Day 77: The Planet of Decision

We've reached the end of the adventure. Not just the adventure featuring Daleks chasing a police telephone box through time and space, but the adventure of two school teachers, who were whisked away through time and space by an old man and his curious granddaughter. The end has come for Ian and Barbara, the two human interest characters who have been with the show since the very beginning. They've finally been given a chance to go home, and they've grasped it with both hands, finally able to return to the place for which they have been yearning for the past 77 episodes.

Ian, the young male hero, as been superb. He began it as the antagonist for the Doctor, able to show him that there were better ways to do things, and able to be strong when the show needed strength. He settled down in later stories, and became able to spar with the Doctor, but on a more intellectual sense. Take, for instance, the escape scene in this very episode. Here, they find themselves on a roof 1500 feet in the air, and both have to work together to find a solution to their problem. They greet it as a challenge, and quickly find a way to get down together. Through him, the Doctor has been able to become more active, and show more than just a passing interest in other races and people.

Barbara, his female compatriot, has often acted as the series' conscience. She has been able to point out injustices, and more often than not, acted in the way that normal human beings would in most scenarios. She tended to her fellow slaves when she was captured in The Romans, as well as saving the life of a caveman who only 2 seconds previously had been attempting to kill her. She's also been brave, standing up to Daleks, the Animus and the Morphoton amongst others. Through her, the Doctor has been able to care for others, and develop from being an unlikeable character to a more charming person, allowing us to grow and care for him.

Ian and Barbara have been the very best of humanity, and have been the true heroes of the series. And it's through them that the series shall continue, because they have allowed the Doctor to finally become the hero of his own show. It's often commented that the first handful of episodes show a completely unrecognisable Doctor from the one that we know and love today, but now, more than ever, we can truly state that this man, thanks to two random schoolteachers, is The Doctor.

Day 76: The Death of Doctor Who

It does look vaguely like William Hartnell. If you happen to
have lost your sight.

This episode's bonkers idea is that the Daleks have created a robot double of the Doctor, who will infiltrate and destroy the TARDIS crew. If you look to the left, you shall observe the actor who they used for his scenes, who looks nothing like William Hartnell at all, thus foiling their plan for the viewing audience at home. But let's look at the idea in detail. We're playing off the old concept of the familiar becoming unfamiliar, as we see a character attempt to kill others whom we have come to respect and admire. And on the occasions when the production team decide to use William Hartnell to play the robot double, it becomes genuinely unsettling to see him be evil, and try and kill his friends. Of course, as this is a clone story, we are in desperate need of a scene where we have to figure out which one is which. Here, that task falls to Ian, who picks up a rock and attempts to bludgeon the person who he thinks is the robot, not knowing that it is actually the Doctor. And this acts as a nice call back to the first adventure, where the Doctor was possibly going to attack a caveman with a rock, and kill him. Now we see him faced in the same situation, on the receiving end. But now, we see him as a hero, a figure to be admired. The audience can tell which one is the real Doctor, not by the way he looks, but by the way he acts. We are confronted with a man who is callous and nasty, against a man who had elements of that at first, but has grown before our eyes into a hero. Here, the time travel isn't across the fourth dimension, but showing us the past of our characters, and showing us how far we've come.

Day 75: Journey Into Terror

Interesting episode, this week, as the TARDIS lands in a house whereupon they meet Count Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Grey Lady. They escape in the nick of time, accidentally leaving behind Vicki, but the audience gets to see some horror monsters destroy Daleks. Let's start with the accidental leaving behind of Vicki. In leaving her behind, she is forced to stowaway on the Daleks' ship, which makes for a compelling concept. Danger now lurks at every corner even more so, and if she is captured then it is quite clear that she will be killed. The audience doesn't know what will happen to Vicki, we don't entirely know if she will make it out of this story alive. To see a character's life put in danger, not knowing that they'll survive, is a fearful concept, but one that is done reasonably well here.

Now to the beating up of the Daleks. It's interesting that they decided to show the Daleks as weak here, compared to the offerings that would have featured strongly in cinemas at the time, as it clearly makes sense to show the Daleks as supreme, conquering all lesser races. And yet, they are being destroyed, and shown as weak. But perhaps it's a comment on their very nature. It is revealed that these horrifying monsters are not real, but just amusement park attractions that have been abandoned, thus meaning that they are fictional. So the Daleks are being destroyed by fiction itself, in effect, the very conceit that they are not real. The thing that makes things terrifying is plausibility, it's why monsters get less scary as you get older, because you learn to see through the cracks and find how these things can't exist, and so for the Daleks to be confronted by things that are implausible, acting as mirrors to their own selves by showing them to be implausible metal monsters, it makes sense that they are destroyed, as they lose their edge, in the battle against implausibility.

