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

by Robert Shearman

  What’s brilliant about it is Vaughn’s very dismissiveness of Rutlidge. It only dawns on us as the episode continues that the Rutlidge story has ended. He was never meant to leave Vaughn’s office alive – and it didn’t need to be a big melodramatic gesture, Vaughn had the man killed so matter-of-factly, he did it after more pressing business off screen. It’s subtly one of the most powerful deaths we’ve witnessed in Doctor Who for ages, and precisely because we don’t witness it. Vaughn is that powerful. That he intends to kill Rutlidge is clear enough, and that he has him in his mercy is established. We don’t need any more. The man is dead. It’s chilling – and, of course, it succeeds so well because it can only be chilling in retrospect. This poor hypnotised man, made to be a traitor against his will, is nothing more than a loose end that doesn’t need tying.

  The power Vaughn shows this episode is so great that it almost overwhelms everything else. The scene where he attacks a Cyberman with emotions – reviving it “just enough to wean it out of its cocoon” to experiment on it – is so callously done that you actually feel sorry for the newborn monster. That’s what’s bizarre: the Cybermen have never looked so good or imposing, and you expect this to be the point in the story (as in Tomb) where they’ll take over from their human ally. On the contrary – Vaughn is no idiot like Eric Klieg, and knows full well that his allies will dispose of him the moment they’re able to. The Cybermen’s voices are even odder here than in The Wheel in Space – but Derrick Sherwin has taken the best elements of that story, and cast them here as the sinister mute giants skulking in the shadows.

  Isobel Watkins, though. Dear oh dear. The scene in which she turns on the Brigadier for being anti-feminist simply because he’s unwilling to let her encounter alien killers of superhuman strength in a sewer is so irritating that it makes my teeth smart. The programme can’t have it both ways; Isobel can’t be a freethinking woman with attitude one moment, and then be bemoaning the fact that the soldier she’s chatting up isn’t stinking rich the next. Here begins the long ugly take on feminism that characterises so much of Doctor Who in the seventies. A lot of bewildered male writers begin to recognise that women out there are starting to make a lot of noise about equal rights – and stick it into the show in such a caricatured fashion that any character caught banging on about Women’s Lib looks like an idiot. When the Cybermen advance on those “crazy kids” in the sewer at the cliffhanger, you’re left hoping that at least the annoying blonde one with the telephoto lens will cop it.

  T: I have to say, these are my favourite variant of Cybermen. They’re the first ones I saw, I think – they stared out at me from the cover of Doctor Who and the Cybermen (the novelisation of The Moonbase), and also featured heavily in that A-Z of Monsters book that I previously mentioned. Their face masks are simple; they’re impassive, but also solid and unsilly. Their lace-up boots and zip don’t detract from this more streamlined look, with stiff, solid looking support joints. Okay, they sound like Donald Duck, but that’s not to fault the efforts of costume designer Bobi Bartlett. These Cybermen look fantastic, gleaming as they do in the sewers, and casting ominous shadows on the walls. It was such a great idea to have them skulking about in the underbelly of the capital, and it brings out the best in Camfield’s direction.

  There’s much to like about this: the Doctor’s distorted face in the magnifying glass, Ian Fairbairn’s turn as the rather unkempt and downtrodden scientist Gregory, Jamie’s cheeky grin when he tells the girls that man’s superiority is a fact. In the end, though, Stoney once again is head and shoulders above everything else. His best line is when an underling worries that anyone meeting the rampaging Cyberman they’ve loosed in the sewers could be killed, and he responds, “Good, anyone fool enough to be down those sewers deserves to die...”

  By the way, Happy Shakespeare Day. And RIP William Hartnell, who left us on this day back in 1975.

  April 24th

  The Invasion episode six

  R: There’s an energy to the direction we’re simply not used to on Doctor Who, even from Douglas Camfield. Look at that quick sequence where a UNIT soldier beats a Cyberman down the manhole with the end of his rifle – he puts such passion into it that his cap flies off, and filmed from the Cyberman’s point of view, it hits the screen with a real force. When there’s the time or money for action scenes, Camfield frames them brilliantly – the scenes in the sewer, with Cybermen being bombed and scared soldiers being gunned down, is told with great economy that makes them very tense. And the sequence at the end of the episode, where we see Cybermen marching in front of St Paul’s – their heads first appearing over the picture postcard image, then confidently taking full possession of it – is about as iconic and as epic as Doctor Who ever gets.

