I’m going to watch the story anyway, but
I think I know what I’m going to say. After all, this story made a huge
impression on me when I first watched it when it was first made, and then when
I watched it on cable a couple of years ago it did pretty much the same all
over again. And that’s not to mention that I grew up in Ealing. The Doctor Who
cognoscenti will know what that means, but for ordinary mortals I will explain.
One of the iconic scenes in this stories shows shop mannequins coming to life
and bursting out of a plate glass shop window. So iconic that it was recreated
for one of the set pieces in “Rose”, the first new Who story in 2005. This was
filmed in the window of John Saunders in Ealing Broadway. Incidentally, I’m
reliably informed that the shop is still there, although it’s now a branch of
Marks and Spencer. Now, come on! This was a scene from Doctor Who, in colour,
in a place which I recognised, which I knew well. Not only that, but it was an
extremely scary scene as well! This may be one of the reasons why I remember
this story so much better than any of the other stories from season 7. Then
again, maybe the fact that it’s the only 4 parter had something to do with it
as well – each of the other 3 stories in this season had a mammoth 7 parts.
While we’re setting the scene, this
was written by my hero Robert Holmes, and this, the 3rd story he
wrote for the show, shows him really starting to flex his script writing
muscles.
After Watching
The first thing that I think we need to say is that this story
actually looks amazing. Now, okay, this is partly because for the last few
months we’ve had a never-ending diet of grainy black and white images – while
the Vid fired episodes look pretty good, it’s still a million miles from
colour, and that’s just the way that it is. Actually, now I come to think of
it, I never saw this story in colour until a couple of years ago. My first
Doctor that I watched in colour would have been Tom Baker, probably from about
“The Terror of the Zygons” onwards. My parents’ first colour telly, which was second
hand of course, was actually the first telly we owned. Up until then we had a
succession of rented black and whites from Ketts Rentals in West Ealing. These
tended to break down so often I came to look on the repair man as another
uncle, but that too is another story. So the only time I ever got to see Jon
Pertwee in full colour was when I was round a mate’s house. Actually, I
remember being surprised by one of the episodes of “The Monster of Peladon”
watching it round my mate Naqeeb’s house, being as the colours were just so
bright – garish we would call it nowadays.
But it’s not just that. After I watch each story I do tend to check
my details in a couple of reference books, and see if there’s any corroboration
for anything I might have noticed, and so I now know that the whole story was
filmed on film as if the whole thing was done on location. This means that
while we lack the sharper edges you get on videotaped interiors, the whole
production has a real filmic, big screen feel about it which works extremely
well. Apparently this was done in order to work around some industrial action
going on at the BBC at the time. Pity they couldn’t have done the same for
“Shada” the best part of a decade later. We’ll come to that one in time.
So to Jon Pertwee’s Doctor. Now, Patrick Troughton’s second Doctor
really wasn’t himself for much of “The Power of the Daleks”. This time the
Doctor emerges from the TARDIS and collapses, and then, just as he’s coming to
himself again, he is abducted from the hospital on a wheelchair, escapes, is
making his way back to the TARDIS and is shot by a UNIT soldier! All in one
episode. When he recovers, during the third episode, it is clear that he has no
intention of acting erratically any more, and he is very much the third Doctor
that I remember – a figure of authority, some might say a tiny touch arrogant,
at times grumpy and tetchy, but at the same time a figure of immense charm.
As for the story, well, this was the story where my hero, Robert
Holmes, really started to find his feet. There’s a huge contrast between this
story, and everything that has gone before in “Doctor Who”, with the exception
of “The Invasion”. At the risk of waxing philosophical, I would say that it’s
to be found in the contrast between the 60s and the 70s. In the 60s, anything
was supposed to be possible. In the 70s, well, the paranoia set in. Yes, things
were as bright and colourful as ever, if not more so. But under the glittering
exterior some very ugly things were going on – the 3 day week, industrial
unrest on a massive scale, Edward Heath’s teeth, the list goes on. So whereas
before we were maybe being invited to look up with wonder, in the seventh
series we are now being warned to look down with horror. Sorry – I did warn you
that I was going to be waxing philosophical. But it is a valid point, I think.
By way of comparison, elsewhere on TV we had “Adam Adamant” in the 60s. In the
70s we had “Doomwatch”. Signs of the times, certainly.
Doctor changeover time is the only time really when we are again
invited to identify with the companions as the familiar figures to guide us as
painlessly as possible through the transition. Which wasn’t easy in this story
since the Doctor has no continuing companions at the start of the story. This
is why good old Nicholas Courtney’s Brigadier has to ease us in. The Brig is
already a bit of an old hand due to his appearences in season 6’s “The
Invasion” and season 5’s “The Web of Fear”. Ooh, and here’s a point I was
unable to find any references to when I looked it up. In his opening scene
where he is recruiting Liz Shaw’s help to deal with the strange meteorites, he
says the famous line “We’ve drawn attention to ourselves, Miss Shaw”, and then
goes on to explain that UNIT has already dealt with two alien menaces, and both
times they were helped out by a strange scientist type called the Doctor. Hang
on a minute! Nobody mentioned UNIT in “The Web of Fear”, and the soldiers who
appeared in that story were regular army. So was the then Colonel
Lethbridge-Stewart. Ah – then maybe it is one of the later Doctors, appearing
at some time between “The Web of Fear” and “The Invasion”, or “The Invasion” or
“Spearhead from Space”. Au contraire. In this story the Brigadier has
difficulty believing that the Doctor has changed his appearance. That is why he
cannot already have met any of the Doctors other than the second. More likely
it was just an error, or a bit of retro-plotting which nobody thought would be
picked up on, being such a minor thing. Going back to what we were discussing
at the start of the paragraph, the Brigadier is certainly a welcome fixed point
of reference with so much that is new going on around us.
