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 And, like any other script editor, he has certainly left his mark on the series, making it more modern, removing the outdated historical genre (no matter how good it could be when placed in the right hands) and perhaps most importantly, introducing proper science fiction elements to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 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.

Day 158: The Faceless Ones Episode 2

First Prize in the greatest facial expressions caught on film

And the runner up

Halfway through this episode, I was busy planning what I was going to write about it. Something about Ben and Polly, perhaps, or the dominance of aeroplane travel. But then the most extraordinary thing happened. To explain: This episode is no longer present in the BBC archives, and I am currently watching a reconstruction of it, using images taken by a man named John Cura. Cura's job was to point a camera at a television screen and record images of various television dramas, then give them to the production offices to use as guides for what stories they've covered, and how they turned out, as well as mementos of the work that they did. These photos must capture the key events in the story, as well as give a general feel for the tone of the drama. And in this case, Cura took some photos of some truly great faces pulled by the cast. And this isn't like these days, where people can get something to go mildly viral (still sounds like an infection to me, perhaps that explains why my readership is going down) by having a lucky moment where they capture a celebrity pulling a face thanks to pushing the pause button at exactly the right moment. Here, there's no pause button, instead Cura just happened to capture the tone of the story perfectly, showing us that this story is not one that is deadly serious, it allows the characters to have a bit of fun. This isn't necessarily something that is captured through scripts or audio recordings, instead this one man has managed to do his job perfectly, and so I'm going to thank John Cura for giving me some excellent moments thanks to your wonderful telesnaps.

Day 157: The Faceless Ones Episode 1

It's a repetition of themes in this episode, as we reach the conclusion and find that Polly does not recognise the Doctor or Jamie, much like Ben had been brainwashed by the Macra in the previous story. But it's subtly different to what has come before, in ways that are able to differentiate it from previous stories. For a start, The Macra Terror had this as the main plot point, whereas this story puts it aside as a curio, a clue as to what might be happening. This is because there are more things occurring in this story, and unlike the previous story which was about exploring a society, here clues and curiosities are placed before the viewer, such as mysterious guns and an odd importance on postcards. One of the parts of Doctor Who that is good is that there is no set formula to write to (at least not at this particular moment) and so this means that different writing styles can be left to flourish, so we can enjoy this new adventure by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke

Day 156: The Macra Terror Episode 4

About a week ago, I made some comments about Jamie, and how it was difficult for writers to cope with him as this meant that there were now two young male protagonists, meaning that the TARDIS has become rather crowded. But here, roles are found for both Ben and Jamie, and their roles can be defined more easily. Jamie forms the action hero, being courageous and sticking up for himself in moments of peril. He is the one to whom many of the action sequences in this story occur, and he is able to go along with them well. Ben, on the other hand, is able to be influenced by the evil Macra and brainwashed by them to do their will. This means that the more familiar character is put into a position that the audience is unfamiliar with them keeping, and so the audience is able to realise the power of the Macra, given that they can take something that is familiar and make it unfamiliar, something that couldn't be done with Jamie or any other supporting character, as then we wouldn't feel the connection that we do with Ben. But this also means that Jamie is able to become a more trusted figure, which means that he has finally settled into the role of companion to the Doctor, and so we can now look forward to many more adventures with the Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie, together in the TARDIS.

Day 155: The Macra Terror Episode 3

As has probably been previously mentioned, Gerry Davis and Innes Lloyd came into the series with an aim to make it more 'serious' and less frivolous, a task at which they have achieved varying success. This is partially down to their choice of writers, most prominently Ian Stuart Black, who has been able to provide simple science fiction thrillers that are able to be unlike anything else we've seen before in the series. Previously, science fiction was defined by the monsters, or perhaps the stories that were told in this location. Black starts with an idea, and then builds the story around the dissection of this idea. The Savages, for instance, takes the idea of transferring a life force and explores what this means for class systems, and is able to build in a parable about colonialism. Similarly, The Macra Terror takes the idea of a society where everybody is brainwashed into being happy, and then he explores what this idea means. He takes it to extremes, seeing how far the brainwashing will go, sees how it would work and why it would happen. He builds a society, then has the Doctor enter and explore the world. It's thoroughly entertaining to watch, because it differentiates these stories from generic science fiction, such as that seen in The Underwater Menace, and provides a thoroughly entertaining story as well.

