a  Day 201: The Web of Fear, Episode Three

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

Day 201: The Web of Fear, Episode Three

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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