"Put the Candle Back": The Acid Sea, the Velvet Web, The Screaming Jungle

I'm not going to lie; the first episode of the story collectively known as The Keys of Marinus damn near led me to skip the whole thing. The first scene, with the TARDIS party exploring a glass beach bordering on an acid sea (Susan nearly loses her feet by going paddling in it), augured well, but then as the travelers explore a huge edifice, the exact same revolving wall stunt as famously depicted in Young Frankenstein above is used no fewer than 4 times, and is meant to be thrilling and suspenseful each time it's employed.

Strange men in bat-themed rubber suits stalk the TARDIS party, and--

Oh, it was dreary beyond words.

Then, we are given an exposition dump by a tragically wasted George Coulouris as Arbitan (who is then subsequently tragically wasted, getting knifed by a bat-suit). In the exposition dump, we are told:

DOCTOR: Yes, yes. I want to know more about this planet. Your technology, you say, reached its peak over two thousand years ago?
ARBITAN: Yes, and all our knowledge culminated in the manufacture of this. At the time, it was called the Conscience of Marinus. Marinus, that is the name of our planet. At first, this machine was simply a judge and jury that was never wrong, and unfair. And then we added to it, improved on it, made it more and more sophisticated so that finally it became possible to radiate its power and influence the minds of men throughout the planet. They no longer had to decide what was wrong or right. The machine decided for them.
DOCTOR: I see. And in that case it was possible to eliminate evil from the minds of men for all time.
ARBITAN: That is exactly what happened. Marinus was unique in the universe. Robbery, fear, hate, violence were unknown among us. Yes, yes, for seven centuries we prospered, and then a man named Yartek found a means of overcoming the power of the machine. He and his followers, the Voords, were able to rob, exploit, kill, cheat. Our people could not resist because violence is alien to them.
(A Voord is eavesdropping on all this)
IAN: But surely by this time this machine had become a great danger to you? If it had fallen into the hands of the Voords, they could have controlled Marinus. Why didn't you destroy it?
ARBITAN: We always hoped to find a way of modifying it and making it again irresistible. So instead of destroying it, we removed the five key microcircuits.
IAN: What did you do with them?
ARBITAN: One of them, I kept. There it is. (points up) The other four were taken and put in places of safety all over Marinus. Only I know where they are, and now the time has come when they must be recovered.
BARBARA: Well why don't you simply make new keys?
ARBITAN: The keys are very simple, but the microcircuits inside are very complicated. A permutation of numbers and signals that would take a thousand years to unravel. And besides, since the keys were hidden, I have worked on this machine and modified it, so that when they're replaced
DOCTOR: When they're replaced it would mean that your machine is irresistible and you can overcome and control the Voords again.
ARBITAN: Yes.
IAN: Surely there must be someone you can send for these keys?
ARBITAN: Through the years all my friends, all my followers, have gone. They have never returned. Last year I sent my daughter. She has not come back. All I have now to comfort me is the distant echo of her voice, the imagined sound of her footsteps. But now your coming's brought new hope. Oh yes, yes, you must find the keys for me.

Yeah, good luck. The travelers return to the TARDIS, only to find they can't get in--an invisible field prevents their entry. After an improv exercise straight out of Mummenshanz (Susan's field is further out from the TARDIS than everyone else's; Hartnell prods his with his walking stick, with weary air of resigned disgust that almost saves the scene), Arbitan's voice is heard saying he'll let them in if they bring him the keys, and he's really quite sorry, but--no, he's not either. They accept the watch-like travel devices that let them jump from place to place (but not time to time, so not vortex manipulators), and the assignment.

So the reluctant travelers set out--and then Arbitan is killed, as hinted above, by a diver in a bat-themed gimp suit, who stabs with all the earnestness of Bobby Jindal.

We move on.

***

Things take an immediate turn for the better; Barbara, having preceded her companions, greets them from a Roman-style couch, garbed in Roman-style robes, queening it up, with serving women attending her every whim. Jacqueline Hill plays it to the hilt--Barbara is relaxed for the first time since Coal Hill, and grateful to have, as she thinks, fallen into the hands of a culture that desires only to please its guests. So, at any rate, she has been told by Altos, a young man, and Sabetha, who is the chief of the serving women. Susan wants a dress made from some of the fine bolt of silk Barbara has been given, and the Doctor wants a laboratory. Ian alone is skeptical, wondering when the bill will be presented.

