8: The Reign of Terror - Too violent For 5.15?

Hartnell is great in this classic story.

Written by: Denis Spooner.

Companions: The Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright.

Monsters/Villains: Robespierre.
Brief synopsis: The TARDIS lands in France 1794 in the middle of the French Revolution.

Rating: 7/10

Wow, so we've made it to the end of the first season of Doctor Who. Well done us! Sadly episodes 4 & 5 of this one are missing but what a way to bring the season to a close...

The story starts with the time travellers thinking they've returned to Earth, with Ian and Barbara ready to depart, fortunately Ian persuades the Doctor to stay a while and make sure they are where they intended to be. They quickly discover that they are in 1794 revolutionary France, discover a dressing up box and continue to costume themselves in the appropriate garb for the era. We discover that this is the Doctor's favourite period in the history of earth. Really? What a very violent era to have a preference for, Doc.

And oh boy is this violent! First we meet two young revolutionaries on the run. Rouvray and D'Argenson. D'Argenson tells of how his whole family has been executed, "even my younger sister." The two are almost immediately shot and killed. Rouvray on screen and D'Argenson off screen as his 'executioners' laugh. Barely ten minutes in and two people are dead. And for those of you playing at home, we shall keep score as we go along.

As if the graphic murders weren't enough, we see the Doctor unconscious as the building he occupies burns to the ground and Barbara gets propositioned by a pervy jailor. And this is a children's programme that went out at 5.15pm?

There is a really lovely scene between the Doctor and the small boy who saves him. The Doctor thanks him and asks his name, promising to remember him, 'Jean Pierre.' I shall remember him too. The Doctor then gets put on to a Labour party but tricks the road works overseer and then hits him over the head with a spade. Which for some odd reason causes him to fall down and snore. Odd that. Hartnell is great in this story; probably the best we've seen him yet.

Hartnell loving 'A Change of Identity.'

Ian is in a cell with an ailing revolutionary, Webster, who leaves him a message and then  promptly dies. That's 3-0 to the 'baddies' so far. Ian then has to spend 'several hours' in the cell with a dead body. This is so morbid.

Barbara and Susan, the two women then get taken to be Guillotined. This is so happy I can see why it's the Doctor's favourite period in history. Not! Two revolutionary sympathisers come to Barbara and Susans rescue and shoot dead three guards. Bringing the score to 3-3. And we're tied. Unfortunately this is not a great story for Susan, who spends most of the episode whining and complaining.

Susan lolling. She must be tired from all
the whining and complaining.

One of the revolutionaries is informing on his friends so he gets shot too. That's 4-3 and the goodies take the lead, but can they hold on to the finish? We meet Robespierre and Napoleon. In the end Robespierre is overthrown, gets shot in the jaw off screen and is then carried away to be Guillotined. Making the final  body count... umm... I mean score 5-3. The goodies win! Yay!

Earlier in the story Barbara laughs when everyone is trying to stop Robespierre from being killed when they know this is 'what happens.' The Doctor says "you can't influence or change history, the events will happen just as they were written" At the end of the story the crew discuss how they couldn't change history. Susan says if we had written Napoleon a letter saying what was going to happen to him, he would have lost it, forgotten it, or though it was written by a maniac. While Barbara muses, if we'd have tired to shoot him the bullet would have missed. This will be an on going issue in Doctor Who. Do the Doctor and his companions have a baring on the periods they visit?

At the end there is an odd zoom out through space in which we hear Hartnell and Russell giving a closing v/o. This is a wonderfully classy and different way to end the season.

DOCTOR: Our lives are important, but least to us. But as we see, so we learn.

IAN: What are we going to see and learn next Doctor?

DOCTOR: Well unlike the olden days our destiny is in the stars, so lets go and explore them.

Not the best period to set a children's t.v programme.

The clue is in the title really, 'The Reign of Terror.' It perhaps wasn't the best era to set a children's t.v programme, but this story is still a real classic. The music throughout is great. Very suspenseful and hats off to Stanley Myers, for the section where Ian is escaping from the jail for inventing the Jaws music 11 years early. As violent and perhaps inappropriate it is, it's great. Everyone, bar Carol Anne Ford are giving great performances. This was clearly aimed to be a climactic bang for the series to go out; a finale that does so with elan.

