Day 190: The Enemy of the World Episode 5

It's worth talking about some of the other supporting characters within this story, as they're all really very interesting. Astrid Ferrier, for instance, is your typical Emma Peel style action woman, but what makes her interesting is watching the effect that the Doctor has on her. I'm going to skip ahead to tomorrow's episode (mainly because I've already got a lot to discuss tomorrow), because there we see that she chooses to solve a problem through using her wits, instead of just resorting to violence, showing that the Doctor has made an impact on how this character goes forth into the world.

Also of note is Benik, Salamander's deputy, purely because of how insanely sadistic he is. There's a scene in the previous episode that I didn't get around to mentioning wherein a woman is shot, and he goes over to her and tortures her to get the information that he requires. He knows that she's already dead, but he also knows that he can cause her pain and make her last moments as painful as possible, just because he can. Even though he's not the main villain of this piece, he's still a remarkably nasty piece of work.

Day 189: The Enemy of the World Episode 4

Around this point, your traditional 6 part story would begin to lag. Things take on a slower pace and padding takes charge, making things duller and duller by the minute. Fortunately, Whitaker has come up with the perfect way to fight this, by introducing one of the single most bonkers and beautiful twists in the history of the series. It's so amazing that I recommend that you go out now and watch the story itself, it's spectacular, and this episode has an amazing scene about halfway through that shows some incredibly powerful acting from the supporting cast. But the twist is so beautifully unpredictable that I don't want to spoil it for you, so go and seek this story out, if you don't want to be spoiled about what happens.

SPOILERS AHEAD

It turns out that Salamander, in his spare time, is a leader of a post apocalyptic colony. Whitaker has been able to introduce a completely new story running parallel to the one that we've been watching for the past while, and this new story changes everything. Suddenly Salamander's motives become more complex, and we get to see another side to this character. And the audience is now forced to sit up and pay attention, because now things have developed to a point where it is no longer as predictable as before. Previously the audience was expecting a generic near future run around with some gritty action set pieces and a 'double' plot. But now, things are completely different to how people could imagine this story playing out, meaning that the curse of a lull in a 6 part story has been beaten, by changing the story entirely, everything becomes absolutely wonderful.

Day 188: The Enemy of the World Episode 3

This episode has one of my absolyte favourite supporting characters to appear in Doctor Who: Griffin the Chef. He's a depressive Australian chef, who constantly finds things wrong with the world. He's such a good character because he's able to effectively tell the background to his character and the world that he lives in without going into exposition. He shows that the world has gone badly for him, that Salamander leads an oppressive rule and that people don't necessarily work for him with any degree of choice, by which I mean being forced to choose between a paying job and living on the streets. But the best thing about him is the way in which he deals with the concepts that he's dealt with. A soup that isn't up to scratch leads him to consider that he might be fired, or better yet, shot. But he can't get his hopes up, for they'll probably miss him. It's a fun character and makes this story yet more interesting to see play out.

Day 187: The Enemy of the World Episode 2

Now that we've got over the fact that this episode actually exists, let's have a look at the basic premise of the plot. It's a simple idea: the Doctor happens to bear a striking resemblance to the enemy of the week, and so one side wishes for him to impersonate the enemy, a man called Salamander, in order to save the world, or something like that. It's an idea that's been covered before, as we saw in The Massacre, where William Hartnell played the villain as well. But there, the story was based around the audience not knowing whether this was the Doctor or not, whereas now the distinction is clear. This allows for the story to become more of a thriller rather than a contemplative piece, and so the story is able to continue moving without having any annoying scenes of doubt of who is who. And while this idea is a cliché, it's still being dealt with in a really interesting way, and so the audience just wants to see how this story will unfold.