In the morning, Barbara is horrified--all the beautiful objets d'art with which she has been surrounded are revealed as cheap, dirty stuff, her dress a simple shift, and the fine crystal dirty mugs. The other travelers look at her as if she's gone mad. Barbara flees, and evades Altos, who seeks to take her to the physician.

If, by the physician, you mean the lead of four brains, with tapered stalks supporting their eyes, that reside in bell jars and have enslaved the populace through hypnosis. (The effect is rather delicate, and not bad at all.) The brain declares that Ian and the Doctor will work for them, Susan will be trained as well, and Barbara--well. she knows the truth so hypnosis won't work on her anymore. Just kill her. And Sabetha, too, who didn't put Barbara under properly.

The rest of the episode is the Barbara Wright Show, as she circumvents Altos, rouses some vestige of independence in Sabetha, and is strangled by Ian, now fully under control. This last is disturbingly well done; William Russell goes after her pretty hard, and Hill fights back just as hard. She wins, and attacks the bell jar with a tool. This goes a little less well, as some of her blows are obviously ineffective. Still, Barbara operates on an old maxim of Harry Flashman's--keep striking until something breaks. She kills the brains, the peasants revolt (quite loudly), and Altos and Sabetha--agents of Arbitan (indeed, Sabetha is his daughter) join with the TARDIS crew going to the next of the four destinations. Except for the Doctor--he's off to the final destination...

Jacqueline Hill is the star of the episode, and carries it well. She even does the action hero stuff usually left to Ian, who is marginalized and then weaponized against her. Hartnell's Doctor is easily seduced by the lure of the perfect laboratory, and believes a battered old mug will help him fit the TARDIS. Hartnell sells the Doctor's greed for knowledge here, but, near the end of the episode, his cool decision-making. He's crisp throughout this one. Carole Ann Ford is quite good too, and William Russell sells both Ian's threat to Barbara and and his horror when he comes to.

***

The Screaming Jungle, though, dips back into mediocrity for most of its duration. Terry Nation has good ideas, but pads them out like he's writing for Dark Shadows. Oh, well. Susan arrives first, and is deafened by, you guessed it, the screaming of the plants. By the time the others join her, they've stopped, but Susan is in full scream mode. (A scream-off between Carole Ann Ford, Bonnie Langford, and Walter Koenig (yes, I mean it) would be a damned close-run thing.) Barbara finds the key (yay!) but disappears (boo!), and then Sabetha realizes it's a fake key (oh, crap.). So everyone else goes off to meet Barbara (in case she's used her travel device), except Ian. Who finds her, fights some plants, including one that looks a bit like Audrey. Barbra finds the key, based on an inspiration of Ian's, they teleport away, and--

Are freezing to death on a windswept mountain.

Bloody Terry Nation.

Here we go...

Send in the Clowns: Rider From Shan Tu, Mighty Kublai Khan, Assassin at Peking

The above "making of" video regarding the filming of the seven episodes normally referred to under the title "Marco Polo" may be of interest to you; it was to me.

The travelers journey through the arid wastes of vast, empty, spaces--or as I like to think of them, Episodes 3, 4 and 5. That's a tad unjust on Episode 5. After a messenger brings the Khan's command to Polo that he must come at full speed to the Summer Palace, the caravan separates into two groups in order to try to avoid bandits (unsuccessfully, since Tegana was part of the planning party). The "bandit attack" staged by Tegana to seize the TARDIS is pretty good, with Ian and even the Doctor acquitting themselves pretty well in the swordplay (I think--the telesnaps aren't as helpful here as video would be).
Tegana, by the way, stabs his flunky to maintain his ambassadorial credibility. But then the dreary slog resumes (livened with some appealing maps).

But when they arrive at the Summer Palace, we get a whole new genre--Doctor Who comedy. Kublai Khan is a henpecked old man with gout. The Doctor, worn out from a breakneck faced march (ok, horseback journey), is himself hobbling around like a Crimean War veteran. The two old men bond over their ailments, and there's a quicksilver magic in the air that's been missing for too long. Hartnell is quite good at comedy; you can tell even without the video, his voice conveys his irritation, and then, subsequently, his smugness as he realizes he's winning much of Kublai Khan's money (and stallions. About 400 of them):

DOCTOR: My game.
KHAN: You're too good for us at backgammon. Tea?
DOCTOR: Please.
KHAN: Oh, that is our reckoning?
DOCTOR: Ah, yes it is, sire, yes.
KHAN: What do we owe?
DOCTOR: Er, thirty-five elephants with ceremonial bridles, trappings, brocades and pavilions. Four thousand white stallions, and twenty-five tigers.
KHAN: That's not too bad, so far.
DOCTOR: And the sacred tooth of Buddha which Polo brought over from India.
KHAN: Oh, that? What else? What more?
DOCTOR: I'm very much afraid all the commerce from Burma for one year, sire.

