Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (7 page)

Ah yes, the chasm sequence. It goes on forever, as we watch each of the characters one by one take a running jump into the darkness. It ought to be very boring, but it works so well precisely because it
is
so painstaking – and there’s one frightened Thal waiting his inevitable turn with dread. There’s a similar sequence in Voyage of the Damned, where the starship Titanic survivors are required to make a demonstration of bravery across a yawning abyss – and there you have the CGI effects, the sense of depth and killer robots to boot. But what the 2007 story doesn’t have is
time –
and the “ordeal” mentioned in the episode title is so much more awful because as an audience, we’re allowed to contemplate how terrified we too would be in that situation. Antodus is really only characterised in the broadest of strokes as “the cowardly Thal”, and Marcus Hammond doesn’t find much in the part other than to panic at two different volumes – but that shot where Hammond numbly lets the thrown rope fall slack against him, not even bothering to pick it up, is a terrific picture of rigid terror.

And I love the scene in which the Daleks phone up one of their engineers to ask about the progress on the neutron bomb, and how disgruntled they are when told it’ll take 23 days to finish. They couldn’t be more disappointed if they were told they’d also have to pay extra for a call-out charge.

T:
Bless Antodus, he’s very stroppy. He’s got that puffy lower jaw and permanently downturned mouth while Terry Nation is busy carving “Sacrifice yourself bravely to achieve redemption” on his forehead. Everyone else seems
very
polite on this escapade, though – Ian compliments Kristas on his chasm-jump in such a way, it’s as if he’s tacitly apologising for the Thal being much more interesting in the book than he’s allowed to be on screen.

Meanwhile, Richard Martin – directing episodes three, six and seven of this story – gives us an ambitious mirrored shot to suggest the camera looking down on Ganatus, and later shoots everyone from as far back as possible, showing the party negotiating the tunnel in a manner that predates a similar effect from Graeme Harper in The Caves of Androzani. He also illustrates the subtext of the Daleks by having them do a Nazi salute with their suckers (so, it wasn’t just in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, as I’d always thought!). Then, alas, the Daleks somewhat spoil the moment by buggering up their supposedly synchronised chanting. Still, it was a nice thought.

“We won’t use one of the customs of your planet,” says Ganatus, in a wonderfully naive attempt to display the difference between aliens and humans. You’ll need to do better than that if you want to crack this sci-fi lark, Mr Nation. Still, I love it for its twee sixties innocence, and I’ll forgive Philip Bond almost anything as he’s working his socks off again. There’s a lovely moment later where he’s thrown a torch and gives a brilliant look back to the chucker, acknowledging that they’d done a good throw and suggesting his admiration. It’s a tiny moment, but one that keeps things real and interesting.

January 6th

The Rescue (The Daleks episode seven)

R:
In a rush to reach its conclusion, the story strains and buckles under its desire to be epic. After an episode and a half of dodging rockfalls and jumping chasms, Ian and his party reach the Dalek city in time to bump into Alydon’s mob in a corridor – which rather emphasises the fact that had they simply gone together and walked in the front door, they’d have saved themselves a lot of bother. And there’s an element of farce to the final battle itself – everyone’s gamefully putting a bit of welly into it, but there isn’t the space to make Nation’s climax pay off. As with a lot of Doctor Who stories, the greater the attempt to make the threat, and the grander the scale on which the adventure is framed, the more perfunctory the resolution.

So it’s in the smaller, more intimate moments that the episode hits its mark, such as Alydon’s bemused acceptance of the Doctor’s handshake, or the way that Dyoni bends down in wonder at the space that the dematerialised TARDIS had previously occupied. And the final goodbyes between Barbara and Ganatus are especially effective – all the more so when you consider that with all the blood and thunder and corridor chasing, there hasn’t been time this week for them even to share a bit of dialogue together. Their entire relationship is therefore built upon one scene in episode six, but I still love the way that Ganatus nobly (
too
nobly, actually) kisses Barbara’s hand like the Shakespeare tragedian that Philip Bond has largely played him as. Then Barbara, so impulsively, gives Ganatus a kiss on the cheek.

It’s also the first time that the Dalek voices begin to sound properly imitable, taking on the panic that we’ve come to expect as the Thals invade their city. They sound much more like petulant or frightened children here, just perfect for kids in the playground to have fun with. The sequence where the Dalek begs help from the Doctor as it loses power almost forms the template for how they’re going to talk ever afterwards; they become less concerned with conversations involving long words, and are more interested in barking hysterical orders. You’ve got to admire, too, the way that in its last moment before death, the Dalek flips its eyestalk up at a right angle. It almost feels like its final action is to give Hartnell the finger.