Day 186: The Enemy of the World Episode 1

I remember the day well. I'd been hearing rumours for some time, but never quite believed that they were true. Events escalated and I discovered that the rumours were, in some form, true. And as I walked into my French class, I quietly opened up Google Chrome and searched for what was found. Because a man called Phil Morris had found 9 episodes of Doctor Who, not seen since the 1960's. The Enemy of the World was now completed, and The Web of Fear was almost complete. I spent the rest of the day in ecstasy. All I could do when I was with my friends was giggle with glee at fianally getting a chance to see these once lost episodes, now found for all to view. And with good reason, because there are so many elements of this story that just wouldn't translate to the audio version. Troughton is full of little moments, his face is able to find so many subtelties within the script, and he is also able to act as two completely different characters within a short space of time, but they are so distinct that you don't actually notice that they're being played by the same actor. There's also some wonderful direction from Barry Letts, who has one of my favourite camera movements of all time as he attaches the camera to the back of a helicopter and then films the action packed scene from which the Doctor and co. need to be rescued from disappearing out of sight. It's difficult to describe, but it's easy to see now. And that fills me with all sorts of happiness 9 days out of 10

Day 185: The Ice Warriors SIX

One of the lovely things about this journey throughout Doctor Who is that I get to experience some stories that I've never seen before. When I say that, I don't so much mean getting to watch stories that I've heard about for years meaning that I finally get to actually see events that everyone else has been going on about for yonks. Instead, I mean that I get to see stories and be surprised by how much I'd overlooked this story because it's actually quite good. This is something that I've experienced with The Ice Warriors. Previously, I've considered it to just be another Second Doctor story, with the first appearance of the eponymous Martians, but now, I'm able to recognise it as a scientific story. It takes science and shows it all the ways in which it is used, whether it be through misunderstanding of how science works with the bad science present in this story, showing the fact that computers are not the be all and end all of modern science, and that there are other methods that others may prefer, and finally allowing science to save the day in the end. It's a good story, and vastly underrated, and I'm thrilled that this first viewing of this story was so pleasurable for me. And tomorrow, we encounter a story that also gave a very pleasurable first viewing for myself and several others, mainly because we never thought that it would ever happen...

Day 184: The Ice Warriors FIVE

For some reason, the Ice Warriors have been deemed important enough for me to feel the need to devote today's episode to talk about how they're used in this story. This is because they're going to return a couple more times over the course of the series, including in the post 2005 era as well, and so they have an associated aura of 'classic monster' with them that begs for them to be discussed. But I haven't talked about them so far because they aren't really that interesting. The design is nice, being a simple alien monster design that is able to stick in the minds of young children, and their voice, much like the Daleks before them, is instantly imitable, meaning that each little youngster in the playground can be a Martian, asssssss long assssssss they hisssssss the letter ssssssssssss. Their motivation, however, is weak. They're your basic invading alien force, with not much else to say about them. They were most likely brought back because the writer, Brian Hayles, enjoyed having an alien race of his own, and the Ice Warriors will be fleshed out wonderfully in coming stories, it just so happens that, at the moment, they're just another monster, with nothing to elevate them beyond a ssssssssssssupremely cool sssssssssspeech pattern.

Day 183: The Ice Warriors FOUR

Another interesting moment in this story is the death of Storr, and what it says about the way that science is treated in this story. Storr represents the anti-science movement, he resents all that technology brings and feels that it shall further destroy the planet, despite all the benefits that it could bring to his life. Indeed, when he discovers that, at the moment, the Ice Warriors' modus operandi is to attack the scientific base, he attempts to join them, as he feels that by destroying the scientists, good work will be done in the world, and he can assist in this regard. He soon finds out that this is a mistake, as he is promptly killed by the Martians, who see no use for him because they acknowledge that science is useful and that their major quarrel is not with science itself but instead with the people who are performing it, and they need science in order to survive. So, by having Storr die, this represents the way in which critics of the world scientific should be treated, particularly when they fail to listen to the words that are spoken from scientists about the future, as they bring things that will help you with your life, and if you choose to live your life without science, you may find yourselves in a spot of bother.