When the Empress leaves, the Khan discusses his grandfather Genghis,in such a way as to suggest that he doesn't share the Doctor's enthusiasm for her:

A trumpet sounds)
KHAN: Oh, the Empress. Hide it, hide it!
EMPRESS: Winning, my love?
KHAN: One wins, one loses, my dear.
DOCTOR: The great Khan is far too modest, my lady.
EMPRESS: You're not wagering are you? You know how it affects your gout.
(The Empress leaves)
DOCTOR: How charming.
KHAN: Charming indeed, and yet there are moments, old friend, when we wish our character were more like that of our lamented grandfather, Genghis. Did you hear of him?
DOCTOR: Genghis Khan? No, I didn't meet him, but I have heard of him. Yes.
KHAN: Oh, he was the warrior of the family. Nothing frightened him. We are the clan of the statistician and the administrator. Oh, she will be furious with me when she finds out what I have lost.
DOCTOR: Oh, then you've lost nothing, sire.

It's pretty much the Timelord and the warlord as The Sunshine Boys. Except they like each other.

Kublai Khan is pretty laid back about his losses, but accepts the Doctor's "royal gesture" (as the Khan calls it) to play one last game--all that the Doctor as once thus far against the TARDIS.

The Doctor loses, and walks away with a bill of the Khan's paper money as a "consolation prize." He doesn't seem too perturbed though, possibly contemplating a return engagement. Ping-Cho's husband-to-be, an old man she dreaded marrying, dies, and she elects to stay at court for a while (possibly fancying the gallant young rider who brought the Khan's command to Polo). Noghai, Tegana's lord, has encamped outside Peking, and the Doctor realizes that Tegana's plan is to kill Kublai Khan, disheartening his forces, and allowing Noghai to seize the Khan's domains.

The travelers break free, inform Polo, who bursts into the throne room--just in time to duel Tegana while the Khan--great administrator though he is--scuttles for safety. Marco is victorious, the Khan sets him free to go back to Venice--and the Doctor and friends slip into the TARDIS. We get one last joke from the Khan:

POLO: I'm sorry, my lord. I had to give them back their flying caravan.
KHAN: If you hadn't, the old man would have won it at backgammon.

All is forgiven, and the TARDIS is in flight again.

***

For all the longeuers in this story, this is where the show we know is fully present. (And, in fact, the longeuers persist pretty much throughout classic Doctor Who. For every The Dæmons, we get one The Ambassadors of Death--and even The Dæmons has some padding in it, if I'm being candid.) The Doctor is eccentric, sometimes charming, sometimes cantankerous; he's surprisingly competent when he needs to be. Ian is stalwart, the prototype for Harry Sullivan, except much more sensible. Speaking of sensible, Barbara is largely wasted here, but she stands bravely up to Polo on behalf of Ping-Cho, and seems to be captivated by the sights and sounds of an era and place that fascinates her. She's adjusted, enjoying where she can, and fighting where she must. Susan's friendship with Ping-Cho is nicely realized.

As to the guest cast, Derren Nesbitt plays Tegana with a sort of offhand confidence that makes him more intriguing than any scene chewing villain. He's a loyal vassal to Noghai, so deception, murder, theft--whatever. He's got a job to do. Mark Eden is a sympathetic, occasionally histrionic Marco Polo. As the story is framed by his narration, we have intervals of Marco being the viewpoint character, an interesting experiment.

Marco Polo If You Can: The Roof of the World/The Singing Sands/500 Eyes/The Wall of Lies

BritBox's excellent collection of the Hartnell era runs into a snag--the story collectively known as Marco Polo no longer exists. So, yeah, as they euphemistically put it, "unavailable," and who can blame them?

Fortunately, as the rather good reconstruction embedded above demonstrates, that doesn't leave us entirely without expedients. Reconstructions take one of two forms--new animated efforts to overlay the still-extant soundtrack (preserved by fans taping the shows as they aired!)or using the "tele snaps" that were taken during filming to create a sort of montage that captures something of the feel of the original.