Well we started out on the adventure with a bang. We witnessed our four heroes do quite a bit: discover fire, meet the Daleks, journey in the caravan of Marco Polo, face the Voords, destroy the Aztec civilisation, meet the Ood-like Sensorites, and take on the Doctor's favourite period of time, the french revolution. We saw 33 out of 42 episodes, with 9 missing ones. My favourite story from this very first season has to be An Unearthly Child, it's perfect, and my least favourite is the bonkers The Edge Of Destruction. Out of a possible 80 I scored this season 53/80. Giving it an average of 66/100. I wonder how season two will fare against this...

This outing ends as the time travellers leave with the English revolutionary hero Sterling saying, "You know, I don't think they know where they're going to." And it couldn't be a more apt close. After, Cave People, Daleks, Thals, broken springs, the Voord, the Aztecs, the Sensorites and finally the brutal French revolution, who knows where the series will go next? 

Find out next time in Planet of Giants.

7: The Sensorites - Bold But Not Fully Realised...

The first VHS I have watched in the run yet.

Written by: Peter R. Newman.

Companions: The Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright.

Monsters/Villains: The Sensorites. Insane Humans.

Brief Synopsis: Telepathic aliens imprison the TARDIS crew and the crew of a twenty-eighth century spaceship.

Rating: 5/10

This is the first VHS I have watched in the run as The Sensorites has not yet been released on DVD. It's odd watching a video these days, it has a real vintage quality to it, like listening to an LP. Old? Yes, but also very stylish. 

The opening of this episode is slightly odd, with the TARDIS crew rehashing all their previous tales thus far. It's also evidently clear that no one has ever taught Hartnell anything about how to use the TARDIS controls, as he dodders around trying to look like he knows what he's doing. However, Hartnell gets a great line which is also a perfect microcosm for the series so far. "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." It truly has, Bill. The Doctor also admits to having once argued with Henry VIII before Ian and Barbara were on the scene. Here's a gap for a new novel or audio play.

It seems odd that Maitland seems unfazed by the TARDIS crew being from another time and their ability to travel in time. This seems to happen fairly often in the early series; characters ignoring aspects of the story where the writer or production team don't want to or can't tread. We also get all this stuff about Susan and the Doctor being Telepaths. It's suggested that many people on their planet have these abilities, and that Susan's aptitude could be perfected if they ever get home. Susan also gives us our first glimpse into what will eventually come to be known as Gallifrey. She says "It's quite like earth. At night the sky is a burnt orange and the leaves on the trees are bright silver." This is how we will see it presented 45 years later, with David Tennant in the The End of Time. Along with her stimulating definition of her home planet, Susan also says "sometimes I feel like I would like to belong somewhere. Not be a wanderer." Three stories later she will stop wandering and settle down on Earth. However even after our first departure from the TARDIS I will continue to 'Wonder' in the fourth dimension.

In one scene the Doctor puts on reading/smart specks, just like Peter Davidson and David Tennant will 17 and 24 years later respectively. We also learn another staple opinion of the Doctor that will go on to describe and define his passive status from now on. "I've never much liked weapons." However in this instance he goes onto say "but they are handy little things." The Doctor has been known to use weapons from time to time, but only when there is no other option.

The Sensorites. Identical? I don't think so...

The, Ood-like Sensorites are interesting. The ideas about their civilisation built on blind trust and equality is a strong story idea. However their design is not so good. The design team boast that each Sensorite mask is individually fashioned making them entirely unique. However, in the story the species refer to themselves as being identical.

The first episode of this story is strong as an oddity and a mystery. Unfortunately it quickly becomes incredibly predictable. Once we arrive at the Sense Sphere it is quickly clear what will happen with the Sensorite illness, poisoned water, and mutiny, with only one unforeseeable turn. When it turns out to be survivors from the exploded human spaceship poisoning the water. The lead Sensorite characters (The First Elder, The City Administrator and his lackey) all really remind me of the ones we will see in The Silurians. The wise leader, the young upstart who wants to take over, and his allies. The story follows a similar structure with the First Elder trying to work with the Doctor to create peace and the City Administrator trying to undermine this by acting against the Doctor.

