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

by Robert Shearman

  So what’s brilliant about this episode is that it hides its main theme – the way that these complacent humans treat their subordinates – in full view. As Steven says, nothing’s really changed – Man still responds to mob rule, he’ll still strike out in paranoia at the unknown. And what’s a little casual racism between friends either?

  Which is not to say that the crisis of this episode – the cold epidemic – isn’t an interesting idea in its own right. At last, the Doctor is forced to consider the responsibility of his travels, in a way that it is normally only considered in historicals. The scene where Steven ponders just how much damage the TARDIS crew have potentially caused to other civilisations, by unwittingly spreading diseases throughout time and space, has the Doctor tell him that it doesn’t bear thinking about – but that’s just it, it has to. Straight after The Massacre and Steven’s tirade against the Doctor in the TARDIS, we have new darker implications to face about the consequences of these funny little adventures we go on every Saturday night on BBC1. That John Wiles, do you think he was much fun at parties?

  T: I’m really enjoying this, because it refuses to conform to how Doctor Who is supposed to be, and is resolute in giving us a different kind of story. Okay, there’s a trial and a gathering together of stuff in test tubes – which we have seen, respectively, in The Keys of Marinus and The Sensorites. But here, they actually function in terms of the wider plot and character. And it’s brilliantly directed – Michael Imison even takes the time to restage last week’s cliffhanger, so that an assembled crowd actually reacts to Zentos’ announcement that they might all die (as opposed to last week, when one of the extras greeted the news by wiping her hair away from her face and noticing something on her shoe). And the director’s eye continues to help convey the sense of scale – there are the different monitor-shots of Monoids collapsing across the Ark, and there’s a lovely effects shot as the dead Monoid’s body is ejected into space. There’s also a great visual of a Monoid feeding Monica.

  But the script has some excellent moments too, particularly Steven’s speech about however advanced mankind might seem, its fear of the unknown is still great. I hate optimistic futures where no-one is acquisitive and each man knows his place; call me a cynic if you must, but human nature isn’t like that. Even in this supposedly advanced and idyllic society, “every fibre” of Zentos’ being is unjustifiably prejudiced. And Hartnell gets a lovely moment too, when Dodo starts crying and he doesn’t quite know how to react – he looks around uselessly, unable to deal with this display of emotion. (I’m less sure, though, when Dodo uses the word dodgy and he tells her that things are about to get “doggier” (sic) – is that what they get up to in the Monoid buggies?)

  At the end of this skilful and smart episode, we get that fantastic shot of the Earth being destroyed and the Doctor skilfully counselling Zentos that he must “travel with understanding as well as hope”, and that absolutely superb cliffhanger. All of this, and Michael bloody Sheard makes his first Doctor Who appearance! Three cheers for all of that!

  The Return (The Ark episode three)

  R: ... and sometimes you’re left just thinking, “Everything I thought was good about a previous episode, all the cleverness I found there – was I just imagining it all, or what?”

  With a reminder to myself that I’m meant to be finding the things to enjoy in these episodes... I think Eileen Helsby, playing Venussa, one of the subjugated humans, gives one of those lovely sincere performances that always tend to get overlooked. She shows the right sort of hope against her friend’s defeatism when she hears about the legendary Doctor returning, and the right sort of disgust when talking to a collaborator. They’re not complex scenes, these, but she pitches them perfectly. And you can tell that the director is working as hard as he can to keep this episode as inventive as the previous two. Those camera shots from above are interesting to look at, and rather cleverly suggest the importance of the statue to the story as well. But sometimes, the cleverness runs away with itself. It’s great fun to have sequences showing that you can produce a heap of potatoes by dropping a tablet into a bit of water, but it does rather suggest that the slaves working in the security kitchen (I love that phrase, security kitchen) aren’t having to exert themselves too much. And although there’s a good reason why the house on Refusis looks a bit like the front room of where my parents used to live – with nice tables and vases everywhere – it’s neither jarring enough for any of the characters to comment upon it, and far too jarring to fit in with the design elsewhere.

