fear. Fear opens the mind up to their influence, and that’s why our companions have been able to resist the Sensorites thus far. With everything they’ve been through, they’re hard as nails.

Susan suggests that she and Barbara could try using their minds to help resist the Sensorites. They have to be thinking in unison, and concentrating hard. To my surprise, it actually works, but the mental exertion makes Susan faint. It looks like she was doing most of the psychic heavy-lifting, as the Doctor discusses with Carol, once they manage to get the whole group back together.

He mentions it might be possible for Susan's thoughts to resist the Sensorites. Now, it's interesting that he specifically singles out Susan, not Barbara. Does Susan have an increased level of psychic ability? Why? How different exactly are the Doctor and Susan from the rest of the companions?

Meanwhile, Maitland and Ian are worrying about John, and trying to figure out why he bore the brunt of the Sensorites’ attack. Ian suspects that, as the ship’s mineralogist, John discovered something the Sensorites wanted to keep secret.

And now it's time for the science lesson, because there is probably someone at the BBC who is paid to come into the production offices of Doctor Who every so often and remind everyone that the programme is supposed to be educational.

The lesson doesn't get far before Susan tells Ian that she knows what a spectrograph is.

The Doctor takes a closer look at the spectrograph, and has a eureka moment. John found molybdenum.

We get another science lesson as Ian explains the properties of molybdenum, mainly its very high melting point, which makes it highly valued in certain industries. And the Sensesphere is a veritable goldmine of the stuff.

At his proclamation, there's a psychic attack, rendering the astronauts helpless, and Ian and Barbara go to look for the attackers.

After a long scene of them walking through the ship that feels like it goes on forever, they find the aliens. However, the Sensorites don’t attack, and once everyone’s calmed down, Ian figures they were probably as scared of him as he was of them.

Susan begins speaking to an unheard voice. Apparently the Sensorites have made contact, and are asking if they can talk. The Doctor agrees, as long as the Sensorites do them no harm.

The Sensorites reveal that the reason that they won't let the astronauts leave the Sensesphere is that humans have been to the planet before, bringing with them a terrible affliction. They won't let it happen again. However, knowing that this isn’t an ideal situation, the Sensorites have prepared a place for the humans to reside on the Sensesphere, where they’ll be well looked after, and everyone will be safe.

To be honest I think that’s fair enough, though it would have been helpful if they’d just explained that earlier. You’d think people with telepathy would be better communicators.

The Doctor doesn’t agree, however. He just wants the lock to his TARDIS back. Or else. That’s not a threat, but it is a promise.

The Sensorites go away to think about it. While they're making their own plans, the Doctor figures that they probably can't see in the dark, because their eyes were fully dilated in the full light of the ship’s bridge. I’ll take his word for it.

However, the Sensorites have another mental chat with Susan, and to everyone’s surprise, she declares that she’s made a deal with them. She’ll go with the Sensorites down to their planet.

In return, they won’t kill everyone else.

The serial is continuing strongly. 4 stars out of 5.

HIDDEN DANGER

This is why you don't accept lifts from strangers.

Ian and Barbara promptly go into surrogate-parent mode and leap into action to try and rescue Susan. They offer to talk to the Sensorites, who are resistant; they've had bad experiences in the past where other species have come offering peace, only to turn around and deliver destruction.

With the Doctor also attempting to intervene, the Sensorites contemplate stunning the humans and making their escape. However, before they can do that, Ian kills the lights, leaving them cowering in fear as they’re completely blinded. It’s quite pitiful to watch.

The Doctor tells the Sensorites that he simply want his lock back and to go home, so the Sensorites, the poor, timid things, start communicating with their superiors on the Sensesphere.

Ian wonders if he and Barbara were to use the Sensorites’ telepathy devices, could they read each others' minds? Gee, Ian, that's a bit intimate. At least buy her a drink first. Ian wonders if the Sensorites hypnotised Susan, but Barbara says, (with perhaps a hint of pride) that no, she's just growing up.

The Doctor and his granddaughter butt heads over her decision to go with the Sensorites. I don’t think the Doctor is quite ready to face up to the fact that his granddaughter is becoming more independent and starting to make important decisions on her own.

The Sensorites finally agree to let the Doctor talk to their leader, and at last everyone’s happy. Ish.

Well, everyone except for John. He’s tormented by the voices in his head. He’s so unhappy, I desperately want to give the poor man a hug. Carol is dismayed to see him like this, saying that he might as well be dead. Gee. How supportive. Poor man's desperately unwell and his fiancée abandons all hope. Oh, yes! They were planning to get married!

