#10 (2.4 - 2.9): The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

The Daleks, Masters of Earth!

6 episodes: Worlds' End, The Daleks, Day of Reckoning, The End of Tomorrow, The Waking Ally, Flashpoint. Approx. 149 minutes. Written by: Terry Nation. Directed by: Richard Martin. Produced by: Verity Lambert.


THE PLOT

The TARDIS materializes in London - but the Doctor quickly realizes that they have not come to Ian and Barbara's time. The city is eerily quiet, with few signs of life and a strange sign near the River Thames warning against dumping bodies in the water.

The year is around 2164, and the Earth has been invaded by the Daleks! The Doctor and Ian are captured and taken to a Dalek saucer, while Barbara and Susan fall in with a local resistance group. Dortmun (Alan Judd), a wheelchair-bound scientist, hopes to defeat the Daleks using a bomb he has created that he believes will pierce the strong Dalek casing. The group decides to test the bomb in an attack on the Dalek saucer. Despite freeing the Doctor, Dortmun's device proves useless and only a handful of resistance members make it out alive - and they are scattered.

The Doctor, Susan, and young resistance fighter David Campbell (Peter Fraser) decide to head to mines the Daleks have started in Bedfordshire, something the Doctor is certain is significant. Barbara and the pessimistic Jenny (Ann Davies) reunite with Dortmun, and decide to head to that same mine. Meanwhile Ian, who escaped his cell in the attack but could not get off the Dalek saucer, finds himself at the mining site - where he learns that the Daleks are mining for the magnetic core of the Earth itself!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: "I never take life - Only when my own is immediately threatened!" One of the joys of revisiting the early stories is watching the selfish Doctor of the very first serials transform gradually into the same hero we recognize in the modern series. This is a strong piece for the Doctor, who takes the lead in defeating the Daleks (something that wasn't true in the original Dalek serial). Hartnell is terrific throughout, particularly in the scenes involving Susan. Seeing Susan's blossoming attraction to David Campbell, the Doctor sets aside his stubbornness and instead asks for the young man's suggestions as to what to do next, earning grateful smiles from his granddaughter. After Susan declares that she loves David, the Doctor makes a decision whose difficulty you can see etched in his wrinkled face. His closing monologue is one of the series' genuinely iconic moments, irreproachable in both its scripting and Hartnell's performance.

Barbara: After the failed assault on the Dalek saucer, Barbara quickly agrees to go to a museum at the heart of London where Dortmun believes others might gather. When Jenny points out that this will hurt their chances of making it out of the city, Barbara replies that the wheelchair-bound scientist would have no chance without their help - revealing not only Barbara's selflessness, but her sensitivity. If she were to simply offer Dortmun her aid, the man's pride might make him refuse; but by making him believe he is helping them, she is able to get him to in reality accept help. Barbara remains constantly alert for potential advantages, quickly identifying the device the Daleks use to control the Robomen and hatching an on-the-spot plan to try to make use of it.

Ian: Paired with the Doctor for the first two episodes, then is split off on his own, investigating the mines from the site even as the others work their way toward him. He has the least interesting slice of the story, having to pretend to be wary of a genuinely pathetic-looking man in a monster suit for the Episode Four cliffhanger. Still, William Russell manages to hold the screen even when tasked with carrying the weakest of the three main threads.

Susan: Her departure story gives her more to do than usual, and Carole Ann Ford does well with the additional material. Still, while this is the second above-average treatment of the character in a row, I don't find myself the slightest bit sorry to see her go. There was always potential in Susan, but the sad fact is that it was rarely tapped. She was usually called upon to either do something stupid or be put into peril to create a story crisis for the others. It's good that the character got to leave with more dignity than she was allowed for much of her actual run - But the honest truth is that Susan was never a favorite of mine, and I much prefer her immediate successor.

Daleks: The Daleks were tremendously popular in their first appearance, their first story sending Doctor Who's ratings from average fare to ratings juggernaut. Bringing them back was a no-brainer, complicated by only one thing: That they were completely wiped out as a species at the end of their debut. No problem for a time-travel show - When Ian brings up their extinction, the Doctor simply tells him (and us) that this is a much earlier point in the Daleks' timeline. The Daleks were already identified with Fascism, and Terry Nation's script makes good use of this by evoking World War II imagery at every possible turn, from the very French Resistance-like human rebels to the forced labor camp of the mines.