T:
Well, at least the cowardly Antodus dies bravely – cutting his support line so his teammates won’t also plunge to their deaths. We can be safe in the knowledge though, that his bloodline of baffling grumpiness and petulance will continue, as history teaches us he has impregnated the mother of every single character subsequently played in the series by Prentis Hancock.

The countdown to the Daleks unleashing nuclear waste into the atmosphere is a staple in drama of this kind, but this one reminds me of when I’m counting sternly at the kids to try to stop them from doing something naughty, but with no actual intention of meting out a punishment. The tick-tock towards doomsday proceeds so laboriously, our heroes are given just enough time to sneak in and be victorious, and you can almost hear the Daleks going “When we get to zero, you’re definitely in trouble, three, I’m warning you, two and a half, seriously, you’ll be for the high jump when I get to zero, two and a quarter, please just do as you’re told or, oh alright, but next time I’ll definitely release a nuclear holocaust and not let you watch Lazytown for a week!”

I keep getting diverted, though, by the status of my hero, Kristas. First off, he doesn’t appear to be blond anymore! Go on, take a look... perhaps he cast his wig off in protest about his lack of lines, and that’s why Jonathan Crane’s credits on IMDb stretch this far and no further. But then I see that Kristas has survived being shot by the Daleks! He’s emerged (at least, in my own little happy place) as a Thal superhero! Casting off his wig has given him special powers!

And so the Doctor’s first battle with his most iconic enemies comes to an end. It’s been spooky and experimental, and yet what I love most about this story (especially when you consider that the show as it currently stands can occasionally be
too
knowingly iconic) is that this was all chucked together by people who had no idea what it was they’d started. To those involved, it was just a day at work, a confluence of ideas – and yet it was so successful that it’s directly responsible for Doctor Who surviving to see the vast number of Who-related events that are going on all over the world on this very day.

The Edge of Destruction (episode one)

R:
This is utterly bonkers, isn’t it? You’d never get away with screening an episode as bizarre as this on television nowadays. I’m pretty amazed they got away with screening it
then.

Faced with a need to make two episodes on the cheap – and with no new sets and no additional actors – the production team made this quickie inside the TARDIS. With that in mind, David Whitaker – Doctor Who’s first script editor and the writer of this story – could have gone down several different routes. He might have written a story which served as some sort of intriguing mystery – and at times you feel that’s the approach he’s opting for, but the clues are too thinly drawn, and don’t point to any solution. (Besides, at the episode’s end, a whole halfway through the story, you don’t get a sense of anything really being at stake.) So instead, he could have gone for the character study, the cost-cutting option seen on many a Star Trek near the end of a series, sacrificing action and adventure for dialogue and depth. But even
that
isn’t happening, as the TARDIS regulars are quite purposefully drawn from scratch, and are at times quite unrecognisable from any previous episodes. Actually, it’s even odder than that – they’re even acting in completely different
styles.
William Russell affects a sort of zombie air for most of the proceedings, giving an eerie sing-song quality to a lot of his early dialogue; Carole Ann Ford goes flat-out playing Susan either as swaying drunk or scary psychopath. William Hartnell seems very puzzled by the whole thing, and so falls into his default “brash” persona. Thank God for Jacqueline Hill, who in spite of the odds actually mines something emotional and true out of all the weirdness, becoming wonderfully angry at the Doctor’s ingratitude and suitably distressed by his suspicion.

It’d take a braver man than me to suggest that The Edge of Destruction actually works. (You up for that, Toby?) And yet... this is an episode so utterly ill-conceived, so entirely off the rails, that it actually impresses with its sheer chutzpah. You can tell that none of the cast have the slightest idea how to read what’s going on – and yet, rather than muttering the lines and looking embarrassed, they’re all really
going
for their contrasting interpretations. If the following scene contradicts what they’ve just done, they don’t worry about it, they just commit wholeheartedly to the new approach instead. (Watch Carole Ann Ford in particular, who moves from hysteric to sinister scissor-wielding nutter to troubled peacemaker within minutes – and does so with such utter gung-ho conviction, it almost joins the dots.) Had the episode been played in a uniform style, with the cast fully clear about the direction their characters should be going, this would all be rather tepid stuff. But because it’s so deliriously flying by the seat of its pants, it at times feels genuinely chilling. When even the
actors
don’t appear to know what to expect next, neither can we the audience, and the effect is disorientating. The camera keeps on surprising us, with actors taking up different positions off screen – the most obvious example is when Ian happens upon a Susan who’s brandishing a pair of scissors, but I honestly shuddered when Ian, having been set up as lolling unconscious in a chair, is revealed as standing up, impassively staring at Barbara in the background.