Stephen Dartnell as John.

The human cast members are decent. Stephen Dartnell who plays John stands out. His confusion in his 'open-mind' condition is played with wonderful naivety and believability and his transformation after being cured is markedly different.  

Silly Musings

1) The Sensorites are delineated by hilarious designations. The First Elder with two sashes. The Second Elder with one. The city administrator with a collar. Scientists with a crest, and warriors with multiple black armbands. Everyone else just looks the same.

Susan with the First Elder.

2) The Doctor gives Ian a rolled up map to use as a weapon. 'Don't worry Doctor I'll hit it with this paper map.'

3) When Ian gets the Sensorite disease he says he has a soar throat and feels giddy. Call a Doctor!

4) The Doctor continuously shouts at the Sensorites, even though he knows it distresses them.

Overall I did enjoy this story, but I feel it is a victim of too many episodes. The story is bold and interesting, but it takes too long for it all to happen. The pressure never builds up enough. The Sensorites are a good creation but aren't really realised here as well as they could have been with fewer stories, and a greater budget.

Join me next time for The Reign of Terror.

6: The Aztecs - I'm An Historicals Convert!

Barbara as The God Yetaxa.

Written by: John Lucarotti.

Companions: The Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright.

Monsters/Villains: The High Preist of Sacrifice, Tlotoxl. 

Brief Synopsis: Barbara is mistaken for The Aztec God Yetaxa in fifteenth-century Mexico. 

Rating: 8/10

Aren't you lucky two posts in one day. The Aztecs is a new found favourite of mine. It's interesting that as I get older I am growing to prefer the historicals to the futuristic stories.

Barbara is thrilled to have arrived in her favourite period of history and puts on a bracelet she finds. She is then mistaken for the re-incarnation of the God Yetaxa. The scene in which the rest of the TARDIS crew show up to find her all dolled up in the lap of luxury, is almost exactly the same as the opener to the episode The Velvet Web from The Keys of Marinus.

This is one of the first stories where changing history is addressed. The Doctor says that one cannot interfere with the past. But in The Daleks he encourages Ian to change the Thals from non-violent farmers into warriors. Why is it okay for the TARDIS crew to get involved and change things in a futuristic story but not in a historical? Barbara stops the sacrifice of one of the Aztecs. Only to be snubbed by him throwing himself off a wall, killing himself anyway. So her attempt to change things fails.

I actually don't have that much to say about this story. I really enjoyed it a lot and I don't really have any criticism. Lucarotti is so brilliant at weaving all these fantastic characters together, and cleverly teaches us a bit about the Aztecs by making their famously grand architecture a pivotal plot point. The crew must find their way back to TARDIS but need to get to grips with the building plans first.

The Doctor with his fiancee Cameca.

The Doctor goes about this by schmoozing Cameca. All of the scenes between these two are truly heart warming. And the Doctor gets a romantic sub-plot and actually gets engaged. We wont see anything like this again until Paul McGann shows up on the scene in 1996.

Some criticise The Aztecs as being cod-shakespeare with a bad Richard III impersonation by John Ringham. Ringham's High Preist of Sacrifice Tlotoxl is certainly larger than life, but that's part of what I love about Doctor Who. I want to see characters and places I can't see anywhere else. 

John Ringham as Tlotoxl. Wonderful.

There is also a wonderfully gentle performance by Keith Pyott as Autloc, the High Priest of Knowledge. Autloc leaves the story to wander in the wasteland in self enforced exile. Perhaps the TARDIS crew have changed history and if they hadn't showed up Autloc would have guided the Aztec people to becoming a more civilised community. Who knows? ;-)

Keith Pyott as Autloc. Beautifully gentle. 

It's odd, all three of my favourite stories so far have been going backwards in time. I guess I'm a historicals convert...

Join me next time for The Sensorites. 

5: The Keys of Marinus - An Adventure Serial For Children.

The VHS release I enjoyed aged 13.

