Category Archives: Zoe Heriot

Sep24

The Krotons

Posted on September 24, 2013 by twistie1

The second part of Series 7 of Doctor Who, which is also referred to as Series 7B, has been said by some to be a “love letter” to Classic Doctor Who. Resplendent with obscure references to Who’s 50 year history, the Eleventh Doctor’s final complete season also contained “shout outs” to the Second Doctor’s tenure. Together with the re-appearance of the Great Intelligence after a 44 year absence and the Ice Warriors following a 39 year hiatus, Series 7 also made reference to the mysterious HADS, the Hostile Action Displacement System. In the same episode that heralded the Ice Warrior’s return, the TARDIS dematerialized from a sinking submarine in the South Pole to the North Pole (Cold War). When functioning correctly the HADS dematerializes the TARDIS to a close-by location when it is under external attack. It needs to be manually set, however, and the Doctor usually forgets to set it. The first and only on-screen reference to HADS prior to Cold War was in the 1968-1969 serial, The Krotons. In that instance the TARDIS relocated several metres up a hill after being attacked by Krotons.

That a story as humble and lowly regarded as The Krotons should be alluded to more than four decades later is a testament to the high regard in which the Patrick Troughton era is generally held. Even “bad” Troughton stories have their redeeming features, not least of which is the very presence of the Second Doctor himself. Troughton has some charming scenes in this story including his classic encounter with the Kroton’s intelligence testing machine. As seen in the clip below, the Doctor decides to take the test after Zoe accidently completes it and receives a score twice as high as the Gonds’ previous best students. “Zo-Gond” (Zoe) is chosen to be a Companion of the Krotons and the Doctor won’t allow her to enter the Kroton’s Ship, the Dynatrope, alone. Easily flustered, the Doctor has difficulties at the commencement of the test which precipitates a wonderful banter between the pair. After assisting the Doctor to put on his headset and press the correct button, the Doctor barks at Zoe, “All right, there’s no need to shout! Now go away and don’t fuss me. No, come back. What’s this? It’s all right, I know. Right, fire away, I’m ready”.

Great Jumping Gobstoppers, The Krotons.

“Oh, my giddy aunt” is one of the better known Second Doctor’s expressions, however it’s in The Krotons that it makes its debut – less than six months before the end of Troughton’s tenure. As shown in the video posted, “great jumping gobstoppers” is also a lovely Troughtonism.

The Doctor and Zoe are approached by a Kroton

Zoe’s extraordinarily high intelligence is remarked upon several times in The Krotons. She tells Selris that the “Doctor’s almost as clever as I am” whilst earlier the Doctor had said to him, “Yes, well, Zoe is something of a genius. Of course it can be very irritating at times”. The Doctor, however, is never seriously concerned by Zoe’s brilliance. There’s no sense of threat and never a suggestion that her intellect is unbecoming of a young woman. Similarly, the Doctor is not dismissive of Jamie, notwithstanding his apparent dimness. What Jamie lacks in schooling and cultivation he more than compensates for in gut instinct and cunning. The Doctor is equally as accepting of both his companions.

The Doctor is almost as clever as Zoe

Zoe helps the Doctor take the Krotons’ test

I have little doubt that if I’d watched Zoe as an impressionable young girl then she’d have been my heroine. Able to complete any mathematical task better than a male and even the Doctor on occasion, Zoe had intellect in abundance and was gorgeous to boot. If I was 6” shorter, numerous kilos lighter and a few decades younger, playing Zoe would be my ultimate Cosplay ambition! The Third Doctor’s first companion, Liz Shaw, continued and expanded upon Zoe’s keen intellect and abilities, although her tenure was regrettably cut short. I will extrapolate upon this when Season Seven in reached.

The delightful Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot

The moral that I took from The Krotons were the dangers of indoctrination and limitations to free scientific enquiry. The Gonds had been in a state of self-perpetuating slavery to the Krotons for thousands of years. They were educated by machines created by the Krotons and forbidden to study chemistry. As the Doctor noted, there were tremendous gaps in the Gonds’ knowledge. He asked why the Gonds had never thought to question why the prohibition on chemistry existed. That people would be educated by machines in the future was a prediction considered several times in 1960’s Doctor Who. The First Doctor’s companion Vicki, an orphan from the 25^th Century, had been educated for only one hour a week on machines and considered the History teacher Barbara’s 1963 curriculum to be infantile. The manner of Zoe’s education is unclear, however as a product of City’s Educational institution she, like the Krotons, had enormous gaps in her knowledge. Whilst able to undertake mental calculations in a second, she was bereft of social skills.

The Gonds have been in self perpetuating slavery to the Krotons for thousands of years

The 1960’s fear of educational indoctrination would most certainly have had its genesis in the Nazi’s brainwashing of the German people. Technophobia is also likely to have been influential. Distain for computers was evident in The War Machines and The Invasion. In the latter the Doctor loudly proclaimed his hatred for computers on several occasions. The Luddite-like smashing of the Kroton’s educational machines by a group of Gonds further evidences this fear of technology.

