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

by Robert Shearman

  I would be totally remiss without noting how Katherine likes Deborah Watling’s pointy bra. See, I knew that having a female perspective would unearth some gems.

  The Tomb of the Cybermen episode three

  R: The camera loves Deborah Watling. The scene in which she and the Doctor take stock of her family memories is beautifully played by both – and the way that Watling’s face looks straight out of the screen, wide eyed and vulnerable and speaking of how she misses her father, is heartbreaking. If Troughton’s Doctor has never seemed as irresponsible in earlier episodes of the story, here he is at his tenderest, gently chiding Victoria for letting him sleep because of his great age, and giving a surprising insight into the way that he copes with the absence of his never-discussed family. Amidst the scenes of tension and running about, it’s a truly affecting piece of humanity.

  Not that the running around bits don’t work well; the first half of the episode in particular has a terrific claustrophobia to it, as the archaeological team are trapped within the tombs with the Cybermen. This is the first story to make explicit the threat that was only implied in The Tenth Planet – that these monsters won’t give the easy luxury of death, but want instead to convert us all into plastic parodies of humanity. When they explain how the Doctor and friends will be a new generation of Cybermen, Jamie protests that they’re not like them; the Controller’s overemphatic response – “You... will... be...” – is so dispassionate and so certain, it’s the most frightening the Cybermen have ever been. Klieg is utterly out of his league here; he cheers up when the Cybermen agree to listen to his proposals as if he’s got a schoolboy crush on them, and the way the Controller dips his voice whilst speaking to him is amusingly patronising. The Cybermats, it must be said, are rather less effective – you can see what the story’s aiming for in one shot, when one of them appears from nowhere at such great speed that it looks like a jump cut – but they do look a bit cheap. They’re still better designed than any Cybermats we see later in the series though, working best in close-up, when their eyes roll and bulge in a faintly disturbing way.

  It’s interesting to note that by now, Jamie is no longer an eighteenth century boy out of his depth, but has become the Doctor’s comic foil. When Frazer Hines groans at Troughton’s “metal breakdown” pun, it’s very funny, but it’s not a joke that the Highlander could possibly understand. When you bear in mind that, from Jamie’s point of view, there’s been no break in storyline since The Faceless Ones – his cry against the metal beasties at Gatwick Airport could only have been a day or two ago at most – it’s an illustration that all the baggage of the character has been disposed of, and he’s become a generic companion. (Indeed, from this point on, anything technological or contemporary will be explained to Victoria, even though he pre-dates her by more than a hundred years.) It ought to feel like a fault – but I much prefer it this way. It’s so much better to play off the natural comic rapport of Hines and Troughton, than rely upon ever-contrived gags about Jamie’s reaction to the modern day. Jamie McCrimmon may be watered down a bit, but Frazer Hines is allowed to flourish – and I know which one’s the more entertaining.

  And a word for Clive Merrison, who appears late in the story as crewman Jim Callum, and brings a refreshing bit of comedy to the proceedings. His amiable acceptance of the crisis, and Captain Hopper’s shortcomings, are very natural – all the more impressive seeing as he’s saddled with an American accent.

  T: Like the Cybermen, my feelings towards this story have thawed somewhat. The opening minutes of this are great fun, with lots of impressive action as Hopper bravely hurls smoke bombs about whilst rescuing everyone. At least one of the Cybermen has laser fingers, and there’s that terrific moment as one of the creatures tries to force its way through the hatch, and then bashes away at it with its fist; classic Who, indeed. And the Controller continues to be riveting – he has a sleek design, and Michael Kilgarriff deserves some praise for bringing life (so to speak) to the role, especially if you compare the precise but graceful roboticism of his movements with the comedic lumbering of whichever Cyberman actor chases Jamie early on. And the Cybermats aren’t quite as frightening as one might hope – K wasn’t even sure what the Cybermats were for (when the Cybermen tested the Cybermats, she thought they were going to help Cyber-transform Toberman in some way), and when they attacked the Doctor’s party, she wondered why everyone didn’t just jump over or walk around them. (I told her that I’d explain later.)

