Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s)

by Robert Shearman

  I love the staging of the ambush itself, as the Daleks offer the Thals some provisions so they can lure them into the open and blast them. I love Tristram Cary’s scraping music, ever-growing in threat as the Daleks emerge from their hiding places to gun down Temmosus; I love the blocking of his dead body, draped over the meagre offerings of fruit... I even love the suggestion that the Daleks were trying to tempt the Thals further by giving them what looks like some rolls of toilet paper. I’m pretty sure that’s what it is, toilet paper, the corpse of the Thal leader stretched out before it as if, in death, still reaching for one final wipe. One wonders which Dalek scientist worked on the toilet-roll invention – quite possibly, it was the same one who practised modern art.

  And the cliffhanger is wonderful, especially as the previous story had suggested that this adventure might last for four weeks too. There’s the promise that the danger is over – the Thals have their own battles to face, but the regulars are free to escape in the TARDIS. Having spent a substantial part of the episode trying to get out of the Dalek city, the realisation that they’ve left their all-important bit of TARDIS machinery behind, and must now go back to the city to retrieve it, seems wonderfully cruel. It’s one of the joys of early Doctor Who, sadly lost when the show abandons using individual episode titles, that you could offer the audience the hint of an ending, only to deny them it. I think viewers are very canny about such elemental things as structure – they twig very quickly when Doctor Who’s format adopts the traditional four-parter time and time again, meaning that the end of episode one will be a monster reveal, the end of episode three will bring universal calamity and episode four will resolve it all tidily. By comparison, the original Dalek story lasts seven episodes, but the 1964 viewer would have no idea that this episode marks the halfway mark of the adventure. The despair shown as the camera pans across the regulars’ faces is so much more affecting when we don’t know, any more than they can, just how much longer they’ll be trapped in this nightmare. And it gives the illusion that the story is more epic as a result.

  T: This is a tense affair – Cary’s music is gratingly foreboding as the Daleks glide seamlessly and in synchronicity to await their chance to slaughter the Thals. There’s a lovely shot from behind a Dalek as Temmosus enters, cunningly emphasising that the thing is hiding there, listening and seemingly pressed against the wall. You know it spells danger for the Thal leader, who has frankly banged on too much about peaceful coexistence to survive what comes next.

  I initially thought Alan Wheatley’s rather misty eyed, poised delivery as Temmosus talks about his hopes for peace between the Daleks and Thals was deliberate – a technical necessity so he could stare profoundly into the distance and not notice the four Daleks nestled, oh, about three inches away from him. But then he blows it completely by looking around at the end of his speech, and then having to pretend he hasn’t seen them before Ian shouts a warning for benefit of anyone who doesn’t have eyes. To be fair, though, this is a difficult sequence to pull off, and it’s generally achieved very well.

  Indeed, the programme-makers successfully orchestrate a fair bit of technical stuff in this episode, don’t they? We see the Daleks on film for the first time, in that great, tense sequence as they use a cutting torch to burn through a door. And there’s the way the lift shoots up and down with people in it – I still have no idea how they did that effect, but it looks great. The city corridors are similarly wonderful – there are Dalek-shaped and sized doors, which cramp our heroes magnificently in what would otherwise be a saunter down a hallway.

  Oh, and if you thought the Dalek sculpture was strange, I’ll take your modern-art and raise you a Pac-Man, which clearly adorns the walls of the ambush chamber. Thanks also for pointing out Virginia Wetherell... I’d not really noticed her much, as her character doesn’t do an awful lot, but now I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s so bad – utterly bored and not really trying – it’s captivating.

