Saturday 1st February 1964 - The Rescue

 

"This senseless, evil killing!"

So ends the 7-part adventure which began just before Christmas. After the slow preceding episodes, this is fast-paced and ends with an exhausting - if poorly edited - climax. Obviously, the small production budget makes the battle between Thals and Daleks something quite limited and undermines the attempts by the creative team to infuse some moralising about the futility of war. Noting anti-nuclear sentiments is hardly surprising considering the Daleks intend to spread radiation across Skaro.

Action is split between Ian's group seemingly trapped in the caves below the Dalek city and the Dalek control room where the Doctor and Susan are held captive. We're supposed to consider this in terms of the waste of life in conflict (Antodus sacrifices himself at the start and dead Thals and Daleks are scattered across the Control Room at the end).

After two months and the grip that Doctor Who made on the British imagination, there's still the question of who The Doctor actually is. It's left to the Thal, Alydon, to ask this on behalf of us viewers:

ALYDON: Doctor? You know, there never seems to have been time to ask, but we don't really know where you come from, or why.

Which the Doctor obviously avoids answering and we only get the enigmatic comment:

DOCTOR: I'm afraid I'm much too old to be a pioneer. Although I was once amongst my own people.

And adds:

DOCTOR: You wanted advice you said. I never give it. Never. But I might just say this to you. Always search for truth. My truth is in the stars and yours is here.

I get the impression that this adventure has changed the Doctor. He's encountered a senseless evil - in the form of the Daleks - and, I suspect, been galvanised by the heroics of Ian, Barbara and the Thals. He's not the same Doctor we met in Totter's Lane. While he still isn't prepared to roll up his sleeves and get involved with rebuilding Skaro, he is now able to give advice.

Before the travellers depart, there's a brief scene between Barbara and Ganatus. He kisses her hand and she kisses him on the lips. It's a shame that this romance wasn't flagged clearly enough in earlier episodes. Their parting seems awkward and stiff (though, perhaps, that is what Barbara is like). No wonder Ian seemed to be pretty grumpy in the last few episodes.

Alas, the Daleks are all destroyed. The fight sequence in the Control Room suggested that the short-circuit that causes the power drain is caused by an unknown Thal who, despite being shot, manages to struggle with a Dalek and pushes it into a vulnerable console. There's something unfulfilling in the way that it's not anyone we know who does this. Just a random Thal. Shame we won't ever see the Daleks again. Right?

The final scene shows the TARDIS console room with the Doctor skipping around adjusting controls. The others stand about. There seems to be some sort of explosion and everyone falls to the floor.

Next week: The Edge of Destruction.

Saturday 25th January 1964 - The Ordeal

 

"We'll show them a thing or two."

Ten episodes in and it seems to me that we're finally witnessing the Doctor's engagement with what's going on around him. Previously, his adventures, first with the prehistoric Tribe of Gum and now the Thals and Daleks have forcibly shaken him out of the aloof and disinterested pose he'd assumed while at Totter's Lane which, no doubt, included a tendency to nip off in the TARDIS when he'd had enough. He's still talking to himself abstractedly and rolling his eyes but he's now happily getting involved. He's stuck on Skaro because Ian lost the "fluid link" and now leads a group of Thals in an attack on the Dalek city. The Doctor relishes being a military leader.

Unfortunately, this episode strikes me as not much more than plodding filler: it's another episode of travelling to the Dalek city. The Ordeal suggests something far more dramatic than what we actually see: Ian, Barbara and a group of Thals climbing about in underground tunnels (only we don't get to see much more than three or four tunnels close up which really diminishes the "ordeal" factor).

Hot on the tails of last week's episode, we have the remains of Elyon, the Thal, gurgling and swirling round in the lake. Just to make it clear, one of the other Thals asks "Did he fall in?" Obviously not. They have to get to the cliffs by night. I'm actually having a hard time telling the Thals apart and remembering their names. I'm sure one of these is Antodus, who turns out to be traumatised by the whole journey (so maybe "ordeal" refers to Antodus' ordeal).

