Alien Worlds Abound: Classic Doctor Who Rewatch, Season Six

For a show that purports to be about “all of space and time”, Doctor Who spends a hugely disproportionate amount of time on Earth (a phenomenon which will dominate the seasons ahead of us under the Third Doctor). That’s not the case, though, in Season Six; we see more alien worlds than in any previous season.  Let’s get started!

The Dominators, seen here at the height of 1960s fashion.

 

The season opens with The Dominators, an alien invasion story with a twist:  the world getting invaded is not Earth.  Rather, it’s the planet Dulkis.  For the first time since I started tracking the dates of the serials, I was unable to find any; this story has the unusual combination of being set on another world and being a mostly self-contained story, and nothing inside the evidence indicates the date.  I’m guessing from the technology that it’s the relatively near future, but I have no evidence to back up that claim.  There’s an interesting moment in episode two, where the Dominators examine Jamie and conclude that he is vulnerable because he has only one heart.  They don’t examine the Doctor, assuming he is the same.  Later, the Dulcians are revealed to have two hearts.  I can’t help wondering if this scene inspired the later revelation that the Time Lords also have two hearts.  The Sonic Screwdriver makes a second appearance here, and in dramatic fashion, burning through the wall like a large torch (but remember, it’s a scientific instrument, not a water gun!).  The Dominators struck me as particularly calloused villains.  They really have no interest in the planet or its people, and enslaving them is an afterthought; they only want to blow up the planet for fuel.  We don’t often see that degree of callousness in the series.  This is also our first good look at Zoe as a member of the crew; she’s disconcertingly childlike in appearance, and seeing her spout advanced technical knowledge is jarring.  I like her as a character though.

Jamie and Zoe vs. the White Robots

 

I had seen serial two, The Mind Robber, before, but with no context.  It doesn’t occur on Earth, but rather, in the mysterious Land of Fiction, which may or may not be a planet at all.  I remember being confused at first by the references to “the Master”, as the Time Lord by that name doesn’t appear until the Third Doctor’s era; of course they are referring to the master of the land of fiction instead.  This serial shares similar themes, in my opinion, with The Celestial Toymaker and the much later Amy’s Choice.  Like the preceding serial, I could find no projected dates; the only clue we have is that it includes a circa-2000s comic book character, the Karkus, but that is little help in placing the story.  The Minotaur seen here becomes something of a motif, with variations showing up later under the third, fourth, and eleventh Doctors.  As well, there’s a “Captain Jack Harkaway” in the stories written by the Master; maybe a partial inspiration for Captain Jack Harkness?  I had to laugh at one point; the Doctor gets thrown around in a fight with the Karkus, who then gets manhandled by tiny little Zoe.  No Venusian Aikido yet!

Cybermen in London.  Why does no one ever remember these invasions?!

 

The Invasion is a partial reconstruction, which is increasingly rare this season, and will soon end altogether.  The quality of the version I saw was particularly bad, but fortunately it had subtitles.  It’s a Cybermen story, with a new appearance that will remain unchanged for a few years.  We don’t know much about these Cybermen; they are presumably descendants of the Mondasian Cybermen, but they claim to originate from “Planet 14”, presumably the fourteenth planet of the Solar System (Mondas was tenth).  I suspect the original intent was that Planet 14 be synonymous with Telos, but internal chronology and later media contradict this.  The Doctor has met them on that planet at some point, but this is never seen, and must have happened off camera.  The Cybermen meet UNIT in this episode—the agency’s proper introduction in the series—and Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart returns, this time with his familiar rank of Brigadier.  (“It’s Brigadier now, I’ve gone up in the world.”)  The best date I could locate is summer of 1979 (incidentally, the year I was born), which seems fairly consistent with the technology in view.  The Cybermen have a Cybercontroller here, but it is a stationary unit, not a mobile Cyberman.  Zoe knows ALGOL, which must have been a positively ancient computer language by her time.  The TARDIS is seen to be able to turn invisible; I would have thought that was a function of the broken chameleon circuit, but apparently not.  The suspense in the story is excellent; the Cybermen don’t appear onscreen until the end of episode four (of eight).  Notably, this was Terrance Dicks’ first credit on the show.

The Krotons

 

Yet another undateable story appears with The Krotons.  It occurs on the unnamed planet of the Gonds, and seems to be in the future, but without any verifying context.  I like the crystalline Krotons, and would like to see them get a new and updated appearance in NuWho.  They look primitive here, in keeping with the production values of the time, but that could be explained away by the primitive circumstances under which they revive themselves on the Gond planet; it could be said that at the height of their power, they look and sound different.  The story exemplifies something I love about Doctor Who:  stories that aren’t just black and white, good and evil, but rather, involve conflict among various factions with conflicting interests.  Here you have the Doctor and his companions, several factions among the Gonds (who agree on the threat of the Krotons, but not on what to do about it) and the Krotons themselves.  They aren’t all good or evil; they just disagree.  It’s so much more believable this way.  The ending reminds me of the scenes in Rose with the Nestene Consciousness.  Also, the concept of the HADS (Hostile Action Displacement System) in the TARDIS is introduced, and is later used by the Eleventh Doctor.  Such a simple and elegant solution to attacks.

