An Hour of Who a Day

February 7: "Journey Into Terror" / "The Death of Doctor Who"

(The Chase episodes 4 & 5)

"Journey Into Terror" is primarily set in some sort of haunted house, it seems. Truth be told, I found the whole sequence very uninvolving, and although I generally try to see things from the point of view of a first time viewer, this time I couldn't view it without knowing the twist at the end, and so the Doctor's theories about where they've landed fall flat. It's also really poorly structured; there's some effort toward building tension and mystery, but that all goes out the window once the Daleks show up, and it's just a mad dash back to the TARDIS. This means that Vicki's disappearance and Barbara's vanishing into the wall are never dealt with: they're just suddenly back in the main room and ready to leave. And there's also the odd moment where, when the Dalek first appears, it demands to know where the time travellers are, as if it doesn't recognize two of them standing right in front of it, and then when Ian slams a metal grating down it tells them not to move instead of just exterminating them through the grating.

Once the haunted house is left behind, things get marginally more interesting as Ian, Barbara, and the Doctor realize that they've left Vicki back at the haunted house, and they resolve to fight and defeat the Daleks at their next stop so that they can capture their time machine and go back for Vicki. This means the battle will be fought on the planet Mechanus. "Just look at that vegetation!" Barbara exclaims. "Yes, just as though it were alive," replies Ian the science teacher. Vicki, meanwhile, has stowed away with the Daleks. She might not hear the reappearance of the slow comedy Dalek ("Er...er...in Earth time...er...four minutes..."), but she is present when they unveil their latest scheme: a robot double of the Doctor, with a resemblance so "uncanny" that you wonder if the Daleks can actually see things the way humans do. Of course, then the close-up is of William Hartnell rather than Hartnell not-really-a-lookalike-at-all Edmund Warwick, which ultimately ends up just being mildly disconcerting than threatening, even when the robot announces he will "infiltrate and kill." The next episode is called "The Death of Doctor Who" -- wonder how that one will turn out?

The city of the Mechonoids. ("The Death of Doctor Who")
©BBC

And really, when you're naming episodes you'd think you'd know not to give hostile critics titles like that, but no, this is "The Death of Doctor Who" (spoiler alert: it's not). It's not a bad episode, but it does feel a bit like marking time: the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara spend most of the time holed up in a cave waiting for the right moment to strike. The battle with the robot Doctor is quite entertaining, even if it's even more apparent that Edmund Warwick looks almost nothing like William Hartnell. And Vicki is reunited with the others! But meanwhile, the jungle set, while reasonably good (except for the obvious studio floors, but there's not much you can do there when you're dealing with Daleks), means that we have lots of gaps through the set in which you can see things. Including a BBC camera in virtually full view for an awfully long time. But at least the Fungoids are a good design and reasonably menacing. And that final part with the Mechonoid is pretty good, even if it takes a couple listens to work out what it's saying.

February 6: "The Death of Time" / "Flight Through Eternity"

(The Chase episodes 2 & 3)

"The Death of Time" is one of those episode titles that sounds good until you start to think about what it actually means. Why is this the death of time? Is it because the Daleks have a time machine? You'd think that would mean the Daleks are rampaging through time killing everything, but instead they're chasing after the Doctor and friends and not really doing a great job there. You'd think the Daleks would just go through and exterminate everyone, but instead they make a deal with the native Aridians to capture the travellers, while also using them as slave labor to dig up the TARDIS, which you'd think would be the last thing they would want to do since it gives their enemies easy access to their ship. I mean, they do try to destroy it with their guns, but really, it would have been better to leave the thing buried.

The more interesting part of the episode is the gesture of examination of the Aridians' plight, as Terry Nation gives us a look at collaborators. It's not dwelled on, of course, but it's interesting how the Doctor doesn't condemn their decision to hand them over to the Daleks, and in fact they only escape because a Mire Beast happens to knock down a wall and distract everyone long enough for the TARDIS crew to leave. Which they do.

Morton Dill isn't taking the Daleks very seriously.
("Flight Through Eternity") ©BBC

"Flight From Eternity" gives us a couple locations this time around: New York 1966 and on board a ship 1872. But first it starts out with a scene inside the Dalek time machine, with another use of a photographic blowup but also some motionless Dalek props (they're the ones without the base or the vertical "solar panel" slats). For once the photograph isn't shot from an angle that reveals it to be a photo, but there's an extremely misjudged moment with what appears to be a Dalek reading to itself out loud before giving its report: "Er...one...er...forty...er..." it mumbles to itself. This has to be considered an attempt at comedy, but it falls woefully flat.