Meanwhile Susan and the Doctor reconnoitre the Dalek city from behind a large rock with the aid of a pair of glasses . They are with two Thal's around a large rock where they are making a map.Foolishly, the Doctor stands up to get a better look (through glasses with telescopic lenses) and has to be reminded to get down by Susan. The Doctor advises that they must preven

Inside the Dalek city the Daleks prepare a neutron bomb with a 500 mile radius. It will take 23 days which is far too long for the impatient Daleks in charge and they decide to work out another way of spreading radiation. Other than fear of an attack by the peaceful Thals or the Doctor and his companions, I'm not sure why the Daleks need to act so quickly. These Daleks are a hypervigilant, frightened lot.

Next we have Barbara and a Thal called Ganatus inside a cave, searching it for a way through. It would have been helpful to have an establishing shot of the group going into the mouth of a cave (presumably somewhere on the cliffs) but perhaps the budget didn't stretch that far. Barbara hears the sound of water and they discover a small passageway. For some reason the Thal says he knows the Earth custom of Ladies first (maybe heard it through the journey) and climbs into the passage. Before he goes, the Thal playfully asks if Barbara always does what Ian says and she replies no. This is odd in the sense that we've already seen that Thal society is patriarchal and assume Ganatus would approve of Barbara following Ian's instructions. Unless he's subtly checking out the nature of Barbara and Ian's relationship.

Anyhow, Ganatus climbs into the passage and goes down a shaft on the end of a rope which Barbara is left to hold. Unfortunately, she lets go and Ganatus falls. Of course, manly Ian is on hand to take over and make sure all is well.

Back in the city, the Daleks realise that the surveillance cameras and microphones (which they call rangerscopes and vibrascopes) are being deliberately disrupted. Quick shot of three Thals holding large mirrors which reflect light at a faraway camera (?) on the top of a building in the Dalek city.

As the Doctor enters the Dalek city with Susan and another Thal, he stops and seems to speak to the camera, "We'll show them a thing or two." He's clearly enjoying what's happening.

Antodus wants to go back. He fears that they will die. Struggles but a rockfall forces them to go on. Antodus - the largest of the Thals - seems the youngest. He's got a large baby-face, two, which contrasts with the sharp, pointed faces of the other Thals.

The Daleks' vibrascope reveals that the Doctor, Susan and Thal have entered Section 15 at the city wall.

Doctor sabotages a videoscope. He enjoys breaking things. Uses Susan's key to TARDIS and says he can always make another one. Causes a short circuit that delights him - but also summons Daleks who surround him and Susan. Inexplicably, the Daleks don't kill them and a little later Doctor and Susan sat in the middle of a group of Daleks in the control room. Helpfully, Dalek 1 explains:

DALEK 1: The only interest we have in the Thals is their total extermination.  
SUSAN: What do you mean?  
DALEK 1: Tomorrow the atmosphere will be bombarded by the radiation from our nuclear reactors.  
SUSAN: Why are you doing this?  
DOCTOR: That's sheer murder.  
DALEK 1: No, extermination.  
DOCTOR: But you must listen to reason. Please, you must.  
DALEK 1: Without radiation, the Dalek race is ended. We need it as you and the Thals need air.

Daleks go full-Nazi and take up the rallying cry of "Tomorrow we will be the masters of Skaro." I'm hoping that the Doctor allowed himself to be captured and this is why he was so excited when he told the camera earlier in the episode that he would show the Daleks a thing or two. The Doctor's altered from wanting to kill a wounded cave man with a rock in the first adventure to being outraged at the genocidal actions of the Daleks.

Back in the tunnels, the other Thal group are prevented from continuing by a cleft in the floor. Ian and the others jump across to a small ledge. It's an overly-long scene. Antodus is last and fearful of jumping. Build-up of thumping percussion. Of course, he falls and the cliffhanger shows Antodus hanging on the end of a rope connected to Ian who is losing his grip...

Next week: The Rescue

Hmmm... I've just noticed that all the episodes - except the first all start with the definite article - The Ambush, The Ordeal, The Rescue... it'll be interesting to note when this changes.

Saturday 18th January 1964 - The Expedition

 

"Get my name right. It's Chesterton."

It's an episode where our space-and-time travellers aren't the focus. Instead, scenes alternate between the Daleks, who realise that the drugs won't work on them as the require radiation as a condition of existence and the Thals, who are nagged by Ian into considering violent. Susan, once again, disappears into the background only popping up to agree with Ian that the Thals shouldn't be manipulated into taking actions just to help the travellers retrieve the TARDIS' fluid link.

