Doctor Who, Season Four

 

This will be a season long remembered. It has seen the death of the historical, and it will soon see the death of the Daleks... Hmm, wait, no, that one's Season Eleven.

From Atlantis to the terminals of Gatwick Airport, from Skaro to the Antarctic, from Cornwall to Vulcan, we were treated to both a variety of locales and types of story. The dying gasps of the Hartnell historicals were seen here alongside some of the first bases under siege, plus... whatever The Underwater Menace was. Ballet?

It has been nothing short of exceptionally entertaining from start to finish. And while this season marked the end of the Hartnell era, this is very much Troughton's season. Although it took a couple of serials for his version of the Doctor to solidify, I am very keen on the type of Doctor that has taken shape as of the last episode here. I'm definitely aching for more chances to see him in motion, however, as only three episodes out of the last seventeen have actually survived. The loss of all these episodes undoubtedly hurt this season a bit, but just the same, my average rating was actually the highest so far.

Here come the numbers:

The Smugglers - 5.75
Episode One - 6.00
Episode Two - 5.00
Episode Three - 6.00
Episode Four - 6.00

The Tenth Planet - 7.75
Episode One - 9.00
Episode Two - 8.00
Episode Three - 7.00
Episode Four - 7.00

The Power of the Daleks - 9.50
Episode One - 10.00
Episode Two - 10.00
Episode Three - 9.00
Episode Four - 9.00
Episode Five - 9.00
Episode Six - 10.00

The Highlanders - 6.50
Episode One - 7.00
Episode Two - 6.00
Episode Three - 6.00
Episode Four - 7.00

The Underwater Menace - 7.00
Episode One - 6.00
Episode Two - 7.00
Episode Three - 8.00
Episode Four - 7.00

The Moonbase - 8.00
Episode One - 9.00
Episode Two - 8.00
Episode Three - 7.00
Episode Four - 8.00

The Macra Terror - 8.75
Episode One - 9.00
Episode Two - 10.00
Episode Three - 8.00
Episode Four - 8.00

The Faceless Ones - 6.33
Episode One - 7.00
Episode Two - 6.00
Episode Three - 6.00
Episode Four - 5.00
Episode Five - 6.00
Episode Six - 8.00

The Evil of the Daleks - 8.71
Episode One - 10.00
Episode Two - 9.00
Episode Three - 8.00
Episode Four - 7.00
Episode Five - 9.00
Episode Six - 8.00
Episode Seven - 10.00

Best episode: The Power of the Daleks, Episode Six - 10.00
Runner-up: The Evil of the Daleks, Episode One - 10.00
Worst episode: The Smugglers, Episode Two - 5.00

Season Four average: 7.70

Best guest performance: John Bailey as Edward Waterfield (The Evil of the Daleks)
Best special effect: The first regeneration (The Tenth Planet)
Best musical score: The Evil of the Daleks (Dudley Simpson)

Join me again soon for The Tomb of the Cybermen.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 5 March 2021.)

The Evil of the Daleks [Doctor Who, Story 36]

The Evil of the Daleks by David Whitaker

20 May - 1 July 1967

Wowee, that's certainly one way to end a season.

I've become quite the fan of David Whitaker's work on Doctor Who over the course of this marathon. He more than anyone else has been the most willing to depict the Doctor as a consciously magical character. It's a strange sort of contradiction that gets highlighted by this. The Doctor has historically rejected paranormal and magical explanations for phenomena - and is usually vindicated by the revelation that it was aliens all along. While inversely, on the face of the whole thing, it's about a shapeshifter who travels through time and space in their magical bleeping wardrobe. It's a funny thing, this show.

So here we have a story about alchemy, human nature, and just while we're at it, we'll be killing off the show's most popular antagonists "for good" in the biggest bang imaginable. It's so mad that I kind of have to love it on principle.

Let's back up a little, though, to have a better look at this story in context of the program so far, and this season in particular. As we all remember, the first Dalek serial gave Doctor Who the nudge it needed to keep commissioning seasons and become a cultural fixture. Just last season, I was talking about the peak of Dalekmania in the midst of the Peter Cushing movies. It's safe to say that the Daleks were a pretty big deal.

I must emphasize then, that it was ballsy of the production team to look the problem of writing them out of the show right in the eye, and do it in the most spectacular way they could. There had to have been serious doubts about whether Doctor Who would even survive for very long without its most iconic baddies. This seems like a declaration of intent as much as it is a farewell to the Daleks, a statement that the program is capable of getting on just fine without them. I wonder if viewers at the time were convinced. I know I sure am.

Within the scope of Season Four, it's also interesting to reflect on how Troughton's first season is bookended by two remarkable Dalek stories by Whitaker. On one side, the new Doctor has a trial by fire at the hands of his worst enemies; at the other, he stands triumphant after defeating them once and for all. It's very stirring in a way. And despite the vast differences in setting between the two, I have to take note of some parallels. Alchemical themes are obviously present in both (the mercury swamps of planet Vulcan, and basically everything in Maxtible's mansion), but this thread seems to run a bit deeper than just the set dressing.

