Day 85: The Exploding Planet

The story that this episode concludes, known as Galaxy 4, is mainly known for it's basic storyline, which concerns the fact that the quite attractive Drahvins are pitted against the quite ugly Rills, with the twist being that the Drahvins are evil and the Rills are quite lovely. This isn't that much of an original concept, coming from the old adage of not judging a book by its cover. But it is still somewhat relevant today, particularly in a scene between a Rill and Steven that takes place in this episode. Steven has currently landed on a planet, been quite nice to some quite attractive women, been kept captive by these women, and in the process of attempting to escape was almost killed by these people, and here, he questions his rescuers. He is untrusting of the Rills at first, which is saddening, because it shows what the blinding effects of prejudice, as people can remain untrusting of others, despite what they may have done to help, all because of how they might look, or sound, and other such nonsense that leads to wars and the like. Because, even though we may be trained by society to not like the unlike, sometimes we should question society, and put a bit of faith into people, because you never know, they might be the ones who help you off an exploding planet someday in the future.

Day 84: Air Lock

First things first, this episode was found a couple of years ago, completely out of the blue. My recollection of discovering this news was to fall out of my chair in the middle of a study period and to walk around for the rest of the day with a massive smile on my face. Which is odd, because this story isn't really that well regarded, indeed due to being missing from the archives for several years, it was just a story that most people had never seen before. But upon watching it, it becomes apparent that it's actually not that bad. The story isn't that spectacular, yes, but the direction is absolutely phenomenal. It was previously mentioned that Derek Martinus showed promise in the brief pieces of surviving footage for this story, and seeing him do a full episode is spectacular. He has a fondness for crane shots, showing off the alien spaceships well by bringing to light their alienness. We are able to truly witness alien structures, as opposed to just seeing the same shot of three people over and over again.

One other thing that Martinus brings is the way he directs a monologue from Maaga, which chooses to, as it becomes more and more horrific, as she describes the destruction of the planet, keep a never ending close up on her unblinking face, bringing to light her despicable nature, as the audience slowly turns towards the notion that she might not have the best intentions for the people around her. We also, in another scene, witness her killing one of her fellow crewmembers, who was obviously in some distress at the time, and she chooses to blame it on the Rills, the other species occupying this doomed planet. And this is cruel because the Rills are peaceful, and she probably knows this, or is unwilling to ask, instead choosing to make things easier for herself, to help her maintain order so that her crewmembers know that they have nowhere to turn to, and that she is their only hope. Fear is something which brings us all together, but there are those who only use it to further their own goals. We must stand up against these people, and realise that whilst there are some things to fear, sometimes it's better to open up negotiations with the monsters and find out about why they are here, instead of jumping to conclusions.

Day 83: Trap of Steel

Peter Purves, the actor who played Steven, has stated his disappointment with this story, on the grounds that it wasn't actually written for him. The story was commissioned before it was known that he would join the TARDIS crew, and as such, it had to be rewritten to allow for a new character to be introduced. And so naturally, this young male hero, filling the gap that was left through the departure of Ian Chesterton, fulfils the role in this story originally taken by Barbara Wright. Which makes it a little awkward. We know that Steven is a little bit more action oriented than what he is given to do in this script, which involves using wits in an attempt to escape, a scene which does come across as quite nice, but it is obvious that it was written with someone else in mind.

So why was this decision made, why didn't Steven go off to have action based fun with the Doctor? Well, there are two reasons. The first is that we need someone on the ship, allowing what happens on the ship to become more relatable, as we know that when we cut back to the spaceship adventures, we know that they are worth viewing as a character that we already know is in immediate danger due to the events that happen on the ship, we want them to survive what happens here and so we remain interested in the story.

But there's also another reason, and it's simple. The writer, William Emms, may not have known about Steven, but they certainly knew about Vicki. And so, they are able to take the relationship of the Doctor and Vicki and have fun with it, bringing out some of the on screen chemistry between the two actors, and allowing to show a wonderful teacher-student relationship. This would have been impossible with Susan, as it is a fundamental part of the series that Susan knows more about the universe than the viewer, and thus to see her having to be taught betrays the whole concept of the character. But with Vicki, we are able to show her learning from the Doctor and his compatriots, a relationship that simply wouldn't transfer to the connection developed with Steven and the Doctor, which is more similar to what was developed with the relationship between the Doctor and Ian. Which, I suppose, brings up the question of what Ian's role in the plot would be, which I can't answer, but I assume that it would be him with the Doctor and Vicki, but as we need someone with on the villainous Drahvin ship, that role falls to Steven, as Vicki already has her place in the plot. For it is better to write one character well, and one character poorly, than to end up with all characters written poorly and a poor story to show for it.

Day 82: Four Hundred Dawns

We begin a new series today with what seems to be just a standard run of the mill episode. It takes place on a world that's going to be destroyed in a couple of days, and the TARDIS crew are being held there against their will by the seemingly evil Maaga, who, whilst to all intents and purposes is acting reasonably friendly, is so obviously evil that you half expect her to have Sean Connery tied up in a chair somewhere off screen for purposes of torture. But the sad thing about this episode is that little video footage exists of it, most of it was wiped from the BBC archive, and what remains is about a 5 minute clip of mostly dialogue and a few pieces of footage from some bloke with a video camera pointed at the TV. But what does exist shows that the director, Derek Martinus, seems to be quite innovative, with a wonderful ability to move camera positions from looking down at something to moving in one manoeuvre to a level position with the other cameras. It's a shame that this one is lost, because the direction does seem as if it would lift this story up.