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

Day 141: The Tenth Planet, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Of all the Doctor Who episodes missing from the BBC's archive, The Tenth Planet Episode Four probably has the most mythical status. It's the one in which William Hartnell changes into Patrick Troughton, of course, but it's also one of those odd ones where we can't very easily trace when the tape went missing. There's no definitive record of its destruction, just the fact that it stopped being around after a certain point.

As I've said, I've never watched The Tenth Planet, so I've never known how justified the status of this episode was. It has to be said that - regeneration aside - there's not a lot in here to make it really stand out from any other episode of the programme around this time. It's quite good, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing all that amazing about it until the final few minutes.

I've always been aware of the resolution to the story - that Mondas ultimately absorbs too much of Earth's power and blows itself up. That's really not the important thing about the story, though. This is often talked about as the very first 'Base Under Siege' tale (something that will be cropping up a lot more in the next four months of this blog!), and that really is the best way to describe it. The appearance of Mondas in the skies, the absorption of power, the Cybermen landing globally, all of that takes second place to the crew of the Snowcap base, and watching them fight off wave after wave of attackers.

It's nice that the Z-Bomb which has been so important since around Episode Two is used as a vital part of keeping our Mondasian friends at bay in this final episode, and I'm sure that the sight of a Cyberman creasing up in pain as he enters the radiation room would have been fantastic. The tele snaps unfortunately miss the shot of his demise (though we do get a great close up of the creature's face), but everything around it looks great.

I really have been won over to the design of the Cybermen throughout this tale, and the shots of them that we do have hear continue to make them look fantastic. There's the one moment when a Cyberman on the radio from Geneva seems to be singing all his lines, but I think I can just about overlook that. Finally, I understand why everyone is always so full of praise for them! On the one had, I'm now quite sorry that they only appear in this one story, but on the other, it gives them a certain charm. They're what William Hartnell's Cybermen looked like.

Now obviously, the thing that gets the most attention in this episode is always going to be the transformation between the First and Second Doctors. I've seen the actual change hundreds of times over the years, but this is the first time that I've ever watched the events leading up to it. The whole thing is played as being very sinister - the Doctor's cryptic mumbling is especially unnerving. 'It's all over,' he slurs, 'that's what you said. But it isn't. It's far from being all over!'. It really is an odd sequence, and no attempt is made to have this as a comforting change over between the two actors. The entire thing is played as a new kind of threat, and worthy of a cliffhanger because it's scary, not simply because it's what we'd now call a 'regeneration'.

I'm really pleased that the change is filtered in right from the start of this story, with the Doctor commenting early on that his body seems to be wearing a bit thin. It makes it all the more rewarding when you know what's coming, and saves it from just being something bolted on to the end of the story. I'll be offering up more general thoughts about William Hartnell's tenure in my 'overview' post (which you should find just above this one in the Doctor Who Online news feed), but I'll say here that I genuinely am sorry to see him go.

7/10 

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

Day 140: The Tenth Planet, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Regular readers will know that it’s not just 1960s Doctor Who that I’ve got an interest in, but television from that period in general. Anything from the resumption of broadcasts after the Second World War up to about the end of the 60s is the era of television that takes up the most space on my DVD shelves. Either side of the pond will do me: I’m just as happy to sit down in front of an episode of I Love Lucy or The Honeymooners as I am anything made on these shores.

But the best thing about British TV in this era – for a Doctor Who fan, at least – is spotting those actors that you know from the TARDIS turning up in other things. The Avengers is great for this. Nicholas Courtney turns up in the episode Propellant 23, broadcast just over a year before the start of Doctor Who. While the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan were busy convincing the Thals to take a stand and invade the Dalek city, current companion Anneke Wills was playing the part of Jane Wentworth, dressed as a pussy cat, in the episode Dressed to Kill.

Just a few episodes later and, oh look, it’s Barry Letts’ turn to take a role in the programme. We’ll be hearing more about Letts cropping up in this diary a few months from now. Letts’ Doctor, Jon Pertwee, turns up in the programme in 1967, and the final season in 1969 contains an episode starring both Roger Delgado and Kate O’Mara. It’s a Rani and Master team-up, 16 years early! Even Peter Cushing stars in the episode Return of the Cybernauts! In some parallel world, that’s the title of a Doctor Who episode starring Cushing as human inventor Dr. Who, after his series of movies transferred to TV.

It’s not just Doctor Who actors that turn up in the programme, of course, and it’s just as great when the likes of John Le Mesurier or Penelope Keith are a part of the cast, but there’s a special kind of thrill in seeing these actors you know so well from the world of Doctor Who appearing in something else, usually long before they arrive in our favourite sci-fi show.

Occasionally, as I’ve been watching through this marathon, I’ve taken a bit of a detour in my own time, to watch other programmes from the same week. I’ve dipped in to all-sorts as I’ve gone along, but I don’t tend to mention them here on the blog because, well, you’re here on Doctor Who Online to read about Doctor Who. You’re probably not all that interested in my thoughts on an episode of Coronation Street from mid-1964.

Today, though, I’ve got to mention my detour. A couple of nights ago, having finished up my entry for The Tenth Planet, Episode One, I sat and watched an episode of Adam Adamant Lives! broadcast 8th October 1966 (the Thursday between Tenth Planet One and Two). It’s important because in a small role at the start of the episode, we’ve got TV character actor Patrick Troughton. It’s interesting to see him here, so close to taking on the part of the Doctor. The filming dates aren’t as close together as the broadcast ones are (the episode, D For Destruction, was filmed early September, so about six weeks or so before work began for him on Who), but I think I’m right in saying that this will have been one of the last things broadcast starring him before the regeneration occurred.