Written by: Terry Nation.
Companions: The Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright.
Monsters/Villains: The Voords.
Brief Synopsis: The TARDIS lands on the planet Marinus and the crew search for 4 keys to a machine which controls the minds of the people of Marinus, in an attempt to stop the evil Voord.
Rating: 5/10

Hello blog-o-sphere. I hope you're all well. Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, I started a new job last week, which took over my life. I decided to quit so now I'm free to blog a way. I had an awesome chance run-in the other day with none other than Doctor Who's ex-show runner Russel T Davis. He was just browsing in the Sci-Fi specialist shop Forbidden Planet. He was behind me in the queue. He was buying a Sci-Fi magazine, and a Tardis Mug. I was overwhelmed at how tall he was. I really just wanted to say ' Thank you for bringing it back.' But I couldn't pluck up the courage.

Anyways The Keys of Marinus. I'm not going to lie to you, I didn't hugely enjoy this one this time around. However, I first watched this story when it was released on VHS in 1999. I was 13. And I loved it. Lots of different locations, adventure serial style. Cool aliens in the Voord and The Morphos. Screaming Jungles that grow at an advanced rate. Snowy Warriors. A trial mystery to solve. This was great 'for a black and white episode.' I was never as interested in those when I was 13. How things have changed.

Now as I watch this story I see all the holes. The Voord aren't actually cool looking aliens with their odd shaped heads and Teletubby ariels. They are in fact (although we never actually see them) humanoids, wearing acid-proof wet-suits. Which begs the question, why the odd head pieces?

The Voord.

The story starts when the TARDIS crew enter the tower and meet Arbitan, who asks them to go in search of 4 of 5 keys to activate The Conscience, a machine that can decide what is right or wrong for all people on Marinus or he won't release the TARDIS from a force field. Arbitan says the Machine will assist in ridding evil from the planet, by controlling the Voord. Sunds like brain-washing to me. Arbitan uses the term Materialize in reference to the TARDIS for the first time.

William Hartnell and George Coulouris as Arbitan.

Arbitan says the acid sea around the Island harbouring the Conscience is a defence. He also says that the Voord keep trying to penetrate the walls. Okay sure give the island an ocean of acid as a defence, but the bloody walls rotate, no wonder you keep getting unwelcome Voord. Rotating walls, here just act as another adventure serial staple. Along with a rather hilarious trap door, where we clearly see a bad model shot of a 'Voord' falling to his death.

Awful trap door model shot.

The story then takes a very stand alone episodical style. The alien brains in jars aren't great, but I still like them anyway. So, everyone in The City of Morphoton is meant to want for nothing, and have their every desire. Does that mean that the Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian think these women tending to them desire nothing more and actually want to be servants!? Obviously it turns out that this is a trick by the Morphos. They use hypnosis to subjugate and control their population. The Morphos claim that "the human body is the most flexible instrument in the world. No single mechanical devise could reproduce it's mobility and dexterity." Really? I'd like to use the Morphos' Hypnosis machine on myself so I could see all the missing episodes of Doctor Who! I know it would be an hallucination, but I'd still get to see them.

The Morphos.

Then we're onto the Screaming Jungle, where we're faked out by a fake key. Ian and Barbara find Darius, an ageing scientist who knows where the key is. He gets taken out by the agressive jungle, leaving the two only one clue as to the keys location: "D-E-3-O-2." This turns out to be a chemical formula written on a jar containing the key. Why dosen't he just say 'it's in a jar! Look in all the jars!'

Then there's an icy wasteland where we meet a creepy, pervy Trapper and some frozen warriors. The Doctor has been absent from the last two episodes, but I haven't really missed him.

Hartnell is great after his two week absence.

Then on to The City of Millennius and the trial. When I watched this at 13, I tried desperately to look for clues to solve the mystery. As I watch it now aged 24, there are no clues, everything is solved through people admitting things they couldn't know unless they we're involved/guilty. Hartnell is great in this episode acting as Ian's defendant lawyer.

Finally we return to the Tower. Arbitan has been killed and replaced by Yartek, the Voord leader. It almost seems as if Terry Nation has forgotten that The Voord aren't really monsters when Yartek refers to his people as creatures. Surely Ian and Susan could see that isn't Arbitan. His head under the cloak is exactly the same shape as the Voord's head pieces. 