“Them?  Oh, they’re with me.”

 

We return to Earth for The Seeds of Death (not to be confused with the later The Seeds of Doom).  We can’t be precise about the date, but there is enough evidence to place it in the mid-21^st Century, before the year 2050. A History of the Universe places it somewhat arbitrarily in 2044, and I find that to be a fair guess.  It introduces the concept of T Mat (“Travel Mat”, later transmat) teleportation, which is more common in NuWho, especially as used by the Daleks.  It’s been in existence for a few years on Earth, just long enough to be both common and regulated.  This is the second appearance of the Ice Warriors of Mars and their sonic weapons…sure would be nice if the Doctor had a sonic—wait, sorry, I can’t make that joke anymore.  Anyway.  This story occurs before The Ice Warriors, therefore they are not familiar with the Doctor.  However, it appears that these Ice Warriors are contemporary, whereas the previous group were ancient, having been frozen in the ice for millennia.  There’s a space museum (another minor recurring theme by now?) on the moon, and a staff member named Osgood, whom I would like to think is a relative of the Osgood of NuWho.  It’s not made clear whether the moon base here is the same as the one from the serial of that name.  In a rare moment of deviation from character, the Doctor directly kills one Ice Warrior and is responsible for the death of at least one more.  The moon landing seen in episode three is a bit farfetched, but then, the serial was broadcast some months before the real moon landing.

A face not even a mother could love

I had difficulty getting into The Space Pirates, which is a pity, because it was actually a great story; I just felt it was poorly done.  Date is hard to establish, but it appears to be in the very early days of Earth’s colonization of space (an onscreen reference indicates 1992, but that is contradicted by dialog indicating at least fifty years of deep space travel). A History places it in 2119, 150 years after the broadcast date.  This is the final reconstruction!  All further serials are available in their entirety.  It goes out with a bang, though; only episode two (of six) is complete.  To me, this is a clear early example of the TARDIS taking the Doctor where he needs to go rather than where he wants to go; after all, it’s pretty unlikely that the TARDIS would randomly materialize on a tiny, unmanned beacon in space.

A Time Lord’s last adventure

 

 

We end with The War Games.  This is it:  The final serial of the Second Doctor’s era.  It’s difficult but not impossible to date; it appears at first to date to WWI, but of course that is an illusion.  A History says this, which I think is best quoted rather than paraphrased:  “It is stated that humanity has been killing itself for ‘half a million years’ before this story takes place, which (coincidentally) ties up with the date 309,906 established for the [Fourth] Doctor’s first Trial (or “Malfeasance Tribunal”) in The Deadly Assassin [which, in my opinion, looks to be a VERY good serial indeed!].  There are a lot of firsts and lasts here:  First appearance of the Time Lords en masse and under that name; first appearance of Time Lord hypercubes (telepathic communication cubes, as later seen in The Doctor’s Wife); first appearance of the SIDRAT time travel machines, which are much like scaled-down TARDISES; first appearance of Gallifrey, though not with that name.  It’s also the last appearance of Jamie and Zoe (with the exception of reunion episodes); last adventure of the Second Doctor; and last black and white episode.

Our first view of Gallifrey–the TARDIS docking bay.  Note the open TARDISes on the right wall.

 

This serial is weighty in the canon of Doctor Who, and it’s hard to do it justice. A few observations presented themselves, though.  The SIDRATs provide an explanation for the long-perplexing problem of why the Doctor can’t control the TARDIS remotely:  any time ship that has a malleable interior (as the TARDIS does) and remote control capabilities will be inherently unstable.  No explanation is given as to why that should be, but there you have it.  Also, the Time Lords seem to be able to (mostly!) recognize each other on site in spite of regenerations; the Doctor had not been to Gallifrey since his first body, but he is instantly recognized by the War Chief.  We see some uncamouflaged TARDISes in the docking bay on Gallifrey, and it’s worth noting that they are rectangular rather than spherical as seen in The Name of the Doctor; probably a later model, as the Doctor’s TARDIS was found in a maintenance bay and outdated.  I didn’t realize that it was established this early that Time Lords can control the appearance of their regenerating bodies; it seems odd that it’s such a crapshoot for the Doctor later on, but then, that probably is because of the absence of the Time Lords.

The Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton (RIP)

 

I find the Second Doctor’s tenure to be fascinating, because by definition it must be the shortest era of any Doctor with the possible exception of Nine. Jamie is with the Doctor consistently throughout his entire era, start to finish, and ages only a very little.  Therefore even if there are a few unseen adventures, there cannot be vast swaths of time unaccounted for. And yet, so much foundational material was delivered in that short time!  All in all, I’ve enjoyed the second Doctor’s run much more than the first (who wasn’t bad himself).

Regeneration

Next time: The Third Doctor arrives on Earth!  These entries should become shorter, as well, as the upcoming seasons contain fewer stories.  See you there!

All episodes can be viewed on Dailymotion; links are below.  Due to the BBC’s early policy of junking tapes, some episodes exist only as reconstructions.

The Dominators

The Mind Robber

The Invasion

The Krotons

The Seeds of Death

The Space Pirates

The War Games

Cybermen Everywhere: Classic Doctor Who Rewatch, Season Five

Ain’t no party like a Cyber party

 

It took longer than I expected, but here we are, at the end of Season Five in my Classic Doctor Who rewatch. Let’s get right to it, with another appearance of the Cybermen!

Cybermen exiting the tomb.  This would have terrified me as a child.

As with Season Four, we get a Cybermen double feature this season. We open with The Tomb of the Cybermen, which introduces the Cybermen of the planet Telos.  From their perspective, this is quite some time after their previous appearances; they originated on the planet Mondas, but that world is nothing but a memory now.  To my knowledge, all of Doctor Who contains four variations on the Cybermen (and if I’ve missed any, feel free to let me know):  The Mondasian Cybermen, the first edition, if you will; the Telosian Cybermen, the descendants of the Mondasian; the Cybus Industries Cybermen of NuWho, as first seen in Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel; and the Cybermen seen in several later NuWho episodes, who are purportedly a hybridization of the original Cybermen and the surviving Cybus Cybermen.  This serial is estimated to take place in the year 2486, on Earth.  (From this point forward, I intend to date each serial as well as possible; I’m primarily using Lance Parkin’s A History of the Universe, but checking other sources for consensus where I can, as the book is somewhat out of date.)  Assuming that the Cybermen don’t have time travel, that places this story a few centuries after the destruction of Mondas and the events of The Moonbase.  Until now the Cybermen didn’t really seem like much of a threat, in my opinion, at least not on an individual level; but the melee inside the tomb in episode 2 shows us that they are both stronger and more physically capable than most humans, and more than willing to kill.

Early Cybermat.  Not quite “bitey” yet, but we’ll take it.

A few things in this serial stuck out to me. First, Cybermats!  Those little monsters make their first appearance here, looking very different from their modern counterparts.  This is also the first introduction of the concept of a Cybercontroller.  Victoria gets roofied in episode 2, if not by a man; pretty edgy for a 1960s serial (and on a related note, I hated Kaftan, the perpetrator, at that point already).  The Doctor makes a rare, and very sad, reference to his family here, and says that he has to really want to remember them.  He also claims to be about 450 Earth years old; given that this is an early statement with no motivation to lie, I like to think it is more reliable than most of his later estimates.  Also, it was nice after season four to see a completely intact serial, as opposed to a reconstruction.  Overall, this is absolutely my favorite serial of the first five seasons, and what a way to begin!

Robotic Yeti

The Abominable Snowmen takes us to Tibet in 1935/36 (coincidentally, the year of Ian Chesterton’s birth).  It was a bit of a slow starter, especially given that it introduces the Great Intelligence.  Certainly not a bad serial, but it spent a lot of time just sitting around talking early on.  I would have liked to see the Doctor’s earlier visit to the Detsen Monastery, which is referenced but not shown; it brings up the interesting question of how long the Doctor and Susan travelled after fleeing Gallifrey and before meeting Ian and Barara.  Spinoff media have filled in some gaps, but there’s a lot we just don’t know, and may never see addressed.

Ancient and Angry:  The Ice Warriors

With The Ice Warriors, we get the introduction of another great villain, the titular Ice Warriors from Mars.  This serial appears to occur in the approximate year 3000 AD, although there is some debate about this.  It takes place at Brittanicus Base on Earth, during the new Ice Age.  The Ice Warrior Varga is a relic of an ancient time, having been frozen in the ice with his ship and crew; but this brings us to the major discrepancy with the date, as some supplemental materials indicate that a revived Martian culture is part of the galactic community at this time.  If that is the case, Earth certainly seems ignorant of it.  I noted that the Ice Warriors use sonic guns as their primary weapons; sure would be nice if the Doctor had some kind of sonic device to counter that…nah, that’s just crazy talk.

Behold, the power of parting your hair!