The growing awareness of South African apartheid, in which the minority whites enslaved the black population, could also have influenced Robert Holmes in the writing of this story. On the suggestion of Roy Skelton, he and Patrick Tull voiced the Krotons with a slightly South African inflection.

The Krotons spoke with South African accents

Yet another attempt at a Dalek replacement, the Krotons were a poor substitute. With arms that looked like the robot’s from Lost in Space, the Krotons were disabled by their strange and inflexible metal hands. Possessed of a rather cool spinning head, the poor Krotons were not so lucky with that part of their costume below the waist. A rubber skirt was merely tacked on to disguise the operators’ legs. The concept behind the Kroton’s creation was rather more interesting. Crystalline beings, the Krotons survive in their space-craft, the Dynatrope, in suspended animation in a form of slurry. To reconstitute themselves they must absorb sufficient mental energy. It is for this reason that every year they have taken the best two Gond students, drained them of their mental powers, and then killed them. Rather than exterminating them as the Daleks do, the Krotons “disperse” them in a process in which the victim in essence disintegrates.

The Krotons with Jamie

Join me for my next review when the Ice Warriors return in their second adventure, The Seeds of Death. Our time with Patrick Troughton is fast coming to an end.

The Krotons was originally broadcast in the UK between 28 December 1968 and 18 January 1969

Vivien Fleming

©Vivien Fleming, 2013.

Sep20

The Invasion

Posted on September 20, 2013 by twistie1

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One of the greatest benefits of watching Doctor Who in chronological order is discovering hitherto unknown continuities. The Invasion was one of the first Patrick Troughton serials I watched. Simple incidents, like the Doctor and his crew deciding to drop in on their old friend Professor Travers, were lost on me. Had I watched The Abominable Snowmen, and its sequel The Web of Fear prior to my first viewing of The Invasion then the significance would have been obvious. Similarly, that The Invasion was to some extent a remake of The Web of Fear would have been reasonably self-evident. The apparent absence of story arcs in Classic Series Doctor Who, and the presumption that all serials are entirely self contained, makes casual viewing of stories a joy. Jumping between seasons and different Doctor’s tenures ensures the viewer of a diverse and eclectic range of material. The handicap, however, is the loss of character and series development.

This series’ monsters, The Cybermen

Defeated Cybermen

Seeing the evolution of characters that have been iconic is a real joy. The Invasion is the story which introduces UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, to the world of Doctor Who. It is not, however, our first introduction to Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Our first encounter with the then Colonel was in The Web of Fear where Lethbridge-Stewart was a suspicious unknown entity. Arriving in the embattled London Tube, as if out of nowhere, the Colonel could well have been the feared Yeti collaborator. A relationship of trust took some time to develop. A camaraderie from a past battle fought was evident when the Doctor and Jamie again met the promoted Brigadier in The Invasion. It was four years since their last meeting, the Brigadier noted. The character with which we become so familiar during the tenure of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor is not yet fully formed, though. It will be some time before we encounter “classic” Brig moments like the eye-patched alter ego of Inferno or the “Chap with wings, there. Five rounds rabid” of The Daemons. Although often experiencing difficulties with women, Lethbridge-Stewart was particularly Neanderthal in The Invasion, an issue that I will address when discussing the character of Isobel Watkins.

The Brigadier proudly informs the Doctor and Jamie that he’s been promoted since last they met

It’s not often that I disagree with anything that Rob Shearman or Toby Hadoke say in their excellent marathon watch diary, Running Through Corridors. It’s with Shearman, however , that I have issue with concerning the portrayal of Isobel Watkins who was played by Sally Faulkner. Isobel is the niece of Professor Watkins, a professor of computer engineering and friend of the Professor Travers previously referred to. Travers had decamped to the United States, letting his home to Watkins and Isobel during his absence. In his discussion of episode two I believe that Shearman is unfairly critical of the character. He describes her variously as “a talentless pseud”, “friendless”, and a “selfish, utterly insane cow”. Shearman doesn’t end there. He’d sooner have lunch with the psychopath Tobias Vaughn than Isobel who is the “sort of social misfit that will try to muscle her way into other people’s jokes”. Shearman is then extraordinarily critical of Isobel’s feminist defence to Lethbridge-Stewart in episode five. In his defence, Shearman believes that Isobel is a caricatured feminist, badly written by a male, who is made to look like an idiot. That’s not how I see Isobel who is not unlike the former companion Polly. A little akin to my squeals of delight at Maaga’s comments about men in Galaxy 4 (see my review for details), Isobel’s defence of women was one of those rare “stand up and cheer” moments. It’s worth extracting it in full here.

Rob Shearman and Toby Hadoke, Running Through Corridors

Isobel takes shots of Zoe

BRIGADIER: And how do I prove that in the sewers of London there are creatures from outer space waiting to attack us. Go and get one?

ZOE: You wouldn’t stand a chance against them, Isobel.

ISOBEL: Ah, you wouldn’t have to go anywhere near them. Photograph them.

BRIGADIER: That’s not a bad idea. Now, wait a minute, it’d be pitch dark down in those tunnels.