I’ve been holding off on watching this episode for a while, now, because I was keen to see it in context of my Doctor Who marathon, and I was hoping I’d have a lot of interesting stuff to say about his performance, and the way it ties in with his time in the TARDIS. As it is, though, he only appears for the first five minutes or so, before disappearing from the rest of the story (though a main character for the remainder is played by Ian Cuthbertson, another alumni of The Avengers, and who will be turning up in Doctor Who about a year from now in my marathon for a role in The Ribos Operation).

The other problem comes from the fact that, having spent the last five months making my way through the First Doctor era of the programme, trying to pin-point the way Troughton plays the part seems impossible! I’m going to be keeping it in mind, though, and hopefully I’ll be able to raise some interesting points about the performances in a few days time, once Troughton has actually taken over.

What was more startling to me, though, watching this episode last night, is how similar Polly Wright is to the character of Georgina Jones in Adam Adamant Lives!. Georgina is the equivalent of the companion in that series, and can only be describes as being ‘fab’. Visually, there’s a striking resemblance between the pair, and she even wears a similar hat in this episode to the one Polly was sporting at the end of The War Machines.

Polly’s first appearance in Doctor Who came just two days after the first episode of Adam Adamant Lives! had appeared on screen back in June – I think it certainly says something about the feel of 1966. Polly and Georgina are both trendy young girls, who find excitement getting caught up in adventure. At this point, Polly (and Ben) are just along for the ride, though they're both growing to enjoy life with the Doctor.

I did wonder what this episode would feel like, being without the Doctor and the first story to really feature the 'Base Under Siege' format, I thought it may end up just being a bit of a runaround, with little actually happening. That's why I've saved my thoughts on the Adam Adamant Lives! episode for today - I figurers there was plenty to talk about for yesterday's episode without chucking all that in.

As it happens, though, there's lots and lots I could talk about from today anyway! I'll skim over much of it quickly, to focus on just one point. So, in brief: The Cybermen look fantastic as they move slowly through the blizzard. The 'massacre' of them by their own weapons is also quite effective. I'm absolutely converted to these Cybermen, now. They're lovely. It's nice to see the first use of a ventilation shaft in the series as a way of transporting a companion from 'A' to 'B', even though it's massive! At one point, Barclay announces that he'd never be able to fit through the ventilation shaft. You'd fit a fully-grown Krynoid down that!

The thing that really strikes me, though, is the addition of General Cutler's son to the story. He was introduced late in yesterday's episode, and to begin with I was a little weary of it. In some ways, it felt like the story was trying to have its cake and eat it - you get the shock of 'Zues IV' being blown up, but then they can carry on with the 'we have to get the spaceship back down to Earth' story, because they've sent another one up. As it happens, though, this part of the story becomes one of the most interesting now. It's not often in Doctor Who, at least at this stage in its life, that we see something like this happen. A justification for the base's commander to be behaving so ruthlessly. Here, though, it adds a whole other layer to the idea, and when Cutler throws Ben over the railings, having found him tampering with the rocket, it's all the more believable, because of his personal stake in the situation. It's really great to see this being added, and I'm hoping that there's more like it to come in the future.

7/10 

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

Day 139: The Tenth Planet, Episode Two

Dear diary,

When people talk about the Cybermen - and, more specifically, about the designs of the Cybermen - the versions seen here in The Tenth Planet always seem to crop up. They appear quite high on the list of 'favourite designs' among many of my friends who are fans of the show. When this design cropped up on the cover of The Silver Turk (one of the Big Finish Eighth Doctor audios) a few years ago, people were falling over themselves with excitement.

Maybe it's because I'm used to everyone banging on about how great this version is that I've never really been able to see it myself. They look pretty good, I guess, but I've just never had that kind of love that other fans seem to hold for these ones. It's perhaps telling that in my Cardiff flat, the Cyberman action figure I keep on display is one from Earthshock (for some reason, beside a Cybermat from Revenge…), and I've got a version from Tomb in a box here somewhere, too. The Tenth Planet figure is in a box way back home in Norwich. That toy, much like this design of Cyberman, is considered 'one of the best', but again, I've never really got it.

It probably didn't help, then, that while I was watching this episode, I had Ellie with me. She wasn't actually paying all that much attention to Doctor Who - to tell the truth, she was the other side of the flat, doing a puzzle - but she was in the room all the same. I'd banged on while we had dinner about why the episode I was watching tonight was a very important one, but I think she was trying to block out most of it. She wasn't able to ignore it, though, when the first Cyberman began to speak. I won't repeat what was said (this is a well-mannered website!), but suffice to say she wasn't impressed with either the design or the voice.

As I watched on, wondering why people always pointed to these as their favourite Cyber-design, I started to really be swayed by the tone of the voices, and the way that the eyes look actually dead when the Cybermen have their mouths open. I found myself starting to find them quite menacing, and the way that they're shot as the enter the base (the way Hartnell follows their legs as they move along a platform is gorgeous) started to really stoke a chord with me. Just as I was starting to realise all the things people love about them, Ellie piped up again. 'Actually,' she announced, 'they sound better like this. It's more enjoyable to listen to'. Hah! Didn't want to watch Doctor Who, but can't help listening along anyway. I must be doing something right.

By the end of the episode, I was completely sold. The reason people love the Tenth Planet Cybermen so much is that, in the actual episodes, they really are fantastic. I'm really hoping that tomorrow I'll find myself falling even further in love with them, but yeah, suffice to say that they've won me over pretty darn quick.