Because this episode breaks all the rules, because we can never for a second work out what the threat is, almost
everything
has the potential to be creepy. It could be the smile on the Doctor’s face as he hands out drinks to all his companions, it could be the somewhat too self-conscious shrug that Ian gives when Barbara asks him why the Doctor is staring at them. There’s a wonderfully disturbing idea at the heart of this episode – that something has entered the Ship, and is hiding in
one of the crew.
If you can forget the depressingly prosaic explanation that’s instead offered next week, and if you can pretend that you’re watching The Edge of Destruction as viewers did in 1964, then this is unnerving stuff.

You also have to cherish a series that can be as insane as this. Having just played out a monster serial with fights and explosions, it offers
this –
this strange, ugly, unwieldy thing. At a time when Doctor Who acts as if it’s one ongoing serial, the contrast between what the show has been promising its audience and what it’s now giving them is extraordinary. No, The Edge of Destruction doesn’t really work. But it’s probably the single maddest thing it’s ever attempted in its 45 years of history, and it does it only 12 weeks in.

T:
I watched this episode while unwinding after my first gig back, so I’m typing these thoughts after having taken a couple of relaxing drams... which I’m hoping in some way goes to explain what I’ve been witnessing. This is bonkers! As you say, the cast are acting each scene in a completely different manner; it’s as if they’re contestants on Whose Line Is It Anyway, and the audience is shouting for them to perform “melodrama!”, then “kitchen sink drama!”, and then – to William Russell – “drunk vicar!” Even the regulars’ dress sense seems mercurial – Barbara seems to be wearing Thal trousers (an odd present to give someone), and Susan has been reduced to floating around in a maternity dress. And now she’s got a flannel on her head! I’m half expecting her to stick two pencils up her nose and plead insanity.

Among the genuinely weird vignettes, there are some chilling moments – the way that Jacqueline Hill’s voice cracks in a brilliant evocation of full-on fright, and the eerie manner in which Susan suggests that if an intruder has penetrated the TARDIS, it might be hiding “in one of us”. Carole Ann Ford in particular seems very much in her element with this story – she’s able to channel the spirit of An Unearthly Child, which suits her visage and the disarmingly offbeat look she can muster in her eyes. It’s especially disturbing when she becomes so demented that she produces a huge pair of scissors, has an orgasm and starts stabbing her bendy space chair (or wibbly space bed, take your pick). And is it wrong of me that, amongst all this madness, I find Susan quite sexy while she’s lolling about on the wonky space divan clutching those scissors? (I
did
mention that I’ve had two winter warmer whiskeys, right?)

You’re right, though, to highlight Jacqueline Hill, who delivers a smashing retort to the Doctor’s paranoia and accusations that she and Ian have sabotaged the Ship. Not for nothing has this fantastic confrontation – where Barbara, bristling with principled and righteous anger, really sticks it to the old man – been cited by some commentators as a turning point in the Doctor’s character, and therefore in the entire series. The only downside to this smashing performance is that Hill is made to top it off by over-reacting to a melting clock, and then a wristwatch. I do feel sorry for her and Ford: they get all the rubbish stuff to do despite the occasional gems they’re thrown. People wouldn’t as fondly remember the Doctor musing “Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?” in the first episode if he’d followed it up by immediately screaming at a bit of shrubbery and tripping over a hillock.

Then things get
even stranger
when the English countryside appears on the scanner, and I react with twenty-first century aloofness at the basic technology being employed by the production. “It’s obviously just a photograph,” I think smugly to myself. “It’s just a photograph,” the Doctor says on screen.
What
? This is becoming metatextual in my head now. I pour the remainder of the whisky down the sink.

And so everyone goes to bed and the Doctor is doing something crafty at the controls, the camera jauntily highlighting his nifty hand acting (he’s got very expressive digits – see, I told you this Smith bloke has what it takes). Someone then grabs the Doctor by the throat, and as the credits roll, I can’t help but think, “What the
hell
was that all about?” – but I say that as a positive rather than a negative. One of the many things I love about about Doctor Who is how there’s an episode to suit me no matter what mood I’m in: action-adventure, SF epic, knockabout comedy, morality play... the series can be (and has been) all of these. And sometimes, just
sometimes
, I might want to watch a bunch of people being chucked in at the deep end and asked to pull off what’s possibly the oddest 25 minutes ever committed to television – and when I do, I’ll watch this.