Day 74: Flight Through Eternity

The Daleks, not content with invading the hearts and minds of children everywhere, have decided to invade history as well, through the use of a time machine. In their travels, they come across a sailing ship, and cause the entire crew to abandon ship out of fear of these evil metal creatures. This ship is later revealed to be the Mary Celeste in what must be one of the more bonkers twists in Doctor Who history. It wasn't things like piracy or drunkenness that caused the Mary Celeste to lose all hands, it was the Daleks. But let's move back to the opening statement. Kids are fascinated by the Daleks, and it stands to reason that they are making up stories about them, and that all sorts of weird stuff occurs in these stories. So if they were to discover about the mystery of the Mary Celeste, it is indeed possible that they would consider whether the Daleks would destroy them, in a way that only the imagination of a child could. The next handful of episodes will certainly continue along this thread, of amazing action happening to the Doctor and co., but more specifically, the Daleks, as we delve into a story that just feels fun, or to put it more bluntly, 'totes amazeballs'.

Day 73: The Death of Time

So the plot of this particular serial revolves around the Doctor and co. being chased through time and space by the Daleks, who have the Doctor as their sworn enemy, meaning that it's now official, the Doctor has moved up through the ranks from mild inconvenience to sworn enemy. How lovely, I hope he got a card or something to celebrate this momentous occasion. Because it is momentous, it marks the first time that enemies have acknowledged previous knowledge of the Doctor, and that they bear some sort of grudge against him. It shows a character who is becoming notorious for his actions, and that he is being recognised for this. The Doctor is being recognised for his meddling in the affairs of evil creatures, which allows for a sense of continuity to develop. Continuity is important, it means that the series is not just adventure after adventure each week, it allows for things to develop. Here, the Doctor's actions are shown to have consequences, allowing for the Daleks to acknowledge him as a threat and seek him out through time and space to destroy him.

But there is a nagging feeling that something's wrong with all of this. The Doctor has faced the Daleks twice, so far. Defeating someone twice over the course of several centuries does not make you sworn enemies, it should just be viewed as a coincidence. There are two ways that we can read this. One, the Daleks are really quite pernickety and see these two defeats as blemishes that should be wiped out through travelling through time and getting revenge on the person who did it. The other way, and my personal favourite, is that these Daleks are not the Daleks that you think that they are. They are Daleks from the future, travelling back in time to prevent the Doctor's meddling in future affairs, and in doing so, they create some of the opening shots during the Time War. I like the last explanation because it allows for the continuity that has developed around the Doctor to make more sense, and that this continuity will develop over the course of over fifty years. Because the Doctor is leaves footprints, and it  stands to reason that he ought to be noticed.

Day 72: The Executioners

The two most important things in the cultural landscape of the United Kingdom as of 1965 appear within 10 minutes of eachother within this episode. The first is the Daleks. We've probably spoken before about how important they are, but to sum up they combine a post war fear of the Nazis with a spectacular design and an uncanny knack to be able to be imitated by children in playgrounds. They took the country by storm, and allowed for a wave of Dalekmania to hit the streets, there were Dalek toys, comic books, films, they were everywhere. It could be stated that they were the most important creations in the 1960s.

But anyone who says that is thick. Because we move on to the second thing that appears in this episode, the Beatles. They appear through stock footage, and are viewed through a time-space visualiser, but the undeniable fact is that they allowed for them to be put into Doctor Who, and indeed, it is reported that they wished to film a guest appearance where they played senile versions of themselves (in what would be one of the most depressing appearances of John Lennon and George Harrison ever). I don't need to talk about how important the Beatles are, but it's worth mentioning their appearance here shows one simple fact. Doctor Who is acknowledging 'cool'. They are putting the Daleks and the Beatles in the same episode because they are 'cool'. And whilst the cynic wishes to say, why should you try to be cool, cool things are all stupid, there's still an admiration to be had that the Beatles did actually want to be in Doctor Who. Because like it or not, the Daleks were the coolest creatures in the universe for a good couple of years, and they allowed Doctor Who to be cool through association, thus making this little show into a well watched viewing delight. This serial, by the name of The Chase, is one where the Daleks chase the Doctor and co. through space and time. And through doing so, they are able to excite children everywhere with their exploits. Because like it or not, Doctor Who is a show that excites children, because Doctor Who is one of the most important things in the cultural landsacpe of the United Kingdom for a good chunk of the past 50 or so years. And that's because, Doctor Who is cool.

Day 71: The Final Phase

Halfway through this episode, the Doctor and co. discuss whether they have changed the future at all, and whether the events that they have performed have really made any difference to their plights. It should come across as a depressing scene, with a semblance of hope at the end, as they comment that while they may not be able to change the future, they can possibly have their future changed for them through other forces, such as the revolution that has been started with the help of Vicki. However, there is one small detail that has been wonderfully forgotten and I was shocked that this was not picked up on in the entire story. Barbara has her cardigan on in the 'future' version of her. Midway through episode 2, it is taken off to make a trail, so that they don't end up getting lost in the museum. And in destroying that cardigan, they change the future. One of my personal little joys is the notion that even the tiniest of choices can change the very future of the Earth, because it means that everything and everyone is in their own way, important. In changing what clothes Barbara was wearing, a chain reaction was set off that prevented them from being placed as exhibits forever. But what really thrills me is that this is a tiny story feature, never mentioned, but to the observant viewer, it stands as an easter egg, allowing the plot conclusion to be foreshadowed. One of my favourite things that the internet has brought up is the amount of Easter Eggs placed in films foreshadowing their conclusion, and it;s nice to see Doctor Who doing that in 1965.