This obviously isn't Arbitan!

In the end, the TARDIS Crew succeed when Ian gives the disguised Yartek the fake key they found in the Screaming Jungle. As Yartek uses the final key, the Conscience machine explodes destroying the Voord.

The problem with this story much like it's counterpart, the Tom Baker Key To Time series, is that after six episodes of collecting keys, they're destroyed before they can be used. At the end of the story the Doctor says "man wasn't made to be controlled." Then why oh why have you just spent all of this time trying to fix a machine that controls people?! And now some silly musings:

Silly Musings

1) Susan asks the Doctor if the sea is frozen and he actually says:
"Not in this temperature, besides it's too warm"

2) There is obviously a member of tech crew behind this revolving wall!

The Voord is disappearing to the right, and we can spy a
member of the BBC technical crew to the left. 

3) You'll need to watch the episode Sentence of Death to see this one. The people of The City of Millennius do some weird nodding and head shaking. The judges nodding for just a little too long. And a guard shaking his head equally too long.

The Keys of Marinus is an adventure serial for children. Doctor Who has always been a family show, largely aimed at children. As an adult viewer I can see the holes in this story but as a child I throughly enjoyed it, even though it was in "boring old black and white."

See you next time for the wonderful adventure The Aztecs.

4: Marco Polo - The Saddest Loss Of The Missing Stories!

Telesnaps are all that remain of the wonderful visuals of this story.

Written by: John Lucarotti.

Companions: The Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright.

Monsters/Villains: The Mongol Warlord Tegana.

Brief Synopsis: The Doctor and his companions join Marco Polo's Caravan on his journey to the court of Kublai Khan.

Rating: 10/10

Here we have the first casualty of the BBC's wiping of the archive. Fortunately the Audio exists for all the missing/lost stories. We start with the end of last weeks episode, in which our travellers have stepped out of the TARDIS to discover a giant foot print. From the beginning we think this is going to be a sci-fi story with huge footed monsters. But then it turns out that the foot print was made by Marco polo, so it's an historical. This episode is penned by John Lucarotti, my personal favourite writer from the B/W era. I particularly like the way Lucarotti paints the past as being just as different and as dangerous, as an alien planet. Also we get real, more immediate dangers again, not the world will be destroyed, but, if we don't find shelter and heat, we're going to die of hypothermia.

The non-regular cast are fantastic here, Derren Nesbitt as Tegana sounds great and from the Telesnaps looks great too. The complete lack of video for this story really helps you to appreciate the wonderful script and the fantastic vocal work from the leads. Mark Eden is wonderful as Marco. From the get-go he very importantly makes us like the character, even though later on he will steal the TARDIS. We sympathise with both parties. The Doctor and Co need the TARDIS as it is their only hope of escape, whereas Polo needs it to trade for his freedom from his master Kublai Kahn. There creates a common bong between Polo and The TARDIS crew. Both want to return home and neither can do so without the TARDIS. Another wonderful performance comes from Martin Miller as Kublai Kahn. All five episodes that have lead up to Marco Polo's caravan arriving at The Khan's court have built him up so much. Yet so far we have only heard him spoken of. But as we arrive at the court, we discover that Kublai Kahn is no warrior but an old man. This comedic turn wonderfully under-cuts our expectations.

A surprising yet welcome interpretation of the role of Kublai Khan.

The scenes where Polo is writing in his journal are excellent and so different than what we've seen before or what's to come. One of the best things about the early years of Doctor Who is that it hasn't settled in to a particular style yet, so each week we get something quite different. We might not like every varied style we're offered, but at least there is a real variety. Marco Polo has a wonderful sense of time passing. The time travellers spend months here. This kind of story would never get made today in current Doctor Who, but then there is probably a good reason for that. It is a story of it's generation. This story certainly has aspects of an educational serial. There is a clear 'lesson' on condensation. But what Lucarotti does skillfully is making the condensation lesson not just an extra not even simply justified, but vital. Marco thinks the TARDIS crew have betrayed him by lying that they had no water. Without Polo understanding that the water they now have is due to condensation the TARDIS crew would have had it.