The first (proper) appearance of the Cybermen isn't the most important thing about today's episode, though. At least not by the standards of this marathon. William Hartnell doesn't appear in tomorrow's edition, because he was too unwell to take part. Episode Four of the story doesn't exist in the archives (save for a few brief clips and - mercifully - the actual regeneration itself), which means that I'll be listening to the narrated soundtrack of that one to round out the story… and the First Doctor's era. That means that today is the last time that I get to see William Hartnell take part in a full episode.

(He'll turn up as a cameo in The Three Doctors later in the year, but this is his last proper appearance for me. I'll discuss more about his time in full after Episode Four, in a special 'First Doctor Overview' post, so I'm not going to be getting all nostalgic for his time here and now. All the same, I couldn't let this moment pass without saying something.)

It's a good job, then, that he gets a pretty good part to sink his teeth into here. The Doctor is on fine form, ordering around members of the base, taking quiet satisfaction when he's proved right and no one has believed him, and giving one of the more famous speeches from his era. 'The emotions! Love! Pride! Hate! Fear! Have you no emotions, sir?' is one of those First Doctor moments that fans just know. It's up there with the whole 'One day, I shall come back' speech, and quite rightly so.

8/10 

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

Day 138: The Tenth Planet, Episode One

Dear diary,

RIght then! Here we are! The Tenth Planet! Arguably one of the most important stories in the entire, 50-year history of Doctor Who. Not only is it responsible for the introduction of the Cybermen - who, I'd argue, are one of the most recognisable monsters from the programme, up there with the Daleks - but also the first story to change from one incarnation of the Doctor into another. Without this story, the history of the show could have gone very differently.

And you know what? I've never seen it. Thinking about it now, I'm not quite sure why I've never seen it. I've owned the VHS for almost a decade now, but when I came to watch it today, I had to actually unwrap the tape. That felt novel. It's been a good few years since I've had to unwrap the plastic on a VHS tape. Im sure there's been several occasions over the years where I've sat down with the intention to watch it, but for one reason or another, I've simply never made it through to even starting on the story.

Still, for me here and now on the 138th day of this marathon, it's a good thing that I've never seen the story before. It feels strange to be so far through that I'm almost out of William Hartnell-era Doctor Who, and I'm glad that the last Hartnell story I'll see is the last Hartnell story. It would have been a shame to go out on The Smugglers or something.

So, another story and another new way of doing the titles. Here, they appear on screen following a jumble of letters. It's another attempt to be futuristic and represent computers, as in The War Machines, but here the title and the letters are overlaid to shots of technical equipment, and follow on from a shot of a rocket taking off. It's a different setting to open in, but it works.

More and more lately (since the early part of Season Three) tracking shots that end with the TARDIS materialising have become fairly common. That's not a complaint - they're always done well, and it looks fantastic appearing into the snow-swept landscape on show here. It's also nicely led in following discussion of looking out through the periscope of the base. It's a shame that the inside of the TARDIS isn't really looking up to much at the moment. The doors are the most noticeably damaged bit, with the backs of the top roundels sitting lower than they should, leaving a very obvious gap on the set. It's very noticeable in some shots from The Smugglers of the Doctor and his companions in the ship, and it's a shame to see the same is true of the actual episodes themselves.

Stepping outside, the snow effect really works for the most part. It's at its best during some close-up shots of the regulars, where the thickness of it really does help to sell the effect. It probably helps that because I'm watching on a VHS, with less of a polish that the DVD will have later this year, things are looking a bit rough round the edges - some of the less-well-realised parts of the snow are probably covered up a little.

Elsewhere, many of the effects on show come across as looking a bit like a 1950s B-movie. When the Doctor and friends crowd round a screen and watch as the mysterious Tenth Planet approaches (and just how fast is it spinning? Malaysia comes around twice in about a minute!) it looks pretty hokey. A shame, because I'd have loved this to be the stand-out shot from the episode. In many ways, it feels like a step backward, and I imagine I'd be more forgiving of the effect had it occurred back in Season One. Coming now, though, after stories like The Ark have pulled off better effects as if they were child's play, it's disappointing.

I'll discuss the Cybermen properly tomorrow, once they've fully arrived in the story, but I can't go by without mentioning today's cliffhanger. It's one of those moments that most fans of the series have seen in one shape or another, as the silver giant turns around, pulls off the cloak and kills a couple of guards. It's a striking moment, and easily becomes the best part of the episode. There's a great, lingering close-up on the Cyberman's face, really making sure that the image has bled into your brain for the next week, while you wait to find out what on Earth it is…

6/10 

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

Day 137: The Smugglers, Episode Four

Dear diary,

At the end of all that, Polly has really settled into the idea that they're trapped on the TARDIS from now on. Having retreated back to the ship, she asks the Doctor wether they'll be going forwards or backwards in time next, and it serves as another opportunity for the Doctor to remind us that he has no control over where - or when - they land. Thankfully, Ben does chip in with the hope that it's 1966: I'd worried that we'd see that just swept under the carpet now that they've had a full adventure away from their own time.

Much like The Savages, this is a story that tends to be forgotten when I think about the early years of Doctor Who. It's the penultimate one of the Hartnell era, but it doesn't really have anything all that special about it to help make it stand out from the crowd. At lest The Savages has Steven departing from his life in the TARDIS. While I've enjoyed listening to the story more than I might have expected to, I think it's destined to sink back into that state of simply being forgotten as part of the overall picture.

There's nothing much in here to really latch onto. Most of this episode is spent with people simply talking at each other, and then there's the occasional fight to break things up a little. It doesn't help that by the time we'd reached this episode, I'd pretty much forgotten who most of the characters were, and I'd lost track of who was meant to be the bad guy, and who was the good one - especially by the end when the Doctor's newfound 'moral obligation' means that he's determined to help the Squire, who I think was being treated as something of an enemy a few days ago?

