Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (53 page)

It’s all over the place, this episode. Arthur Terrall is an intriguing enough character, but after the third time he winces and grips the metal in his neck, even his unpredictability seems very predictable. The most notable part of the instalment is undoubtedly the argument between Jamie and the Doctor. It’s brilliantly played by both Frazer Hines and Patrick Troughton, Jamie being genuinely upset to find out he’s being used by his friend, and the Doctor trying to cajole him out of his mood by treating him like a tantrum-throwing infant. But I don’t really buy it; it feels very contrived. This is a story right from the beginning in which everyone seems manipulated by the other – and although it’s
thematically
on the money, it’s emotionally very forced. Last week, the Doctor was adamant that Jamie must be informed about the test he’s to undergo; this time round, he’s being sly and cunning at the expense of a character I understand. This is only a few weeks after Ben’s rebellion in The Macra Terror, and there I thought that the drama it created asked genuine questions about the Doctor and his relationship with his friends, and became a turning point in the plot. Here, though, it’s just to make Jamie hotheaded enough that he’ll be a hero and run off to rescue Victoria. As the Daleks list all the characteristics that define humanity, the first they should tick off is “gullible”.

I must admit, though, I love Jamie’s impatient reaction to the Doctor’s mention of Daleks, as something he is always going on about. It’s not dissimilar to Ben’s reaction in The Power of the Daleks. I know I’ve said it before, but I do find it irresistible, this idea of a Dalek-obsessed Doctor, constantly mentioning them and pissing off his bored companions.

T:
So, what you’re saying is that the Doctor is like Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses. (“When I fought in the Dalek war... blah, blah, blah...”) And while I certainly sympathise with your concerns about Kemel, perhaps our politically correct misgivings should centre around the casting of a West Indian as a Turk. Then again, this could all have been much worse... they could have hired John Maxim and got him to black up, or put Tutte Lemkow in a body suit.

Meanwhile, it’s getting harder for me to gloss over this whole Human Factor business, and I’m trying to wrap my brain around it. The ingredients analogy you offer is nice, yes, but what
is
it? What, exactly, is going to manifest itself within Jamie that the Daleks can actually remove and inject into other Daleks? Is it a chemical? It
must
be – but if things like compassion, bravery, and improvisation all make up the Human Factor, how do you siphon them off as something tangible? And if it’s not a chemical... what is it, then?
I can’t stand the confusion in my mind!!!

But if the scientific principles behind this story seem baffling, I can take some solace in the intriguing characters on display here. I think I love Molly Dawson – she’s sweet and energetic and likeable and has a lovely dusky voice (she sounds like a ticklish Bonnie Tyler). She also sparks off Jamie wonderfully (he’s later very gallant too, offering to escort her to her room) and brings out the Doctor’s most charming behaviour. Arthur Terrall is also a stand-out character, shifting between being unsettling and yet sympathetic. And then there’s Kemel.... okay, so Kemel’s big, black, thick and mute, but at least he only resorts to hurting Jamie because Maxtible is lying to him. Kemel might be a stereotype, but he doesn’t unquestioningly resort to violence because his master tells him to. By the way, did you know that Sonny Caldinez, who plays Kemel, wrestled under the same name after this? Does that mean that World of Sport is actually the first Doctor Who spin-off – boasting, as it does, a character from Who played by the same actor? The mind boggles to think about it.

The whole of this episode, though, is perhaps encapsulated in the confrontation between the Doctor and Jamie – a stand-off that’s sparked by the Doctor’s Machiavellian and shifty behaviour, plus Jamie’s eavesdropping. Jamie is quite unlike the guileless Jacobite we’re used to – Hines makes the most of this opportunity to show his dramatic chops, and Troughton is at turns patronisingly funny (“You’re in a temper”) and darkly manipulative in dealing with him. It’s like watching an old friend being blackmailed by a clown. It’s a surprisingly uncompromising exchange, and if it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, it aptly demonstrates that there’s nothing safe or cosy about any of this.