  January 5th

  The Expedition (The Daleks episode five)

  R: “My dear child, this is no time for morals!” Forget threatening to kill a caveman with a rock, there’s no more shocking example of how alien Hartnell’s Doctor is than here. I love the first few minutes of the episode; I love its anger and its honest attempt to put on screen a genuine moral quandary. For the sake of the action, we know full well that the Thals are going to have to attack the Daleks, simply because that’s the standard template for so very many Doctor Who stories. Before too long, the cliché of the TARDIS crew siding with the rebels to overthrow a totalitarian regime will become so second nature, the ambiguity of whether these outsiders have the right to topple a government just because they can won’t even be acknowledged. (And by the time of, say, The Happiness Patrol, it’ll be such an endemic part of the programme, the Doctor will go to planets specifically to see whether he can topple regimes in a single night!)

  The disgust that Ian shows for the selfishness of Barbara and the Doctor – that they’re quite prepared to goad the Thals into revolution simply so they can recover the fluid link from the Dalek city – makes me think, say, of how easily we’ll come to accept the way that the Doctor will upend entire societies on Zanak or the third moon of Delta Magna just so he can wave a segment of the Key to Time and then merrily set on his way. Much has been said about how this Dalek story reflects the Nazis and the Second World War – but it’s only watching it now that I can be impressed by the dubious realpolitik of the TARDIS crew starting a war to free a bunch of oppressed people they have no kin with (even the Doctor says that the Thals’ problems are no concern of theirs), simply so they can gain something for themselves. It’s not so unlike overthrowing Saddam Hussein because you want cheaper oil. The sequence where Ian supposedly shows the sham of pacifism, by provoking Alydon into hitting him, is perhaps a bit pat – but it works precisely because before he does so, Ian makes it perfectly clear to his friends that it is pat. For the story to work, the Thals have to be prepared to fight; for the story to be an action-adventure, the Thals have to put aside their entire culture and moral convictions. (And the next time we see them, they’ll be those strange gun-toting soldiers we meet in Planet of the Daleks – who, if anything, are even blander as characters than the ones we have here.) Once the argument has played out, that’s it; the Thals are committed to the Doctor’s little war, and we’ll never face that moral dilemma again – but at least it was a moral dilemma, even if only for a few minutes, and in one of my favourite-ever sequences of Doctor Who.

  You’ve got to admire Christopher Barry too. He’s the more dynamic of the two directors assigned to this story, and while he’s here given a rather talky episode here, he almost busts a gut trying to make it as visually interesting as possible. Sometimes he almost tries too hard – Ian and Barbara’s argument about their responsibility to the Thals almost loses its focus because Susan has unaccountably climbed a tree just behind them, meaning that Carole Ann Ford’s feet sway into shot above their heads. But there’s a delightful moment where the camera pans up from a reflective Alydon in mid-conversation to settle on Barbara behind him, unseen, watching him. Or there’s that really strange bit where we see from a Dalek’s point of view, not through its eyestalk, but from the hole behind its sink plunger!

  T: Christopher Barry really is going for it in this episode, isn’t he? I love the Dalek going “Ahh, arg!” – remember: just because something is a staccato creature of hate, it doesn’t mean it can’t enunciate when it feels pain.

  Overall, there’s altogether much more going on in this episode, and a feeling of urgency. The dialogue sparkles for the first time in this adventure – the verbal sparring between the regulars is very well done, and you find yourself changing sides as the argument about the morality of pushing the Thals to war progresses. William Russell is very good at suggesting that he knows he’s doing the right thing, but he’s not very happy about it; he gives a much more complex performance than he’s sometimes given credit for. And I had to
chuckle when Ian grabbed Dyoni, suggesting he could take her to the Daleks so they can experiment on her. He’s right – they could inject some life into her, for starters.

  But the production team, I think, deserves credit for being mad enough to try this episode at all. A modern crew would baulk at having to mount a trek through a swamp with marsh mutations, never mind the additional jungle and metal-city sets thrown in for good measure. And if you told them they’d have to do it indoors and in the space of a week, they’d probably tell you to sod off. So what’s achieved in The Expedition seems so miraculous (there’s even something malevolent about the eyes on the inflato-octopus that rises from the swamp), I can readily forgive the odd misstep, such as the way the “menacing swamp creature” that Ian kills is quite obviously a stock-footage caterpillar.