Day 154: The Macra Terror Episode 2

Much like several stories that we've encountered before, The Macra Terror is not too big on showing the monsters for the first couple of episodes. This breaks Doctor Who away from other series of the same genre, because it encourages storytelling over effects. In doing so, it means that this story is able to actually have a purpose, and do things with how it is told, rather than just be reduced to cheap scares in some B-Movie style generic action adventure. There's a brief interview with the director Gordon Flemyng, where he is asked about why he took on his latest film, an adaptation of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and he responded by saying that, whilst he enjoyed 'message' films, he preferred to make 'entertainment' films. It's an interesting division to make, because it draws to attention the fact that Doctor Who can straddle the line between entertainment and message, due to having monsters, but also having decent stories to tell as well. This is yet another example of why Doctor Who is different from other series on television, it's not afraid to hide its monsters if it's got a bigger story to tell.

Day 153: The Macra Terror Episode 1

This episode has the most disturbing opening to any episode we've seen so far. We begin with a man in terror, breathing heavily as we have a close-up on his eyes. But then, we cut away to a bunch of majorettes dancing around and playing jolly music. The rest of the story continues in the same vein, being relentlessly happy and grinning to the point of terror with their ever-present happiness. But, there's a hidden danger somewhere, hidden darkness. There's a Big Brother style presence behind everything, telling them that work is the thing that will keep them happy, and forcefully making them cheerful, ignoring the handful of people who claim that something is wrong, and sending them away. It's like Nineteen Eighty-Four on happy pills, continually telling people to be happy, and ignoring the hidden aspects of the world. This story feels relentlessly disturbing because of all of this, and it makes it all the more interesting, because it's been able to set a scene around a mystery, and through not mentioning it, it comes to the foreground more, and so this unique way of storytelling means that the series once again is able to do something that is unlike anything else on television.

Until The Prisoner premieres 6 months later, showing that Doctor Who is also a wonderful trend setter.

Day 152: The Moonbase Episode 4

Kit Pedler is Doctor Who's scientific advisor, and as such, this story is a bit more scientific than the normal asventure. In the previous episode, for instance, there's an extended sequence wherein Ben describes how squirty bottles work, and the story itself is not based on a clolony of normal people, instead looking at a group of scientists all working together on a gravity based device to control Earth's weather. So we're bringing Doctor Who back to its original remit, to educate the audience about science and history, except history has been deemed to be boring, and so science education shall rise. And I'd like to come at this from a completely subjective viewpoint, and state whether this is actually interesting to the young children watching it, but there are a few problems with this.

One is that I am not a young child any more, and so the things that interest me now are different than the things that interest me 10 years ago. It's probably the major difficulty when commenting on Doctor Who, because a large element of it is aimed at a family audience, including children, and it becomes harder and harder to think about what kids are into these days, and whether kids are really interested about this stuff. In my opinion, this is exactly the sort of thing that children should be watching, and it is thoroughly interesting, but I don't know whether they'd enjoy it, I can only speculate. It's an interesting point, and we'll probably come back to it at some point over the next 650 odd episodes, but for now, We've Got Work To Do.