  And much like the effectiveness of the Cybermen and Cybermats, the guest cast continues to be a mixed bag. With the best of will, the villains are, on the whole, rubbish. Klieg is such a hopeless opponent that he starts in fear when Kaftan (his fellow collaborator) makes a noise in the weapons room, and goes strangely camp when calling the Cybermen “those vile things”. Kaftan even has to do a comedy duck (“comedy duck” also being the sound effect used for when the Cybermen get lost in the smoke) when Klieg turns around while holding a lethal Cyber-gun.

  But then, as you mentioned, Rob – Clive Merrison is rather fab, isn’t he? It’s a minor part, but rather than overstate his own importance, Merrison has clearly (and wonderfully) decided to make Callum vague and preoccupied – just witness the way he distractedly mumbles when Hopper asks him to hurry up with the smoke bombs. He endows the part with realism, and makes such an impression that it’s surely no surprise that he, of all the guest cast here, went on to have the most illustrious career. And the two Americans help to bring out the best in Victoria – she’s much more of a fun character when she’s joshing gamely with the blokes rather than moaning in the company of a cardboard exotic villainess.

  March 29th

  The Tomb of the Cybermen episode four

  R: Oh dear. They rather dropped the ball with this one.

  Not to get too carried away – it isn’t an outright failure, and we’ve sat through a lot worse. Patrick Troughton is still worth watching, of course – there’s the way he pulls back from tapping the ailing Cyber-Controller on the shoulder, just thinking better of it at the last moment; and his amused dismissal of Klieg once he’s tested the limits of his lunacy. And Deborah Watling makes the most of her sparring relationship with Captain Hopper, slyly putting him down when he baulks at the idea of going back down into the tombs.

  And the emotional story is all in place, so you can see how this was meant to work. Toberman becomes part Cyberman, and yet turns against his new race when his beloved mistress is killed. There’s a poetic justice to that. But it fails precisely because Toberman has been denied any real character anyway – he’s just been simple and exotic. He has precisely one moment of dignity, and that’s when the camera lingers on his determined face as he closes the doors – and that works only because it allows us to believe that Toberman knew he was sacrificing his life, and wasn’t just electrocuting himself because he was mentally damaged. The Evil of the Daleks’ storyline didn’t hinge upon Kemel the way that Tomb’s has on Toberman. But turning Toberman into Cyberman (and yes, the names are similar) isn’t that dramatic, because aside from his metal arm there’s precious little difference. Just imagine how much more interesting this might have been had Klieg been the one who was converted, or Parry, someone who had a character we might have seen robbed from them. Or imagine, even, how much more interesting had they bothered to give Toberman a character in the first place.

  A lot of critics have complained that in the final reel, the Cybermen have no plan – all they can do is get frozen again. I’ve no problem with that in itself; Tomb is a deliberately smaller story than The Tenth Planet or The Moonbase, and for all Klieg’s rantings it isn’t concerned with planetary threat but the intimate concerns of a small group of people. And after The Evil of the Daleks especially, there’s nothing wrong with a story that sets its sights away from the epic. But it’s nonetheless unfortunate that the plot has the Cyber-Controller running out of power and needing to be revitalised – it’s only for the sake of padding, because the story’s all b
ut run out. And it means that moments of crisis which ought to have had greater impact by being small and focussed just look silly by being small and trivial. Kaftan’s death is hilarious, because it comes out of nothing more than her stubbornly pulling levers back out of place, with the sort of petulant look on Shirley Cooklin’s face that suggests she’s fighting her Cyber-husband over the remote control for the telly.

  T: My final assessment of Tomb would have to be that it’s all right, but it’s nothing special. We’ve seen better, we’ve seen much worse. I can, however, admit that my initial vehemence against this story was a pathetic reaction on my part to the fact that most people rate this very highly. But really, so what if they do? Good for them. I’m in a better mood today, so I can acknowledge that this has shortcomings but not get cross about them. I haven’t got to work tonight, and I’m watching Doctor Who. Lovely. All is right with the world.

  Well, nearly right with the world. The dummy Cyber-Controller that Toberman hurls into the control panels is famously deemed crap (especially in the way that its head falls off), but here it’s made worse by the fact that K glanced over to me when Toberman hefted the dummy into shot. She said the look on my face said it all – it’s that aghast expression that a classic Doctor Who fan affects when he knows that something on screen is rubbish, and he’s painfully aware that all the non-fans watching with him are about to glance over, in unison, to see if he’s noticed how terrible it is. (Come to think of it, it’s an expression I pulled a lot during Season Twenty-Four.)