  And the brilliance of Camfield is that when the time or money run out, he manages to make hastily scripted filler scenes just as effective. The rescue of Professor Watkins couldn’t be shot as scripted – so instead we have a sequence in which a desperate Gregory tells Vaughn all about the action sequence, and is calmly sentenced to death as a consequence. It’s shocking, and abrupt, and cheap, yes – but it’s also so much more dramatic than another stunt set piece with the military. His extraordinary talent is being able to flip between scenes of large-scale action, with moments of dangerous intimacy. For my money, the best part of the whole episode is where Vaughn goads Professor Watkins to take his gun and shoot him. There’s awful resignation on Watkins’ face as he closes his eyes and waits for death, as Vaughn aims his revolver at his head – followed by bemused horror as he realises that Vaughn is telling him to make something of his principles and take the opportunity to kill him. When Vaughn knocks him to the ground in impatience, it’s done with real violence – and the way he laughs when the best Watkins can do is produce three smoking holes in his chest is the mark of a psychopath. The whole sequence is just beautifully staged for maximum tension, Camfield concentrating on extreme close-ups of Edward Burnham’s face as we’re asked to consider whether we too would have the courage to make a stand against evil.

  T: Let me offer a fresh perspective on the Watkins-shooting-Vaughn scene. When I first watched this episode all those years ago, when the universe was less than half its present size, my sister stuck her head around the door. She was slightly confused by the scene, thinking that – thanks to the close-up on Watkins’ face as he pulls the trigger, and lingers there as his head slowly falls back and he faints – that the gun had been rigged to fire backwards or something, killing him. So, I’m not sure if that particular moment is as 100% successful as we’d like to think. It’s a hell of a sequence, though, with Vaughn goading Watkins and slapping him with enormous force. (I’m told that Edward Burnham wasn’t too fond of Kevin Stoney – and perhaps that hefty whack in the chops had something to do with it!) Those smoking holes in Vaughn’s chest are impressive too, and it’s really quite an adult scene. The last story had a bunch of posh kids besting the Doctor with the old Adam, Eve and Pinch-Me chestnut; this adventure entails one man challenging his opponent’s morality by demanding that he shoot him at point-blank range. Brr.

  Otherwise, we’re into Season Seven! All right, not really, but it’s become very hard to watch this story separate from the knowledge that Derrick Sherwin will model the show in future on this template – loads of hardware, epic length and an overall feel of “contemporary grittiness” included. Fortunately, it’s a hard-nosed approach that appeals, especially as the Cybermen are presented as being so powerful – grenade after grenade fails to entirely subjugate them. The effortless way that they bash manhole covers off is an economical demonstration of their strength, and that haunting image of their march down the steps of St. Paul’s is one of Doctor Who’s Great Moments. Brr again.

  What we don’t see of this display of military might is – as you say – the big battle between the UNIT forces and Vaughn’s men, which happens off screen. However, the planned scene, which also appears in the novelisation, has Gregory (who in the book version,
if I’m recalling this correctly, has dandruff – a deft character touch from Ian Marter) uncharacteristically drawing a gun. What we get instead is so much better: Gregory has already blotted his copy book by stepping in to stop Watkins being hurt during Vaughn’s test of his emotion-generating gun, and after his subsequent failure to stop UNIT from rescuing the professor, Vaughn genially tells his minion that has no time left... before Gregory is subjected to a brutal, perfunctory dispatch in the sewers. Brr, brr and thrice brr.

  On a more comical note, did you notice how Watkins’ beard has grown? It was comparatively short and stubbly during his first appearance, but Burnham has now been on the job for a month, even though only a couple of days have passed for his character. Perhaps when the professor isn’t working on the Cerebratron Mentor, he’s been spending his hours inventing a hair-growth device, The Follicle Flourisher.

