4: Marco Polo

Well, it's been a busy week. My team and I won our quiz semi final in the cup competition of the Bridgend League. The school I work in is being inspected next week, so it's been a week of early mornings and late evenings n work. Did I find ANY time to watch Doctor Who at all? Of course. 

Marco Polo is several firsts for me during this marathon watch. It's my first Historical, and my first recon. Did I come out of the experience unscathed? Read on.

 Marco Polo

Before Watching

Right then – I’m 4 stories in and I’m about to hit two firsts. This is the first of what have come to be

called the Historicals – that is – stories set in Earth’s past with no obvious sci fi elements other than the fact that the regulars have travelled through time to get there. Alright, I suppose that An Unearthly Child fits that definition too, but it’s not in a period of documented History, while Marco Polo definitely is.

This is also the earliest story in which some of the individual episodes are missing – in this case numbers 1 – 7 of a 7 part story. This puts me firmly in the land of the recon. Now, there is a BBC official condensed recon which is on the Edge of Destruction DVD. I will admit that I am sorely tempted to use this one. On reflection, though, I don’t think that this would allow me to give this story the fairest hearing that I can manage considering that only the soundtrack and photographs still exist, and so I’ve decided to go the whole hog, and watch recons of each of the 7 episodes.

I’m not entirely sure what to expect. After all, when I first started reading the synopses of the old stories when I was a kid I was never really the least bit interested in the Historicals – which is odd really since I’ve always loved History. First thoughts are the 7 episodes seems a hell of a lot, but hey , give it a fair crack of the whip.

After Watching

I can see that my prejudice against the Historicals was pretty unfair. “Marco Polo” is a highly enjoyable piece of television. I can only think that if the episodes existed it would be even more enjoyable.

In terms of plot I can see that this is just the sort of thing I would have enjoyed as a kid. There’s a definite attempt to educate here, but I never minded that as a kid, and I don’t mind it now. What you have is a story which, while it delivers up its fair share of, for want of a better term, Saturday serial thrills and spills, it never descends into melodrama and cliché.

Now, as we know, the TARDIS lands in the Himalayas at the end of “The Edge of Destruction”, and it has the misleading cliffhanger with the huge footprint. The huge footprint is actually that of a man wearing big furry boots. There you go. The yetis will be along in a few years’ time. Our heroes have landed on the Plain of Pamir the ‘Roof of the World’ which provides the title to this first episode. A small point about that too. Is it just me, or does this story have some of the better, more evocative episode titles? Five Hundred Eyes and The Wall Of Lies stand out particularly well. Going back to the story, the TARDIS crew are fortunate to have been found by the caravan of the eponymous Marco. The travellers can’t simply depart because a circuit is bust in the TARDIS, and it’s going to take the Doctor days to repair it. Here’s a point. For all the unreliability of the TARDIS in future series it seems to have become a lot more robust by the 70s and 80s. Blow on it in this first series and something serious seems to go wrong.

Marco Polo is played in this story by Mark Eden, and the recon I’ve been watching has a prologue and epilogue with a (reasonably) present day Mark Eden, playing Marco, back in his native Venice, writing down his adventures. It’s a neat idea, which works really well with the structure that writer John Lucarotti chose for his narrative. Each episode is punctuated by extracts from Marco’s journal. This is such a simple but clever idea. It shifts the viewers’ focus from the regulars to Marco’s story, and this works well. It’s a shame that a fine actor like Mark Eden is probably best known for being run over by a Blackpool tram when he was planning to murder Rita in Corrie.

I like the Marco Polo of this story. He’s obviously a ‘good’ man, but he’s no plaster saint either, hence his decision to take the TARDIS so that he can give it to Kublai Khan to earn permission to return to Venice. It’s not without suffering qualms of conscience that he does so either, all of which adds a little depth to his character. I’m glad that in the end the nobler side of his nature wins out. I also think that Derren Nesbitt puts in a terrific turn as Tegana, the villain of the piece. Tegana is a warlord, accompanying Marco Polo on his journey to meet up with Kublai Khan. The Great Khan thinks that Tegana will be able to negotiate a treaty for him, while Tegana plans to assassinate the Khan. In less sure hands Tegana would be a two dimensional bore, and you’d wonder why everyone else takes so long to see through his machinations. I was glad that Tegana got to kill himself in the end, rather than being prosaically hacked down in his swordfight with Marco at the climax of episode 7.

Well, the plot of the story is driven by the two main plot elements – the machinations of Tegana, and the crew’s attempt to get the TARDIS back, but there’s also an interesting sub plot concerning one of Marco’s travelling companions, the lady Ping Cho. I’ll be honest, from the stills I didn’t recognize the actress as Zienia Merton, who played Sandra Benes, one of the main characters in Space 1999. Ping Cho, who, like Susan is in her 16^th year, is being sent to meet and marry the husband who has been chosen for her, a warlord many years her senior.

The recon I watched seems to have used the colorization process on the still photographs taken during the production. Normally I’m against this being done to films and shows that were filmed in black and white. Still, it does give an idea how of just how good the design was for this story. Some of the sets – Marco’s tents and some of the city scenes look especially good. Maybe they wouldn’t have looked quite so impressive in grainy black and white on television, but hey, I can only judge by what’s put in front of me.