Day 182: The Ice Warriors THREE

In general, when I write this blog, I'll search for themes within the episode to discuss, such as which characters are interesting, how the direction is different or key elements within the plot. And one of the key plot strands within this story became quite pertinent to my day today. It wasn't that Martians decided to invade my Optics lecture, it was something far more mundane than that.

In real life, I'm in the process of studying for a degree in Physics. This involves regular laboratory sessions, some of which are computer based. These computer sessions will typically involve writing computer code to solve certain problems, and they can range from simple data entry to things that are supremely annoying. Today, I had a Special Relativity computer lab, which consisted of 8 young men taking it in turns to either shout loudly, swear, or place their heads in their hands out of sheer desperation. It's due to computers, which are wonderful things, but also somewhat temperamental. You can give them orders, but you have to do it in the right way and make sure that everything that you're doing is right, otherwise everything will go wrong.

It's a similar scenario that the Doctor faces in this story. He's offered the option of a computer but turns it down, preferring a pen and paper instead. Some of you who are reading this will think that this represents the Doctor being a Luddite, and rejecting technology in favour of the old ways of doing things, but in my mind, it made perfect sense. Because whilst computers can be useful, they can also be annoying, and there are also tiny subtelties that you can't always get when using a computer over working it out with pen and paper, like how the actual processes work so that you don't just know what the right answer is, but you also know how you got there and gained a greater appreciation of the science behind it.

I may have railed against the writer of this story for featuring some bad science a couple of days ago, but here it feels like one of the more accurate depictions of science that I've seen for a while.

Day 181: The Ice Warriors TWO

One of the most interesting characters that we meet in this story is Clent. He's the leader of the group, and prone to barking orders at anyone who'll take them, constantly checking with the computer before making any judgment, in order to get the best possible scenario for his team. However, in doing so he is blind to the other needs of his crew, and their need to do things in a different manner, such as Penley, one of his former scientists, who left the group because he was restricted by the methods that Clent was forcing upon him. Arden (another scientist) states of Clent that "he's not a proper scientist, he's an organiser. He should've been born a robot." He represents the things that restrict the world, the people who come along and organise things so that they all work in a manner that suits them. And it's appropriate that he should come across the Second Doctor, as he's the Doctor who looks at this sort of thing and brings it down (cf The Macra Terror), and indeed in any other story, Clent would be the main villain. But here, we've got other things to contend with.

Day 180: The Ice Warriors ONE

New story, new location. This time, we're in Earth's near future, and it's both amusing and terrifying to see how things will pan out in the history of Earth, according to Doctor Who. This is because this story has climate change as the background. Right now, you're probably thinking "Wow, wasn't Doctor Who really forward thinking in the 1960's, having a story all about climate change before we realised how much it truly affects us" (unless you happen to be a idiot, in which case you're probably thinking that because climate change appeared on a science fiction program, it is therefore science fiction, at which point you shall resume diving into your pools of cash, Scrooge McDuck style). But, this episode gets it slightly wrong. And by slightly, I mean catastrophically. You see, it is stated that all the plants have died out, causing a lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is wrong. Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, thus meaning that we can still breathe without having to wear face masks all the time. A lack of plants would mean an excess of carbon dioxide, which would enhance the Greenhouse Effect. The Greenhouse Effect is that carbon dioxide and other 'greenhouse gases' form an atmospheric layer around the Earth, meaning that heat from the Sun is kept within the Earth's atmosphere and thus ensuring that we don't all freeze to death (as is happening in this episode, incidentally, meaning that it was right about something, a lack of carbon dioxide would cause things to become rather colder). Therefore, if the Greenhouse layer is increased due to more carbon dioxide, due to the lack of plants, then that would mean that we would experience a sort of 'global warming', or a 'climate change' which would mean that humanity would be somewhat doomed. So, in conclusion, this story has some poor scientific choices, but it is nice that the writer, Brian Hayles, did consider the environment when constructing this story, even if he had no idea how to go about it.