  The Invasion episode seven

  R: Now, as much as I’ve been enjoying The Invasion, there has for the last few weeks been an absence at the centre of it. And that’s been the Doctor himself. If I were being harsh, I’d say that Derrick Sherwin and Douglas Camfield have got so excited at the template for this new direction of Doctor Who, they’ve rather forgotten to put Doctor Who into it. Troughton has spent the last few episodes poking about with microcircuits and neuristers, and looking pretty much like the able scientific boffin working for a military organisation – stick him in a smart uniform, and he’d look no different to anyone else buzzing around the Brigadier. And Troughton has looked none too happy about it, giving a rather subdued performance, left in the corner whilst the real action is between Kevin Stoney’s delightful villain and a lot of soldiers with guns. Wendy Padbury’s barely had a look in either, popping down into the sewers briefly just to get herself into a spot of jeopardy. And Frazer Hines has been so redundant that in the last episode he went to sleep. On two separate occasions.

  It hasn’t entirely worked yet, this attempt to mesh Doctor Who as we know it with the sort of hardware tale that UNIT has to offer. It’s peculiar to see this most anti-establishment of Doctors working so benignly with the military. And it’s a lesson learned: when the Doctor returns to work for UNIT next season, it’ll be within a much more adversarial relationship. It’s the only way forward – as it is, the Doctor is in danger of disappearing into the background altogether.

  And that’s why this episode comes as such a relief. The Invasion has been so skilfully handled that it’s only when that eccentric Doctor pops back into focus that I realise just how much I’ve missed him. There’s room for some character comedy at last – he tosses a coin to determine which path he should take in the sewers, and with perfect timing sets off in the opposite direction. The way in which he floors Tobias Vaughn by so politely knocking at his door, so to speak, is absolutely priceless; it’s apt that for the first time, Kevin Stoney actually looks surprised. And his discussion with Vaughn is perfectly handled, the Doctor looking relaxed and in control as if he’s conducting a job interview with a sloppy applicant. Troughton looks happier than he has in ages, at last having the potential to show off the charisma we know he has at his best.

  Wendy Padbury’s better used too; the unflappable way in which she plots the destruction of the Cybermen warships is terrific. Frazer Hines is out of the story, though – Jamie is shot (with real bullets from a real gun!) to get him back into bed dozing where he belongs.

  T: That’s it for Professor Watkins and Sergeant Walters too – Edward Burnham must have been thrilled to collect an episode fee when he’s essentially just bundled out of a back door. And while Walters’ departure isn’t really explained, the production text on the DVD says that John Levene replaced an actor who was sacked for persistent lateness – and said caption appears, by an almighty coincidence, over a shot of Walters-actor James Thornhill. Given that Benton takes over Walters’ function, it’s pretty obvious to whom they’re referring. It’s a shame, as Walters looks pretty nifty with his body armour and machine gun. Who knows? If he’d been more punctual, maybe he’d have become the series regular in Levene’s stead (sliding doors and all that).

  But you’re right – it’s odd how little we’ve mentioned Troughton in this story, considering he’s generally the focal point of our raving. Still, he’s not the only one who’s been pushed to one side – having only come to this party at the end of the fourth instalment, the Cybermen are, after the cliffhanger reprise, not seen again for the rest of the episode. Meanwhile, having indulged in a spot of cuticle-chewing last week, Packer is now turning into an old woman, and moans to Vaughn who – brilliantly – refuses to be fazed. Vaughn is indeed surprised when the Doctor contacts him, but it’s mildly piqued bemusement, rather than the shock of a man on the ropes. He’s smooth and assured right up until his final confrontation with the Cyber-wedding-cake-thingy, when it’s announced that the Cybermen are shifting into Plan B: the total destruction of Earth.

  Tellingly, who gets the end-of-episode close-up? Vaughn, and it’s thoroughly deserved. This hasn’t been much of a second Doctor story, and in terms of screen time, it hasn’t been much of a Cyberman story either. No, it’s a Tobias Vaughn story, and he’s magnificent.