I think that what I liked about this story so much was that even though I knew what had to happen in the end – the travelers would get the TARDIS back and leave, Tegana would not kill Kublai Khan, and Marco would also (after the end of the story)  get permission to go home with the Khan’s blessing – I never really knew what was going to happen next. Take episode two – the Singing Sands. This becomes a pure adventure serial episode, with Susan and Ping Cho almost perishing in a sandstorm, and the villainous Tegana slashing the water gourds and blaming it on bandits. He then poses as hero, riding off to the oasis, then dramatically drinking his fill, emptying the gourd symbolically onto the ground, and waiting, secure in the knowledge that Marco’s caravan will perish before they reach the oasis. Yet in episode three, after the caravan is saved by the condensation from the walls of the TARDIS, Tegana talks his way out of trouble when they reach the oasis, and next thing we know they are all in the next city, and we settle down to listen to Ping Cho telling us a story about Hulegu and The Hashashins. It shouldn’t really work, and yet it does, brilliantly. What this story doesn’t have is a sense of the headlong rush towards the climax, and I think it’s all the better for it. In a close parallel with Marco’s journey itself, this story is going to take as long as it takes to meander its way to the end, and isn’t going to be rushed. In many ways I think a story such as this really played to the BBC’s strengths at the time. Much of this reminded me of the old BBC classic serials which used to be broadcast at teatime on Sundays. These were adaptations of classic novels, many from the 19^th century which had the benefits of a) being great stories – and b) being free to adapt, copyright having expired. The Beeb were old hands at this sort of thing, and there’s a real sure-footedness about everything you can see and hear of this story. I get the impression that this story is exactly the kind of thing Sydney Newman had in mind when he and others were thrashing out the concept of the series in the first place.

Essentially the Doctor and companions in this story are in the roles of being eyewitnesses to rather than participants in History. While each of the companions has some plot driving to do, you can argue with some conviction that none of them can actually do anything much that influences the way that events turn out. It’s very noticeable that it is Marco who gets to defeat Tegana in the final sword fight, and not Ian. Ian and Barbara continue much as they have in the first three stories, and it’s nice to see the Doctor’s mischievous side come out in the scenes with Kublai Khan, although the grumpy git is all present and correct in the earlier episodes. Even Susan gets a couple of nice scenes. Lucarotti pulls the same trick as Terry Nation did in The Daleks, where it looks like they will be making an escape a couple of episodes earlier than they actually do. This time it’s Susan who prevents it, by going AWOL to say a proper farewell to Ping Cho who has made their escape possible.

There’s some clever scripting here which plays games with our expectations too. In episode 6 there’s a lovely scene with the Doctor telling the Grand Vizier that he will not kowtow to Kublai Khan when he appears. The Grand Vizier almost expires with apoplexy and going through all the titles of the Great Khan, and stressing great and fearsome he is. Then when he does appear he is a little, arthritic old man who is just as rickety, crochety and mercurial as the first Doctor is himself, and the pair of them bond over their mutual complaints about the ailments of old age. Lovely stuff, and just the sort of thing which gives texture and depth,  which is there in all the very best examples of classic Doctor Who.

As regards the denouement, well, there’s some interesting leg work which goes on in the last half of the last episode to tie things up. Helpfully Ping Cho’s aged fiancé passes away on the eve of their wedding, taking a concoction of quicksilver and mercury in search of an elixir of youth. That’s another example of just how clever the scripting is. He could have died anyway, but dying while drinking an elixir of youth is a lovely little irony.  Offered the chance to return home to Samarkand, or stay in the capital at Kublai’s court Ping Cho chooses the latter, which is the best of all possible worlds for her. There’s another example of Lucarotti’s attention to the script in this episode. Having created the bond between The Doctor and Kublai Khan, he has the Doctor playing backgammon against Kublai Khan with the TARDIS as the stakes. He takes care to establish that the Doctor has been thrashing Kublai up to this point – having won the annual income of Burma, although missing out on the fondue set and the cuddly toy.  The easy way out would have been to let the Doctor win the TARDIS back. Losing, though, allows Marco the chance to ultimately come down on the side of doing the right thing, even when it is not the easy thing, and when he is personally going to lose by doing it. After Tegana has revealed his true colours, and is foiled in his assassination attempt on Kublai Khan by Marco, and Marco gives the Doctor the key to the TARDIS and bids the travelers make their escape, even old Kublai is good enough to concede that if he had not done so, then the Doctor would eventually have won it back at backgammon.

Maybe, just maybe the story wouldn’t have impressed me quite so much if the episodes still existed, and it all looked a bit cheaper than it does in the photos. But I doubt it. For a seven parter, this beat “The Daleks” all ways till Tuesday. The great irony of course is that “The Daleks” was what made the series, and was the pointer to the future direction the show would be taking.

What Have We Learned?

The TARDIS has a terrible condensation problem.

Bearing in mind the tendency or malfunction it has, it’s not impossible that some of its components came from MFI.

It is impossible to build a TARDIS from components and materials available on Earth during the 13^th century.

The Doctor is a great backgammon player apart from in the games where it actually matters.

It’s not just Susan who can get them all into trouble by wandering off – Barbara is a dab hand as well.

3. The Edge of Destruction

Before Watching

In case you’re wondering how I can say anything about stories I’ve never actually watched, I’d better come clean and talk about the sources for these meanderings. Through the 70s and up to the mid 80s I was a big fan – not a huge fan by the standards of some others I’ve met since, but nonetheless I didn’t just watch the show and read the Target novels, I also read Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly and books about the show – The Making of Doctor Who, and the Official Programme Guide by Jean Marc L’Officier being two good examples. So I’d come across synopses and a few details about the old shows, and just going on this I made a mental list of the Hartnell and Troughton shows that I’d never seen which I’d most like to see if ever the chance arose.

Now, being very keen on Science Fiction, no Historicals made my list, and it tended to be dominated by those stories with the most obviously sci fi elements. As a matter of record, in my Hartnell most wanted list were : -

The Keys of Marinus

The Sensorites

The Space Museum

The Chase

The Time Meddler

The Dalek Master Plan (because it had the return of the Meddling Monk)

The Ark

The War Machines

The Tenth Planet

Now, I know enough about current fan reactions to these stories to know that few of these are held in high regard by the cognoscenti. Well, we’ll deal fairly with each one when we get there.

You’ll notice that Edge of Destruction does not feature on my list. What I know about it, or the idea I’ve formed is that something in the back of my mind, some half remembered factoid tells me that this was something of a filler, as two episodes were needed, and no money was available for new sets, nor for any other actors than the four regulars. So all of this is set on board the TARDIS – the only story set entirely on board if I’m right. I’m looking forward to seeing how much of the TARDIS interiors we’ll get to see – I’ve already noticed how much bigger the control room is than the one I remember.