The scene on top of the Empire State Building, on the other hand, is much more entertaining. There are some subtle moments with the tour group at the beginning: I love the way the big tourist knocks that young woman out of the way just so he can get to the front, and as the tour guide talks about gazing "out across the panorama", he appears to be checking out said young woman (it's difficult to tell for certain, since unfortunately they've put a piece of stock footage in the middle of this line, but when we cut back he's plainly staring at her chest and has to bring himself back and start his sentence over again). And then we're introduced to Morton Dill, who's portrayed as a stereotypical hick from Alabama. He's consequently the only person to see either the TARDIS and its occupants or the Dalek time machine with a Dalek. I know Morton Dill bothers some people, but for me he fits into the tone of the scene and his belief that it's all a Hollywood trick is quite lovely. And at one time I probably would have thought he was overacting, but that was before I met a guy who laughed and moved almost exactly the same way, so now Peter Purves' performance just reminds me of him instead. I was quite pleased with the whole scene.

The next bit isn't as great though. The TARDIS materializes on a sailing ship, Barbara gets accosted, and then they leave before the Daleks show up, at which point the entire crew abandons ship. This might have more impact if the words "Mary Celeste" weren't plainly visible at the start, but then they insist on slow panning across the empty vessel (and showing the name plate again) before finally doing a slow zoom in on the name. All right, maybe the words wouldn't have been as obvious on a '60s 405-line resolution television until the final zoom in (although I'm not convinced of this). But then the next scene has Ian mention it in the dialogue, just in case you missed that! And an ancient mystery is solved. And the cliffhanger shows the Daleks still chasing the TARDIS through time and space -- not the most exciting cliffhanger by any means.

February 5: "The Final Phase" / "The Executioners"

(The Space Museum episode 4 & The Chase episode 1)

(Not two days after my DVD player died, the hard disk in my laptop decided to fail. Apparently this is a bad week for me and technology...)

One does get the sense, watching "The Final Phase", that the production team has tried to tie the events of the past two episodes in with the travellers' attempt to change their future. I particularly like how it seems like they're going to make it out intact, as Ian rescues the Doctor and Vicki rescues Barbara, before each group is captured and taken to the freezing room. "Were all the things that happened planned out for us?" Barbara wonders. "Four separate journeys. Four choices, that led all the time closer to here." It's quite a nice little introspective moment. But the Doctor is a bit more optimistic: "My dear Barbara, you must try and remember, the short time we’ve been on this planet, we’ve met people, spoken to them and who knows, we might have even influenced them." And of course he's right -- Vicki's actions with the Xerons, helping them gain access to the Moroks' weapons, have led to a revolution which defeats the Moroks, leading to an altered future with no more space museum, and therefore no more time travellers in exhibits.

The Space Museum is a bit of an odd beast. It's been said that the initial scripts had more humor in them before it was edited out, to make a contrast from the following story. It sort of shows: there are a number of witty moments, but there are also some dead serious moments, and anything involving the very earnest Xerons, that tend to jar a bit, and sometimes you don't know if what you're watching is the result of a joke that wasn't completely removed or just a particularly bad piece of writing/acting. It's not a terrible story by any means, but I think you have to be in the right, undemanding frame of mind to really get the proper effect -- otherwise it's just a runaround in a museum with some interesting ideas floating around. Great cliffhanger into the next story though.

"The Executioners" starts by recapping the cliffhanger from last time, which means this story starts with a Dalek! But after that we're shown near-domesticity in the TARDIS: the Doctor is tinkering with his new toy, Ian's reading a trashy sci-fi book, Barbara's making a dress, and Vicki's feeling useless. But soon the Doctor gets his gadget working, and the travellers can watch some time television: Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address (in an oddly desolate-looking Pennsylvania), Shakespeare gets the idea for Hamlet, and the Beatles play "Ticket to Ride" (this last bit, by the way, is missing from the Region 1 copies of The Chase as they couldn't clear the clip for foreign markets -- hence my purchase of the uncut Region 2 version). It's all a bit larking about before the TARDIS lands, after which point they go larking about in a desert instead. There are a couple good moments, like when the Time and Space Visualizer starts making a high-pitched noise while the Doctor and Barbara are relaxing. "What's that awful noise?" Barbara asks. "I beg your pardon?" the Doctor misunderstands her. "Awful noise? That's no way to talk about my singing!" To which Barbara replies, "No, Doctor, not that awful noise, the other one!" That's when they learn that the Daleks have a time machine, which they're going to use to pursue the TARDIS and exterminate the Doctor and his friends. This is when the real story begins, you'd think, except that nothing much happens after this: Ian and Vicki get trapped underground by a monster, while a sandstorm blows up and covers the Doctor and Barbara, changing the landscape and burying the TARDIS in the process. It's a bit worrying, but then the episode reveals, in its final moments, that the Daleks have already arrived on the planet (and were buried by the sandstorm too, but it doesn't seem to bother them too much). Which means that we have to wait until next time for things to really get going.

