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

Day 235: The Krotons, Episode One

Dear diary,

Oh, I tip-toed into this one with a real sense of trepidation. For years - having never seen either of them - The Krotons and The Dominators have been pretty much interchangeable in my head. They both take place on a random alien world, they're both part of Season Six, they both introduce a new robot making their first and only appearance in the television series, and they both have something to do with how intelligent people are in relation to their potential as slaves. Having come close to tears trying to wade through The Dominators, I think it's fair to say that I wasn't exactly thrilled by the prospect of starting out with this tale.

I thought it was odd that the process of the TARDIS turning up on an alien world in The Dominators reminded me so much of a Hartnell story, but the same is true here. I wonder if it's just that the Troughton stories have so confined themselves to contemporary or futuristic space stations and bases that the sight of a quarry seems - excuse the pun - totally alien to me?

The establishing shot of the planet here is simply brilliant, and I was in the middle of scribbling a note about how well the scale of the rock face was done, when the TARDIS appeared even smaller than I was expecting! It gives a real sense of size to the proceedings, and actually makes this world work quite well. In many ways, the rest of the planet (or as much as we've seen so far) is simply standard fare, so it's nice to see things off to such a great start. I do enjoy the attempts to make this world seem different to anywhere else, in the form of Jamie's complaints about the smell and the Doctor noticing the two suns in the sky, but these points are thrown at you so quickly that they fail to make all that much of an impact.

That the similarities to a Hartnell-era tale are so clear shouldn't come as much of a surprise for today's episode, since it was originally submitted for consideration way back during Season Two. It marks Robert Holmes' first steps into the programme, and it's perhaps odd to think of him trying to get involved way back when Ian and Barbara were still a part of the TARDIS crew. There's a lot here that wouldn't feel out of place in that set-up, though, such as Jamie's spur of the moment fight with a guard (this sort of thing happened quite a lot to Ian, though I was specifically put in mind of his fight from The Aztecs). We've also got Zoe describing herself and her friends as being 'from another planet, another world', which is almost word-for-word the way Susan describes herself right back at the very beginning, in An Unearthly Child.

You'd think that it might feel like a real step back to see so much on display that was devised way back when, but it all holds together rather well. Certainly, I found myself far more invested in things than I did in The Dominators. It helps that the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe are really gelling with each other now (I said during the last story that I've never really understood the love for this team, but if they carry on like this for the rest of the season, then I think I'll start to see what everyone else does!) and they bounce off each other brilliantly throughout.

We've also got a cast of guest characters who really should simply be there to fill the screen. They're typical generic Doctor Who characters who live on some far-flung world (though they're particularly susceptible to the Doctor's presence; having spent several generations being told that they can't go into the 'wastelands', the Doctor manages to convince them otherwise in a matter of seconds. Twice!), but I'm finding myself interested in them. They could well fall back into the trap of being simple ciphers before the story is out, but the idea of only having four episodes gives me hope - it's an absolute age since we last had such a compact story!

Don't forget to 'like' the 50 Year Diary Facebook Page - where I'll be asking about your favourite Troughton stories before long!

a 

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

Day 234: The Invasion, Episode Eight

Dear diary,

I think the biggest problem I have with a story like this is that after eight episodes, the ending still occurs in the blink of an eye. It’s an issue that I’ve been having with the series dating all the way back to The Daleks (which, incidentally, feels like a lifetime ago); you’ve got so many episodes building up, raising the stakes, and then they run out of time and the solution is all too simple.

Toady, it comes in the form of the missile launch. Around the halfway point, the Doctor declares that they have two options to stop the Cybermen from dropping their bomb – shut off the radio link at Vaughn’s complex outside the city, or blow up the Cybermen’s spaceship. The brigadier boldly announces that the Russian rocket won’t be ready for at least ten hours, which leaves them only the one choice.

Dutifully, the Doctor and Vaughn (now fighting against the Cybermen, not for the good of humanity but because he hates them; another lovely little touch) set off for the compound to knock out the radio signal. This mission accomplished, the Cybermen move their ship in closer to Earth, rendering the whole operation pointless. It’s ok, though, because the Russians have found a different way of preparing the rocket, so it’s primed and ready to go. Hooray! It hits the Cybership, defeats the ruthless, inhuman killers, and everyone gets back to normal, with Zoe pursuing a new career as a model.