After Watching

I think I can safely say that I’ve never watched a Doctor Who story quite like that before. I don’t think that there is any other Doctor Who story quite like it.

It helped to remember that this story took place immediately after the conclusion to the Daleks. Last time out the Doctor was essentially duplicitous, seemingly sabotaging his own TARDIS to ensure that he can go and explore the Dalek city, thus putting the lives of his companions in danger. This story takes us completely over to the dark side and is a real journey into paranoia.

In brief, the TARDIS suddenly comes to a jarring halt in the Space Time continuum. All the four crew are knocked out unconscious for a while. Eventually they come round, and start voicing all kinds of crazy theories about what has happened. It is noticed that the doors are opened, and the crew fear that they may have an intruder. Susan touches the console and is electrocuted. Put to bed she wakes up, and tries to attack her crewmates with a pair of scissors. Well, it has to be better than self-harming anyway. Then the Doctor goes a bit tonto, and accuses Ian and Barbara of sabotaging his ship. The best part of the whole scene, in fact the whole story is when Barbara rounds on him furiously, reminding him of his own actions on Skaro, and the way that she and Ian have saved all of their lives both on Skaro and also back in prehistory. This is brilliant acting from Jacqueline Hill. Barbara has had good moments in each of the two preceding stories, but she’s brilliantly foregrounded here, and I can see why so many commentators on the series rave about Jacqueline Hill’s acting. She is absolutely terrific.

Not so terrific was an effect which happened after that. I’m assured that the thing which appeared was a melting clock. Looked at it twice, but honestly couldn’t make out exactly what it was myself. Eventually something that Barbara says about this being the only way that the TARDIS might have to communicate with them percolates through the Doctor’s anger, and he comes to realize that the Fast Return switch is stuck. Don’t ask. There is an explanation why this wasn’t picked up on the fault locator, but it sounded a little bit specious to me. Basically, the TARDIS is being instructed by the Fast Return switch, which is stuck, to go back to the Big Bang. All the silliness is basically the TARDIS refusing to do so and trying to alert the travelers to the danger. Crisis averted they touch down in the Himalayas. The episode ends with the four of them examining a gigantic footprint, which I think would have wrong footed a lot of the original viewers into expecting a story about the yeti (which were still several years in the future) next week.

I have nothing new to say about the way that the words Fast Return Switch are handwritten above it in felt pen.

Worse actors than the four principles might have murdered this. It comes off because it’s well acted. I’ve already mentioned Barbara’s outburst to the Doctor, but then there’s the Doctor’s monologue about how the universe came together, which has a little poetry and wonder about it. Also, and I make no apology for this, I got excited about getting to see so much of the interior of the TARDIS as well. Very few stories let you see any more than a bit of the control room and the console. This one gives you a lot more than that. There’s the automatic food dispenser. Then the strange space bed/lounger/chair things. In later series it becomes clear that companions have their own bedrooms, but in this one it suggests that they probably all sleep in the same area.

The fact that it was written by the series’ first script editor, David Whitaker, suggests that this might have just been written as filler, to use the sets that were already available, while things were being prepared for the next story, Marco Polo. On the other hand I am willing to accept that this was planned all along, to allow time for the characters and relationships in the TARDIS to crystallize without any distraction from outside. Whatever the case it just about pulls it off for me.

What Have We Learned?

The TARDIS has a fault locator, and it’s crap. Made by Binatone probably.

Barbara has balls (metaphorically)

The TARDIS has a heart, and some strange sort of awareness/consciousness

It is absolutely useless at communicating with the crew

2. The Daleks

 Before Watching

My memories of this story, which I’ve never actually watched yet, come from two sources – the Peter Cushing film version, and the Target novelization. I’ll make a brief digression about that now: -

Although my earliest clear memories of Doctor Who come from watching Patrick Troughton in The Mind Robber, The Invasion and The War Games, I was only 6 when Jon Pertwee took over, and so my acquaintance with the second doctor owes a lot to the Target novelisations of the mid 70s. Actually, I read my first Doctor Who novels a year or two before Target published their first. My primary school library had old hardback copies of Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, (the Daleks) and Doctor Who and the Zarbi (The Web Planet) which had been published in the 60s. Target started publishing the three original doctor who books – these two along with The Crusades – and several new ones, which enabled me to get acquainted with the second doctor again.

Now, remember that this was 1974. Today, if you have the money you can enjoy Dr. Who stories from any era, either through DVDs, or recons and audios of missing episodes. I think that VCRs existed in 1974, but it would be almost a decade before my family owned one, and even if we had it would be a long time before the BBC released their first official Doctor Who video. (Revenge of the Cybermen, which was the first video I ever bought, out of my first ever grant cheque.)  At that time the Target books were the only way that you could experience the adventures of an earlier doctor which, by an accident of birth, you had been too young to see when they were first on. Ten years old, I loved “Doctor Who and The Abominable Snowmen”. It was written by Terrance Dicks, based on the scripts by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln. Sadly, all but episode 2 of the original serial are missing, and not having listened to the audio I can’t comment on how faithful it is. Terrance Dicks was very much Target’s go-to writer, and he ended up writing more than 60 novelisations. In my opinion he was a good, safe pair of hands who could be trusted to treat other writer’s work with respect, and always managed to produce something readable, no matter how unpromising the material he was working with.

Forty years later, it’s difficult to be hard and fast about exactly what I loved so much about that book. Patrick Troughton was my first doctor, and Jamie was the first companion I could remember, so that probably had something to do with it. I liked the reference to an earlier, untelevised, adventure where the Doctor took the sacred bell for safe keeping. The Great Intelligence also reminded me somewhat of the Nestene Consciousness from the 2 Jon Pertwee Auton serials – Spearhead from Space and Terror of the Autons, both of which I really enjoyed.