And now for something completely different: The Enemy of the World is in a class by itself this season.  It’s the only serial not to follow the “base under siege” format; and it gives us Patrick Troughton playing two roles, as the Doctor and also as Salamander, the villain (seen above).  I have new appreciation for his acting chops; allowing for just a bit of period-normal cliché, I could easily have believed he was really of Mexican origin in the second role.  He wasn’t a subtle villain, but he was a skilled one, which seems to be a bit uncommon with human adversaries in these early seasons.  Also of note was the allied character of Astrid (no last name given); judging by her hairstyle and behavior, I wonder if maybe Astrid provided some inspiration from Kylie Minogue’s one-off companion character in NuWho, Astrid Peth.  The serial is set in the year 2018.  Of course that was fifty years away at the original broadcast, so the optimism in view is perhaps forgiveable.  But now, much closer to the time, it seems comical; the idea that we would have “given up national concerns” and altruistically traded in our governments and wars for collaborative “management zones” all over the world is naïve.  Still, that kind of optimism wasn’t uncommon in science fiction of the day.

Introducing Briga…I mean, Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart

The Web of Fear revisits the Great Intelligence and the Yeti, this time placing them in the London Underground of the 1970s.  It is stated to be “more than forty years” after the events of The Abominable Snowmen, and four years before next season’s The Invasion, which makes it approximately 1975 (and I would even guess late in the year).  However, there’s some contradiction; the subway maps seen onscreen are accurate for 1968, but don’t display the Victoria Line, which opened in 1969.  Understandable, of course, but not accurate.  The Brigadier makes his first appearance here, though as a Colonel; while UNIT is not introduced yet, there’s not enough evidence to say that the military detachment we see is definitely not from UNIT.  He is a droll, sometimes witty, perceptive, pragmatic, and shrewd man, and one of my favorite characters.  RIP Nicholas Courtney.  It’s worth pointing out that we owe the continued existence of the Intelligence—and thus, much later, The Name of the Doctor—to Jamie; if he hadn’t pulled the Doctor from the device in episode 5, the Intelligence would have been annihilated.  Still, after continued introspection, I really like the combination of Second Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria; they’re my favorite TARDIS crew since the original.  It’s a shame Victoria won’t be with us much longer.

Try as I might, I could not find a picture of the sonic screwdriver from this (very incomplete) serial.  You’ll have to settle for one from its next appearance, in The War Games.

In Fury From The Deep, at long last, we get the first appearance of the sonic screwdriver.  (Jamie:  “What’s that?”  Doctor:  “It’s a sonic screwdriver.  It never fails.”  And so it begins!  Actually used for driving a screw, as well.)  This story of sentient seaweed is set in approximately 1975, as with The Web of Fear—not the only lateral move for the TARDIS, but certainly such things are rare.  It’s a bit anachronistic for 1975, with videophones and other advancements.  Coincidentally, Episode 3 is the 200^th episode of the series (already!).  We say goodbye to Victoria here, as she chooses to stay behind, finding TARDIS life to be too much.  She won’t be the last to make that choice; it becomes something of a recurring theme, still happening recently with Martha Jones and, to a lesser degree, Rory Williams.  We get another recurring motif here, as well—plants that convert or control humans, first seen in Mission to the Unknown in season two.

Goodbye, Victoria; Hello, Zoe

We conclude with The Wheel in Space, the second Cybermen adventure.  I found that a fair bit of debate exists as to the placement of this episode, but most sources place it in the second half of the 21^st century.  I’ve opted to go with the latest date given, 2079 AD, as the events of The Moonbase occur in 2070 AD, and the Cybermen here recognize the Doctor from that occasion.  The timing makes these Cybermen of Mondasian origin, not Telosian.  The Doctor claims at one point to disengage the time vector generator from the TARDIS, meaning it is no longer bigger on the inside.  We’ve seen something similar with the Monk’s TARDIS, but it seems odd here, as Jamie and the Doctor are still inside when it happens.  This device is an oddity anyway; it seems to have some abilities that the writing staff will later roll over into the sonic screwdriver.  Cybermats appear here, looking very different from their Telosian counterparts (which makes sense, as this is technically their first appearance).  The Doctor first uses his famous “John Smith” alias here, given to him by Jamie, which is ironic given that the tenth Doctor later uses Jamie’s name as an alias.  (Vampires of Venice later implies that the first Doctor also used the John Smith alias, but as it’s a common name, that is forgiveable.)  The serial ends with the Doctor showing Zoe a view of the Daleks from his memory.  In the original broadcast, this led straight into a rerun of The Evil of the Daleks, but with a little added narration to demonstrate that it wasn’t just a rerun, it was the Doctor literally reviewing the events with Zoe (therefore the broadcast, if not the story, actually fits into continuity here, though I don’t intend to review it again).