It's an aesthetic choice, but I prefer the photographs. Seeing Ford, Hartnell, Hill, Russell, and the guest cast is meaningful to me in a way that a cartoon of them would not be. So--we continue:

*****

There's an absolutely lovely moment in "The Roof of the World" that is the most "Doctorish" I have seen Hartnell to date. The situation is dire: after the brief moment of happy camaraderie that ended The Brink of Destruction, things go agley--another TARDIS component is broken, depriving the travelers of heat, the mountain is so high that it lacks air enough for the Doctor to function, and night is closing in.

Rescue has come in the form of Marco Polo and his caravan, on his way to Kublai Khan, along with the warlord regina, who, in defeat, is come to make peace. Reluctantly, and still looking for a way to reverse his defeat.

Anyway, Marco, who wants to go back to Europe, decides to give the Doctor's "flying caravan" to the Khan, to barter for his freedom. The Doctor sputters in outrage and betrayal at his erstwhile rescuer:

POLO: I intend to. This time, I shall offer him a gift so magnificent that he will not be able to refuse me.
IAN: You mean to give the Doctor's caravan to him?
POLO: Yes.
DOCTOR: You're mad.
POLO: You can make another.
DOCTOR: What? In Peking, or Shang Tu?
POLO: You do me an injustice, Doctor. I will not leave you stranded in Cathay, just as I did not let you die on the mountain. No, you will come with me to Venice and make another one there.
DOCTOR: Oh, you think so, really? Oh no. Oh no.
IAN: Marco, it's impossible.
POLO: Surely, for a man who possesses a flying caravan, all things are possible?
IAN: No. We need special metals, materials, things that don't exist in Venice. I'm afraid you don't understand all the problems involved.
DOCTOR: And neither do you, young man.
POLO: Well, travel home by ship. We trade with every port in the world. It may take you longer, but you'll get there eventually.
DOCTOR: Eventually. He doesn't know what he's talking about. The man's a lunatic. Ho.
POLO: No, Doctor, desperate. There are many men who are jealous of the Polo influence at court, and the Khan suffers from an affliction for which there is no cure.
BARBARA: What's that?
POLO: Old age. If he dies, I may never see Venice again.
DOCTOR: Well, that is your problem, not mine.
POLO: I have just made it yours, Doctor.
BARBARA: But you do see Venice again, Marco, I know you do.
IAN: What makes you so sure that the Doctor's caravan is a suitable present? The Doctor is the only one who can fly it.
POLO: I told you about the Buddhist monks. They will discover its secret. A caravan that flies. Do you imagine what this will mean to the Khan? It will make him the most powerful ruler the world has ever known. Stronger than Hannibal. Mightier than Alexander the Great.
IAN: Marco, you don't understand.
POLO: I refuse to listen you to any more. My mind is made up. Your caravan goes with me to Kublai Khan.

Marco sweeps away, and Barbara helps him to a chair.

And then--the Doctor laughs. Not hysterically, but just at the ridiculousness of it all--how can he explain to Marco Polo why "returning" to Europe won't allow him to build a new TARDIS? The multiple leaps of cognition the explanation would take--he guffaws, he wheezes with laughter. He's frustrated beyond bearing, but can't help but see the funny side of it all. And Hartnell nails it. It's the best long sustained laugh this side of Leo McKern in "Fall Out":

DOCTOR: Oh well, what a mess.
SUSAN: Grandfather. Grandfather.
DOCTOR: Yes. Go by sea, he says.
SUSAN: Why are you laughing? He means it.
BARBARA: Doctor, he's serious.
DOCTOR: I know he is. Yes.
SUSAN: What are you going to do?
DOCTOR: [overcome with laughter] I haven't the faintest idea.

It's a moment Tom Baker could have brought off, and maybe Matt Smith, but it's all Hartnell.

The rest of these three episodes feels rather like a Tom Baker era story, albeit of the slightly "meh" variety. Susan makes a friend, Ping-Cho, who is being brought to the Khan's court to marry a 75 year old man (hmm...that's the Khan's age...) Tegana plans to kill Polo and seize the TARDIS, and Susan and Ping-Cho get caught in a sandstorm. But they're ok. Except Tegana has cut the water gourds, and we're in the middle of the Gobi Desert too--and the Doctor has fixed the TARDIS, but they-

Oh, forget it it. Look, it's simple: Tegana is out to kill Kublai Khan, and thinks he can use the TARDIS together. Like a 13th Century Wile E. Coyote, he keeps setting traps for (1) The TARDIS crew; (2) Marco Polo; or (3) both. So far, none of them has erupted.