Before heading down to the Sensesphere, the Doctor interrogates the Sensorites further on why they attacked the astronauts.

They explain that ten years ago, five humans came to the Sensesphere. The Sensorites welcomed them, but the humans' minds were closed off. In time, they quarrelled, and two of them took off, their ship exploding a mile into the atmosphere. The other three, the Sensorites assume, must have snuck aboard, and in their struggle for control of the ship, caused the explosion.

Ever since that day, their people have been dying in greater numbers every year. The situation seems similar to how Europeans brought smallpox to the Americas.

Barbara, Maitland and Carol stay with the ship, and the others go down to the Sensesphere.

Meanwhile, the ruler of the Sensorites argues with his fellow elders about his decision to invite the humans down to the planet. He explains his rationale to them, and it's perfectly sensible. The Doctor’s a man of learning. Perhaps he can help them.

I'd have them go through decontamination procedures and keep them in an airtight room, to be on the safe side.

One of the other Sensorites objects on the grounds that humans are ugly. For one, rude. For two, the ruler observes that ugliness really depends on cultural context. The Sensorites think humans are very ugly, but the Elder acknowledges that the humans could well think them ugly.

Not wrong there, mate. You look like a partially-deflated rugby ball with a bad toupee glued onto the wrong end.

No offence.

Still, the Sensorite leader seems like a nice, very reasonable chap. I like him. It’s interesting to see human-alien relations from the other perspective. It does a lot to underline that the Sensorites are just people. Weird-looking people who can read minds, but still people.

The others are rather uncertain about the Earth creatures, untrusting of them. I think both sides of this discussion have merit. They have perfectly valid concerns about potential aggression.

Well. One of them does.

The other doesn't think they'll be safe until all the humans are dead.

I'd argue with him but I’ve read history books and I know what humans are like.

Upon arriving on the Sensesphere, our companions learn that the Sensorites have a caste system. The Elders think and rule, the Warriors fight, and the Sensorites work and play. Everyone's happy, and some are happier than others, as Ian remarks. The Sensorites don't get his point.

Curious. I’d have thought they’d have a more egalitarian society, what with their advanced technology. Then again, technological advancement does not necessarily equal enlightened attitudes.

Also, is Sensorite the name of the species or just that one caste?

Unbeknownst to them (I do so love that word), one of the Sensorites is preparing an assassination. Once everyone is seated, the humans will be struck in the heart with a disintegrator beam.

Meanwhile, the other Sensorites say they can help heal poor John, who seems to be able to tell if people are good or not. Somehow. He's in good company…for now.

Barbara goes with him, and the others go to sit down. The suspense is killing me!

Before they can be assassinated, however, another Sensorite foils the plot, admonishing the murderous Sensorite. I do with they had names. It’d be much easier to keep them straight.

The Elder confirms the group’s assumptions about how John came to be the way he is. He found out about the molybdenum, got overexcited, opening up his mind, and the Sensorites caught him thinking about human mining fleets coming in to mine the resource, so they decided they had to imprison him. They didn’t mean to drive him out of his mind. They put the others to sleep, but his mind was so open, it was as if they hit him with the psychic equivalent of a bus.

The Elder notes that his guests have been brought different water to him, and orders that some of the better water be brought for them. Isn’t water just water?

Ian, not being too fussy, drinks some of the bog-standard water, and a few minutes later, begins to cough. As we all know, coughing in any story is a sure signifier of doom. Nobody ever coughs unless they’re about to drop down dead.

And I've already worked it out:

  • Fact the first: The Elders do not get the disease that plagues their people.
  • Fact the second: The Elders drink water from a different source to the water the common people drink.
  • Fact the third: Ian had some of this poor-people water.
  • And now Ian is coughing.

Something is polluting the water supply.

They don’t call me Holmes for nothing, you know.

I get to feel clever for figuring it out before the Doctor, who takes forever to notice that Ian sounds like he’s about to bring up a lung. The key to understanding the mystery plague is sitting right next to you, man!

However, he can’t fail to notice when Ian begins to choke, and drops to the floor, unconscious.

According to the Elder, there's no hope. He's dying.

Now look here, Mr. Newman. You are not allowed to kill Ian. I like Ian, and I shall be very cross with you if you kill him.

Some nice character moments in this episode. This is shaping up to be a very good serial. 4 stars out of 5.

Final Thoughts

So, that’s the first half of the Sensorites. Personally? I really like it. It’s already taken us to some pretty dark places, and I have a feeling it’s going to get darker before the end. Telepathy has no real limit to how disturbing it can be; it all depends on how brave the writer is feeling (or what the BBC will let him put on television).