In the end, I turned to Jonathan Morris' handy guide in the recent tele snaps special, but even that didn't help, 'cos I'd forgotten some of the names! Ultimately, I think mush of The Smugglers will have become a blur by the end of this season, the space it currently occupies in my head being taken up by all the other stories to come.

It's a shame, really, because there is a lot to like in the story. Ben and Polly are used well for the most part, and we get a chance to see some of their skills in action. While Polly takes very quickly to the idea of travelling in time, it's good to see Ben being skeptical, and it's great that he still doesn't particularly want to be there at the end. Had this story survived in the archives (or were it to turn up at some stage), I think it would have a much better chance of holding my attention - the location work seen in the tele snaps and the surviving 8mm footage really does make it look like there's a scale on display that we don't often see in Who of this era.

And so, as the Doctor and his new companions look at the scanner, out over the 'coldest place on Earth', we head into the final story for the First Doctor. I'm really not sure how I feel about this…

6/10 

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

Day 136: The Smugglers, Episode Three

Dear diary,

As Polly's screams ring out into the closing theme, I realised that actually, the companions in Doctor Who at this stage don't really scream all that much, do they? Susan, Barbara, and Vicki have all had a couple of them, but they've not been a common part of the series in the way you'd expect, based on the number of jokes made about it. I'm so entrenched in this era of Who, now, that I can't even really remember if the later companions scream lots more than this, or if it's just a myth that's built up over the years.

Early on in this episode, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for our two newest companions, as they find themselves confronted once again. 'We haven't done anything!', Ben protests. 'We haven't killed anyone, and we haven't smuggled anything!'. At this stage, they were still separated from the Doctor, and I realised how odd it was to see this.

I commented lots on it during the Dodo episodes, that she and Steven would be separated off to have the bulk of the adventure, while the Doctor went off elsewhere to reduce the strain on Hartnell. There, it felt perfectly natural: Steven had been travelling with him for quite some time before it started becoming a common occurrence in the series, so you felt as though he knew what to do. Here, Ben and Polly have only just arrived in their first new time period, and they're already left to fend for themselves.

When the Doctor swans in a few minutes later, it's with a kind of lofty carefreeness. Much like the way he followed after them upon first exiting the TARDIS in Episode One, he's watching his new friends with amusement more than concern. he knows what's going on, and he's enjoying their reactions to things. We've also reached another key point in the evolution of the Doctor's character here, which is important as we draw ever closer to the first regeneration.

During Season One, I found it fun to highlight the various steps in the Doctor's transformation from the insular, grumpy sod we see in An Unearthly Child through to the kind of character he becomes in all his subsequent incarnations. There's several key moments (mostly based around Barbara shouting at him) that lead to our first big revelation in The Dalek Invasion of Earth - that the Doctor will stay and fight the Daleks, because that's the right thing to do.

Here, we see again that he's fully completed his transformation into being 'The Doctor'. It's been there, without much of a song or dance for the most part, ever since that Dalek invasion, but this is the first time in a while that the Doctor has stopped to point out that this is the way he behaves. It plays into the idea of using this story to establish the programme for a new audience - he explains to Ben that they can't just leave for the TARDIS, because he has a 'moral obligation' to stay here and see that things are left safe.

We're close to the Troughton Doctor, now, with his speech about 'some corners of the universe', so it's important to see the First Doctor stepping up and reminding us of who he's become now, in time for his fall under the next story.

7/10 

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

Day 135: The Smugglers, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Before embarking on this episode, I popped in the William Hartnell disc of the Lost in Time collection, so that I could check out some of the surviving bits of The Smugglers on there, and have those in mind while listening through. Most of the clips like this that we have (and, I believe, all of the ones for this story in particular) are the result of censorship cuts in New Zealand when these serials were sold there in the late 1960s.

It would appear that the New Zealand broadcasters had a different view on what was acceptable in a children's series than we did in the UK, and so there's lots of moments from the programme that were cut out - usually only a few seconds here or there. I've seen several of these clips before when the DVD first came out and I savoured all these brief snippets of stories that I may never get the chance to see properly.

Some of the clips always struck me as being a bit odd: a few frames here, or the odd second or two from here, just to lessen the impact. Others seem far more fitting, and I think that might be the case with the clips for this story. The death of Longfoot in Episode One is quite brutal, as the knife lands squarely between his shoulder blades for example. It's ironic, in a way, that the only clips we have of The Smugglers, and of many other missing Doctor Who's only survive because someone once deemed them too much to be broadcast!

The compilation of these clips on the DVD also includes a few minutes of silent 8mm camera footage from the location shoot. It's obviously shot as behind-the-scenes footage either by a member of the crew or by a curious on-looker, as we move from shots of the Doctor being piled onto a cart, to others of pirates reading the day's newspaper, or shots of the BBC cars and vans parked around. This footage comes in handy, though, as another opportunity to see how this story might have looked - the locations really are gorgeous. I'm coupling all of this (and the tele snaps) with my own memories of Cornwall, where the other half and I spent a week last summer. I even keyed The Smugglers up on my phone ready to listen to while we were down there, but I never found the time to actually hear it.

As for the episode itself… well, the winning streak had to end sometime, I suppose. It's not that this is a bad episode, just that it hasn't grabbed me in the way that the last few have. Yesterday, I sang the praises of 'Doctor Who gets kidnapped by pirates' as a hook for a story, but today it seems to have already worn a bit thin. I'm not sure why that is, because there's plenty in here that I really did enjoy.