January 7th

The Brink of Disaster (The Edge of Destruction episode two)

R:
On the one hand, this is much better because you feel at least that the actors have read the end of the script before coming to the set this week, and so have a reasonable idea of what to work towards. But it’s also much worse, because what they’re working to is so determinedly anticlimactic. “We must all work together,” says the Doctor, and that’s a reasonable moral – but it’s also the same one the band of travellers employed escaping from savage cavemen, or in defeating alien mutants, so it doesn’t have appreciably more dramatic value now that they’re pitting their wits against a stuck button. It’s been argued that this is the story where the regulars throw off their suspicions towards each other and through the mystery become
friends –
and you can see the value of doing a story like that – but in fact, the earlier two adventures have done their jobs too well and already achieved it.

The one thing that really works, though, is in watching how William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford all snap back into their previous personae at the story’s end, but that William Hartnell resolutely
doesn’t.
He takes the Doctor on an extraordinary journey in this instalment, having seemed rather bewildered by the last. He seizes upon the Doctor’s capriciousness and cruelty early on – he positively looms over Ian threateningly as he sneers at him to get up off the floor. And this is in marked contrast to his new defining of the Doctor as a cuddly grandfather by the story’s end, where he awkwardly tells Barbara how valuable and clever she is, or tells Susan that he fears he’s going round the bend. This is by way of an
extraordinary
monologue given while the Doctor is darkened against the central console, in which he describes the birth of a solar system – it’s melodramatic, it’s over the top, and it ends with the Doctor giggling at the cosmic implications of it all like a lunatic, but it
works
because it feels incredibly alien. It’s not an easy scene to watch, and I have friends who deride it as Hartnell at his hammiest, but that sequence seems like the bridge between the brusque Doctor of the early stories and the loveable old eccentric he’ll now become. Hartnell also fluffs a lot this week – most amusingly, at the episode title itself. (“We’re on the brink of... of destruction!” he says, forcing William Russell, rather charmingly, to repeat the mistake back at him.) But you can forgive that, I think, for the intelligent way that he steers himself into this new characterisation – and especially for that gorgeous moment where he admits to Ian that he’s lied to the women about how much time they all have left to live, then asks whether the schoolteacher can stand and face oblivion with him.

T:
The weirdness of this story seems to be bleeding into the real world – my TARDIS money box has, with no external stimulus or prompting, just starting randomly making stuttering sounds! I’m not kidding. This would only have been more perfect and strange had it coincided with Susan’s line that “
Everything
can’t be wrong!”

Meanwhile, the approach to doomsday is very effective – the lighting gets very atmospheric, helped no end by the recurring explosions that rock the Ship. It builds a fantastic, oppressive momentum that climaxes as the camera creeps up on Hartnell as he delivers his big moment. I sympathise with your mates who mock him (especially the slightly mad hand clasp he does at the end), but he looks
so
magnificent, and the scene is lit with such brilliance, I think it’s churlish to criticise. The Doctor is awed by the magnificence of the birth of a solar system, so of course he’s going to get a bit hysterical.

But what’s important about this two-parter is that the regulars all pull together – Susan does some helpful counting, and the Doctor confides the truth about the oncoming oblivion to Ian, but most importantly Barbara becomes the brains of the outfit and pieces a solution together from the clues they’ve witnessed. (Just how the hell she does this, though, I’ve no idea – when all is said and done, does the evidence actually add up the way Barbara
thinks
it adds up? Clearly, she’s a dab hand at cryptic crosswords, and we’re not meant to question her methodology.) Later on, Jacqueline Hill is great when the Doctor tries to apologise for his behaviour, with Hartnell suggesting that a lot of the Doctor’s jolly bluster is to cover up his embarrassment at pesky interpersonal interaction. It lays the groundwork for so much characterisation to come.

The fact that the production team did this story at all is amazing, and it beautifully complements the previous two adventures in terms of variety: so far, each story has been markedly different to the one before it. My knowledge of sixties TV is limited, but I like to think that the people making this programme went for broke and decided they could do anything, and did it wholeheartedly. For all I know, there’s a Z-Cars episode that’s told from the point of view of one of the cars, but I very much doubt it. This isn’t a story I’ll watch again in a hurry, but the fact that it exists is proof that Doctor Who is the flexible, crazy, unformulaic show we all love it for being.