I’m also enjoying the presentation of the Sensorites not as villains, but as people with their own problems and their own perspective. Can they work together with the Doctor and company to solve their problems, or will sinister forces hinder their efforts at every turn?

We’ll have to wait and see.


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[June 14th, 1964] A Whole Lot Of Heartache(Doctor Who: The Aztecs)


By Jessica Holmes

Friends and enemies, welcome back to another installment of Doctor Who. We’re diving into a pure historical serial today from the pen of John Lucarotti, concerning a fascinating Mesoamerican civilisation with quite the reputation: the Aztecs.

THE TEMPLE OF EVIL

The TARDIS lands in a burial chamber, and Barbara unleashes her inner magpie as she pokes around the grave goods, identifying the remains as belonging to an important Aztec who died around the 1430s. While admiring the grave goods, Barbara puts on a pretty bracelet she finds. That’s called stealing, Barbara. I don’t think he’s been dead long enough for it to count as archaeology.

Barbara exits the tomb onto a rather impressive set, showing us that we’re high above an Aztec city (possibly Tenochtitlan), presumably at the top of a pyramid. This is a bit curious, because as far as I’ve been able to find out, the Aztecs didn’t entomb their dead in their pyramids. Yes, I am going to continue being this pedantic through the entire review. No, I’m not sorry. You have been warned.

However, Barbara doesn’t get far before running into an Aztec priest.

The others emerge from the tomb and wonder where Barbara is. While they’re wondering, the door closes behind them, so they can't get back to the TARDIS. This does seem to happen a lot. You’d think the Doctor would get into the habit of parking in a more accessible location by now.

They’re met by a pair of priests, and in a pleasant surprise these holy men are downright friendly to the newcomers. I suppose it's too much to ask for authentic casting here. These priests are Tlotoxl, high priest of sacrifice (and also hammy acting, glorious hammy acting), and Autloc, high priest of knowledge. The Doctor is immediately suspicious of them, but the gang follow along and soon reunite with Barbara, who is a god now.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Put on a bit of bling and suddenly it’s all ‘hear my prayer’ and ‘please accept this sacrificial goat’.

Joking aside, the Aztec priests, having witnessed Barbara emerge from a sealed tomb with that stolen bracelet on, have come to the conclusion that Barbara is a goddess: Yetaxa.

I’m pretty certain that there is no Yetaxa in the Aztec pantheon, but who am I to argue with the chaps with the obsidian daggers?

Unable to get back to the TARDIS, the companions realise that they're going to have to keep up the ruse for as long as it takes to find a way back into the tomb, which doesn’t open from the outside.

Ian finds himself being groomed to lead the Aztec army. He is a servant of a god, after all. Who better to lead the mighty army of the Aztecs? Well, a man called Ixta, for one.

Ixta’s trained his whole life to be a warrior. He’s strong, he’s fearless, and he’s clever.

Ian is a science teacher.

They’re a little mismatched is all I’m saying.

Meanwhile, Autloc takes the Doctor to the Aztec equivalent of the old folks' home, where people in their golden years go to live out their days in peace and tranquility, doling out wisdom to any visitors. While exploring a lovely terrace garden, the Doctor takes a shine to a lady called Cameca, and the two get to talking about the architecture of the garden, and the pyramid it’s built upon.

Ian arrives to interrupt their nice little chat. He's not enjoying his time here nearly as much as the Doctor is. Why? Because there’s a drought on. You know what that means. Human sacrifice time!

To his shock, the Doctor urges him to just go along with things, both to maintain their cover, and not to interfere in the religious practices of the Aztecs. Easy for him to say, really. He’s not the one who’s going to get covered in blood.

In this sacrifice, however, Barbara sees an opportunity to flex her godly muscles. She’s a goddess, right? And everyone has to obey a goddess. Her idea is that if she can enact social change and eliminate the more disturbing aspects of Aztec society, by the time Cortez arrives they'll be perfect angels.

Perfect angels, Barbara, who will still be all but wiped out, either by the sword of the Conquistador in his lust for land and gold, or the uncaring indifference of smallpox.

I suppose her heart’s in the right place.

“You can’t change history. Not one line!”
The Doctor

Barbara doesn’t heed the Doctor’s warning, however, and when the time comes, she calls a halt to the sacrifice.

The victim, however, isn't grateful for the reprieve. By stopping the sacrifice, Barbara has denied him honour. Accounts suggest that many Aztec sacrifices weren’t just willing, they were eager for the honour of going to meet their gods.

Then again, the Aztecs did also like to sacrifice conquered enemies by the thousands. I don’t imagine they were quite so enthusiastic about the whole ordeal.