  Which is a bit ironic, considering the sequence with the dummy is very short-lived, and if anything I continue to find the human villains more objectionable. Klieg is as daft a baddy as Professor Zaroff, but lacks the courtesy of being funny as well (perhaps the Brotherhood of Logicians sent him away because they realised he was far too dim to be in their group). Even the Doctor, who is running intellectual rings around the ranting buffoon, has to stop and tell Klieg that he should kill them now – it’s as if the Doctor himself is getting bored with all the self-aggrandising speeches, or maybe he’s worried that Klieg is so inept that he won’t remember to follow through on his evil-ness and gun them down. Anyway, how exactly does Klieg plan to subjugate Earth? It might not be enough to simply pitch up here and say, “I’m now in command because I’ve got all 12 remaining Cybermen with me. Could you all stand still, please, while they recharge? And then we’ll get about our conquering.” I’m also rather confused as to how he plans to keep the Cybermen in line with his little Cyber-pistol, once he lets them re-energize and re-arm to the point that they can overpower humanity, if that’s even possible.

  But, okay – the time has come for me to see the glass half full here. The regulars, undoubtedly, are in their element in this story. Victoria has been having so much fun laying into Captain Hopper, and Jamie now does all the brave stuff, with Frazer Hines playing the part as if he’s doing so not out of fearlessness, but loyalty. Troughton’s gag about giving Jamie a lesson in knot-tying (the better to trap Cybermen with) is splendid, and diverts us from the Doctor’s highly illogical decision to assist the Cyber-Controller’s revitalisation. Does he do so because he knows that the Controller will probably kill Klieg and Kaftan when revived? Is he really that Machiavellian? (Given that he subsequently rewires the tomb to become a deathtrap for any visitors, maybe he is!)

  Also, there are some great visual moments – silly as Kaftan’s death might be, I love that it’s a smoky death, as is that of the Cyberman that Jamie shoots. And it’s lovely that the Cyberman that Toberman kills oozes Cyber-goo out of its chest unit, then clutches vainly at it, as if it’s trying to stop its innards from spurting out. K thought it was memorably grim, especially as the creature was still moving in agonising death throes. The Cyber-Controller’s death is also a suitably jerky and twitchy demise – you’ve gotta love a bit of body horror.

  And isn’t the ending terribly effective (not to mention gruesome)? Poor Toberman’s powerful body lies sprawled on the deck, and they evidently leave him there, not even bothering to bury him. (Thanks for nothing, chaps!) Professor Parry is suitably contrite (actor Aubrey Richards has looked decidedly wretched since the first death, bless him). But what’s most telling is that the Cybermat that moves off as the Doctor and company struggle to shut the tomb doors, which hints that the Cybermen have a bit of residual power. Coupled with the Doctor’s refusal to write the Cybermen off definitively, it seems that the production team want to leave us in no doubt that this isn’t the second “final end” to a major Doctor Who monster that we’ve seen in the space of four episodes. Less than a year since their introduction, we’ve had three Cybermen stories – and it’s only a matter of time before they surface again. They’ve already established themselves as Troughton’s greatest adversaries.

  The Abominable Snowmen episode one

  R: I like this very much. Even if I’m not entirely sure why. This is slow – even by 1967’s standards. I don’t think there’s a Doctor Who episode out there that we’ve yet watched that’s less concerned by pace as this one. After 25 minutes we still don’t know that we’re back in time or who the villains are (in fact, in spite of everyone’s suspicions, we still haven’t yet met a sentient enemy by the close of the episode). This instalment has but one function – that the Doctor deliver a holy ghanta back to a monastery – and by the episode’s end he still hasn’t managed a way of doing so. And to their credit, Jamie and Victoria have wandered off on a little exploration of their own, and still taken 24 minutes to find anything even remotely hostile.