Ben and Polly, for instance, continue to entertain me, and they're great value when they play the part of witches to escape from imprisonment. They've both got very distinct personalities that work well against each other. There's also the opportunity for some great dialogue between the pair - I love Ben musing that he can't check himself back into the Navy in a 17th century barracks! They're still getting the hang of all this, and so don't settle into things quite as well as the Doctor has.

I don't know what's lacking at the moment, but I'm hoping it turns up tomorrow. I'm keen for the last Hartnell historical to go out with a bang!

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

Day 134: The Smugglers, Episode One

Dear diary,

At this point in its life, Doctor Who has very much dispensed with the idea of basing the historical stories around a particular event or person, in an attempt to be educational, and has instead switched to focus on a generic 'era' of history. A couple of weeks ago we had a tale set simply in 'The Wild West', in which events differed wildly from the real historical facts, and today we've simply been given a historical based around the idea of 'Doctor Who gets kidnapped by pirates'.

It sounds like I'm complaining about this, but that's not the case. While I found myself enjoying the stories that fulfilled the programme's original brief to educate as well as entertain, by the end of Season Two my interest in that type of tale had started to wane a little. Season Three then started out by giving us tales set in Ancient Greece and a period of French history that just wasn't of much interest to me. All in all, the historicals had started to lose any of the stuff that kept me interested, and I found myself looking far more forward to the futuristic tales.

Today, though, has proved that a good historical tale can still work well for the series - it just needs a broader appeal. 'Doctor Who gets kidnapped by pirates' is a perfect pitch to keep me interested at this point, and it allows for a great episode. One of the things that needs to be addressed is the location filming for this story. I'm listening to the soundtrack as usual, with the tele snaps on hand to follow along with.

Following in the footsteps of the last few stories, it once again looks completely unlike Doctor Who. There's scores of location filming for this story, starting with the TARDIS stood just inside a cave mouth on the beach. It's strange to think that we've only recently started having the TARDIS materialise on location as opposed to in the studio somewhere, as has been the norm for much of this marathon so far.

It looks fantastic stood on the shore, and so does the rest of the filming. A number of the early tele snaps for this episode show the action taking place outside, and it gives them a sense of scale that we're not used to in the show. It's odd that an image of a church sat the other side of a field should look so odd, but it's still rare to see such an open space in Doctor Who.

Elsewhere, it's all fairly standard pirate fair. There's some hidden gold stashed away nearby, and a group of ruthless pirates want to get their hands on it. They've got a pirate ship out in the bay, where the Doctor has been taken to meet the captain - who has a hook for a hand! It really works that all of this is so cliched, though. The fun here isn't telling a bold new pirate story, it's seeing what will happen when the TARDIS arrives in a traditional pirate tale. I'm surprised we've not had a talking parrot yet.

I'm pleased to say that the arrival of Ben and Polly to the ship is handled just as well as I was hoping for. I commented the other day that their initial suspicion about the police box was very reminiscent of Ian and Barbara, right back in the pilot episode, and that continues on into their early exchanges with the Doctor here. Indeed, it's so similar in places that I can't help but wonder if Brian Hayles was given the script to An Unearthly Child to work from.

They're astounded by the sheer size of this ship once they've barged their way in, and the Doctor angrily snaps at them. 'What are you doing in here? How dare you?' - Hartnell is even playing it in a way closer to his original style that we've seen since that first season. Much as I've grown to love his cuddlier side over the stories, it's great to see that he can still do the fierce Doctor when called upon.

Ben and Polly react in a similar way to our old schoolteacher friends, too. Polly is more willing to believe that they have travelled in time (she's genuinely disappointed when they see the church and assume that they're still in 1966. Quite how seeing a church is a sign of that I've no idea, though), whereas Ben is skeptical from the very start. There's a logical progression to his character here - in The War Machines he was very respectful to the Doctor because the man is his elder, and appeared to be in control of the situation. At the very least, he seemed to know what was going on. Here, though, he's talking about space/time travel, and telling the sailor he'll not be getting home any time soon. Ben's confidence has been shaken, and I'm looking forward to watching it build back up throughout the story.

As I'd hoped, too, the start of this episode takes the opportunity to remind us all about the premise of the programme (probably for the best - this episode was broadcast following the programme's longest break since the very start), but it does it in less of a heavy-handed way than The Massacre did. The Doctor tells his new companions that he can travel anywhere in time and space, but that he can't personally control where they go. He muses that he thought he was going to be alone again, but we don't get the roll-call of companions this time. Once that's out of the way, given just the right amount of time to breathe, we're off and into the adventure proper.

I'm pleased to see that the streak of strong episodes we've been having is being upheld by The Smugglers, too!

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

Day 132: The War Machines, Episode Four

Dear diary,

The notes for this story have only taken up a single side of paper in my notebook, because I've mostly been enjoying The War Machines too much to break away and write things. There's one note that keep reappearing, though. At the top of Episodes One, Three, and Four, I've scrawled 'Titles' (Actually, under today's episode, it's down as 'TITLES!!!!').

The War Machines is one of those rare 20th-century Who stories that breaks away from the usual format for its episode title. Here, we're given the title and the episode number in a 'computer' font (we all know which font that is, even if you've never seen the story), as they arrive on screen in what can only be described as a 'computerised' way. Right from the word 'go', we're being told that this is a story about computers and technology.

It's important to remember that this is only the second story to have one big title, as opposed to a name for each individual episode. There was a style guide for that, established right from the very start of the programme. The opening titles sequence dies away, and we're given an image over which the title - and then the writer's credit - will sit. For a time during Seasons One and Two, the action on screen would pause, and the actors would hold their pose, while the text appeared.

