An Hour of Who a Day

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).

Richard I commands his sister to marry Saphadin. ("The
Wheel of Fortune") ©BBC

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.

The Doctor and Vicki in the grip of the Animus.
("The Centre") ©BBC

"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.

January 31: "Crater of Needles" / "Invasion"

(The Web Planet episodes 4 & 5)

"Oh, my eyes are so sore," Barbara complains at the beginning of "Crater of Needles", and we know what she means. The smearing effect is really starting to wear out its welcome.

Frustratingly, nothing really happens in "Crater of Needles". Barbara is back from her vacation last time, and she gets a lot of exposition about the Menoptra and the planet Vortis. And curiously, there's no real mention of her having severe difficulty breathing, given that Ian never got to her to give her the miracle breathing drug. The Doctor and Vicki are still stuck inside the Carcinome, trying to outwit the Animus but inadvertently giving away the Menoptra's invasion plans. Only Ian really gets much to do, as he falls (literally) into the midst of the Optera -- underground Menoptra who've lost their wings and hate the surface -- and has to convince them that he and Vrestin are their allies, not their enemies. But it takes the whole episode for him to even do that. There's a bit of action at the end as the Menoptra spearhead is repelled by the Zarbi and their larvae guns, but even that's oddly stagey and not terribly exciting.

It looks like things are finally improving in "Invasion" (potentially confusing episode title #4¹²), with some actual incident. The Doctor and Vicki manage to escape the Carcinome with the help of a controlled Zarbi nicknamed Zombo -- Vicki's habit of giving things cute nicknames really developing here (unless you count Sandy the Sandbeast in "Desperate Measures"), and they meet up with Barbara and the remnants of the Menoptra invasion force, who are planning to launch an assault on the Animus. Meanwhile, Ian and Vrestin convince the Optera to also attack the Animus from below (or, as the Optera call it, Pwodarauk), which leads to some deservedly oft-praised dialogue conveying alien thought patterns: "A silent wall. We must make mouths in it with our weapons. Then it will speak more light." Of course, this is followed three minutes later by the Optera Nemini sacrificing herself to stop a flow of acid into the cavern by jamming her head into the hole, which really is an astonishing sight to behold. Ian looks like he has no idea what to make of it. But as the Doctor and Vicki head back to the Carcinome to try and destroy the Animus while Barbara and the Menoptra distract the Zarbi with a frontal attack, it at last feels like the plot is ready to advance.

(Oh, and finally a special note for the stagehand clearly visible through a doorway in the Carcinome in this episode: Richard Martin's reputation as a slapdash director really starts with this serial, doesn't it?)

¹² Doubly confusing this time around, as not only is there a Troughton story called The Invasion, but part one of Invasion of the Dinosaurs is just called Invasion -- presumably to preserve the surprise appearance of the dinosaurs that had already been widely promoted.

January 30: "The Zarbi" / "Escape to Danger"

(The Web Planet episodes 2 & 3)

"So that's where they've taken the ship to," Ian says during "The Zarbi", indicating an indistinct white haze among the indistinct grey-white haze, and it takes quite a bit to even realize that the indistinct white haze is what he's referring to. The filters were a nice touch last time, but they're starting to wear out their welcome here: it's not just that they rendered that aforementioned shot virtually incomprehensible, but they also start to hurt the eyes as they try and fail to focus on the image. And not all of the cameras have the filter: this is presumably to show a difference between interior and exterior shots, but then Richard Martin uses cameras with filters for interiors and cameras without for exteriors, so it does rather start to look like there's a problem with one of the cameras more than anything else. There's also the amazing scene of the TARDIS wandering across Vortis on its own, with the shot of the Zarbi looking on worthy of particular mention. Yes, it's supposedly being dragged, but the wiggle motion that the model makes ruins that impression somewhat.

Sadly, things are also about as slow here as they were in the last episode. There's a lot of slow conversations with the Menoptra, owing to the way they speak -- a nice thought, but it doesn't help the pacing any. Meanwhile, the Zarbi can't speak at all, so there's no hope of sustaining interest there. The fact is that you begin to stop seeing them as giant ants and start to pity the poor people hunched over inside the costumes. That said, there's a scene where Barbara and an Menoptra called Hrostar are captured by the Zarbi, and then Barbara watches in horror as the Zarbi rip the wings off Hrostar, that's really quite horrific. But sadly that's an exception for this episode, rather than the rule.

Admittedly, things do get a little better in "Escape to Danger" (and how wonderful is it that there's actually an episode called "Escape to Danger"! Particularly for anyone who grew up on the Target novelizations and greeted chapter titles like "Escape to Danger" like fond friends), in no small part because the Zarbi have been given a voice through their controlling force, the Animus. And full marks for casting Catherine Fleming as said voice -- she delivers a silky smooth performance as the Animus, improving things dramatically. There also seems to be more incident in this episode, as the Doctor looks at his astral map and Ian makes a dramatic escape (...into danger!). Things may finally be picking up.

Of course, this is also the infamous episode where a Zarbi runs into the camera; it's a whacking great collision too, but part of the problem is that the scene seems to exist purely to have a Zarbi crash into a camera -- there's no narrative reason for the scene to be present at all. Then there's an odd shot of a wall inside the Carcinome that goes on uncomfortably long with nothing happening -- perhaps a Zarbi missed its cue, but that doesn't change the fact that we're staring at a wall for five long seconds. And if you look closely you can see a camera operator through the Carcinome's webbed walls as Ian makes his escape. So things may be picking up, but they still could be going better. And make no mistake: just because we're doing better than the last two episodes doesn't mean that "Escape to Danger" isn't slow -- it's just not as slow. But given the current direction of this story, I'll take what I can get.