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

Day 228: The Invasion, Episode Two

Dear diary,

It doesn't matter how much praise I had yesterday for the animated version of Episode One - it's lovely to be back into moving images again today because we're back in the world of Douglas Camfield! I've made my thoughts on his work perfectly clear enough times since the start of the diary, and it's nice to see that he doesn't disappoint here in his last contribution to the black and white era of the programme.

I'm not sure that there's anyone else who could have taken the helm on this story, to be honest. In many ways it's The Web of Fear brought out onto a bigger canvas, so Camfield is right at home. I think he's at his best during the early scenes of the Doctor and Jamie trying to shake off their pursuers - it looks far better than Doctor Who of this era has any right to, and I'd love to see these film sequences remastered for High Definition. It helps that these scenes take place against a backdrop of late 1960s London - a period I've stated my affection for more than once - and yet they're made to look very different to any of the programme's previous excursions to the big city.

The Dalek Invasion of Earth gave us lots of scenes taking place around the capitol's landmarks (Indeed, this story will tick another off the list before it's through), The War Machines took place in some rather nice-looking upmarket areas as well as the warehouses of Covent garden, The Faceless Ones dropped us into the alien environment of Gatwick airport, and the previously mentioned The Web of Fear trapped us in the claustrophobic tunnels of the Underground. The scenes in today's episode puts us in the grimy industrial streets, and they feel just right for this story - they're hard edged and pose a great backdrop for the threats looming over our heroes.

It's tricky to watch these moments now, knowing that one of the men rounding up the Doctor and Jamie is the future Sargent Benton - it stops them from seeming too shady. It's a testament to the way that Camfield has directed the sequences that you still get the impression things are about to go very wrong for the Doctor, despite knowing that UNIT is around the corner. It's also apt that when we get the first shot of a proper UNIT soldier, inside their aircraft base (speaking of which - how posh is that? They never got that kind of funding in the 1970s…), the attention is drawn to the patch on his arm, as though it's supposed to mean something to us. An audience at the time wouldn't have known quite how important UNIT were about to become for the programme, but it feels like a significant moment, all this time on.

It's lovely to see Nicholas Courtney back as the Brigadier, too. I can quote the scene where he meets with the Doctor again verbatim, and often think of it whenever I see the Brig turning up on screen in any story. I'm never sure why, but it's always seems fitting. I think the thing that surprises me the most about all this is just how glad I am to see UNIT coming together and in a story that's not all that far removed from what's hovering on the horizon. I've made no secret of how much I've always disliked the Pertwee era, but as we move closer and closer towards it, and I can see the elements falling into place, I'm actively looking forward to it. It's a distillation of all the things I'm enjoying in the Troughton era, but with an added dash of colour. It's lovely to be feeling this way - as I'd expected to start stalling in my marathon around about now, in an attempt to delay my arrival to the 1970s.

I could draw attention to the Brigadier's comment that it's been 'four years' since the incident with the Yeti, considering that it will pose a stumbling block for UNIT dating further down the line, but that feels too much like causing problems for myself. There'll be plenty of time to discuss that later. For now, I'm just sitting back and enjoying a story which seems to take the best that Doctor Who has to offer and merges it all together brilliantly.

a 

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

Day 227: The Invasion, Episode One

Dear diary,

It's almost a shame that we can't trade the two missing episodes of this story for two episodes of The Mind Robber. The idea of that story being made up of animated episodes just seems so right, doesn't it?

That's not to say that the animation here doesn't work, mind. Let's be honest, it's gorgeous. When The Reign of Terror first came out on DVD, several people complained that they preferred the style used on this release, and I thought they were mad. I'd just seen Reign and thought it was brilliantly done, whereas I remembered The Invasion looking a bit more static. In my mind, for some reason, I'd almost imagined this as a bit of a flash cartoon, like the ones done for the Doctor Who website back in the day.

But actually, this really is beautiful stuff. The shot of the TARDIS console, its central column gently rising and falling as we emerge from the titles is absolutely stunning. I know it wasn't quite like that on original broadcast, but now it's one of the best shots of the 1960s. Elsewhere in the episode, the animation really captures the noir style that I've always associated with this story (and looking at some shots of the Doctor and Jamie being escorted from the IE building made me realise that it was this I was thinking of back in The Enemy of the World) and simply sicks you in. I think it's always a good sign when you stop focussing on the fact that you're watching an animated fill-in for a missing episode and start just enjoying the story itself.

That's not hard to do with The Invasion, really. It's always been a story that fascinated me, even back when I was taking my first steps into the world of Doctor Who. For me, it was this mythical eight-part Cyberman story: their last appearance in the 1960s and featuring what many hold up as one of the greatest TARDIS teams of all. The fact that there were two episodes missing didn't even really factor in for me at the time, because I wasn't all that aware that there even were 'partially-complete' stories. I think I thought that it was either in the archive in full… or it wasn't.

The point was moot anyway, because my first experience of The Invasion came in the form of the soundtrack. When I think of all the missing episode soundtracks I've been through now in the course of The 50 Year Diary, it seems bizarre to think that I'd ever bothered to experience an existing story in this way. But back then, new to this world, I didn't know all that much better. Coming across the VHS tapes was a rare burst of excitement, but it was the newer merchandise that was easier to get my hands on.

Imagine, then, my thrill at discovering the 'Cyberman tin' in a shop on one shopping trip to Norwich. Back then we used to visit a couple of times a month, and I'd save up whatever cash I could for the trip. I can actually remember standing in Kulture Shock (I think the shop still exists, but in a severely reduced form. On a recent visit back home I noticed that the bridal shop which took over the premises has now closed too, and it sent an odd, nostalgic pang down my spine), picking up the tin and reading the list of contents: The Tenth Planet soundtrack (brilliant! Not only was this the Cybermen's first ever story, it was the First Doctor's last!), a CD featuring a reason of David Bank's Cyberman book (I've owned that book for years, but I don't think I've ever read it. Or listened to the CD, for that matter…), and… no? Surely not?

The soundtrack for The Invasion. I'm surprised I didn't pass out in shock, to be honest. At the time I was still living at home, and I spent the next week rationing the episodes of the story out to strictly one a night (hah! Some things never change…) while I made my way through. I can't remember much about my reaction to the story - I think I was simply too busy being excited to hear it. This was the big one. In the same way that the First Doctor had that big, epic adventure with the Daleks in the middle of his last season, the Second Doctor got a massive showdown with his enemies in the middle of this one.

What I can remember is that I was a bit surprised by the absolute lack of Cybermen for the first half. I think I was probably a bit miffed by that. For me, it was all about this being some big Cyberman epic, a big farewell to them as they departed the series for the foreseeable future. Older and wiser (stop laughing in the back), I can appreciate the way that the story builds up to the big reveal, and I think it's probably going to be all the better for it.

I always assumed that the appearance of the Cybermen at the end of Episode Four would have come as some big surprise to audiences back in the day (although, of course, the Radio Times had blown it right at the start of the story), but now that I'm making my way through, I can see how the reveal of the Cyber-planner here is a great hook for them - it only turned up a few stories ago, and we know it's a bit of Cyberman technology. It's another perfect example of why the series really is better enjoyed chronologically - it adds a whole new context that you miss when watching in DVD release order.

a 

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

Day 226: The Mind Robber, Episode Five

Dear diary,

I do have to wonder if part of the reason I'm liking The Mind Robber so much is that the episodes are so short. I stuck today's on while I was eating lunch and before I knew it - everything had finished! This one only clocks in at around the 17-minute mark, and the same is true for the other parts of this story - they're all shorter than your average Doctor Who. I don't know if it makes things more focussed, but it may be helping towards my enjoyment, certainly!

The other thing that's really appealing to me is that, for all the silliness of a story in which Gulliver and Rapunzel watch the climactic fight on a castle rooftop with pirates and superheroes firing laser guns, there's some genuinely sinister imagery throughout these five episodes. I've commented on how odd the first episode is, and the final shot of the TARDIS being blasted apart is a real sign of the programme moving out of its comfort zone, and we've the clockwork robots stalking the entire story, but today perhaps takes the crown.

The scene in which Jamie and Zoe tempt the Doctor inside a police box, filled with enthusiasm is fantastic. The way their faces stretch into huge, forced smiles is genuinely creepy, as they tease that things 'aren't over yet'. The shot that follows, of the cardboard cut-out TARDIS falling to the floor, to reveal the Doctor caught in a perspex piece of machinery is similarly unsettling, and then to add to it all, the group of Cockney children press their noses up against the case and laugh at his misfortune. Forget your Daleks and Cybermen - this is the kind of scene that would have left me scared as a child. It's not simply that the Doctor has been captured, it's that things are slipping away from his control more and more.

The various fights peppered throughout this final episode aren't necessarily anything all that special, but the final destruction of the Land of Fiction with the White Robots destroying everything they can get their guns trained on is very well done, as the set burns around our regulars. It felt a bit sudden when the episode simply finished, the Doctor having confirmed that they would be returned to their proper place in space and time (probably), but it's a rather well done ending to the tale.

I need to comment, one last time before I move on, about how this story would have suited as a successor to The Celestial Toymaker. It would have been a brilliant reveal had he stepped out during this episode to announce that he was the one in control of all this, and that the Master was simply the last victim to fail one of his games and be trapped there forever.

Way back when, during the Toymaker's first appearance, I said that ti would have been a hassle to have him turn up every time you wanted the Doctor to change his face (since turning the Doctor invisible the last time they met was supposed to be a viable way to get William Hartnell out of the series), but I don't think it would feel unusual to have the TARDIS team returned to the ship in this story, only to find that the Doctor suddenly looks different - and there's no way to change back with the Land of Fiction gone! Cue the titles!

In some ways, I'm glad that this doesn't simply serve as a follow up to that other story, as it gives The Mind Robber the room to breathe on its own as a slightly odd tale nestled in Season Six. It's been a mixed bag so far this year, what with an alien planet story that felt like a Season Two tale and an 'outside time and space' tale which feels like a sequel to Season Three. The quality of the stories has swung wildly (honestly, there was a point when I wondered if I'd actually make it to this story!), but the next one brings us closer to the kind of thing I've come to expect from Doctor Who of late. Here's hoping that - like The Mind Robber - I'll find my fond memories don't live up to just how good the story is…

a 

a  a

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

Day 225: The Mind Robber, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I’d completely forgotten that the real threat to the Doctor and his companions here was that they could become fictional characters themselves. I could recall their meeting with the Master in the heart of the Land of Fiction, and I knew that he wanted the Doctor to take over running the place, but all the stuff with the ticker tape and the Doctor choosing to take a different course of action had been completely wiped from my mind. It’s a shame, really, because it’s a great idea, and I’m a bit sorry that more hasn’t been made of it: it would have been good to see the Doctor actively having to guess which course of action would help them escape, and which would get them trapped forever.

The thing that really stood out for me today, which I don’t think I particularly appreciated yesterday, is just how well the Medusa effect works. I know the snakes in her hair are all done as stop motion, but it’s pulled off pretty well – certainly it’s one of the better effects we’ve seen from the series. There’s something about the blank, expressionless face (with those huge eyes, too!) which really is quite scary: my joke about turning it into a Weeping Angel doesn’t seem so far fetched the more that I look at her!

We’ve also got the White Robots back, on the hunt for the Doctor and his companions, but I can’t tell if they were always supposed to be a part of the story or if they’re just being used interchangeably with the Toy Soldiers as the Master’s guards. They only show up inside the void during the first episode and inside the futuristic scenes here, while the Toys are the ones on the hunt outside, in the rest of this realm. Could it be that they’re one and the same, but when surrounded by all the fictional characters they take on a more whimsical appearance.

While I really like the design of these robots, I can’t help but wonder if it may have been even better to have the Toy Soldiers in the story right From Episode One. All that stuff in the void is brilliant – but how much more memorable would it be if the robots that surround them from nowhere are the Toy Soldiers, looming over them with their headlamps flashing? It’s that perfect type of surreal image that the programme is so good at delivering, and it’s a bit of a shame that it didn’t happen. I imagine it’s because they had almost no budget for that first week (which is why these White Robot costumes were taken from stock), and thus weren’t able to get the tall chaps built until the following week. Still, a shame!

Today’s addition to the growing cast of fictional characters comes in the form of the Karkus, a slightly bizarre superhero in the guise of a Mexican Wrestler (the Doctor’s impression of the character allows us a brief return of Salamander). He’s from a series of comic strips published in the Year 2000, and over the years, I’ve often seen Zoe’s knowledge of him used to signpost that she’s obviously from the same year. It strikes me, though, that the implication is expressly that she isn’t. Having established that the Doctor isn’t aware of the character, she has to ask, ‘you’ve been to the year 2000, haven’t you?’ as though she doesn’t know for sure. The biggest issue this causes is that we see a reversal of the Doctor/Zoe dynamic from the last episode - she’s the one trying to convince her companion that the wrestler isn’t real, and he’s the one unable to believe it – despite just making his gun disappear because he doesn’t believe it’s possible!

