Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 154: The Underwater Menace, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Nothing in the world can stop The Underwater Menace, now! I have to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to the episode today. Until relatively recently, it was the only episode to have survived from the story, and the one on which much of the negative feeling towards this tale seemed to stem from.

Obviously, today’s episode is home to the moment that most fans know of for this story - the last line, as Joseph Furst’s Professor Zaroff stands tall, centre frame, and shouts ‘Nothing in the world can stop me now!’ (You have no idea how hard it was not to type that in the more traditional ‘Nuffink in ze vorld can schtop me nao!’. Oh dear, I just have). It’s usually held up as a good example of why we should be beating The Underwater Menace with a stick.

What I’ve never known, though, is the context to that line. It comes seconds after Zaroff has shot dead the leader of Atlantis, and ordered his guards to kill two other men (the gunshots are heard, bot those two deaths are off-screen). It’s the ultimate climax to a scene in which Zaroff finds his work threatened, and reacts by taking control of the entire city - making sure that, actually, nothing in the world can stop him now! Except the Doctor, who he knows to be a threat, and Who he knows is still running around somewhere. Slight drawback, that.

I sort of crept into this episode a little, waiting for something, anything, to come along and ruin it for me. Waiting for that moment when the penny would drop and I’d suddenly realise why everyone thought so little of it. If I’m being honest, I don’t think the swimming fish people really do the story any favours. I was surprised, when we first see them in the water, when they’re swimming at the surface being stirred into a revolt, just how good they looked. Some on the rocks, some bobbing in the water… I thought we were going to get away with it.

But then we have to go underwater. I guess the clue was in the title of the story, really. The first thirty seconds o so of this swimming sequence surprised me. It actually looked quite good. Sort of. It certainly looked better than I thought it was going to. The problem is that this scene then goes on. And on. And then, just to make sure, it goes on a little further! Ultimately, there are just too many chances to see the wires - and too many chances where they’re simply too obvious to ignore.

Overall, that entire sequence with the fish people swimming around comes across looking like some kind of strange European film from the silent era. The bizarre soundtrack doesn’t do it any favours, and nor does the fact that I still don’t really know what was going on in that bit of the episode. I was just hoping it would be over quickly so that we could get back to something else. Anything else!

Thankfully, there’s plenty of other stuff to love about this one. The scene in the market is another example of the story going more than a little strange on us, but it leads to the sequence in which the Doctor and his friends kidnap Zaroff - and that has to be one of the best things the series has done in a long time.

From the Doctor gleefully bouncing through the market, calling out Zaroff’s name, to the chase through the tunnels and that final moment when the Doctor blows powder into the Professor’s face… it’s a great scene, and another chance to really showcase Troughton. To be honest, we’re at the point now where I’m not even going to bother praising the man. Just take it as read that I really love him, ok?

What does surprise me about this story, though, is just how quickly Jamie has taken to this business of travelling in time. Just a couple of episodes ago, he was wondering what he’d gotten himself into - coming from four episodes where he didn’t really feature all that much. Now, he’s happy to just get on with things and do what the script requires of him. It’s a bit strange, and I was hoping that we’d see a bit more easing him into things, possibly with Ben acting as a kind of older brother, teaching him the ropes.

As it is, he feels like he’s simply there to fill the generic ‘companion’ role in the script, going off to do what the Doctor asks of him because someone has to. I’m hoping that it might just be a temporary lack of characterisation for him, and that we might see this addressed a little better in the final part, as we move back towards the TARDIS again.

7/10 0 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 152: The Underwater Menace, Episode One

Dear diary,

Ah, The Underwater Menace. It’s not got the best reputation in Doctor Who history, has it? In the Doctor Who Magazine ‘Mighty 200’ poll in 2009, it came in at #194, just seven from the bottom of the list. Only The Space Pirates is below it from the 1960s, and The Highlanders came in almost 50 places above it! You’ll forgive me if I tip-toe cautiously into this one…

My concern was pretty short-lived, though - because this first episode is really good! We haven’t had TARDIS crew this story is the largest that we’ve had since Ian and Barbara left in The Chase (yes, yes, we technically had Dodo, Polly, and Ben in The War Machines, but Dodo didn’t do a lot, and the others weren’t abducted until the very end), and there’s a real feel of those early episodes present here.