Where The Power of the Daleks uses the Daleks as a point of contrast to highlight the essential Doctor-ness of our main character (and in so doing, primes the audience to believe that we are still watching the same beloved character as before), Evil shifts that comparison toward a broader look at humanity as a whole. The human traits of curiosity, mercy, and wonder are shown to be inimical to the single-minded fascism of the Daleks. It's telling that Evil goes out of its way to remind us of the otherness of the Doctor, first by telling us that the Daleks would be unable to extrapolate the Human Factor from him, and later showing him to be immune to the Dalek Factor altogether. We've heard mentions of the Doctor coming from another planet before, but it is a little odd hearing it twice in one serial. The impression we get is that the Doctor is, like us, fundamentally opposed to the brutish violence and blind hatred of the Daleks. But even though he is with us, he is not like us.

"I am not a student of human nature. I am a professor of a far wider academy, of which human nature is merely a part."

Now that I've picked at the philosophical underpinnings, let's start the dissection. I was interested on this viewing, now that I'd actually seen The Faceless Ones, how this serial flows seamlessly out of the previous. The modern view of the 60s we get is a little more lovingly rendered than in the previous story. It's such a cool piece of whiplash going from the pop tunes playing in the Tri-Colour to Waterfield's antique shop, which immediately feels like a different world. Thence to one of the BBC's countless beautiful period sets. If I had to compare it to a similar piece of intentionally crafted setting dissonance in the show so far, the best example I can think of is An Unearthly Child.

Of the characters we meet in the mansion, I find Molly likable, Terrall tragic, Ruth Maxtible mostly forgettable, and Toby a bit puzzling. Terrall's condition is probably the most interesting part of this supporting cast, the realization that the Daleks are controlling his mind to the point where he doesn't know what's real anymore, being quite chilling. I can't say I know why he had Toby thump Jamie on the head in any case, and the blackguard's speedy dispatch an episode later just made my scratch my head.

The depiction of Kemel is the one real stain on this story. He's steadfastly in the "protagonist" camp and thus doesn't fall into the same regrettable "shifty foreigner" archetype as some of the characters from the next story after this. But I was absolutely cringing again when Maxtible called his mind "undeveloped", and the fact that he spends the whole story mute and is unceremoniously killed off at the eleventh hour is honestly just insulting. I certainly wish the actor who portrayed him had gotten a little more respect than this.

On the opposite side of the spectrum we find Waterfield and Maxtible, who honestly make this story. They're both very different kinds of characters, but both wonderfully rendered; one convincingly sympathetic, the other entertainingly mad. Waterfield's attack of conscience in the lab just as the Doctor is about to apply the Human Factor to the test Daleks is one of the best moments of the serial, and I was suitably moved by his sacrifice at the end. "A good life to save" indeed, and a fitting end for a man who struggled so much to do the right thing. As for Maxtible, he's about as good of a secondary villain as you can ask for in a story like this. For all that the Victorian age was one of rapidly advancing science, Maxtible's outdated belief in alchemy and his dismissive attitude toward Kemel certainly serve as a reminder that it was still a backward time in many ways. The contrast between these two figures is possibly the best example we get in this serial of the difference between the good side and the dark side of human nature, highlighting the conflict between the Human Factor and the Dalek Factor (which I guess we could really just call the Inhuman Factor).

With Ben and Polly out of the picture, Jamie finally gets his chance to shine. In the large ensemble cast of this season, Jamie was always notable, but never central. Now his relationship with the Doctor comes to the fore, and it's a surprisingly fraught one! It has been a rather long time at this point since Steven left - I think that was the last time we saw proper narrative tension between the Doctor and one of his companions. Jamie is principled and slots well into the "hero" role for part of this story, which clashes with the Doctor's more staid and calculating approach. Indeed, the Doctor comes off looking pretty badly when he lies to Jamie early on, and the strain on their relationship from him putting Jamie in harm's way is absolutely believable. Played with total class by these two actors, too.

Here we start to see shades of the sort of manipulative Doctor that would come to the fore in the 1980s, though we have of course been getting flashes of that for this whole season. Here the results are more spectacular than ever, the booming and stentorian Dalek Emperor standing almost no chance against the tide of change the Doctor has unleashed. It's the most powerful we've seen him so far, really, and it marks an interesting turning point.

All in all, this is an absolutely fascinating story. Stronger at both ends, like most stories of its length, you feel the lag around episodes three and four. But for all that, it is for my money still one of the best the program has had up to this point.

Before beginning Season Five, I will detour, as usual, to do the traditional season roundup. Stay tuned.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 5 March 2021.)