Oh, I’m not complaining really. As much as the tension is dissipated in a matter of seconds, like so much of the story, it’s not about the payoff, it’s about the journey. So what if the Doctor and Vaughn’s trip to the IE compound is ultimately a waste of time? It looks gorgeous. Camfield’s direction really does seem to be at the best when he’s working outside on film, and it looks stunning for the whole sequence. The entire section takes up a fair bit of screen time, as we move into the big ‘UNIT Vs the Cybermen’ battle that I’ve been waiting for. Any disappointment at the lack of Cyberman action in yesterday’s episode must surely be made up for by the fight sequence here.

There’s plenty of behind-the-scenes photos of this filming, with cameramen sprawled out on the floor, shooting up at the Cybermen looming over them, so this scene is one of those which sits pretty prominently in my mind. If anything on this watch though, it makes me long to see the Yeti attack on Covent Garden from The Web of Fear. If it’s anywhere near as good as this, it would be a great treasure to see returned. The location really helps this scene, too – it’s that kind of industrial landscape that’s always fascinated me, and to see the two sides fighting surrounded by all the crumbling brick buildings and the huge metal girders is fantastic.

I think the main thing I’ll be taking away from The Invasion is how it’s altered my perception of what to come. I’ve mentioned it already during this story, but as regular readers will know, I’ve not been looking forward to reaching the Pertwee years. That early 1970s period has always been my least favourite ‘era’ of the programme, and as it crept closer I was beginning to wonder if it might be the thing that breaks me. In actual fact, though, I’ve found myself enjoying the slow evolution of that phase of the programme – the introduction of the contemporary Earth-based stories starting from The War Machines, the introduction of the Brigadier, and now UNIT turning up on the scene, too. Seeing characters like Benton arriving make it feel as though the programme really is evolving into a new style, whereas I’d previously always thought of it as being a massive shift in style right out of nowhere.

The only thing that does strike me is how much the UNIT we see here in this story differs from the organisation that works alongside the Third Doctor (or, at least, how much it differs from the version of UNIT in my head). The small number of soldiers present in the final battle here is explained away by not having enough ways of blocking the Cyber-signal – the Brigadier even explains that they’ve only got enough men awake to form a single platoon. As the years go by, though, they always seem to operate on a small number of personnel, with or without half the group put to sleep by the Cybermen.

It’s also a shame that we never again see UNIT’s aircraft base. It’s used well here as a means of getting from one location to another and drops all the right people off in all the right places as and when needed. This kind of funding just isn’t available to them in the 1970s, and that’s a shame. I have a feeling that it could feel like a bit of a step backwards when they start operating out of an old house in the home counties.

Overall, it’s an odd send off for the Cybermen, considering that they won’t be showing up – properly – in the programme again until Tom Baker takes over. Obviously, at the time, they didn’t know that we’d be seeing the last of them for now, but it’s still a bit of an unusual way to see them off. I’ve always loved that the Cybermen take over from the Daleks as the default ‘villains’ of Doctor Who once Patrick Troughton comes along, and I’m really pleased that, on the whole, I’ve rather enjoyed their stories. I’ve always found it a shame that they never made a Third Doctor and Cybermen story, but I think that The Invasion gives a good enough example of what that would be like that I’m not going to miss loosing out for a few seasons.

If I’m completely honest, this story hasn’t lived up to my expectations (or my memories), but it’s still been an enjoyable way to spend the last week, and it’s telling that I reached Episode Eight still not bored by the setting or the characters. There’s several things that I think I’d do differently, but it’s certainly doing an awful lot right.

Don't forget to 'like' the 50 Year Diary Facebook Page - where I'll be asking about your favourite Troughton stories before long!

ba 

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

Day 234: The Invasion, Episode Eight

Dear diary,

I think the biggest problem I have with a story like this is that after eight episodes, the ending still occurs in the blink of an eye. It’s an issue that I’ve been having with the series dating all the way back to The Daleks (which, incidentally, feels like a lifetime ago); you’ve got so many episodes building up, raising the stakes, and then they run out of time and the solution is all too simple.