STORY VS. SET PIECES

The Dalek Invasion of Earth was the first story to bring back a previous villain, and it remade the Daleks from a weak and dying race trapped in a decaying city into a military force capable of conquering (and exterminating) entire planets. It was also the first companion departure, with the exemplary handling of Carole Ann Ford's departure setting the precedent for the many cast turnovers to follow.

The actual story, however, is quite thin and rather silly. The Daleks have invaded the Earth and enslaved the human race - Ultimately, we discover, in order to extract the Earth's magnetic core and then... throw that core away (presumably into a convenient black hole) and replace it with an engine so they can drive the planet around like a fancy new car. We don't even hear about this granting some tactical advantage; turning the Earth into a Dalek spaceship would appear to be an end in itself.

One imagines Ming the Merciless grinning his approval from some distant dimension... Before turning back to torturing some minions, of course.

What makes this serial work - and it does work - is how good many of the individual set pieces are. There are several wonderful moments and images that still work quite well today: The Dalek rising out of the Thames at the end of Episode One; Daleks gliding around a deserted, devastated London; slave laborers, disheveled and without hope, marching into a mine to be worked until they are useless and then discarded. Black and white is a tremendous asset here, making the proceedings feel a little grittier than if had been in color.


THE COLLABORATORS

One of my favorite moments is one that's largely irrelevant to the overall story. Barbara and Jenny are making their way to the mines when they stop at a shack that's home to two all-but-starving seamstresses (Jean Conroy, Meriel Hobson). The women have been allowed to stay because they are of more use to the Daleks making clothes for the refugees than they would be in the mines. They quickly turn Barbara and Jenny in, in exchange for a little food. The younger woman is rapturous at seeing their bounty, but the older one seems regretful, assuaging her conscience by telling herself that Barbara and Jenny would have been captured anyway.

Plot-wise, this is an aside, a bit of filler to pad out the story. It would make as much sense to have the Daleks capture Barbara and Jenny in London and just transport them to the mine. But it adds to the atmosphere, emphasizing the overall hopelessness and putting a face on human cowardice even as the rest of the serial shows bravery and resistance. In a later story, the women would probably have been brought back to either redeem themselves or be punished (probably both) - but I'm happy that it's just an aside, a convincingly-portrayed slice of life in a particularly bleak world.


PUSHING THE LIMITATIONS

This was the most technically ambitious serial of the first two seasons... Which means that the budget limitations are more visible than usual. Bits of set wobble, with the ramp to the Dalek saucer a particular offender. The actors have to pretend not to see items or people that should be clearly visible, be it the prominent poster warning against dumping bodies in the Thames (finally "noticed" several minutes after the regulars have each managed to look right at it), or the planting of a bomb just a few feet from where the Doctor, Susan, and David are having a conversation. Then there's the bit in Episode Six, in which actresses Jacqueline Hill and Ann Davies struggle gamely to hold their "magnetic restraints" in place, each shake of either actress's hand betraying that they're just holding bits of plastic against their necks.

Director Richard Martin's work for the series was often characterized by pushing the technical limitations. While some bits of staging fall flat, other visual moments work surprisingly well. In Episode Two, David fills Barbara and Susan in on the backstory of the Dalek invasion. As he talks, the episode cuts to a flashback of Robomen and Daleks escorting prisoners to their saucer. Then another person takes up the narration, and we come out of the flashback to find that someone else is filling in the Doctor and Ian on the same backstory - Thus making the visual not just a flashback, but a bridge between one scene and another.

A couple episodes later, as the Daleks exchange exposition, their exchange is lent a sense of menace by being shown threw a slightly skewed camera angle. Finally, we see through a Dalek eyestalk as it approaches the Doctor, preparing to exterminate him. None of this is very complex, even by 1960's standards - but it's just that bit more cinematic than the series' norm at this point in its run, and helps to make this serial feel like the "event story" that it is.


OVERALL

There is no questioning how important a story The Dalek Invasion of Earth is to the series. While the overall story may be thin and a bit silly, it is played very straight by the actors and script. This helps to sell the tension of the situation, while the quality of many of the individual moments within these six episodes makes it easy enough to overlook the weaknesses in the overall narrative.

I'd emphasize that this is not a story to watch in a single viewing. Viewed one to two episodes at a time, it is enjoyable and fairly suspenseful - Any more than that, and it starts to have a numbing effect. As a story, I don't think it's as quite good as the original Dalek serial. Still, by making the Daleks into a formidable opponent, it did well by the series' most iconic villains; and by handling the departure of Susan with intelligence and dignity it prepared the way for the many later cast changes.