Then there’s the Master’s on-going work of fiction: The Adventures of Captain Jack Harkaway. I think most fans have those little things which they believe in their own mind whether it’s stated on screen or not – and this is one of mind. Surely this series is based on the adventures of a certain Captain Jack Harkness (his name changed by the publishers to be more enchanting), as he recounts his tales of battling aliens through time and space? I’d love it if one of Jack’s stories made reference to a battered old police box and an ageless traveller, which brought the Doctor to the attention of the Land of Fiction in the first place from his place in this man's mind!

(Mind you, Zoe’s not quite on form when she hears of these tales. He claims to have written 5000 words a week for 25 years, and Zoe is shocked to announce that it would total ‘well over half a million words!’

Well, yes. It would. It’d total six and a half million words to be exact!)

a  a

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

Day 224: The Mind Robber, Episode Three

Dear diary,

The thing I'm finding odd about The Mind Robber is that I've got a snaking suspicion I shouldn't really like it. I mean, it feels completely out of keeping with pretty much everything we've ever had in the series before (despite all my comparisons to The Celestial Toymaker - this is weirder!) or since, and it really feels a bit out of place. In some ways, it's almost like they're really scraping the barrel of things to do with the programme.

I wonder if it's just that Season Five has completely altered my perception of what Doctor Who is supposed to be? During the Hartnell era, things were different every four-to-six episodes, sometimes swinging in wild directions (going for high comedy in things like The Romans or pure, educational history in The Aztecs, not to mention odd sidesteps into being an inch high or fighting the Daleks for twelve straight weeks), but the Second Doctor's era has felt far more uniform.

Suddenly, we're plonked down into this strange place, where following the white void and TARDIS behaving erratically stuff in Episode One, we're suddenly in a world of fiction, in which characters such as the Unicorn or Medusa can be perfectly real, and the Doctor can have a chat with Gulliver. It just feels like it's pushing the envelope that bit too far for me, and I really should be talking about how it simply doesn't work, and how it was one of the worst ideas in the show's long history.

And yet… there's just something about it that really, really, works. I'm finding myself genuinely caught up with it, and in a stark contrast to the last story, I can't imagine letting my attention wander - I'm simply glued to the screen. It's all pretty standard fare (the majority of today's episode revolves around the Doctor and his companions wandering through - essentially - corridors), but it really does keep you attached. I wonder if part of the praise needs to be passed onto our three regulars. While there's plenty of other characters in the episode, it still feels as though they're the only ones there. Maybe it's because we know that they're the only ones who can be described as 'real'? All the other characters come and go in the blink of an eye (Jamie clambering through the window to meet Rapunzel, only to find that she's vanished is great), making our heroes the only focal point.

It's great to have Frazer Hines back today, too. I spoke yesterday of how Jamie's face being changed felt perfectly in keeping with the story's theme of tests and surreal images, and the same is true of his return. In some ways, it feels like a shame to have the resolution be identical to the scene we saw yesterday - the Doctor having to put Jamie's face back together - but I think I prefer it to them just arriving somewhere to find that, ta-da!, Jamie is back to normal. Though Hamish Wilson turns in a fair performance as the highlander, no one can ever live up to Frazer - he is Jamie.

And he's back to being perfectly in keeping with the Second Doctor. There's a moment when they've entered the mysterious house, and the door slams shut behind them. In the exact same second, with the exact same Scooby Doo-like move, the pair turn in shock to find the source of the noise. Wendy pad bury also makes the turn, but she's not quite in time with the others. You get the sense that she's still finding her feet a little. That said, she's lovely when she's on screen alone with Troughton, and they way they hold each other close while the Medusa attacks is lovely.

It has to be said though - Zoe just doesn't get it, does she? In the opening moments of this episode, the Doctor manages to stop the charging unicorn by convincing his companions that it isn't real, so can't hurt them. He even explains this to them (and to us). A little later, they use the same trick to face off a minotour - but Zoe don't understand how it's not real when it's right there with them. The cliffhanger today is based on the same premise - the threat is only there because Zoe won't accept that it can't be. I'm hoping they'll slip in a few lines about how she finds it hard to accept because she's so used to dealing with facts, but I seem to recall having the same issue with this on my first viewing of the story.

Oh - and how has no one made a Weeping Angels re-edit of that cliffhanger?

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

Day 223: The Mind Robber, Episode Two

Dear diary,

This story really is a spiritual successor to The Celestial Toymaker, isn't it? We've got the Doctor and his companions transported to a dimension outside their own, where they're forced to take part in strange games, while an omni-present figure watches on. I wonder if anyone watching at the time may have put two and two together and assumed that the Toymaker would be making his return here? We even get one of the regulars being taken away and replaced with a new actor (they didn't actually go through with it during The Celestial Toymaker, of course, and Jamie is only temporarily removed from events here, but still…)

The strange thing is… I'm not sure that I'd be totally against having the Toymaker return. Sure, his first story wasn't exactly a classic, but done in a style like this, where we're kept guessing and the whole episode is filled with a sense of dread, I think I'd be all for it.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an episode of The Avengers - The House That Jack Built - for the first time, and couldn't help but spend the rest of the evening imagining it as a Toymaker story for the second Doctor. No, no, hear me out!

The story largely concerns Emma Peel being trapped inside a large, country house which has been completely restructured inside using advanced electronics to confuse her and drive her mad, to the point that she tries to kill herself (at least, that's the plan). For a long time, Mrs Peel finds herself running round and round in circles, unable to escape the house until she smashes her way to the central control room, where she finds the mind behind all this.

He's an ex employee (I think… I'd sort of lost track by that point) who had set all this up to get revenge on her. He'd been dead for a long time, and his body was preserved, sitting inside a glass box in the centre of the room, taunting her. Having decided that it would be a good basis for a Doctor Who story, I couldn't shake the image from my mind of the Second Doctor reaching the centre of the maze and finding William Hartnell's incarnation sat frozen in the box. Admittedly, it might be a bit too sinister for the Doctor Who audience, but it's probably put my mind in the right place for this story! Troughton really suits a situation where he's left to piece the puzzle together, and we're seeing the darker, more serious side to his Doctor come out again - the threat feels all the larger because of it.

There's a lot to like in this episode. The removal of Jamie feels totally natural, and I'm not sure it would stick out as particularly odd even if I didn't know that he was away with Chicken Pox that week. It fits so nicely with the rest of the events we've seen today that it's perfectly reasonable to think that it was scripted simply to cover a week's holiday. It also serves as a great way to set up some of the odd things that we've got going on in this one - from Zoe being trapped in an over-sized glass jar, to the Doctor being surrounded by schoolchildren who proceed to quiz him with riddles to assertion if he'd be 'suitable' or not for some unknown task.

Then we've got plenty of great images to take away with us, from the forest of words (though it's a shame they don't really match up between the studio set and the shot of the letters from above) to the Clockwork Soldiers, marching through the 'trees'. They make a brilliant noise while they seek out our heroes - suitably creepy. And then we end with a unicorn charging towards us! As ever with things like this, it doesn't quite work, but it's good enough to be passable. I like that there's no answers to all this yet. I vaguely know where things are going, but it's been so long since I last saw the story that I can only remember bits and pieces from the resolution. I'm enjoying beings swept along with the tale, though. If anything, I might be a bit disappointed when we find out it isn't the Toymaker watching from afar…

a 

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

Day 222: The Mind Robber, Episode One

Dear diary,

The Mind Robber was the first Doctor Who DVD that I picked up on release day. Up to this point, I'd been dipping into the classic series DVDs based entirely on which cover appealed to me most in the shop (and what a wonderful way that was to experience the programme! These days, even the stories that I haven't seen occupy some place in my mind, with some scrap of knowledge about what's to come. Way back when, it was down to reading the blurb and looking at the cover art - which is why hit took me so long to pick up The Leisure Hive…), it was now March of 2005, and with the Doctor's return to TV imminent, my interest was starting to peak in the programme.

I can clearly remember lots of key bits from all five episodes of this story, so clearly it made some kind of an impression on me - I don't think I've actually seen it since the first watch eight years ago. I've always just had it filed away as 'a good one'. To that end, I decided that today's episode would be one to show Ellie. During the Hartnell era, I made her watch part of The Web Planet with me, because I wanted to see her reaction to a 'bad' Doctor Who story. I figured today was a chance to make up for it with what I'd call a 'good' one (even if I'd also call it 'the most bizarre episode of the 1960s'…)

We sat in silence right the way through the episode. Occasionally, I tried to say something, but was met with a firm 'shh' as she pointedly watched the screen. Having reached the end, I asked her to sum up her thoughts. She thought it was awful. At one point, she described it as 'worse than the one with the ants'. Ah. Worth a try, I guess.

Still, I was pleased to find that, having come through all the episodes before this one, I thought it was even better than I remembered. I was already making a mental note of how I wanted to write today's entry: commenting that it's completely unlike anything we've ever seen from the programme… but it's not! Just two stories on from The Wheel in Space, we've another scene in which the Fluid Links break (temporarily, this time) and the TARDIS console room is threatened by an outpouring of mercury vapour. A few minutes later, the scanner starts to show images of nice places (or, more specifically on this occasion, places that Jamie and Zoe would like to be) that aren't really there. I'm pleased that at least Jamie makes mention of the fact this has happened before.

It actually all works for the better that we start in such a dull (sorry!) and familiar way - everything in the second half of the episode feels so much more out of place and odd when it's come immediately after this real feeling of normality. Ok, yes, you can see the join in the set when Jamie and Zoe are out in the void (and once you've seen it, it's impossible to un-see). Yeah, when the robots turn up, they stand about six feet away from our two companions, who look at them several times before confirming that they're the only ones there (this was the only time Ellie spoke during the episode - asking if the robots were part of 'the Silence', and if Jamie and Zoe were forgetting them).

But in spite of all this, it's really rather creepy. The Doctor sitting in the chair, pulling pained expressions while he fights a mental battle with an un-seen force is well done, and then we end on that fab cliffhanger - the TARDIS blows apart! If you're putting together a list of brilliantly effective cliff-hangers for the series, this one would need to be somewhere near the top of the list.

While I've got strong memories of this story in my mind and a general feeling that I'd enjoyed it before, I also seem to recall thinking that things headed down-hill after the first episode. I'm hoping that the improvement of even this one since last time is a good sign of things to come!

a 

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

Day 221: The Dominators, Episode Five

Dear diary,

You know that a story hasn't been all that successful when the thing that excites you the most about it is seeing the Doctor burn through a wall with his Sonic Screwdriver. He's clearly been tinkering away at the device a little bit since the last time we saw it, giving it a few extra functions. It's nice to see it starting to be more in keeping with the version of the tool we all know, and it really does help to give a feeling of evolution to the series. Enjoy me liking the device in these early days - there'll come a time, I'm sure, when I regret its invention!

…

Oh dear, it didn't take as long to praise the Sonic Screwdriver as I'd hoped it would. I've really not got all that much left to say about The Dominators, and I've not said much to begin with! I fear that I'm going to end up falling back onto old favourites, like praising the Quarks (I'm a total covert now. I'm a Quarkvert. I might get that made into a badge), or discussing how much I love the main cast of the programme.

Something that I do have to be thankful for is that this story was cut down from a planned six-episode length. I've discussed in the past how much I'm not a fan of six-part stories, and I fear that this one may well have finished me off for once and for all. I just can't see how they were planning to stretch things out over another whole episode before things came to a head - it feels like they're pushing their luck already.

I'm sorry to see Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln leave the series with this story, though. While I wasn't all that fond of The Abominable Snowmen (still lined up for a relisten after the marathon, though), I thought that The Web of Fear was one of the best examples of Doctor Who you could hope to find. If it existed in the archives, it's sure to be the 1960s story that you'd show to get people interested in the idea of 1960s Who.

Between them, they've been responsible for some pretty major additions to the Who mythos - the biggest of course being the Brigadier. Yeah, yeah, he'll evolve over the years (starting in just a couple of stories time) into a character basically unrecognisable from the one who turns up as a not-particularly-likeable chap on the London Underground but he still started with them.

Then, of course, we've got the Great Intelligence. Although the character has recently had his number of appearances considerably increased during the latest series, the character has always been among those hailed as a great Doctor Who villain. Barely a year has gone by since the programme returned in 2005 without someone asking for a return for the Yeti. The kind of reputation they have as monsters, you'd expect them to be in far more than two stories, both from the same season in the late 1960s.

I'm sorry that the behind the scenes fallings out meant that they never got to write the third Yeti story, in which the Great Intelligence would launch another attack on Earth, this time via Jamie's ancestral home (mind you, it would have played chaos with my Great Intelligence timeline), as I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it. The idea of the castle being surrounded by shaggy highland cows which stand up and turn out to be Yeti would surely be one of the best remembered cliff-hangers of all time. Bizzare yet brilliant - Doctor Who at its best.

