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The first time Doctor Who got into trouble
for its content. It wouldn't be the last.
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2 episodes: The Edge of Destruction, The Brink of Disaster. Written by: David Whitaker. Directed by: Richard Martin, Frank Cox. Produced by: Verity Lambert
THE PLOT
After leaving the planet Skaro, the TARDIS has a sudden, violent reaction - leaving its four occupants unconscious. When they come to, they are all affected in different ways. All begin by exhibiting signs of amnesia. They gradually regain their memories, but they continue behaving strangly. Susan and Ian behave as if in a daze, and both have incidents where they inexplicably attack the others. The Doctor becomes paranoid, and threatens to expel Ian and Barbara from the ship. And the ship itself behaves increasingly erratically, the doors opening and closing with no reason, the food replicator reading empty of water when it isn't, clock- and watch-faces melting in front of the travelers' eyes. The four must put aside their mutual mistrust to figure out the cause of these strange incidents, before they all are destroyed.
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: There are a few noticeable line fluffs, particularly when Hartnell stumbles over saying the title of Episode Two (What are we on the brink of again, Billy?). To an extent, though, the fluffs actually fit with the context of the story. The Doctor has received a blow to the head, after all, and his mental processes are clearly affected. Fluffs aside, Hartnell delivers another splendid performance. He is shockingly sinister at the end of Part One and the beginning of Part Two. As simple a gesture as offering refreshments to the others comes across with menace. When he threatens to expel Ian and Barbara from the ship, there is more than a hint of mania in Hartnell's delivery. He also shifts gears very effectively, as he comes to terms with Barbara at the story's end.
Barbara: A splendid story for Barbara. Hints of the strong woman I remembered from my first viewing of the series came through in The Daleks, but the Barbara I was in love with on last viewing really crystallizes here. As good as Hartnell is, Hill may be even better. Her dressing down of the Doctor in Episode One ("You stupid old man... You should get down on your knees and thank us!") is loaded with emotion, as is her reluctance to engage with Susan when the girl tries to approach her afterwards. She has probably the most proactive role here, being the least affected member of the crew from the start - She's the first to regain her memory, the first to recover her wits, and is the only one of the four who doesn't behave dangerously at any point.
Susan: Gets one highly memorable moment, when she menaces Ian and then Barbara with a pair of scissors. In these early scenes, the hint of the otherworldly in Ford's appearance is used to excellent effect. Once Susan begins behaving like herself again, however, she becomes much less interesting. She spends the second half of the story largely confined to the background, and despite her strong showing in The Daleks, one can already see that she is the member of the crew with the least developed personality - a situation that, if my memories hold true, will become very evident in the latter half of the season.
Ian: Has the least to do of the regulars (fair enough, since he probably had the most to do in the first two stories). Still, the ending at least shows one new admirable trait for Ian. Though the Doctor has to work a bit harder to come to terms with Barbara, he has no trouble at all making peace with Ian. Mr. Chatterton/Charleston/Chesterton does not even require an apology, accepting it before it is fully offered. As the Doctor gratefully acknowledges, he is a man with no use for recriminations.
THOUGHTS
Hatched by script editor David Whitaker as a last-minute "budget saver" to end the first 13-episode production block (in case the show did not get picked up) and to act as a buffer between the two epic 7-parters (The Daleks and Marco Polo), it is fair to say that The Edge of Destruction is not the series' finest outing. Among other things, when all is explained in Part Two, much of the action in Part One seems suddenly nonsenical. Given the nature of the TARDIS' problem, it seems odd that it would go about alerting the crew by giving them amnesia and melting clock-faces and making them atack each other. Surely bringing up some sort of an automated alert would be far more effective?
While one could pick apart the story's logic fairly easily, though, it should be said that it is a highly effective mood piece. The first episode benefits from strong atmosphere and a sense of the truly bizarre. On first viewing, in particular, the mystery of that first episode is compelling. What is going on? Is there some kind of alien force taking over members of the crew? Is there an invisible alien taking advantage of the still-uneasy alliance among the four? What could possibly explain all of the bizarre events?
The explanations may not be fully satisfactory, when they are forthcoming - and indeed, the exposition-heavy second episode is much less satisfying than the more mysterious first one. This is not helped by the change in directors. Richard Martin develops a genuine sense of threat and atmosphere in the first part. Frank Cox's direction of Part Two is far more static. Admittedly, Part Two is the less interesting on the page... but even when the Doctor is threatening to expel Ian and Barbara into a potentially-lethal unknown environment, Cox doesn't really bring a sense of immediacy to the proceedings. The cut to Hartnell's (wonderfully-delivered) soliloquy about the birth of a solar system is almost jarringly intrusive, and Cox's direction only seems fully to gel during the closing post-script, when all he has to deal with are the characters, not the bizarre threat. On the whole, though the script would probably have made Part Two a letdown in any case, I suspect this might have been a bit stronger across the board if Martin had directed both episodes, rather than just Part One.
Despite my reservations about the story, it is probably for the best that this falls between The Daleks and Marco Polo. For one thing, it's nice to have a short, self-contained little piece in between those two mammoth serials. Also, the crew is still very uneasily allied at the end of The Daleks. Two stories in a row have seen Ian and the Doctor directly acting against each other, and only really setting aside their differences when the situation becomes dire. Something was needed to show the four - the Doctor and Ian, in particular - truly determining that they are a crew, and that they all trust each other. This story builds the regulars' mutual distrust to a crisis point, and resolves their suspicion of each other by showing it as empty paranoia.
After the danger is resolved, there is a fairly lengthy postscript given over specifically to the Doctor making amends with Ian and, specifically, with Barbara. The final scene of the episode sees a new fondness among all of them, with the Doctor a far less remote and imposing figure. For all the world, as Barbara and Susan begin a snowfight and Ian and the Doctor begin joking about the gigantic coat Ian is wearing, the sense we are left with is one of family... for the first time ever.
It's also worth noting that this is the first story to indicate a sort of sentience for the TARDIS, and the first story to show that the TARDIS can directly affect the minds of those who travel in it. I don't think the latter, in particular, would be mentioned again until The Masque of Mandragora's throwaway about understanding languages, and its implications probably wouldn't even be seriously mulled by television writers until Rose's panic over the the ship messing with her brain in The End of the World. When that is considered, the fact that a story this early in the series' history establishes the TARDIS as a mental influence is rather significant, and impressive, and reinforces that there really isn't much that Who has ever done that wasn't touched on at some point in the '60's, particularly in Hartnell's tenure.
Rating: 5/10. A worthwhile and interesting piece, but loses points for a static and overly expository second half, and will honestly never count among my favorites.
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Next Story: Marco Polo
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