The result is a serial well worth watching an episode at a time, to enjoy the many bits that work - And, more critically in the long run, this story is a genuinely indispensable piece of Doctor Who history.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Story: Planet of Giants
Next Story: The Rescue


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#9 (2.1 - 2.3): Planet of Giants.

Barbara is startled by a gigantic insect.

3 episodes: Planet of Giants, Dangerous Journey, Crisis. Approx. 74 minutes. Written by: Louis Marks. Directed by: Mervyn Pinfield, Douglas Camfield. Produced by: Verity Lambert.


THE PLOT

While the TARDIS is materializing, the doors suddenly open of their own accord. The Doctor is convinced that this means some disaster - Yet save for the scanner breaking, everything appears perfectly normal. Not without some foreboding, the Doctor and his companions venture outside to explore their newest landing site.

They find themselves in a wonderland of giant insects and earthworms, all of which are dead. At each corpse, they smell a peculiar chemical substance. The Doctor and Susan deduce that the opening of the TARDIS doors must somehow have resulted in them shrinking to practically microscopic size. As for the dead insects and the chemical smell? Clearly a pesticide - Though an overly effective one, if it's killing worms as well as insects.

They have arrived at the home and laboratory of Smithers (Reginald Barratt), a scientist developing an experimental pesticide so far known only as DN6. He is away, but Forester (Alan Tilvern), the businessman financing him, is present - along with government scientist Farrow (Frank Crawshaw), who informs Forester that he cannot authorize the overly-lethal DN6's approval. Facing financial ruin, Forester coldly murders Farrow, intending to forge the government reports and send them in before staging a boating accident for the unfortunate government man.

When the Doctor finds the formula, he realizes that the chemical is even more dangerous than it appears. In sufficient quantities, exposure could prove deadly to humans and animals as well as insects - And Barbara, having accidentally touched some of it, is already becoming ill!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: This story is something of an unheralded landmark, as it is the first time the Doctor decides to try to stop a threat for completely unselfish reasons. He observes in Episode Two how concerned he is that the pesticide kills earthworms, which he explains are vital to the planet's ecology. When Barbara insists they stay and try to do something to stop DN6, the Doctor says that she's "quite right," and argues against Ian's urging to return to the ship and simply trust the government to refuse to sell the chemical. A scene cut from the script, available in the DVD special features, makes this even more explicit, with the Doctor delivering a speech actively encouraging intervention to stop something a threat to all life on Earth.

Ian: Resists the idea that they could have been miniaturized, even after encountering the giant insects and the enormous matchbox. As with his initial entry into the TARDIS, his first impulse is to grasp for more familiar explanations, such as an exhibition as for a World's Fair. When Barbara becomes ill, he focuses on getting back to the ship. He only becomes invested in "making trouble" to stop the pesticide after Barbara insists that they must intervene.

Susan: After the all-time-low of her portrayal in The Reign of Terror, she actually gets a decent showing here. The first episode pairs her with Ian while Barbara is with the Doctor. Uniquely, the script allows Susan to be the dominant figure, piecing together that these insects and objects are not larger than usual but that they are the ones who are smaller. Some clever intercutting sees Susan and the Doctor finishing each other's sentences as the Doctor explains to Barbara exactly what Susan is explaining to Ian.

Barbara: Apparently took Susan's stupid pills for this story. Even after knowing that some dangerous substance is killing everything they've come across, she decides to touch a pile of seeds in the laboratory. Once she realizes that the seeds were coated with poison, she tells the Doctor and Ian right away... Oh wait, no. She conceals that she's been exposed, even when it becomes apparent that she is ill. Is this the same highly competent character we've been watching for a full season? At least the final episode sees her refusing to return to the ship until they've done something to stop the insecticide from being used, showing her willingness to put the greater good above her own welfare - But overall, this is one of the character's very weakest showings.


THOUGHTS

The concept for Planet of Giants was originally proposed for the series' first story - That the TARDIS' first dematerialization would end with the regulars in the same place, just miniaturized. That did not come to pass, which I think is for the best. The production demands would almost certainly have been too great for that very first outing; and the straightforward capture/escape scenario of the bulk of An Unearthly Child was better-suited to setting the cast dynamics for the series to come.