The Doctor, on the other hand, seems more engaged and energised by what's happening. He takes more interest in things and seems less distracted. Perhaps this is because he sees an opportunity to lead the Thals in an attack on the Daleks and this makes him purposive. He seems less grumpy when he has something to do.

Despite the way the episode switches back and forth between Dalek city and the dead forest, it's a slow episode. Despite being called The Expedition, the long journey only begins towards the end of the episode.

The Daleks steal the show as far as I'm concerned, particularly:

• reactions of the Daleks to the Thal drug, especially the way that one of the Daleks squeals "Help me!"
• all Daleks in Sections Two and  Three are affected (though it would have been great to see this happen)
• cardboard Daleks in the background to suggest there are more than four of them
• we get a shot from a Dalek's point of view, through the eyestalk
• the Daleks use tickertape readouts, cutting-edge 1960s Earth technology and totally suitable for a creature that interacts with a plunger and laser gun
  
• Daleks don't mess about when some of them are affected by the Thal drug, they send the affected ones to the "sonic chamber" (which sounds ominous).
  

By the end of this episode the Doctor and Susan go with one group of Thals while Ian and Barbara go with another. It looks like next week they'll battle the Daleks.

Next week: The Ordeal.

Saturday 11th January 1964 - The Ambush

 

"Can pacificism become a human instinct?"

asks Barbara with a sense of distaste after Ian has called on the Thals to provide a show of strength towards the Daleks. Once again, we're seeing 1960s anxities about the atomic bomb played out on the screen. Ian, still wearing his tie and middle-class teacher's jumper, speaks for the political consensus for the UK then (and now) speaks of pacifism as a utopian desire only achieved in a world where everyone is a pacifist. (For me, Ian's argument is undermined in the way he delayed warning the Thals about the ambush in order to see what happened - even though he knew the ruthless nature of the Daleks. I'm actually a little fed up with Ian at this point.)

We see more of the Thals who come across as proto-hippies venturing down from their commune up on the plateau. When they arrive at the city, Alydon still has his "instinct" not to trust the Daleks.

Once again, the eerie ambient sound effects work effectively in conveying a sense of the alien-ness of the Dalek city. The sequences in the lift seem quaint sixty years on but I'm sure they would have seemed tense at the time. The pressure of time running out as the Daleks burn their way through the door is always a good device to increase the stakes.

The scene of the actual ambush of the Thals by the Daleks is well-paced and finally - if we needed it - exposes how sinister and murderous the Daleks are. The Daleks set out food in a central area and then hide, guns twitching until the Thals have entered. Temmosus, the Thal leader offers peace and there's a pause with Dalek guns still twitching. Then, slowly, the Daleks appear one-by-one. For me, it's the way that Daleks glide silentlt in great lines where they are most menacing. Ian warns about it being a trap and the Temmosus and other Thals are shot dead. Fortunately for Ian, Alydon and other Thals, the Daleks aren't clever enough to prevent their escape. It's a great scene nevertheless.

The Doctor still plays a secondary character in his own show - treated very much as a doddery old grandfather - and it's Ian who remains the hero: sending the others away to safety twice. At the end of this episode, while the Doctor is getting information from a Thal starmap in order to escape Skaro, it's left to Ian to make it clear to the Thals and the audience of the motivations of the Daleks: "dislike for the unlike". Despite the plight of the Thals, what keeps the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan on the planet isn't anything noble; it's the loss of the "fluid link" needed to pilot the TARDIS.

Saturday 4th January 1964 - The Escape

"It does not matter. We have the message now."

At last we get to see more of Susan. She encounters Alydon (yes, he was the threatening character who's been lurking about) and learns about the Thals. Susan is manipulated by the Daleks into writing a letter which sets a trap for the Thals. (What language does Susan use to write to the Thals?) I'm starting to lose any idea that Susan merely looks like a teenager and is much older than she seems - especially when she does something like snigger at the way that the Daleks pronounce her name ("Su-san"). Once Susan has produced the letter she - and the other prisoners - are no longer needed.