Toady, it comes in the form of the missile launch. Around the halfway point, the Doctor declares that they have two options to stop the Cybermen from dropping their bomb – shut off the radio link at Vaughn’s complex outside the city, or blow up the Cybermen’s spaceship. The brigadier boldly announces that the Russian rocket won’t be ready for at least ten hours, which leaves them only the one choice.

Dutifully, the Doctor and Vaughn (now fighting against the Cybermen, not for the good of humanity but because he hates them; another lovely little touch) set off for the compound to knock out the radio signal. This mission accomplished, the Cybermen move their ship in closer to Earth, rendering the whole operation pointless. It’s ok, though, because the Russians have found a different way of preparing the rocket, so it’s primed and ready to go. Hooray! It hits the Cybership, defeats the ruthless, inhuman killers, and everyone gets back to normal, with Zoe pursuing a new career as a model.

Oh, I’m not complaining really. As much as the tension is dissipated in a matter of seconds, like so much of the story, it’s not about the payoff, it’s about the journey. So what if the Doctor and Vaughn’s trip to the IE compound is ultimately a waste of time? It looks gorgeous. Camfield’s direction really does seem to be at the best when he’s working outside on film, and it looks stunning for the whole sequence. The entire section takes up a fair bit of screen time, as we move into the big ‘UNIT Vs the Cybermen’ battle that I’ve been waiting for. Any disappointment at the lack of Cyberman action in yesterday’s episode must surely be made up for by the fight sequence here.

There’s plenty of behind-the-scenes photos of this filming, with cameramen sprawled out on the floor, shooting up at the Cybermen looming over them, so this scene is one of those which sits pretty prominently in my mind. If anything on this watch though, it makes me long to see the Yeti attack on Covent Garden from The Web of Fear. If it’s anywhere near as good as this, it would be a great treasure to see returned. The location really helps this scene, too – it’s that kind of industrial landscape that’s always fascinated me, and to see the two sides fighting surrounded by all the crumbling brick buildings and the huge metal girders is fantastic.

I think the main thing I’ll be taking away from The Invasion is how it’s altered my perception of what to come. I’ve mentioned it already during this story, but as regular readers will know, I’ve not been looking forward to reaching the Pertwee years. That early 1970s period has always been my least favourite ‘era’ of the programme, and as it crept closer I was beginning to wonder if it might be the thing that breaks me. In actual fact, though, I’ve found myself enjoying the slow evolution of that phase of the programme – the introduction of the contemporary Earth-based stories starting from The War Machines, the introduction of the Brigadier, and now UNIT turning up on the scene, too. Seeing characters like Benton arriving make it feel as though the programme really is evolving into a new style, whereas I’d previously always thought of it as being a massive shift in style right out of nowhere.

The only thing that does strike me is how much the UNIT we see here in this story differs from the organisation that works alongside the Third Doctor (or, at least, how much it differs from the version of UNIT in my head). The small number of soldiers present in the final battle here is explained away by not having enough ways of blocking the Cyber-signal – the Brigadier even explains that they’ve only got enough men awake to form a single platoon. As the years go by, though, they always seem to operate on a small number of personnel, with or without half the group put to sleep by the Cybermen.

It’s also a shame that we never again see UNIT’s aircraft base. It’s used well here as a means of getting from one location to another and drops all the right people off in all the right places as and when needed. This kind of funding just isn’t available to them in the 1970s, and that’s a shame. I have a feeling that it could feel like a bit of a step backwards when they start operating out of an old house in the home counties.

Overall, it’s an odd send off for the Cybermen, considering that they won’t be showing up – properly – in the programme again until Tom Baker takes over. Obviously, at the time, they didn’t know that we’d be seeing the last of them for now, but it’s still a bit of an unusual way to see them off. I’ve always loved that the Cybermen take over from the Daleks as the default ‘villains’ of Doctor Who once Patrick Troughton comes along, and I’m really pleased that, on the whole, I’ve rather enjoyed their stories. I’ve always found it a shame that they never made a Third Doctor and Cybermen story, but I think that The Invasion gives a good enough example of what that would be like that I’m not going to miss loosing out for a few seasons.