Besides, based on the end result, there may not have been all that much mileage in the concept to start with. Planet of Giants is a rare story for '60's Who. The production consistently impresses. Giant versions of everyday objects are recreated with imagination and to a startlingly high standard considering. But all the imagination went into the production, stuck in service to a disappointingly pedestrian script.

As the plot summary reveals, the miniaturization of the regulars is window dressing on an entirely standard crime drama. The murder story moves very slowly (DVD special features reveal that it would have moved even more slowly and repetitively had the decision not been taken to edit it), and the plot involving Forester and Smithers seems mostly disconnected from the plight of the regulars. Indeed - The way the story unfolds, the time travelers might as well have run back to the ship, as they have nothing to do with Forester's apprehension.

The serial is most-remembered for having been cut down from four episodes to three. The dvd reconstructs the cut footage in an extra feature, utilizing soundalikes that vary from a dead-on double for the FIrst Doctor to a couple of dead-awful doubles for a telephone operator and a policeman. Sadly, the reconstruction largely validates the production decision. Most of the cut footage is filler, including multiple scenes of Forester attempting to forge the dead man's signature on a report and multiple scenes of Forester calling the nosy operator on the telephone. Though a few transitions would have been smoothed out had the edit not occurred, the plot feels slow and talky even in its broadcast version - as originally scripted and shot, it would have become downright boring.

The story is somewhat redeemed by the usual strong performances of the regulars, and the miniaturization visuals hold up strikingly well 50 years later. Still, non-completists might just want to give this one a pass. It's not uninteresting... But the storytelling is noticeably below the Hartnell era's normally very high standards.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Story: The Reign of Terror
Next Story: The Dalek Invasion of Earth


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#7 (1.31 - 1.36): The Sensorites.

The Doctor, angry at being locked out of the TARDIS.

6 episodes: Strangers in Space, The Unwilling Warriors, Hidden Danger, A Race Against Death, Kidnap, A Desperate Measure. Approx. 148 minutes. Written by: Peter R. Newman. Directed by: Mervyn Pinfield, Frank Cox. Produced by: Verity Lambert.


THE PLOT

The time travelers find themselves inside a spaceship in the distant future. The two astronauts in the control room appear to be dead, but abruptly revive and explain that they had been put into a death-like sleep by The Sensorites, the natives of a strange world known as The Sense Sphere. The Sensorites have made no move to harm the astronauts, but they refuse to let them leave.

The Doctor decides the best thing to do is to just leave this sad situation. But the Sensorites have also disabled the TARDIS, taking its lock and fusing the mechanism so that there is no way inside. Then the Sensorites come aboard with an ultimatum: Either Susan comes down to the planet with them, or the humans will all be killed!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: After fumbling his way through Episode One with more line flubs than I think he even had in Part One of The Keys of Marinus, Hartnell gets back on form for the rest of the story. A good thing, since this story puts him more in the lead role than previous serials have, with Barbara outright stating that she and Ian follow the Doctor's lead. He gets some wonderful material, from his confrontation with the Sensorites in Part Two, in which he coolly stands up to their ultimatum with one of his own, to his very rapid progress in isolating and curing the contaminated water supply. Despite Hartnell's excellent performance, though, there's nothing that could make the Doctor's abrupt tantrum at the end of the serial convincing, as he goes from jovial to snapping that he's putting Ian off the ship at their next stop with virtually no provocation.

Ian: Largely acts as the Doctor's back-up this time. He does get a very good scene, in which he essentially repays the favor of the Doctor's defense of him in The Keys of Marinus. He handily cross-examines the Sensorite guard who attempts to implicate the Doctor for a murder, and seems to relish the chance. Other than that, this is probably William Russell's weakest story to date, with the previously quick-witted Ian suddenly reduced to acting as muscle.

Barbara: In case we might have any worries over her being permanantly scarred by her experiences with the Aztecs, she chirpily assures us within the first five minutes that she's "over that now." Oh, how very nice that there won't be any lingering trauma or, you know, character development. Jacqueline Hill remains as good as ever, though, and has some good scenes opposite William Russell and Carole Ann Ford as Barbara plays the voice of reason to both of them. Unfortunately, this serial marked Hill's holiday, and Barbara is absent from Episodes 4 and 5. When she returns in Episode 6, her return gives the episode an immediate lift as Barbara is allowed to take almost instant charge of arranging a rescue for the Doctor and Ian.