Also, I'd just like to give a quick thank you to both Lesley Wong and Mitchell McLeod, who both backed up my scientific hypothesis. The moral of the story is always back up your scientific claims before you post them online.

Day 179: The Abominable Snowmen Episode 6

As this story comes to an end, let's do a brief recap of what's actually happened. The Doctor has had the role of being the guiding force, and Troughton has been able to make the character consistently interesting, particularly when getting to face off against pure evil. Jamie also gets some good stuff in this story, being able to be both an action hero and a comic double act with the Doctor, although Victoria, in a stark departure from the previous female companions who were able to hold strong positions in the plot and drive the story when required, exists solely to scream. The other supporting characters were nice and it was a nice touch to only have it until halfway through the story before everyone is on the Doctor's side, meaning that everyone comes across as having more realistic motivations. All in all, it's an OK story though, there's not too much beyond a simple adventure here, and whilst it's fun, it's not much more than that.

Day 178: The Abominable Snowmen Episode 5

Doctor Who visits the world of mysticism in this episode, as it is stated that this serial's villain, the Great Intelligence, was encountered by, and later was able to take over, Padmasambhava on the 'astral plane'. It is a formless villain, operating purely on motivation and method rather than design in order to provide its scares. But the key point here is that this villain is decidedly mystical, not one of the more scientific adversaries that we've encountered so far in this series. This means that the world is able to become stranger, and the serial is no longer just a science fiction adventure serial, but it can also include elements of something 'other', which can help spice up the series so that it doesn't become the same old thing repeated over and over again.

Also, as an addendum to the last entry, the appearance of Padmasambhava has improved and become slightly more unsettling, however I still stand by my original point that it's a poor cliffhanger, and that it doesn't really translate itself well to screen.

Day 177: The Abominable Snowmen Episode 4

Terrifying face, or bad make-up job?

Before this entry begins, I should make a small note. When I watch these episodes, I watch them in one of two ways. One is that I sit down and give the episode my full attention, the other is that I will have it on in the background whilst I do some work. The latter is not preferable, because it means that I'll sometimes lose key points of the episode in question, and so my impression might not be as truthful as the episode actually is. But this is just me pussyfooting around the fact that this episode's cliffhanger is one of the worst that I've encountered so far. The ending is that Victoria encounters the hidden face of the voice that has been guiding events, that of Padmasambhava (the writers really enjoy making me double check spelling, don't they?). As scripted, it is meant to be a wizened and decrepit old man, centuries past his use-by date. As it appears on screen, it's just another face with abnormally large lips. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm going off a reconstruction of the episode, and that his actual appearance is meant to be terrifying. But somehow I doubt that. It's not even got that much to back it up in terms of plot, because although the man has been hinted at as being a terrifying figure, he hasn't done much beyond tell people what to do, and so by seeing his face, the plot doesn't really advance too much, certainly not enough to make audiences want to tune in the next episode.

Day 176: The Abominable Snowmen Episode 3

Professor Travers is an nice character in this story, due to his interesting motives. Positioning himself in the Himalayas in order to find the Yeti (note how I'm stoically avoiding spelling Abominable over these entries because I'm pretty sure that I'll misspell it at some point), he is a driven man. He's also quick to make assumptions, as he accuses the Doctor of murder, and Jamie and Victoria as accomplices, but he soon realises that he was mistaken. And from then on, he is treated as an ally, which is a really interesting idea, because it means that once again, we have a character who was at first a villain, but has now been placed on the side of good, giving the audience the impression that development has occurred with the character and that they have all gotten to know each other far more quickly than they actually have. It's a nice economy in storytelling, although there is the issue that this story has only just reached the halfway point, and sometimes cutting down on plot could be a bad thing when there's plenty to go around, and we might end up leaving other episodes hungry.

