Broadcast Dates: 31st October 1964 - 24 July 1965
Relative Dates: 4th January 2012 - 11th February 2012
At this point I was still going strong but by no means did I think that I would actually be successful in this marathon watching of the show. Time to rack my brains and make some notes on the stories I watched over a year ago! Luckily these are stories I have seen quite often so as such should be quite familiar with them...that's the theory anyway. Here goes..
Planet Of Giants
Look at how amazing that sink looks!! I'm always stunned by that set. Sure, the chain on the plug looks a little dodgy but the plug hole itself looks fantastic.
Anyway as you may have guessed this story involves the Doctor and his companions being shrunk down to the height of a few inches. Which is a shame especially for Ian and Barbara as they have actually arrived back on Earth and in the right time period for them.
The explanation for why they have been shrunk is actually quite clever. The TARDIS doors opened mid flight which meant that the dimensional ... something something something. Argh Damn it! I thought I knew this! And I'm not going to look it up because that feels like cheating.
The main villain of the story is a ruthless business man who is wanting to get his powerful insecticide DN6 on the market. I only remember the name of the insecticide because the guy who comes to inspect it is one of those people who whistle every time they say a word with an "S" in it so its quite funny hearing him say "DN6".
Unfortunately the insecticide will kill all insect life and not just the pests, and Barbara foolishly gets some all over her. Normally for a human this wouldn't be a problem but now being only the size of an insect herself the insecticide has a powerful affect on her.
There is an interesting development in the characterisation of the Doctor that starts in this story. Most of season 1 seemed to be stories where the Doctor and his companions would be separated from the TARDIS and would be doing everything they could to get back to it. Here, however, they could easily get back to the ship but they decide to work together to defeat the businessman (whose name eludes me unfortunately)
Originally this was supposed to be a 4 part story but apparently it was felt that the action dragged a little and so it was whittled down to a 3 parter which I think was beneficial as I can imagine it would have been a bit dull as a 4 parter (not to mention the fact that my challenge would be one day longer!)
The Dalek Invasion Of Earth
The popularity of the Daleks in season 1 was so great that it was only a matter of time before the pepperpots from Skaro made their return to the series. This time they've invaded the Earth!! You would never have guessed that from the title would you.
The TARDIS lands in the London of the future to discover the Daleks are in control and mining the crap out of the Earth, for reasons I'll get to in a moment. The Doctor takes the proactive approach once again to pit his wits against the Daleks to defeat them. They join up with the human resistance group hiding in London.
The scenes of Daleks trundling through a deserted London are, of course, utterly brilliant. The way they hold their sucker arms in the air is a definite nod to the Nazi salute and the similarities are obvious. This must have been chilling but utterly thrilling television when it was first broadcast.
Susan has a nice little side plot going with her growing love interest with one of the rebels David (more on this later too!)
So it turns out the Daleks are mining the centre of the Earth so that they can fit a giant engine and pilot the Earth around the universe.. why? ...well why not?? Everyone has got to have a hobby I suppose.
By the end of the story David and Susan have well and truly fallen for each other and Susan has to make the heartbreaking decision of either leaving David or her Grandfather behind. Knowing that Susan will not leave the TARDIS willingly, the Doctor locks her out and then we have one of William Hartnell's greatest moments as he bids an emotional farewell to his Granddaughter.
The Doctor: "One day I shall come back..yes I shall come back. Until then there must be no tears, no regrets, no anxieties...Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine"
And with that, the TARDIS materialises and leaves Susan behind. Getting quite sad just thinking about it.. although Susan was a bit of a pain sometimes. Anyway, this was the first companion departure of the series and it was one of the best ones. Later companions would leave for love reasons but rarely have they been done as well as this.
The Rescue
Time to meet Susan's replacement. It's Vicki!
A nice little two part story to introduce the new companion. It's always good to have these short stories occasionally to break things up.
So what can I say about this? hmm...