A short while later Target published their second Troughton novelization, “Doctor Who and the Cybermen”. This was based on Troughton’s 4^th serial, The Moonbase. Again, I thought it was a terrific read. I know this is sacrilege to many serious and casual Who fans, but I’ve always liked the Cybermen even more than the Daleks. This is probably because of the huge impression The Invasion made on the four and a half year old me when I first watched it. “Doctor Who and the Cybermen” was written by Gerry Davis, co creator of the Cybermen along with Dr. Kit Pedler, who had written the original serial.

For the rest of the 70s Target concentrated more on publishing novelisations of the adventures of the 3^rd and 4^th Doctors. By the end of 1980, apart from the original 3 pre-Target novels, the only other novels of serials which I hadn’t actually seen were “Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet”, “Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth”, “Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus”, “Doctor Who and The Ice Warriors”, “Doctor Who and the Web of Fear” and “Doctor Who and the Tomb Of The Cybermen”. While I never read a Target that I didn’t enjoy, it’s fair to say that I didn’t enjoy any of them quite as much as those first two Troughtons. It’s hard to say why: maybe because I was older, maybe because they stopped using the wonderful Chris Achilleos artwork on the covers, which had made each book a thing of beauty in its own right. The covers reached their nadir for me with the photographic front covers of most of the first two seasons of the 5^th Doctor. Decades later, when I saw “Tomb of the Cybermen” on DVD for the first time I was delighted to find I enjoyed it more than I remembered enjoying the novelization.

Well, what with A Levels and then University, then job hunting, marriage and fatherhood all following in quick succession during the 80s I lost touch with what was going on in Target, although I was sorry when I read that Virgin, who had purchased W.H.Allen were dropping the imprint, although not the novelisations.

I suppose that if I were to read a Target novelization now I might be a little disappointed, maybe think that they were a little simplistic, not great literature, whatever. But that wasn’t the point of them. The fact was, that at the time it was the best, in fact the only way of connecting with the show’s history and the wealth of great stories from the series’ illustrious past. That’s not a bad legacy for any imprint.

The film I’ll come to in due course. What I will say though is that as I recall the story made perfect sense in an 83 minute film, while the original series has no fewer than 7 episodes. All of which suggests one word to me – padding.

What I will be interested in is seeing how much of what we know and ‘love’ about the Daleks was already present in this first story. Cards on the table folks – while I liked the Daleks I was never as crazy over them as some people – although when I was about 15 I did build a 12inch high motorized Dalek, complete with microphone so you could speak through it. I wish I still had it. My Giant Robot from Robot was really good too.

After Watching

The first episode has a totally different pace from the first episode of “An Unearthly Child”. This is more leisurely, although it doesn’t lag. The TARDIS lands on what we later discover is Skaro. After wandering about a bit, and finding trees, and a dead metal creature, the crew notice a huge city away in the distance. The three companions are adamant about going back to the TARDIS, while the Doctor wants to explore. So the Doctor sabotages the TARDIS! What a tool! I don’t remember that happening in the film at all. In fact I don’t remember it happening in the novel either, although it’s 40 years since I read it. As an aside, that novel is presented as the first adventure if I recall correctly, and does explain how Ian and Barbara came to be on the TARDIS. Which must have been confusing for kids in the 80s, after the novelization of An Unearthly Child was published.

I have to pause to remind myself that when this was made, the audience didn’t actually have years of experience of Doctor Who to draw on when making up their minds about the Doctor as a character. So although I’m watching and thinking – that’s not the Doctor, he wouldn’t do that, the point is that while no, the Doctors I grew up with , Jon and Tom, probably wouldn’t have done that, they had the benefit of being that much older and experienced than the first Doctor. They had all of his experiences to draw on. I mean, if faced with exactly the same situation just 40 years apart, let’s say at the ages of 20 and 60, would we all react in exactly the same way both times? Probably not.

Going back to The Daleks, you can see where Terry Nation was drawing inspiration from for this story. After all, this was written during 1963, just a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when by all accounts the world came closer to potential nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Bloc than at any other time before or since. So the aftermath of catastrophic nuclear war is the backdrop to the story. The world of Skaro has been decimated by neutron bombs, which destroy life, but leave buildings intact, hence the Dalek city surviving.

Speaking of Daleks, I was surprised that the only bit of Dalek we get to see in the first episode is right at the end, where Barbara is menaced by what looks like a sink plunger sticking out of the camera. We see plenty of them in episode two, though, and one particular thing they do has led me to formulate a theory. The Daleks stun Ian, which is remarkably restrained of them, and not something I think we’ll see happen too often after this. Ian thus survives and then later he is the catalyst who persuades the Thals to attack the Dalek city. Hence the Daleks draw the perfectly reasonable conclusion that if you show any kind of mercy it will only be thrown back in your face, and adopt a shot to kill policy. Therefore Ian is actually responsible for hundreds of on screen – and millions of off-screen – deaths.

Actually the merely stunning Ian rather than killing him is not the only thing in this second episode which leads me to draw the conclusion that these particular Daleks are a bit . . . soft. . . for want of a better word. Knowing that the travelers are dying of radiation poisoning, they order that one of the travelers has to go out and fetch the medicine which was left by the Thals at the TARDIS. While they are briefing Susan they make the point that the Thal survivors of their nuclear conflict must be, and I quote “Disgustingly mutilated”. Ooh, get her! I mean we don’t get to see a naked Dalek in this story, only a mutilated hand and claw underneath a Thal cloak, but even so it’s made pretty clear that they’re no oil paintings themselves. But that’s not what took me aback so much with this remark. No – what made me sit up was that a Dalek would use an adverb like ‘disgustingly’. Since when were the Daleks ever interested in aesthetics? Towards the end of the episode one of the Daleks notes about the Doctor  words to the effect of – The old man is dying – to which the other replies “Then he must die – there is no help we can give him.” The reply is interesting. It implies that they would help if they could – while we all know that later on, if a Dalek was told such a thing about someone he didn’t know from Adam the reply would be – Good – or something to that effect.