Day 175: The Abominable Snowmen Episode 2

Another thing that's interesting about this story is that it is a sequel. The Doctor has visited the Tibetan monastery where the story takes place before, and the villain has prior knowledge of the Doctor. "So what?", I hear you ask, because sequels are normal things, we encounter them all of the time in fiction, be they continuations of popular book franchises or high budget sequels to films in order to make studios more money, we're used to the concept. But this is a sequel to an unseen adventure, meaning that there is already a history to the story, as Doctor Who has built up its own mythos in order to create more possibilities for adventures. And, of course, the villain in this story is the Great Intelligence, a being which has appeared in more recent episodes as well. And one of these was explicitly set in Victorian times, before the events of this story, meaning that perhaps we have already seen the prequel to this story, in the form of The Snowmen.

Day 174: The Abominable Snowmen Episode 1

So, this new adventure has begun, and it features the Doctor and his companions facing off against the Yeti. It's a nice idea, a simple public domain monster that is easily recognised by children that can be used to give them a nice slice of entertainment. But, let's face it, the idea lacks imagination. The Yeti, as a monster, aside from being afflicted by being some of the cuddliest monsters that Doctor Who has created, also lack the spark of originality that came with the Daleks or the Cybermen. There will be originality in this story, yes, but unfortunately it won't come from the monsters, instead we'll have to look deeper than that.

But one thing that the Yeti does have is that they are among the more frequent of myths to still be around today due to people apparently seeing them, when in fact they are seeing something far more mundane. This is explored in an interesting scene, where the Doctor is captured for apparently killing a man, and the major piece of evidence in this is that the killer was wearing a large furry coat. So what happens is that the viewer is left a step ahead of the characters, because they are already familiar with the nature of the programme, as well as being able to read the title of the episode as well. They know that the Doctor is innocent, and that the most likely killer is a monster, something which the characters haven't yet realised. So this means that the viewers get to have a bit of fun in the now traditional monster-less episode 1, by being able to piece elements of the puzzle together. It's a nice idea, and means that, for me at least, the story becomes a bit more interesting, where little interest was to be had before.

Day 173: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 4

One of the vaguely unsettling subtexts in this episode is not the conversion of people into metal creatures, but instead the way that others will appear to be treated in the future, and by others, I mean one person in particular. His name is Toberman, and he is the strongman for the archaeological expedition that is being undertaken. His role would seem to be being bossed about by his superiors and to carry things. He doesn't really have a character beyond that, the most interesting thing that happens to him is that he is converted by the Cybermen and then later overthrows them completely, only to be killed at the story's conclusion. And that's a nice little idea, that uses the idea of someone being converted fighting back against their original programming, and it will occasionally be used again in later stories (cf Doomsday, Closing Time). But here's the annoying thing: Toberman is a person of colour. And that means that the story has an uncomfortable slavery subtext beneath it. For all that it portrays itself as a futuristic version of a mummy movie, occasionally it too strays into uncomfortable stereotypes, showing us a white crew where a black man is told to do things for them as a slave. Does this mean that the writers (Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis) were racist? In my opinion, no, because it is less individuals that are racist and more the time that the story is made in. When people will search for characters, often they will do so with a certain stereotype in mind, and it just so happened that Toberman was the stereotype associated with strongmen, generally being from outside of Britain, from far off regions such as Africa or Europe. But all of this means that when we come back to the story, we can see all of the cracks that are associated with it, be it in the writing or how some of the effects come across, or in how the characters are portrayed. This story is undeniably a product of its time, the only problem is seeing whether it is still relevant today, or whether things have just become too uncomfortable.

Day 172: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 3

The Cybermen are now back to their roots, after their Moonbase interlude where they just provided a known monster and nothing much else. Here, their emotionlessness is part of the core of their plan, as is their wish to conquer the Earth through conversion. Indeed, it's only really now that this is brought up with the Cybermen, as The Moonbase failed to mention it and The Tenth Planet had it as a disturbing subtext, but here it is presented to us front and centre: they wish to convert the human race and remove all of their emotions. And the effect of this is it allows a climate of fear to be created around these creatures, because conversion is not a process that is performed quickly, like shooting someone in the face, for instance, instead it is done slowly, with a build up to the main event. This means that the Cybermen have more time to extend tension, thus making it tenser for the audience and creating a more exciting programme. But what happens to the cyber-convertees? We'll find out next time