Yeah, it's a traditional runaround, my least favorite aspect of Doctor Who.

One nice moment again--the Doctor dresses down Marco, deriding him as "You poor, pathetic, stupid savage." His laugh now is cutting and scornful. There's a lot of fat in these episodes, but there's good stuff too.

"As We Learn About Each Other, We Learn About Ourselves": The Edge of Destruction/The Brink of Disaster

Susan with Scissors, no reason to run,
moots demon possession might have begun.
She slashes at Ian, at Barbara she'll thrust,
and yet it's the teachers the Doctor can't trust.

Susan with Scissors, can't bear to draw blood,
hieratically hiding, grasping for good.
Grandfather's goading sends Barbara to bed,
the Doctor examines--does he hope that they're dead?

Yeah, a children's show. I think I understand the English character better just from watching these 13 episodes already. So after visiting the State of Nature, then nearly dying of radiation sickness, and discovering the joys of fighting the good fight, the Doctor and his companions are knocked about, and wake up in the dimly lit ship. Barbara staggers out, blank-faced, confuses, and greets the unconscious Ian as "Mr. Chesterton." Only when she finds the Doctor on the floor, and starts tending to his injuries does Barbara begin to wake up. Ian awakes, I suppose you could call it, but acts like he's been lobotomized. Susan drifts in, and starts screaming in pain. Until she doesn't. No, she's off again.

Then Ian goes looking for water (Susan had left on the same errand, but she's been paying with a very long, very sharp, pair of scissors. When Ian manages to get a pouch of water, he brings it to Susan--

Who is posed, hip jutted out, hair wild, face set and lacking in all feeling, like a hieratic Egyptian statue. Carole Ann Ford, who has been successfully playing Susan as a teenager, was in fact 24 when The Edge of Destruction aired, and you see it here. She's not credibly a child, or even in her early teens. The suddenly adult Susan is disorienting, as is the whole episode.

Because Susan slashes at Ian, and then, in a frenzy, stabs her own bed, again and again.

Things only get weirder from here.

The TARDIS is acting oddly; the doors keep opening and closing, the controls don't work. The crew turn on the scanner, only to see a series of pictures--which they realize are photos--on the scanner. So the Doctor try to determine what has gone wrong. They find nothing is wrong with the TARDIS, but the doors keep opening and closing, and Ian warns Barbara not to let Susan know what's going on. As Susan is listening the entire time, this leads her to be suspicious of Barbara. Draped in black, the Unearthly Woman pulls the scissors on Barbara threateningly. Barbara manages to disarm her, and they go to the console room. The Doctor has a theory:

DOCTOR: Trying to confuse me, eh?
IAN: What are you getting at?
BARBARA: Look, why don't we just try and open the doors and see for ourselves what's outside?
DOCTOR: What is inside, madam, is most important at the moment.
(they are now lined up across the console - Doctor and Susan versus Barbara and Ian)
BARBARA: Inside?
IAN: But you've just been telling us that the only people inside are ourselves.
DOCTOR: Precisely. I know now who's responsible. You are. You sabotaged my ship.
BARBARA: We didn't even touch your ship.
IAN: (overlapping) What are you talking about?
DOCTOR: You're the cause of this disaster. And you knocked both Susan and I unconscious.
BARBARA: Don't be ridiculous. We were all knocked out.
DOCTOR: A charade. You attacked us.
IAN: Absolute nonsense.
DOCTOR: And when we were lying helpless on the floor, you tampered with my controls.
IAN: But you checked everything yourself and you couldn't find anything wrong with it.
DOCTOR: No, sir. We checked everything. You and I.
BARBARA: But why would we? For what reason?
DOCTOR: Blackmail, that's why. You tried to force me to return you to England.

This is, for Miss Wright, the last straw. She gives the Doctor a full-tilt boogie the Reason You Suck speech:

BARBARA: How dare you! Do you realise, you stupid old man, that you'd have died in the Cave of Skulls if Ian hadn't made fire for you?
DOCTOR: Oh, I
BARBARA: And what about what we went through against the Daleks? Not just for us, but for you and Susan too. And all because you tricked us into going down to the city.
DOCTOR: But I, I
BARBARA: Accuse us? You ought to go down on your hands and knees and thank us. But gratitude's the last thing you'll ever have, or any sort of common sense either.

It's been a long time coming. And, as Jacqueline Hill delivers it, it drips with long-stored up venom.

[Weirdness ensure; the Doctor tries to break the tension: Drinks all round!]

