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

Day 200: The Web of Fear, Episode Two

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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