It was partly the loss of that story which means that Jamie sticks around until the end of the Second Doctor's tenure, too. Regular readers will know it's no secret that I love Jamie as a companion, and I love Frazer Hines being on screen with his Doctor, but part of me would love to see him bow out early in Season Six, giving the Doctor a bit of time without him before he heads off to his exile. It makes the Second Doctor's tenure seem incredibly small to have this same human with him for all but one adventure…

a 

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

Day 220: The Dominators, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Will Brooks has ventured out today down to his local newsagents, where he's surprised to find Dr. Who running into those fearsome robots, THE QUARKS…!

Such was the BBC's belief that the Quarks would be the next big thing in Doctor Who, they actually make their first appearance in the TV Comic stories on the same day that Episode Four of The Dominators was broadcast. It's a pretty staggering turnaround (even today, for example, Doctor Who magazine has to play catch-up with the comic, companions not turning up until sometime after they first appear on TV), and serves to really show how much faith the BBC had in these little robots.

Invasion of the Quarks is a pretty significant story, as it sees the departure of the Doctor's grandchildren, John and Gillian, from the comic - the Doctor dumps them at Zebedee university in this instalment, once he's told by a fortune teller that he'll soon have a 'rendezvous with deadly robots'. It's a pretty unceremonious departure for the pair, considering that they'd been the regular companions in the comic for almost five years. They're dispensed with in the fifth panel, and the Doctor heads off to his fate.

The TARDIS arrives in a Scottish castle at night, when the Doctor is surprised by the arrival of a flying saucer, from which come a group of the Quarks. The Doctor claims to have never encountered the creatures before (placing this somewhere before Season Six for him, apparently) but adds that 'their reputation for destruction is unparalleled throughout the galaxies!'

I'm not sure, then, if these are quite the same Quarks that we're watching in The Dominators, since they're slaves in that story, as opposed to the great galactic conquerers that they're made out to be here. Still they look absolutely brilliant in comic form - even better than they do on TV (no, I still don't know why I love them so much. Yes, I know they're really rubbish).

As the story goes on, the Doctor finds himself chased through the castle by his new-found enemies, and ends up tumbling down a flight of stairs in the darkness. As a Quark looms at the top of the steps ('THE INTRUDER IS UNCONSCIOUS.. A RAY WILL FINISH HIM!'), a suit of armour swings its axe down and cuts off the Quark's gun. Somewhat improbably, the suit of armour is the hiding place for Jamie McCrimmon, who the Doctor is 'pleased to see again'. Don't ask me what this would do to their timelines - the Jamie of this story has been living in an apparently contemporary Scotland, and got caught up in the events of this story while visiting his friend at the local tracking station.

Together, the Doctor and Jamie steal one of the Quark's spaceships and fly right into the centre of their invasion fleet before firing ray guns at the other ships. After this, the Doctor claims that there's only one remaining task… and he blows up the castle to dispose of the remaining Quarks. Hm.

As you can tell, it's all a bit silly, and it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense… but it's brilliant! Hah! It's quaint and fun, and perfectly in-keeping with the version of the Doctor that'd been traveling through TV comic since I last dipped into them during The Highlanders. My plan today had been to take a look at this one comic story, and then move on, but it ends on a cliffhanger - as the Doctor invites Jamie back aboard the TARDIS, and are tracked by the Quarks, who declare revenge against their enemies.

I ended up reading through several of the following stories. Most do contain the Quarks in some form (occasionally with their genetically engineered giant wasps in tow. Obviously), and they're great fun. I've been enjoying them on TV, but they really do suit the comic strips. I'll admit that the thought of the Quarks as some kind of galactic powerhouse isn't one that comes naturally, but it's great fun.

I'm not going to rate all the Quark comics, but I'll be giving their first appearance a solid 8/10.

(As for The Dominators Episode Four… I watched it with the commentary on. There were some brilliant discussions of the way that Doctor Who was made in this period, and Arthur Cox sadly admits that he's only ever done the one Doctor Who story, before discussion turns to the recent casting of Matt Smith. Hang in there, Arthur, you'll be turning up in The Eleventh Hour before you know it.

I did go back and flick through the episode afterwards for some edited highlights, but to be honest - it's really not for me…)

a 

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

Day 219: The Dominators, Episode Three

Dear diary,

As The Dominators goes on, I'm finding myself more and more detached from it. Things started fairly well a few days ago, but I'm just bored now. After a while of staring at Episode Three, not really taking anything in, I actually returned to the menu screen of the DVD and switched on the Production Subtitles. I don't normally bother with this particular special feature, because - fascinating as they can be - I find it near impossible to keep up with them while also watching the episode. Thankfully, there's so little of interest happening in the episode today that I didn't mind missing long stretches of it.

Truth be told, I was hoping that the subtitles might give me something that I could talk about in today's entry, but even that seems to have fallen a little flat. It seems like a real shame that we've finally returned to a long stretch of the series being held in the BBC Archives, and this is the first example that we get! At least on audio, there's a chance that I could imagine the story being better than it really is. Can we give this one back and swap it for a few episodes from Season Five, instead?

On the plus side, the more the story goes by, the more I realise how much I love the Quarks. No, believe me, I didn't expect to be saying that, either. Even when this story started, I thought that they were silly and a bit naff as a Doctor Who monster (and try as I might, I can't look at one without picturing the skiing fridge from a Wallace and Gromit film), but I'm finding them more and more fun as time goes by.

There's a lovely shot in this episode where one of the Quarks is blown up (in another great explosion - the story is getting those right, at least), and its remains are scattered around the landscape. As the camera comes to rest on the remaining pieces of the creature, the head starts to wiggle slightly in the sand, independent of the body. It's actually quite effective! The one thing I did take from the Production Subtitles was a detailed description of the budgets allocated to Doctor Who, and specifically to the Quarks themselves: BBC Enterprises (the corporation's merchandising arm) was so sure that the Quarks would be the next big Dalek-like success that they actually contributed to the costs of the outfits.

While I love these little creatures, I can't say I'm all that sure about them being the 'next big thing'. They're plenty fine for here and now, but I can't imagine them coming back every few seasons to menace the TARDIS crew and posing any real kind of threat. They're the one thing that's keeping me interested in this story at the moment, though, so I'll thank them for that!

a 

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

Day 218: The Dominators, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I know that I'm not really supposed to like the Quarks - they're an odd design, even by Doctor Who's standards. They're a bit clunky, they've got a silly (and difficult to understand) voice, and I have to stop a smirk every time the arms swing out… but there's something about them that really works for me! Hah! Maybe I've been at this marathon for too long? I think the thing that works in the biggest favour for them is their size. When they're in shots with the Dominators (especially aboard the space ship) they look really effective waddling around so much smaller than anyone else around.

Coupled with the child-like voices (always unnerving - Russell T Davies used a similar trick with the voices of the Toclafane in the modern series), they come across as far more sinister than they have any right to be. As I understand it, the original intention was that they're heads should spin around to suggest them operating like a radar, and I can see this being really effective had it gone ahead - their heads are probably the best bit of the design (the body just looks like a fridge). I'm surprised to find myself being won around to the creatures, but I'm going to have to add them to my list of 'monsters that need an action figure release!

I think it also helps that they seem to be under the command of Strax the Sontaran. Seriously, I can't be the only one who sees it? Having decided that the Doctor and Jamie are total idiots (more on which in just a minute), Toba's first reaction is to ask 'should I destroy them?'. His lust for destruction was evident in yesterday's episode, too, but I didn't notice how similar he is to my favourite Sontaran until now. There's one moment when - again - he asks if he can destroy something, and Rango replies that things are to be investigated, not destroyed. He seems quite hurt. Maybe he's been at the Sherbert Fancies?

Certainly someone has been, when designing the interior of the Dominator's space ship. Bloody hell - it's mad! You'd never get anything done working in a place like that, since there's distractions on every wall. That's not to say that it's a bad design (I rather like the Tomb of the Cybermen-style display screens, though they'd give me a headache after too long), and it definitely gives you something to look at while the characters are pottering about deciding what to do.

The stand-out moment from today's episode, though, really has to be the Doctor and Jamie pretending to be completely stupid, in an attempt to fail the Dominator's intelligence tests. It's pretty clear that when you give Troughton and Hines something comical to be getting on with, they'll give it all that they've got and it's very true of these scenes. The highlight is the pair trying to pretend they don't understand how a gun works ('I think you put something in here…' the Doctor ad-libs), but the whole section is great fun. That said, it manages to be fairly sinister at the same time. The Doctor's looks of pain as he tries to fail the puzzle put him in a state we rarely see him (it has a similar effect to the final episode of The Abominable Snowmen - also by these two writers - in that it ups the stakes for us when he's in such a weakened state), and the effect of the electrified floor works pretty well, too.

And yet, despite all these little things that I'm able to pick out for praise, The Dominators seems to be less than the sum of its parts. Frankly, I'm just bored. Yesterday I mentioned that even if I wasn't all that captivated by things, it was at least holing my attention. That's not as true today, and I can feel myself starting to get distracted while the episode is playing out. I don't know what I need to reinvigorate the story for me, but it's going to need something and fast!

a 

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

Day 217: The Dominators, Episode One

Dear diary,

Well this is odd. I’ve gotten so used to the format of the programme involving bases under siege either on or near the Earth that this episode has felt like a real shock to the system. For some reason, when we watch a spaceship descend on the planet and two people walk out, it put me in mind of The Space Museum (No, I don’t know why, either). As the episode went by, I realised that it was more a general feeling of a Hartnell story that I was associating things with. Aside from Telos – where we spent most of the time inside the Tomb – we’ve not had a proper alien world in ages. (Incidentally, this is the first time since The Tomb of the Cybermen that I've been able to put a DVD for an individual story in the player too - that felt like a novelty!)

Here, we’ve got a vast landscape, and it really works. There’s a shot early on when the passengers of the 'ship' run across the terrain, with the sky stretched out overhead and it looks simply fab. There’s a joke to be made about this episode seemingly being filmed in a quarry, but it’s pretty effective all the same. It helps that we get lots of chance to see the landscape in question, and it’s often shot from some pretty creative angles, really making the most of the area. The cliffhanger, for example, in which Toba appears on a ledge flanked by two Quarks actually manages to look pretty good, whereas they’re not the easiest of aliens to take seriously. It’s also doesn’t hurt that the studio sets match up pretty well with the actual location. There’s some shots where I wasn’t entirely sure which was which.

What’s strange is that the TARDIS doesn’t arrive today for a full 8 minutes. We spend the majority of that time with guest cast, setting up the situation on this world. There came a moment, about halfway through all of this, that I realised I was thoroughly bored by the whole thing. That said, I was invested in it. There’s been several episodes over the course of this marathon that have let my mind wander and which I’ve struggled to pay attention to… but this isn’t one. It's not good, but it survives!

That’s true for the rest of the episode, too, even after the Doctor and his companions arrive on the scene. It feels like the kind of Doctor Who that gets parodied on countless spoofs throughout the years – the TARDIS arrives on a planet the Doctor has been to before (even his description of it, 'It was so splendid, I didn't want to leave', sounds like someone mocking the way the Doctor speaks), and sinister men in silly outfits stalk around in an attempt to be threatening.

It’s a low-key start to the new season, and not exactly a bold way to kick off the Doctor’s new set of adventures. For the last of the black-and-white seasons, I was hoping that things would start with a real jolt of energy: the programme reinvigorated by the introduction of a new companion! It could yet happen before the story is out, but I’m not on the edge-of-my-seat.

Still, I am excited to be at Season Six. Right from the beginning of the marathon, I’ve thought of Seasons Three – Five as being ‘the difficult ones’. They’re the years where not a great deal survives (since Troughton took over, I’ve only been able to actually watch 21 episodes, and that’s including today’s). I knew they were going to be a challenge, but actually, they turned out to be a great deal of fun. Many of the lost stories benefit from not being in the archives, and there’s several others that are so good it doesn’t matter what format they exist in.

It was only at the end of today’s episode, knowing that I’m going into another surviving instalment tomorrow (and the next day, and the next day, and the next etc etc) that it really hit me. We’re out of the ‘missing’ period, and now I can really settle in to enjoy watching the show again…

a 

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

Day 216: The Wheel in Space, Episode Six

Dear diary,

This is the part of the story where I should be complaining that, after all that, we get a total invasion of about eight Cybermen. And six of those don't even make it into the Wheel. You know what, though? I don't care! I've really enjoyed the ride for this story, and even the lack of Cyberman turning up as a really big invasion fleet isn't enough to dampen my spirits.