Day 171: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 2

Dr Eric Klieg is one of the men on this expedition, and he comes across as an interesting character. Driven by science and logic to his goals, he is actually quite poor at his work and frequently received the help of the Doctor in order to achieve his goals. And the Doctor is quite willingly helping as well, as Troughton plays the role in his slightly dark and devious character that we've seen him develop over the past couple of stories. But Klieg is also of interest here, because it transpires that he has been in search of the Cybermen to revive them and use their power for his own devices. And the surprising fact here is that he appears to be competent, an evil character out for his own motives and not those of his fellow archaeologists. But he is mercilessly crushed by the Cybermen, a plotline that looks as if it is over. Pedler and Davis, the writers of this story, clearly know that the arrival of the monsters means that everything else needs to move aside, because they need the audience's full attention on the threat, drawing more attention to the fear that the Cybermen bring. The Cybermen have been awoken, and we shall now see how they will work in this story.

Day 170: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 1

New story, new series, new companion. We were introduced to Victoria in the previous story, but there she was just a Princess Peach character, existing mainly to be rescued by other characters within the story. However, at the story's conclusion, she was invited aboard the TARDIS, a position which she took with little choice, given that everything that she was even remotely close to had been destroyed by the Daleks. And so, we see her in her first adventure here, and what comes across is just how absurd everything seems to her. And it's not that she's from Victorian times, it's that she's just been taken away in a magical box to distant worlds, and it's a bit too much for her. And so, the Doctor and Jamie are left to look after her, to comfort her through this period. It's the first time since Ian and Barbara that we've had this sort of reaction, everyone else has either taken it in their stride, or remained skeptic, only to discover that they have travelled in time, at which point everything becomes normal again. But Victoria is able to have problems with accepting this fact, and this makes the audience be able to sympathise with her, because she represents the realistic reaction to everything that's about to happen. And whilst a lot of what Victoria will do will not be realistic for a Victorian girl to do, there is a great deal of realism in how she reacts to everything, giving good signals for how she shall fare over the rest of her time aboard the TARDIS.

Day 169: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 7

The ending of this episode is quite big, featuring lots of destruction as the Daleks rebel against each other, half of them being pure Dalek and the other half having the Human Factor implanted within them. And as it ends, we realise that this is it, the Daleks have finally been destroyed for the last time. And to an extent that's true, it'll be years before we encounter them again, and so we have to realise how interesting this move in the series is. It's because the Daleks have been intrinsically linked with Doctor Who, ensuring that the series remained reasonably popular over the past couple of years, and by taking them away, the series is going to have to resort to other means to draw viewers in. Fortunately, it's got Patrick Troughton, who over the course of his first year in the role, has made the show more interesting, making him into a more mercurial figure and thus giving the show a new life. Also, the writing has remained strong, and there are probably other methods that the show will go down in order to ensure its survival. We'll just have to wait and see what comes up.

Day 168: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 6

One of the most interesting characters that we've encountered so far in this serial is Theodore Maxtible. Once again, it's not so much the performance or the direction that causes interest here (although both are very good indeed), instead it's the writing of the character. Maxtible is a man who appear to have been forced by the Daleks to follow their orders. However, there are hidden depths to the character, as he is far more willing to work with the Daleks than everyone else, due to his greed for power and his pursuits in trying to find equipment that will turn base metals into gold. He represents the antithesis to the Human Factor that the Doctor searches for, and finds in Jamie, as Maxtible brings with him the less desirable aspects of the human condition, and this allows the story to have depth. It's not a story about how all humans are better than Daleks, instead it's able to show the true Human Factor, why the humans are able to defeat the Daleks for the most part, and also why they are able to occasionally win. But now we wait for the serial's inevitable conclusion...