This is a well-crafted and very well paced story. It’s very Robert
Holmes that he just dropped into the script the fact that the Doctor has two
hearts (living in just one mind?) and alien blood, but for the fans it does
pose the question, why has nobody ever noticed this about the Doctor before? A
prize winning letter in a recent Doctor Who Magazine made the point that when a
doctor tries to listen to your heartbeat, they automatically go to the left
side, and would have no reason to check the right side as well. They don’t find
the second heart because they are not actually looking for it. Hey, that works
for me.
Although the Doctor’s trials and tribulations are the focus for much
of the first two episodes, the Auton part of the story is nicely developed
throughout all 4 episodes. In episode one we are introduced to the sinister
beeping meteorites, but given few clues to go on as to their significance. Then
in the end of episode two we have the wonderful cliffhanger where an Auton
mannequin steps off its podium in the office of the plastics factory and
attacks the hapless victim. The fingers hinging down upon the Auton hands to
reveal the concealed gun is such a simple idea, but it works so well – and
that’s a brilliant little piece of design.
It is worth noting that the idea behind the Autons themselves isn’t
actually totally original. After all, the Autons are lifeless, being made of
plastic, but they are activated by the Nestene Consciousness. This isn’t a
million miles from the Great Intelligence controlling the Yeti. Not that you
have to look too hard for the differences. The Yeti are robots, the originals
being constructed by Padmasambhava under the control of the Great Intelligence.
The Autons aren’t robots. The Nestene have the power to animate plastic or at
least certain types of plastic. The Nestene itself is a group mind, a gestalt
being if you like, and it has no physical form of its own. The octopoid,
tentacled being revealed in the plastics factory at the end of the story is a
form which the Nestene has merely chosen as being particularly suited to the
conquest of Earth. Really? Well, in terms of available budget for a monster,
yes, really.
I mentioned in my earlier comments about the mannequins bursting out
of John Saunders’ window. All of which just goes to show how the memory can
play tricks on you, by filling in the gaps that were there when you watched it
in the first place. Had you asked me prior to watching the story a couple of
years ago, I would have told you in no uncertain terms that we actually see the
mannequins bursting out of the plate glass windows. Yet we don’t. We see the
mannequins jerking into life, and walking towards the window, then we hear glass smashing, and next we see
they are out and walking down the Broadway opposite Bentalls. I wouldn’t swear
to it, but I’m pretty sure that we do actually see the Autons smashing their
way out the shop windows in “Rose”, the first story of the new Doctor Who
Series 1. Here’s a funny coincidence too. I’m pretty familiar with the St.
David’s Centre in Cardiff where they filmed this sequence in “Rose”, since I
moved to South Wales in 1986. Mind you, I’ve decided that it probably doesn’t
help if you’re familiar with the area where a particular sequence is filmed.
All that really came to mind as three mannequins advanced ominously along the
South Ealing Road, passing Lamertons (a fabulous art supplies shop) was that
they were going the wrong way as they were heading towards John Saunders,
rather than away from it. And I shouldn’t be preoccupied with that sort of
thing since it’s actually a terrific, in fact iconic scene, with the finger
guns poking out from the flipped down hands indiscriminately mowing down
pedestrians. In particular what I can only presume was one of the Havoc stunt
team took a terrific headlong tumble. Would this scene have been even more
effective had it been filmed among the well-known landmarks just a few miles to
the East? I don’t know that I’m the best person to answer this, since I
wouldn’t have been so excited myself, but then not everybody is as familiar
with Ealing Broadway as I was.
The denouement? Well, it was perfectly acceptable, with the Doctor
constructing a machine which uses ultrasound – well, something like that or
other – to destroy the Autons, after he wraps the Nestene’s tentacles around
his throat in order to give himself some serious gurning practice. He always
did love a good gurn, did our Jon. I think we probably need to underline just
what has been achieved by the end of just these four episodes though. The basic
set up with UNIT, which will remain pretty much in place for all 5 Jon Pertwee
seasons, has been established. He’s forged a working relationship with Liz
Shaw, and she has shown herself to be much more than just a scream and another
good pair of legs (although if I may say so they are a particularly fine
example of the genre). More than that though, we’ve come through another
regeneration unscathed. Jon Pertwee, when being interviewed, or appearing in
conventions, had a habit of throwing his cape back and spreading his arms wide
while intoning, “I AM the Doctor!” Well, by the end of “Spearhead from Space he
was dead right. He was.
What Have We Learned?
According to the Brig,
UNIT had been formed before the events of “The Web of Fear”, and were involved.
It must have been covertly if they were, since there is not one reference to
UNIT in the whole story.
The Nestenes have no
physical form
Robert Holmes IS a great
writer
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