Review: Doctor Who Classic: The Tenth Planet

One with Ben at the South Pole.

Doctor Who - Season 4, Story Two - The Tenth Planet
Written between 19th and 20th September 2015

Under William Hartnell's tenure as The Doctor, the show had not only begun, but had also become a national phenomenon. Other shows take a while to get embedded into the public imagination, but under Hartnell the show had risen phenomenally, following the 60s trend of Dalekmania. Behind the scenes, however, several accounts show a man often harder to work with. In 1966, near the start of the show's fourth season, Hartnell's failing health and friction with newer members of the production team led to the suggestion of his leaving the show. In order to do this, writer Gerry Davis created the concept of regeneration, and he incorporated it into a story he'd been writing with his friend Kit Pedler, about a race of cybernetic creatures known as Cybermen...
     The Doctor and his two companions Ben and Polly (both from 1960s England) arrive in the South Pole. There they wander into an underground base led by General Cutler. The base is a scientific station monitoring a rocket launch towards Mars, and the three are immediately treated with suspicion. The rocket starts heading off course, and is ultimately lost, as a planet seems to come within range of Earth - a planet The Doctor identifies as Mondas. Soon the base is invaded by tall, bumbling creatures called Cybermen, who explain their origins as a race of human-like beings forced to replace parts of their bodies with technology. They want to invade Earth, robbing it of enough energy to keep Mondas alive and to kidnap to human population in order to convert them into more of their own kind. Before they can truly get their plan under way, however, Mondas absorbs too much energy, and is destroyed. As the Cybermen lie in ruins, The Doctor, feeling a bit tired, makes his way back to The Tardis and collapses, regenerating into The Second Doctor.

This amazing shot wouldn't be half as effective
if the costume designer had remembered the gloves.

     The previous, premier story of this season, The Savages, was filmed as part of the previous production block, meaning that for Hartnell, he was essentially coming back to the show solely to film his exit. It's been said that this quite frustrated him, even if his health kept continuing to disrupt the show even through the production of this story. At one point Hartnell missed a week of filming due to complications from his arteriosclerosis, and he was hence written out of his own penultimate episode, a lot of his lines being given to the serial's other characters. This means that the third episode, lacking both Doctor and Cybermen, is by far the serial's most boring and tedious, but that actually contributes to the serial's success, as the Doctor's collapse and tired recover foreshadows the (for the time) incredibly surprising regeneration at the end.
     The execution of the original concept of the Cybermen is... well, it's hard to say with a perspective so drowned in hindsight. The explanation of the Cybermen is fantastic - you can really imagine that these beings were once men and women. As with Hartnell's absence in episode 3, blunders sometimes help - the Cybermen's silver gloves weren't ready in time, and so they had to go on without them. The resulting Cybermen, gripping their foes with human hands, look far more body-horror for it. They also, for some people, contribute to the opposite effect. I remember in particular my sister watching The Tenth Planet with me and laughing her head off at them, with their beady eyes and ridiculous sing-song voices. For me, of course, it all works and is a horrifying view into a potential future of the human race. The voices are still funny though.
     Now, for the stuff related to this story's release today. As I mentioned in the prologue to this month, many of the episodes from the black and white days are missing. This provides several interesting and unique challenges in watching the old series, with fans resorting to the use of "recons", facsimiles of the show created using stills, stage directions and the original audio. Luckily, for four stories, their DVD releases have been accompanied by complete animated versions of the missing episodes, using a unique animation style which attempts to as closely as possible match the original shots. Here, the fourth episode of The Tenth Planet is animated, the entire episode (bar the regeneration, thanks to Blue Peter) having been lost. I actually really like it - after the dullness of the third episode, the animated episode has a brilliant element of style and menace which does the Cybermen (and Hartnell) due justice.

Even in animation, Hartnell's final lines carry a great sense of
poignancy.