Cybermen and Zoe aboard the Wheel

Not a bad season overall. Next time, we’ll be nearly free of reconstructions, as only two more remain—the next season is nearly intact.  On to Season Six, and the last season with the Second Doctor!  See you there.

All episodes can be viewed on Dailymotion; links are below.  Due to the BBC’s early policy of junking tapes, some episodes exist only as reconstructions.

The Tomb of the Cybermen

The Abominable Snowmen

The Ice Warriors

The Enemy of the World

The Web of Fear

Fury From the Deep

The Wheel In Space

A Brand New Man: Classic Doctor Who Rewatch, Season Four

We’re back, and with a brand-new Doctor! Not to mention some new companions.  But first, a bit of long-overdue explanation:  As I make these rewatch posts, I often mention comparisons between the classic series and the revived series (or as I sometimes call it, NuWho).  To keep things clear, I’m using the same terminology favored by the show itself; that is, classic series seasons are termed “seasons”, while NuWho seasons are termed “Series One, Series Two”, etc.  Now, down to business!

A Brand-New Doctor!

We begin with the third serial of Season Four, having just said goodbye to the first Doctor. (For the first two serials, see my last post.)  He wakes up a new man—literally—in The Power of the Daleks, much to the consternation of Ben and Polly.  The version I watched was a total reconstruction, as none of its six episodes remain intact.  That’s a common—and annoying—theme for this and the next two seasons, but it’s at its worst here in Season Four; not a single complete serial is available.  It was interesting to see the Doctor’s own reaction to his regeneration; after all, it’s his first time.  He seemed to have a little trouble adjusting, something that happens often with him—you’d think he’d get better with experience, but no.  I’m not sure if regeneration is just hard, or if he’s just terrible at it.  As I watch these serials, I usually keep the wiki open, just to keep track of notable items; here, it notes that “his head is filled with the sound of drumming.”  Just a throwaway line, not necessarily even noted in the episode, but so interesting given the Master’s sound of drums in NuWho.

No, I don’t suppose you would like some tea, after all.

If you’ve been following, you’ll note that I often see parallels between Classic Who and NuWho episodes. This one strongly reminds me of Victory of the Daleks, as you have Daleks ostensibly serving humans and trying to accrue advantages so that they will be in a position to attack, with humans buying into it against the Doctor’s urging to destroy the Daleks.  (Later they even serve drinks; all I could think was “WOULD-YOU-LIKE-SOME-TEA?”) You also have the Doctor in both instances trying to provoke the Daleks or otherwise make them lose control.  I can’t blame the writers for trying to break new ground with the Daleks; this is the first Dalek story not written or co-written by creator Terry Nation.  It will still be some time before they really move on, though; for example, they still require static electricity (stored instead of external, but still), indicating that these are early Daleks, from prior to Season Two’s The Chase.

Not a screwdriver.

I’ve often heard comparisons between the Second Doctor and the Eleventh (Matt Smith has been noted to have drawn inspiration from Troughton’s performance). We’re already getting that in little ways; most notably, the now-famous bowties (they were already cool!).  Unfortunately, some things prominent in NuWho just aren’t there yet—in episode five, the Doctor tries to reproduce a sonic signal (by rubbing his finger on a glass) to unlock a door.  Sure would be useful if he had some kind of sonic device…nah, that’s just crazy talk.

Welcome aboard, Jamie

The Highlanders gives us Scottish clansman Jamie McCrimmon, the longest-running male companion in the show’s history.  He gets off to a rough start, but I can’t blame him; it’s a lot to take in for anyone, and he was under strain before the serial ever started.  He grows on me in later serials, though; Frazer Hines was a talented actor, at least in this role.  This is the final historical until 1982’s Fifth Doctor serial, Black Orchid; it’s also the final historical in Classic Who to use real events, namely, the Battle of Culloden.  It’s a sound story, but not very remarkable; but to be fair, I’ve often been bored with the historicals.  We can definitely begin to see the Doctor being a more active participant here, as opposed to the First Doctor, and more cunning as well; in particular, there’s the scene where he disguises himself as an old woman to rescue Kirsty MacLaren and Polly.  His famous abhorrence of weapons is mentioned here, as well, in one of the earliest (if not the earliest) times it is actually noted aloud.

Okay, it was a weird serial.