A little later on, in episode three, one of the Daleks tells the others that they should give the travelers the water that they are asking for since it will, and I quote, “Lead them into a false sense of security” Since when did the Daleks ever give a tuppenny damn  about such Machiavellian schemes?

I suppose we’d better get to the scene where Ian climbs inside the Dalek. Look, I don’t like it any more than you do. Ian has not long ago compared the Daleks to fairground dodgems, and now he tries to take the analogy just a little too far. Serve him right that he can’t get out of it at the end of the episode.

Now, I want to have a look at the gender politics within this show. I can’t make up my mind whether Ian’s insistence that it must be him who goes back to the TARDIS, even though one of his legs is still not working, is chauvinistic or heroic. It’s probably meant to be heroic, since this story is very much Ian’s story, but even so it reflects a little of the attitude of 1963, or Terry Nation, or both, towards the equality of the sexes. Later on the girl Thal expresses disapproval that Barbara is allowed to carry the drugs and notes “You’d be better off giving it to a man”. Later on from that Ganatus the Thal, who clearly fancies the pants off Barbara, expresses surprise that Ian allowed Barbara to come along on the expedition through the swamp. And you thought that it was the previous story which had the cavemen in it. Now, in all honesty, I just cannot make up my mind whether these are just rather obvious examples of the chauvinist attitudes of the early 60s, or whether the show is in fact subtly making a point – basically saying look – this is in the future, and yet these wimpy blond aliens still have these outdated attitudes to women. Hang on – this is written by Terry Nation. It’s not subtly mocking anything.

I’m not used to individual episodes of a story having their own titles, but I can’t make up my mind if I like them or not. I mean episode 3 is called the Escape – yet the crew don’t even start trying to escape until right at the end of this episode, although they do talk about it a bit. At the start we meet Alydon, our first Thal. I’m irresistibly reminded of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Alydon is so clearly an Eloi to the Daleks’ Morlocks. Mind you, I may be more influenced by the George Pal film than the original novel, since I’ve never actually read it. Now, when Alydon info dumps on Susan about the war and the history between the two races, it’s a good example of how a long running drama series can end up tying itself in knots and contradicting itself. Here Alydon refers to the other lot as ‘the Dalek’ people. Now, in Terry Nation’s own ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, over a decade later, we find out that the ‘Dalek’ people were actually the Kaleds. In which case you wonder how Alydon and the Thals would ever have heard the word Dalek in the first place, and why they’d choose to use this term rather than Kaleds, presuming that none of them had ever gone into the city. Maybe some had and escaped to tell the tale somewhere along the way.

These Thals do the classic alien thing of all wearing the same clothes. In this case, the boys wear these rather strange leather trousers with circular holes in the sides. Ok – moving swiftly on, the Thals walk blindly into the Dalek trap, taking them anti radiation drugs, oil cans, and what look suspiciously like several rolls of Andrex. Now, in all honesty, I somehow doubt that my reaction – the Thal leader Temossus walked right into the Dalek trap, and so deserved what happened to him because he was a knob – was the one which was expected from the audience in 1963. Personally I think that Dalek-Thal relations might have turned out quite differently had Ian not appeared to stir the doo-doo, shouting out that it was a trap, thus panicking the Daleks into firing. Chalk another death up to Chesterton.

The end of Episode four was a surprise. The Thals make it perfectly clear that they’re not going to fight the Daleks, which the travelers accept, and decide that it’s time to go. Never mind what happens to the Thals they leave behind. Then Ian finds out that the Daleks took the all important TARDIS fluid link off him in their city. That’s the cliffhanger at the end of the show. Now, at the start of episode 5 Susan, Barbara and the Doctor all lean heavily to Ian to persuade the Thals to attack the Dalek city. I was surprised to see Barbara do this. In “An Unearthly Child” Barbara is the guardian of the crew’s conscience, yet here she’s just as eager to line up the Thals in front of them as a human – er – humanoid shield. Ian is not only the action hero of this story, but it turns out that he is the moral hero as well, and to be fair to William Russell he plays it for all he is worth. Ian says, “The only way that the Thals can fight is if they themselves want to.” Lovely sentiments, which he rather undercuts by forcing Alydon to give him a clip around the chops for messing about with his bird. Far from the other Thals grabbing him and holding him back with the words ‘Leave it Alydon – ‘e ain’t worth it’ , they immediately drop their pacifism. That was fortunate wasn’t it?

There were a couple of odd things I rather enjoyed about episode. The Dalek given the radiation drugs seems to have a protracted and very noisy orgasm – I defy you to watch the scene and come to any other conclusion yourself. The Dalek laserscope started up with what sounded suspiciously like the same noise my ZX Spectrum used to make when it was loading up a game on the tape recorder. Then Alydon got to utter this predictable but still rather good line – “There’s no shame in being afraid to die, there is only shame in being afraid to live.”

I’m afraid I rather lost a bit of interest after episode 5, until the second half of episode 7. Once a story gets longer than 4 parts there is always the likelihood that some of what you see on screen will be padding. In fact this is even true of some 4 part stories. Being 7 episodes long it was inevitable that The Daleks was going to run out of inspiration sooner or later. For me The Ordeal was the episode too far. Basically you get a bit with Ian, Barbara, Ganatus and some other Thals, getting themselves all into trouble in the swamp on their way around the city – then you cut to the Doctor and Susan and their Thals – then you cut to the Daleks in their control room (the first of many such scenes in Dalek stories)  - then back to Ian and Barbara. It’s all formulaic stuff, maybe lightened a little by the fact that Ganatus seems to have the hots for our Barbara, but not a lot.