Day 167: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 5

One of the best things about this serial is the conclusion to this episode. It's not a cliffhanger, but it's still thrilling nonetheless because it represents a key movement forward in the plot of the story. The Daleks have just been injected with the human factor and they pick the Doctor up and carry him away. But not in the sort of Evil Dalek way that we've come to expect from these diabolical pepperpots. No, instead, they're more playful, as the Doctor says "They're playing a game!". Suddenly, everything that we know about the Daleks is wrong because they have gained playfulness, emotion, they have become human. This is the thing that Whitaker is not afraid to do: have cliffhangers without action. This cliffhanger doesn't feature a scare, but it does develop the plot in such a way as to ensure that interest is held. The audience may not want to tune in next week to find out how our heroes will get out of this sticky situation, but they might tune in to see how the plot develops, and what will happen now that things have changed completely. The Evil of the Daleks has somehow become The Playfulness of the Daleks, and this viewer can't wait to see what happens next.

Day 166: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 4

So the Doctor has been forced to work for the Daleks as they search for the 'human factor' and so Jamie is used as an unwitting test subject in order to observe the behaviour of humans. But what makes this so well done is that the Doctor must keep this test a secret from his companion, and so he has to coerce him into doing the test (rescuing the daughter of one of the characters in the story from the clutches of the Daleks). The way that he does this is by making Jamie lose faith in the Doctor, and so he'll go forth and do the adventure by himself and not wait for the Doctor's orders. It's the sort of thing that could only happen at this point in the series, where Jamie has been not been in the series long enough to trust the Doctor no matter what, but it also has to be a fair way into the series such that Jamie's accusations of betrayal still hit hard, because the audience has grown to like Jamie over the past serials that he's been involved in, and to see him be betrayed by the Doctor is a saddening moment, even if you know that it is for the greater good. This also shows the hidden darkness of the Doctor, that occasionally the ends may have to justify the means, and what makes this more unsettling is that the ends haven't entirely been revealed to us. But we'll get to that tomorrow.

Day 165: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 3

And so the Daleks' quest in this episode is to find the 'human factor'. It's because they're fed up with being defeated by humans all of the time and they want to figure out what's different about humans so that they can become stronger through it. It's a wonderful idea, because it shows the Daleks as clever beings. Terry Nation, the Daleks' creator, claimed that he never thought that David Whitaker 'got' the Daleks. This is obviously not true, because Whitaker understands how to make the Daleks work. They exist in a world full of monsters, each one of them waiting to jump out in front of you and give you a scare. And this is how the Daleks have operated previously, relying on direction and design to give the thrills that audiences need. But Whitaker understands that these are cheap thrills, and in order to give a longer lasting impression, he is to give the Daleks menace, and make them cunning. He makes it so that they learn from their mistakes, and are intelligent monsters, not the average creature that you'd expect to see on Doctor Who.

Day 164: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 2

And so this episode, not content with just having the Daleks involved, also decides to involve time travel. The ways in which it's involved are wonderful though. For a start, it's used to travel from one place to another, which means that the story is able to flow seamlessly from the previous story. Instead of having the harsh jump between a modern day adventure to a Victorian Dalek story, now we get to slide and so the series feels more real, so that the characters feel slightly realler because of this sense of continuity making the stories seem more real, not just a generic science fiction show. But time travel is also used for a Victorian gentleman to take pieces from his time, and sell them as antiques in the future, which is such a wonderful idea, showing that Whitaker is able to play with ideas and concepts, which draws curiosity for this viewer at least as to how this story will play out over the next couple of episodes.