If I’m completely honest, this story hasn’t lived up to my expectations (or my memories), but it’s still been an enjoyable way to spend the last week, and it’s telling that I reached Episode Eight still not bored by the setting or the characters. There’s several things that I think I’d do differently, but it’s certainly doing an awful lot right.

Don't forget to 'like' the 50 Year Diary Facebook Page - where I'll be asking about your favourite Troughton stories before long!

ba 

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

Day 233: The Invasion, Episode Seven

Dear diary,

There’s a moment in today’s episode where one of our brave UNIT soldiers makes a dash for Professor Travers’ house, and bursts in the door exclaiming that there are ‘hundreds of Cybermen’ outside on the streets of London. And yet, despite them putting the human race to sleep and bursting out of every manhole cover they could find at the end of yesterday’s instalment, we don’t actually see any Cybermen in this episode outside of the cliffhanger reprise.

In some ways, it’s just continuing my complaint from yesterday. Whereas I couldn’t get the idea of a bustling city outside of these sets to sit right in my mind, I now struggle to imagine a city infested by the Cybermen. It feels like this story should be taking place against this vast canvas - The Web of Fear taken out of the underground and scaled up massively – but it all falls a bit flat. We seem to simply move through the same few sets, from Vaughn’s office (which is the same in both his London HQ and his complex outside the city, with the backdrop replaced behind the window), via the sewers, to Travers’ house.

The Invasion has always been down in my mind as the Troughton-era Cyberman epic; his equivalent to Hartnell’s Daleks’ master Plan. Actually though, it’s not really about the Cybermen, it’s all about Tobias Vaughn. In some ways, I’m quite pleased by this. Kevin Stoney puts in such a brilliant performance throughout the story that it’s great to see him given the space to really showcase his talents. Throughout, he’s been built up as the upper hand in the deal with the Cybermen, but it’s all beautifully undercut today when the Cyberplanner simply drones (and that voice really is a drone) ‘we no longer need you.’

It’s similar to The Wheel in Space that the Cybermen are kept in the background, keeping the attention of the kids while the story really follows a completely different narrative strand. It worked well enough in that situation, with the Cybermen finally making their real attack in the sixth episode, but here we’re stretched out another two. It’s not losing my interest yet (and since this is the longest story since The Daleks’ Master Plan, I did worry that it might), but I do hope we get some good Cybermen scenes in our final twenty-five minutes. As much as I love Tobias Vaughn, this is their final appearance for ages, and I’d love to see them go out in style.

Something else that’s carried across from The Wheel in Space is Zoe’s character in this episode. She’s been a little sidelined in places so far (trying on feather boas and posing for photographs while the Doctor and Jamie head off to do the real work), though she’s more than made up for it by charging out with Isobel and getting stuck in wherever the opportunity arises. Be it hunting for her friends at the IE building, or heading down into the sewers to catch a Cyberman, Zoe’s been willing to take part when needed.

Today, though, we get to see her intelligence shine through again. It’s a great scene when she asks for the missile launch to be delayed for just thirty seconds while she makes her calculations to knock out as many of the Cyberships as possible, and it’s very reminiscent of the Doctor bounding around the computers back in The Ice Warriors working out his own calculations. There’s a glimmer of her own arrogance turning up again, too when she’s told that she’d better be right with the numbers and she simply replies ‘I am!’

(But surely we could have had some Cybermats in the sewers? It seems so obvious!)

a 

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

Day 232: The Invasion, Episode Six

Dear diary,

A little after halfway into this episode, Ellie arrived at the flat. She didn't take a seat to watch with me, but couldn't fail to be at least a little invested in what was happening (mostly because every so often I'd point at the screen and excitedly exclaim 'Cyberman!'). With a couple of minutes to go, she joined me on the sofa and watched the end of the episode. 'Oh,' she spoke up, as the tips of the Cybermen's helmets began to appear over the steps outside St Pauls, 'Is this the really famous bit?'

I think it probably says something for this moment of The Invasion, that someone who has pretty much no interest in the 1960s era of the programme can identify 'The Cybermen at St Pauls' as one of those really iconic Doctor Who moments.