February 4: "The Dimensions of Time" / "The Search"

(The Space Museum episodes 2 & 3)

Today's my father's birthday, and what better way to celebrate than with these two episodes? Because after last time's eerie sense of dread, "The Dimensions of Time" gives way to a feeling of a near-romp. After the cliffhanger reprise we get a truly astonishing piece of exposition, which even if it was just the dialogue it would be bizarrely unwieldy ("I’ve got two more milliums before I can go home. Yes, I say it often enough, but it’s still two thousand Xeron days. And it sounds more in days"), but Richard Shaw's performance, which is filled with a theatrical sense of boredom, elevates this to a misguided brilliance. And the whole episode has many curious moments such as this. Everyone points it out, but it's still worth noting how the travellers, worried about trying to change their own future, are deeply concerned about whether Ian's jacket was missing a button when they saw him in the display case, since that could indicate whether they'd changed things. Yet unraveling Barbara's cardigan isn't deemed nearly as significant.

The Doctor emerges from his hiding spot in a Dalek shell.
("The Dimensions of Time") ©BBC

The other thing worth noting is how the Xeron would-be rebels (the natives of this planet) run around the space museum unchecked by their Morok overlords, dressed like students in black sweaters and slacks and completing the ensemble with tennis shoes -- Jeremy Bulloch, as the Xeron leader Tor, seems to be wearing Chuck Taylors! It makes for an...interesting sort of rebellion. But of course, we can't leave without mentioning the Doctor's outwitting of the Xerons, only to be caught by the Moroks because he's too busy chuckling to himself to worry about not being caught. But this does lead to the Doctor's meeting with the Morok governor Lobos, where he again gets to bamboozle the authorities. Upon learning that he's been hooked up to a machine that displays his thoughts, the Doctor confuses matters, displaying walruses swimming as an answer to the question of where he comes from. "But these are amphibious creatures. You are not an amphibian," Lobos complains. "Oh, I'm not, am I?" the Doctor responds, and we get a picture of him dressed in an Edwardian bathing costume!

Things aren't quite as wonderful in "The Search", but that's partly because William Hartnell's off for a week, so there's no Doctor shenanigans going on. Still, we get more entertaining dialogue -- last time the governor complained about working conditions, this time it's his second-in-command's turn: "He will blame me. Everything that goes wrong on this wretched planet is my fault. Think yourselves lucky that you have me between you and our illustrious Governor. A scapegoat, and for what? For this rank and a meagre pittance of extra pay." But this episode really belongs to Ian and to Vicki. Ian gets a number of good fights, and he gets to menace people with a Morok gun for good measure. And Vicki meets up with the Xerons and shows them how to get into the Morok armory by reprogramming the computer lock: something that's apparently never occurred to the Xerons to try. "I wonder if this will keep us out of the cases," she wonders to herself. Sadly, Barbara is mainly confined to hiding in a room before being gassed out, but at least she learns about the Morok conquest of Xeros.

Still, it's interesting how different in tone these two episodes are from "The Space Museum". Although there are some callbacks to trying to avoid the fate they witnessed -- and it seems to be their motivation for doing things -- it seems more like the TARDIS crew is running around trying to escape and causing problems for the Moroks because that's what they normally do, rather than because they're consciously trying to avoid their fate. We'll have to see how it all comes together in "The Final Phase".

February 3: "The Warlords" / "The Space Museum"

(The Crusade episode 4 & The Space Museum episode 1)

Back to telesnaps and the soundtrack for "The Warlords". It's odd -- I came to the realization while watching this episode that Barbara's storyline is actually meant to be the main one. She spends her time hiding from El Akir in the harem but is betrayed by one of the girls. El Akir sounds like he's going to take his revenge, but then Haroun ed-Diin arrives and slays El Akir, letting Ian take Barbara back to the safety of the TARDIS. Poor Barbara: the last couple times she's traveled back in time she's been captured and sold into slavery each time. Meanwhile the Doctor and Vicki both get to lark about and essentially have extended holidays. Sometimes life just isn't fair.