The victim, having been denied the obsidian blade, takes matters into his own hands as he flings himself off the pyramid. And lo! With death came rain.

And with this, Tlotoxl comes to an inescapable conclusion: whoever Barbara is, she’s no god. And for that, he shall destroy her.

A pretty good start to the serial, all in all, but nothing that really made me go ‘Wow!’. 3.5 out of 5.

WARRIORS OF DEATH

We pick up where we left off, and the high priest of scenery-chewing reaffirms his declaration that he shall see Barbara destroyed.

The Doctor and Barbara argue over her intervention, and how much danger it's put them in. The Doctor points out the victim wanted to be sacrificed, but Barbara wanted the Aztecs to see that the rains could come without it. The Doctor briefly loses his temper, upsetting Barbara. Realising what he’s done, he apologises for being harsh with her. I absolutely love this scene. There’s something so wonderfully human about it the emotions here. The anger, frustration, desperation, distress, remorse. It’s wonderful.

The Doctor goes off to meet with Cameca, leaving Barbara to verbally spar with Tlotoxl, who tries to trick her into revealing her lack of divinity. However, Barbara’s sharp wit parries every one of his jabs.

Meanwhile, Ian's with Ixta, and he has a trick up his sleeve; or rather, at the end of it: his thumb.

By pressing his thumb into the back of Ixta’s neck, Ian manages to knock him out cold.

I want to know both how he can do that, and how to do it myself. It’d come in handy. My brother can be quite annoying sometimes.

Ixta is humiliated, but he has one chance left to prove himself: a duel with Ian, at sunset.

Meanwhile in the garden, the Doctor enjoys the company of Cameca very much. For all his early causticness, it looks like the Doctor’s becoming a bit of a softie.

Cameca arranges for the Doctor to meet with the son of the architect who designed the pyramid. As it turns out, it’s Ixta! He agrees to meet the Doctor, and cryptically remarks “What better way to destroy your enemies than to let them destroy themselves?”

Sounds rather Sun Tzu.

Susan, meanwhile, is learning how to be a good Aztec housewife. It is not very interesting. I’m not going to even ask how she’s reading Aztec writing, let alone apparently speaking fluent Nahuatl.

Ixta tells the Doctor about his upcoming fight, but leaves out the fact that it's to be against Ian. Assuming that he wins, he’ll bring the Doctor the plans for the pyramid after the fight. In order to ensure Ixta's victory and continued assistance, the Doctor offers to help him. He gives Ixta a little concoction: a cactus spine stuck into a leaf. Impressive. The poison won't kill his opponent, but it'll slow him down.


Don’t look quite so pleased with yourself, Doctor.

When the Doctor tells Barbara what he’s been up to, he’s shocked to discover that he’s actually helped sabotage Ian’s chances of victory against Ixta. However, he’s unable to warn Ian in time, and in the heat of the fight, Ixta pricks Ian with the cactus spine.

The poison overcomes Ian, and he’s completely helpless as Tlotoxl urges Ixta to finish him off.

It looks like Barbara’s going to have to cook up a bit of divine intervention.


Just look at this costume, though. Isn’t it marvellous?

This was rather a good episode, possibly my favourite of the serial. 4 out of 5.

THE BRIDE OF SACRIFICE

Real or pretend, it’s a bad idea to mess with Aztec gods.

Sadly, Barbara doesn’t have the ability to call down bolts of lightning and start smiting people, but she finds herself the next best thing: a knife. With the dagger pressed to Tlotoxl’s throat, Barbara orders Ixta to leave Ian alone, or she’ll kill the high priest.

With Ian safe, Barbara talks with Autloc, who seems to be coming around to her way of thinking. In a few days there’s to be a sacrifice to the sun god, as there’s going to be an eclipse, and only blood will bring back the sun.

Ian wakes up from his little drug-induced nap to find Ixta standing over him with a knife, which is mildly alarming. Luckily, Ixta doesn't fancy killing him right now. He'd actually like to be friends, at least for the little while Ian has left to live. Next time, Ixta will kill him. Nice bloke.

Along comes Tlotoxl. He asks about the drawings Ixta has agreed to show the Doctor. It turns out he never had them! The secrets of the tomb died with Ixta’s father.

Back at the garden, Cameca's got some cocoa beans. The Doctor proposes that they take a cup of cocoa together. From the way she reacts, I think we're headed for a misunderstanding straight out of a romantic comedy.

…They do make a cute couple, though.