     There's a brilliant sense of decline in this story which may or may not have been intentional. The Cybermen represent, here, a humanity driven by a desire for survival to a dark, technological fate. They are shadows of their former self. This is a black mirror for the idea of Regeneration in the first place. The Doctor's main aim this episode, interestingly, is simply to wait and allow things to work themselves out, as he knows that the Cybermen will fail. The same was known by Hartnell of himself, and so it stands out as a very definite, very final story for the Doctor who allowed the show to come into being. And I salute him.

Thanks

NEXT WEEK: The Second Doctor is in a base which is under siege. You could say that it's a kind of... "base-under-siege" story. It's The Moonbase.

FTA: Doctor Who Classic: Edge of Destruction, Galaxy Four and Tomb of the Cybermen

When I was involved in Lewis Christian's amazing fan-created book Celebrate, Regenerate, I submitted 29 articles, a whopping 25 of which got published within the beautiful, non-profit book. Unfortunately, very soon after the book was published on Lulu, Christian's website was taken over and the book disappeared from Lulu altogether. Since the book, both digital and physical, is effectively out of print, I thought I'd publish all of the articles that I have stored away in my archives, staggered across the weeks (due to the sheer amount of text involved.) I hope you enjoy them, and I hope that through this, the spirit of Celebrate, Regenerate lives on. I'll also be including "See More" links to where I've previously written a full review of that story, and images to break up the text. Enjoy. :D

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The Edge of Destruction (Extra words)
By Andrew Smith

Doctor Who proves to be incredibly divisive as early as its third story. Granted, The Edge of Destruction’s rather odd plot and performance does mean that it doesn’t attract a lot of followers, but at heart it’s the finale to a 13-episode long arc that cements the personalities of our initial TARDIS team as well as introducing us to the concept of a sentient time machine. Its slightly stage-play like construction allows us a wonderful amount of tension compared with the speed of its production, and the solution is a wonderfully unassuming joke that relieves the tension of the instalment with incredible ease. The Edge of Destruction, despite the way it was cobbled together on an almost absent budget, is a masterpiece that perfectly caps the series’ opening arc and ensured the success of the series for years to come. (See more.)

Galaxy Four
By Andrew Smith

Perhaps I'm not an expert here. My first interaction with Galaxy Four came just after I'd started looking into the Classic Series, when I bought the Titan Books publishing of the serial's script. The idea of the Chumblies fascinated me; the first time in my experience where there had been a deliberate dissonance between the idea that the most alien looking ones were the baddies. I was fascinated by the commanding female presence in the Drahvins, held my breath as Steven Taylor suffocated in the air lock, and felt slightly sad when the Drahvins were left to die on the exploding planet. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I learnt for the first time about the great burnings, and that the story had been entirely destroyed.
     Until the very recent discovery of the third episode, this was something of a Ghost story, one which had very little record at all post-transmission. It wasn't alone, of course, but it wasn't exactly a high-profile loss. People were more concerned with William Hartnell's last episode, or Troughton's first story. The Highlanders, The Macra Terror, The Web of Fear. Why should anyone care about a little old story with Amazonian aliens and cute little robots, when so much of Doctor Who's most important moments are completely missing? Well, for a very good reason. What's left of Galaxy Four is a decent little story, and one that packs a lot of great sci-fi ideas into an interesting premise. For a bit.
     Ok, the elephant in the room time. Galaxy Four is a tiny bit tedious in its way, and for the experienced viewer who knows the ins and outs of TV, this is pretty much the equivalent of watching an episode of Merlin where they try to spring the surprise that Morgana is evil. But for me as a child, reading this wonderful old script... everything was fresh, everything was new. Suddenly the black and white era wasn't this impenetrable fog, but this exciting and wonderful series of stories that were just as good as the stuff I was used to. Galaxy Four was the story that let me go one step further to becoming a Doctor Who fan, and for that I am truly grateful.

Tomb of the Cybermen

By Andrew Smith

The story of Tomb of the Cybermen and it’s history in Who fandom is the result of a long saga that began and ended many years before I was even born, but it never stopped me from appreciating the story in new light. At the end of the day, when we look at Tomb, we have to wonder why exactly it’s so special. After all, it’s a fairly standard story of that era. It takes character roles from previous Cyberman stories, with the confident expedition leader, the nervous guy on the edge, and the base under siege story is almost endemic. So what makes it so… so memorable? 