Jamie’s first complete serial as a companion arrives with The Underwater Menace.  It’s set in Atlantis (one of three appearances in Classic Who, along with Season 8’s The Daemons and Season 9’s The Time Monster, though all three contradict each other) but with a twist:  it’s Atlantis’s rediscovery, set in the 1980s.  I started to like Ben in this episode, after a considerable period of just tolerating him; he seems much more pragmatic and useful than Steven, whom he replaced, and who never seemed to find a niche.  He and Jamie are a good team, but they are unfortunately and unfairly very condescending to Polly.  We get to see the Doctor be a bit more humane here; he wants to rescue the mad scientist Zaroff, even though he can’t.  By contrast, the First Doctor might well have left him to die.  There’s a theory (available on Reddit, see link at the end) that the Doctor didn’t adopt that name until Ian gave it to him in An Unearthly Child, but that the Doctor drew inspiration from it and wants to live up to it.  If that is the case, we can see it developing here.  One last note:  Though the Doctor never calls himself Doctor Who, he does skirt close to it sometimes, and that happens again here; he signs his note to Zaroff as “Doctor W.”.

Cybermen just wanna dance!

I watched the animated partial reconstruction for The Moonbase, for which two episodes are intact.  It wasn’t bad; it’s a weird mix of animation-appropriate comedy mixed with the level of seriousness that would have been evident in the original, and as a result, sometimes it’s hard to get an idea of which elements are faithful to the original.  This serial is hardly the first, but is perhaps my favorite example of the “base defense” plot that has since become so popular; it reminds me of NuWho’s 42, despite the slower pace.  The serial is a bit primitive in its view of what the moon is like, but not by much; that’s appropriate, given that it was made a year or two before the moon landing.  It’s also the first of many stories that involve the moon—by coincidence I had watched The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon the night before watching this serial, so the contrast was interesting.  The plague on the moonbase staff is reminiscent of the black oil infection from The X-Files.  The story is set in 2070, and that’s not entirely unbelievable, as it appears now that we may have the ability to put a base on the moon by that time.  The Cybermen have progressed from their last appearance; they can now transmit electricity to stun or kill, and they also take a page from the Daleks’ book (The Dalek Invasion of Earth) in controlling human workers.  The Doctor theorizes that the human workers are being controlled by some kind of sonic signal…sure would be useful if he had some kind of sonic device.  Nah, that’s just crazy talk.

Aww, how cute!

I had been looking forward to The Macra Terror ever since I saw its far-removed sequel, Gridlock.  It has a new title sequence, thus beginning the long tradition of title sequences that include the Doctor’s face.  Many Doctor Who stories are dystopias, but this one is a prime example; there’s the element of a society that seems idyllic on the surface, but underneath it’s a form of tyranny and slavery.  I would compare it to The Long Game/Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways in Series One, set on Satellite 5.  I don’t recall if it was mentioned in Gridlock, but these intelligent Macra appear to be considerably smaller than the brutish Macra of that episode.  It’s clear here, as well, that being a companion is a dangerous life; in addition to the obvious physical dangers, here we see Ben get thoroughly brainwashed, which could easily have been permanent.

Goodbye, Ben and Polly

The Faceless Ones felt out of place to me—it was a very Third Doctor episode, in my opinion.  Totally speculation, but I like to think it may have inspired some of his stories.  This story of alien identity theft (how progressive!) is very physical compared to most, and very modern (or contemporary, I should say).  Ben and Polly leave us here, choosing to go home on the same day they left with the Doctor, but that doesn’t slow the story down.  It’s just a fun story, with no big new concepts introduced (even where they would be useful!).  Notably, at one point the Doctor and Jamie get held up due to lack of passports…sure would be a good time for some paper that makes people see what they want to see.  Nah, that’s just crazy talk.

An Emperor Arises

A second Dalek serial in the same season? Sign me up!  Better enjoy it though; The Evil of the Daleks is the last major appearance of the Daleks for the next five years.  They appear to have finally escaped their dependence on static electricity…no, wait, I was wrong; it’s the static electricity research that drew them to Earth in the first place.  Oh well.  Truly there’s nothing new under the sun:  After the wild recent popularity of the “hybrid” storyline in Series 9, and the red herring of the Dalek hybrids, it’s interesting to see that the Daleks were trying to hybridize themselves (with humans in this case) as far back as Season 4.  It’s also interesting that they choose Jamie for their experiment because, as they say, his travels with the Doctor make him the most intrinsically human…um, human…in the universe.  Forgetting for a moment that that makes no sense at all, it’s also contradicted in NuWho, where travel in the TARDIS changes humans to one degree or another.  At any rate, they’ll continue experimenting with hybrids for years—note the Cult of Skaro, and the Dalekised humans in The Time of the Doctor.  Maybe it’s a product of their adoption of a Dalek Emperor, who first appears here, and will continue to recur.  Interestingly as well, the Daleks can successfully threaten to destroy the TARDIS here, despite being from well before the Time War, which the Tenth Doctor credits for their skill at fighting TARDISes.  Usually the TARDIS is well-nigh impregnable, or so we’ve seen thus far.  But I think we can handwave this by saying that the Doctor at this point isn’t “in tune” with the TARDIS enough to use all its functions—he’s still learning—and that may include its defenses.