  And otherwise... oh, hell with it, let’s be honest. This is a bit rubbish, isn’t it? The scene in which the evil Monoid gives away his plans to Dodo, and then tries to backtrack when like a finger-wagging schoolteacher she calls him on it, is tooth-hurtingly twee – it’s drama pitched at the infant level. It’s even worse than the sequence in which that same Monoid tries to anger the Refusians by smashing a vase and throwing their flowers on the floor – and that’s saying something. The Monoids had a strange presence to them before, when they were hidden in the background and patronised by the cast; now that they sound like Roy Skelton and waddle about with big guns, they just look ludicrous. The worst of it all is that any themes about the way Man treats its slave races is not only squandered by turning them into two-dimensional villains, but even seems to justify that very treatment. We’re not in Planet of the Ood territory here; the Monoids didn’t revolt because they were oppressed. On the contrary, the lead Monoid (wonderfully named One) says that the reason they took charge was because the humans ultimately were a bit too nice to them. The message being, I suppose, if you want to keep your fuzzy wuzzies in check, don’t give them an inch.

  Bah.

  T: Well, I’m not sure... One says that the Guardians helped the Monoids to develop their voice boxes and heat prods, but not that this was the reason for the revolt. Sort of. Either way, discovering the consequences of the Doctor’s actions by revisiting the same place some centuries in the future is a great, interesting concept that we haven’t seen before. The idea that the formerly lethal cold mutated and sapped Man’s will is a clever one, and puts the onus of setting things right on the travellers’ shoulders. And the Monoids’ gesticulation makes absolute sense, as they used sign language before they developed their Zippy synthesisers, so it’s logical that they’d continue to be demonstrative. I’ll take what’s seen here over bringing in Roslyn de Winter to do, for instance, some “Monoid Movement” any day.

  The Refusian Barratt Home that you rightly mention is a curious blip in what’s otherwise an exemplary design; the space-launcher chair that flips when the door opens and turns into steps, and the mountain-backdropped Refusian jungle are most impressive. (When this story is restored for its DVD release, it’s going to look fabulous.) And who cares about the logic of it – I love the space-potato pills. It’s another throwaway effect that looks impressive without making a song and dance about itself.

  I do get the nagging sense, though, that after the thoughtful and elegant ideas at work in his previous two episodes, Paul Erickson has given up trying to be clever. His attempts at futuristic dialogue are unintentionally hilarious – Dassuk asks how the Doctor’s party has returned after all these centuries with “How in space could you do it?” And Venussa does that impossible thing you often find in a Terry Nation script – she’s already conversant in the language, idioms and culture of people she’s only just met, when she describes one of the subject Guardians to Steven as, “What you’d call a collaborator.”

  The biggest mystery here, though, is why Two’s manservant Yendom seems to die with his arms sticking up in the air, as if he’s a dead cat.

  February 25th

  The Bomb (The Ark episode four)

  R: Even though the story is working its way towards a climax, there’s a lot more time this week for little moments of subtlety. Take for example, the look that’s passed between Venussa and Dassuk when she elects to stay behind on the Ark with Steven to search for
the bomb; it’s as if she’s dumped him for Peter Purves, and he goes off to Refusis spurned. At the end of the story, as they contemplate future generations, Eileen Helsby and Brian Wright manage to make it look as if they’re referring to their own children – they’ve patched things up, and going to make a go of it. It’s an example of two actors getting together and finding something to do, some little character arc they can play out to make the job more interesting, even if there’s no script evidence for it whatsoever. And it’s really rather wonderful.

  Or there’s the little subplot concerning Maharis, the quisling human. He’s genuinely distraught to find out that the Monoids have betrayed him in his slavery, and the resigned disgust that Steven shows him when he refuses to help search for the bomb lends him a depth that the dialogue itself only hints at. So his eventual death, crying out with delight when he sees his masters, only to be gunned down automatically, has a certain pathos to it.