Mark Eden is brilliant as Marco Polo.

If you don't fancy listening to the whole 3 hours of audio there is a wonderful condensed 30-minute version on the Edge of Destruction DVD, using telesnaps, off screen stills and production photographs.

When I was young I never much enjoyed the Historical stories. I always preferred the futuristic ones. I don't know why now, as after listening to this story again I feel that this is perhaps the saddest loss of the Archive wipes. Marco Polo is gone, yet it's inferior follower The Keys of Marius has been released on DVD with digitally re-mastered sound and video.

Join me next time for a 'short' post on The Keys of Marius.

3: The Edge of Destruction - Written To Offset Overspends On Previous Stories.

The TARDIS Kitchen/Lounge/Bedroom.

Written by: David Whitaker

Companions: The Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright

Monsters/Villains: Ummm... a Spring?

Brief Synopsis: The TARDIS crew go inexplicably mental inside the TARDIS...

Rating: 2/10

This is bonkers!! I sat down with my girlfriend Katie quite late to watch this one, after having been to the cinema to see Black Swan. Which is wonderful and well worth seeing by the way. This whole thing is just so bizarre. Katie is wonderfully supportive of my DW pilgrimage, and has promised to join me for the occasional story. This unfortunately for her was her first.

Okay so the episode starts with everyone getting knocked out. The group awake one by one, but with random bouts of memory loss. Everyone is acting strangely. Ian goes all monosyllabic and "special" and tries to throttle various people. Susan goes psychopathic, ominously and threateningly wielding a sharp pair of scissors. What we see here, really is very disturbing and urges Katie to question: Was this meant to be a kids programme?

I almost want to re-watch this again, to see if knowing the conclusion, would help to understand exactly what the hell is going on. At one point Susan suggests that something has entered the TARDIS and is controlling one of the crew. There are strange monster nosies from the open TARDIS doors. The crew check the scanner and are shown photographs of previous places the TARDIS has travelled to. They look at a clock, freak out and throw their watches across the room. Anyone got any idea what's happening yet? 

Not getting anywhere the crew decide to retire to sleep. This could be exciting! We might get to see more of the TARDIS!! Oh no, Susan, Barbara and Ian all sleep in the same room, on these weird ergonomic beds that pop out of the wall located in the same room as the food machine. You'd think that with the size of the TARDIS, in all it's dimensionally transcendental glory that there would at least be separate digs for kitchen, lounge and bedroom. Also Susan and Barbara don these odd black smocks. While Ian get's a silk dressing gown. Where have these TARDIS Pyjamas come from? 

Ergonomic TARDIS Bed.

Everyone's got neck pain. The TARDIS console seems to be the centre of the problems. The fault locater's going haywire. The Doctor then says that the TARDIS' "power" which "lives" under the main column is being tempted away by the energy from the big bang. Oh okay, that makes sense. Wait! No it doesn't! Why is everyone acting barmy? 

Ian asks Doctor where he intended to send them when he set the machine in motion. And he says he was trying to take the pair of school teachers back to Earth, so he pressed the fast return switch. Then Jaqueline Hill as Barbara, who is somehow excellent and really fully commits to this nonsensical story manages to put together some of the above's occurrings to discover that the cause of all their problems, is a broken spring in the fast return button, which has cause it to remain pressed. Oh, right. That makes complete sense.

The whole thing is very odd indeed. And even an analytical brain such as mine couldn't put it all together. There is one redeeming feature, a wonderful scene towards the end of the second episode. It's after all the "trouble" is everted by the amazing, deductive discovery of the broken spring. The scene is between the Doctor and Barbara. The Doctor apologises for his harsh treatment of the two teachers, saying "As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves." This is actually a really important moment. After nearly expelling Barbara and Ian from the TARDIS, he finally appreciates them, admitting that without "valuable" Barbara, they wouldn't have survived whatever it was they just faced. In seriousness, the Doctor has learned that travelling with others can be useful. This lesson will stick with him for a very long time to come.

The Spring of Destruction.