The same layout was used for The Savages, as confirmed by the tele snaps for Episodes Two and Three. It would appear that the episode number was simply added as an additional caption between the two standard ones. This, then, is the first opportunity for the programme to experiment with overall titles, and to start looking at a way to do them from now on.

I can't say I particularly like the titles for The War Machines any more or any less than the regular ones, and the same can be said for stories like The War Games which also employ different title styles. Equally, there's nothing wrong with doing them in this unusual manner, either. It just doesn't make all that much of a difference to me!

The other note that I've had scrawled at the top of several episodes over the last week is 'Ian Stuart Black'. The Savages and The War Machines is the first example in Doctor Who history of a writer being responsible for two consecutive stories (though Terry Nation came very close right at the start of the first season). In fairness, Black was only brought in to do a redraft of The War Machines, it having already gone through a version or two. As a fan of 1960s television in general, and not just Doctor Who, Black's name appears in the credits to several of the DVDs on my shelf, and I've alway been quite keen on his work. I'm pleased to see that my enjoyment has carried over to his Who writing, and I'm looking forward to The Macra Terror more now that I've realised it's Black's third script for the programme.

A couple of times over the last few days, I've compared Ben and Polly coming into the show as feeling like a new start, and I've linked it to the addition of Jenna-Louise Coleman to the current series of Who. I wasn't until today that I realised there were more similarities between the two eras than I'd ever thought about. Both get their breath of fresh air in a story that brings the Doctor back to modern-day London, and the enemy is based in the most modern building in the city (The Post Office Tower and the Shard aren't likely to be compared very often, but there's certainly a link here!).

On both occasions, the enemy is ultimately defeated when the Doctor reprogrammed their soldiers (he sends the War Machine to destroy WOTAN, and reprograms one of the 'Spoon Heads' to go confront Celia Imrie), and he picks up a new companion - or two, in Hartnell's case - along the way. All we need is to see the First Doctor ride an anti-grab motorbike up the side of the tower, and the comparison is complete!

It's strange, given how alien all of this story felt in the first couple of episodes, that the First Doctor looks so completely right as he strolls along a street to confront the War Machine. Shortly after, there's a shot of the Doctor in the back of a car and whereas before it seemed totally odd to see him in a taxi, now it just feels very natural. I think it has to be a success of the story that it all holds together so, so, well. And we've got the first real hint of something that we'll see far more later on in the programme - the Doctor slipping away as soon as things are complete, before he can be questioned or congratulated.

It's nice to see him waiting around outside the TARDIS for Dodo at the end, as I'd worried that having vanished mid-way though the story, she'd be instantly brushed under the carpet as we move on to the next set of companions. It's also interesting to see the Doctor feeling rather put out that Dodo simply 'sends her love' after everything that he's shown her through time and space. It's reminiscent of the departure of Ian and Barbara, in that the Doctor is a little hurt they would choose a normal life over one with him.

And Ben and Polly really do feel like such a breath of fresh air at the end. It's great the way that they get caught back up with the Doctor - 'Shh, watch him! I'm sure there's something strange about that police box…' - and it's very much in the style of that very first introduction to the ship right back in An Unearthly Child. I'm hoping that it's a sign (along with not showing their reaction upon entering the ship) that we'll be seeing the introduction of two new companions used to take stock and reintroduce the series again.

The Third Season has been something of a revolving door for companions (We've had Vicki, Steven, Katarina, Sara, Dodo, and now Ben and Polly since the start of Galaxy 4), so the way that they work within the series hasn't been as developed as it was in the first two years. Dodo serves as the best example, being introduced in the midsts of a massive info-dump.

Still, The War Machines has been a massive high for the series - the highest I've rated a story so far! - and a fantastic way to end this this run of adventures. I'm taking another slight side-step tomorrow (for one day only, though, promise!), and then we're down to the dying days of the First Doctor. An interesting time indeed!

8/10 

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

Day 131: The War Machines, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Five or six years ago, probably around the time that The War Machines was released on DVD, I remember creating a custom War machine figure, in scale with the Character Options figure range. It was before they'd made any of the classic Doctors, so I probably paired it up on the shelf with a Tenth Doctor toy. It wasn't very good, as customs go. I seem to recall that it was made from a Coco Pops box, coated in tin-foil.

The whole reason that I'd even bothered to make one is the same reason that I wonder fairly regularly when we're going to get an official War Machine figure from Character - they're freaking awesome!

The thing that often gets forgotten with the War Machines, or at least it's often forgotten by me, is the sheer size of the things. The Daleks at this point in the series' history are quite short. That has a charm of its own, but then you're faced up against one of these machines and it's huge! It's a good foot or so taller than many members of the cast, and that really helps to sell it as something of a threat.

The other thing of note with them is the amount of detail included. It's seen clearest on the segment of Blue Peter included on the DVD, in which Christopher Trace examines one of the machines up close. It's all fairly basic by today's standards, but it's still pretty impressive when immersed in this part of the programme's history. There's flashing banks of computers on the side of the creature, some kind of optical 'eye' built into the front, two guns coming out of the sides and the big metal 'fists', too, which get put to a fair bit of use in this episode.

The one thing that I'd always failed to notice, though, is the face. Oh yes, the War Machine has a face. It's right at the top of the thing, with the number on the machine forming the nose, and the long, dark box posing as the mouth. Once you've seen it, it's impossible to un-see. As if that wasn't enough, they then cut back to WOTAN, and he's got a face, too! Ah, I've ruined a great design for myself, now.