Ian sneaks up to meet Barbara and warns her that Tlotoxl is up to no good, as if she couldn’t have already guessed. In their conversation, Ian tries to convince Barbara that Autloc is the outlier among the Aztecs because he’s ‘civilised’ and not as eager for blood as the other Aztecs they’ve met. Um, what about Cameca? She seems nice and normal.

The conversation just leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Don’t get me wrong: the Aztec rulership and priesthood were incredibly cruel; it’s a big contributor to the neighbouring tribes turning on them with the arrival of Cortez. I just don’t like writing off an entire culture as Evil.

Along comes Tlotoxl, all smiles and friendliness, to offer Barbara a drink.

Barbara orders Tlotoxl to drink first. When he refuses, she flings the poison at his feet. He admits that he was trying to test her, and, furious, Barbara lets him in on her little secret. She’s not Yetaxa. She’s not any kind of goddess. But it’s her word against his, and if he tries any more funny business, she can have him killed.

Well, this has all taken a rather dark turn, hasn’t it? Let’s see what the Doctor’s up to.

The Doctor makes Cameca a nice cup of cocoa, but when Cameca delightedly says that she accepts his proposal, the look on the Doctor’s face is a joy to behold. Whoops!

Still, we can’t really blame the Doctor for this misunderstanding, and must instead shake our fists vigorously at whoever did the historical fact-checking here, because that’s not how the Aztecs proposed marriage. Marriages in Aztec society were arranged between the families of the couple-to-be, facilitated by an elderly female matchmaker.

I’m willing to forgive this outright fabrication, however, because it’s hilarious. And apparently the Aztecs did sometimes use chocolate as an aphrodisiac, so it’s not that far off.

Our two lovebirds retreat to the garden, where Cameca gives the Doctor a medallion with the seal of Yetaxa. It was given to her by Ixta’s father, who used to be in love with her. Oh my!

The Doctor shows Ian the medallion, and tells him of his suspicion that there's a tunnel linking the tomb and the garden; both have Yetaxa's seal on the walls. Oh, and he casually mentions his engagement. Ian's reaction is priceless.

The night before the ritual, Ian gets up, and sneaks off to the garden. However, he doesn’t go unnoticed.

Ian helps the Doctor pry open the seal on the garden wall, revealing a secret tunnel into the pyramid. Ian goes in to have a look, but while he’s in there, along comes Ixta, who blocks off the tunnel.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Ixta reveals another piece of information about the construction of the pyramid: these tunnels are used to carry water. A pretty impressive feat of engineering, but bad news for Ian! They’re bone dry at the moment, but not for long…

Uh oh.

This episode isn’t quite as good as the previous, but the hilarity of the accidental proposal makes up for the shortcomings. 3.5 out of 5.

THE DAY OF DARKNESS

Ian manages to lift up a slab in the ceiling and crawl through before the water takes him. Did you really think they’re going to kill off one of the main characters?

The Doctor begs Ixta to open the wall, admitting that Ian is in the tunnel. Ixta just laughs and walks off, leaving the Doctor thinking he's just got Ian killed.

On the contrary, Ian’s found his way into the tomb! He wastes no time rigging up some leather straps so that the door can be levered open from the outside.

Exiting the tomb, he runs into Barbara and the Doctor, who are very relieved to find him alive and well, if a bit dusty. All they need now is to get Susan and go, so Ian goes to look for her.

However, Tlotoxl has put Susan under Ixta's watchful eye. Ixta tells Susan that Ian is dead. We know better, but what Ixta doesn’t know can certainly hurt him, as Ian sneaks up from behind and subdues him with the old back-of-the-neck trick.

Off they go to leg it back to the TARDIS, but it seems that levering the tomb open is easier said than done. The door is just too heavy.

Ian and Susan head off to try the tunnel again, so that they can let the Doctor and Barbara through the other side.

However, on their way to the garden, they find Autloc on the floor, injured, and beside him is Ian’s club. He’s been framed! As Ian and Susan are hauled off, Autloc declares them servants of a false goddess. Our companions are fast running out of Aztec allies.

Up at the garden, the Doctor is whittling a wheel. He has an idea about making a pulley system to get the door open. The Aztecs don’t have the wheel, so he has to make his own. Cameca offers to intercede on Ian’s behalf. I like Cameca, and I like her dynamic with the Doctor. It’s a very nice relationship.

This makes it a bit confusing, then, when Cameca and the Doctor discuss the Doctor’s hopefully imminent departure. It’s rather cold and wooden, whereas their other scenes have been very warm and genuine. Maybe it was an attempt to show the pair of them putting on a brave face? I don’t know. I don’t know whether it’s the acting or the writing or what it is, but the scene doesn’t really work for me.