  This is a very odd way to write a quest story, though – characters are bumped off throughout, but they never have much depth to them. In particular, Elyon is only given anything to do immediately before he’s killed. Part of the fun of adventures like this is working out who is going to live or die, but for that to work, you have to have some investment in the characters, no matter how perfunctory. What’s funny is that I read the novelisation to this story in my youth, and really liked the strong, brave Kristas with whom Ian forms something of a bond – only to find out that in the TV version, he’s a rather tall actor who says about two lines and does his best to look grim when the situation requires it. If you’re paying an actor, you may as well give him something to do – even if it’s just to produce a picture of his sweetheart back home and talk of the unborn son he’ll get to see “once this bally war business is at an end”.

  Towards the end of the episode, there were two things I hadn’t ever noticed before. One is the way that Ganatus goes to sleep on Barbara’s leg (the tiger), and the other a bit more shocking – it’s the way Elyon’s scream turns into gurgle, with the noise suggesting he’s being dragged under water and is choking. It’s grim, but an effective way of ending the episode and raising the stakes.

  The Ordeal (The Daleks episode six)

  R: The little romance that develops between Barbara and Ganatus comes out of nowhere – but it’s really well played by Jacqueline Hill, and it goes some way to humanising Philip Bond too. I know you’ve liked his performance, Toby, but I feel he’s been a bit inclined to play his lines as if he’s declaiming blank verse – and he clearly now seizes the chance to find a lighter side to his Thal in leathers. There’s not very much detail given to any of this in the script, but the way that Hill and Bond play against some of their more doom-laden lines helps enormously, finding affectionate banter that probably wasn’t intended. It’s lovely. And it gives a bit more depth to the relationship between Ian and Barbara too; in the sequence where Barbara jumps over the chasm to be caught by Ian, they’re both a bit embarrassed by the physical contact, William Russell clearly trying to be as formal as possible. Smashing stuff.

  Ah yes, the chasm sequence. It goes on forever, as we watch each of the characters one by one take a running jump into the darkness. It ought to be very boring, but it works so well precisely because it is so painstaking – and there’s one frightened Thal waiting his inevitable turn with dread. There’s a similar sequence in Voyage of the Damned, where the starship Titanic survivors are required to make a demonstration of bravery across a yawning abyss – and there you have the CGI effects, the sense of depth and killer robots to boot. But what the 2007 story doesn’t have is time – and the “ordeal” mentioned in the episode title is so much more awful because as an audience, we’re allowed to contemplate how terrified we too would be in that situation. Antodus is really only characterised in the broadest of strokes as “the cowardly Thal”, and Marcus Hammond doesn’t find much in the part other than to panic at two different volumes – but that shot where Hammond numbly lets the thrown rope fall slack against him, not even bothering to pick it up, is a terrific picture of rigid terror.

  And I love the scene in which the Daleks phone up one of their engineers to ask about the progress on the neutron bomb, and how disgruntled they are when told it’ll take 23 days to finish. They couldn’t be more disappointed if they were told they’d also have to pay extra for a call-out charge.

  T: Bless Antodus, he’s very stroppy. He’s got that puffy lower jaw and permanently downturned mouth while Terry Nation is busy carving “Sacrifice yourself bravely to achieve redemption” on his forehead. Everyone else seems very polite on this escapade, though – Ian compliments Kristas on his chasm-jump in such a way, it’s as if he’s tacitly apologising for the Thal being much more interesting in the book than he’s allowed to be on screen.

  Meanwhile, Richard Martin – directing episodes three, six and seven of this story – gives us an ambitious mirrored shot to suggest the camera looking down on Ganatus, and later shoots everyone from as far back as possible, showing the party negotiating the tunnel in a manner that predates a similar effect from Graeme Harper in The Caves of Androzani. He also illustrates the subtext of the Daleks by having them do a Nazi salute with their suckers (so, it wasn’t just in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, as I’d always thought!). Then, alas, the Daleks somewhat spoil the moment by buggering up their supposedly synchronised chanting. Still, it was a nice thought.