Seriously, though, Character Options. I'm waiting to give you my money. Make a War Machine! Give them little number stickers like you did with the Voc Robots! I'd form a little army of them on my shelf!

I can only imagine the impact that these things had on the viewers back in the day. A large chunk of the episode is given over to demonstrating just how powerful the machine is, first as it terrorises Ben again in a cliffhanger reprise, and then as it takes on the army by itself for the last third of the story. We've never seen a fight sequence quite like this in the show, so it really makes an impact.

The only downside to having such a long sequence is that we see several things over and over again. This is partly a result of the episode being patched back together to cover a few missing parts (though I'm not sure I'd have noticed them so much had I not foolishly watched a documentary on how it was done!), and partly the result of them jus twanging to show it off.

There's a great moment in the warehouse when the War Machine crashes through a pile of crates and sends them scattering as it just powers on. Unfortunately, by the time it's reached the street outside, it seems to go out of its way to knock over smaller piles of boxes almost to show that it can. It's the equivalent of a teen who's lost a fight kicking over a bin as he retreats. Y'know, just to prove that he's still 'hard'.

I think you can just about forgive it, though, because the fight really is fantastic in places. It also leads to one of the best cliffhangers that we've seen so far, when the army retreats to safety, and the Doctor stands tall, looking fantastic in his hat and cloak, squaring up to the machine. The camera pulls into a close-up on William Hartnell, and it's possibly the best he's ever looked. A shame that the picture seems a tad over-exposed, here, but it's still a great moment.

The War Machines is still very much Ben's story at this stage. Polly gets plenty to do in this episode, under the control of WOTAN, and Anneke Wills gets a chance to show us what she can do (The moment that she realises she's let Ben escape because he was her friend is lovely), but she's still only just involved. Ben's the one performing all of the companion role at this stage, and it's still fantastic to see. Just as Steven came along and washed Ian clean from my mind, I have a sneaking suspicion that Ben may do the same to our space pilot!

It's also nice to see Dodo getting a brief mention. It's only in passing, and it comes again as the Doctor worries about Ben and Polly, but it's nice to see that she's not been completely forgotten just yet.

8/10 

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

Day 130: The War Machines, Episode Two

Dear diary,

When you think of companion pairings with the Doctor, there are two which only exist as an 'and'. You've got Ian and Barbara, and now Ben and Polly. Now, I've seen plenty of Ian and Bab's adventures before I embarked on this marathon, so those two have always had quite distinct personalities in my mind. Ben and Polly though have always seemed fused together in my mind - you can't have one without the other.

If I did have to pick the one that's more prominent, though, I think I'd go for Polly. I think it's simply because unlike Michael Craze, who plays Ben, Anneke Wills (Polly) is still with us. She's quite prominent in the Doctor Who world, providing linking narration for some of the soundtracks, turning up in Big Finish plays (and not always as Polly - in the days before the Companion Chronicles range allowed us new adventures with the first few Doctors, Wills played Lady Louisa Pollard, mother of Eighth Doctor companion Charley), on DVD commentaries and on special features. She makes hundreds of appearances at Doctor Who conventions, and is all-round a lovely person.

I've only met her the once, when running a signing with Terry Molloy about five years ago. A woman arrived at the desk to ask if she could cut in and say hello to her 'old friend' Terry. Imagine our surprise when we realised that it was Polly Wright! Still, the fact that she's so ubiquitous within Who means that she's always felt like the half of the 'and' pairing that's stronger.

So it's surprising to watch today's episode, in which Polly has little to do but general secretary things, and it's Ben who fulfills the role of the Doctor's companion more actively. He's sent off to scour the part of the city where the tramp has been killed, and to see if he can find anything out that may help them discover what's really going on. He even gets to take centre stage for the cliffhanger, as a War Machine advances on him.

It's good, too, because Ben's actually great, isn't he? Craze's accent if fantastic and refreshing (Dodo's was a bit of a shock to begin with, but it was firmly RP by the end), and I'm hoping they don't tune it down. It's also interesting to see Ben treating the Doctor with respect simply because he's an older gentleman, and that's what Ben has always been taught to do. I'm really pleased that he's breaking himself out of the 'Ben and Polly' mould so early, with a great opportunity to shine.

It's following Ben out to the warehouse in Covent garden that gives us today's opportunity to see how strange this story is. Forget alien planets, or the Wild West, this is where the series is most alien to me. Right in the heart of central London in the swinging sixties. There's a scene early on in the episode when the Doctor gets into a taxi with his companions, and it's bizarre. It's not what the show does at this point, so I really don't know how to take it! It's looking great, though.

Oh, but Dodo. Poor, poor Dodo. I knew that this was her last episode, and that she ends up turfed from the story with little more than a cursory wave of the hand, but how desperate does the Doctor sound to get rid of her? When he tells Ben that Dodo is feeling 'a little under the weather', the sailor hopes that she'll be ok. The Doctor cuts him off, though, proclaiming that she'll be fine, and he's more worried about Polly, anyway. There we are, then. I guess he's made his decision!

Jackie Lane doesn't even get much of a chance to do much in her goodbye. Apart from trying to tempt the Doctor off in the wrong direction, and some general 'hypnotised' acting, that's her lot, and she's off to the country. A real shame. Dodo's only been a short-term companion by comparison to some of the other's we've has, but it's a pity not to see her given a proper send off.

But the city is under attack, and Doctor Who is still required (see? It is his name in this point of the programme! Doctor Who is required)!

8/10 

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

Day 129: The War Machines, Episode One

Dear diary,

The War Machines is one of those strange Doctor Who stories that I always think of being very fond of, but don't think I've actually ever watched all the way through. If I have seen it right to the end, then I doubt that I was paying proper attention to it. I was probably using it for background noise.