Susan: Actually gets some her very best material in this story. She senses the Sensorites' telepathic abilities almost immediately, and it's her plan in conjunction with Barbara that sees the group's first effective resistance against them. More interesting on a character level is her resistance to her grandfather's control, as she attempts to assert herself, telling him, "I will not be pushed aside." This leads Barbara to observe that Susan is growing up - even if the last couple of serials appeared to see her "grow down" from her starting point. Carole Ann Ford, whose performance has been hamstrung by a devolving character, does genuinely good work here, and Susan's ending complaints about wanting a place to call home seem poised to begin the build-up to her departure.


THOUGHTS

The Sensorites is one of only two televised Doctor Who stories that I've never previously watched/listened to (the other, at the time of writing this review, was The Underwater Menace). As such, I was rather looking forward to it. Sure, the story has a poor reputation. But so does The Keys of Marinus, which I quite enjoyed. As a fan of the Hartnell era, an all-new Hartnell story definitely had some appeal.

By the end of Part One, my enthusiasm was completely dashed. Strangers in Space is the worst first episode of a Hartnell story I've yet reviewed. Director Mervyn Pinfield stages a very imaginative TARDIS exit, in which the camera actually follows the time travellers out of the TARDIS and onto the spaceship - quite an ambitious shot, for a 1964 television serial. Unfortunately, his direction of the sets, camera crews, and actors is pedestrian at its best. Barbara and Susan leave the control room without anyone noticing... despite being only a few feet away from the rest of the characters! There's nothing wrong with the set design, which is quite functional. But the way it's lit and shot really emphasizes how small the set is, and no attempt is made to separate one area from another.

Fortunately, the story begins to take hold in Part Two. From there on, the story is never exactly what I'd call "good," but it's also never less than watchable. There are a couple of series' "Firsts" here. It's the first 6-parter structured as a 2-part unit (the spaceship) followed by a 4-part unit (the Sensorite planet). It presents the first sympathetic alien race. In a power struggle subplot involving the First Elder, the Second Elder, and the City Administrator, it effectively sets the template for the internal conflict seen in Dr. Who & the Silurians and The Hungry Earth. That doesn't make the execution of these elements any good, mind you, but it does make the serial noteworthy as a part of Doctor Who's history.

If only someone could have polished the script! The flat, expository dialogue makes The Keys of Marinus seem like the works of Oscar Wilde. The cliched power struggle subplot fails to engage on any level. It also doesn't feel like an organic part of the story. Introduced late in Episode 3 and largely vanishing for Episode 6, it's clear this element only exists in order to provide a threat for the regulars in the middle episodes. Finally, the ending - in which characters we've only just met are overcome with no significant effort - is the most unexciting climax the series has seen to this point. The makings of a good story are here, with the story attempting for the first time in the series' history to present a very alien society that is ultimately benign. But the execution is flat.

Even as it stands, it's a watchable enough story. I did enjoy it, even as I internally mocked bits like the City Administrator cunningly stealing the Second Elder's sash to impersonate him. It just... should have been a whole lot better.


Rating: 5/10.

Previous Story: The Aztecs
Next Story: The Reign of Terror


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#3 (1.12 - 1.13): The Edge of Destruction

The first time Doctor Who got into trouble 

for its content.  It wouldn't be the last.

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.

Previous Story: The Daleks
Next Story: Marco Polo


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#1 (1.1 - 1.4): An Unearthly Child

The TARDIS makes its first landing.

4 episodes: An Unearthly Child, The Cave of Skulls, The Forest of Fear, The Firemaker.  Written by: Anthony Coburn.  Directed by: Waris Hussein.  Produced by: Verity Lambert.

THE PLOT

A pair of schoolteachers (William Russell, Jacqueline Hill), curious about a strange pupil (Carole Ann Ford), decide to wait for her at the junkyard she has given as her home address. They encounter her grandfather, a mysterious doctor (William Hartnell), who - determining that he cannot let them go - takes them in his time & space machine to a time at the dawn of man. The four find themselves menaced by a tribe of cavemen, and drawn into the power struggle between rivals Za (Derek Newark) and Kal (Jeremy Young) for leadership of the tribe - an issue that depends on being able to create fire. Now the four time travelers will have to find a way to work together in order to survive and return to the ship.

CHARACTERS

The Doctor: William Hartnell is stunningly good in the title role. He's particularly fine in the first episode, projecting the sinister playfulness of a cat with a mouse as he taunts and belittles the two schoolteachers. This is a cold and ruthless Doctor.  He is quite willing to cave in a helpless caveman's skull in order to make good his own escape, and constantly stands aloof from the humans that he views as savages just as much as Ian and Barbara view the cavemen.