ISOBEL: You could use an infrared film, a twenty five filter on a thirty five mil camera with a telephoto lens, and why, you could take frame after frame without getting anywhere near them.

BRIGADIER: Is that all gibberish or do you really know what you’re talking about?

ISOBEL: Of course I know.

BRIGADIER: If you’re right, it could well be the sort of proof I need to get some action.

ISOBEL: Well, all I need is my cameras from the house and then I’m all set.

BRIGADIER: Well, you’re a young woman. This is a job for my men.

ISOBEL: Well, of all the bigoted, anti-feminist, cretinous remarks.

BRIGADIER: This is no job for a girl like you. Now that’s final.

ISOBEL: Oh, you, you, you man!

BRIGADIER: I’ll get in touch with my photographic unit and get them onto it.

ISOBEL: Oh, that stupid bigoted idiotic.

Isobel and Zoe in colour

Zoe descends into the sewers to take photos of the Cybermen

Isobel descends into the sewers to take photos of the Cybermen

Zoe, who then stood up to Jamie when he expressed agreement with the Brig, was also afforded the opportunity in the serial to combat sexist assumptions. To Jamie she said, “Just because you’re a man you think you’re superior, don’t you?” To the automated answering machine at International Electromatics she gave an ALGOL problem which, being unable to be answered made the machine blow up. Zoe finally calculated complex missile trajectories in her head which facilitated the programming of the Russian missiles and the destruction of the Cybermen’s mother ship. The UNIT soldiers thought that she could be kept on as she’s “much prettier than a computer”. Who dared say that girls know nothing about computers and maths!

Zoe takes great delight in blowing up an automated answering machine

The Doctor and Jamie have some wonderful physical comedy moments in The Invasion. A fast walk away from the mysterious UNIT undercover agents quickly turns into a run. When eventually they’re cornered in a lane, with a wry smile the Doctor sits down in the gutter and produces a pack of cards which he shuffles whilst awaiting their imminent capture. Jamie gets in the rear driver’s side door of a Jaguar, slides across to the passenger side door, disembarks and then hops in the front passenger seat. The Doctor does some wonderfully comic running and jumping whilst evading bullets and grenades on two occasions. All of these are done silently and are just superb.

The Doctor protects his hearing as he runs from a Cyberman

The Invasion has arguably the most iconic of all Doctor Who images, the Cybermen emerging from the sewers and descending, on mass, the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. The phenomenal cliff hanger to episode six has rightly taken its place in history. The only cliff hanger to compare, in my humble opinion, is the Dalek emerging from the polluted waters of the River Thames in episode one of The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Perhaps the most iconic cliff hanger in classic series Doctor Who. The Cybermen on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral

There are parallels between the Series Two episodes, Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel, and this 1968 Cybermen tale. The name given to the Cybus Industries front company which collects the homeless for upgrading, International Electromatics, is identical to Tobias Vaughn’s conglomerate in The Invasion. Humans are controlled by Ear Pods in the first 21^st Century Cybermen tale, whilst in 1968 it was a microchip in IE produced electronics goods, such as disposable transistor radios, that put humans into a deep sleep.

In the 2006 episodes, Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel, the Cybermen controlled humans through Ear Pods. Pictured here are Rose Tyler’s parents, Jackie and Pete

Director Douglas Camfield made a gifted choice in casting Kevin Stoney as the partly cyber converted head of International Electromatics, Tobias Vaughn. Stoney, as you may recall, portrayed Mavic Chen in the Season Three epic, The Daleks’ Master Plan. The characters of Chen and Vaughn are in many respects quite similar. In both instances a human (or humanoid) seeks the ultimate power of world (or solar system) domination and in doing so enters into an uneasy alliance with monstrous aliens. Both characters are under the unfortunate misapprehension that they can successfully betray their allies at an appropriate juncture, however Chen and Vaughn are both disposed of once they have served their purpose. Stoney was a sublimely brilliant actor who created what were arguably the two greatest villains of Classic Series Who.

Kevin Stoney played the role of Tobias Vaughn

The Doctor and Vaughn shortly before Vaughn’s death

Although five years into Doctor Who’s history, there are still some firsts in The Invasion. Notwithstanding being a Science Fiction series, it is not until this story that we hear reference to a UFO. It’s also the first time that we see the Doctor drive, albeit briefly. That’s something that we will all become very accustomed to during the Third Doctor’s tenure. John Levene also makes his first appearance as the then Corporal Benton, although he had previously appeared inside monster’s suits. In The Moonbase he was uncredited as a Cyberman, and in The Web of Fear he was a Yeti.

John Levene appears for the first time as the then Corporal Benton

Episodes one and four were animated by Cosgrove Hall superbly. Having recently watched the animations in The Reign of Terror and The Ice Warriors, both of which were undertaken by different teams, I can unreservedly say that The Invasion’s is by far the superior. The sense of light and shade, and the landscapes, were particularly agreeable. That being said, once The Tenth Planet is released I may well view all the animations again. I suspect that watching them one after another will give me a greater appreciation of each of the respective animators’ strengths and weaknesses.