For me, though, it's not really all that. It's been years since I last watched The Invasion (probably not since the DVD was first released in 2006), and over that time, I'd built up the sequence of the Cybermen marching down the steps into this really big, bold thing. There's a brilliant photo taken on location of a silver giant stood on the steps, looking towards the sky with the dome of the cathedral in the background. It's an image that's so burnt into my mind that I was sure it matched a shot in the actual sequence, but it doesn't. If anything, the St Pauls moment forms just one tiny bit of that sequence, and it felt almost like an anti-climax for me.

Now, in part, this is all the result of forty years adding significance to the moment. As I say, if even Ellie can highlight it as an important bit of the programme's history, then it must be doing something right. Watching it without all that prior knowledge must be fantastic. And lots of the scene is - the moment that the manhole covers start to fly open and Cybermen start climbing out is brilliant, and it's odd just how right they look crawling out from under the streets. I think the feeling of disappointment at the ending has been added to by other factors, though…

The Invasion, as I've said before, is very much a follow up to The Web of Fear. Because of that, for some reason, I've got it in my head that London is deserted. Completely evacuated, like it was for the Yeti incident. It makes it tricky to panic when characters talk of the entire city being controlled, because I actively have to remind myself that there is a city full of people out there. When Watkins is told of Isobel's freedom, and Vaughn suggests that she's probably waiting at home for him, it felt odd to me - because it feels like the city should be deserted.

It doesn't help, then, when we get the establishing shots of the city in the seconds building up the Invasion. All the streets are completely deserted (that's the hazard of filming first thing in the morning, I guess!), and when we do finally get to see people falling under the Cybermen's control, there's only three or four of them, and we cut between them rapidly. Don't get me wrong, it's very effective, and I know that they don't have the budget for a whole host of extras being taken over by the strange noise echoing through the air, but it feels like as a key junction in an eight-part story… there should be more to it.

Oh, but it's not all complaints. There's loads packed into today's episode that I love - and 'packed' really is the operative word. When the Brigadier sends some men to intercept Vaughn's guards and free the professor, I was a little disheartened to see the action cut to after the battle, with its events relayed to Vaughn via Gregory. Knowing what Camfield can do with an action sequence, I was looking forward to getting to see it out on location, and it felt like a cop out to avoid showing it (I will say, though, that seeing the mini-battle between UNIT and the Cybermen in the sewers does make up for this a little. I love the clanging metal sound effect as a soldier batters a Cybermen's arm with his gun!). As the episode goes on, though, it soon becomes clear that it's cut to keep things moving - there's too much to get through!

It means there's one or two other places where the action cuts very suddenly, and it leads to a slightly disorienting effect (the one that springs immediately to mind if Jamie announcing that he's returning to his dream and then cutting to him being woken sometime later to carry on with the story. It's an effective way of letting time pass, but it feels very out of place to cut so quickly from one to the other), but it means we're moving at a pace rarely seen in the programme.

When we do slow down a little, it's for wonderful moments. The confrontation between Vaughn and the professor is perhaps one of my favourite scenes from the series so far - it's so well done on every level, from the writing, performance, and direction. Vaughn taunting Watkins with his charm is brilliant, actually handing the man a gun so that he can follow through with a threat of murder. The way he laughs when the bullets cut straight into his cybernetic body with no pain is simply fantastic: pitch-perfect in every way. The only thing that could have possibly made that better would be not finding out about Vaughn's partial upgrade earlier in the story, as it would have added a whole new layer to the scene.

One last thing, by the way: how right does the Doctor look, staring down a microscope in a UNIT laboratory? After everything I've said, I'm becoming a UNIT convert mighty quickly!

a 

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

Day 231: The Invasion, Episode Five

Dear diary,

As much as I loved the animation in yesterday's episode, nothing quite beats having the actual thing to watch. It's striking right from the off - the reveal of the Cyberman is much better when you can see it properly than it was in the animation. In the cliffhanger yesterday, the odd pulsating of the 'cocoon' just looked odd whereas now it's actually creepy. One thing, though… how do they hold those electrodes onto it? They don't seem to attach anywhere!