Being able to watch this Episode means that we get a chance to watch plenty of special effects. Indeed, I think this is the most obviously 'effects laden' episode we've seen since about as far back as The Ark. Oh sure things like The Web of Fear has it's web effect in the surviving episode, and The Underwater Menace has fish people bobbing about, but today we've got meteorites hurtling towards the Wheel! Jamie and Zoe making their way across space to the Silver Carrier! The crew of the Wheel blowing up the meteorites while our heroes dodge them… and that's all in the opening few minutes!

As the episode progresses we've got the Cybermen effects (the hypnotising thing we've already seen in Episode Three) and the Doctor electrocuting one of his foes, causing it to crumple up on the floor in a heap. You've then got the Cybermen's back up heading across to the Wheel, marching through space like a cold, unstoppable force!

Hm? Sorry? Oh, all right, then. Fine. Yes, the Cybermen heading over to the Wheel isn't the greatest of effects that the show has ever done, and I'll admit that it did let the ending down a little for me. Quite apart from the fact that they'd almost become transparent by the time they'd approached the Wheel, the Cyberman at the front insisted on walking along flapping his arms like a bird. It doesn't make for the most threatening thing we've ever seen them do. It's a shame, really, because a few seconds later he's trying to force open the doors to the loading bay, and that does work! It looks really effective! You can't have it all, I suppose.

The other effects in the episode - on the whole - are pretty good. The opening few scenes with Jamie and Zoe outside in space did put me in mind of a 1950's B-movie, but they did the job, and they didn't leave me disappointed - always a plus. We're now heading back to a period with a great many more surviving episodes (thanks to the animated release of The Invasion, I've only got five more episodes that I can't sit and watch from the rest of the decade), so I'm looking forward to keeping a tab on the effects in the series. Part of the fun in the early days was seeing how the team's confidence would build up, until they tried to do something that was just beyond their abilities.

I'm also pretty impressed with the design of the Wheel itself. I've been able to see it via the tele snaps right the way through the story, but today we get an especially good look at sections of it. The actual station itself, spinning in space, is as good as any ship ever designed for the programme, and it's nice to see some blueprints (of a sort) for it. As for the inside, the thing that really caught my attention was the bank of lava lamps! I shouldn't find them all that fascinating - I've got one in my flat, even! - by they do look fab in black and white, don't they? It doesn't hurt that they're much larger than your standard lava lamp, so they move in a slightly different way, too. I'm not at all sorry to admit that every scene they decorated the background of had me focussing largely on them as opposed to the Cybermen in front!

With the closing moments of the story, Zoe has slipped aboard the TARDIS and we're off into the third phase of the Second Doctor's era. I wasn't keen on her as a character when this story began, but I've warmed to her as the episodes have gone by (I think that's the intention, too. She's become more likeable and human as the story has progressed). I'm sure all her character will be stripped away over the next fortnight, but I'm looking forward to her joining the crew all the same.

Her first test as companion? Settle in and watch a repeat of The Evil of the Daleks. I've always found it odd that they wrote the repeat of a serial into the series itself, but even more odd, it's the story that introduces the previous companion! That must have been a bit jarring back in the day. I've always thought it might be better if they'd shown The Power of the Daleks instead - remind viewers of how the Second Doctor began. Actually, though, having watched through the series in this manner, I can see the logic behind choosing this one. It's got Jamie in, for a start, and Victoria is still fresh enough in the minds of the audience to make sense. Ben and Polly are our companions in Power, and they left the series a whole year ago - they're old news!

I had debated doing the serial again, to see if my opinion might have changed, but to be honest, I'm not thrilled by the prospect. I even considered spending tomorrow reading the Target novel of The Evil of the Daleks so I could at least claim that I'd tried. In the end, though, I'm keen to press forward with the series, so I'll be moving straight on to the next story, and trying something a little bit different…

(And no, I'm not going to bring up the Doctor's 'sexual air supply'…)

a 

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

Day 215: The Wheel in Space, Episode Five

Dear diary,

Aha, now we’re starting to see Zoe coming in as the new companion, and she gets to share a cliffhanger with Jamie, moving through space towards the Silver Carrier. It’s an odd sort of cliffhanger to lead into the final episode – the Cybermen aren’t the focus of the threat but it’s much more about the impending shower of meteorites. That’s sort of true of The Wheel in Space as a whole, though: the Cybermen are there just to be the token monsters. Even the Cybermats are only there to help further the plot.

I’m quite fond of the way that everything we’ve seen so far – Jamie sabotaging the Wheel’s laser (which would have been the first point-of-call for the Cybermats anyway), the destruction of the bernalium supplies, the two crew members heading over to the Rocket… it’s all simply been happening as a way to get the Cybermen onto the Wheel itself. The crew are now of little importance and can be disposed of, but up to now, everything has been calculated.

The only problem? I’m not entirely sure that I buy the Cybermen’s motives. The Doctor claims that they desire the ‘mineral wealth of Earth’… but is that true? What use would the Cybermen have with Earth’s minerals? I guess he could simply be speaking poetically, and what he really means is that they simply want the Earth itself (that’s their goal in The Moonbase, after all, which is set sometime not too far from now), but I’m still not sure. It’s a shame, because everything else is really working for me, but my favourite baddies are just a bit redundant here.

What’s lovely though is that by relegating the monsters to more background roles, we’re given plenty of chance for the rest of the characters to shine. Jamie and Zoe get to share a lovely scene here, in which he reassures her that they’ll come up with some way out of all this mess and she confesses that she’s not too sure. It’s very reminiscent of a similar scene with Victoria from the last story, but on this occasion it’s being held with someone who doesn’t know the Doctor’s way of doing things.

It’s lovely when Zoe wonders what’s left for her after all this trouble has passed. The Doctor has broadened her horizons somewhat, and taught her that a blind reliance on logic isn’t always the right thing to have. It feels like a theme that commonly runs through the modern version of the series – the Doctor takes people and makes them better. I know that Zoe is likely to just slump into generic companion mode before too long, but it’s nice to think that there could be a real journey for her character, and that travelling in the company of Jamie and the Doctor really could be beneficial to her.

The big thing to mention with today’s episode surely has to be that it’s the last time I’ll be using the work of John Cura during this marathon. He continued telesnapping up to somewhere around The Mind Robber, but we’re about to enter a period of surviving episodes the likes of which we’ve not seen in months. I don’t think there’s any debate that fans of archive British television owe an awful lot to John Cura – without him, we’d have an awful lot less to look at from these early stories of Doctor Who, for a start!

Regular readers of The 50 Year Diary will be well aware that I’m not a fan of reconstructions, but I do tend to flick through Cura’s telesnaps either as I listen to the soundtracks, or afterwards before I write up my entry. Since the first load of snaps I used for Marco Polo, I’ve been through a fair few of them. It's a really novel idea for a business - capturing images directly from the TV and selling them to the people involved in a time before any kind of domestic video recording was thinkable at a reasonable price.

Without the work of Cura, moving through all these missing episodes would have been a lot more of a chore - it's lovely to picture the stories in my head and then get home and find out how close I was to the actual truth. After 216 days of the diary, I've become pretty well attuned to the look of 1960s Doctor Who, and it's lovely to have a series of photographs to refer to.

Cura's work has also been used on reckons for The Avengers, and is a way to see missing parts of many other archive programmes of which I'd consider myself a fan, so now is the perfect time to say thank you to John - for the foresight he displayed and the joy that he's managed to bring to millions by preserving these lost classics.

a 

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

Day 214: The Wheel in Space, Episode Four

Dear diary,

This is quickly becoming another one of those stories where I really wish that I didn’t know what’s coming up. I know that Zoe becomes our new companion, because I’ve seen bits of Season Six. It’s not obvious, though, while watching this story. There’s plenty of candidates here that could go on to be the ‘new girl in the TARDIS’ – Gemma, for instance – and Zoe isn’t the most obvious of those they could choose from.

There’s a point towards the end of the episode, when things have started kicking off, where Zoe asks if she can be of any help. ‘No,’ is the rather abrupt response. She tries to protest, deciding that there must be something that she can do. Still no. It serves as another chance to show that Zoe isn’t really all that liked by her colleagues on the Wheel, but it also makes her look a little useless as a potential companion. At least she’s trying.

There’s more examples in this episode of that background detail that I’ve been enjoying all along, and it’s fleshing Zoe out nicely. We get something of an explanation for her being the way she is when she complains that her brain has been ‘pumped full of figures’ and we hear the kind of training that she’s received being described as ‘brainwashing’. It seems in some ways as though Whittaker is trying to draw a direct comparison between Zoe and the Cybermen – she keeps being referred to as ‘emotionless’ and all this talk of brainwashing comes at around the same time they start to notice the Cybermen hypnotising other members of the crew.

And then you’ve got that cliffhanger, in which the Doctor and Jamie go down into the loading bay and discover the crates used to bring the Cybermen across from the Silver Carrier. Surely this would be a great opportunity for Zoe to join them in their explorations? Really highlight her as being the one best suited to be a part of this team? On the plus side, the cliffhanger is the one that I’ve been expecting, in some form, since Episode One – the Doctor and Jamie turn around to see a Cyberman! Dun, dun, dunnn…!

Actually, though, it’s done very well. It helps that we’ve had to wait for this one, meaning that the Doctor isn’t confronting the Cybermen directly until the last third of the story. It’s been a bit of a slow burner so far (which might go some way to explaining why several people have been commenting on how boring they find this story to be), but that’s really working for me: we’ve been dropped into this world, and we’ve watched on as the Cybermen have mounted their (slow) invasion.

I think my only real complaint with the Cybermen on this occasion is that there’s only two of them. Part of the reason The Tomb of the Cybermen looked so impressive is because when they thaw out, there’s loads of the silver giants stood around. They tower over the archaeologists and form a very credible threat. Here, there’s only the two of them and they’re doing all the legwork. From time to time, they check in with the Cyberplanner, but then it’s all up to them. Where are the rest of them? I’m hoping that this pair is just the advance party, and that the creatures will be turning up en masse before the story is over, but coming at the end of the season, I can’t say that my hopes are high…

One thing I did want to draw attention to is a quick exchange of dialogue between the Doctor and Gemma. It’s only brief, but when I heard it I was holding the door for someone on my way out of a building, looking like a loon because I was smiling my head off. It’s a lovely exchange because it perfectly highlights the background texture that I keep banging on about in this story. The Doctor tries to attract Gemma’s attention by calling her ‘Miss Corwin’ and she replies that it’s actually ‘Mrs’. When the Doctor apologises, she explains that her husband died three years ago in the asteroid belt. It’s only a little exchange, and I’m sure that it’s not going to have any massive significance later on in the story (were this the modern series, I’d possibly expect one of the Cybermen to be revealed as her husband post-conversion), but it gives her character a bit of depth and background that you don’t always get when the crews of these bases are simply sketched in before being bumped off by the monster of the week.

The same is true of our commander today. We’ve had plenty of stubborn base leaders turning up in the series since The Tenth Planet, so it initially struck me as odd that the Doctor would be so confused by the presence of such a person in command on the Wheel. Actually, though, we’re watching him go through some kind of a breakdown as the story progresses. It’s another reason that a slower-paced story can be beneficial – we’ve seen him at the helm of this space station when he’s in his right mind, making decisions and giving orders, so it makes a real impact when things start to go off the rails for him. There’s a sharp change between his reaction to Bill Duggan being found with a dead body and talking of metal rodents, to later releasing the Doctor and Jamie from their guard – it’s not something he’d have been doing twenty minutes earlier.

We’re at the point of the story now where we can start to see some real pay off. Having gone through all this build up, everything is in place for an explosive finale to the season. We’ve got the Cybermen on the Wheel, Cybermats in tow, and the focus should now be shifting to the climax. It’s been a promising start, and it’s looking increasingly as though Season Five could be going out with a real bang!

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

Day 213: The Wheel in Space, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Stupidly, I'd forgotten that the start of today's episode would give us a chance to actually watch the cliffhanger for Episode Two - there I was pouring over the telesnaps! Yesterday, I praised the fact that we'd not had a full Cyberman reveal yet, but having actually watched the cliffhanger now, it's pretty clear just what is inside the eggs before it bursts out. To be honest, though, I think it works even better! It's still not quite a full reveal, but it's still very unusual - both for the series and for the Cybermen, and I think that the sheer oddity of the whole sequence would have kept talk in the playground rife all week long.

Now that the Cybermen have properly hatched (what? it's as good-a term as any!), we get to see plenty of them in today's episode: and don't they look fab? It's not a massive change in design to the one that we've been used to since The Moonbase, but it looks really effective here. We get a couple of shots with a pair of Cybermen sat facing their computer banks, and every time we cut back to it, I seem to find myself smiling. It just looks so good. Admittedly, it's not quite as effective once the shot starts to move in on one of the creatures, but it's not long before we're back to the better angle.