The Doctor and Jamie leave Vaughn’s office in an animated episode

Cybermen Ambush, The Invasion (1968)

Join me for my next review as I examine Robert Holmes’ debut story, The Krotons.

The Invasion was originally broadcast in the UK between 2 November and 21 December 1968

Vivien Fleming

©Vivien Fleming, 2013.

REFERENCE:

Robert Shearman & Toby Hadoke, Running Through Corridors. Rob & Toby’s Marathon Watch of Doctor Who. Volume 1: The 60s, Mad Norweigan Press: Illinois, 2010.

Sep16

The Mind Robber

Posted on September 16, 2013 by twistie1

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It’s not often that the opportunity affords itself to write a review of a story that is as close to perfect as Doctor Who can get. So good, in fact, that it’s after this serial that my blog is named. The Mind Robber is the epitome of all that is innovative, experimental and surreal about Doctor Who when it’s done correctly. With the addition of a last minute opening episode and Frazer Hines’ sidelining by chicken pox in episode two, The Mind Robber could easily have become an utter shambles. It’s to the credit of the writer Peter Ling, Script Editor Derrick Sherwin and Director David Maloney that it didn’t.

The Doctor was lucky to have not turned himself into fiction

Myth has it that Peter Ling’s inspiration for The Mind Robber was the inability of soap opera audiences to distinguish fact from fiction. Ling, who had never previously written for a science fiction programme, was well known as a writer for the British soap operas Compact (1962-1965) and Crossroads (1964 onwards), amongst others. It was on Crossroads that incoming Doctor Who story editor, Derrick Sherwin, and assistant story editor, Terrance Dicks, had also been engaged. This soap, which centred on a motel, was filmed in Birmingham and it was on a train trip to that fair city that Ling, Sherwin and Dicks first discussed an idea that would eventually evolve into The Mind Robber script.

Rapunzel and the children of the Land of Fiction

The Master of the Land of Fiction is a different character to the renegade Time Lord we meet in Season 8

The inability of some viewers to comprehend that television dramas are fictional and not fact is not uncommon. Comedian, author and actor Toby Hadoke takes great delight in ridiculing such people in his stand-up comedy show, Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf. Hadoke, who starred as a Vicar in the soap Coronation Street in December 2000, was gobsmacked to actually receive letters from viewers asking if he might officiate at weddings. “And these people can vote” he quipped!

Toby Hadoke – Stand-up comedian, actor and author of Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf.

The fiction of children’s stories and classic mythology permeate The Mind Robber. Lemuel Gulliver, wind-up tin toy soldiers, Rapunzel, the Medusa, a Unicorn, Sir Lancelot and Blackbeard are amongst the characters which confront the Doctor and his crew. Gulliver, who is originally named only as “A Stranger” is brilliantly portrayed by Bernard Horsfall, who only passed away in January 2013. Horsfall went on to appear in another three Doctor Who serials, all of which were directed by David Maloney – The War Games (1969), The Planet of the Daleks (1973) and The Deadly Assassin (1976). Tall and imposing, yet always polite and obliging, the fictional character from Gulliver’s Travels spoke only words and phrases taken directly from Jonathon Swift’s 1726 novel. The juxtaposition of Gulliver’s archaic but lyrical language with the Doctor and his companion’s modern English was superb. It was only in the final episode that Ling permitted Gulliver to speak lines other than those from the novel, however his language form remained Middle English.

The Doctor is initially menaced by Gulliver

The seamless transition of Jamie from Frazer Hines to Hamish Wilson was an imaginatively simple idea that meshed themes common to both The Mind Robber and its preceding serial, The Dominators. When Hines succumbed to chicken pox early in the week of episode two’s shooting an immediate solution was required. During the course of the 60s each episode of Doctor Who was filmed at the end of a week’s rehearsal. Save for sparse location shoots, material was not pre-recorded. Recording was almost live, with only an hour and a half allocated for each 25 minute episode. Given that only three video cuts were permitted for each episode, this necessitated the filming of scenes in their correct order and performances in a play-like fashion. Filming scenes from different episodes on the one day was unheard of. Moreover, episodes were often filmed only two weeks prior to airing. This meant that when episode one of a six part serial was broadcast the production of the final episode could still be a month away.

Hamish Wilson played the role of Jamie in episodes two and three

As a consequence of these production limitations the absence of a cast member presented extraordinary difficulties. The luxury of filming out of order and six months in advance of screenings did not exist, so there was no means by which the ill actor could film their scenes at a later time. Hence the extraordinary decision to retain the character of Jamie in episode two but have him played by an altogether different actor. The fictional nature of the story, in which the Doctor and his companions were constantly confronted by challenges, afforded the opportunity for Jamie’s identity change to become part of a game. Having been turned into a life size cardboard cut-out, Jamie’s face was removed and he could not be animated again until the Doctor put the puzzle pieces of his face correctly together. On a board where three or four photographs of eyes, noses and mouths. In a flustered state the Doctor chose the wrong pieces and Jamie was reanimated with a different face. When Hines returned in episode three Jamie was again transformed into a cut-out. The Doctor was successfully able to complete Jamie’s face puzzle, this time with the assistance of the very attentive Zoe. In the interim Wilson had superbly perfected Jamie’s mannerisms.