Day 151: The Moonbase Episode 3

Once again we're going to talk about Polly this episode. This time, it's because of her role in the plot. While the Doctor does clever things, and Ben and Jamie do action things, Polly is left to do screaming things. But, halfway through this episode, she gets the idea to use a solvent to dissolve the plastic on the Cybermen's chest units, and in doing so, cause them to be destroyed. This is wonderful, because it is showing us that a character who is assumed to be frivolous, and only exists to scream and look pretty, is actually rather intelligent, and can do things by herself. But, all of this is quickly destroyed when she indicates that she would like to help destroy the Cybemen, only to be told that it is "men's work". This is blatantly awful, and it's quite annoying to think that elements of this blatant sexism can exist in Doctor Who. Watching it reminded me of The Secret Seven books, by Enid Blyton, which would frequently feature a scene akin to one of the boys telling the girls that they couldn't take part in the adventure, because it was for the men only. It's uncomfortable to view, because it serves as a reminder of the poor treatment of female characters in fiction, and also tells the young girls who are watching this story that they might not be able to fully partake in the adventure, due to their gender. And, come to think of it, there are no female scientists on the base either. This is thoroughly giving the impression that all women are good for is screaming and occasionally being useful, which is quite poor writing, despite any attempts to defend it as 'of its time'. What makes it a real shame is that this has been quite a nice little story, but it is hampered with the sexism of the time that makes it uncomfortable vieweing for an audience of today.

Day 150: The Moonbase Episode 2

The Moonbase also features the return of the Cybermen, which draws the question: why are the Cybermen returning? Their costumes have had a complete overhaul, so it clearly isn't for budgetary reasons, so it's probably for story reasons: they are incredibly creepy monsters. They have subtelty, a concept that the Daleks lack, and they are able to hide in corners and take out their prey. But that's not what makes the Cybermen scary, that instead lies in their emotionlessness. So here, they are just being used as generic monsters who want to take over the Earth, with the added bonus of not having to explain to the viewers who they are and why they are important. Bearing in mind that this is only episode 2 of 4, and that perhaps there could be darker factors that could be due to the Cybermen, this does not bode well for their second appearance on screen.

Day 149: The Moonbase Episode 1

This story is set on Earth's Moon. It's odd that Doctor Who hasn't visited the Moon before, given that it forms one of the key focuses of 1960's science fiction is the Moon. After Kennedy stated that we were going to reach the Moon by the end of the decade (even if he won't) the Moon became the mystical place whereby all problems would be solved and we would have colonies set up there by the year 2000. And so, when we visit the Moon for the first time, it feels ridiculously familiar due to all of the associated tropes with the Moon. There's a base which is populated by members of various nationalities, all allied together to help humanity. There are also ridiculous spacesuits, low gravity and all seems to be exactly as we think it should be. And that's the problem with setting things on the Moon, because by doing so, the programme becomes slightly dated as a result. While the Moon still exists, and there are the odd missions to it every once in a while, it is generally accepted by the wider populace that we will not be sending colonies to there any time soon, and so the overwhelmingly optimistic days of the past are now being seen as just that, dreams of the future that can't exist today. Does that mean that these Moon adventures are worthless? No, because sometimes we need blind optimism to give us something to look forward to. And I'd take The Moonbase's ridiculous spacesuits over depressing dystopias any day of the week.

Day 148: The Underwater Menace Episode 4

We've come to the end of Jamie's first adventure in the TARDIS, so let's make a brief comment on how he's fitting into the TARDIS crew. To be brutally frank though, he isn't making that much of an impression. This is mostly due to his character not orginally being in the story, so he takes the role that would have been taken by Ben in the original script, meaning that both character's roles are effectively halved from what they would originally fulfil which draws to attention the fact that Jamie is perhaps a bit of a bad idea. I'm not saying that he won't amount to much, because he certainly will, it's just that the series is now running with two young male leads, and this is causing a bit of a problem as it means that the characters just don't really work well together. What we have is a crowded TARDIS, where we have three characters that writers have to figure out roles in the plot for, and that is possibly too much for the series to handle. What this means is that the series might have to lose a companion or two, and soon, if it wants to stay alive.