The first ten minutes of the story feature the Doctor doing some experiments on various rock pools to try and establish where - and when - they’ve landed, while the companions excitedly scramble off to explore. It feels reminiscent of anything from Marco Polo, with Susan’s excitement at finding a giant footprint in the snow, to The Chase, with Vicki and Ian tearing off over the sand dunes like giddy teenagers.

And this foursome are all gelling brilliantly together! Right from the early TARDIS scene, where we hear their thoughts about what they’d like to see next (though I only know it’s their thoughts because I’m sure I’ve read it somewhere - the audio makes it seem like they’re just saying things at random. Prehistoric monsters!). The whole opening, with just the four of them carrying the story is great: it feels like such a long time since we’ve had anything quite like that.

As standard, the introduction of a new companion is used as a chance to reintroduce the series for viewers Who might need a top-up. It’s all done rather in brief here, with the main emphasis being that they can go anywhere and everywhere in the TARDIS, and the Doctor comments ‘that’s the fun!’. Troughton’s Doctor is still winning me over somewhat effortlessly, and he’s as fantastic here as I’ve come to expect. There’s a wonderful moment where he saves a slave girl from a spear and absentmindedly apologises, with a wink to her. It’s such a simple scene, but it really made me smile.

He’s perhaps at his best though, when speaking to Professor Zaroff. The professor’s reputation - much like The Underwater Menace as a whole - isn’t a great one. I fail to see why though, as he’s brilliant here. My favourite moment could be when he muses that he could feed the Doctor to his pet octopus (‘yes?’). I think I’ll be saying that more often when people annoy me. On a related note, does anyone know where I can get a pet octopus? He’s nicely set up in this opening episode as being a great scientist, Who was reported dead about twenty years ago. In reality, he’s relocated himself to this unusual civilisation under the sea - Atlantis.

We also get our first introduction to the fish people, Who are one of the defining images from this story. Now, I’m listening to this episode on audio (with the knowledge of how they look), so I can imagine them swimming around nicely in their farms. There’s a very real chance that it didn’t look that slick on screen. They’re often mocked for their design, and while it’s true that we’ve had better in the series, there’s nothing all that wrong with it, I don’t think.

On the whole, I think I’m just full of praise for this episode. There’s a lot more in my notes that I haven’t even mentioned here (From Polly working out what the date could be based upon the Olympics… Speaking several languages, as Jamie chimes in with Gaelic… The intonation Troughton uses when he describes something as being ‘impossible’, which is almost perfectly copied by Matt Smith when describing Clara in a recent episode… The cliffhanger putting a companion in a kind of danger we’ve not really seen in the show before…), but the gist of it is that I’ve really enjoyed this one.

I think it helps that I’ve come to it from a story that just didn’t click with me. Sometimes simply changing to something different that’s more in tone with what I like in the series is enough to really swing my score around. But now, The Underwater Menace is about to get really fun! We’ve now got two episodes in a row that I can actually watch! With moving pictures and everything! Having come from almost two weeks of solid soundtracks (including one target novel…), actually being able to see moving pictures again fees like something of a miracle…

8/10 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 151: The Highlanders, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Please forgive me. I was weak. The Highlanders wore me down. The thought of having to listen to another 25 minutes of it was honestly too much to bare. I gave in. I cheated. I’ve not actually listened to Episode Four. Well… not properly, anyway.

Y’see, I really couldn’t bare the thought of having to sit through another episode of The Highlanders. I’ve been putting it off all day in the hope that somehow, magically, I’d discover that it was only a three-part story and that I’d have therefore finished it. Unfortunately, as the day wore on, it became increasingly apparent that wasn’t going to happen. Bah. 

Thankfully, I then mentioned it to my good friend Nick Mellish, who sympathised and then commented ‘great novelisation, though…’. That’s when it hit me. There was a way of finishing this story with as little pain as possible. It just involved the (slightly odd, considering my disdain for it) process of doubling the length of the final episode to just about an hour. I went on a bit of a spending spree on the AudioGo website as I approached the Troughton era, mopping up all the soundtracks that I didn’t yet own. This led to me amassing a number of points on their system, so I traded them in for a download of Anneke Wills reading the Target novelisation of this story.

Yes, yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. No, I’ve not technically listened to Episode Four of The Highlanders. Know what though? I don’t care! Because listening to the Target version of the last episode, I’ve really enjoyed it! Haha! It took a bit of guesswork to work out where I needed to start listening to the audio (which meant I got to hear the novel’s version of the lovely scene between the Doctor and Polly yesterday), and I ended up settling for listening to the cliffhanger from Episode Three again, before moving into the final stretch.