     Aside from the story’s size, which is the perfect configuration for most Classic Who fans, the story is also famous for having been fully recovered after the great burnings of the 1970s. As well as large swathes of Doctor Who, shows like Dad’s Army and nearly Monty Python had their master tapes burnt. For years, even after the program ended, people lamented the fate of Tomb of the Cybermen, oft remembered for the scenes in the second episode in which the Cybermen awaken from their sleep. And then, when all hope was lost, the entire story was recovered in 1992 from a Chinese TV station. Despite sharing a lot of the Second Doctor’s era’s tropes, the story feels more modern and the four-part structure means that it might as well be a Pertwee story someone lost the colour spots for.

     The Cybermen were always one of my favourite monsters because of the fact that they weren’t fundamentally malicious in nature. Modern media often feels the need to distinguish goodies and baddies, right and wrong, the compassionate and the evil. As a child, I loved the fact that the Cybermen were the product of a society, not unlike ours, whose desperation to survive turned them into a force of evil. The fear that they provoke is not from their appearance, nor their voice, but their motives. “You will become like us.” This story takes the more conceptual Cybermen from their first story and compacts it into a more public-friendly form, creating the monster that would go on to become the Daleks’ main competition as the series’ most well known monster.

     There’s been a lot of backlash to Tomb of the Cybermen’s popularity over the years, as you’d expect. The (human) villains are all minorities, the only black man is a mute who sacrifices himself at the end to save the day, and the only reason anything happens is because The Doctor is a bit too nosy. But people are able to ignore that with Tomb of the Cybermen in a way that other stories don’t manage. And that’s simply because Tomb, if you ignore all of the rascism, is a very well crafted Who story that takes the Cybermen and shoves them into a better, scarier new direction. It’s got Cybermen, Cybercontrollers, Cybermats and even a Cyber-manakin, and if I wanted to introduce a Not-We to my favourite monster, this would be the story I’d choose. (See more.)

Thanks.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: The Edge of Destruction

Susan goes barking.

 Doctor Who, Season One, Story Three (1963)

I end my Beginnings Trilogy by taking a look at The Edge of Destruction, the twelth and thirteenth episodes of Season One. Used to fill the series' initial thirteen episode quotient, the story was written on the fly with almost no resources to hand except the main cast and the Tardis interior. Thus, here is where the character arcs established in the first two serials hits an end and where our core characters mature into the final incarnations as they would have stood had the series not been taken up. A lot of fans won't give The Edge of Destruction (known also as "Inside the Spaceship" and "Beyond the Sun") the time of day, but of the three beginning stories it's my particular favourite by a mile.
     Our heroes gather around the Tardis console after having escaped the Daleks, and there is a blinding flash of light. All of them fall to the floor, and Barbara wakes up to find her fellow passengers unconscious. The doors continually open and shut, and the Scanner keeps showing multiple images. The Doctor accuses Barbara and Steven of sabotaging the ship in an attempt to return home. Susan, who appears initially to have been posessed, sides with her father until a tired Steven appears to strangle Barbara, proving that someone is influencing them. They work through the information at hand; the Tardis fault locator itself is broken, and so the partially sentient machine was continually giving them warning signs. Somehow the machine had gone to the Big Bang, and the Tardis had stopped itself from being destroyed. The problem is tracked to a faulty spring on the "Fast Return Switch", and soon the characters reconcile with one another stronger than they were before. 
     Because of its claustrophobic atmosphere and character-focused dialogue, The Edge of Destruction feels very much like a recorded stage play. The break between the two episodes is like, say, an intermission. This falters slightly, because the two parts had two different directors, and thus the second half is a lot more structured and confident than the first. This is perhaps for the better; the first half is more about creating the fear and tension regarding the possibility that some outside influence is masquerading as a member of the Tardis crew, while the second is a Sherlock-esque solving of the mystery.

The Doctor has one last fit, but his character mellows.