The Faceless Ones [Doctor Who, Story 35]

The Faceless Ones by David Ellis & Malcolm Hulke

8 April - 13 May 1967​

My friends, I'm sure that most of you have forgotten them, these past months, but there used to be these things called airports. You would go into a big, spacious concourse full of overpriced food and screaming children, and then fly (!) to other places (!!) for a nominal fee. I've just witnessed a glimpse of the airports of yesteryear in this story. Really, not much has changed, though these days there are perhaps fewer aliens...

Anyway, the tragedy here is that I only learned that the re-animation of this episode was already out after I watched it. I have missed my chance, for now, since I wasn't quite wowed enough to want to rewatch it back to back. So fickle are these feats of televisual necromancy.

I've not been in much of a mood for longwinded pieces of writing of late, but fortunately I'm not paid for the word (or at all). There's still a bit to chew on in this story.

Among other things, this is the first showing of future series regular Malcolm Hulke, who I am told will make something of a footprint during the Pertwee years. I am not entirely clear on how much of this story is his and how much is Ellis's, but it isn't a bad start. Episodes One and Two are paced pretty well. Like most six-parters it suffers in the middle, but I enjoyed the ending.

It's always refreshing when an alien species isn't treated like a monolith, and the Doctor exploiting a conflict between what seems to be a sort of upper and lower class among the Chameleons is a refreshing change from some previous resolutions. He's even gracious in victory, bless him.

I'm glad that this did get an animation, even if I hadn't taken the opportunity to watch it yet, because this is one that I think suffers for being lost. The quality of the Loose Canon recons that I watched left a bit to be desired, leading to long stretches of dramatic music over one or two pictures with very little idea of what was going on.

I was also startled about halfway through the serial to realize that Ben and Polly had been completely absent for a couple of episodes. Something to do with their contracts running out, wasn't it? It is, once again, odd to see a companion departure handled in so perfunctory a fashion, but I'm growing used to it.

I liked Anneke and Michael as Polly and Ben, but I can't say that I'll miss them overmuch when I know that the golden pair of the Doctor and Jamie are close on the horizon. The characters performed their role nicely of bridging the First Doctor to the Second and certainly had their share of memorable moments. I will thusly doff my hat.

Almost four years after my first viewing of it, I will return to The Evil of the Daleks next.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 1 March 2021.)

Resistance [Doctor Who, Diversion 10]

Resistance by Steve Lyons

March 2009​

It's interesting to backtrack into a pure historical at this particular point in the marathon. The Moonbase and The Macra Terror are very much of the "new wave" taking hold of the program at this period, with The Highlanders at this point passing into memory. So what we have here is more of that serial's type, set at the last point in the show's history when it realistically could have been set. A bit of a trick is pulled in employing a more modern storytelling sensibility however, which shows in a couple of ways.

See for example the switching perspectives at the start of the play, between Polly and who we later learn is her uncle, Randolph Wright. This sort of narrative trick isn't totally absent in the show at this point, as we do switch between two character perspectives - but never in totally different timeframes, as we see here. The focus on the "home life" of a companion, even past tense, is also unusual for this period, and is to be expected at this point from these Companion Chronicles.

There are a number of compliments that I can pay Resistance, namely the rather good portrayal of the desperate wartime atmosphere in occupied France. The description of Randolph's descent into France is also quite riveting. It leads me to think of how brave the flyers of the Allies were during the War, and of just how many never returned home.

We're also once again reminded of just how chronologically approximate this era of the show was to the Second World War, something which hasn't really crossed my mind since I watched the second Cushing movie. Polly's remark about how everyone in her time lost someone in the War definitely got to me.

The twist that the Randolph she meets is not, in fact, Randolph actually blindsided me. The moment where he threatens her in the train is absolutely bloodcurdling. Definitely more so than any of the scenes where Polly was thrown about by the Macra in the last story. It's a very human, very grounded story, something served well by the absence of any new sci-fi elements within it.

If I had to fault it for anything, it's that with the exception of these heavy emotional moments, the story feels fairly light. We barely hear from Ben and Jamie, which is understandable but unfortunate, and I don't feel that we really get to know the side characters. This is a side effect of the Companion Chronicles' short runtime, and I think it points to the sensibility in all the stories from this era on TV being at least 100 minutes. There just isn't the time to let things breathe otherwise.

At any rate, a fairly good audio, but not an extraordinary one. There were a few sweet moments, and some that genuinely left me startled, and in any case it's nice to get a bit more character examination for Polly. The Faceless Ones will be landing next.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 29 September 2020.)

The Macra Terror [Doctor Who, Story 34]

The Macra Terror by Ian Stuart Black

11 March - 1 April 1967

​

I confess, I went into this one with expectations slightly inflated. Descriptions and reviews of The Macra Terror made me think that this story sounded like it was up my alley, and sure enough, I had loads of fun. Just for a bit of a change, I opted for the recent color animation of this story and found it to my liking. Never fear, I'm aware of the missing segments from this animation, which I sought out elsewhere to make sure I didn't miss out on anything. (Doesn't seem as though I did!)