Hartnell also shows tremendous authority, effortlessly dominating the first episode despite not even appearing for close to half of it, then dominating a scene in Episode Two from a position of weakness when he announces - just as the cavemen are about to murder Ian - "There will be no fire if he dies!" I've long held Hartnell as my favorite Doctor, but it's been a while since I last watched one of his stories. It is good to have my old opinion reinforced, and he was rarely (if ever) better than here.

Ian & Barbara: The pilot episode pays more attention to establishing these two characters than probably any other companion ever received later in the series' history (bracing self for attacks by Rose fans). Their relationship is clearly close enough that Barbara readily approaches Ian with her questions about Susan, but not so close as to be a pre-established "couple." Ian is a pragmatist, insisting that he takes things as they come, while Barbara is more compassionate. Both are intelligent, self-reliant adults, which is one of the joys of early '60's Who (I can't speak for anyone else, but I sometimes weary of teen- and twenty-somethings). Barbara does have a slight breakdown in Episode Three, but given the circumstances that's easily forgiveable... particularly when Jacqueline Hill does such a fantastic job of playing genuine terror. The expressions on her face during the flight through the forest are a textbook study in terror, particularly when you can see her fighting to keep her terror in check, rather than just wantonly losing control.

Susan: Ford's vaguely otherworldly features are used to good effect in our first glimpses of Susan, and her overall performance is fine in this episode. A characterization beyond "the Doctor's granddaughter" isn't particularly established here, but there's certainly room for later serials to pick up that slack.


THOUGHTS

A common response to the debut serial of Doctor Who is "great first episode, shame about the rest of it." That is not a response that I can share. The first episode is extremely good, doing an excellent job of setting up the characters, and even of dividing them into two pairs (Doctor/Susan vs. Ian/Barbara). But the rest of the story deserves more credit than it often receives.

The serial's main achievement is to define a working relationship between the four characters. Ian and Barbara have to go from being outsiders to being part of the crew, and the two alpha males of this bunch - the Doctor and Ian - have to find a way to work together.

We see each filling some role the others cannot. Ian refuses to give up hope of escape, even when the Doctor becomes fatalistic. "Any hope is better than just giving up," Ian says - a line that, in any later Who era, would surely belong to the Doctor himself. Barbara lends compassion, insisting on showing mercy to the injured Za when Ian would have been all too ready to escape and simply leave the man to die. The Doctor lends not only the technology to make the adventure possible, but also experience and hard pragmatism; he is the one who recognizes that though the old woman helps them escape, she cannot be considered reliable (and indeed, we later cut to the old woman revealing their escape to Kal). He also niftily tricks Kal into revealing his true colors to the tribe in the final episode. As for Susan? Well, she bridges the divide between Ian and Barbara and the Doctor - He would all too readily leave the schoolteachers behind, but he certainly will not do the same to his own granddaughter!

The story itself may be thin, consisting largely of a capture/escape/recapture/re-escape scenario, but it provides a situation which allows us to study these four as they become a team. An uneasy team here - even at the end, there is plenty of division. But we see them work together, and we get a sense of each character's attributes. As a "pilot serial," it does its job quite well.


Rating: 7/10. A strong introduction to the series, which actually holds up a bit better than I had remembered being the case.


Notes on the Unaired Pilot Episode: Included on the DVD is the original version of the pilot. The order to reshoot it was sensible, as the production is uneven and some of the performances feel less finished than in the broadcast version. There are, however, a few elements that I missed. The decor of the junkyard in the original pilot creates a much creepier atmosphere than that created by the broadcast version. Hartnell's performance is even more hard-edged, downright sinister, and I rather liked that the Doctor was a character who was potentially frightening. That note is still there in the broadcast version, but not as strongly. Finally, though minor, I thought that Susan doodling a Rorschach image in the original pilot was more striking than Susan reading a book with a paper cover titled, The French Revolution. A strange and striking visual from the first version was replaced by a rather cheap-looking book in the final version - not an improvement.

Overall, however, there is little question that the broadcast version is stronger than the first version, and Sidney Newman's decision to reshoot ended up being a key decision to insure the series' legacy. Still, it's nice to have it available on the disc, if only to see what might have been.

Next Story: The Daleks


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