Director Tristan de Vere Cole didn't helm any other Doctor Who stories, so there's nothing else that we can compare him against, but based on his work here, I get the feeling that The Wheel in Space might have looked pretty good throughout. The standout moment in today's episode has to be the Doctor idly musing that while his memory has been lost, there's still something floating around at the back of his mind. 'Some warning,' he mumbles, 'some menace…'. The close up of his face then fades into that of a Cyberman accepting orders at the computer terminal - it's simple but very effective, and not something that we often get in the series.

It's not just a pair of silver giants turning up for the action today, though. They've brought the Cybermats back with them, and I'm still finding myself utterly entranced by them. As I said during The Tomb of the Cybermen, I've always somewhat written off the Cybermats as being a bit rubbish, but they're actually a pretty effective 'monster'. There's a shot late in this episode where four of the creatures surround a man, all advancing on him as their tails wag… and it looks really good! I'd not go so far as to say that it was scary, but it's certainly a great moment in the story, and does help to up the creatures in my estimations.

We've also got the first appearance in the series of the Cyberplanner, although it's not described as such. It looks pretty effective when it appears full-screen against a black background, issuing orders to the more conventional Cybermen. Also - it has a voice I can understand. I don't know if it's just me being out of practice with the Cybermen (it's been a little while since they last turned up - certainly it's the longest stretch we've had without them since they first appeared), but when they started giving out instructions to the two crew members during the episode's cliffhanger, I didn't have a clue what was going on.

The Cybermen aren't the only cold, emotionless, logical creatures to play a big part in this story - we've still got Zoe hanging around on the Wheel. I have to admit that I am warming to her today, but much of that seems to be the rather sweet way that she doesn't realise the Doctor and Jamie gently teasing her. Maybe it's simply that she's got a pretty thick skin: some of the comments made about her earlier in the episode (directly to her face) would certainly be constituted as workplace bullying. Just some of the ways she's described today are 'all brain and no heart', 'just like a robot', and 'a proper little brainchild'. Compared to this, Jamie's tease that she's 'a right wee space detective' seems quite innocent (although it has led to the theme song from Captain Zep, Space Detective playing round in my head on a loop ever since).

While the Doctor seems initially hostile towards Zoe, he soon warms to her. I think he's sizing her up as a possible replacement for Victoria - letting her work out the answers for herself wherever possible and leading her in the right direction by suggesting that there may be more to the solution than simply analysing the facts. This episode is home to another of Troughton's famous lines - his 'logic' speech to Zoe. I think Jamie is starting to come around to the idea of her, too, as he seems to be thawing out a little as the episode goes on.

It's nice to see that - even with the Doctor now awake - Jamie is given plenty to do in this story. He's mistaken as being a saboteur when he vandalises the Wheel's laser (admittedly, it doesn't look great when someone walks in on you purposely putting your only form of defence out of order!), and he's quick to help the Doctor along with his investigations, which are all conducted from his hospital bed. I think we're starting to see the early stages of the team most people declare to be the 'best' of the Troughton line-ups, and it's nice to think that we're headed in the right direction…

a 

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

Day 212: The Wheel in Space, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Something that I’ve seen complained about quite a lot in relation to The Wheel in Space is the idea that the Cybermen in the story are ‘hatched from eggs’. Admittedly, it’s a pretty fair description of what happens in the closing moments of this episode, but what the complaints fail to mention is just how effective it is as a cliffhanger.

Over the last two episodes, we’ve seen several of these eggs (the narration calls them ‘spheres’, but ‘egg’ just sounds better) float across the void of space and attach themselves to the side of the Wheel. We’ve watched the crew try to piece together all the various odd things that are happening to their systems, while we know that it’s being caused by the presence of these eggs. Now we find out that they’re not just some odd space phenomena – they’ve got Cybermen inside them!

Even more effective is that the cliffhanger still isn’t your run-of-the-mill ‘Cyberman bursts through a doorway!’, or ‘The Doctor and his companions turn around to see… a Cyberman!’. It’s left to you to recognise the fist of a Cyberman sticking out from the recently powered-up egg (there’s a sentence you don’t write every day), and then we’ll get the full reveal – I’d imagine – in the next episode. It’s nice, because it’s allowing the threat to build, and I’m less concerned about them spending the entire story stood around looking menacing, which is what I’d been expecting.

I think it’s always a good testament to the quality of a particular episode if you can remove the Doctor from the action (Patrick Troughton doesn’t appear at all in today’s instalment, and the unconscious Doctor is played by a stand-in) and still remain just as interested n the events unfolding on screen. Jamie is left to carry much of the action, heading out to explore the Wheel in the company of our new companion, Zoe. It’s interesting how much of a contrast they’re going for with Zoe, swapping out Victorian companion for a girl from the near-future, with an intellect that could square up to that of the Doctor.

What’s odd is that I don’t especially like Zoe, yet, and I’m not all that sure that you’re supposed to. She’s presented as treating things in a cool, logical manner and not really showing a great deal of personality. When asked to covertly keep an eye on Jamie as she gives him the grand tour, she declares that it could be ‘interesting’ as a project, and when another crew-member expresses fascination at the fact that some of the plant on the Wheel have travelled all the way from Venus, she chimes in to give the exact distance in several different measurements. I think Jamie sums it up best when he dryly responds: ‘Oh. I was dying to know that…’

The entire location of the Wheel feels very fleshed out – certainly more so than that of some other bases we’ve seen throughout this season. Yesterday i complained that none of the crew really stood out of the crowd for me, but today you get the impression of a history to these characters and a string of previous interactions in both their professional and private lives. This feels like a very real world, and I think that’s what’s drawing me in and keeping me interested. There’s discussion of people back on Earth who feel that the space programme should be suspended (although no further context is given) and they spot something is amiss with Jamie because he leaves his water – something that’s in short supply out in space. It all helps to make it feel like the TARDIS has landed our heroes into a place that’s been going for some time, and you get the impression that it’ll keep on going, long after they’ve left (assuming the Cybermen don’t totally wipe them out, that is).

Today’s entry can’t go by without mentioning two new naming additions to the series. Firstly, Jamie is given a middle name – Robert – when he identifies himself to Gemma. Secondly, and probably more importantly from the point of view of the series as whole, we get the first instance of the Doctor being given the alias ‘John Smith’. It’s a name Jamie takes from the side of some medical equipment, and it’s not fooling anyone from the start, but it’s a name that’s going to stick, and is still in use right up to the current series.

I’m almost sorry that we’re likely to move into a regular ‘base-under-siege’ tale from now on, in which the Cybermen attack the Wheel, as I’m enjoying all the build up. I’m hoping that the rich background that’s being painted here is going to hold firm throughout the rest of the story, as it would be lovely to see Season Five (and the format of Season Five) going out on a high. It’s certainly a good strong start…

a 

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

Day 211: The Wheel in Space, Episode One

Dear diary,

I’ve always thought that had I been both a fan of Doctor Who and working in a high position on the programme during the original run, I’d have spent half my time renting out viewing rooms in TV Centre and watching all the old episodes on a loop. Well, until they destroy them all, anyway. It seems I’m not the only one to have such a mindset, though, because David Whittaker has obviously written today’s episode fresh from a viewing of The Dead Planet, Episode One of The Daleks.

The whole episode is filled with elements that make up the first 25 minutes of that Dalek tale – there’s something wrong with the TARDIS’ fluid link (though, this time, there really is something wrong – the Doctor’s not just making it up), and the ship is unable to leave this strange, seemingly dead location until they can find some more mercury to get things working again. When the ship first starts to go wrong, the Doctor instructs Jamie to check the ‘fault indicator’, which is clearly a component of the earlier fault locator, if not the same device entirely. He describes it as being ‘over there on the left’, which you could interpret as Jamie being sent off to the same room that featured in several of the early Hartnell adventures.

We’ve even got a scene in which Jamie is bamboozled by a ‘futuristic’ food machine, which splits out his desired meal in the form of a small cube. The scene plays almost identically to the one in The Dead Planet, and I’d not be surprised to hear Ian make the same ‘I’ve heard of a square meal’ joke as Jamie does here (though he didn’t at the time).

Perhaps the biggest thing that makes this feel like the earlier adventure, though, is just how long we spend in the company of just the Doctor and Jamie. Oh, sure, there’s a Servo Robot waddling around in the background, but really our only focus for at least the first fifteen minutes of the story is our two regulars. We get a recap of Victoria’s departure, and on this occasion they mention the TARDIS’ unusual take off at the end of the previous story – it was omitted from the end of the Fury From the Deep narration (possibly to let the story go out with the emotion of Victoria’s departure) – and then we’re into that old classic of the Doctor and his companion exploring their new surroundings without encountering any of the guest cast.

It’s almost becoming a tradition now that the Doctor and Jamie get an episode to themselves before they encounter their next companion, but it’s another one of those great opportunities to see the pair shine together on screen. It gives the pair a chance to breathe, and makes Victoria’s departure from the programme all the more poignant. It’s not simply a case of one out, one in, but rather a bit of a break before they meet someone else that they’d enjoy spending their time with. The only problem this gives me is that I’d love a full story of just the Doctor and Jamie from start to finish, and you’d think that this would be the time to have one – fresh from their loss but not quite ready yet to make a new friend.

When the guest cast does finally arrive on the scene, the narration gives us a full run down of every member we see, and I have to confess that I rather lost track of them all by the end. I’m sure they’ll each develop their own distinct personalities before the end of the story, but for now I’m just labelling them ‘generic base crew’. It’s a slow start to the new story, but I’m cautiously optimistic. If nothing else, it’s nice to see that the Cybermen haven’t been introduced as the end-of-episode cliffhanger, but we’re left guessing for that little bit longer. In contrast to Fury From the Deep, this feels fresh and different, and that can only be a good thing.

a 

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

Day 210: Fury From the Deep, Episode Six

Dear diary,

'I was fond of her too,' the Doctor snaps at Jamie in the closing moments of this story, as the pair watch Victoria's departure from the TARDIS. Sadly, I'm not entirely sure that it's a sentiment that I can echo. For me, Victoria has really been the first of the companions that's not made any real impact on me. It's a shame, really, because Deborah Watling has turned in some nice performances, and Victoria has been part of some lovely scenes (and some really fab stories), but whereas with Steven, or Polly, I didn’t want to say goodbye... I'm not going to miss Victoria - I just don't really think I'll notice that she's gone.

That said, her departure is handled better in the last half of this episode than it has been for the rest of the story. Having gone through a few episodes with Victoria complaining about the state of their lives, things get somewhat toned down now, and we get a chance for her to actually stop and think about her decision, without having to make it in the middle of an adventure. The Doctor asks her if she really wants to leave, then offers to stay one more night, just to give her a chance to sleep on it. We then get that beautiful scene with Jamie and Victoria out on the balcony - it's possibly the best performance that we've had from either companion as they sadly discuss what's to come.

I think it helps that following this, much of the departure is then handled wordlessly. The narration on the soundtrack describes them as saying their goodbyes, before the Doctor and Jamie paddle back over to the TARDIS (it's back out in the middle of the ocean, now, as in Episode One, but during Episode Three it's described as having been 'conveniently washed up on the shore'. Has the ship just been going in and out with the tide while we've been off fighting sentient seaweed?) and have their discussion in the console room. It's lovely to be left not knowing what their final words to each other were: it feels far more romantic than actually watching in on them.

It's probably fitting that in the story introducing the Sonic Screwdriver to the series, the creature is defeated by noise, or as the Doctor more accurately puts it, 'sonic vibrations'. It's clear that his Sonic will play a vital role in the denouement… except it doesn't. A tape recording of Victoria's screams saves the day. In a way, I guess it's quite nice that she gets to be a vital part of the Doctor's life one last time, but it does feel odd. I'm going to go out on a limb and chalk this up as another one of those instances that makes the Doctor think more work is required to make the device all the more functional.

Overall, I've been really disappointed by Fury From the Deep. I don't think it helps that it's another one of those stories which has a reputation for being one of those big, Doctor Who 'classics'. There's an awful lot to love in here, and if you wanted to sum up the Troughton era in a single story, this would probably be the one to do it. As I've said before, though, it's just too close to everything around it to really stand out of the tide. The more that the story has gone on, the more I've been picking out similarities to other stories and trying to decide which version is better. Admittedly, Fury From the Deep wins out in a few cases, but not always. There's so many bits of the story that put me in mind of The Macra Terror (today's addition to the list is the Doctor and his friends staying behind after the adventure to enjoy a celebration with the guest characters), a story which I rated very highly - it's just made me want to listen to that one again!

Still, we now enter the third and final phase of the Second Doctor's era, with the introduction of Zoe. And to top it off? It's the return of my favourite monsters - the Cybermen. Unlike this story, I'm not really sure how fans rate The Wheel in Space, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised?

a 

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

Day 209: Fury From the Deep, Episode Five

Dear diary,

Quite a few times since Troughton took over the role, I've commented that certain scenes (or, in some cases, certain episodes) feel less like Doctor Who and more like anything else that was on television at around the same time. We've had one or two stories that wouldn't feel out of place in the more surreal parts of The Avengers, or Adam Adamant Lives!, for example.