We see that the Daleks are quite capable of dissembling: appearing to be gracious and generous, while harbouring nasty genocidal ambitions. They pretend to offer the Thals freedom from starvation. Thinking about it, even the design of the visual appearance of the Daleks is one that - yes, it's certainly protective and a weaponised casing - is used to give the impression of a highly-advanced technological being while containing a grotesque mutation. Both Ian and the Doctor are repulsed by the sight of the Dalek inside the casing (and there's a quite dated response where Susan and Barbara are protected from seeing the true form of the creature). The Daleks fear what isn't them and the connections with Nazism are more than apparent (though interesting in the sense that the Thals, the object of their hatred, are quite aryan in their appearance). The Daleks' use of surveillance is prominent - and, when Susan reveals that the travellers know about it - unashamed. We also have the first mention of extermination by the Daleks, too.

Much of the time spent with the Thals involves their philosophical discussions about inevitability. They seem to have a passive, stoic acceptance of things which is only lifted when they receive the letter from Susan.  "So there is a future for us," says Temmosus, the leader of the Thals. While both Alydon and Temmosus are prepared to accept the Dalek's offer of food at fac value, the Thal, Ganatus, is cautious and considers that the Daleks, former philosophers, have transformed over time into warriors. The Thals name the metal creature discovered by Barbara in The Dead Planet as a magneton. Thal society seems to be patriarchal going by the comment Dyoni makes about giving the drugs to Susan ("It would have been better if you had given it to a man instead of a girl."). The Thals - much like the prehistoric Tribe of Gum - are on the brink of starvation and are desperate for a source of food.

Even though the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are restricted to one cell, they engage in debate, planning and action which is thoroughly engaging for the viewer. It wouldn't happen in modern Doctor Who and hundreds of thousands of pounds would be spent on sets and cgi. With Doctor Who, simpler and restricted is often best. The Doctor, Ian and Barbara begin to work together as a team in this episode: realising the Daleks run off electricity and the plan to sabotage a Dalek so they can escape. The sequence where they overcome the Dalek guard is especially good. Though I'm surprised that someone as large as Ian can get inside a Dalek casing.

The episode breaks quite neatly into three: the efforts of the Doctor and his companions to escape from their cell, the machinations of the Daleks and the discussions of the Thals.

Next week: The Ambush.

Saturday 28th December - The Survivors

 

Daleks.

With that single word, the show becomes something more than a science fiction adventure about a small group travelling haphazardly in space and time. The show introduces the now infamous mechanical, ever-twitching, ever-moving aliens who are thoroughly chilling and - from today's standpoint - seem to embody the fears of inhuman, totalitarian control many in British society suffered at the height of the cold war. Emotionless, robotic creatures who control a futuristic, soulless city who have the technology to conduct surveillance at all times. Atomic fears - no doubt encouraged by the recent Cuban missile crisis - feature, too: radiation sickness, nucleonic war and mutations. Daleks seem to capture post-war societal fears. They're something more than just alien monsters. No doubt the cold, grating voices of the Daleks had a tremendous impact and contributed to their popularity.

It's another episode where the Doctor and his companions are captured and spend the episode bewildered. Radiation sickness affects them and the Daleks believe that they can retrieve the drugs that were left back in the TARDIS which will enable the Daleks to leave the city for the first time. We hear about the Thals, a grossly-mutated race who live on the planet and, presumably, left the drugs outside the TARDIS. Susan, the least affected by radiation, travels alone through the forest at night during a storm to retrieve the drugs.

The best scene of this episode (certainly visually) has to be the Dalek's interrogation of the Doctor. It's the first time we get to see the Doctor separately from the others and, even though he's unwell, he manages to confront the Daleks in a way we haven't seen so far. Under spotlight, he stands up to his captors (notice the defiant way he fearlessly points at them) and gets them to divulge knowledge of the Thals. As always, his eyes flit this way giving the impression he's analysing every detail of what the Daleks tell him.

It was good to see the show's acton hero, Ian, incapacitated by a Dalek weapon. He's become the physical defender of the group and he is frustrated that he's unable to fulfil that role. It enables Susan something to do in returning to the TARDIS through the dead forest during a storm.

The cliff-hanger is low-key: Susan opens the TARDIS doors to return to the Dalek city.

A couple of behind-the-scenes pieces of trivia about this episode. It's the second episode that had to be re-recorded (this time due to background noise picked up on the microphones) and that the Daleks were initially going to be designed by Ridley Scott but, owing to scheduling, the task was passed to Raymond Cusick, who created the familiar pepperpot design. With a budget of £700 (about £18,000 today), Cuisick was able to build 4 complete Daleks.