Compared with the other stories so far, this one is something of an odd duck. Sure, it involves the Doctor and his friends saving a human colony, which has become something of a common theme at this point, but in this instance the alien threat is so entrenched within the colony that it has been influencing the place for centuries. All I can really compare that with so far is, I don't know... The Ark? I'll take Macra over Monoids any day. If I had to compare this story with any other Classic Who serial that I know of, I'd have to say The Happiness Patrol is the nearest match, with a cheery, always-smiling facade hiding a dark secret within the colony.

This story also wears its 1984 influences on its sleeve, though I was left disappointed that no one ever chucked a chair at Control's screen. (Or a big sledgehammer; nary a Macintosh in sight.) Themes of brainwashing are always chilling to me, and the idea of human ingenuity and industriousness being parasitized by the fiendish Macra is definitely a pretty spooky one! The realization of the Macra leaves a bit to be desired of course, but the animation does a good job of conveying what they're supposed to be like.

The Doctor plays an active role in poking around where he shouldn't be this time, continuing the pattern which I've seen becoming established through this season. I very much enjoyed him sweet-talking the Pilot and the other colony staff to give across an impression of harmlessness. It felt very much as if nothing ever stood in his way for long, and if you think about it, it is really quite impressive that he undermined an alien power that had taken a hold of this colony for generations in just a few days, and then swanned off at the end when the locals got a little too grateful. Perfect.

There is one serious fault I can find with the story, and it is one which mildly impacted my enjoyment. The pacing of the final episode was very curious to me, in that the Macra seem to get destroyed rather suddenly, and then almost before we know what's happened, we're hearing the Chromophone Band again and everything is just fine. It felt as if a little more time was needed to show sanity prevailing in the colony again, as Ola and his goons are nowhere to be seen in the aftermath. Presumably they either repented once the mind control faded or were arrested, but we are none the wiser as to which.

Overall, a very solid set of episodes, and one which I'll be planning to revisit again sometime. It's nice that the Troughton era can already claim two great stories so soon into its run. Rather than moving on to the next televised story, we'll be taking a short detour through three non-televised stories featuring this TARDIS team, starting with Resistance. See you then!

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 28 September 2020.)

The Moonbase [Doctor Who, Story 33]

The Moonbase by Kit Pedler

11 February - 4 March 1967

​

This one seems to have enjoyed an outsized sort of popularity. Many of the marathons and other reviews of this era which I've read have talked about how much of the British general viewing public remembered The Moonbase. Mostly as "the one where they're on the Moon", but hey, that's still something, isn't it? Ben remarks in Episode One on having seen photos of the lunar surface, which had only existed for a few short years at the time. It's easy to see how an episode on the surface of the Moon would have captured the imagination at a time when the Apollo landings had not yet taken place, and the fact that the shots of the Cybermen striding through the lunar wastes are cut so strikingly no doubt played a role.

This is a good serial. The fact that the words "The Moonbase is now under siege" are uttered in the third episode tips us off to the fact that we are indeed deep within that genre at this point, but I don't feel that it's to this serial's detriment. The side characters are fairly likable, though not the best we've had so far, and I was entertained by the resolution to the mystery of what was spreading the disease on the base. Not everyone takes sugar with their coffee indeed. ("Would it make a difference?" the Seventh Doctor who lives in the back of my head says, making me chortle while watching.)

The Cyberman redesign deserves some praise. It's miles from the iconic Mondas design we saw before, but clearly sets the foundation for all the later appearances they'll wear. Talking of Mondas, it's not entirely clear from watching this just how the Cybermen survived The Tenth Planet, since they shrug off the question. They also seem to recognize the Second Doctor, interestingly enough, despite his recent face lift. I have to assume they're relying on historical records from The Invasion.

I was disappointed to find Jamie out of commission for most of the story, feeling that he has not yet had much of a chance to shine since he joined the crew. Ben and Polly were still as good as ever; I continue to find myself warming to them, and realized with a bit of disappointment that I'm now very close to saying goodbye to them. A lot has been made of the Doctor's suggestion that Polly make coffee, but as much as I feel it's a valid complaint, it didn't really make me flinch. Later on when Ben says something is "men's work", she flat out ignores him and comes along anyway, which I take as a sign that the writer thinks casual sexism is rubbish after all.

Troughton continues to be a charming Doctor, especially when we can actually see him in motion. I'm noticing that he has a lot of facial tics and uses his expressions to convey more than many of the other actors around him do, so it really is a crying shame that so much of his era is missing.

All in all, another solid adventure, but not an extraordinary one. I'm more excited for The Macra Terror, which is our next animated adventure...

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 26 September 2020.)

The Underwater Menace [Doctor Who, Story 32]

The Underwater Menace by Geoffrey Orme
14 January - 4 February 1967​

So, I rather enjoyed this one. Not in the sort of way that one enjoys a good episode of Doctor Who, per se, but in the way that one just has to admire something that's so very audacious in its own absurdity. This is apparently a world where the lost city of Atlantis not only exists, but is ready to emerge again, where most of the hard labor is done by glittered up fish people, and where mad scientists can crack the Earth's crust with hyperpressurized steam. It's obvious from the start that nobody is ever meant to take this seriously, so it's in that spirit that I entered my third Patrick Troughton story.