Silly Musings

1) A brilliant line fluff by William Hartnell that he declaims with such vigour: "we're on the brink of deruc.... of destruction"

2) Katie and I found the Doctor's wonderful explanation of the broken spring, informative and very entertaining. The Doctor explains the broken spring by using a torch. This is my version of the scene. I call it: The Spring of Destruction:

The Doctor: You see Susan, if I hold the button down on the torch the light comes on. If I let go of the button a tiny spring shuts it off. And if the spring was broken it would think I was still pressing the button.

Susan: I see Grandfather. That explains the broken spring. Thanks. Now please tell me why a broken spring meant that we all just went mental for the last hour and I tired to kill people with scissors....

Maybe if I read this I'll be able to
make some sense of it all...

There is a Target novelisation of this story. I am going to buy it and try and work out what the hell is actually going on.


At the end of the episode the four arrive at a new location and exit the TARDIS only to find a giant foot print...


Join me next time for the first of the lost stories and a personal favourite, Marco Polo.

2: The Daleks - But Not As We Know Them.

The first appearance of The Daleks.

Written by: Terry Nation

Companions: The Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton, and Barbara Wright.

Monsters/Villains: The Daleks, Thals.

Brief Synopsis: The TARDIS lands on Skaro, and the Doctor meets the Daleks for the first time.

Rating: 6/10

Hello everyone and welcome back for this next installment: The Daleks. It is already increasingly hard to pay these milestone stories the honour they deserve. There are so many firsts. The two big landmarks in this adventure are one: the first alien planet we see in the series, and two: the first appearance of the Daleks! However, these Daleks don't seem to behave exactly as we might expect them to today.

The Dalek City

Again it is an interesting choice to have the first alien planet we visit to not be one of wonder or beauty like so many to follow, but one where our intrepid travellers do not wish to linger. That is, except for the Doctor, who actually sabotages the TARDIS, immobilising it, forcing the party to venture into the mysterious, alien city the group has spied on the horizon. Some have used this as an example of the First Doctors dark side, but this is totally misplaced. William Hartnell plays this scene for comedy.  Several of the Doctor's subsequent companions will plead "can we just go back to the TARDIS" only to be off balanced by the Doctor lightly saying, "Let's just have a little look. I'm sure it's perfectly safe, and we won't come to any harm, or have to run around a lot, or save a native people from their oppressors, or change history, or run into anyone who wants to kill us. Plus that city looks really cool. Please!"

The group dynamic is an extremely interesting one. The four are forced together. The Doctor's fear of being discovered on earth causes him to demand on containing Ian and Barbara inside the TARDIS and moving to another time to insure his and Susan's safety. Susan clearly has strong feelings for her Grandfather but has actually said she'd sooner leave the TARDIS than leave Earth. Ian and Barbara who are effectively prisoners just want to get home, but realise they need to keep the Doctor sweet, and more importantly alive in order to do so. The group set out to explore the city and when Barbara doesn't return, the Doctor shows his willing to leave Ian and Barbara behind on the planet. The group are growing closer together in this adventure, but there is still a lot of animosity, which makes for captivating viewing.

Plunged to death!

The first cliffhanger is another doozie; Barbara trapped in the city is stalked down by our very first glimpse of a Dalek: it's sucker arm. And in episode two the Daleks are revealed in full. The people working on this couldn't have imagined how iconic these odd pepper pots would become.

But these were not the Daleks of today or at least not how a modern audience would recognise them. They are reasonable, which is more than can be said for Za and The Tribe of Gum from the previous adventure. It isn't even clear at first that the Daleks are the baddies, they are cautious of the TARDIS crew, but who wouldn't be, after not seeing any other species for 500 years.

It becomes apparent to the Doctor that there are extremely high levels of radiation on Skaro and that some drugs they found left for them outside the TARDIS are what the crew need to survive. The Daleks let Susan go to get the drugs and we see them deciding that they will let the TARDIS crew die and keep the drugs for themselves. These Daleks do use the word 'exterminate' but they cannot be seen indignantly shouting it for some time yet to come. They cannot leave their city as they rely on static electricity from the floors to move. They experiment on themselves with the anti-radiation drugs, something that would surely not happen with the current incarnations of Dalek.  After their experiments they discover the drugs not only don't help but they actually kill them. The Daleks discover they actually need the radiation to survive. The same radiation that is killing the Thals and their crops. So the Daleks plan to detonate another nuclear device. At one point Ian describes the Daleks feelings toward the Thals as a "dislike for the unlike." This may be so, but the Daleks don't necessarily want to kill the Thals but because they require radiation to survive. It could just as easily be described as survival of the fittest.

or a Thal. Who would you support?