After everyone is in bed, the Doctor checks Barbara and Ian to see if they are awake; they aren't. he goes silently to the console, feels someone s there, turns around, only to have a pair of hands encircle his throat and....

TWANG OUT

[No, not really. Still, roll credits!]

The Doctor knocks Ian (dazed as he is) down, more recriminations result, the Doctor decides to expel them from the ship. Barbara persuades Susan she and Ian are innocent, the TARDIS freaks out, and Barbara puts all together: the TARDIS is trying to communicate with them, there's a fault that will doom the ship.

The Doctor realizes his error, and they try to think what the ship is trying to tell them. The Doctor realizes the source of their danger:



They fault is the "Fast return" switch, which is stuck. They fix the switch, all is well.

Yeah, I know. Pretty underwhelming.

But there's more--The Doctor is nervous about his abuse and threats; Ian lets him off the hook. Fade to black.

If the episode had ended here, it would have been a surreal epic fail. But no, we see the Doctor try to make peace with Barbara:

DOCTOR: I'd like to talk to you, if I may. We've landed on a planet and the air is good, but it's rather cold outside.
BARBARA: Susan told me.
DOCTOR: Yes, you haven't forgiven me, have you.
BARBARA: You said terrible things to us.
DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose it's the injustice that's upsetting you, and when I made a threat to put you off the ship it must have affected you very deeply.
BARBARA: What do you care what I think or feel?
DOCTOR: As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves.
BARBARA: Perhaps.
DOCTOR: Oh, yes. Because I accused you unjustly, you were determined to prove me wrong. So, you put your mind to the problem and, luckily, you solved it.
SUSAN: Grandfather, we're going out now.
DOCTOR: Oh, please, yes. Do open the doors, will you?
SUSAN: Are you coming?
BARBARA: Yes.
SUSAN: Good.
DOCTOR: Oh, by the way, Susan has left you some wearing apparel for outside. You know, we have a very extensive wardrobe here.
BARBARA: Yes, she gave me these.
DOCTOR: Yes, I think they're rather charming. We must look after you, you know. You're very valuable. Yes.
(He helps her on with the coat, and offers his arm)
DOCTOR: Shall we go?

And now the pieces click into place. The Doctor has found what he was missing--friendship with his companions. He has learned to respect them, and to value them.

He has learned that, contrary to his own understanding of the TARDIS--"my ship can't think!" he declaims earlier--that it can.

****

The next episode is, in a way, the pilot episode of the show we watch today. Doctor Who long ago ceased to be what this first spate of episodes was--a story about an irascible man, his peculiar granddaughter, and the two stowaways who he kidnapped into danger. That show was more bleak than Doctor Who has ever been since, because the darkness came from the protagonist, and not from the dangers he faced.

The Doctor has learned to fight for a cause when he must. He has learned to value more than his own convenience, even his own safety. Finally, he has learned how to be a friend. And to want friends.

We're off and running.

A Quick Check In

For readers, regular, and, er, occasional. Yes, let's go with that. Occasional.

I admit it, this blog has been a bit moribund of late. Between new professional opportunities and challenges, and a desire to increase my distance from some old themes, that now feel a bit outworn, I felt I had increasingly little to say that you might enjoy.

And then the idea of an extended project on the blog came to me--Anglocat in the TARDIS, the new tag and project. The plan: Blog the earliest episodes of Doctor Who, the ones I never got to see, and see how long I can lope after the old show.

I'm doing my best to find serenity and recreation here. Oh, the sermons will keep coming, and maybe some theology, and the occasional frolic and detour. But I want to write for pleasure, which means returning to Taffy Was A Welshman and, for pleasure and relaxation--this.

Hop on board; we're going to prowl through all of time and space!

"My Truth is in the Stars": The Ambush\The Expedition\The Ordeal\The Rescue

Dalek: What we need for life means death for the Thals.
The Doctor: You could live in the city, and the others could. But why do you have to destroy? Can't you use your brains for right?
Dalek: Only one race can survive!
The Doctor: What are you planning?
Dalek: We wish to escape captivity; go out and rebuild the planet Skaro. Our oxygen distributors will be subjected to waste radiation by the ejector capsule.
The Doctor: Nothing can live outside if you do that, nothing!
Dalek: Except the Daleks!
The Doctor: When do you intend to put this into operation?
Dalek: Now.
The Doctor: [fuming] This senseless, evil killing...!

A funny thing happens on the back nine of this story--everybody grows.