The Evil of the Daleks episode four

R:
As ever – the test that Jamie undergoes
might
be very dramatic and exciting, and it’s hard to tell by soundtrack and telesnap alone. (I’m betting it looked great; this is Derek Martinus directing, after all.) As it is, it all seems a bit strange, all these peculiar deathtraps of falling axes in a Victorian house. The Doctor spends the episode watching the events with great interest (so he’s one up from me, then), and pointing out moments of bravery and compassion to a watching Dalek. Once you underline them the way the Doctor is doing, these moments feel a bit flat and obvious, really.

What works far better is that there’s so much of humanity in all its forms on display in the rest of the episode. There’s callousness in the scene where Arthur tyrannises Molly – but there’s a surprising tenderness too, as Ruth Maxtible tries to find out why her fiancé is so altered, and Arthur himself clearly despairs at the inhuman brute he’s turned into against his will. There’s self-deception in Maxtible’s efforts to persuade himself he’s a partner to the Daleks; even as he’s being physically forced to the ground, he’s convincing himself that their insistence he’s their servant, and not their ally, is just some cultural misunderstanding. And, best of all, there’s the debate between Waterfield and Maxtible about their own morality being the “sleeping partners” of the Daleks. It’s as unforced and as cogent a discussion on guilt and responsibility as we’ve ever seen in Doctor Who – and it’s the turning point for this story about what makes a human and what makes a monster. Maxtible’s insistence that he cannot be blamed for the deaths in the house is not unreasonable... but the moment he picks up a gun so he can murder his partner, he’s resigned all moral standing. Whereas Waterfield is haunted by the chaos and tragedy he’s unwittingly produced, and his eagerness to shoulder the blame is his redemption.

T:
It’s at this point that the cracks start to appear in fandom’s received wisdom about this story – i.e. that it’s an intelligent, action-packed and flawless epic – and we have to face the reality that we’re now watching a plucky Scotsman and a Turkish wrestler evading lethal traps in a mansion. I don’t know about
you
, Rob, but this isn’t exactly what I watch Doctor Who for. And while we can give this some benefit of doubt because Martinus is too skilled of a director to have let the action get clumsy, there’s a palpable sense of the story killing time when Jamie pulls Kemel to safety twice in the same episode. There are moments where I feel as though I’ve been put on hold so much, I half expect them to start playing Greensleeves.

That said, at least Whitaker has thought much of this through – this episode is a hymn to decent human behaviour, and shows admirable thematic rigour. The Human Factor may be scientific nonsense, but it has a moral core that isn’t just reflected in the compassion shown between Jamie and Kemel, it’s also in the interaction between Waterfield and Maxtible. The former embodies the Human Factor with his contrition and decency, whilst Maxtible has gone the Dalek route by selfishly wanting to ensure his own prosperity. To put it another way, this story’s heart is in the right place, in more ways than one.

I said that Whitaker has thought
much
of this through, but I can’t swear that he’s given due consideration to all of it. To be entirely honest, it’s getting a bit hard to reconcile Whitaker’s classy characterisation and dialogue with the fantastical, almost childish, touches that he insists on throwing in; I’d accept Maxtible’s belief in something as ridiculous and fairytale-inspired as alchemy as a sign of the character’s avarice and stupidity, except I’m not entirely convinced that Whitaker doesn’t believe in it too. How much of this stems from Whitaker’s own views on science, and how much of it is just him writing to the sensitivity of a children’s fable? That’s one of the oddest things about The Evil of the Daleks: it feels as if Whitaker has written The Forsyte Saga, but felt the strange need to occasionally include a scene with the Billy Goats Gruff.

But if nothing else, Whitaker resolutely and absolutely knows the Daleks. Their repeated inspection of Victoria – the way she’s wheeled out and callously scrutinised – is pretty horrid, and it’s a real shock when a Dalek pushes Maxtible to the floor. You might expect that they’d be a bit more manipulative and cunning with him, but they don’t need to be – they know that dangling a financial carrot in front of this deluded, greedy man is enough to make him do the most wicked things. Perhaps they understand the Human Factor better than we think...