Accordingly, I didn't come away disappointed. It is, I can say without reservation, not good television, but the entertainment value is certainly reward enough. Everyone in the picture seems to know it too, not least the magnificently hammy Joseph Fürst as Zaroff. I thought it was an interesting twist on the recently and dearly departed historical format to have Zaroff actually be a famous figure from Earth's history whom the Doctor already knows about, but to further be one from what was then the future, and about whom we have no prior knowledge. His interactions with the Doctor are all good, and he plays this silly little part with enough confidence that the absurdity of his plan really doesn't matter.

Equally barmy are the fishfolk, who for all their ballet routines and odd glubbing have a bit of nightmare fuel inherent to their existence. We see how terrifying the process that creates them must be when it's almost inflicted on Polly, so it's gratifying to see them rise up against their Atlantean overlords.

Atlantis itself is not sketched in what I would call an overly realistic manner. I've been spoiled for many years by Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) with its marvelous worldbuilding, and accordingly have always found the subject of lost underwater civilizations to be fascinating. This Atlantis is a rather squalid little place, but it does have religions, marketplaces, and ordinary people, which is a bit more than some other Doctor Who locales get. It's an interesting place to spend four episodes. I wonder how The Time Monster is going to spin it later.

I should also remark before I finish up that it was interesting to finally see Troughton's performance as the Doctor in motion. It made me wonder just how much of his acting I had been missing out on after so many incomplete episodes. This will continue to be a problem I face throughout Doctor Who's most missing season, but my hopes remain high. See you again soon for The Moonbase.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 1 June 2020.)

Cities Made of Song, 1966

Cities Made of Song, 1966 - God Only Knows by the Beach Boys

I agonized for a long time over this one before eventually conking myself in the head to stop myself thinking in circles. Of course it was going to be God Only Knows. What else could it be?

This is something of an overdue appearance from the other big 'B' of the 60s, the Beach Boys. It wasn't until late in my teens that I understood the fuss about these guys, as my first impressions were that they were chiefly responsible for stuff like Surfin' U.S.A. and other light pop hits. Suffice it to say that when I finally pulled my head out of the dirt and gave "Pet Sounds" a proper listen, my little mind was blown. I'm only being a little hyperbolic when I call it one of the best albums of all time; it is one of the few records that was ultimately responsible for turning me onto the world of music.

Like many contemporary bands, the Beach Boys matured rapidly with the procession of the 1960s, and by the time of "Pet Sounds" had already achieved a series of increasingly complex and well-written hits, eventually culminating with this particular sonic masterpiece. I could talk about a lot of this album's tracks, but as is my established pattern, I can't be so indiscriminate. It's not Cities Made of Songs now, is it?

God Only Knows makes me feel a lot of things. It's a melancholy love song; "I may not always love you" is an uncommonly negative note to start a pop song off on, but wow, does it ever work. It even manages to sound strangely hopeful in spite of this somber line. It's a step up from the endless legions of pop songs promising eternal love, which it must be said do get boring at times... Apparently this sense of negativity and uncertainty was a source of apprehension to Tony Asher when he and Brian Wilson wrote the song, as was the inclusion of God in the title. It's almost quaint how mentioning the Almighty in a song title would have been considered risky, considering that my favorite genre (heavy metal, natch) gets away with the most hilariously vulgar titles imaginable in this day and age. It really was a different world back then.

Thematically, this is a song about moving on, despite how much you may love someone or something. It's appropriate at the present juncture, as the dawn of 1967 both marks a dramatic cultural awakening in the real world as well as a continued evolution of the TV show whose life I'm tracking. So it's not just beautiful by its own merits, it's poignant in the present context as well.

That's all for today. The Underwater Menace is next.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 20 May 2020.)

The Highlanders [Doctor Who, Story 31]

The Highlanders by Elwyn Jones and Gerry Davis

17 December 1966 - 7 January 1967

​

Another week, another ho-hum historical. Only the benefit of hindsight makes this story more significant than that, as we say hello to Jamie McCrimmon, and say goodbye to the pure historical. I don't want to sound too down on it, because it's significantly better than The Smugglers, but with that story so recent, and with the gorgeous Power of the Daleks having just gone by, I'm mostly just left feeling kind of bored by this. Still, it was quite interesting watching this brand-new Doctor take a shot at a story style that is so intrinsic to the era of his predecessor. His approach to it is one full of impersonation and disguise, something which Hartnell also did, albeit not with this frequency. All in all, he seems somewhat manic and unreliable, though it's clear to see how it all works out by the end when his plan comes to fruition and the Highlanders are rescued.