The Daleks go from being cold, unpleasant beings who will do anything to secure their safety, to almost the stuff of legend. Indeed, this story began Dalekmania, and one can see why. The Daleks in these episodes become almost the menace we know from modern Who. The change is gradual--at first, as I mentioned last time, "e don't know about them--clearly not friendly, but not necessarily evil--they could be paranoid survivors of a nuclear holocaust"; well, that changes over these four episodes. They begin by luring the Thals into a trap, subsequently declare that "The only interest we have in the Thals is their total extermination," and then they deny that irradiating the planet would be, as the Doctor calls it, "sheer murder," countering "No! Extermination!"

The Doctor pleads for sanity, "But you must listen to reason! Please, you must!" But the lead Dalek replies, "Without radiation, the Dalek race is ended. We need it as you and the Thals need air."

Right there, the balance still hangs for a moment; the Dalek cannot conceive of a solution for both, and so may be choosing what it deems to be the lesser of two evils--but no; the other Daleks join it, and in a semi-circle, we hear their metallic vibrato voices ring out together: "Tomorrow, we will be the masters of planet Skaro!"

The Daleks have, in episode 6, arrived at last.

Susan has recaptured her quickness--when Ian (in the Dalek casing) is about to be rumbled by a real Dalek, Susan screams, and does her little damsel-in-distress act, but this time she winks roguishly at her grandfather, and gets the two "Daleks" cooperating so that the real one forgets its suspicions of Ian. For the rest of the episodes, she's clever, vibrant, alive. Carole Ann Ford is great here--she rises to Susan's enhanced role.

Ian is Ian--compassionate, well-intentioned--but he also shows a manipulative side, goading the Thals to reject their absolute pacifism, and to defend themselves. Interestingly, he has qualms throughout the exercise, but he is quite formidable.

Barbara continues bravely, and finds herself drawn to one of the Thals (who is just as drawn to her). Jacqueline Hill does a remarkable job of portraying both Barbara's fighting her fear, and forcing herself to be brave, and her developing interest in Ganatus.

And the Doctor? This is the first time we have seen him morally outraged. Up until now, he's been self-seeking, running from the Tribe of Gum, from the Daleks, prepared to abandon Za (hell, prepared to up and kill Za, for that matter). He's been willing to abandon the Thals, Ian and Barbara, Susan, even--anything to save himself. (It's a little disturbing how Flashman-like the Doctor is in these first few outings.)

But that ends here. The thoughtless brutality of the advances Daleks has stirred something in the Doctor. He's not running away this time. He stands and fights. Not entirely successfully; after disarming the Daleks' surveillance cameras, he's so busy preening that he disregards Susan's warnings, and they are captured. But he has learned how to fight for something other than himself.

He's not quite the Doctor yet, though--when the Daleks are dying, and beg for help, he coldly replies "Even if I wanted to, I don't know how." It falls to Alydon, the Thal leader, to say what the Doctor will say so often in the future: there should have been another way.

****

It's odd to watch a 54-year old serial on its own terms. This seven-parter only drags a little, in the penultimate episode, with Ian's party rollicking about in the caves for what feels like an entire season. (It's 15 minutes, in fact). Even that is leavened by Jacqueline Hill's acting. When Barbara has to jump across a pit, and then swing herself to safety, Hill portrays scared-but-fighting-it better than I've ever seen it done. She makes the whole sequence credible.

The fifth episode is even better, with the TARDIS crew making the old can-we-spring-Ian-before-the-lift-carrying-the baddies-gets-here routine gripping. In the last episode, there's a certain amount of chaos, and what exactly causes the doom of the Daleks (Oi, Chibnall--I've copyrighted that one!) is a little unclear. But the crew's farewell to their Thal friends, especially Hartnell's wistful rejection of their request that they stay and join in building a new Skaro, is moving. "I was a pioneer once, among my own people," he says, happy for the first time we have seen him.

He's not quite yet the Doctor, as I said.

But he's almost there.

"If They Call us Mutations, What Must They Be Like?" (The Dead Planet, The Survivors, and The Escape)

Barbara Wright, in sensible shoes,
runs past radioactive refuse,
frightened, perhaps, but still polite,
Barbara keeps all her ethics in sight.

Barbara Wright, in a Mary Quant dress,
won't turn blind eye to the Doctor's mess.
She'll help her friends to unhouse a mutant,
But might tonight of tea be refusant.