Autloc gives Cameca a Special Shiny Thing which basically represents all his wealth. She’s to give it to the man guarding Susan, in order to turn his head. Then, Cameca is to escort Susan up to the temple. Autloc, for his part, has a lot of thinking to do about his life choices, so he decides to leave the city and become a hermit.

We’ve all been there, Autloc.

The guard takes a while to think about the bribe, so Ian makes his mind up for him and clobbers his neck.

Cameca and Susan make a break for it, while Ian starts stripping the guard.

Cameca arrives at the tomb with Susan, and the Doctor sends her away. This farewell is a bit sadder and more sincere. Cameca only asks that the Doctor should think of her.

Let’s try not to think about what the likely consequences are for Cameca’s aid to the false goddess and her servants.

The ceremony arrives, and Tlotoxl tries to kill Barbara. However, he should have taken a closer look at the guards first, as one of them turns out to be Ian! Tlotoxl calls for Ixta’s aid, and it’s time for the ultimate showdown.

They fight atop the pyramid and unfortunately there are so many close shots that it's really hard to tell what's going on. That is, until Ixta has Ian on his back at the top of the steps. As Ixta goes to make the killing blow, Ian succeeds in throwing him off balance, sending Ixta tumbling down the deadly steps of his father’s pyramid.

Victorious, Ian rejoins the others, who have managed to get the tomb open with the Doctor’s pulley system. They all rush inside, and the Aztecs turn up too late to stop them.

Tlotoxl allows them to go. The eclipse has arrived, and the victim’s heart isn’t going to rip itself out.

Inside the tomb, Barbara is depressed about failing to save the collective soul of the Aztecs, and making Autloc doubt his faith. The Doctor tries to reassure her. She couldn’t save them all, but at least she saved Autloc.

It’s not really much comfort, is it? The sacrifices are going ahead, a good man has had his life ruined, goodness only knows what’s to become of Cameca, and in a few short decades, this civilisation will fall, and the native population of Mexico will decline over the following century by as much as 90%.

With a sense of defeat, the companions head off in the TARDIS once again, but it looks like they aren’t safe after all. The ship starts to make a funny noise, and one set of instruments says they’ve stopped, but another says they’re moving.

How can this be?

Perhaps they’ve landed on something.

Or…

In something.

Not a bad one, but lacking the intrigue of the earlier episodes, and a pretty lacklustre climax, I think I have to give this 3 out of 5.

Final Thoughts

In editing down the frankly absurd word count I had for the initial draft of this review, I found myself having to excise commentary on entire plot threads in order to get the article down to a reasonable length. It was while doing this that it occurred to me, that as I could excise these scenes from the review, a lot of them could have been taken out of the serial itself, and the story still would have made sense. There’s a fair bit of wheel-spinning (well, the Aztecs didn’t have wheels, but you know what I mean) in this serial. A lot of quite similar scenes keep popping up. Barbara talks to Autloc about human sacrifice. Tlotoxl tries to unmask Barbara as a false god. A companion is arrested, and released a scene or two later. I cut some of these out of the review because they just didn’t go anywhere.

That’s not to mention the many scenes where characters discuss in detail their plan to do something or other, then are shown doing that something or other. It just seems redundant. Just show the latter.

There’s clearly a lot of interest in Aztec culture on display here, though I do think there’s more interest in the more bloody aspects of Aztec culture and religion than there is in the more mundane side of things. That’s a bit of a shame, really, because I like seeing the aspects of a society that are often left out of the popular narrative. However, the Aztecs as depicted here are certainly interesting, so I hope that this serial prompts a young lass or lad to crack open a history book– provided that their parents let them watch the story in the first place!

That’s about all I have to say on The Aztecs. I hope you enjoyed my rambling and armchair history, and I’ll see you next month, when I’ll be reviewing the first part of the next serial of Doctor Who.

My overall rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars


[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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


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

[April 26th, 1964] The Start Of A Wild Ride (Doctor Who: The Keys of Marinus, parts 1 to 3)


By Jessica Holmes

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my monthly ramblings on Doctor Who. We’re in for a treat this time: Terry Nation’s back with another serial! This story sends the companions zipping about a planet with screaming forests and acid seas in a twisted scavenger hunt where the prize is a bit more special than a bottle of bubbly or a box of chocolates: the TARDIS.

THE SEA OF DEATH

Our journey begins on a pretty beach, and being interplanetary tourists, the companions immediately set out to explore. However, they aren’t alone on what turns out to be an island. A small fleet of one-man submarines makes landfall, and soon they have an unwanted tag-along shadowing their steps.