Welcome Aboard, Victoria!

We close out the season with the introduction of new companion Victoria Waterfield. What?  A female companion with a canon last name?  That doesn’t happen often!  Victoria doesn’t get much screen time, so it remains to be seen how much potential she has.  We’ll look forward to it in Season Five.  I’ll see you there!

Interested in the theory I mentioned regarding the Doctor’s title?  Check it out here!

(Nearly) all episodes can be viewed on Dailymotion; links are below.  Due to the BBC’s early policy of junking tapes, some episodes exist only as reconstructions.

The Power of the Daleks

The Highlanders

The Underwater Menace (YouTube; does not include episode three, which appears to be unavailable online.)

The Moonbase

The Macra Terror

The Faceless Ones

The Evil of the Daleks

The Death of the First Doctor: Classic Doctor Who Rewatch, Season Three (Part 2 of 2)

We’re back, with part two of Doctor Who, Season Three! I’ve already established that this season has me at my most longwinded, so let’s get right to it.  Last time, we left off with the sixth serial of the season, The Ark; this time, we begin with The Celestial Toymaker.

The Doctor and the Toymaker

 

My experience with these early seasons (prior to this rewatch, at any rate) has been minimal; but all the same, this serial reminded me strongly of a Second Doctor serial, The Mind Robber.  In both serials, you have a villain who, though not definitively malicious, is self-centered and capricious; as well, both villains display an unearthly degree of control over their world and the things that happen in it.  It’s truly a battle of wits, as the Doctor can’t use the TARDIS or any other advantages—all those things are stripped away.  Instead, he must purely outthink his opponents.  He does so, of course, and in spectacular fashion, turning the villain’s own tools against him; we are beginning to see that the Doctor is much more than simply intelligent—he’s cunning as well.  From what I understand, we’ll see much more of that under the Second Doctor.  As for the Toymaker, I couldn’t help wondering what he really is.  He’s very much a Time Lord-type villain (reminiscent of the Monk, but much more intelligent), but his actual origins aren’t discussed.  I am aware that several spinoff works exist, which establish him as some sort of higher being from a different or earlier universe; if that is the case, it could put him on a level with the Animus from The Web Planet, or the Great Intelligence, who have also been stated in prose and audio sources to be Great Old Ones from a previous universe.  It’s worth noting that the original intent of the writers was that he be the same race as the Doctor and the Monk, but this was never spelled out onscreen.

Welcome to  the old West!

 

I haven’t done well with the historicals, but I found The Gunfighters interesting, because I had just watched the film Tombstone, which covers the same events.  I persuaded my girlfriend, who is not generally a classic Who fan (though we are watching the new series together), to watch this one with me, as Tombstone is her favorite movie.  She called it “goofy”, and I can’t argue with that, as it’s clearly intended to be comedic.  It is the final First Doctor historical, and nearly the final historical of the decade (we get one more in next season’s The Highlanders, and then no more until Black Orchid in 1982).  It takes some drastic liberties with the historical facts; for example, Doc Holliday was much younger than portrayed (and also dying of tuberculosis), and Bat Masterson was not actually present in the town of Tombstone, although he did later have some unrelated involvement with Holliday.  You can start to see some discord between Steven and Dodo here, as well; they were never really a pair the way Ian and Barbara were (or even Steven and Vicky), and I felt as though they would not have gotten along well under any circumstances, let alone traveling with the Doctor.  I know they part ways in the next serial; I wish they had stayed longer, as that semi-adversarial relationship could have made for good television—it was almost a kind of sibling rivalry.  One final note on this serial:  If I have to hear “The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon” ONE MORE TIME…

Not Dodo’s finest moment.

With the next serial, The Savages, we get another minor change to the show’s format; individual episodes no longer get titles of their own.  It’s just as well; can you imagine 26 seasons of trying to title every episode?  This serial gives us at least the second time that the Doctor’s lifespan/life force has been tampered with (the first was his premature aging in The Daleks’ Master Plan).  This time, he recovers thanks to the D403 medicine on the TARDIS.  It begs the question of how his regeneration energy plays into this; and though the concept hadn’t been finalized yet, the production team had started to play with the idea, as they nearly changed actors during The Celestial Toymaker.  We also see echoes of this issue in Series 9’s The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, when Davros takes some of the Doctor’s regeneration energy and creates hybridized Daleks; here in The Savages, it’s already clear that absorbing some of the Doctor’s energy also means taking on some of his traits.  Here we also get Steven’s exit from the show, as he becomes the new leader of the combined group.  I get that, behind the scenes, this assumption of leadership is the device that allows him to leave the show; but from a plot standpoint, it makes no sense to me.  They want him to lead them because of his rational head and wise decisions…it’s like they don’t even know him at all.