I’m pleased to report that within about ten minutes, I was fully up to speed. There were even things coming through now that I’d missed in earlier episodes and now made sense. I don’t know if it’s the result of swapping formats, or if it’ Anneke Wills’ spirited delivery of the material (the first time she launches into one of Ben’s lines left me wondering if I should laugh or applaud - but it works!), or if it’s just that Episode Four is the best of the serial, but I was actually enjoying The Highlanders.

I can’t tell you how pleased that makes me. I really don’t like not enjoying episodes. I also really don’t like that it often leaves me with little to say here in the diary, because I’m simply not enthused enough to bother. I think the real seal of approval came once I’d reached the end of the reading, and I genuinely considered skipping right back to the beginning to see if I’d enjoy the whole story more listening to it in this way. Ultimately, I decided that was stretching things a little too far, so opted not to. One day, though…

Surprisingly, for the first two thirds of the episode, there’s still no indication that Jamie is going to be anything other than a one-story character. There’s a moment when the text describes the ‘four fugitives’ inside a barn, referring to the Doctor, Polly, Ben, and Kirsty. A few scenes later, when the action relocated back to The Annabel, Polly and Kirsty are carefully rowing a boat around the ship’s hull to smuggle in weapons for rebellion… and Jamie is described as being asleep inside!

It actually feels a little out-of-place when he jumps off the ship and stows away on the smaller boat, only to emerge a little later as a guide for the TARDIS crew. From there, it seems that he’s just caught up in events, and only ends up going along with them because if he remains behind, he’ll be killed pretty fast (which bodes well for The War Games, which drops him back of here and now, with the redcoats advancing!). I know from later stories in this era that Jamie is a great companion, but for now, he just feels a little tacked-on. A real shame, considering the role he’ll be playing for the next two-and-a-half seasons!

On the whole, The Highlanders hasn’t been a high point of the marathon for me. There were moments when I considered just skipping an episode and hoping that none of you would notice. I’m glad that the Target novelisation has been enough to turn things round for me at the very end, though I’m going to be left with a nagging wonder wether I’d have enjoyed the episode so much by continuing with the soundtrack. On the one hand, you’ve got the Doctor reunited with Ben and Polly, and cooking up a scheme, but on the other… the thought of actually listening to it leaves me cold. And a little bit sick. But - hooray! - it’s over, and with it goes the format of the ‘pure’ historical for a good long time, yet.

It’s been an odd path they’ve travelled down since the start of the series - with stories like Marco Polo and The Aztecs serving as early indications that I’d be enjoying these stories. By the time The Reign of Terror rolled around, though, they’d started to leave me cold. With a few notable exceptions (The Gunfighters, I’m looking at you), I’ve sort of had enough of them as a format. Thankfully, Innes Lloyd felt the same way!

6/10 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 150: The Highlanders, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Let’s get the inevitable out of the way first - no, I’m still just not into The Highlanders. No, I still don’t know why that is. Frankly, I think my brain has decided that it doesn’t like this story, and it’s sticking with it, no matter what. The fourth episode could be a compilation episode of the best bits from The Power of the Daleks, and I think I’d still not much like it.

Where things really are succeeding is in the make-up of our current TARDIS team. Ben and Polly are real sufferers of the missing episode plague (they’ve only got 13 episodes surviving of the 40 they made, and half of those which survive are with Hartnell), so I’m really getting used to hearing them on audio - and loving them! They still feel fresh and new even in their fifth adventure, and I’m still loving how true to their personalities they’re being. If anything - make sure you’re sitting down, I’m about to praise this story! - The Highlanders is progressing them and helping them to evolve.

It had become almost a running joke that stories would involve Polly being asked to put the kettle on, but here she’s really being utilised properly. She’s been really pro-active since the start, looking after Kirsty (even though they did fall out at one point) and trying to make sure she can get her friends back to the safety of the TARDIS. She was responsible for trapping Ffinch in yesterday’s episode, and for tricking him again today (though, has his name changed between episodes?). It’s nice to see her finally being given a chance to do something - she’s really capable when being written well.

And Wills’ bounces so well off Troughton’s Doctor. There’s a lovely scene in this episode - actually, I think it’s the standout of the story for me - where Polly asks the Doctor is he’s got a plan for them to use. ‘No…’ he replies, dryly, with a yawn. ‘Oh, I know you better than that…’ Polly smiles. There’s a pause. It’s a long pause. ‘Well…’ the Doctor concedes. It’s the first time that I’ve actually wanted to properly watch something from The Highlanders, because you can actually hear the pair of them sparking together.