The Doctor and Zoe put Jamie’s face back together

The Doctor’s initial inability to correctly choose Jamie’s eyes, nose and mouth was reminiscent of his feigned stupidity in The Dominators. In an attempt to appear an imbecile in the previous serial the Doctor had intentionally failed a block test similar to one that a normal three year old would complete with ease. He was unable to match the wooden blocks with their correct holes and suffered electric shocks to his arms as a consequence. No longer considered a threat, the Doctor and Jamie were subsequently released by the Dominators.

The Doctor with Rapunzel and the Karkus

The Mind Robber contains the only episode of Doctor Who not to feature a writer’s credit. Originally written as a four part serial by Peter Ling, the story was expanded to five episodes after the production fiasco that was The Dominators. Having no budget for guest cast or additional props the production crew were faced with a very similar predicament to that in the season one story The Edge of Destruction. Having access only to the three main cast and the TARDIS console, Script Editor Derrick Sherwin wrote the opening episode to accommodate these restrictions. Akin to The Edge of Destruction, these constraints resulted in a minimalist masterpiece.

Wendy Padbury in the scene for which, unfortunately, she is perhaps best known

The TARDIS Explodes in the cliff hanger to episode one of The Mind Robber

Many of the most memorable scenes in The Mind Robber were Wendy Padbury’s. The cliff-hanger of episode one featured a shiny cat-suited Zoe hanging onto the TARDIS console as it plummeted through space. That much of the scene focussed on Zoe’s bum must have been a cause for great delight amongst male viewers. Zoe also enacted a wondrous pantomime fall and proved herself proficient in martial arts when she easily defeated the cartoon book character, the Karkus, in a fight.

Zoe fights the Karkus

Zoe and Jamie cling to the TARDIS console after the Ship explodes

The Mind Robber was almost certainly the naming inspiration for the New Series Doctor Who character Captain Jack Harkness. The Master of Fiction had written 250,000 words of fiction as editor of the boys’ own magazine, The Ensign. Captain Jack Harkaway was one of the Master’s characters which like all others in the story, with the exception of the Karkus, was a fictional character in the real (non-Doctor Who) world. The Master of The Mind Robber, however, is a completely different character to the renegade Time Lord that the Third Doctor first encounters in Season Eight.

The fictional character, Captain Jack Harkaway, was undoubtedly an inspiration in the naming of the new series character Captain Jack Harkness

Captain Jack Harkness is not to be confused with The Mind Robber’s Captain Jack Harkaway

I could inevitably extol the virtues of The Mind Robber for several thousand more words however I’ll bother you not with more reading. Instead I earnestly implore you to legally acquire a copy of the story and take in its pleasures yourself. Watch Jamie and the Doctor climb Rapunzel’s hair, the snakes animating in the Medusa’s hair, and the Unicorn charging at our heroes. I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed.

The source of many a nightmare – the Unicorn

The Mind Robber was originally broadcast in the UK between 14 September and 12 October 1968

Vivien Fleming

©Vivien Fleming, 2013.

Sep10

The Dominators

Posted on September 10, 2013 by twistie1

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Almost universally condemned as one of the worst Doctor Who serials ever, The Dominators was the serial Patrick Troughton personally requested be screened at the convention he was attending at the time of his death. Perhaps Troughton could see something of merit in The Dominators that fans and critics were unable to discern. But then again, in 1987 there weren’t many extant Second Doctor serials available. There aren’t many more accessible today. That’s probably reason enough to at least try to detect something favourable about the serial. Thankfully the good contributors to Celebrate Regenerate have come to our rescue and said this about The Dominators:

The Quarks were less than convincing as monsters

I think I knew The Dominators was the weakest of the bunch. But I still loved it: it was funny. It’s the only Doctor Who story I know of that’s based on a clash of household furnishings. Guys wearing sofas invade a world of people dressed in curtains. The natives immediately surrender to them despite the fact that they’re incompetent (those other ten galaxies must have really been pushovers). And then there are the Quarks. Small, slow, waddling, penguin-esque with squeaky voices and very low-capacity batteries. But at the end of the day , I love the Dominators …

Edited by Lewis Christian, Celebrate Regenerate is a fan produced chronicle of every Doctor Who episode

Save for its slowness and distinct lack of plot, the principal criticism directed at The Dominators is the writers’ reactionary premise that pacifism is abhorrent and pacifists gullible and unintelligent. In their third and final outing as writers for Doctor Who Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln took a direct swipe at the growing anti-war movement. The Dulcians are pacifists and presented as unquestioning morons. Although they have two hearts they are physically weak and not use to manual labour. When forced to labour as slaves to the aggressors, the Dominators, they are next to useless and are seen to struggle under the burden of moving heavy rocks. The Dulcians’ education system appears to prioritize rote learning over intellectual enquiry and they accept any statements as fact until they are otherwise proved false. It isn’t too hard to envisage what Haisman and Lincoln’s perception of anti-war protestors were.