And yet, this one has always had an effect on me. Whenever I go to London, I always keep an eye out for the BT tower, and i think my fascination with it comes partly from this story. The rest of my interest comes from a general love of the 1960s as a decade. It's easy enough to look back on it with rose-tinted glasses, but there's a lot about that age that I really love, and it gets summed up perfectly by Tony Benn in a special feature about the tower on this DVD: 'confidence was so high, people really did believe that they could do anything'.

1960s London, in particular, is a magical place. People talk of 'Swinging London', and it's really an image that's stuck, fifty years on. It's a decade that's symbolised by freedom and fashion. I think that's why I've got a bit of an affinity towards this story, because The War Machines takes Doctor Who - another icon of the 60's, along with the Beatles - and places it right in the heart of the city, just as the decade is about to explode. England won the World Cup mere weeks after this story went out.

Right from the start, when the Doctor and Dodo step out of the TARDIS and onto a London street, it feels vibrant and new. I said yesterday that the arrival of Jenna-Louise Coleman to the new series had given it a new lease of life, and this story seems to be doing the same thing for Season Three. Steven has gone, and by the end of this story, Dodo will have departed, too. We're off onto a new phase of the programme.

Ben and Polly signify this perfectly - the pair of them light up the screen from the moment they start sharing it. It's telling that I'd forgotten Polly was ever Professor Brett's assistant in this story, I thought she came ready made as a companion pair with Ben at the nightclub. It adds something to it, though, seeing them meet for the first time, knowing that they're about to share a number of adventures in time and space.

Dodo doesn't fare quite so well, sadly. She's good fun to begin with, having a laugh with the Doctor (there's a really wonderful moment early on, when the Doctor has set off for the tower, and she chases after him up the street. As she catches up with him, they link arms and smile at each other. Never has the idea of Dodo as a replacement granddaughter felt more suitable), and being excited to be back in her own time and place.

There's an element of Rose Tyler to her, here. In The End of the World, having returned to Earth to be reassured by the Doctor that everything is ok, all Rose can think about is how much she wants some chips. It's nice! It's normal! All those adventures, out among the stars, they're fantastic. There's nothing like getting back home, though. It's that same feeling you get after a long holiday away. Dodo really did just stumble into the TARDIS the last time it landed here (is that why the Doctor made that 'out of order' sign?), and she's seen so much since then, but now she's back. Lovely.

In some ways, it feels obvious that she'll be leaving in this story. She's back home in her own time, her own city… There's a couple of obvious replacements hanging out with her down at the Inferno club. It's a shame I know she's not going to get the exit she deserves. And it looks like she's not going to get a chance to shine too much as a character before she goes, either. She spends parts of this episode complaining about a headache, before being taken under the control of Wotan, and sent off to do his bidding. A shame, yes, but it's good fun to watch. We've never had a companion hypnotised like this before, and Jackie Lane is making the most of it, doing it brilliantly.

…Hm? Sorry? What? Oh, no, it's ok. We don't have to talk about that bit of the story. It's fine.

Oh, all right, then. You know the bit. “Doctor Who is required”. It's a moment that causes a fair bit of controversy among fans who scream as loud as possible that his name isn't 'Doctor Who' (it doesn't half wind up my other half when I tell her that's his name). The thing is, at this point in the programme, it is his name! There's no getting away from it!

For as long as Gerry Davies is sitting in the script editor's chair, the lead character in this programme is called 'Doctor Who', and there's nothing we can do about it. I can't say it particularly bothers me, but I'm interested to know what others think. Leave a comment, or a tweet, or pop over to the 50 Year Diary Facebook page and let me know what you think.

Is it his name? At least for now? Does it drive you mad when people call him 'Doctor Who'? I'm genuinely interested to know!

Is it his name? At least for now? Does it drive you mad when people call him 'Doctor Who'? I'm genuinely interested to know! 

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Steve Lyons

RRP: £8.99 (CD) / £7.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 12th March 2013

The TARDIS has landed in a futuristic space casino, where the Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie find fun, games… and monsters everywhere. There are vicious robot dogs, snake-headed gangsters from the Sidewinder Syndicate and a mysterious masked woman called Hope.

In this place, time travellers are to be tracked down and arrested. Yet, as events spiral out of control, time may be Polly's only ally…

* * *

After last month’s reflective and very dark The Flames of Cadiz, we get a little light relief with House of Cards the first of this year’s Companion Chronicles to feature The Second Doctor. 

Despite Jamie’s involvement, this is very much Polly’s story and Anneke Wills has great fun taking centre stage. Usually when Frazer Hines is involved in a Companion Chronicle, his quite brilliant Patrick Troughton impression is never far behind. But this time there is a distinct absence of it, perhaps as to not overshadow Polly’s story, as, in fact, nearly all of The Doctor’s interactions in House of Cards take place with her.

Steve Lyons has written a great little time travel story and has fun in creating a rather ghoulish Casino and it’s unique inhabitants, where snake eyes are not just on the dice. The plot is neatly constructed and has the feel of a Steven Moffat “timey wimey” scenario. It's a nice example of how the new series bleeds into versions of the old one and vice versa.

When I reviewed last year’s Companion Chronicle by the same author, The Selachian Gambit, I was disappointed at how the use of Polly and Anneke Wills were a little wasted, the character being reduced to making the tea at one point. I’m happy that Lyons has written a story which showcases Polly’s strengths and it is a cracker.

House of Cards is good, old fashioned, fun Doctor Who adventure and well worth your attention.