Day 147: The Underwater Menace Episode 3

The video clip at the top of this entry represents so much about this story. Because it really gets a wonderful chance to showcase the villain of the piece, Professor Zaroff, who has obviously gone on diving tours of French rivers, which is to say, he is completely In-Seine. But what's interesting about his insanity is how brutally it is portrayed. We see a man who is relatively in control of his actions at the start of the adventure, but he slowly loses it until, at the end of episode 3, he comes out with "NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!". Not that this insanity comes from nowhere, given that he is a man who is aiming to destroy the world not for revenge, but for the achievement of being the guy who blew up the Earth. So, what we have here is a character who is written and portrayed as hammily as possible, but is this actually a bad thing? On the one hand, it stretches credulity for the storyline, drawing to attention the fact that it is just a cheap BBC programme, where actors don't go to to engage with dramatic material, they just do it for a bit of fun. But, on the other hand, it is remarkably fun. And it's difficult to deny whilst watching Professor Zaroff go insane that you can't help but smile at what's happening, and that means that the series has the ability to not just have actors having fun on the set, but for this to translate through the screen to the audience. And that is part of why Doctor Who is successful, in that it can be an incredible amount of fun to watch. The question that has been over our heads for the past couple of weeks remains though, of whether Doctor Who can survive without William Hartnell. The answer is obvious though, as the show will now continue and continue. You see, NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP IT NOW!!

Day 146: The Underwater Menace Episode 2

The cliffhanger to the last episode ranks as one of the darker in the series' history, which is odd considering the sheer zaniness of everything that surrounds it. The context is that Polly is thrust into a surgery, where a menacing Doctor hold a hypodermic needle and states that after this tiny little jab, as far as she will be concerned, she will be a fish person. This is a terrifying fate as can be seen in the image to the right. But the transformation itself is not as terrifying as the way in which it is directed and performed, with the cliffhanger itself being placed right near the needle in question, building on the childhood fear of needles. And this is something that we haven't come across in Doctor Who as much over the course of the series so far, but we will do quite a bit over the coming years, and that is the idea of making ordinary things terrifying. In this case, we're building on things like hospitals and needles, things that children already view with a certain amount of unease, but after this they will probably have these things inextricably linked with turning into fish people. Indeed, it was deemed far too terrifying for Australian children, who had the offending scene cut out from the programme to protect their fragile minds, but this means that one of the only surviving sections of this story is this thoroughly disturbing scene, meaning that it's free to give nightmares of fish people for a whole new generation.

Day 145: The Underwater Menace Episode 1

Seriously though, there is no way that this could have
been taken seriously with costumes like these

Doctor Who has decided to visit a B-Movie, as we arrive in the lost kingdom of Atlantis. I say B-Movie not so much as an insult as a statement of fact, as the entire episode feels gloriously awful and yet entirely watchable. Take, for instance, the fact that Ben, Polly and Jamie are, for trespassing in this lost continent, being lowered into a shark pit, or the costumes, which defy ridiculousness as that's not strong enough of an adjective to describe them. This is not, I stress to add, a bad thing, because it brings another healthy dollop of fun to the series. People may dismiss this, but it's worth noting that when Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis, the current producer and script editor, came into the series, they wanted to make it far more serious, and this showed, particularly in stories like The Savages or The Tenth Planet, both very humourless adventures. But now we've reached a point where they're willing to accept fun and ridiculousness every once in a while, because you can't remain serious all of the time, sometimes it pays to just relax and have an adventure where everyone wears silly costumes. But, then again, there are hidden dark secrets behind even the silliest of moments, and we'll have a look at some of them later on...

Day 144: The Highlanders Episode 4

Perhaps the most significant part of this story is the fact that it introduces the Doctor's new travelling companion, a young Scot called Jamie. The major thing that's curious about this is how little the character actually appears in this story. I'll grant that it isn't like Katarina, or Dodo, both of whom were suddenly thrust upon the audience, but instead here we get a secondary character in a run of the mill adventure who is suddenly given the potential to be a companion. It's a brave move, particularly as it means that the audience, although they will to an extent know who the character is, is being expected to trust this new character as a protagonist. And one of the other interesting things is that he was explicitly introduced because they liked the character, given that they already have a young male lead in the form of Ben to take the action scenes. This shows great faith in the way that this character will develop on our screens, and it means that the series is continuing to change, even though it's already changed a fair deal, just in order to find the right combinations of ideas to work as a television programme.