  Frankly, it all ought to be as dull as ditchwater. But it’s the way that the episode doesn’t even remotely try to disguise its pace that makes this so engaging in spite of itself. If there was even a sting of incidental music telling us to be excited or worried or amused it’d be crass – but there isn’t, just the in-drama chanting of some monks to break up the silence. And for the first time in ages, there’s a story which isn’t telling us what we should think or feel. It allows us instead to explore the surrounding area of a new six-part Doctor Who adventure, and to wait for the inevitable jeopardy that we know our heroes must encounter. In the meantime, we can take pleasure watching Jamie’s futile attempts to curb Victoria’s curiosity, trying to keep her safe in spite of himself, and showing off to her that a hardy Scotsman like himself can withstand the weather of the Himalayas dressed only in a kilt. And we can enjoy the Doctor’s enthusiasm finding within his cabinet an object that we can neither recognise nor work out its purpose, but which gives the Doctor a strange (if wholly bemused) nostalgia. As half an hour of hi-jinks, this fails. But as a depiction of the TARDIS crew in all their eccentricity, it amuses me greatly.

  T: When I was a lad, we had a big, hardback book called The A-Z of Monsters – it had pictures of, and entries for, all sorts of creatures both real and fictional. Doctor Who was represented by some decent coverage of the Daleks, Cybermen and Ice Warriors, but the Yeti in this encyclopaedia weren’t the Who variety, they were the “real” thing, complete with tantalising pictures of footprints and a skull fragment. And it’s these little clues that help to provide this adventure with an atmosphere of mystique – we don’t see the monster until the end, but its presence permeates the whole first episode. It opens with screams, darkness and a twisted rifle; then we see a furry beast on the TARDIS scanner (which Jamie quickly dismisses as the Doctor in his coat); then there’s a murder in the murky night; and then there are large footprints.

  It’s all because this episode lives up to its name and is about the Abominable Snowman – a legendary rumour of a creature with only opaque indications of its reality. So while it’s frustrating in most other stories (particularly those with the Daleks) that the reveal of the monsters you know are present is left until the very end of the episode, here it’s a confirmation that the monster whose real-life existence is a mystery definitely exists within the Doctor Who universe. (Well, so we’re meant to believe for now, at least. Actually, this story will trump a
nd trump again the nature of the Yeti, which is why it’s all so clever, but I don’t wish to get ahead of myself...)

  I can’t quite make it out on the telesnaps I’m looking at, but I’ve read that the picture on the TARDIS scanner (and just look at that thing – it’s round and in some sort of electronic contraption, and not at all like the scanner we’re used to) shows snow. But when the travellers are outside, it’s obviously beyond the production team’s resources to represent Tibet by covering the Welsh hills with fake flakes. If the information I’ve read about the scanner is the case, though, it’s the most blatant example we’ve had yet of the audience being asked to suspend their disbelief. It’s as if the production team is saying that yes, there should be snow, but we obviously can’t afford to show that, so we’re just going to tell you that they’re in Tibet and throw up some stock footage on the TARDIS monitor to denote what it should all look like. Just imagine that it’s snowy and enjoy the rest of the story would you, please? This might sound a cheap strategy to some, but it’s really just a means of the production-team putting the audience’s imaginations to good use. You’ve got to admire them for that!

  March 30th

  The Abominable Snowmen episode two

  R: Harold Pinter’s very good, isn’t he?

  T: Bloody Harold Pinter... I can’t believe this chestnut still gets trotted out. When I did my Theatre Studies A-Level, I noticed Pinter had acted under the pseudonym David Baron, and got all excited that he might be the same bloke who plays the guard-monk Ralpachan in this story. Approximately 15 minutes of research (and this was pre-Internet, you understand) revealed that this wasn’t the case. And you, Rob – I had always enjoyed your Big Finish work and your interviews and the like, but then you went and wrote to The Time Team at Doctor Who Magazine and perpetrated this myth! And they printed it! I have to admit that I went off you a bit – until of course, we met up and I discovered that you probably knew the idea was rubbish, and were just joshing about with that twisted sense of humour of yours. Still, shame on you for spreading such lies! (Besides, if you insist upon going there, I have an alternative suggestion. Rinchen is actually played by David Grey – that’s right, the singer whose album White Ladder hit the charts in 1999. Okay, so their names are spelt slightly differently, and even then, common sense suggests it might be a case of same name/different person, but what the heck – let’s stick it on Wikipedia anyway. Or, better still, write in to DWM about it.)