     Here is where The Doctor finally mellows. In realistic character development, his encounters with his human companions over the past 13 episodes have turned him from a grouch prepared to kidnap and kill into a kind-hearted if crotchety grandfather figure. The development over the Beginnings Trilogy for all of the characters is incredibly well done, and in a way this particular arc is actually better written than Moffat's today or RTD's a few years ago.
     The Edge of Destruction is a story that, despite its rushed conception and creation, is an enteraining 50 minutes of suspense and mystery, where acting styles are manipulated to compliment the script and characterisations are played off against one another. It's very well-made for what it was and perfectly rounds out the 13 episode arc that is The Beginning of Doctor Who.

Thanks.

P.S. That's the last Doctor Who Classic review until after Christmas! Over this Holiday, you can expect my reviews of the Merlin finale, the Misfits finale and, of course, the Doctor Who Christmas special.
Merry Christmas.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: The Daleks

Our introduction.

 Doctor Who, Season One, Story Two (1963)
"You got us here - now I'm gonna make sure you get us back!"

The Daleks are so popular that they transcend British Culture itself and reach a higher plane of existence. My best friend, who was born in Mainland China and who has never watched an episode of the show in his entire life, was easily able to identify my Dalek keyring. Despite the serial's lack of connection to future Dalek stories, the original is nearly always the best and The Daleks still remains one of the most evocative stories in 60s Who. With its eponymous monsters in tow, the show would go on to great new heights.
     Writer Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks and Doctor Who writer until 1980, was bezzie mates with the first series' coordinator David Whittaker. He was first inspired to create the Daleks based on the movements of Georgian ballet dancers, whose long skirts made them appear to glide across the floor.He also drew from his experiences as a child in the Second World War, giving the Daleks a Nazi-esque temperment and ideology. Nation's estate bought the Dalek copyright, a deal set up by Beryl Vertue, who just so happens to be Steven Moffat's mother-in-law.
     The story is set on the Planet Skaro after years of nuclear war between two races; the militaristic Dals and the peace-loving Thals. While both races have suffered horrific mutations, the Dals have chosen to house themselves in weaponised travel machines, calling themselves Daleks. The Doctor and crew, arriving on Skaro, are initally put off by the metalised creatures and petrified forests. While Ian and Barbara want to leave, The Doctor's curiosity leads him to deliberatly break a part of the TARDIS, forcing the group to explore the Dals' city and become embroiled in the Daleks' plans.
     Our character arcs continue to develop, and the Doctor's actions here expose the lengths of his character's amorality. Pretending that a vital element of the TARDIS is broken, The Doctor uses this as an excuse to take his two captives and his granddaughter into a highly radiated planet, leading them into certain danger in the process. By the end of the story they're lucky to be alive, and only their ingenuity has brought them through it. A particular scene that hightlights their development is at the end of the third episode, where the group plan their escape from Dalek captivity.

The Daleks corner our heroes.

     One thing that I love in this story is the direction, which is very ahead of its time. The story has two directors; Chris Barry and Richard Martin. I much prefer Barry's direction, which is dynamic and is perfect for the Daleks; a great example is the famous shot that I use at the top of the article; the Daleks are introduced with a 1st Person view, allowing is that shot of the floating plunger arm that gave so many people nightmares.
    This story shot Doctor Who to new heights, and plotwise it inspired projects across the globe. There were comic strips in America and Hollywood films starring Peter Cushing. This reinforced Doctor Who's pop culture influence across the globe, and even in the most obscure of sci-fi references the Dalek is an image only slightly less common than Tom Baker.
     The Daleks over shoots by a few episodes, but it really is stellar science fiction of the highest level.Terry Nation's debut is one of my favourite Hartnell stories, and remains a brilliant example of the inital characters and their development. The direction is sound, the characters are incredibly well developed and the Dalek design would go on to make Doctor Who one of the most powerful programs in British Culture.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: The Doctor and crew get stuck in a rut.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: An Unearthly Child

Doctor Who, Season One, Story One (1963)

It's only Story One, and they're already running from cavemen.