What's really happening is that the programme is evolving. People always talk about the shift to colour and the grounding of the Third Doctor to contemporary Earth as though it's some huge sea change that occurs once the 1970s hit. Actually, ever since The War Machines at the tail-end of Season Three, we've been spending more and more time on modern-day (or close enough) Earth. Jamie and Victoria comment on it at the start of this very story: since the start of the programme's Fourth Season, there's been no end of tales set within 100 years either side of the broadcast date - ranging from The Tenth Planet twenty years ahead in the 1980s, to The Faceless Ones and The Web of Fear taking place during the year they're made (or thereabouts…). Even stories like The Enemy of the World can't be all that far into the future.

We just didn't really get things like this during the First Doctor's time at the TARDIS controls. Our history was usually further flung than the 1920s and we spent much more time out on distant worlds than we do now. It's this that causes the series to feel more like everything else that's being shown - because it's changing to fit the same format as many of these other programmes. I've made no secret of the fact that I'm not especially looking forward to reaching the Third Doctor's era, but I'm surprised that it's all being fed in this early, and I'm wondering just how much of a change it's going to feel when the time does roll around for the Doctor's exile to Earth…

One of the benefits of the programme starting to feel more and more like all these other shows is that - from time to time - you can use the others to give context to an episode of Doctor Who. Today's episode sees first Robson (with Victoria as his captive), and then the Doctor and Jamie taking a helicopter out to the drilling platforms where they can confront the Weed. All the shots of the platforms were filmed at the Red Sands Fort in the Thames Estuary, a sea defense built to fire on enemy aircrafts fairly late into World War Two.

By the 1960s, with the various sea forts abandoned, many were adopted as homes for pirate radio stations, and Red Sands became home to Radio 390. This setting formed the backdrop for one of the very last episodes of Danger Man in 1965, and I've watched it this evening to get a feel for the location, since it looks like it'll be playing a key part in the resolution of our current story! It's an odd change of pace to be watching something like Danger Man - shot on film, and containing an entire story in an hour-long episode, it's got a very different feel to Doctor Who: to sum it up, it's slicker.

The episode - Not So Jolly Rodger - is set almost entirely out on the Red Sands Fort, which gives plenty of opportunity to see the place showcased. It's a crying shame that we don't get to see more of it in the surviving tele snaps for Fury From the Deep, because it looks like a stunning location to set a story. Silhouetted against the clear blue sky while the sea lashes at the thick trunks that hold the forts above the waves, it's incredibly remote, and as 'alien' as you could possibly want. The tele snap of one tower covered with foam and weed is sadly not the best quality image - it could have made a very striking impression if it's our first shot of the towers in the story. Sadly, I imagine that they don't get shown off quite as well in Doctor Who as they do in Danger Man - the way the two shows were produced would have seen to that. It's worth tracking the episode down, though, just to get an idea of how brilliant it may have looked.

(Fittingly, the design of the Red Sands Fort was adapted in 1955 to be used for the very first off-shore drilling platform in the North Sea - so the location is pretty accurate!)

I still can't shake the feeling that this story would be rating a lot better with me if I were seeing it divorced from everything else around it. Today, we can add the two helicopters to the list of things cropping up this season (I was very impressed with the appearance of one during Enemy of the World, but it feels like old hat now!), plus the usual bouts of foam, possession, and Victoria whinging. I'm spending more time tying up plot developments to other recent stories than I am actually enjoying this one.

It's a shame, because it's perhaps easier to see in this episode, more than the first four, just how dark this story is. I've already mentioned just how scary some of the surviving clips are, but today's cliffhanger, with Robson almost swallowed in the foam as he announces that 'we've been waiting' for the Doctor could go down as one of the most unnerving things we've had in the show for a long time. Again, sadly, the tele snap doesn't do it any favours, laving the impression that it's either terrifying or hilarious.

There's plenty of great dialogue on show, too, that really helps to heighten the situation. My favourite has to be the Doctor's grim warning to Jamie - 'we're already in the lion's den. What we've got to concentrate on is keeping our heads out of it's mouth.' Much is being made, too, of the Doctor's lack of certainty with the situation. He's usually got a plan tucked up his sleeve, but today he's completely stumped. He spends while staring off into space as he thinks through the situation, then grimly declares that he simply doesn't know what to do. It's unsettling, and I really wish I could enjoy the story more than I am. Fury From the Deep is almost certainly a tale that could benefit hugely from a re-watch (re-listen) once the marathon is over…

a 

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

Day 208: Fury From the Deep, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Crikey, once Victoria has decided that she's had enough, she's really not going to let it go, is she? Having decided yesterday that she's sick of constantly being in trouble, she really labours the point here today, bringing it up on more than one occasion with both the Doctor and Jamie. In some ways, it's almost like she's completely lost faith in what they're doing - when Jamie reassures her that the Doctor will come up with something to save the day (after all, that's what he does in every story!) Victoria whines that she's not so certain, and then panics when the Doctor admits that he hasn't quite worked out what's going on yet.

My biggest issue with all this, though, is more the way that Victoria has been treated in the long-term. I've mentioned a couple of times how her character seems to swing back and forth between loving life in time and space and being less than certain the this life is for her. Wouldn't this feel so much better if she'd always been so unsure of things. I'll readily admit that I'd be complaining endlessly in these diary entries if she simply whinged on like this every week, but it would make her complete giving up here work just that little bit better.

However, I did suddenly wonder today if there might be an outside influence to her sudden departure. I'll need to hear the next two episodes before I can make a definitive statement, but I wonder if it's possible to add another footnote to my Great Intelligence timeline that makes her actions here seem to be a little less… sudden. We know that there's a small piece of the Intelligence in her mind left over from their trip to Tibet earlier in the season, and we know that she'll later be drawn back to the country, plagued by visions of her late father (I know this means treating the fan-made spin off Downtime as canon, but I've been doing so all along, and I've seen that more times than I've seen some official Doctor Who stories!).

Is it possible that the Great Intelligence, having survived the end of The Web of Fear and retreated back into space is calling on Victoria here, trying to separate her from the Doctor and Jamie so that she can become a pawn in his larger game? Although no date is given on screen for this story, fandom tends to assume sometime in the mid-1970s (indeed, this world tallies with some of the technology seen in the UNIT stories), which would be fitting - the Intelligence could draw Victoria into leaving the relative safety of the TARDIS and staying behind on Earth, ready to carry out his bidding during the 1980s and 90s. It's a stretch, I'll admit, but I think it could just about work. As I say, I'll need to hear the last third of the story before I can officially adopt this sequence of events in my mind, but I like it for now, at least!

If there's anything good to come from Victoria's sudden lack of ease with the lifestyle she's been leading of late, it's that we get a chance to see Jamie reaffirmed as perfect for life with the Doctor. The way that the Doctor teases him into heading down into the stats with him is fantastic ('you wouldn't let me go down by myself, would you?', he asks, somewhat sadly. 'Well,' Jamie replies, having to think for a moment, before reluctantly giving in: 'no…'), and there's then something brilliant about the pair exploring in the darkness with gas masks on. Right back when Frazer Hines joined in The Highlanders, I mused that it was strange to have a companion be so interlinked with a Doctor (Tegan comes close, though), but when you see this pair in action, almost two years on from all that… it's perfectly clear why they stuck together.

The other great thing about the pair exploring down in the system of the rigs - it survives! Well, sort of. Today, I popped in the Lost in Time DVD so that I could watch the surviving clips from this story - sometimes they work as a handy visual shorthand to keep in mind while listening. Among the assortment of clips was one of the Doctor and Jamie being scared by the seaweed creature, and it has to be said - it looks great. In some ways, I could simply write off the creature as playing to another stereotype of the Troughton era (the thing lives in the BBC's foam machine for goodness sake!) and add it to my list of things that feel tired in this story, but actually, it's bloody creepy.

There's another shot amongst the surviving clips of Van Lutyens being attacked and - for want of a better word - consumed by the weed creature, and it's actually terrifying. For what amounts to a lump of seaweed thrashing about in some foam, it's surprisingly effective. It also provides a chance to see Mr Oak and Mr Quill's attack of Maggie from the other day: another one of those scenes that's actually very un-nerving. It's so unusual, and the way the shot cuts back and forth from mouth to mouth, as the men stare wildly and stretch their jaws to breaking point…

I really do think that, watched in isolation, Fury From the Deep could absolutely deserve the high reputation that it's often given. I think had it survived for us to see then it would be far and away one of the greatest tales we'd had. Sadly, going by the soundtrack and the tele snaps (even with these few surviving bits and bobs) it still just isn't quite giving me enough…

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

Day 207: Fury From the Deep, Episode Three

Dear diary,

It would appear that Debbie Watling has handed in her four-weeks notice between the last episode and this one, as Victoria's tone has suddenly shifted from being one of hating the thought of living in a place like this, to hating the throughout of continuing her travels with the Doctor. 'Why are we always in trouble?' she asks, and when the Doctor suggests that it's all part of the fun, she huffs that she's tired of being scared out of her wits.

Also interesting to note is the way that, having been set on the path of departing the TARDIS, Victoria is suddenly being given more to do as a companion than she has been for a long time. Over the last 30-odd episodes, she's swung wildly from being a bit useless and feeble to being a vital member of the team. Now, she seems to have turned into Liz Shaw, assisting the Doctor in his experiments on the seaweed, and even explaining them to Jamie.

Later on, she's responsible for picking a lock with a hair-pin (I'll assume the Doctor doesn't use his newly-created Sonic because it's still in the early stages of development. We've only seen it used to actually take out screws, and it would take an age to remove the door in that way. Maybe it needs some refinement before he can actually use it against locks?), while her friends watch on. It's like - out of nowhere - she's becoming indispensable again.

Elsewhere, the story is doing its best to be as creepy as possible. There's a brilliant moment, having seen off the weed from one attack, when we're reminded that there are hundreds of vents it could attack from, and now that it's inside the shafts, it has direct access to every one. I complained yesterday that this story seems to be something of a 'Best of Season Five' collection, but at least this feels like a slightly different threat - we're used to having proper, obvious monsters attacking, as opposed to a mass of something infecting the system.

Perhaps the most effective moment of the episode, though (and, truth be told, the story so far) is the cliffhanger, in which Maggie stares out across the sea, telling Robson that he will obey, and then walking, slowly, until she vanishes under the waves. It's incredibly un-nerving, and not something that you could imagine the modern series showing, for fear of kids playing copy-cat on a family trip to the beach. It's one of those moments that I've often in the past described as not really being Doctor Who, but things like this are starting to become quite routine for the series - the sudden, striking image. Long after I've forgotten everything else in this episode (and let's be honest, at least half of it has already started to fade from memory, half an hour on), this cliffhanger is going to linger. The tele snaps make it look fab, and it's rocketing up my list of 'things I'd love to see. Rest assured, the score of today's episode is raised simply by these final few minutes.

There's not really a great deal else to say on Fury From the Deep for now. Those odd few moments aside, it's still just feeling a bit 'run of the mill', and that's a shame, as it's not that there's anything wrong with this story - it's just that it's come at the wrong time. Had we seen this story at the end of Season Four, I'm sure I'd be singing its praises now, but having to follow on from so many other stories in the same mould, it's struggling to leave any real impression on me.

6/10 

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

Day 206: Fury From the Deep, Episode Two

Dear diary,

There are times that I really wish I were coming to the 'classic' series as a complete novice, without all that 'fan baggage' which means I know, for instance, that Fury From the Deep is the last story to feature Victoria. Or that it's the only story of the 1960s that uses one title to cover all its episodes without beginning with 'the'. Or, and this is the big one for today's episode, that the enemy is a big, writing mass of seaweed.

Imagine coming to this story completely free of all that knowledge. Watching the series from the start and not having a clue what was to happen at any given time. No idea that this is Victoria's last appearance (and there's no indication at this stage in the narrative that it might be - indeed she makes a point in today's episode of letting everyone know how much she wouldn't like living in a place like this!) and crucially, not knowing what all this seaweed has to do with anything.

When Victoria is explaining the attack she suffered in yesterday's episode, she describes the creature as being 'all covered in seaweed', hinting that there could be something hidden away underneath. It's heavily implied that she's been imagining it (although we know she hasn't). The entire setting of the story is based around a place mining gas, and then there's that ominous heartbeat echoing through the pipes…

There was a moment today when even I wondered if the Macra might be behind all this. It wouldn't be completely out of the blue - the Yeti have just joined the Cybermen and the Daleks in the ranks of 'creatures the Doctor has fought more than once', and all the trappings are certainly in place for it to be just such a showdown. Having remembered that they're not the villains in question, I was a little disappointed (I love Macra, even if there are no such things), but I love the thought of hearing this story thinking that they really could be controlling things on the rigs behind the scenes.