  It’s little things like this that make The Ark work, in spite of itself. The actual scene-to-scene plotting is pretty wretched, all told – but the cast and director are putting in enough effort to make sure the incidentals count. Even though he’s trapped inside a limiting costume, Edmund Coulter tries his level best to make Monoid One a distinctive villain, patronising when talking to his slaves, and madder and madder with his arm movements the closer he gets to taking over the world.

  And it must be said – after all my ranting yesterday, there is some attempt to suggest that the Monoids shouldn’t be merely demonised as evil villains, and that their corruption was in part the fault of the original humans who marginalised them from their society. Indeed, the whole Monoid civil war goes a long way – in theory – to establishing them as a bit more complex than The Return suggested. (I say “in theory”, because it’s still a bit hard to think of them as individual characters when the main bone of the revolution is Four picking a fight with One, much to Three’s disgust. Pity poor Seventy-Seven, lying there dead on the surface of Refusis, the victim of another Monoid’s war. And with 76 Monoids more important than him still unaccounted for.) But the intention is there, and I accept that.

  So – this is the last story produced by John Wiles. I know it’s a little against the spirit of this book to say so... but I’m rather relieved. The joy of Verity Lambert’s Who was its diversity, not only in location but in tone. Wiles made sure that the TARDIS travelled the length and breadth of the universe, but the tone has been much the same throughout – and that tone is chilly. The Myth Makers is a wonderful comedy that, nonetheless, ends in chaos and despair. The Daleks’ Master Plan is a romp, the closest Doctor Who has ever come to a comic book, but which ends in death and ruin. And frankly, The Massacre isn’t full of the jollies either. It’s all very clever, and I honestly admire his intent to push the boundaries of the series and see it as a more thoughtful concern than a children’s tea-time serial. But not only has he lost the fun of the thing, he’s also misplaced its wonder and vision. I’ve found Doctor Who a little hard going recently, and I want to enjoy myself again, please.

  T: I’ve already discussed how I wish John Wiles and Donald Tosh had overseen more stories, and can only continue to applaud Wiles for broadening the kind of stories the series should be attempting... even if I do, Rob, grudgingly accept your point about the lack of humour.

  Looking at the last instalment of The Ark itself, I can only encourage anyone reading this to check out Erickson’s novelisation of this story – in this, he succeeds (as Glyn Jones did with his book version of The Space Museum) in fleshing out his original storyline, and making things chock-full of nuanced touches and character moments. (Although I do seem to recall mention of Steven “ejaculating” – i.e. “snapping”/“sharply expressing” – himself once too often. Now that I think of it, Dodo “ejaculates” once too.) The Monoid rebellion in the book is far more plausible, and there’s a big showdown by a waterfall – as opposed to the load of paunchy, waddling actors zapping each other and falling over that we get on screen. It’s a shame, actually, that although the latter two episodes of The Ark are marginally better acted than the first couple, so much potential complexity has been squandered.

  Still, visually this continues to be engrossing – Imison not only has great flair, he’s a bit cheeky too. We see many a shot of finished Monoid food or drained Monoid glasses, but of course we don’t see them actually eating, do we? It’s as if he’s daring us to ask where their mouths are. Many of Imison’s shots are impressively long and wide – there’s a fantastic forced perspective shot of the launcher taking off with a Monoid in the background – meaning there’s nothing small or cramped about this story. It’s the same on the Ark itself – we have a close-up of Venussa’s nodding head, and then she walks out of frame, leaving the statue in the background.

  If The Ark hasn’t been overwhelmingly successful, its ultimate message of multiculturalism comes across strongly enough. And even if this story doesn’t amount to the sum of its parts, it’s more original, well made and beguiling than many of the better-remembered and better-lauded adventures of this era.

  Which brings us, neatly, to The Celestial Toymaker ...