Unlike the very nice crisp, clean version of The Daleks I'm watching on BritBox, the above clip is a bit fuzzy, and missing a piece; never mind, it gives you some of the basics. Here is the upshot:

1. The Doctor remains deceitful and selfish--he lies to Ian, Barbara, and Susan to create an excuse to visit the unknown, seemingly dead city, while Ian and Barbara want to flee the strange planet they have landed on. Rather than persuade, the Doctor falsely clams the "fluid link" is broken, and that it needs fresh mercury for the ship (as the TARDIS is mostly referred to here) to fly, and the Doctor leads his crew cross the jungle to the strange city....oh, well, at least he doesn't try to bash anyone's head in (yet).

2. He does, however, lead them into a radiation poisoned atmosphere, and each of our heroes begins to sicken. This ain't Teddy Ruxpin, kids!

3. Inside the city, strange, metallic creatures seize the TARDIS crew, and imprison them. As they sicken these strange metal creatures--called DALEKS, if you can imagine--send Susan out to retrieve some drugs from the other survivors of the Neutron War a half millennium before, what the Daleks conjecture to be a dreadfully mutated version of their old foes, the Thals. (Mostly, this holds up in continuity, but not entirely--no Kaleds who become "Daleks," just the Daleks and the Thals.).

4. Susan meets one of these Thals, and is awestruck at how "perfect" he is.

5. Susan returns (with the Thal's magic anti-radiation drugs (one set for the Daleks, the other to be smuggles to the Doctor, Ian and Barbara). The Daleks find both sets, but let the travelers have theirs anyway. Susan pens peaceful message to the Thals, and is returned to the others. Aware they have been bugged, and something is amiss, they deprive their warder-Dalek of power by cutting off its access to the floor from which it derived the static electricity that keeps it in motion, and they remove the mutant within the casing. Amusingly, the penny drops for the Doctor when Ian thinks of dodgems.



That Moffat--what a swot!

Like Clara in The Witch's Familiar, Ian hides within the Dalek, and Susan leads her "captor" out, while the dispossessed mutant writhes on the floor...

****

Good, right?

Rubbish, I've told you everything that happens but nothing of importance about the three episodes that make up the first half of the story arc normally called "The Daleks." Nothing.

The first episode continued the character-based drama of the preceding four episodes, An Unearthly Child and 100,000 BC. The Doctor can be said to thaw a little--a distraught Susan is more than he can handle, and he rather awkwardly, almost sweetly, asks Barbara to help by talking to her. When his deception is found out, he's like a naughty boy trying to brazen it out. Hartnell is quicksilver here--stern authority one moment, the next, Tom Sawyer, caught out. He's really quite good.

Ian's anger at the Doctor is more evident in these episodes than in the prior story. He blames the Doctor for leaving earth in 1963 hastily, as well as in 100,000 BC, preventing them from being able to choose a return point with any accuracy. Susan is vacillating between two registers--clever alien girl, and terrified child. Carole Anne Ford is trying, but the writers are tilting more toward Damsel in Distress (she screams like Bonnie Langford will, a generation later) than "character."

Barbara--she's beginning to be magic. She's afraid, and tired, but doesn't give up. Her courage and common sense run out at times, but mostly she finds her center. Jacqueline Hill is, thus far, the best actor on the program--she creates, sometimes with very little help from the script, a three dimensional character reacting is a credible way to incredible events. She is the emotional and moral core of Doctor Who, so far a sort of English Everywoman, who refuses to let standards down despite her terror. No wonder she inspired a little sub-Betjeman-style verse from me.

The Daleks themselves--in the second episode, "The Survivors," we don't know about them--clearly not friendly, but not necessarily evil--they could be paranoid survivors of a nuclear holocaust--and that's just how they're written. Their character as that against which the Doctor defines himself is not yet present--they are not yet the great nemesis they will become. They're less powerful, but, by episode 3, the base metal is showing through.

(The less said about the Thals the better).

But the world building of early Doctor Who is astonishing. The first episode is almost leisurely n pace, especially as the travelers discover the fragile beauty of a world murdered by its denizens. Carole Ann Ford is superb in these scenes, her wonder at the beauty of a perfectly preserved, brittle flower, more than any other moment, makes this ash-heap of a planet, destroyed by nuclear war, real--and tragically lovely.

Again, Doctor Who is being strikingly gutsy and dark here. The Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded in October 1962; these episodes aired a little over a year later.

Confronting children with the specter of Armageddon?

Why not, Verity Lambert seems to have reasoned--the politicians just have.