My main problem with Fury From the Deep, though, was summed up best by Nick Mellish in a conversation we had earlier this afternoon - “Like much of Season 5, works slightly better when listened to in isolation (i.e. not with the other Season 5 stories).” There's lots going on which, really, I should be lapping up, but we've seen it all before. Even worse - we've seen it all before this season. This is the kind of fatigue that I'd worried about when approaching Season Five (I knew from the start that this was likely to be the hardest of the 1960s seasons), though I guess I should be thankful that it hasn't set in until the penultimate story of the year.

June Murphy turns in a great performance as Maggie Harris, and plays the possession by the seaweed at just the right level of creepiness… but we've already seen people brainwashed by the enemy plenty of times this season, most prominently in the two Yeti tales, in which it's a key plot point. Robson is a perfectly good leader of the base, determined to keep to his own programme in the face of mounting evidence that it's the wrong decision… but he's not given the same amount of character that Clent had during The Ice Warriors.

In yesterday's episode, we had mysterious gloved hands creeping into shot to tamper with vital things, but the same thing was used for at least half of The Web of Fear, and it's only been a few days since I watched that one! Stretching back a little further to the end of Season Four, all those parallels that point toward the Macra are just as valid - this is an example of Doctor Who doing things very well, but things that it just does too often. Frankly, it feels like I've already watched this episode several times over…

a 

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

Day 205: Fury From the Deep, Episode One

Dear diary,

I can easily take Victoria’s complaint that the TARDIS is always landing them on Earth - since she joined the team at the end of the last season, they’ve only visited two alien planets, and only one of those was the result of the TARDIS taking them there. What’s harder to buy is Jamie’s assertion that they always end up in England - is he forgetting their trip to Australia and Europe two stories ago? And the trip to Tibet earlier in the season? And where was the glacier in The Ice Warriors? In my mind it’s somewhere other than the UK, but I’m not sure if it was ever actually stated on screen…

The only explanation I can think of is that our three friends here have spent plenty of time having adventures that we haven’t seen. Certainly, the way they joke and play on the beach at the start of this story (in a scene hugely reminiscent of the opening to The Enemy of the World) gives the impression of a group of people that are very comfortable and happy together, while the stories that we’ve seen with them haven’t spread out over a great deal of time. It feels like an age since stories like Marco Polo or The Romans, when the TARDIS crew would spend months on end hanging out in a particular time or place.

What’s also pretty fun is the way that our regulars arrive in this location - with the TARDIS materialising in mid-air, and then gently coming to rest on the ocean waves. ‘The TARDIS is quite capable of floating,’ the Doctor explains, though it has to be said that it’s a bit unusual as an idea. The soundtrack makes the whole scene seem a little muddled, with the sound of the ship’s engines taking a really long time to dies down, but their row to the shore in a little boat taking only a matter of seconds. Still, it’s something a bit different, which is always good.

As for the story itself… it’s another one of these tales that’s very much at home being produced in this era. I’m always put in mind of Gary Russell’s comment in the Second Time Around feature on The Dominators DVD - North Sea gas was everywhere in the news in this era, and here’s a story that brings the Doctor’s adventures right into your home. I’ve always thought of the seaweed creature as being a bit of an odd choice for a Doctor Who monster, though actually it’s the kind of thing that the programme does very well - taking something perfectly ordinary and turning it into something that should be feared. I think this is most in evidence when Maggie Harris throws some out on her patio, and it begins to write and pulse: small clumps of the stuff like this will be littered all over when kids visit the beach, and it too could start to move…

Of course, the big thing to note about today’s episode? It’s the first appearance of the Sonic Screwdriver! Hooray! I’ve been counting down to this one for some time now (and tracking the Doctor’s train of thought as he starts to develop the device), and I’m pleased to say that this is everything that I could possibly want from its first use in the show. It’s not being used to break the Doctor and his companions out of a cell, or to shoot energy beams at an alien, or hold open a heavy stone door - this Sonic Screwdriver does exactly what it says on the tin - it’s used to unscrew the front of a little box with soundwaves.

I like the idea that the Doctor has been developing this for a little while throughout Season Five (there’s another reason to imagine some unseen adventures for this trio - it gives him more time to work), and even though he claims here that the Sonic ‘never fails’, he’s clearly quite new to the tool, and Jamie obviously hasn’t seen it before (‘Neat, isn’t it?’, the Doctor adds). We’ll be seeing plenty more of the device over the next few years (well, the next few decades), but it’s nice to see it here in an extremely basic form - a ‘mark one’ of all the Sonics to come…

a 

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

Day 204: The Web of Fear, Episode Six

Dear diary,

It was always clear that this episode would feature some kind of defeat for the Great Intelligence, but it wasn't clear what form it would take. I half expected it to come down to the same as in the first Yeti tale, and we'd simply watch on as the Doctor disappeared down into the tunnels, where all we could hear would be his strangled cries. It worked well once, but I was dreading it a second time.

Thankfully, it's more interesting than a simple defeat - and you've got the Doctor berating Jamie for interrupting a plan that would have seen the creature fought off for good. It's not often that we get this kind of extra layer to the end of a story, and it really does help with the idea that the Intelligence is something a bit more sinister than your average Doctor Who baddie.

It makes me wonder if things are being set up for the proposed third Yeti story (which, I believe, was to be called The Laird of McCrimmon, and feature the departure of Jamie from the series). It's an interesting idea, preparing the viewers (and the characters) for an impending rematch, and that feels pretty different - the show doesn't often hint toward its own future in this way.

Indeed, the only recent example that I can think of is The Evil of the Daleks at the end of Season Four - but there's more connections to that story than just the hint of a survival for the monsters. I mused yesterday that the Doctor taking control of a Yeti was reminiscent of his control over the humanised Daleks in that earlier story, but isn't his plan almost the same, too?

Here, he's crossed some wires on the bad guy's super machine, so that it will do the opposite of what's intended. In The Evil of the Daleks, he switches around their machine so it makes more human Daleks, and they can rebel. It's not a problem, as such, but in a story I've enjoyed as much as The Web of Fear, it's a shame to see so many similarities to a (relatively) recent tale.

Also a shame… Do we ever find out just who was the Intelligence's pawn throughout the first few episodes? Was it always Arnold, or is that just since he went in to the fungus? Did I miss a bit? I was hoping for some big reveal that just didn't really come.

It's tempting to say 'I'd love to have The Web of Fear back in the archives, but I don't know if that's true. The first episode looks beautiful, but the story works so well on audio, that I think there's others is rather see. But in all? A success! It's no wonder that this is considered to be one of Doctor Who's all time classics - and so is the next story. Here's hoping things keep up like this!

7/10 

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

Day 203: The Web of Fear, Episode Five

Dear diary,

Back at the start of the month, when I was making my way through The Abominable Snowmen, I commented that I couldn’t quite get my head around the way that the Great Intelligence’s two 1960s stories joined up with the ones we’ve had this year in Series Seven. I started to put together a timeline (you can read the first four bullet points of it HERE), but I needed to wait for this story to come along before I could finish things up.

Thankfully, a lot of what we’ve had from the Intelligence during The Web of Fear corresponds to what I was hoping we’d get, so I don’t need to alter my timeline all that much to make it work. So, that said, I’ll be keeping the first four points the same as they were, and carrying it on as follows…

5) The Doctor defeats the Intelligence in Tibet, and Professor Travers takes some of the robotic equipment (including a complete Yeti) back with him to London. His success in this area wins him a small amount of notoriety, and the money he makes goes towards funding a new passion - electronics. By the mid-1930s, the money is drying up, so Travers sells his yeti to a friend, Who places it in his museum.

6) At the same time, the Intelligence has been forced back out onto the Asteral plane. Padmasambavah has now succumbed to his old age and died, leaving the creature without a form. From the Asteral Plane, the Intelligence is able to monitor the Doctor’s travels through time and space*, and so sets an intricate trap to catch him, and drain his mind of all it’s experiences*. As he does this, Travers is able to reactivate a Yeti control sphere, giving the Intelligence a closer presence to his creatures.

7) The events of The Web of Fear take place, and end… however they do in the next episode. I mean, obviously the Intelligence is defeated, but I don’t know how, yet. Following this, he retreats back to the Astral Plane, but keeps in contact with several minds ('I have many other human hands at my command', he tells the Doctor, here). One of those minds is Professor Travers, who at some point in the 1970s is drawn back to Det Sen Monastery, where he is kept alive beyond his years.

8) In the early 1980s, Victoria herself is brought back to Tibet, following visions of her father. The Intelligence takes control of her mind, giving her the instructions needed to create New World University, and formulating a plan to seize control of the planet via the emerging internet over the next fifteen years. At the same time, Ms Kislet is taken from her parents, and the Intelligence begins ‘whispering in her ear’, formulating different plans.

9) The New World University plan falls apart, partly because the internet isn’t yet widespread enough to take control globally (WOTAN would be disappointed), and partly because of a timely intervention from the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith. After this, he abandons the Yeti, as they’re not so vital to his current operations, and he’s gotten better at using humans for his dirty work. By 2013, he’s back to using the web as a way to take control, harvesting human minds via the wi-fi.

10) A plan which, once again gets stopped because of the Doctor’s intervention ('You thwarted me at every turn' he tells our hero in The Name of the Doctor). Now, yes, I know that the Intelligence in today’s episode claims that he doesn’t want to trap the Doctor for revenge (he calls it a very human emotion), but let’s face it, by the time The Name of the Doctor rolls around, the Intelligence is pretty darn vengeful. Having discovered the location of the Doctor’s grave, the Intelligence again plans to take control of the Doctor’s mind. Somehow.

11) When they arrive at the tomb, though, we’re introduced to the Doctor’s time stream - an the Intelligence realises that he can cause the Doctor an enormous amount of hurt by throwing himself into it. Sure, it’ll die in the process, but the Doctor (and his companions) have foiled his plans so many times now, that the sacrifice is worth it, just to know the Doctor is in that kind of pain.

And then it’s all over. No more Intelligence, and Clara has to run around the Doctor’s past adventures in hundreds of different forms, saving the day without anyone knowing. Somewhere, I’m tempted to believe that the Intelligence impersonates the Doctor during the Shalka incident, just because it tidies everything up, but I might be pushing it to include that somewhere, too.

I think everything ties together quite nicely, or at least nicely enough for me. I’ll probably review things when I reach Series Seven again (well over a year from now!), but it keeps things neat in my head for now, at least.

As for the episode itself? I’m still really enjoying the experience of being swept along with this one, but I’m starting to feel like it’s time to draw to some kind of resolution (that’s not a complaint - we’re at the end of Episode Five, things are about to come to a close). I then spent a while, as the Doctor controlled both a Sphere and later a full-blown Yeti trying to recall why it felt so familiar, before realising that he does a very similar thing with the Daleks at the end of Season Four. Here’s hoping that the final episode sees The Web of Fear going out on a real high - a story like this certainly deserves to!

*I’m going to assume that the Intelligence is only able to monitor the Second Doctor’s adventures, probably in the order that we’ve been seeing them (I guess he’s had more than two excursions between Tibet and now, we’ve just not been privy to them), otherwise he’d be trying to trap one of the later Doctors, who would have even more experience.

a 

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

Day 202: The Web of Fear, Episode Four

Dear diary,

That sense of paranoia just keeps on growing in this episode - literally everyone is falling under suspicion at one point or another. Today’s suspects are mainly Chorley (absent here, but possibly off in the tunnels and up to no good), The Doctor (he’s always going to be under suspicion), Evans (Who’s acting stranger and stranger by the scene - there’s something up with him, even if he isn’t either working for the Intelligence, or an operative of Torchwood), and Travers, Who actually gets to turn up in the final scene, all possessed.

What’s quite nice is that I’m still trying to piece this all together - even though poor Travers is a pawn of the Intelligence now, has that been the case all along? Surely it wasn’t him steering the Yeti into position all this time? I’m expecting that things will be brought to a head in the next episode, so we’ll possibly be getting some answers pretty soon, just in time for the big climax.

I’m also rather pleased that having worked my way this far into the story, suddenly there’s a lot more of Downtime that makes sense to me. I said during The Abominable Snowmen that I’d never understood vast parts of the spin-off, but that story didn’t really help to put things straight for me. Here, with the Yeti figurines being used more as homing beacons than anything else, things are starting to slot into place more, and it’s all helping to form the rest of my big ‘Great Intelligence Timeline’, which I started in the entry for The Abominable Snowmen Episode Four, and will be continuing in tomorrow’s update.