The sight of the Cybermen ripping their way out of hibernation is fantastic, and we get a few great opportunities to see it throughout today's episode. I'll admit that it doesn't always work (at one point, the recently burst cocoon gets caught on the Cyberman's handlebars, and the rest of the scene - shot from behind our metal monster - just looks odd because of it. In another instance, you can see where someone just off camera is trying to pull the cocoon away from another Cyberman), but when it does, it really does. The best ones are the shots where the Cybermen literally burst out from storage, ripping open their pods and stepping forward into the open.

It benefits from the fact that this design of Cyberman is gorgeous, too. There's no wonder that Big Finish tend to use them as the default model, because they're so brilliant. I've said before that the Tomb models are my favourite 60s version, but d'you know? I think it may be these ones. There's something about them - and the fact they look more like the 'standard' Cyberman model, with the addition of the 'ear muffs' - that just really works. The sight of one being inflicted with emotion and crying out in pain is pretty striking, and it relies on our former knowledge of the creatures. Admittedly, it doesn't look quite as effective in the closing seconds, when the creature lurches out of the darkness down in the sewers…

Some praise really does need to be reserved for the Cyberplanner: it's always been a slightly odd design, as though the leader of their invasion fleet has been built from assorted bric-a-brac, and even in this story, the Direction hasn't always done it the best of favours. When we see it in close up, it really does look cobbled together, and the effect is completely lost. Today, though, in a long-shot and towering over Vaughn, it works! We've got a few shots from behind the structure, too, which also make it look better than it has done.

I think one of the things that I'm enjoying most about this story at the moment is the fact that we've reverted to having three companions again. For a while, I was thinking about how much I'd rather Anne Travers turn up in the story than Isobel, but now that we're thick into the action she's fitting right in. I love that she and Zoe plot to go into the sewers and find the evidence the Brigadier needs, and then tempt Jamie into coming along, too. It makes for a nice dynamic, the likes of which we've not seen since Ben and Polly departed. I also love how normal it feels that a policeman thinks they're just a bunch of kids larking about in the sewers - the scale of what's going on is growing by the episode (especially now that the invasion has been moved up to tomorrow!), but for most people it's just a load of fantasy. No wonder the Brigadier needs to get hold of some evidence pretty sharpish!

The policeman is the second casualty of this story to come completely from nowhere. Back in Episode One, the poor driver that gives the Doctor and his friends a lift gets shot down in cold blood without the Doctor even realising (a few episodes later, he even muses to the Brigadier that the chap's probably fine), and here the policeman meets his fate simply by touching the outer fringes of the Doctor's life. The series has a gritty edge to it when we come back down to Earth, and it packs far more of a punch to see an innocent policeman meet his demise than it does some random scientist on the high-tech base-of-the-week.

a 

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

Day 230: The Invasion, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Oh, all right then. I'm a complete convert to the style of animation used in this story. For some reason, I'd always recalled it as being a bit ropey - almost like cheap flash animation that featured characters barely moving. Actually, it's completely the opposite to all that! I think I'm actually a little disappointed that Cosgrove Hall didn't get to make any more of the missing episodes - if they could all have been to this standard, then I'd be a very happy fan.

In some ways, it's also quite nice to have Cosgrove Hall connected with Doctor Who, even if it's only in a small way (and Scream of the Shalka, their other Who project, is seeing a DVD release next month too). For many people, it's a name that's synonymous with childhood and British animation, and is as much of a treasure to UK television as Doctor Who itself. Sadly, the company was wound down a few years ago, so chances of getting them involved with the Who range again are pretty much nil*.

It's interesting, though, that when The Invasion first came out on DVD, in 2006, we were told quite simply that the cost of regular animations were beyond the budget of the DVD line, and that we'd only managed to get hold of this one because of some complicated agreement with the Doctor Who website (I think I'm right in saying that these two episodes were commissions for the web, to follow on from their various other animation pieces, but that for some reason that plan fell through, too late in the day to cancel. Thus, we end up with these two episodes here on the DVD). Fast forward seven years and suddenly animations aren't just viable - they're plentiful!

This year already, we've had The Reign of Terror (I always found it amusing that the first two stories to be released with animated instalments were the second ever story with missing parts, and the second to last story with them. There's a kind of neat symmetry to that!), and a sneak-peak of The Tenth Planet on the Regenerations set, with a full release to follow later in the year. The Ice Warriors is out any day now, and then there's The Moonbase to come in a few months, too. Here's hoping that the last few stories with only two missing episodes (The Crusade and The Underwater Menace) can also be given the treatment - it's a lovely way of plugging the gaps.