The Doctor berates the Earl of Leicester. ("The Warlords" –
from Doctor Who Photonovels: The Crusade - Episode Four)
©BBC

But as I was saying, Barbara's storyline must be the main one because it's the only one that gets any sort of resolution. King Richard's plan to create peace through marriage fell apart last episode, and there's no alternate plan or outcome. We leave King Richard in the same position he was when we found him, and the Doctor's assurances to him that he'll see Jerusalem fall a bit flat -- especially when we know, as the Doctor informs us, that he won't actually be able to capture the city.

The Crusade is a marvelous story, and it's a real shame that only half of it exists in the archive, because what we can see is magnificent, and what we can hear suggests that the rest was just as wonderful. All the actors involved are utterly committed to their roles, and the script lends the proceedings a gravitas and depth to match. Only at the end, when you realize that there can't be a denouement for Richard the Lionheart's storyline, does it disappoint.

After "The Warlords" it was time for "The Space Museum", and yes, that is a region 2 copy in the picture there. It was at this point today that I learned that my region-free DVD player had finally given up the ghost, so a little research and a trip to Target later I had a replacement and was ready to resume.

"The Space Museum" is a striking episode. It starts oddly, with the TARDIS travellers frozen in time before suddenly being in their usual clothes, instead of the 12th-century garb they were just wearing (Ian says it's 13th century, but Richard the Lionheart was in Jaffa in 1191). Yet the Doctor is completely unconcerned by this: "All this fussation about a change of clothes. You know, it's so simple. It’s time and relativity, my dear boy. Time and relativity. That’s where the answer lies." After that an intriguing mystery arises: they can't hear anything but themselves on this new planet, they don't leave footprints, and they can't even seem to touch anything. And not only that, but no one else can see them. Meanwhile, people walk into rooms with our heroes, have silent conversation without noticing them, and then leave. It's all very eerie and quite effective, director Mervyn Pinfield creating a successful atmosphere of tension, with a silent dread. Then the Doctor and company learn that they're in the future, and they see themselves in display cases, a part of the space museum they've been exploring. It's quite a worrying thought. Then, with some strange music and sound, time catches up and they arrive. But will they be able to prevent the future they've just witnessed?

February 2: "The Knight of Jaffa" / "The Wheel of Fortune"

(The Crusade episodes 2 & 3)

"The Knight of Jaffa" is the first of two missing episodes from season 2 (and we'll reach the other one tomorrow), so once again I'm peering at telesnaps while listening to the soundtrack.

What I found interesting about this episode is how much less Shakespearean it felt compared to "The Lion". But to be fair, this feels like Whitaker moving his pieces into place so that they can properly unleashed. And although things seem less grand, there is still some definite entertainment to be had. Basically every scene with Richard the Lionheart is a marvel of language and charm, even when it's simply Richard musing aloud about how to deal with Saladin -- but the moment when he knights Ian and makes him Knight of Jaffa is also quite wonderful. But once Ian becomes an emissary of King Richard's and travels to Saladin's camp to arrange for the release of Barbara and Sir William des Preaux, the story has to contrive to remove Barbara from the scene before Ian arrives. This means that there's some subterfuge involving Barbara's kidnap, and this is the main thrust of "The Knight of Jaffa": arranging for Barbara to be elsewhere. The business with the merchant Luigi Ferrigo is thus less satisfying than it would otherwise be, since it's not feeding into the main drama concerning Richard and Saladin, but rather contriving to keep Barbara separated from the main group and thus continue the story. Although it does mean that, once he realizes she's gone, Ian has to decide to rescue Barbara (and the telesnap of him deciding this looks rather uncannily like my father...).

But the other thing worth noting about this episode (and the series in general as of late) is how much more mischievous the Doctor has become: pulling the wool over everyone's eyes while in Roman times, and now successfully manipulating both the king's chamberlain and the hapless merchant Ben Daheer, whom he stole his clothes from last episode, into believing that the thief was in fact someone else. It's another lovely little showcase for William Hartnell and a subtle manipulation of the Doctor's character (and it's probably not a coincidence that this is happening now that Dennis Spooner has taken over from David Whitaker as story editor on Doctor Who).

Back on video for "The Wheel of Fortune", which resumes the heights set in "The Lion". (Hmm...maybe I would have enjoyed "The Knight of Jaffa" more if I could have actually seen it...) Whitaker, having set things up in the previous episode, can now set them loose. This leads to some glorious scenes, particularly near the end, when Joanna learns of her brother's plan to marry her to Saladin's brother and thus end the bloodshed between the Europeans and the Saracens. Jean Marsh lets loose with righteous fury, matched by Julian Glover's impotent frustration when he sees his plan for peace undone. There's also a lot of great lines in this episode: "There's something new in you, yet something older than the sky itself," Joanna says of the Doctor, while later the Earl of Leicester voices his irritations to his king:

You're a man for talk, I can see that. You like a table and a ring of men. A parley here, arrangements there, but when you men of eloquence have stunned each other with your words, we, we the soldiers, have to face it out. On some half-started morning while you speakers lie abed, armies settle everything, giving sweat, sinewed bodies, aye, and life itself.