As for the climax of the story, well, you remember how soft I said that these Daleks were earlier? Well in the climactic fight scene, a Thal gets shot presumably on full power, and still gets up , grabs the Dalek and power slams him into a wall, which finishes him off. These Daleks weren’t half easy to kill. Still, at least the Doctor and companions get their first leaving proper leaving scene in the show’s history – last time out they were chased off with sticks and stones. I did like the Doctor’s very disdainful comment to Alydon who comments that the war against the Daleks is finally over – “No doubt you will have other wars to fight.” Just in case we hadn’t already got the point. This was written less than 20 years after the end of world war II, and it spells out the message pretty clearly. The Thals are clearly what we would recognize as ‘good’ – and their pacifism is noble, but utopian, and if you don’t actually live in Utopia, then utopian ideals are a luxury you can’t afford. It is not enough to be opposed to evil and tyranny – you have to take action.

Taking it a step further, I guess that it is possible to see “The Daleks” as an allegorical moral fable. In the Daleks we see the threat of nuclear war. We can call them the Soviet Bloc if it makes things easier. In the Thals we see the pacifist unilateral disarmament lobby. While we are invited to admire their nobility, we are also shown that to be unwilling to fight for what is worth defending is ultimately an indefensible moral stance. Hence the Doctor’s closing remarks.

Let’s try to being all of this to some kind of conclusion, then. Watching “The Daleks” for the first time was something of a disconcerting experience. Even though I’ve never watched the story before I got a strange feeling of déjà vu. In part this may be memories of the film. I don’t think it was just this, though. The Doctor escaping from Dalek controlled buildings, complexes, cities, or spaceships, for example, is one which has recurred many times in slight variations, and it was easy to lose sight of the fact that this was the first time that it happened. The Thals were a little drippy for my liking. Also, and it pains me to admit this, the Thals turn out to be the goodies in the story, and not being a pretty person myself I find it rather a cliché and rather annoying that it’s the pretty people who win. Here’s a thought which must have been made before. Parallels have often been drawn between the Daleks and the Nazis. Aren’t the Thals a bit, well, a lot, Aryan? Hitler would have liked the look of them, if nothing else.

Still, it had its moments, and if I’m sitting here and saying that I’ve seen a lot of this sort of thing done in Doctor Who, and done better in other stories, the simple fact is that this was the first one to do them. Rousing a native population to stand firm against evil and/or oppression. First. Helping the weak and/or good and giving them the opportunity for a new start and brighter future. First. Meeting terrifying and alien creatures and overcoming them through intelligence, bravery and integrity. First. I could go on, but there’s no point. The Daleks made Doctor Who into a success, and “The Daleks” made them.

What Have We Learned?

The TARDIS can be disabled by removing the fluid link. Mercury is somehow important to its function.
The Doctor can still be a grumpy and unsympathetic old git, and he is also prepared to lie, cheat, and put the whole crew in danger to get his own way.
 Barbara has a similar effect to Viagra on humanoid beings
Ian Chesterton is probably responsible for millions of deaths.

 NEVER threaten a Thal’s girlfriend.

The Daleks run on static electricity (good trick if you can do it) and the power is shut off in their city at the end of the story. So they won’t be back again.

It is possible to remove the Dalek creature from its casing, get into that casing, and get out again without becoming in the least bit slimey. 

1: An Unearthly Child

Before watching

The received wisdom about this story is that the first episode is absolutely brilliant, and the other three are a bit of a bore. I will come clean and admit that I have watched this story once before, when it was shown as part of the BBC’s “Five Faces of Doctor Who” series of reruns in late 1981. Basically there was an unusually long gap between the 18^th series – Tom Baker’s last – and the 19^th series – Peter Davison’s first. The reruns series, which was the first time that the BBC had repeated stories featuring previous doctors was aimed at keeping interest in the show, getting people used to watching Doctor Who on a weekday evening, and hopefully handing over a decent audience to Peter Davison. The stories chosen were: -

An Unearthly Child

The Krotons

The Three Doctors

Carnival of Monsters

Logopolis

The Three Doctors was an obvious choice, as was the very first story, and the latest, Logopolis. Carnival of Monsters was an interesting choice, since it really wasn’t very representative of the Pertwee era as a whole. It is not set on Earth, there’s no UNIT, and no Master. Having said that there is Jo Grant, and its written by Robert Holmes, which is all to the good. Robert Holmes also wrote “The Krotons”, and this unfortunately is not even close to being as good a story as “Carnival of Monsters”. In 1981, then producer John Nathan Turner had little or not choice for his Troughton serial. Fewer Troughton stories existed complete in the BBC archives than any other Doctor, and of those that did exist, most were of more than 4 parts, while only 4 parters would fit the format of the Five Faces. If it were to happen now, the obvious choice for most people would be “The Tomb of the Cybermen”. In 1981, though, the story was missing presumed wiped. Since its recovery this story has undergone a critical reappraisal, and is no longer generally regarded as an all time classic, but it’s entertaining, and miles better than “The Krotons”.

Still, we’ll come back to those Troughton stories in the fullness of time. All I can remember at this time is that I thought that the first episode was terrific, although I was surprised by just how angry and nasty the Hartnell Doctor was. As for the actual Stone Age part of the story – nothing beside remains.

After Watching

Well, there’s no doubt that I was right that the first episode was very different from the other three. I think that what I’m coming to realise is that in this story at least, and maybe all the other stories of this first series, the idea isn’t to make the Doctor particularly likeable – in fact you’re allowed to dislike him as long as you accept his strangeness, the fact that he is different from us. Before the time that I started watching in the later part of the Troughton era, the Doctor had long since become the fixed point of normality around which the whole series was hung. You might not ever be quite sure exactly what he was going to do or say next, but you knew his essential values, and that he would always be one of the good guys. I can imagine that when the series started in November 1963, the original audience didn’t know this, and the writers and directors were quite happy to take their time letting you in on it.