And speaking of that, we also bid a vague farewell to something else this episode, the 'pure' historical stories, i.e. the adventures where the Doctor and co. encounter history and no other alien menaces. They've been written out of the series due to being too dull for audiences of the time, but that is selling them short massively, because they can be incredibly interesting and fun. Marco Polo, for instance, brings with it a great deal of knowledge of Asian culture, and we also get stories like The Myth Makers or The Romans, which take known historical quantities and play with them, creating a great deal of humour in the process. And then we get The Massacre, which is a genuinely good piece of television drama, with an absolutely brutal ending. But, we must accept the fact that some things, whilst they work for some, may not work for others, and so we bid a fond farewell to the pure historicals, and we say thank you for educating and entertaining us every once in a while over the past 144 days.

Day 143: The Highlanders Episode 3

A little while ago, I would have been in a bit of a pickle. Not because The Highlanders is bad, but because it is rather uninspiring, much like The Smugglers, and thus there would be little for me to write about, however there is fortunately one major saving grace: Patrick Troughton. It is absolutely shocking to see how quickly the Doctor has changed, from the grumpy old Hartnell Doctor to the more playful Troughton. Scenes such as those where he imitates a German doctor, or indeed the moment where he shouts out revolutionary phrases within a gaol cell, not because he genuinely believes in the power of the revolution, but instead because he enjoys hearing the sound of the echo come across as those which simply couldn't exist with Hartnell, due to his character simply not having as much fun. But what's also interesting to note is that Troughton only entered the role a couple of episodes ago, and yet he is clearly defined as his own character. For this, we must thank Gerry Davis, the script editor and co-writer of this story, who is able to provide an excellent continuity with character and so the show is able to settle more easily into this new Doctor. It's things like this that ensure that the show will run and continue to run for a long time.

Day 142: The Highlanders Episode 2

Let's have a talk about Polly. She's the Doctor's female companion, and is notable for being the first truly 'modern' companion, being a product of the 1960s youth scene. But she's also quite spunky, and this was something that I'd honestly never considered, thinking that she was just another one in a long line of screaming assistants, yet here she actually does things. While her new friend, Kirsty, worries about how they're all going to die and generally mopes about the place, Polly takes action, and kidnaps one of the Redcoat Lieutenants, before stealing all of his money and escaping his clutches. It's the sort of thing that we'd expect Ben or the Doctor to do, but here we're able to see that Polly is actually quite a forthright companion and is not willing to sit around and scream. It's things like this that draw to attention the fact that there are some things in Doctor Who that you never really think about, like The Highlanders, and perhaps it will bear more fruit as the story continues.

Day 141: The Highlanders Episode 1

A new adventure has started, this time delving into British history as we look at the war between England and Scotland. And I think that I'm right in saying that this is the first time in a Doctor Who historical that the English people have been portrayed as the bad guys, previously being either on the side of good, or at the very least with enough in them to make us sympathise with them. But here, they try to hang the Doctor and Ben, and hunt down Polly in order to capture her to be sent to prison. This is important because it shows how willing Doctor Who is to show history without the bias of nationalism, and it's able to simply tell a story in the way that it wants to. For example, when Ben and Polly meet English characters, they naturally assume that they will be on the side of good, but they fail to realise that history has them as far crueller than they are in their modern world as they have terrible things happen to them. It's a bit of a heavy handed message, yes, but it bears repeating: Who you think will be the good guys won't necessarily be good, no matter what your prejudices of them are. It's a point we might come back to later on as we continue our adventure with The Highlanders.