The Dulcians are not use to physical labour

The Dominators was not Doctor Who’s first anti-pacifist adventure. That dishonour goes to Terry Nation’s The Daleks in which the gorgeous Thals are pilloried for their being unprepared to fight . In my review of The Daleks I examined Nation’s contempt for the 1930’s British policy of Appeasement. Unlike the Thals, Haisman and Lincoln do not afford the Dulcians any redemption. They are portrayed in an unfavourable light throughout the whole of the serial. Given that Doctor Who has generally taken a more liberal view on political issues this contempt for pacifism is all the more extraordinary.

The aliens with perhaps the most inept name ever, the Dominators

More than 40 years later such distain for pacifism was again evidenced in Toby Whitehouse’s Series Six story, The God Complex (2011). This time, however, a reactionary political message was veiled in humour. When the Eleventh Doctor asks Gibbis, a native of Tivoli, how he arrived at the “hotel” his response was enlightening – “I was at work. I’m in town planning. We’re lining all the highways with trees so invading forces can march in the shade. It’s nice for them”. Tivoli is the most conquered planet in the galaxy and its residents have resigned themselves to being constantly overrun. Accordingly they welcome invading armies and their national anthem reflects the ease with which they accept domination – “Glory to <Insert Name Here>”.

Another pacifist portrayed in an unfavourable light was Gibbis in The God Complex (2011)

What I also found disturbing about The Dominators was the patriarchal nature of the Dulcians’ society. Only men, and old ones at that, are members of their governing council. Certainly there are numerous other Doctor Who serials which are guilty of not positively representing women, however The Dominators totally disenfranchises them. I would hope that this says more about the writers’ views than those espoused by the producers of Doctor Who. That being said, the decision to give the Quarks childish female voices is bizarre, to say the least. Hitherto all monsters, without exception, have had masculine voices even if their bodies are not specifically gendered. The one and only time that a woman is used to voice a monster, the voices are clumsy and laughable. It left me wondering if this was some form of bad joke in which women, in general, were being ridiculed.

Only men are members of the Dulcian ruling elite

Unfortunately the Quarks proved to be appalling monsters. Small in stature, school children were encased within them for the filming. They shuffled around, always looking as though they were about to tumble over, and had arms that were even more impractical than the Daleks’. They were easily defeated, at one stage by a conveniently light boulder pushed from a hill top by Cully, the only resident of Dulkis to rebel from their pacifism. Created by Haisman and Lincoln specifically for their marketing potential, the Quarks were almost the subject of legal proceedings between the writers and the BBC. Relations between the writers and Doctor Who deteriorated further when the serial was cut from six episodes to five and substantially rewritten. Haisman and Lincoln sought to have their names removed from the credits and accordingly a pseudonym, “Norman Asby”, which was taken from the first names of the writers’ father-in-laws, was adopted.

The marketing rights to the Quarks almost resulted in legal proceedings between the writers and the BBC

Although the Quarks were never again seen on TV they were encountered in comics

The Doctor’s ethics in The Dominators are also questionable. He is responsible for the deaths of the two Dominators after he places their atomic seed-device, intended to destroy the planet, onto the aggressor’s own space craft. This is plainly an example of lazy writing as it was the easy option for disposing of the bomb quickly. Surely the Doctor could have diffused it rather than acting as judge, jury and executioner.

The Doctor and Jamie hold hands again

Despite its many failing I surprised myself by actually enjoying The Dominators. Perhaps I was just relieved at watching the first complete serial since The Tomb of the Cybermen or maybe, just maybe, I could see in the story the good that Patrick Troughton evidently saw. I really don’t know, however I am sure that our next story, The Mind Robber, lives up to its reputation as Troughton’s favourite serial. Please join me for my next review as we enter the land of fiction.

The Dominators was originally broadcast in the UK between 10 August and 7 September 1968

Vivien Fleming

Sep6

Five Seasons Down, 28 to Go!

Posted on September 6, 2013 by twistie1

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Hooray! Having completed Season Five of Doctor Who I’m now two-thirds of my way through Patrick Troughton’s tenure as the Second Doctor. Soon the long three seasons of missing episodes will be but a distant memory as I dive into the largely intact Season Six. Please join me as I continue my journey through 50 years of Doctor Who.

Sep6

The Wheel in Space – Loose Cannon Reconstructions

Posted on September 6, 2013 by twistie1

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The Fifth Season of Doctor Who concluded with The Wheel in Space. Episodes 3 and 6 are held in the BBC Archives and have been released on the Triple DVD set, Lost in Time. For the purposes of this marathon I viewed Loose Cannon’s excellent reconstructions of episodes 1, 2, 4 and 5, links for which appear below.

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 1 Part 1

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 1 Part 2

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 1 Part 3

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 2 Part 1

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 2 Part 2

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 4 Part 1

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 4 Part 2

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 5 Part 1

Loose Cannon’s The Wheel in Space, Episode 5 Part 2

The Wheel in Space was originally broadcast in the UK between 27 April and 1 June 1968. Episodes 3 and 6 of The Wheel in Space held in the BBC Archives and have been released on the triple DVD set, Lost in Time.