Watch “An Unearthly Child” and you’ll not be left in any doubt that the heroes of the show, and the characters with whom the audience is supposed to identify are the companions, Ian and Barbara, and not the Doctor. This is interesting, since as the show develops I’d argue that while you might like the companions – you identified with the Doctor, because he was the real hero. I once read a book about the golden age of American superhero comic strips in the late 30s and the 40s, and this made the point that Bob Kane’s Batman was originally given a sidekick, Robin, so that younger readers could identify with this younger character. Pretty soon everyone else was getting in on the act, and almost every superhero had a teenage sidekick. And the whole rationale was a fallacy anyway, since younger readers as a whole identified with the hero, not the sidekick. Thus with Doctor Who – while you might really like some of the companions, it was always the Doctor himself that you were far more interested in – but not in this story. It seems like William Hartnell goes out of his way to make the Doctor unlikeable, apart from a few isolated moments. There’s just glimpses of what I think of as the real Doctor when he turns the tribe against Kal for the killing of Old Mother, and also when he apologises to the others for getting them into danger. As I say, though, although Hartnell makes the most of them moments like these are like jockey’s legs – few and far between.

As for the companions though, I was surprised by the way that Susan fades out of the story after the first episode. We’re left in no doubt that Ian and Barbara are the ones we’re rooting for, and any heroism nobility and decency is going to come from them. Susan, bless her, is excess baggage once the TARDIS lands. It’s clear already that Ian is going to be the square jawed action hero, while Barbara is going to be the crew’s conscience. I will come clean here. Over the last few years I have actually read some reviews of early Hartnell stories, and one consistent feature of these is praise for Jacqueline Hill’s acting. I can see why.

The first episode is extraordinary. You get the use of flashbacks, which is a very rare occurrence in Doctor Who, to point out to us just how unearthly Susan Foreman really is. As a teacher I find watching this episode unintentionally funny. I can’t believe that even back in the 60s trailing a pupil home to find out why they’d given a few stupid answers in class was really the done thing. If I did it today every time a pupil gave a stupid answer. . . well, let’s put it this way. If this episode was set in 2013 then in order to make it realistic you’d probably have to have Susan come out of the TARDIS in full rant, shouting “Wha’choo doin’ followin’ me home - you a pair of paedos or what?” After watching this I checked up on Wikipedia, and I was surprised to see that Carole Ann Ford was actually 23 when she made this, since she passes as 15 quite well. When I first watched this back in 1981 I didn’t notice that Susan gives us the information that she’s been attending Coal Hill School for five months. I can’t help wondering exactly what she was getting out of it. Kudos to Anthony Coburn for having Susan make the mistake that Britain used decimal currency in 1963, then correct herself saying that we hadn’t gone over to decimal yet.

What was all that business with the TARDIS console about? First of all Ian gets a mild electric shock when he touches one of the controls – I say mild because a) he didn’t die and b) recovered almost instantaneously.  Then you get the Doctor practically taunting him to use the control to open the doors, surely knowing that the clumsy oaf is going to set the TARDIS off. Also surely knowing that he can’t control the TARDIS well enough to bring them back. Irresponsible isn’t the word.

I suppose it’s inevitable that the next three episodes would be something of an anticlimax to the first. I don’t want to be horrible, but the stone age Tribe of Gum with whom they become involved – the Tribe of Dirty Faces but Clean Furs – are, well, a little cardboard, to be honest. I doubt that I’m the first person to wonder why it is that they can speak perfect English, but have yet to crack polysyllabic names, being stuck with ones like Kal and Za. Basically, it’s all about fire. Za’s father had the stupidity to die before teaching him the secret of making fire. He sounds like a right pillock. The trouble all stems from the fact that would-be tribe leader Kal watches as the Doctor comes out of the TARDIS, and lights up his pipe for a crafty smoke. D’you know, I don’t know what shocked me most, the fact that the Doctor seriously considered killing the comatose Za in episode 3, or the fact that he’s a smoker. Probably the latter. The Doctor is knocked out, dragged unconscious in front of the tribe, and ordered to make fire appear from his fingertips.

Ian, Barbara and Susan stage an unsuccessful rescue operation, and so the three of them and the Doctor are sent to spend the night in the Cave of Skulls before being sacrificed to Orb – presumably the Sun. At this stage the Doctor apologises for getting them into this mess. Ah – thought I – this is where he starts to actually become The Doctor as we know him. Think again. An old woman, who is imaginatively called Old Mother, frees them on the understanding that they will not make fire, as she is highly suspicious of this new fangled innovation. They head back for the TARDIS, and lo and behold, it is the Doctor who buggers up their escape. The grumpy old git insists they keep stopping for a rest, ensuring that they get caught by Za. Being as it’s nighttime, Za is attacked and savaged by a big cat, and it’s Barbara who insists they treat him. He has terrible claw wounds across his chest, but never fear, Barbara has Ian’s wet hankie, so all will be well. This is the point where Ian just prevents the Doctor from knocking his brains out with a rock.

Back with the tribe, the Doctor gets to actually be the Doctor for a few moments, enough to turn the whole tribe on Kal. This, and the fact that they saved his life cuts little ice with Za who decides that rules is rules and so they can go back into the Cave of Skulls – so called because it’s  a cave and it’s full of skulls. I wonder if he’s the ancestor of all OFSTED Inspectors? Eventually they escape and hot foot it back to the TARDIS being followed by angry stone throwing natives.

OK, it’s easy to mock. This is not by any means a great Doctor Who story, and the show would do similar things with ‘savage’ people a lot better in time to come. For all that, though, it’s done the job, and you can actually see one of the series’ key values – namely – what progress the travelers actually make is made through showing kindness and decency, and not through being vicious and aggressive when other living creatures are at their mercy.

Here’s an interesting thing too. Even the last episode actually had a cliffhanger. For as long as I can remember, the last part of a story would end with the Doctor and companion(s) either accepting grateful thanks and explaining that they can’t stay, or just quietly slipping away. Occasionally there might be a hint that the villain/monster could return on some unspecified future occasions – I think of The Deadly Assassin – but that would be as far as it goes. Here, though, we have the TARDIS landing on an alien world – which we know is Skaro, but the original audience didn’t. Susan checks the radiation gauge, which is reading a safe level. Thus satisfied they open the doors ready to go and explore, and as the familiar strains of the theme music begin, the needle of the gauge rises into the danger level, and the danger light comes on. It’s a very clever and rather subtle cliffhanger.