  “We won’t use one of the customs of your planet,” says Ganatus, in a wonderfully naive attempt to display the difference between aliens and humans. You’ll need to do better than that if you want to crack this sci-fi lark, Mr Nation. Still, I love it for its twee sixties innocence, and I’ll forgive Philip Bond almost anything as he’s working his socks off again. There’s a lovely moment later where he’s thrown a torch and gives a brilliant look back to the chucker, acknowledging that they’d done a good throw and suggesting his admiration. It’s a tiny moment, but one that keeps things real and interesting.

  January 6th

  The Rescue (The Daleks episode seven)

  R: In a rush to reach its conclusion, the story strains and buckles under its desire to be epic. After an episode and a half of dodging rockfalls and jumping chasms, Ian and his party reach the Dalek city in time to bump into Alydon’s mob in a corridor – which rather emphasises the fact that had they simply gone together and walked in the front door, they’d have saved themselves a lot of bother. And there’s an element of farce to the final battle itself – everyone’s gamefully putting a bit of welly into it, but there isn’t the space to make Nation’s climax pay off. As with a lot of Doctor Who stories, the greater the attempt to make the threat, and the grander the scale on which the adventure is framed, the more perfunctory the resolution.

  So it’s in the smaller, more intimate moments that the episode hits its mark, such as Alydon’s bemused acceptance of the Doctor’s handshake, or the way that Dyoni bends down in wonder at the space that the dematerialised TARDIS had previously occupied. And the final goodbyes between Barbara and Ganatus are especially effective – all the more so when you consider that with all the blood and thunder and corridor chasing, there hasn’t been time this week for them even to share a bit of dialogue together. Their entire relationship is therefore built upon one scene in episode six, but I still love the way that Ganatus nobly (too nobly, actually) kisses Barbara’s hand like the Shakespeare tragedian that Philip Bond has largely played him as. Then Barbara, so impulsively, gives Ganatus a kiss on the cheek.

  It’s also the first time that the Dalek voices begin to sound properly imitable, taking on the panic that we’ve come to expect as the Thals invade their city. They sound much more like petulant or frightened children here, just perfect for kids in the playground to have fun with. The sequence where the Dalek begs help from the Doctor as it loses power almost forms the template for how they’re going to talk ever afterwards; they become less concerned with conversations involving long words, and are more interested in barking hysterical orders. You’ve got to admire, too, the way that in its last moment before death, the Dalek flips its eyestalk up at a right
angle. It almost feels like its final action is to give Hartnell the finger.

  T: Well, at least the cowardly Antodus dies bravely – cutting his support line so his teammates won’t also plunge to their deaths. We can be safe in the knowledge though, that his bloodline of baffling grumpiness and petulance will continue, as history teaches us he has impregnated the mother of every single character subsequently played in the series by Prentis Hancock.

  The countdown to the Daleks unleashing nuclear waste into the atmosphere is a staple in drama of this kind, but this one reminds me of when I’m counting sternly at the kids to try to stop them from doing something naughty, but with no actual intention of meting out a punishment. The tick-tock towards doomsday proceeds so laboriously, our heroes are given just enough time to sneak in and be victorious, and you can almost hear the Daleks going “When we get to zero, you’re definitely in trouble, three, I’m warning you, two and a half, seriously, you’ll be for the high jump when I get to zero, two and a quarter, please just do as you’re told or, oh alright, but next time I’ll definitely release a nuclear holocaust and not let you watch Lazytown for a week!”

  I keep getting diverted, though, by the status of my hero, Kristas. First off, he doesn’t appear to be blond anymore! Go on, take a look... perhaps he cast his wig off in protest about his lack of lines, and that’s why Jonathan Crane’s credits on IMDb stretch this far and no further. But then I see that Kristas has survived being shot by the Daleks! He’s emerged (at least, in my own little happy place) as a Thal superhero! Casting off his wig has given him special powers!