And what a gap to plug in today's episode! Helicopters are simply becoming part and parcel of the programme's format, now, so it's nice to actually see one! Both their previous appearances have been in missing episodes, too, but here we get some idea of how the scene could have looked, and it's fab. I've no doubt that the animation takes one or two liberties (the shot of the helicopter flying away while Jamie dangles from the rope ladder, for example, probably looks a little better here than it might have actually done!), but it really helps to up the scale of the whole thing.

And yet, for me, it's still in the characters that The Invasion is really shining. Particularly in Tobian Vaughn. I've already said plenty of nice things about the performance we're being given here but the way that Vaughn's facade gently slips away throughout the first two thirds of today's episode, before he eventually snaps and begins to shout is fantastic. The best bit, however, comes a few minutes later, when he demands to be put through to a government minister. He snaps at the receptionist as she appears on the video screen, before remembering himself, and slipping back into his 'charming' persona. Characters are rarely as fully-rounded as this, and I think Kevin Stoney has to take a large amount of the credit, there.

And then the cliffhanger! We all knew it was coming, yeah, but you know what? I bloody love Cybermen, so it's all good by me!

*For the record, while everyone tends to list Danger Mouse as their favourite Cosgrove Hall production, for me it was always about Count Duckula. I still get the theme tune stuck in my head now and then.

a 

a  a

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

Day 229: The Invasion, Episode Three

Dear diary,

The Doctor and Jamie as they appear in this story are, for me, the 'definitive' versions. Whenever I think of the pair, it's as they are here: right down to the way that Troughton's hair falls. I'm not sure why it's like this as opposed to any other episode, but it's always been the version that's stuck in my mind. The scenes as the pair climb the lift shaft together and emerge onto the rooftop just looks absolutely right to me, as does their time sneaking along the sides of the trains and peeking inside to take a closer look at the supposedly 'empty' crates.

I think the fact that so much of Season Six is still available to watch as opposed to stuff from earlier in the Second Doctor's era (there's almost twice as many surviving episodes in Season Six than there are in Seasons Four and Five combined!) means that this has rather become the default version of Troughton's incarnation for many people. Take, for example, three recent releases of Second Doctor merchandise: The Wheel of Ice, an original novel released last year, and two 50th anniversary releases in the form of the second Destiny of the Doctor CD and the second issue of the IDW Prisoners of Time comic. All three of these feature the TARDIS team of the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe as opposed to the earlier set ups of this era.

I wonder if that might be why this version of the Doctor is so ingrained in my mind? Until undertaking this marathon, The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Moonbase were the only pre-Season-Six stories that I had any real knowledge of (though I'd seen bits and bobs from other tales, usually orphaned episodes), whereas I've seen a lot of Season Six before - merely by existing in the archive, it becomes far more accessible than his earlier stuff.

It's a shame, really, because I've noticed just how much Troughton's Doctor has evolved across his time on the programme. The Second Doctor - though still quite a fun character - gets to show off his darker side far more often these days than he did to begin with. He used to be a bit of a clown who secretly knew what was going on, but now he's maturing a lot. Even his look has moved on over time - compare the way his hair sits now compared to the way it was during the earliest stages of Season Four and there's a distinct difference. It's possibly something I'm projecting onto the character, but I think he looks older now far more than the three years that we've seen pass would allow.

It's another reason that I'd love to see him in a few more Jamie-less adventures, so we could get a real sense of time passing for this incarnation. I'd dearly love to have more to watch from his earliest adventures, so that this phase of the programme didn't feel so weighted to the late 1960s.

It's another one of those days where I could just wax lyrical about how brilliant Troughton and Hines are together, and a great instance of them really drawing my attention - I hadn't noticed that we were missing Zoe and Isobel until the pair clambered aboard the train carriage to take a look for them: I'm too busy caught up with them and their interactions with Tobias Vaughn.

