Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 136: The Smugglers, Episode Three
Dear diary,
As Polly's screams ring out into the closing theme, I realised that actually, the companions in Doctor Who at this stage don't really scream all that much, do they? Susan, Barbara, and Vicki have all had a couple of them, but they've not been a common part of the series in the way you'd expect, based on the number of jokes made about it. I'm so entrenched in this era of Who, now, that I can't even really remember if the later companions scream lots more than this, or if it's just a myth that's built up over the years.
Early on in this episode, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for our two newest companions, as they find themselves confronted once again. 'We haven't done anything!', Ben protests. 'We haven't killed anyone, and we haven't smuggled anything!'. At this stage, they were still separated from the Doctor, and I realised how odd it was to see this.
I commented lots on it during the Dodo episodes, that she and Steven would be separated off to have the bulk of the adventure, while the Doctor went off elsewhere to reduce the strain on Hartnell. There, it felt perfectly natural: Steven had been travelling with him for quite some time before it started becoming a common occurrence in the series, so you felt as though he knew what to do. Here, Ben and Polly have only just arrived in their first new time period, and they're already left to fend for themselves.
When the Doctor swans in a few minutes later, it's with a kind of lofty carefreeness. Much like the way he followed after them upon first exiting the TARDIS in Episode One, he's watching his new friends with amusement more than concern. he knows what's going on, and he's enjoying their reactions to things. We've also reached another key point in the evolution of the Doctor's character here, which is important as we draw ever closer to the first regeneration.
During Season One, I found it fun to highlight the various steps in the Doctor's transformation from the insular, grumpy sod we see in An Unearthly Child through to the kind of character he becomes in all his subsequent incarnations. There's several key moments (mostly based around Barbara shouting at him) that lead to our first big revelation in The Dalek Invasion of Earth - that the Doctor will stay and fight the Daleks, because that's the right thing to do.
Here, we see again that he's fully completed his transformation into being 'The Doctor'. It's been there, without much of a song or dance for the most part, ever since that Dalek invasion, but this is the first time in a while that the Doctor has stopped to point out that this is the way he behaves. It plays into the idea of using this story to establish the programme for a new audience - he explains to Ben that they can't just leave for the TARDIS, because he has a 'moral obligation' to stay here and see that things are left safe.
We're close to the Troughton Doctor, now, with his speech about 'some corners of the universe', so it's important to see the First Doctor stepping up and reminding us of who he's become now, in time for his fall under the next story.
7/10 