It really is remarkable how obvious it is that Jamie was never intended to go past this serial. He's hardly even in it, with the primary side character being Kirsty. The few bits he does get are promising, though, and I can hardly complain about him getting to stay on for longer, even if I am apprehensive (as always) about having three companions in the TARDIS at once. I just got to know Ben and Polly, so the possibility that they'll be edged out so soon is an unwelcome one. Polly gets some good and some bad here; her calling Kirsty a peasant is really unexpected and nasty, but then in the next episode they're as thick as thieves and being remarkably resourceful.

Kirsty is fairly charming, but unfortunately she disappears by the last episode. All the titular Highlanders are fairly wooden, with the best side character probably being the interminably unlucky Algernon Ffinch. He gets some really funny moments with Polly here, and by the final time he showed up outside the bar in Inverness, inevitably about to be screwed over again, I had myself a good belly laugh. Not exactly the sort of reaction one expects to have in a serial with such a dark and overcast tone over some parts of it. It pulls no punches with the treatment of the beaten Jacobites after Culloden, though my intuition tells me that some of it is fairly ahistorical. Not that anyone turns up to these expecting historical accuracy anyway.

In short... not bad. Not too memorable either in most regards. A very middle-ground Who story for me, but I think some more unique times are just ahead. Unless I'm mistaken, though, we've hit 1967, so it's time for our annual musical interlude first.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 16 May 2020.)

Wonderland [Doctor Who, Diversion 9]

Wonderland by Mark Chadbourn
24 April 2003 

It's hard for me to find a more apt descriptor for this story than "absolutely bonkers". This is 1960s Doctor Who recast as a cross between an acid trip and a Lone Gunmen style paranoid fantasy. Wonderland is a paean for the death of the Summer of Love and the loss of American innocence, complete with a rather gratuitous flashback to the John F. Kennedy assassination. Accordingly, it's a little out of place in the Who canon, as it doesn't feel very British at all. This is reinforced by the abrupt shift to a conspiracy thriller in the latter parts of the book, when it's discovered that at the center of the strange happenings in Haight-Ashbury is an alien creature that can only be seen when you're tripping, which is being experimented on by deep-state agents.

Yeah, it's that sort of book.

Discovering in the latter part of the book that the "Combine" is a real thing, and that it controls the US government, is kind of startling. It's even more startling when the story (and even the Doctor himself) confirm it to be true and play it completely straight. It really doesn't belong in Doctor Who, and feels more like it dropped straight out of The X-Files, which I suppose is appropriate given the country this is set in and its date of publication. But it's the one tonal problem with this book that rattled me out of total immersion, much more so than the proliferation of "mature" subject matter. We're also kept at a remove from the Doctor, Ben and Polly, as the point-of-view character is not one of the regular cast, but a young woman named Summer (or Jessica) who has grown into a cynical old ex-hippy by the time that she's narrating the story from. It is an interesting juxtaposition putting the very 1960s Ben and Polly alongside their American contemporaries, but the resulting contrast exhibits how out of their depth the two of them are in a more gritty and realistic portrayal of the era.

A lot of the negative feedback I see about this book centers on the portrayal of the Doctor, namely his distant nature and lack of engagement with Summer's concerns. He does have a tendency to brush her off whenever she tries to tip him off to something going on, but having watched The Power of the Daleks (and now The Highlanders, as of the time of this writing), I don't think this characterization is necessarily as off the mark as some of the reviews I read suggest. This new Doctor, so far, very rarely tips his hand, even to his best friends, preferring to distract friend and foe alike with a strange and almost clownish performance. It certainly doesn't suit some of his later appearances to be written this way, but unless Jamie's tucked away somewhere in the TARDIS for a very long nap during Wonderland, then it must be set between these two TV serials, when this sort of behavior for the Doctor is to be expected. This isn't to mean that he doesn't care, far from it. In a quiet moment in the story, the Doctor finally breaks character to turn and speak quietly to Summer, who is despairing over the situation they find themselves in.

The Doctor took my hand gently and secretly so the others couldn’t

see. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my travels, it’s that, for all its

horrors, the universe tends towards good. In the middle of a moment, it’s

easy to see darkness, and to give in to the blackest despair. But across

the scope of centuries, the view reveals a path that always encounters

valleys but continues ever higher, that never stops rising.’​

It's a lovely little moment, and you can tell he means it, because when he meets Summer again two regenerations later at the end of the novella, he remembers it and reaffirms his belief, inviting her away from the bleak future she thinks she's destined for, to come on an adventure instead. I think that's the central message of this story; the world can be cruel, and innocence never lasts, but adventure and imagination, such as that offered by the Doctor here, can still offer escape, perhaps even a more lasting and meaningful one than that offered by the psychedelic drugs so central to this story.

That isn't to say that the two are treated as entirely incompatible here. One of the best set pieces in the book is the one where the Doctor casually browses in a shop and points out an interesting bong to Ben and Polly. Later he blends in magnificently at a rather wild and drug-filled party where even Ben and Polly seem to have trouble doing the same. As the foreword remarks, the Doctor is a trip in and of himself, and despite the very staid, BBC sensibility and production of the TV program, there is a very clear throughline to be drawn between this contemporary wave of psychedelia and a magic, mind-expanding adventure across the cosmos.

