Before Watching
Well, here we are then. William Hartnell’s 29th story –
his swan song. An important last, but also an important first too. The first
regeneration scene. The first appearance of the Cybermen – I’ll say a bit more
about them later. The first ‘base under siege’ story – that’s a Doctor Who staple
that’s going to recur, especially through the coming Troughton Era. If you look
at the four Patrick Troughton Cybermen stories – The Moonbase – The Tomb of the
Cybermen – The Wheel in Space and The Invasion – two of them – the Moonbase and
The Wheel in Space – are both ‘base under siege stories.
Cards on the table – I always loved the cybermen more than the
Daleks – you’ve probably picked up my mixed feelings about Skaro’s finest as
you’ve worked your way through previous reviews. This is partly just an
accident of History. Although I have a very early memory of Daleks being
assembled on a production line from The Power of the Daleks, I only really
remember watching whole stories from Patrick Troughton’s last season, and
thought that the Cybermen in The Invasion were amazing.
My first exposure to the Tenth Planet was in the Target
novelization. Now, one of the first Target novelizations made from the early
years was Doctor Who and the Cybermen, which was based on The Moonbase – and I
loved that one. Yet when I read the novelization of “The Tenth Planet” I didn’t
think it was a patch on the later story. Add to that fact years of reading
about cybermen with cardboard chest units and Swedish accents, and you’ll
understand why I can’t help approaching this one with more than a little
trepidation.
After Watching
The story turned out to be set in 1986. It looked like the
production team were deliberately going out of their way to stress the
multicultural nature of future society. On the base itself there seemed to be
more Americans than anything else, but also a British boffin who looked like a
bearded Elvis Costello. There is also a terrible Italian cliché. It was
interesting to see that the two astronauts were a white Australian, and black
American, who seemed to be the commander. I felt genuinely cold during the
scenes set outside the base during the snowstorm. So far so good.
Right, the cybermen. There’s nothing I can probably say that hasn’t
already been said. The hands were conspicuously still human. As for the voice. Well,
maybe it is just me, but they didn’t sound the least bit Swedish to me. There
was some electronic treatment of the voices, but they weren’t as highly treated
as I thought they would be, and the first cyberman to speak actually has quite
a posh English accent, for all the fact that he is varying the rhythms of his
speech as far away as he can get from the rhythms of normal speech. In fact, if
anything it his voice reminds me just a little bit of Michael Palin playing the
leader of the knights who say Ni. Which just isn’t threatening. Their voices
needed to be both deeper and more mechanical. Although having said the fact
that there is not the slightest irritation in the cyberman’s voice when he
keeps repeating his question about the humans’ names and ages does underline
the fact that the cybermen have no emotions. In fact these are the most emotionless
cybermen we will ever see. They are less instantly threatening than they will
become, but actually far more convincing in what they claim to be. As regards
their appearance, it’s nowhere near as bad as some have claimed it to be.
Having cast tall actors works, and this is emphasised by the light on top of
their heads I didn’t realise from stills photos I’d seen that the big circular
thing on the bottom of their chest units was actually a detachable weapon, and
that’s actually an important plot point, since it enables Ben and the base personnel to use them on the
cybermen. In fact Ben is almost in tears when he fired on a cyberman. I think
that on reflection the decision not keep the cloth masks for their next
appearance was the right one, though.
Having read up on this since watching the whole story, I now know
that William Hartnell was taken ill at the end of episode 2, which is why he
spends all of episode 3 spark out on the floor. It shows how much of a template
this story was for much of what would come later when there were scenes which
looked very familiar to me from later stories – taking back the base and
holding off the invaders – crawling along a ventilation shaft (to be fair it
was the male companion who did it in this story. The commanding officer
(General Cutler in this story) going off tonto and losing it completely is
something which will become quite a familiar motif as well. Cutler’s solution
is to try to nuke Mondas, and the wrongness of being so ready to bomb what you
don’t understand is another motif which will recur.
As regards the story, it really helped that it was only 4 parts. Any
more and it would have needed some serious padding. As it was, though, this
story surprised me since the Doctor did little or nothing to save the day. The
main plot point is that Mondas, the home of the cybermen, is Earth’s virtual
twin, having left the solar system a very long time ago. When it comes back, it
automatically begins absorbing energy from earth. It seems that this is a
natural process, since the cybermen cannot turn it off when they realise that
Mondas is going to be destroyed if it keeps absorbing energy. The only solution
they can come up with is to destroy Earth to stop it. So basically all the
people on the base have to do is to stop them destroying Earth long enough for
Mondas to absorb enough energy to destroy itself.
I was struck also by the way that the goalposts have continually
shifted in the destroying a cyberman stakes. In the book of The Moonbase – and
I’ve no doubt, in the show as well – the cybermen’s chest units are destroyed
by a cocktail of chemicals including nail varnish remover, and the army of
cybermen are destroyed by a gravity
device which is used to control Earth’s weather. In “Revenge of the Cybermen”
they have a previously unknown susceptibility to gold. In this first cybermen
story it’s radiation, the slightest hint of it and they start dropping like 9
pins. Well, some of them. For the rest, they are apparently drawing all of
their power from Mondas, so when Mondas dies, so do they. Pretty convenient,
I’d say.
The great irony of the current situation with The Tenth Planet is
that the first three episodes exist, but the 4th, containing the
first ever regeneration scene, does not. Footage of the regeneration does, but
that’s all. Still, it must have come as a hell of a shock when it happened
without tons of warning and pre publicity which is the norm nowadays. Off the point completely, watching the
animation of episode 4 it struck me how much Michael Craze’s voice is like
Bradley Walsh.
Overall, then, it’s remarkable how far the show has come by the end
of this story.
What Have We Learned?
Earth had a twin planet
called Mondas
Originally cybermen were
not evil, in fact they had no concept of good or evil, just survival.
The original Mondas
cybermen were susceptible to radiation.
Whatever
species the Doctor belongs to (we didn’t know at the time) he can change and
regenerate
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