A Dalek

When we watch this story now, we understand the threat of radiation from a nuclear bomb, but it doesn't seem any more scary than any other form of possible annihilation. But for a member of the audience of The Daleks during it's original transmission in 1963-4 much less was known about this menace, it was significantly more current, and fear of nuclear war was rife.

Other worthy firsts in this adventure include the exciting first glimpse at the Dalek creature; it's claw. The contents of a Dalek is a question that will haunt us for years to come. Also the first scenes of a romantic nature between Barbara and the Thal, Ganatus. There are only two or three scene between them, but what we do see is heartwarming, especially their farewell. You can tell the writers of DW are testing the waters with these short yet emotionally important scenes.

First glimpse at the Dalek creature.

The passage of time in these early episodes is interesting. Some scenes that today would be explained through exposition only, are played out in their entirety. While others that could have been fascinating are left out merely to be explained in passing. This is perhaps due to budgetary limitations. We really get a sense that the TARDIS crew are here on Skaro for some time, especially during their crusade to the Dalek city. Also the 60's audience wouldn't have known how many episodes their would be in each story, so for them each week could have been leading to the end of this adventure and the beginning of a new one.

This is a bit off on a tangent but stick with me. The largest change that came to Doctor Who when it returned to our screens in 2005 was the length of each story. Where in the classic era a story might span 6 x 25 minute episodes, the new series allows never more than a two-parter. It is clear why this decision was made, as the modern undiscerning audience could not be expected to follow a story from week to week and so are given an entirely stand alone installment each time, albeit linked together with a rough theme or story thread. In some cases in the classic era a story was commissioned to be a certain number of episodes long and unfortunately some episodes do end up feeling like padding. However, the non-regular characters were allowed so much more in the way of development. We weren't introduced to a planet and some people in danger or need only to say goodbye to them 45 minutes later, without ever really knowing who they were, and the Doctor wasn't required to solve the whole thing in the last 5 minutes, usually by using some totally un-reincorporated technobabble or device we haven't seen or heard of and for some reason the Doctor hadn't thought of before. Sorry, rant over. 


There are many wonderful things in the new series, and with Stephen Moffat at the helm the programme is the strongest it has ever been. With the budget and the genius of the series current show-runner, I would love to see what could be done to re-establish the old structure of the show even for a short period.

Anyway back to The Daleks. To be totally honest I did have to struggle through some this, especially towards the middle. It was great to see the Daleks in a different light and without the limitations they have come under by today. I like the line the Doctor says when honourably refusing to stay and help the Thals 'I was once [a pioneer] among my people.' Again we see William Hartnell's Doctor given lines that will set up the Doctors character as not just any "Time Lord." But we're not anywhere near that yet. And finally some silly musings:

Silly Musings

This is a short section I'm planning to include from time to time. Just a few funny observations from each story.

1) The first and practically only explanation of where the TARDIS crew get their sustenance while aboard: The TARDIS food machine, where you look in a little book to find out what flavours (similar to primary colours) make up your desired fare and then turn some dials on a machine, to be finally offered a little cubed sweet. Yum! Also the only drinks you can have are water or milk. So for all you new fans wondering where Amy gets her grub from, you'll have to watch the second ever story because they're not telling you again.

2) My favourite of William Hartnell's line fluffs ever. "They were anti-radiation gloves... drugs"

3) I found it hilarious that toward the end of episode two: The Survivors, there's a scene where all the Daleks are inexplicably all crowded together rubbing suckers!

The Daleks inexplicably all rub sucker arms together...

And we've made it through the second story only 213 (currently) still to go... Thanks for reading and join me next time for The Edge of Destruction.