That’s not the only danger on the island. When Susan tries to go paddling in a tidal pool, she loses her shoe. No, it didn’t wash away: it dissolved!

Well, the sea doesn’t seem quite so appealing any more, does it?

One of the poor chaps in the mini-submarines learned that the hard way. One little crack, and all that’s left of him is his rubber suit.

Spotting a pyramid-like structure in the distance, the group investigate. Time for the educational content. This time, we’re looking at architectural history!

When Ian and Barbara notice that there's no mortaring on this pyramid, because the stonework is so precise, Barbara offers up real-world examples in the Egyptians and the peoples of central and south America. I wonder if it’s in the contract that the writers have to include an educational element, because it does feel a bit shoehorned.

Meanwhile, Susan’s off in her own little world, and her uncanny knack for putting herself in mortal peril sends her falling straight through a wall. Moments later, the Doctor enters the pyramid the same way.

Susan narrowly avoids death when a knife conveniently finds itself buried between the shoulderblades of her web-footed assailant, but she’s not out of the woods yet; there’s someone else in this pyramid.

Ian makes it through the spinning wall too, and to Barbara's surprise, so does she, with an unsettling shot revealing the hooded figure to be waiting just on the other side.

Moments later, Ian comes to the defence of the stranger when one of the web-footed invaders tries to kill them, and their tussle ends with Ian shoving him into a pit in the floor, which leads right to the sea.

The sea of acid.

So, I have to linger here for a moment, because I have a couple of things to say.

For one, who on EARTH (or rather, Marinus) put that in? If I built a house over an active lava lake, which is of course my life's ambition, I wouldn't put a great big hole in the floor where anyone could fall or be pushed in, for heaven’s sake.

For two, Ian just killed someone. A family show!

We finally get to meet the hooded figure, whose name is Arbitan, and it seems that he’s friendly. Or at least friendlier than the wetsuited invaders, who are called the Voord. Ian says he should have thought the pyramid impregnable, to which I say: pardon? Ian, the whole lot of you breached the outer walls by accident.

Arbitan shows the companions the device this pyramid was built to hold: the Mind of Marinus, which Arbitan’s people used as a moral arbiter, and later, a moral enforcer, actively manipulating the minds of men to force moral correctness.

Well, that is extremely creepy.

I don’t care that everything was supposedly hunky dory. Taking away the free will of a populace, even for a noble goal, is a genuinely frightening concept. However, unlike with The Daleks, it doesn’t appear, for now at least, that Nation is interested in interrogating this idea as he did with the virtues and pitfalls of absolute pacifism.

No, instead the companions are roped into a plot to restore this machine to full functionality, but not of their own free will — Arbitan holds the TARDIS hostage.

Oh, and the Voord came to be when one person managed to resist the machine, and freed a bunch of other people from its control.

Are we sure the Voord are the baddies, here?

There are five Keys Of Marinus, scattered far and wide, and they need to be retrieved if the Mind Of Marinus is to regain control of the Voord. Arbitan provides the companions with a set of teleport dials, worn on the wrist like a watch, and asks them to keep an eye out for his daughter while they’re looking for the keys.

And because Doctor Who is surprisingly comfortable for a family show with showing on-screen death, no sooner have the companions departed than Arbitan gets knifed by a Voord.

The Doctor, Susan and Ian arrive at their destination to find that Barbara has vanished. Ian finds her travel dial on the floor. And there's blood on it!

Fun episode, this one. An easy watch.

4 out of 5.

THE VELVET WEB

This is where things get weird.

Very weird.

It doesn’t take long for the rest of the group to track Barbara down. What fate has befallen her? Oh, it’s simply dreadful.


Honestly. Leave her alone for five minutes and she turns into Cleopatra.

She’s lounging on a daybed, dressed in fine silks, while servants feed her fruit.

Along comes a young man to hopefully clear a few things up. In this city, everything is perfect. It’s a post-scarcity society. Everyone is perfectly content, because you can get whatever you want, whenever you want. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it probably is. That’s both commentary on the episode and life advice.

Once the group have gone to sleep, one of the servants comes back into the room and places a mysterious device on each of their foreheads. However, Barbara’s device falls off, and when she awakens, she sees this place for what it really is. The fine silks? Rags. The crystal glasses? Dirty old mugs. This city of luxury? A trap that’s about to snap shut.

Barbara flees, unable to convince the others, and their host reports her perception to his own masters…who are brains in jars. With eyestalks, no less. They look silly and unsettling at the same time. These are the true rulers of this society, all the humans in the city being mind-controlled slaves.