Vaughn has always been hailed as one of Doctor Who's very best villains, and it's not hard to see why. Kevin Stoney turns in a performance that's pitch-perfect (he slightly over-plays it with the 'niceness' when face to face with the Doctor and Jamie, but this becomes a plot point when even the Doctor draws attention to it), and he's well suited to the part. He was just as good playing Mavic Chen back in The Daleks' Master Plan, but giving him a far more real character and placing him in a very real setting makes his performance all the more brilliant - we can really connect to the idea of this person existing behind the fake smiles of big business.

Perhaps worryingly, all my memories of his character come from this first half of the story, before the Cybermen actually make their appearance. Once they arrive on the scene, I can't really recall what happens to Vaughn. I'm hoping that it's more down to my own bad memory than the character being sidelined as the story goes on, as he's one of the greatest things to turn up in the programme…

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 

If, like us, you're an avid user of the fantastic Google Maps website and app, you'll be pleased to know there is a rather cool Doctor Who related Easter Egg to look out for.

Users navigating to this url (The Earl's Court Police Box), can actually enter the TARDIS by clicking the double arrows at the bottom of the screen, or if you're using the new beta, by clicking the up arrow on your keyboard.

You are then whisked away to the new TARDIS interior, (first seen in the 2012 Doctor Who Christmas Special The Snowmen).

Do you know of any other Google Maps related Easter Eggs? Let us know by posting a comment below!

[Source: Google Maps]

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…)

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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 

Awesome Doctor Who band, Chameleon Circuit, have a brand new music video titled 'Teenage Rebel' to coincide with YouTube's Geek Week.

The music video, which is a rather touching look at how Doctor Who can change a person's life for the better, has already had well over 100,000+ views on YouTube!

Watch the music video for 'Teenage Rebel', below:

[youtube:CYB8MXWqLKI]
+  Check Out the Chameleon Circuit website at DFTBA, here.

[Source: Alex Day]

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 

Our good friend, Cameron K. McEwan and his chums Elisar Cabrera and Jack Ayers are putting together a Doctor Who Fan Documentary called 'Who's Changing', and they need your help to fund the project.

The feature-length documentary about 50 years of Doctor Who fans, looks at how the nature of fandom has changed since the series returned to TV screens in 2005.

Filming has already begun, having started in the Spring, and the team have already met and interviewed some incredible people:

Louise Jameson ('Leela' - companion to the 4th Doctor); 
Sophie Aldred ('Ace', companion to the 7th Doctor)
Neve McIntosh ('Madame Vastra', companion to the 11th Doctor); 
Dan Starkey (Sontaran 'Strax', companion to the 11th Doctor); 
Simon Fisher-Becker ('Dorium Maldovar', friend of the 11th Doctor); 
Catrin Stewart ('Jenny', companion to the 11th Doctor);
Caitlin Blackwood (Young 'Amelia Pond', the first person to meet the Eleventh Doctor); 
Gary Russell (Doctor Who, Torchwood & Sarah Jane Adventures Script Editor and author);
Andrew Smith (writer of Fourth Doctor story, 'Full Circle'); 
James Moran (writer of the Tenth Doctor story, 'The Fires of Pompeii');
Spencer Wilding (Doctor Who creature actor in the 11th Doctor era); 
Eric Saward (Doctor Who Script Editor and writer); 
Jane Espenson (Torchwood, Buffy, Once Upon A Time writer); 
Jeremy Bentham (Writer Doctor Who Weekly and Co-Founder Doctor Who Appreciation Society); 
Tony Lee (writer of the IDW Doctor Who comic); 
Simon Furman (writer of Doctor Who Magazine and Transformer comic strips);
Dan Slott (legendary Spiderman Marvel comics writer and Who fan);
Richard Starkings (writer of Doctor Who Magazine comic strips and the Elephantmen comic book series);
Liam Dryden (YouTube star and Chameleon Circuit band member);
Josh Adams (American artist of Doctor Who comics); 
Alain Carrazé (French journalist & TV programmer)

and many more including lots of Doctor Who fans like yourself...

+  Help fund the project by donating at the IndieGoGo page, here.

Watch the trailer for the project, below:

[youtube:Nw5H6IT5YNk]

[Source: Cameron K. McEwan]

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 

a  a

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