Ben, too, is given some nice stuff to do (I love the way he asks to read the contract that would basically sell him into slavery, and rips it up in front of the solicitor), but he’s taking more of a back seat to Polly, spending this episode stuck aboard the ship. Indeed, aside from the cliffhanger here, this is very much more Polly’s story than it is his.

Or, indeed, Jamie’s! I really thought he’d have more to do by now. I don’t know quite what I was expecting, but… well, he more of a background presence than I’d anticipated. I maintain that were you watching this story knowing that a new companion joins the TARDIS, but not knowing Who, you’d put your money on Kirsty. Heck, I’d even put more money on Perkins (though only because I want to see the Doctor threaten him with ‘illness’ through time and space) than I would Jamie. What an odd, low-key start for the longest-serving male companion!

I’m sorry to say that all of the praise I can heap on our TARDIS crew still isn’t enough to raise the story in my estimations. Still, only one more episode to go, so things still have a chance to turn around. I’m going to try really hard tomorrow. Promise…

3/10 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 149: The Highlanders, Episode Two 

Dear diary,

The Highlanders is proving to be one of those awkward stories where I just don’t really have all that much to say having finished each episode. I’ve ended up listening to the latter half of the episode twice, because by the time I came to write about it, I simply couldn’t remember what had actually happened! The answer, seemingly, is ‘not a lot’.

I don’t know what it is about this story that hasn’t appealed to me, but something really isn’t clicking. What I will say is that I’m still loving Troughton’s Doctor, and the way that he feels so different to Hartnell. I commented on it yesterday, and during The Power of the Daleks, too, but it’s worth repeating. I love the way that he bamboozles people into letting him out of the prison, and dressing up as a washer woman is fantastic - and completely bonkers. I have to admit, I can see it wearing a bit thin in the long run, but since I know it does get toned down, I can at least enjoy it now.

Still, as much as I’m enjoying Troughton’s presence in the series, I’m sorry to say I’m going to have to give this one a measly…

Wait, what’s that? Yeah, that is a woefully short entry for today’s episode, isn’t it? Shortest in the history of The 50 Year Diary, in fact. But fear not! I have an ace up my sleeve! It’s time to take a bit of a side-step into unexplored territory…

The Highlanders Episode Two was first broadcast on Christmas Eve 1966 (and can you believe it’s been a year since The Feast of Steven and the middle of The Daleks’ Master Plan? The series has changed so much since then - this really is a programme that’s constantly evolving…), the same day as TV Comic issue #784. This is a particularly important issue of the publication,because it sees the arrival of the Second Doctor in comic strip form.

I’ve always had something of a soft-spot for the world of Doctor Who comics. I tend to count Doctor Who Magazine’s The Flood to be my favourite Who story ever, in any medium (seriously, it’s stunning), and I don’t think it’s hard to argue the virtues of much of that run of Eighth Doctor comics. Recently, I had a good chat with a friend about what we’d each do given a season of Doctor Who to preside over, and I suddenly realised how much all my choices were inspired by Scott Gray’s work on the comic.

And yet, there seems to be something of a stigma attached to the comic medium. People don’t tend to talk about it. When I first waded into Doctor Who fandom about a decade ago, people often talked of the books and the audios - but the comics were the younger sibling, the one no one liked to mention and simply pretended wasn’t there. Even among those Who did accept the sheer brilliance of the comics, any of the stuff from the pre-Doctor Who Magazine era tended to be dismissed as a load of old rubbish.

I always thought it was magical, though! I loved that it presented a kind of Doctor that didn’t really exist on the TV series (‘Die, hideous creature, die!’ etc.), and one Who travelled with his two grandchildren, John and Gillian. It’s an absolute world away from Doctor Who in any other format, and it’s filled with a kind of light-hearted, joyous charm. A sense of sheer, child-like fun. And, let’s be honest, that’s exactly what I need when I’m lagging in the middle of The Highlanders.

To that end, this evening I’ve sat down to read The Extortioner, the first Second Doctor story, and the one which started contemporaneously with this episode. Unfortunately, I’ve been looking at it in a digital format on my computer, rather than in the form of the actual aging comic books (though I did continue to sniff an old Beano book of about the right vintage between parts of the comic, just to give the illusion).