The inherent horror of mind-control aside, it’s funny to watch the others fall over themselves in amazement when presented with worthless junk.


"Never seen anything like it!"

Barbara runs into the servant who placed the devices, Sabitha, and quickly works out that this is Arbitan’s disappeared daughter. However, though she remembers that Arbitan sent her here, she can’t remember anything else. She manages to save Barbara’s life, however, when the creepy host attacks her. She can’t save her from a brainwashed Ian, however, who drags her before the rulers of the city.

Then they order him to kill her.

Barbara manages to escape his grasp, but does she make a run for it? No way! She goes straight for the brains in jars, who for all their intelligence, haven’t accounted for the fragility of glass, or how good humans are at breaking things when we feel like it.

With the brains all smashed up, the humans of the city are freed, and what’s the first thing they do? Burn the place to the ground!

Barbara, you sparked a revolution…and found a key!

It turns out that the young man is actually one of Arbitan’s folk, and he was sent out to complete the same task that has fallen to our companions: recovering the keys. A friend of his was also sent out, but it appears he has got into trouble. The Doctor volunteers to see if he can track the friend down, and if not him, the key. The rest of the group decide to look for the other keys, and they agree to meet up in a week.

I’m sure it’ll go fine.

Susan, not one for long farewells, is the first to leave, but to her detriment, for she winds up in the middle of a forest…and all the trees are screaming.

This was a real cracker of an episode. Loved it.

4.5 out of 5.

THE SCREAMING JUNGLE

As the forest quiets down, the rest of the group catch up with Susan, but she’s still in a state of terror.

I think Susan could do with a bit of toughening up. For someone who ends up in trouble so often, you’d think she’d be a bit harder to scare. Apart from being a poor example to set for girls her age, it’s just getting to be a bit annoying.

Barbara spots a strange idol down a dark, almost hidden path, and in her infinite wisdom goes and starts poking at it. She finds the key attached to the statue, but as she attempts to retrieve it, the arms of the idol come to life and grab her, and the wall swivels, taking away both Barbara and the statue.

Well, at least they got the key. Or did they?

It’s a fake! The others go on ahead to look for the next key, leaving Ian to stick around to recover Barbara, and the real Key of Marinus.

Still, this is Ian we’re talking about. He makes his way to the other side of the wall the same way Barbara did, and on the other side finds another statue, this time wielding an axe. Unwittingly triggering a pressure plate, it’s only Barbara’s timely intervention that saves his head from splitting like a watermelon when the axeman takes a swing at him. It looks like this whole place is booby trapped!

The pair start looking for a way out. A door opens, and Barbara, channelling the first person to get bumped off in any horror flick, goes inside, promptly gets trapped in a net, and then the wall above, covered in bamboo spikes, starts to descend.

For goodness’ sake, Barbara, don’t just bleat at Ian for help. It’s a fishing net. I’m sure you can manage.

Luckily for Barbara, before she can become a human pincushion, a hooded man intervenes. However, while he’s trying to confirm that Barbara isn’t a Voord, an inconvenient vine pops through the window and starts strangling him.


You just can’t trust nature. This is exactly why I never go outside.

Ian and Barbara save him from the overgrown ivy bush, but it’s too late. The old man holds on just long enough to give Ian a cryptic string of letters and numbers, then drops down dead.

So, they have a code, but what for? A safe? It doesn’t look like it. They get to combing the room, and Ian finds the old man’s diary, learning from it that he was working on growth acceleration, speeding up the natural world. Well, I think we can guess as to why the forest is so weird. When night falls, its growth accelerates so much that it can overrun the building within minutes.

That doesn’t really explain why the plants have minds of their own, or why it’s just at night (unless I missed something), but there you go.

As the plants are on the verge of overwhelming Ian and Barbara, they realise that the code is not a code at all, but a chemical formula, and when they find the right jar, they find the key. In the nick of time they hop to their next destination: a freezing mountainside.

I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

I don’t think I liked this episode quite as much as the previous, but it was still a jolly good romp.

4 out of 5.

CONCLUSION

In this serial, Nation seems to be going for a more episodic than serial format, stringing together a series of smaller adventures to build a greater whole. I think it works very well, building up a breathless momentum which I hope will hold with the next few episodes.

Doctor Who can sometimes suffer from slow pacing, and if that’s a problem for me, an adult, I can only assume it’s a problem for the younger members of the audience too. Nation has found a way to mitigate this problem, and while I don’t think it can be used for all stories (nor should it be), I do hope that Doctor Who makes use of this format more often.

All in all, I have thoroughly enjoyed these episodes, and I look forward to watching the rest with all of you.


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