March 26th

The Evil of the Daleks episode five

R:
Jamie tells the Doctor he’s too callous, and that their friendship is over. Now, we know with hindsight that Jamie’s not about to leave the TARDIS, and Frazer Hines will be debagging beskirted companions until they exit the show together. But in the context of how the series has been treating its main cast over the past year, dropping them suddenly and at a whim, there’s a real force to this. Against the odds, there’s a fine dramatic pay-off to the way that Innes Lloyd has treated Dodo or Ben or Polly – you can really believe that the producer may have tired of the little Scots boy.

It’s so obvious that at the moment Doctor Who is looking about for a new companion, that it’s all change in the TARDIS once more. The biggest surprise about spunky Sam Briggs is that when she and Jamie kissed goodbye at the end of The Faceless Ones, she didn’t jump at the prospect of adventures in time and space with him – as a character she seems entirely
conceived
to be someone who can be brave and loyal, get captured a lot and help the Doctor with his plans. By the end of episode five of The Evil of the Daleks, it’s also pretty clear who the new companion will be... Mollie Dawson, the cheeky maid. She gets to flirt with Jamie, she shows wit and courage, she gets knocked out and bullied by the villains. She’s the one who actively helps Jamie in his plans, and she’s the one who delicately suggests she has no present worth living for. What about Victoria Waterfield, the
real
new companion, you might ask? This is her
fourth
episode in the story, and it’s only this week that she even meets another human being. So there’s no chance for a rapport to be established – and from the moment Jamie meets her, he puts her on a pedestal. She’s an idealised portrait of Victorian gentility (hence the name), and not someone you can imagine mucking in with Cybermen and Yeti. You just know that Mollie Dawson will give the monsters what for, and that Sam Briggs would have done the same. I’m not in any way criticising Deborah Watling, who gives the right sort of despairing anger to her scenes where she’s interrogated by the Daleks, but at this stage of the adventure she’s not the one you’d expect to be under contract for Season Five. That’s all I’m saying.

It’s a peculiar episode. David Whitaker is very clever – he wrenches the story into such a position that we have a scene where Edward Waterfield considers murdering the Doctor, just to prevent him from giving the Daleks what they demand. It’s an utter reversal of where we’d expect the plot to be – just compare the steely resignation Troughton shows as he gives in to the Daleks’ demands here, to his horror that Lesterson was prepared to give the Daleks any power at all. The debate that he set up so skilfully last week about morality continues here; the Doctor coldly telling Waterfield that it’s too late to have a conscience is truly surprising. And it’s why Jamie’s outburst against the Doctor
here
feels justified. We’re genuinely touching on aspects of his character we haven’t seen before; the series is treading new ground. In the same way, the compassion the story shows Arthur Terrall is very welcome, not giving him the comeuppance we’d expect but a chance for redemption. The episode keeps on throwing us unexpected twists – until, in the final minutes, we see the Daleks as children playing games with the Doctor. It’s all very fresh, and new, and not a little unnerving.

T:
You swine! I wanted to use my word count suggesting Mollie as the next companion. She doesn’t even reveal what she was doing up and about when she heard Victoria’s voice last episode. Was she being curious, using her initiative to investigate strange goings on, before getting captured and hypnotised? Oh, she’s definitely through to the final of Companion Academy.

Otherwise, the Doctor’s scenes in this story again demonstrate why he’s such a fascinating character... “All forms of life interest me,” he says, as if he’s constantly observing what makes the universe tick – not just scientifically, but because he’s empathic as well. He’s gentle and understanding when Waterfield tries to attack him, in a fine scene where our sympathies fly about all over the place. And there’s a moment of deep, deep foreboding, when Waterfield talks of the destruction of a race and Troughton mournfully states, “I don’t think you quite realise what you’re saying, but it may come to that – it may very well come to that.” He’s very mercurial, this Doctor – for all of his compassion, intellect and sense of justice, he’s definitely prepared to contemplate the genocide of the Daleks.