The Doctor, Ben, and Polly

 

 

With Steven out of the picture, we soon meet the next companions, Ben Jackson and Polly Wright, in The War Machines. (Like several other companions, Polly received no onscreen last name, but the audition materials listed her as “Polly Wright”, and the name has stuck in the spinoff media.)  I went into this serial knowing nothing about them other than that they existed.  I wasn’t sure what I expected.  However, Ben’s very first appearance involves a fistfight; I’m testing my recall, but I don’t think we’ve seen that level of physicality in a companion since Ian.  Of greater interest is the villain, the supercomputer WOTAN.  WOTAN can think (AI in the 1960s?); its chief claims to fame are that it can think faster than humans, and type faster, feats which are incredibly basic by modern standards.  Interestingly, they played down the fact that WOTAN is hypnotic; it seems to me that that ability would be much more remarkable in any era.  As well, it knows the meaning of the word TARDIS, which seems unlikely even within the show.  Infamously, WOTAN directly refers to the Doctor as “Doctor Who”; this is the only time it ever occurs in the series’ history, though the phrase is often used as a bit of an inside joke in NuWho, most famously as the oldest question in the universe.  I had heard of this use by WOTAN prior to watching, and thought it was a one-off incident; but as it turns out, it happens several times in the serial, both by WOTAN and by the humans under his control.  One last thing:  I was especially fond of the scene in part 4 in which the Doctor stares down the War Machine.  It was fantastic; reminiscent of so many scenes in the new series where the Doctor stares down his enemies (“I. Am. TALKING!”).  Perhaps this is a glimpse of the Oncoming Storm in embryo here?  Even though the machine backs down because of failed programming rather than intimidation, it’s very dramatic.

The Doctor facing down the War Machine

 

I’ll admit: I had trouble with The Smugglers.  To be honest, it bored me.  It’s worth noting that much later, it becomes an unofficial sequel to the Eleventh Doctor/Series 6 episode, The Curse of the Black Spot.  That episode is concerned with the fate of James Avery and his crew; this serial reveals the fate of his remaining crew members, who are searching for his lost gold.  I recall not being particularly impressed with Curse, either; it was perhaps the low point of Series 6 for me. The Smugglers is known for its low ratings, so perhaps it’s not just me.

Not Polly’s finest moment.

 

We end with The Tenth Planet. Along with The Smugglers, it actually occurs in Season 4; as I mentioned previously, this is the rare instance where a regeneration didn’t coincide with the end of a season or series, and I wanted to include the First Doctor’s final two adventures with Season 3.  I had been looking forward to this serial for a long time, just as I had with The Daleks’ Master Plan:  The Cybermen!  The first regeneration!  What’s not to love?  The original Cybermen look hokey by today’s standards, and of course their appearance changes often throughout the original series; still, they are scary by any measure, if for no other reason than their outlandishness (tell me you wouldn’t run if you met one in a dark alley!).  It stretches credibility quite a bit that their homeworld of Mondas would like just like the Earth (although flipped north-south!).  The idea of a twin planet is plausible, but it would certainly not have the same landmasses.  The Z-bomb that the humans intend to use to destroy Mondas consists of several bombs to be places at intervals on Mondas’s surface; it presages the Osterhagen Key from The Stolen Earth.  Mondas is eventually destroyed on its own when it absorbs too much energy from Earth; that seems odd, if the planets are true twins—shouldn’t it have been capable of holding the same energy as Earth?  Also, there are no observable ill effects of this energy loss on Earth, which seems questionable at best.

The first appearance of the Cybermen.

 

I tried to imagine what it must have been like for the first audiences to see the Doctor regenerate. I think it’s appropriate that this first instance didn’t occur at a season break; I could imagine fans saying “What was THAT all about?” and wandering off, muttering about how the show has gone downhill.  With only a week until the Second Doctor makes his first full appearance, I imagine there was a sense of suspense that we, today, can never quite duplicate, especially in the world of spoilers and leaks.  Personally, I have seen very few of the Second Doctor’s serials (only two, The Mind Robber and, much later, The Three Doctors), so I’m fortunate enough to have some of that suspense to look forward to.  The Doctor will truly be a different man next time I see him.  The famous line about “wearing a bit thin” would be later reused by the War Doctor, which I find fitting; he truly was, but I can’t think of a better ending for either of them.

The First Doctor regenerates

 

On to what I consider the true beginning of season four, and the Second Doctor!

All episodes can be viewed on Dailymotion; links are below.  Due to the BBC’s early policy of junking tapes, some episodes exist only as reconstructions.

The Celestial Toymaker

The Gunfighters

The Savages

The War Machines

The Smugglers

The Tenth Planet