  April 25th

  The Invasion episode eight

  R: In a story of this length, it feels entirely right that the endgame should feel so drawn out. Other stories would have concluded much more blandly at the end of episode seven, with the Cyberships destroyed; it means that all of this week’s episode plays as a desperate epilogue, with UNIT poised to stop a new and apocalyptic counterplot, and gives the viewer a sense unusual in Doctor Who that the climax isn’t to be rushed at. In most adventures, the resolution of the crisis at best only concerns the last half of the final episode – which is why Doctor Who stories often feel rather abrupt and unsatisfying.

  There are two endings here: there’s the Russian missile which takes out the Cybermen’s mothership, and there’s the death-defying attack on the Cyberman’s lair by the Doctor and a bunch of soldiers throwing grenades at everything that moves. One involves standing around waiting, with lots of furrowed brows – and one involves guns and noise and the Doctor jumping about clutching his buttocks trying to avoid explosions. It’s obvious which one should provide the final climax. And yet, bizarrely, that’s not what the story does. It looks at first like a structural mistake. But in fact, after eight full episodes about an alien invasion which feels as detailed as the show will ever manage, it seems entirely right. Had The Invasion followed the usual Doctor Who formula and reached an easy resolution with guns ablazing, it’d have been trite. What’s extraordinary is that the length gives the story a licence to play the ending more realistically, and show that wars end not tidily with a battle, but with people in conference rooms feeling anxious. There’s a tension to those final scenes, as we wait for the missile to hit, that is utterly palpable. And although the story has nothing else up its sleeve now – there’s no more jeopardy, the missile will strike home – it feels all the more realistic. Crises of this scale do not end with a big stand-off between one man being brave and a villain shown the error of his ways; as brilliant as the scenes between Troughton and Stoney are (Stoney so good at playing bitter disillusionment that you almost feel sorry for him), the story couldn’t end with them. The scale of the adventure has been made so credibly huge that it can no longer be resolved by the actions of one hero.

  And that’s still why this doesn’t feel entirely like Doctor Who – and why the series very rarely attempts anything of this size ever again. Doctor Who’s great gift is its eccentric lead character, a little man fighting against the odds. There’s only so much The Invasion can do with him – he’s a bystander for the real climax at the end, and he doesn’t even manage to destroy the radio transmitter; he needs soldiers to accomplish that for him. There’s a very funny image of Troughton sitting amongst the dead Cybermen, trying to look his best for Isobel’s photograph, as UNIT rushes into action behind him – but the image is also saying, t
hat’s it, the Doctor’s done his part of the story now, and it’s time for the men in uniform to sort it all out. It’s a brilliant bit of television. It’s as spectacular as just about anything Doctor Who will accomplish again. But it rather overwhelms our heroes. In the final scene, as they’re left to do their comedy shtick walking around a field looking for an invisible TARDIS, only Captain Turner and Isobel are curious enough to want to see them off.

  T: Hmm, I buy your logic about the drawn-out ending, but in practice I’m not convinced. “It’s going to be a long 12 minutes,” says the Brig, and boy – he’s right. The story climaxes with the Cyberman’s mothership exploding before cutting immediately and abruptly to the coda in Isobel’s flat. I’d have preferred a few more bells and whistles (not, mind you, the ones used in the inappropriately bouncy incidental music) during the final reel.

  But then, this is a very curious ending all around. Jamie isn’t present for the big finale not because of a story-development, but because of how the cast’s holidays have been allotted. (His absence, at least, has enabled Zoe to have more input into the latter episodes, which is a pleasant change for Wendy Padbury.) Peter Halliday – a wonderful guest-star up to this point – gets a grand total of one line before Packer is slaughtered; so much investment was poured into the Packer-Vaughn relationship, it’s lost a little quickly for my liking. Vaughn, at least, continues to be mesmerising up to the very end – his passing acknowledgement of UNIT’s efficiency (although part of a throwaway moment) has a great truthfulness about it, and his deflated breakdown is mesmerising. His justly celebrated speech about why he wishes to control the world, and why he turns on the Cybermen – not out of altruism towards his own kind, but out of hatred for his former allies – ensures his character stays brilliantly consistent unto death. (It’s an extremely odd juxtaposition, however, to see Vaughn’s body ominously swinging on the ladder railing behind Troughton’s lovely comedy jumping in the foreground.)