Day 163: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 1

Like most Dalek stories, the Daleks are hidden for the first episode, in order to build tension for their arrival. This can either lead to the awkwardness of not acknowledging the enemy, or building up the story before the characters begin to get involved. Thankfully, this episode is written by David Whitaker, who is able to clearly define his story whilst building up an element of tension. It's only halfway that the science fiction element begins to seep its way through the script, before that it was a simple piece about trying to find out who has stolen the TARDIS, however slowly but surely, odd moments begin to appear. Hidden rooms and unknown forces guiding the characters, and yet the Doctor and Jamie are kept largely away from this action. But this doesn't matter because both story paths are good, we find out about the villain's plot by watching them, instead of having them explain it to the Doctor, and we get the Doctor and Jamie exploring the world as well, discovering more about the story. Through this, it means that when the Daleks do appear, while it's expected, it still brings with it a certain aura of having another problem to deal with besides the other issues that have been witnessed in this story. But questions still remain, the answers to which we might get sooner than you'd think...

Day 162: The Faceless Ones Episode 6

Gerry Davis. He'll script edit the show for a couple more episodes, but seeing as he'll leave halfway through the next story, I thought it best that a general round up of his time on the show be posted at the end of his last full story for Doctor Who. And, like any other script editor, he has certainly left his mark on the series, making it more modern, removing the outdated historical genre (no matter how good it could be when placed in the right hands) and perhaps most importantly, introducing proper science fiction elements to the series. To say that it was a generic space adventure series before he came along is perhaps doing the previous eras a bit of a disservice, but there is no denying that when Davis came onto the series, the science fiction elements became that little bit more fascinating. No longer are adventures just about monsters, instead they take science fiction ideas and use them, with occasional additions of monsters. Take this story, for instance. At first glance, it is your basic Invasion of the Body Snatchers pastiche until you begin to notice the ideas bubbling under the surface. An alien race which has lost their identities thanks to a large explosion on their homeworld, and so they have to assume the identities of humans that they've captured. It's an idea at the centre of the story, and this idea is what drives it, people being steadily replaced by an alien menace who just want this to survive. Also The Moonbase, which is about gravity controlling the Earth's weather, or The Macra Terror which is about mind control of a colony, these are all science fiction ideas that Davis has brought on board. And whilst we might praise Doctor Who for being silly, it can also be wonderfully serious, and this is something that Davis brought us, so we thank him for the work that he did, bringing some hard science fiction to the world of Doctor Who.

Day 161: The Faceless Ones Episode 5

So who do we get to replace Ben and Polly? The answer appears to be obvious, throughout this story we have made the acquaintance of a lovely young girl called Sam Briggs. She's feisty, as she's not afraid to fight Jamie if it comes to it. She also plays off Troughton well, being a spunky young sidekick to his older uncle, however she will not be a companion. It's interesting to note this, as it's the polar opposite of how Jamie was introduced. There, he was a minor character in a story that was inexplicably added to the TARDIS crew, but here we have a major character who is so obviously being built up to be the next companion, and yet the actress hasn't already been hired to be the next companion. It means that the character comes across as odd, feeling like something more was meant for her that never fully materialised.

Day 160: The Faceless Ones Episode 4

Ben and Polly don't appear in this episode. Nor did they appear in the previous episode, or will they appear in the next. They'll make a farewell appearance in the last episode, but I've got plans for that, and indeed tomorrow's episode (I know, this idiot has plans! Honestly, I'm as surprised as you are) so let's see why Ben and Polly have to go. The reasons may not be too apparent at first, they are incredibly likeable characters, Polly is certainly one of the better female leads that we've had and Ben brings forth some good stuff as well, even if his role as young male lead has been usurped by Jamie. However, they have been in the role for a year now, and so the characters are beginning to become a bit stale, and so the time has come for them to leave.

But lets just realise how important these characters were. They were truly modern, representing the height of the swinging 60's. Polly was remarkably well rounded, being able to be frightened, but also she was also incredibly sparky and developed an instant rapport with Patrick Troughton. Ben also shared this rapport with the Doctor, but he perhaps slipped into the role of young male lead a little too well, lacking the spark that Steven and Ian brought by being able to fight against the Doctor, although he did achieve this wonderfully in The Macra Terror. But the major thing that these two characters brought was the modern world. Doctor Who was no longer a stuffy old kids show with monsters, it was groovy, and ready to fully embrace the 1960's.