It’s strange to see the Doctor bringing the Colonel up-to-speed on the TARDIS as quickly as this, as I’d always assumed that he didn’t find out all that much about it until the Third Doctor came to work for him - specifically, I’m thinking of The Three Doctors being the Brig’s first look inside the ship. Here, though, he’s willing to accept the Doctor’s description of his ‘craft’ at face value, telling one of his soldiers that he ‘doesn’t intend to leave any escape route unexplored’ no matter how ‘screwy’ it might seem!

Lines of comic relief like this have been peppered throughout the story so far, and they’re really helping to walk the line of this story being just the right balance of light and dark. So far, smiles have been raised by the description of the Yeti coming from Outer Space (How did they get here? Through the post!) and Evans stopping to pick up a chocolate bar from a conveniently-placed vending machine. In a story where things could be getting very sinister and brutal, they’re helping to keep things at least a bit jollier.

Which is necessary, really, because things are quite brutal in places. Today’s Yeti attack in Covent Garden is lost somewhat by appearing only on audio - the telesnaps for the scene, coupled with knowledge of Dougie Camfield’s direction, make it look fab - the new style Yeti even look imposing when outside. Last year, the Mirror newspaper published online a load of photos from this scene, with the Yeti menacing a man and his dog - they do look great!

The main problem I had with the scene was the use of music - its Space Adventure! That’s the Cybermen theme, not the Yeti! Have to admit (shamefully) that it did actually put me off a little for a few minutes. Sadly, though, it’s also the last time we’ll be hearing Space Adventure in Doctor Who, it’s retired after this use, I believe. A shame, as I think it’s always going to be one of my favourite pieces of music used in the series. Brilliantly, it was played as part of the Doctor Who Prom last week - and didn't it just sound wonderful?

a 

a  Day 201: The Web of Fear, Episode Three

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

Day 201: The Web of Fear, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I really love it when the Doctor has an extended circle of friends. In the new series, I've always liked it when we find ourselves back on present-day Earth, and the Doctor meets up with Jackie, or Micky. The Stolen Earth is like heaven for me - all those friends he's made across the last four years, together! Brilliant stuff. More recently, we've got the Paternoster Row gang - a 'family' for the Eleventh Doctor. I don't doubt that when the Twelfth Doctor takes over next year, he'll get an extended group of friends for himself.

There's something about it that just feels so much more real than simply meeting friends, travelling with them for a bit, then dropping them off to never return. The Web of Fear marks the very first time that we get a returning 'good' character to the programme (as opposed to Daleks or Cybermen or whatever) in the form of Professor Travers. It's being played really nicely - there's an argument between Travers and Jamie early on in the tale, before Victoria realises who he is, and the Doctor catches up with him today like he's an old friend.

And as if that weren't enough, this story also marks the first appearance of perhaps the most famous of the Doctor's many recurring friends - in the form of the Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart. Now, I know he wasn't considered as a long-running character at this point, but there's still something really brilliant about his first appearance being from a time before he became 'the Brigadier'. Fittingly, the man we're presented with here isn't quite the one we'll come to know and love over the years, but there's certainly elements in there that shine through, and as a Doctor Who fan, Nick Courtney's voice is so embedded in my mind that you can fail to recognise him the second he begins speaking.

Interestingly, he's played as something of a 'grey' character here, and we're not entirely sure that we're supposed to trust him. Certainly, if you pointed him out to a viewer watching in 1968 and told them that this man would become the Doctor's best friend through several incarnations, they'd think you were mad. Just as in yesterday's episode, tensions in the base are rising, and everyone is starting to suspect everyone else. What's great about this is that we're invited to join in with all this, and to start trying to work out just who is in league with the Yeti.

Certainly, for a while, it's supposed to be Lethbridge-Stewart himself (you have no idea how hard it is not to just call him 'the Brigadier'). When he first turns up, both the soldiers and Victoria wonder about where he might have come from - no one was expecting him, after all. It's pointed out that Evans didn't mention any other survivors of the ammunitions attack (where the Colonel claims to have come from), and the Doctor muses that he just appeared out of nowhere. As if to court the suspicion a little further, the Colonel himself even comments that the soldiers know more about the Doctor than they do about him, and that they still don't really know all that much about the Doctor…

Then you've got Evans, too, or 'our man from Torchwood' as I'm still insisting to think about it. There's something shifty going on with him, and I'm not entirely sure what it is just yet. Jamie seems to think that it's as simple as the man being a coward, looking to escape at any opportunity, but I'm not sure it's so simple. Having made up his mind to escape while he can, Evans is later found skulking around the tunnels, and every excuse he makes sounds just a little too forced.

Or maybe it's Chorley, the only reporter who's been allowed in to monitor the situation? He's been a thorn in everyone's side since the very first episode, and here he's seen talking to Victoria about the TARDIS, before locking her and the Doctor in a room and making his escape. Again, there's a suggestion that he might simply be too much of a coward to be stuck in this atmosphere any longer, but that might seem too obvious!

To put it bluntly, I'm not sure who is working with the Intelligence - and I like that! It's keeping me guessing (and second guessing) at every turn, and that's really helping to keep me engaged with the story. Something else that's keeping me involved is the stations that we're caught in - I'm off to London again this afternoon with Ellie, and the routes we need to take will pass us through Monument, Covent Garden, St Pauls… all these places that just don't seem to be all that safe right now! I'll keep an eye out for fungus…

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

Day 200: The Web of Fear, Episode Two

Dear diary,

In some ways, this episode is absolutely made to be listened to as just the audio. Not only does the claustrophobia of the dark Underground tunnels really lend itself to being heard through headphones, but the script is almost written as if it were a radio play. 'Let's just hope they're not on the Circle Line!' one soldier exclaims, watching as the fungus moves along that very tunnel. Cut from this to Jamie and Evans, who instantly find a Tube map and declare themselves to be walking right down… the Central Line. Of course. We get another example a few minutes later, where we've just been told that Jamie is headed for Monument station, and we cut back to the soldiers discovering that the fungus is about to arrive at… Monument. (And just in case we needed the point underlined, the action then shifts back to Jamie, who emerges from a tunnel and loudly proclaims 'here we are! Monument!').

I also spent some time thinking that it was a good job we couldn't see the huge battle between the Yeti and the soldiers, until I remembered that it's a Douglas Camfield episode we're dealing with, and hurried to go through the tele snaps. It's hard to tell, because so many of the snaps catch people mid-action, but the impression I get is that it looked brilliant. The setting really helps, too, the cramped tunnels really helping to give the Yeti a kind of scale that was completely lost out on the Welsh hillside.

I think it's probably a testament to how much I'm enjoying this one that it was fifteen minutes or more before I noticed the complete absence of the Doctor from the story. It's been a while since I stopped tracking the cast's holidays (though for the record, Jamie and Victoria took a week off during The Enemy of the World that was nicely glossed over), but they're rarely as well done as this. Much of the story becomes about the absence of the Doctor. We're constantly reassured that he hasn't been killed in the explosion - because it didn't go off properly - but we're left to wonder exactly what has happened to him.

And in that absence, the suspicion is allowed to turn on him. It's Anne Travers who first makes the suggestion that the Doctor might be the one behind the Yeti - pointing out the odd coincidence that the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria have all turned up on both occasions that the Yeti have been involved with her father's life. She dismisses this suggestion very quickly (though I'm hoping there's still some lingering doubt in her mind - it provides a nice bit of drama), but later on the idea resurfaces from some of the soldiers, who realise that the fungus has only just started moving again, after three weeks of inactivity, when the Doctor shows up on the scene.

It all helps to add to that sense of tension that's really at the heart of this story. We're in such a closed, confined space that it's only a matter of time before this kind of suspicion is going to arise from people. It's almost the same as the small group of characters we get in Midnight: trapped in a small space, with terror closing in around you, of course you're going to start turning on each other. In this instance, the soldiers have someone else that they can project their fear onto in this mysterious 'Doctor' who no one has actually seen, and just happened to be around when the explosive attack failed. Coming so soon after an episode in which the bad guy is the Doctor's double, it's nice to see this kind of atmosphere.

And it's nice to see the return to that old favourite, the base-under-siege story, being done so well. It's effectively the same kind of situation we've had in some form throughout the Fifth Season, from The Tomb of the Cybermen to The Ice Warriors, and even this story's predecessor, The Abominable Snowmen, but the change of setting really helps to amp up the tension.

When we're trapped in Det Sen Monastery, there's the vast rolling mountains outside to help expand the setting and give you room to breathe. The ice tombs on Telos has that handy lobby area where the Doctor and the guest cast could retreat to in order to catch their breath and plot their next move. So much of The Ice Warriors took place out on the open ice plains, and even when we were trapped inside, it was in a nice, high-tech environment, where they had the technology to end it all if need be (though not necessarily in the way that they'd like).

But trapped down in the London Underground is a totally different story. They've got several ways out… but they can see the enemy creeping along them in the form of the fungus. They know which weapons they need to defeat the Yeti… but their deliveries keep getting attacked and destroyed. It's the best atmosphere we've had for one of these stories, so it's a great one to kick back into them with.

One thing I did wonder, though: they find Evans wandering around the tunnel all on his own (singing a song). He claims to be one of the ammunitions drivers, and has a rank, but makes a point (twice) of pointing out that he's not one of Knight's men, and claims to be lost trying to find his way back from the Yeti attack. I don't know where the character is going for the rest of the story, but in my mind, I've decided that he's not a driver at all, but rather an agent for Torchwood, trying to keep an eye on exactly what's happening down here - robot Yeti could be good for Queen and country, after all!

 

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

Day 199: The Web of Fear, Episode One

Dear diary,

Hooray! It's the welcome return of Douglas Camfield to the director's chair! It feels like an absolute age since we last had some of his work on the series (it is: the last Doctor Who he directed was The Daleks' Master Plan, which finished broadcast just over two years before this story began), and he's managed to completely by-pass the entirety of Innes Lloyd's time on the show. Over the course of Seasons Four and Five so far, I've often had Camfield's style in mind when listening to the soundtracks, but it's lovely to see his return to the series actually surviving in the archives.

And what a return it is! The direction of this episode is, to but it bluntly, stunning. It has the feel of an old 1930s film, and the use of both candles in the museum and shadows in the Underground really help to sell the effect. It's miles ahead of the stuff seen in The Enemy of the World Episode Three (our last surviving episode), and had me completely gripped.

The style is spot on for me right from the opening of the episode, with the shots of the Doctor and his friends caught in the TARDIS console room as it spins out of control. I'll admit, it's tricky to watch the way the Doctor and Victoria cling to each other as they write about on the floor and grunt a lot without something of a raised eyebrow, but the whole scene is filed with a real sense of tension, which isn't always easy. The crowning moment has to be when Jamie finally manages to find the right switch on the TARDIs console and get the doors to close - and the camera returns to a proper position as the doors shut. It's such a simple thing, but it really works.

Cut to the inside of Silverstein's museum and right into the face of a Yeti! It's so abrupt that it really strikes you, and had I not known that the creatures would be making their return in this story (I'm a Doctor Who fan, of course know the Yeti are back in this one, but just in case I didn't, there's a handy trailer at the end of The Enemy of the World, in which the Doctor directly address you and warns you that these Yeti are scarier than the last lot we encountered), I'd have been absolutely flawed by it. I'm one of the few people who actually quite likes the appearance of the creatures in The Abominable Snowmen, but even I'll admit that they're not the most terrifying thing we've ever had in the series. The use of angles and lighting here really sells the effect of the dormant one here, before we get the switchover to the newer, more powerful version that we'll be dealing with for the next few days.

It's strange to have the reveal of the Yeti come so early on into the adventure - indeed we know that the Yeti are involved long before the TARDIS has arrived on Earth - but it means that we get a very different type of episode once again. It's not about the Doctor and his companions getting caught in a base under attack from the monsters (well, not yet, anyway), but about the anticipation of our heroes discovering what we already know. The scene where the Doctor hides beneath the Underground platform, peering round to see the new-and-improved Yeti is fantastic, and a great chance for Troughton to pull one of his trademark faces.

Ah, yes, the Underground stations. It's a well-known anecdote about this story that having been given a cost for filming on the Underground, the BBC decided instead to build their own replica sets so convincing that they ended up being reprimanded by London Transport. I can't say I fully believe the story, but seeing what they've managed to build here… well, I guess there could have been cause for concern! They're fantastic, and it's hard to believe that most of this episode isn't shot out on location. The details are absolutely spot on, and the tunnels in particular are gorgeous. Indeed, my only complaint (having been in Covent Garden's Underground station just last week) is that it's in too good of a condition!

There's loads that I could rave about for this episode (my notes are overloaded with things!), but I'll hold off for now - there's still another five instalments to go, so there'll be plenty of time to discuss all the other aspects that make this so good. The Web of Fear is another one of those Season Five stories with a very high reputation, and I've not really fallen in step with the common feeling towards some of them so far - here's hoping that this one can buck the trend. If it carries on like this, I'd say there's a pretty good chance of that happening!

10/10