Coming in at just eight pages (two per issue), this strip is never going to be the most in-depth Doctor Who story ever, but it’s fun enough if you just go along with it. The Doctor on display is nothing like either of the two we’ve had so far in the series, but he’s a good enough version of the character, if you can suspend your belief a little further.

There’s also an appearance from the Doctor’s lighter, the laser beam inside of which has apparently saved the day for him at least once before now. It’s interesting to see him using this to cut his way out of a cell, since we’ll be seeing the introduction of the Sonic Screwdriver at the end of next season.

The plot itself - the Doctor arrives outside a volcano. Inside, he finds an evil madman, Who has missiles aimed at a number of planets, and plans to fire them if these planets will not send him all their valuables - can only really be described as ‘comic strip’, but it’s something that I reckon a young me would love to read if I were a fan of the programme on TV. It’s not the best example of the Doctor’s comic adventures (I tend to love the ones where they fight off the Tenth Planet Cybermen with flowers. Very 1960s), but it’s proved an amusing distraction from The Highlanders if nothing else, which I imagine is a role it would have filled back in 1966, too. Having come from six episodes where the Daleks are plotting and gliding around on a planet with mercury swamps to please the eye, this one must have felt like a bit of a comedown…

Oh, and the comic agrees with me that his name is 'Doctor Who', so that's always a plus!

(If I’m rating The Extortioner as a story - and heck, if I rated The Destroyers, then it only seems fair! - then I think I’d be giving it a ‘5/10’. Nothing special, but good enough…)

(If I’m rating The Extortioner as a story - and heck, if I rated The Destroyers, then it only seems fair! - then I think I’d be giving it a ‘5/10’. Nothing special, but good enough…) 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 148: The Highlanders, Episode One

Dear diary,

I’ve been looking forward to this one. It’s always fascinated me that the Second Doctor picks up Jamie in his second-ever story, and then he stays as a companion right to the end of the era. That’s dedication! As the theme music died down and Fraser Hines’ voice introduced the story, it felt perfectly fitting.

And then Jamie’s hardly in this episode! Hah! It’s brilliantly low-key, and there’s no way you’d guess that he’ll be joining the TARDIS before the story is out if you didn’t already know. I do wonder if that means it could feel a little sudden at the end, but I’m hoping that we’ll see his role growing as the episodes go by. What we do hear of him is good so far - it’s unusual to have a companion’s first appearance accompanied by a description of his pointing a gun at the chest of a current crew member!

If anything, it seems more likely that Kirsty would join as a regular: she’s certainly given more to do here than Jamie is. I’m enjoying her pairing with Polly, and the way that the relationship is being played. Polly talking about modern things and Kirsty just not getting it is fantastic, and not something that we often see in the historical stories. I’m particularly keen on Kirsty’s assertion that ‘they don’t make biscuits for dogs!’ (I imagine Polly has a small dog at home. Wonder who’s looking after it?), and Polly catching the confused reaction to ‘fillings’ and simply substituting it for ‘teeth’.

Otherwise, I have to admit that I’m just not all that caught up in events. It’s been a long time since I really found myself swept up by one of the historical episodes, and sadly this one isn’t really doing it for me either. As I always seem to say in these stories, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not for me. Once again, it’s one of those historical settings that I don’t really know all that much about, but there’s enough information given in the narration and via the Doctor for me to make sense of it, so I at least vaguely know what’s going on. I’m crossing my fingers that things will fall into place for me as the story goes by.

I do need to mention the latest step in my argument that our lead character’s name (at least at this stage of the programme) is ‘Doctor Who’. Here, he introduces himself as ‘Doctor Von Wer’ (which translates from German, roughly, as ‘Doctor Who’), and when one of the soldiers questions him ‘Doctor Who?’ he replies ‘that’s what I said’. Frankly, his name is ‘Doctor Who’. It is! For now, it is!

As a character, I’m still enjoying the Second Doctor, and he’s still very unlike his predecessor. Pretending to be a German Doctor in an attempt to talk people out of killing him is fun, but it’s certainly not something I can imagine William Hartnell doing. The First Doctor would have simply raised his voice, promised the soldier a ‘jolly good smacked bottom’ and gotten indignant if they tried to hang him anyway. We’ve got another mention of the Doctor wanting ‘a hat like that’ (I’m hoping we get at least one in each story, though I know it’s faded away by later in Troughton’s run) and his playful, child-like side is coming out more, too.

Here’s hoping that the second episode will give Jamie more to do, and capture my imagination a bit more…

5/10