The Wheel in Space was originally broadcast in the UK between 27 April and 1 June 1968. Episodes 3 and 6 of The Wheel in Space are held in the BBC Archives and have been released on the triple DVD set, Lost in Time.

Sep6

The Wheel in Space

Posted on September 6, 2013 by twistie1

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The Wheel in Space marks the end of Doctor Who’s Fifth Season and the almost constant run of missing episodes which have plagued marathon viewers since the beginning of Season Three. Season Six is complete, save for the penultimate serial The Space Pirates, and two episodes of the eight part serial The Invasion. Thanks to the brilliant work of Cosgrove Hall. the two missing episodes of The Invasion have been animated and the complete serial is available for viewing on DVD.

Jamie and the Doctor with the Servo-Robot which subsequently rendered the Doctor unconscious

The Cybermen made their fourth appearance in 18 months in The Wheel in Space. With the temporary retirement of the Daleks in the last serial of Season Four, the Cybermen had assumed the mantle of the Doctor’s number one enemy. Whereas the Daleks were previously guaranteed to appear in two serials per season, Terry Nation’s attempts to sell his creations to the US saw the Cybermen snatch their title as favourite recurring monsters. Their appearance in The Wheel in Space, however, was a great deal more subtle than in previous adventures. Not seen until the cliff hanger of episode two, their screen time was nearly as limited as their speech. The somewhat verbose sing-song voices of The Tenth Planet Cybermen were replaced by almost mute monsters with more human voices. Now possessing three silver fingers, the Cybermen’s principal terror derived from them silently emerging unexpectedly from anywhere on the Wheel.

The companion-in-waiting, Zoe, with two Cybermen

The hints of humanity that the first generation Cybermen possessed were long gone, with the cyber creatures now described by the Doctor thus: “Their entire bodies are mechanical and their brains have been treated neuro-surgically to remove all human emotions, all sense of pain. They’re ruthless, inhuman killers!”. These Cybermen, the Doctor said, need to colonize and have the treasures of earth.

The emotionless Cybermen provide a brilliant juxtaposition to the Doctor’s newest companion, Zoe Heriot. 15 year old Zoe is an astrophysicist and astrometricist first class and employed as the Wheel’s parapsychology librarian. Her perfect recall of scientific facts and ability to undertake mental calculations faster than a hand-held calculator are the consequence of her being brainwashed by the City’s educational institution. The processes by which she was educated are not revealed, although one can only guess that they were somewhat similar to those encountered by the First Doctor’s companion, Vicky. Coming from 2493, Vicky outlined to a stunned Barbara in The Rescue how her schooling comprised of being hooked up to a machine for only an hour a week. Zoe, however, comes from a much earlier time, perhaps the early 21st Century, so it’s possible that the education system was not the same. Wood and Miles in About Time argue that the character of Zoe would never work in a current day series “largely because most of her functions could be served by an idiot with a laptop”. With the digital age not even dreamed of in 1968, Zoe was one of the brainwashed bureaucrats that many feared would envelop us in the future.

Tat Wood & Lawrence Miles, About Time 2

An unfortunate consequence of Zoe’s education is she is entirely logic driven and completely unable to cope in unexpected circumstances. She is described as being without emotion twice in one day by her co-workers on the Wheel. Rob Shearman in Running Through Corridors described her as “a robot wanting to be a human being”. Shearman’s analysis of Zoe on page 266 is so well written as to warrant me quoting it in full.

The Doctor’s latest companion, Zoe Heriot

Someone else enslaved to logic is Zoe Heriot. She’s a much darker character than I’d ever realised. Whitaker’s script rather brilliantly only hints that she comes from a pitiless totalitarian regime, where young children are taken and brainwashed so that they can come out the other end supergeniuses – capable of holding a huge amount of information, but not the wherewithal to respond to it emotionally. She’s just another Cyberman.

Rob Shearman brilliantly analyses Zoe in Running Through Corridors

Zoe’s brainwashing was quickly detected by the Doctor who responded to her with perhaps one of his most memorable comments, “Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority”. During the course of the serial the limitations she faces because of her reliance on logic become painfully clear. Jamie and Zoe’s conversation in the Wheel Operations room during episode five evidences her growing disillusionment, and foreshadows her ultimate decision to stow away in the Tardis.

JAMIE: Oh, there is something you don’t know, then.

ZOE: There’s too much I don’t know. I was trained to believe logic and calculation would provide me with all the answers. Well, I’m just beginning to realise there are questions which I can’t answer.

JAMIE: You’re just not trained for an emergency like this.

ZOE: Well, that’s the whole point. What good am I? I’ve been created for some false kind of existence where only known kinds of emergencies are catered for. Well, what good is that to me now?

JAMIE: Hey, we’re not done yet, you know.

ZOE: And if we survive? What then, Jamie? Suppose we do get ourselves out of this mess. What have I got left? A blind reliance on facts and logic?