Wonderland was a gripping read with high quality prose, and I was hooked despite (or because of?) the general insanity of it all. I'm torn between loving it for its mad brilliance and hating it for its tonal dissonance, but whichever way I may lean, I'll certainly never forget it.

The Highlanders is next.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 15 May 2020.)

The Power of the Daleks [Doctor Who, Story 30]

The Power of the Daleks by David Whitaker and Dennis Spooner

5 November - 10 December 1966

​Now this is certainly one heck of a way to kick things off. I won't lie to you, I found this a tremendous story, and it's done a lot already to get me excited for the rest of this run. The creepy, well-developed setting, the tense atmosphere, and the performances of the main cast all come across magnificently. Ben and Polly finally started to "click" for me with this one, much to my relief. There is a lot more warmth between them and the new lead than there was with Hartnell, which helps quite a bit (I was particularly charmed by the Doctor and Polly's little Lesterson listen chant), and I've started to grow accustomed to their skeptical one/open-minded one dynamic. The Doctor is a little harder to pin down. He does immediately come across as a more quiet, reactive Doctor than the First, which I know will stick, but his curious behavior and seemingly distracted air are most definitely against the grain and put us at a deliberate distance from the new guy. I found myself warming to him by the end, though. If nothing else, it's a performance that inspires curiosity.

David Whitaker's thumbprint is all over this thing. The intention behind having the newly-changed Doctor's first adventure be on a planet full of mercury is dead obvious, but it is a nice touch that the Daleks prove to be immune to mercury's effect. Their utter conceptual opposition to the Doctor is driven home once more as the Daleks somehow recognize the Doctor long before Ben and Polly themselves are even sure of his identity. (This recognition seemingly defining the Doctor will be brilliantly reflected in the otherwise quite underwhelming Victory of the Daleks many years from now when the Doctor defines the Daleks in turn, giving them life.) Whitaker seems to understand what makes the Daleks tick just as well as their creator did, because they are absolutely creepy in this story, with their underhanded tactics coming at odds with their previous bombastic attempts to conquer the universe. Because they are underplayed in this manner at first, they seem far more dangerous than when they were drilling out planets' cores or gunning down ancient Egyptians by the cryptload. Their constant recitation of "I am your SERvant" becomes more sarcastic and cruel as the serial goes on, while the humans, too wrapped up in their own concerns, blithely continue to think they're telling the truth.

I think it's understandable to be frustrated at the stupidity of the human beings populating planet Vulcan as they fail to realize the danger inherent in the Daleks, but the whole point is that they're so busy with their petty power struggle that they're too blinkered to notice the threat that's right under their noses. Keeping in mind that the Daleks are essentially an allegory for fascism, this is sadly apposite, as the rise of hate and extremism is often ignored until it's too late. The more the Vulcan colonists plot and scheme against one another, the more the Daleks start to propagate themselves, increasing in number. There is a bleak scene in the final episode where we see countless colonists from all sides of the conflict lying dead, all killed by the same evil, their squabbles now meaning nothing. It's telling that in an earlier episode, even the Daleks are surprised by Bragen's murder of Hensell, with one making the chilling remark:

"Why do human beings kill human beings?"​

It's a very good question. That is the power of the Daleks. Just like the Cybermen, they're a dark reflection of our own worst tendencies, and when played well (like this) they can make for some truly powerful stories. To descend even deeper into nerd territory, I'm made to think of Theoden's despairing line from the defense of Helm's Deep: "What can men do against such reckless hate?" That's easy: they can fight it. Or they can make stories about fighting it, which is as suitable of a substitute as I can think of. Having stories about it, even when steeped as firmly in allegory as this one, is a good reminder that the worst monsters are the ones of our own making, and it's up to us to defeat them.

I'll make no bones about saying that this is absolutely the best Dalek story yet. A few days ago I opined that Dalek fatigue had started to exact its toll on Doctor Who, but then this came along so soon after, proving that there were still new things to be done with them.

It's almost fitting that this is all being done as preparation to kill them off for good.

Anyway, more on the new Doctor himself next, and a hard swerve into psychedelia, as I search for some gentle people in Wonderland.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 13 May 2020.)

The Tenth Planet [Doctor Who, Story 29]

The Tenth Planet by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis

8 - 29 October 1966​

It’s the end, and I’m not totally prepared… Ever since resuming my marathon when the lockdown began in March, I have been moving at a fair clip, motivated by the desire to distract myself from a dreary world with the adventures of Doctor Who. I flew through Season Three, drinking everything in, always eager for the next episode. The inevitable consequence was that I landed here at The Tenth Planet sooner than I ever expected. Intellectually I knew that the end of the Hartnell era was coming on fast, but that still didn’t prepare me emotionally for it. I just sat there in silence while he turned into Patrick Troughton in the last moments of the last episode, wondering at how surreal it all was. It took two and a half years, but I made it. That’s something worth celebrating.