  The Celestial Toyroom (The Celestial Toymaker episode one)

  R: Do you know, there was a time when it seemed everyone actually liked The Celestial Toymaker? Not now, of course, when fan consensus seems to regard it as something rather evil smelling – but back in the eighties when I was growing up, it was seen as odd and brave and different. In fact, it’s a measure of its reputation at the time that John Nathan-Turner tried to bring the character back as a foil for Colin Baker. (It’s tempting to see Michael Grade as a twenty-first century fan, quickly cancelling the entire season at the very thought.) I remember that a boy from school had got an audio recording of this story, and gave me a copy. I listened to it a lot when I was growing up, and pretty soon had memorised all the dialogue. (There isn’t much.) The tape played slightly fast, actually, which made it all sound even more bonkers: William Hartnell and Michael Gough (playing the Toymaker) squeaked, and Carmen Silvera (playing a clown, Clara) spoke at a pitch that only dogs could hear. And I loved it.

  And against the weight of fashion, I do still – especially as a contrast to the episodes we’ve been watching over the past fortnight, which have been so earnest and grim. Instead, this is just sinister – and what makes it all the more macabre somehow is that it doesn’t emphasise that sinister streak too forcefully. Twenty-odd years later in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, we would see the programme deal with killer robotic clowns in a circus of death. But this first proper dip into the surreal works because, for the most part, it truly suggests that the games that Steven and Dodo play to win their freedom really may just be an entertainment for them, and that the clowns who cheat are being loveable rascals rather than psychotic murderers. Brilliant as Greatest Show is, it very quickly decides that it is a story about good and evil, and becomes a much more conventional story with surreal trappings; The Celestial Toymaker walks a much more disconcerting tightrope. It plays upon the trivial and the childish, the Toymaker trapping his victims not for material gain but because he’s bored. And the more that the threat becomes unspoken, the more genuinely disturbing this becomes. The scenes in which the Toymaker makes the Doctor invisible at a whim are fine – but it’s the mocking fact that he then leaves the Doctor one hand to play his game which hints at how much power he has. The Doctor’s urgent cries that Steven and Dodo must not look at images of themselves is never properly explained, and is so much more potent for that.

  I would criticise Jackie Lane, whose performance of a companion with the mental age of ten is still in full force, except for the fact that she fits neatly into a world of child’s playthings. The story wouldn’t work at all if the companions treated the situation with the full gravitas it deserves, because the principle pleasure of watching Steven is not that he’s playing for his life, but that his self-respect is equally at stake. The deadly Blind Man’s Buff game is s
mashing: accompanied by music which is just a little too jaunty, and performances from the clowns which are just a little too annoying, it is actually unsettling. A lot of this atmosphere is the responsibility of Peter Purves; the scene in which Steven adamantly insists that the clowns play on until death reveals a hard edge which suddenly makes the episode more serious.

  Anyway. It’s different. What do you think, Toby? I know we’re not going to agree on this one...

  T: I’ve already confided in you that I was dreading having to rewatch this story because I think it’s nonsense, but I’m determined to give it the benefit of the doubt here. As you know, normally if a story flouts the usual Doctor Who rules and conventions, I’ll be the first to champion it, even if my reasons for doing so don’t hold much water. But even then, this adventure has never quite done it for me, possibly because it’s a Donald Tosh-John Wiles story put on the screen by Gerry Davies and Innes Lloyd. It’s a bit like having a Coen Brothers film reimagined by Jerry Bruckheimer and Roland Emmerich.

  All of that said, it’s quite unsettling just how little preamble there is. In an era where it can take the entire opening instalment for the regulars to find out exactly what the story is and who’s going to be in it, it’s to be applauded how swiftly the Toymaker (so to speak) puts his cards on the table. The opening is spooky and unsettling, and the episode cleverly exploits that old childhood bugbear of the nightmarish clowns. Setting the story in a moody world of games and illusion is a new one for Doctor Who (we’re more than two years away from The Mind Robber), and there’s a sense of the series boldly venturing into new frontiers. It even seems a novel threat that the Doctor’s very tangibility has been removed, even though – as you say – it means that poor old Hartnell has been shuffled off to the side again. (Perhaps it’s a punishment for his mucking up the story title again when he refers to the “Celestral Toymaker”.)