What Have We Learned?

What HAVEN’T we learned? For the 1963 viewer everything is a revelation. To try to sum up some of the more important things: -

·         * Susan and the Doctor are categorically not human ( it’ll be years before we find out what they actually are, though).

·        * Susan invented the acronym TARDIS – and from the start it stands for Time And Relative DIMENSION (no plural yet) In Space.

·         * The Doctor is a grumpy and unsympathetic old git.

·         * He and Susan have been in London for 5 months. In the first episode he tells her about finding an acceptable replacement for a filament, and it is clear he has been carrying out repairs.

·        *  The Doctor fully expected that the TARDIS would have changed shape when they landed – therefore the chameleon circuit has malfunctioned during this trip.

·       *   At this stage of the game there is no imperative to change things. The main device driving the plot is getting the 4 travellers safely back to the TARDIS.

·         * The Doctor cannot control the TARDIS’ destination without a huge amount of data in the first place. 

Welcome - What It's All About

With all that’s been written over the last few years about classic Doctor Who, it would be a brave person who claimed that they had anything new to say about it.

I’m not that brave.

If you’re not a fan, and are confused by any of the terminology, don’t worry. By ‘classic’ Doctor Who I’m referring to the original BBC TV series that ran from 1963 until 1989. During this time the Doctor (note, I don’t want to anal about it – but the character is The Doctor, right, and not Doctor Who) was played by 7 different actors. Well, 7 different main actors – let’s not get into the number of different actors who were seen on screen as the first Doctor for the time being. Now, my figures may be a little suspect, but when I counted up I made it that there were in this time 684 episodes in 157 stories.

The Doctor and Me

For a TV drama series which is not a soap opera, and more than that, could even be described as a genre show, to last for 26 years, then be revived 16 years later and become a huge success all over again, it has to have something going for it. I’ve never been a member of organized fandom myself,  but I was a big fan from as early as I can remember, which is watching Patrick Troughton’s Doctor in “The Mind Robber”, right through until about 1986. It’s a long story, but basically, becoming a Dad and husband that year had something to do with it.

That might have been that for me with the Doctor. The show itself ended in 1989 as I mentioned earlier. I did cast an eye over Doctor Who: The Movie when it was broadcast in 1996, and didn’t take more pleasure in the fact that my prediction that it wasn’t going to work came true than was absolutely necessary.

Then the BBC did something rather wonderful. They revamped the show completely and brought it back in 2005, and even more than that, they did a really good job with it too. My two youngest daughters were 10 years old when it returned, and they adored it, which meant that Doctor Who became family viewing for my family, the same as it had been when I was a kid. Over the next few years my youngest daughter, Jessie, never lost her interest, and through the magazines and what have you I found myself being drawn back in.

I was bought my first Kindle a few years ago, and was delighted to discover that there’s quite a number of fans  of a similar vintage to myself out there, some of whom kept the faith throughout the dark days of the 80s and 90s, and some who are born again fans like me. I’ve read some terrific books by fans like these, including “Dalek, I loved You” and “Who Goes There?” by Nick Griffiths – “The Discontinuity Guide” by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping, “Running Through Corridors” by Rob Shearman and Toby Hadoke, and “Adventures with the wife in space: Living with Doctor Who” by Neil Perryman. These last two are particularly important. Both of them are about the writers’ Marathon watch of the whole of classic Doctor Who, consecutively from the first episode of the first story,”An Unearthly Child” , to the last episode of the last story in 1989, “Survival”.

Now, the fact is that, along with my younger brother Rob, a bigger fan than ever I was, back in the late 70s we had often speculated about being able to do just that, to watch every episode from first to last. Now, with the proliferation of Doctor Who stories released on DVD, the dream could become a reality. Could I find an excuse for committing myself to such a time consuming project though? Put it another way – could there be any excuse for NOT committing myself to it?

I could feel a blog coming on.

I should probably explain that I’m not totally new to the blogosphere. About the same time that I stopped watching Doctor Who in the mid 80s, I started attending pub quizzes, and playing in pub quiz leagues. In 2004 I made my first appearance in a TV quiz, and went on to make well over a dozen TV quiz appearances in the next few years. In 2008 I started writing my blog, “Life After Mastermind”. to write about my TV experiences, my other quiz experiences, and to regularly review some of the more serious TV quizzes.

I’ve never been able to keep a diary or journal for more than a few weeks, but finding that some people were actually reading LAM, and getting a little feedback was tremendously encouraging, and six and a half years and nearly 2000 later it’s still going strong. Just occasionally I’ve said things I’ve regretted which have upset people, but for the most part writing the blog has brought me a lot of joy, and helped me make some wonderful friends. So when I decided to try this challenge, writing about it in a blog seemed like an obvious way to go. Hence this – Nothing New to Say About Doctor Who.

The Blog

This then is the big idea. I can’t watch and write with the technical knowledge and appreciation of Rob Shearman and Toby Hadoke in “Running Through Corridors”. Neither can I watch and write with the innocence and total lack of preconception of Sue Perryman in “Adventures With the Wife in Space”. All I can do is watch and write from the viewpoint of a born again fan, which I am, coming back to stories I either haven’t seen for years, or never saw in the first place, and trying to see what I make of them now. The title of the blog isn’t deliberate self-deprivation – it’s more to do with self preservation. I will definitely not be reading any other books about Doctor Who while the challenge is ongoing, but I realise that there is every good chance that nothing I say won’t already have been said by its far more illustrious predecessors. In which case, at least I can say , well you were warned.

Bearing in mind I still have the day job to worry about, and LAM to write, I’m not intending to write about each individual episode, just each individual story as and when I finish it.

Well, that’s about it then. We’ll get cracking, and work out any other rules as we go along. 

BTW - all the illustrations accompanying any of the posts I drew myself, better or worse.