Saturday 21st December - The Dead Planet

 

Fascinating. It's the word the Doctor repeatedly uses this episode. His burning curiosity not only encourages him to explore the dead planet but also to sabotage the TARDIS in order to prevent the others from forcing him to leave. Rather like his actions in the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, he acts impetuously and selfishly. You get the impression that Susan is used to following her grandfather about and putting up with his decisions.

After watching The Dead Planet, I'm convinced of a couple of things. First is that the Doctor is an adolescent in the form of a grumpy old man. Second is that the preoccupation of the writers seems to be presenting death in different aspects. Last time is was the threat of extinction caused by environmental change and now we have (what appears to be) the destructive threat of nuclear weapons.

In this episode we have Ian and Barbara's first experience of an alien world (if you believe that the Tribe of Gum took place on Earth), domestic life aboard the TARDIS, tensions between Ian and the Doctor and the exploration of a mysterious deserted city.

The production team take us from the ancient past, caves and forests full of dangerous creatures to radioactive world of petrified forests, metal creatures and retro-futuristic cities. The scope of the show - from pre-history to the far-future and from Earth to other worlds - is now established for the audience. Our point-of-view characters, Ian and Barbara, are used to acknowledge this is indeed the case.

The scene in which the travellers view the alien city from a distance and the Doctor uses his binoculars for a closer look creates a n impressive sense of awe. Of course, the models look naive with today's eyes - but are effective in establishing a sense of wonder. Same for the petrified forest and the metal dog-like creature with magnetic powers. (I'm less sure what the writers were trying to do with Susan's discovery of the tiny flower. Narratively, it's used to separate Susan from the others to set up the plot point of being touched by a hand but seems to hint at something else - perhaps the presence of life in remains of the dead world.)

We see a little more of the TARDIS. Barbara and Susan have a conversation that seems to be in another room, presumably in the living quarters of the ship. The Doctor takes readings from the fault locator, a wall of dials in a section of the console room behind a perspex screen. There's also a food machine which dispenses meals in the form of small foil-wrapped bars. Underneath the console is the fluid link, a tiny instrument containing mercury and without which the TARDIS can't travel. The Doctor uses codes for everything: J62L6 for food and K7 for a fault (it's almost as if the use of alphanumerical codes are used by the writers to signify advance technology in the 1960s).

More is learned about the mysterious Doctor: there's a "gulf" of age between him and Susan, he has problems with his memory and is solitary (Susan tells Ian: "I don't say that Grandfather doesn't know how to work the ship, but he's so forgetful, and then he will go off and. Well, he likes to work on his own."), he enjoys showing off TARDIS technology and condescendingly explaining things ("Food has component parts, dear boy. Flavours are rather like primary colours, you know, you blend two to achieve a third, a fourth, etc, etc."). The Doctor's also supercilious and completely self-centred ("I will not be questioned. Uninvited passengers. I didn't invite them to the ship. I shall do what I want to do.") and even sabotages the TARDIS to get his own way. He smirks like a naughty boy when he convinces the others that they need to travel to the alien city in order to find mercury in order to repair the TARDIS' fluid link.  Once again, the Doctor finds physical travel tiring and has to rely on Susan for support.

Barbara and Ian dislike the Doctor (mainly for his arrogance) and notice that  he has “a knack for getting himself in trouble”. In one exchange early in the episode, they joke:

            BARBARA: Well, I suppose we'd better make sure he doesn't fall down and break a leg. 

            Don't you ever think he deserves something to happen to him?             

            IAN: Yes.

As we see, the person who actually ends up with something happening to them is Barbara when she becomes trapped in the maze-like metal corridors of the alien city. The cliff-hanger is our first sight... of a dalek!

An annoyance with this episode is the way that the glass phials left outside the TARDIS are taken aboard and left behind while the travellers go on their journey to the city. And that no one checked the radioactivity meter more than once. When they arrive at the city they also decide to split up; I'm not sure I'd do that. Pairs, maybe.

As a final thought, I'm starting to appreciate the problem that many fans have with these early episodes is a consequence of trying to binge their way through stories. I'm enjoying watching them once a week for 25 minutes and the show holds my attention completely. I'm not sure this would be the case if I tried to watch the show for two or three hours at a time. 

 

Next week: The Survivors.