The Crew in the Control Room of the Wheel

When Zoe is found in the TARDIS’s magic chest at the story’s end Jamie’s immediate reaction is to say that it’s impossible for her to go with them. This of itself is quite extraordinary given that he voiced no such concerns when Victoria hitched a ride after her father’s death in The Evil of the Daleks. Perhaps Jamie was secretly hoping that the Doctor would pop back and pick up Victoria from Brittanicus Base? The less polite might argue that Jamie wanted the Doctor all to himself! The Doctor responded to Zoe’s request to stay by saying that it wasn’t impossible but “something that we have to decide”. It appears that the TARDIS is a democracy and that the Doctor is not the sole decision maker. This is in stark contrast to the First Doctor’s tenure where the Ship was clearly his own, to do with as he pleased. Kidnapping is something that the Second Doctor would never acquiesce to.

Jamie is initially reticent to accept Zoe as a member of the TARDIS Crew

To help Zoe decide if she wanted to accept the challenges of life in the TARDIS, the Doctor projected his thought patterns onto a monitor and the reprise from episode two of The Evil of the Daleks was seen. In the break between Seasons Six and Seven the BBC aired the first ever Doctor Who repeat, The Evil of the Daleks, and this was scripted into both episode six of The Wheel in Space and episode one of Season Six, The Dominators. This was the first and only time that a repeat was scripted into a serial. The viewers had to wait for Zoe’s decision on whether to stay with the Doctor and Jamie.

The Evil of the Daleks was the first Doctor Who serial ever repeated and the first and only repeat to be scripted into serials

The Evil of the Daleks was the first Doctor Who serial ever repeated and the first and only repeat to be scripted into a serial

Another first for The Wheel in Space was the use of the Doctor’s pseudonym, John Smith. When Gemma Corwyn, the Second-in-Command of the Wheel and a particularly strong and well developed female character, asked Jamie what the Doctor’s name was he was stumped. “The Doctor” was the only name by which Jamie knew this mysterious man with whom he’d lived and travelled for the past two years. Glancing over at some medical equipment manufactured by John Smith & Associates Jamie replied, “Er. John Smith”. Later, when the Doctor recovered from his Servo-Robot induced unconsciousness and Corwyn introduced him to Zoe, Jamie had to nudge the Doctor into recognizing that his name was John.

The piece of medical equipment which inspired (the now literate) Jamie to give the Doctor the alias “John Smith”

The Doctor would go onto use the alias John Smith dozens of time thereafter. It could be argued that Jamie’s naming of the Doctor was a mere coincidence and that he was already known by that alias. In the Series Five episode, The Vampires of Venice, the Doctor produced a library card with the First Doctor’s image on it and the address 76 Totter’s Lane. This may well be another example of retroactive continuity as previously discussed in my review of The Abominable Snowmen. Interestingly enough, on one occasion when the Doctor didn’t use the alias of John Smith (Tooth and Claw) he adopted the name James McCrimmon instead. What a lovely nod to Jamie that was.

The Eleventh Doctor shows his library card bearing the name and photo of Dr John Smith in The Vampires of Venice (2010)

The Tenth Doctor identifies himself as James McCrimmon in Tooth and Claw (2006)

It is important to be mindful, however, of the voluminous amounts of criticism that have been directed at The Wheel in Space. Frequently dismissed for being the last of an almost continuous stream of “Base under Siege” stories in Season Five, The Wheel is somewhat slow and features a great deal less of the Doctor then generally seen. Patrick Troughton was on holidays during episode two when the Doctor is conveniently unconscious for the whole episode. When he does appear not a great deal happens. This general disaffection with the story is perhaps best summed up by Cornell, Day and Topping in The Discontinuity Guide (1994) when they describe the serial like this:

Dull, lifeless and so derivative of other base-under-siege stories that it isn’t really a story in its own right. Despite the detailed Wheel setting, the galloping lack of scientific credibility is annoying, and the Cybermen are so bland and ordinary that they could have been any other monster. Generic speed-written tosh.

Paul Cornell, Martin Day & Keith Toppiing, The Discontinuity Guide

Paul Cornell, Martin Day & Keith Topping, The Discontinuity Guide

Notwithstanding this criticism, The Wheel in Space was placed at 156 in the 2009 Doctor Who Magazine Mighty 200. That was well above several other Troughton serials including The Krotons (166), The Dominators (191), The Underwater Menace (194) and The Space Pirates (195). As two episodes are held in the BBC Archives, and have been released on the Lost in Time DVD, it is well worth disregarding the consensus and giving The Wheel in Space a view. It’s worth it just to see the lovely Wendy Padbury introduced as Zoe.

Vivien Fleming

REFERENCES:

Paul Cornell, Martin Day & Keith Topping, The Discontinuity Guide, Virgin Publishing Ltd: London,1995.

Robert Shearman & Toby Hadoke, Running Through Corridors. Rob & Toby’s Marathon Watch of Doctor Who. Volume 1: The 60s, Mad Norweigan Press: Illinois, 2010.

Tat Wood & Lawrence Miles, About Time. The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who 1966-1969 Seasons 4 to 6 Volume 2. Mad Norweigan Press: Illinois, 2010.

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