The only part of the episode that disappoints is Barbara's plight. There are some admittedly good scenes here, especially when Haroun ed-Diin, who has previously saved Barbara from El Akir's men, instructs her to kill his daughter should El Akir's men arrive and try to take them away. But because Barbara's so disconnected from the main storyline, it's a little less involving -- even if El Akir does make for a menacing villain. Still, it's a great cliffhanger: "The only pleasure left for you is death," El Akir informs Barbara, having recaptured her. "And death is very far away."

February 1: "The Centre" / "The Lion"

(The Web Planet episode 6 & The Crusade episode 1)

It's my wife's birthday today, so obviously I'm celebrating by watching these next two episodes. It all comes together in "The Centre", as the travellers finally confront the Animus at the heart of the Carcinome. The Doctor and Vicki are taken in, Barbara and the Menoptra fight their way in, and Ian, Vrestin, and Hetra dig their way in. The Animus is a fun design, even if it only vaguely resembles a spider, which is what the story's been hinting the Animus is like. And it's actually a bit disturbing to see the Doctor so completely under the Animus's power, lying at its feet(?) and literally ensnared in its tentacles. Vicki at least puts up some struggle, but the Doctor...he's just lying there.

"It doesn't work!" cries Barbara as she tries to use the Isop-tope, the Menoptra's special weapon, against the Animus. Except, er, then it does. Maybe Ian distracted the Animus when he popped up out of the floor, giving Barbara a clear shot? It's not really clear. But the Animus is defeated with enough time for a proper goodbye. Water returns to the surface and the Optera learn to frolic in the light, and all is right with Vortis again.

One of the things that struck me while watching this episode was how there has been virtually no incidental music for this story. It looks like there's an effort to make all the sound here diegetic (i.e., only what the characters would actually experience), which is a rather admirable attempt, but when this means that the primary sound is that of Zarbi chittering away for 6 episodes, it can start to wear thin, and that might be why this story seems so much slower and less exciting than anything we've seen so far.

Really, that's the main problem with The Web Planet. The production team should be applauded for trying to make this story as alien as they can, with very stagey sets and wholly unrecognizable actors dressed up as giant bugs. They're definitely trying to create a full alien world, and it's a worthy goal. The problem is twofold: this story went legendarily over budget, so it was definitely an expensive endeavour. This means that there's simply no way it could have ever been justified as less than a six-episode serial. But Bill Strutton's script just doesn't have enough incident to be worth making for six full weeks, and the end result is something visually impressive much of the time but with a story sadly stretched too thin -- and the lack of incidental music only serves to accentuate the problem. People seem quite taken with the idea of Vortis -- certainly there are more stories in print and on audio that revisit the Menoptra than, say, the Sensorites. It's just a shame that the finished product itself is such a letdown.

But now it's time to leave Vortis behind and travel to the Third Crusade. "The Lion" (currently available on DVD only as part of the Lost in Time set) starts really remarkably well, as King Richard the Lionheart exchanges suitably Shakespearean dialogue with his companions, just before they're ambushed by Saracens. Into this skirmish the Doctor and his friends enter, with Ian fending off a Saracen warrior while the Doctor picks up a sword to defend the fallen William de Tornebu. Barbara is meanwhile captured by the Saracens and taken to the camp of Saladin, the leader of the Muslims in the Holy Land. Everything feels suitably epic (well, except for the Doctor's theft of the merchant's clothing, which isn't very epic but still in keeping with the Shakespearean tone), with William des Preaux's deception of El Akir, claiming to be King Richard, worthy of particular praise. It's also worth noting how nobly David Whitaker's script treats the Saracens (El Akir excepted, but he's clearly meant to be the main villain) -- Saladin in particular coming across as just and reasonable. There's a slight jarring quality of seeing white actors darkened up to play Middle Eastern roles, but this wasn't uncommon in the 60s and none of the actors playing the roles treat them as caricatures -- again, tribute to both the actors and Whitaker's script. It's really quite marvelous, and the cliffhanger feels right too, even if it's less about mortal danger and more about the unyielding principles of Richard I. So far, this has been a good story, and a significant improvement over the previous six weeks.