Who do I think I am, eh? What cheek must I have to dare to review - to even try to review - An Unearthly Child, the first ever Doctor Who story? It is rather daunting, actually. The show has just had its 48th Anniversary, and the production team on NuWho are gearing up for the 50th Anniversary in two years. It's a good time to be a Whovian and I've tasked myself with reviewing the Alpha to Moffat's Omega. Reviewing where it all began, on the 23rd November 1963.
     Historical Context is actually quite interesting, in this case. The world was still in the depths of the Cold War, just having recovered from the strains of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Producers Sydney Lambert and Verity Newman created the show in an effort to introduce an informative science and history show to the nation's children. Its broadcast date was rather impromptu; Jack Kennedy was assassinated the day before, and so Doctor Who was brought in to replace the next day's news program as the story developed. It wasn't an immediate failure, and while the show didn't really pick up until the show's second story, An Unearthly Child is still seen as one of the more important stories in the show's history.
     Friendly schoolteachers Ian and Barbara (William Russell and Jaqueline Hill) are intrigued by one of their pupils, Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), who talks about decimalisation and despite being incredibly intelligent can't seem to master basic facts. They decide to follow her home to speak to her parents, but find themselves following her into I.M. Foreman's junkyard on Totter's Lane. There they discover a Police Box, and a doddering old man. Fighting their way inside to try and find Susan, the teachers discover that the box is bigger on the inside. The old man introduces himself as The Doctor (William Hartnell), who explains that he and Susan are from a far off planet and that their ship, the TARDIS, is capable of time-space travel. At the end of the first ever episode, the Doctor decides that the two have seen too much, and takes them off in the ship. It lands in 100,000 BC.

Entering the Time Machine.

      And, as many have said, that's where the interesting bits of this story end. The opener is a staple of science fiction, an introduction to several concepts that have lasted for the past 48 years. The next three episodes have their own tone and structure outside of the first episode. This, I suppose, can be blamed on the episode structure itself. These early stories weren't at all intended to be so, and were in fact even more serialised in nature. The first thirteen episodes have been collected into three serials for the sake of continuity with later formats, but together they have a much more connected storyline and feel. There's little reason for An Unearthly Child to be connected to the following three episodes; it's just neat.
     This seperation isn't exactly sealed by the setting and events of these three episodes. The Doctor sets down upon 100,000BC, where a tribe of cavemen are trying to create fire. The Doctor and Susan express disbelief that the TARDIS hasn't changed shape; usually it fits in with the surroundings. As his three companions talk, The Doctor is kidnapped by the cavemen as "the one who can create fire"; Za, the leader of the tribe, has been fighting off competition from Kal. his companions attempt to rescue him but all of them are sent to be sacrificed in the Cave of Skulls.
     As the four attempt to escape, an Elder sets the four free. Kal discovers this and kills her. The four journey back to the Tardis but are stopped by three more cavemen, who return them to the encampment. After they expose Kal's murder, they are returned to the Cave of Skulls, where they use burning skulls to distract the cavemen long enough to escape back to the TARDIS. They head off, and the radiation meter on the TARDIS rises...

Creating fire.

     As you can see, I was able to sum up 75 minutes with two paragraphs. That's not to the story's immediate detriment, but it does render the sequence a lot less memorable. In the place of a complex and winding plot, the script is unusually filled with good character development, carving Ian and Barbara into audience identification figures and showing a Doctor characterisation that really surprises viewers of the later series. He's grouchy, kidnaps Ian and Barbara, smokes, and nearly kills a caveman by bashing his skull in with a rock. This is not the heroic archetype that the public and the casual fan recognises as The Doctor, and the key character arc of these 13 episodes is to watch as the character transforms into such.
      An Unearthly Child is a story unfortunately split by its content. The first episode is a brilliant piece of sci fi in its own right, and the following 75 minutes reinforce this with brilliant character work that prepares us for the series to come. As a beginning it was immediately successful and set the stage perfectly. Travel with me next week, as I move from 100,000 BC to the planet Skaro.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: The Daleks in... The Daleks.