It’s almost unfair to the story itself, however, to burden it with the weight of this monumental change, as well as the mythological significance of the Cybermen first coming into being. Like I said last time, event television does not yet exist. This is a serial like any other in the season before it, though in terms of layout (being one of the first real Bases under Siege) it more resembles the Troughton era… It is only through the lens of the future that it transcends past its serialized status and becomes something more uncommon: a milestone.

It’s important to recognize that the Cybermen aren’t iconic monsters yet. Accordingly, it comes as no surprise that the show doesn’t treat them with the awe that a viewer spoiled by the future (like me) might expect. In fact, they’re almost totally missing from the third episode of the serial, just like the Doctor, leaving Ben and Polly with the unenviable job of carrying the show and butting heads with the ur-base commander, General Cutler. However, it speaks to the lasting strength of the Cybermen’s core concept that this brief appearance led to them being the second longest recurring monster in the show’s history. They are deliciously creepy, with the body horror inherent to them being offered mostly through suggestion rather than through any blatant means. They’re also startlingly polite, and in fact very rarely seem to directly menace the humans they’re holding captive. It’s an odd portrayal to modern eyes, but is nevertheless compelling.

Cutler works well as a secondary antagonist; although his stubbornness occasionally beggars belief, the actor plays the role well enough that it lands. His single-minded focus on getting his son down from space adds a human edge to the character. I’d never apply the adjective “convincing”, but “entertaining” fits just fine…

Ben and Polly both come across a little better here than they did in The Smugglers, working together behind Cutler’s back while the Doctor is out of commission to help prevent the General from sterilizing half of the Earth’s surface with the Z-bomb. Barclay is also a nice side character, fulfilling a bit of the Doctor’s role while he’s out of commission in Episode 3. I wish the Doctor came out of this looking as good as the other characters did, but Hartnell isn’t at his best in these episodes, and it’s sad to see. He does get a few standout lines (particularly his mysterious remarks to Ben and Polly when the Mondasian ship is disabled and they’re freed) but he still barely gets to star in his own farewell story.

Overall, this is a fairly strong story, but one that wouldn’t be particularly remarkable if it weren’t for its own mythological importance. While I’ll stand by my remarks that this story should be judged on its own merits rather than on its relevance to the evolution of Doctor Who, I have to admit that this relevance helps its standing rather than hinders it.

We’ll get to The Power of the Daleks soon, but first we have to take a pause and give this era a proper wrap-up. See you soon.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 10 May 2020.)

The Smugglers [Doctor Who, Story 28]

The Smugglers by Brian Hayles

10 September - 1 October 1966

​

Well, they can't all be winners, can they? I didn't go into this with the highest expectations, and accordingly was not particularly disappointed that The Smugglers never quite transcends its limitations to somehow become something very interesting. It is quite interesting, however, that all the first serials of Seasons Two, Three, and now Four have all been curiously low-key affairs. While I liked Planet of Giants quite a bit, it wasn't exactly a blockbuster either. This is, I think, partly because the notion of "event television" has not yet taken hold, and with seasons spanning the better part of the year, nobody yet seems to have decided that the beginning and end of a season ought to be treated as any different from the rest of it. This means that it's difficult getting excited about this in most respects.

As a first adventure for Polly and Ben on the TARDIS team, I have to say that I might have wished for more. While their central dynamic together is developed here to a degree, it's still hard to say that I have a clear idea of either's personality yet, or what their relationship to the Doctor will be like. Polly in particular takes a bit of a backward step here; between spraining her ankle and getting freaked out about a rat, she comes dangerously close to reenacting a Susan worst hits compilation, with her best moment probably being her peevish remark about everyone calling her a "lad". (Though how anyone could mistake Anneke Wills for a boy, I could never guess.) She can also magically discern whether any given coastal landscape is Cornwall, so I guess that's nice, too.

As a pirate story set in Cornwall, of course, this story owes no small debt to The Pirates of Penzance, which wedged this historical epoch firmly in the public consciousness in the late 19th century and never quite left. This seems like it was an inevitability, as a continuation of Doctor Who's theatrical inheritance, given that the Doctor mentioned knowing Gilbert and Sullivan as long ago as The Edge of Destruction. It's remarkable, then, that the vibrancy of that production is totally missing from a serial so obviously inspired by it, and of course there's a complete lack of music... Doctor Who will finally make up for this oversight many years in the future, when Doctor Who and the Pirates comes along, but more on that in about a trillion years. There's also the obvious connection with The Curse of the Black Spot, the most unlikely prequel imaginable, but more on that too in about a trillion years + 1.

This all came out sounding a little more negative than I intended, as this story is only rather middling and not what I'd call bad, but through it all I really was just tapping my foot and waiting for The Tenth Planet to come along...

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 10 May 2020.)