Well, there's quite a funny moment near the start. The Doctor sleeps through the TARDIS materialisation and Ian and Barbara, realising the TARDIS has landed decide to wake him. As Barbara tells the Doctor "the trembling has stopped" meaning the ship, the Doctor grabs her and says "oh my dear, I'm so glad your feeling better!" It's always nice to see the Doctor getting on well with Ian and Barbara in direct contrast to how horrible he was to them in the first half of season 1. Ian and Barbara truly are two of my favourite companions of all time. Why don't they have an action figure yet??
Vicki is one of the sole survivors of a crashed ship and by the end of the story she IS the sole survivor of the crashed ship. Which is quite handy in a way as it means she is free to jump on board the TARDIS with no one wondering just where the hell she has gone to!
The Romans
What is it with people trying to rape Barbara?? This time Nero is at it!
Apart from that, this story is pretty much an out and out comedy. It's very much in the style of the "Carry On" movies. The TARDIS team have spent a month in Rome even before the story begins properly. Rather handily they have discovered a villa whose owner is away, so they are holed up there and having the time of their lives. It's nice to see them actually enjoying themselves for a change and not running away from some hideous threat.
The Doctor gets mistaken for a musician and assumes the identity of that musician...which considering people are trying to murder said musician then it's probably not the wisest decision he has made!! However it does lead to one of the funnier scenes in the story where the Doctor plays a tune that only people with the most delicate and refined of hearing will be able to appreciate. He is playing this tune for the emporer Nero and he then begins to pretend to pluck the strings to the adoration of the crowd. The similarities with the emperors new clothes is obvious.
Meanwhile Ian isn't having such a great time as he is sold as a slave, made to row on a ship which subsequently sinks and then ends up fighting his new nest friend in the Emperors court. Poor Ian. From science teacher to action hero!
The Web Planet
My challenge hit a major obstacle here. This story is pants! Utter pants! I mean it has some good points..but it's mainly pants!
The TARDIS is dragged down to the planet VORTIS by an unknown force. The same force has dragged several moons into orbit around the planet. Vortis is the web planet.
So far so good..
And the sets for Vortis are pretty good! An echo is put on the soundtrack to give the impression of a cold and desolate environment. Copious amounts of Vaseline (I knew I'd get that phrase in somewhere!) are smeared (again another great word - smeared) across the camera lens to create the strange atmosphere of the planet.
Down for the down side...
The Zarbi - giant ants which do nothing but make grating bleeping noises and knock into these, including the camera!
The Menoptra - butterfly creatures who talk in the most irritating way. Honestly I think I'd rather they just bleeped too.
This story would have been ok as a two parter but it's six bloody episodes long! Six episodes of tedium!
I'm sure Big Finish have done a Doctor Who audio adventure called Return To Vortis.. I mean, why?? Why would anyone ever go back??
The Crusade
Another story that was a little bit of a struggle to watch. This time for completely different reasons. The story itself is actually excellent. It was only let down by the fact that 2 out of the 4 episodes no longer exist and unfortunately my copy of the reconstructed episodes was not too good so sometimes it was a bit difficult to work out what was going on. Especially in episode 4.
Julian Glover makes his first appearance in the series, this time playing Richard the first. He's a fine actor and one of those people who you could listen to even if they were reading the telephone book. He also played the voice of Aragog in Harry Potter which I found out the other day! Who knew!
Apparently Julian Glover and Jean Marsh (who plays his sister in this story) wanted to try to suggest and incestuous relationship between the two. An interesting choice. Again this was supposed to be childrens television right?
The Space Museum
Doctor Who dips its toe in the repercussion of dabbling with time again. The TARDIS jumps a time track (you know, a time track?) and the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki arrive at the Space Museum BEFORE they have arrived.. I think..Anyway, the gist of episode 1 is that they stumble across a display of their own frozen bodies! Quite a neat idea.
The remaining 3 episodes are more like your standard Doctor Who but this time with the added threat that the team need to avoid their destiny as being a display in the museum! Unfortunately it's not as exciting as it seems. Also the aliens have funny double eyebrows...and that's all I have to say about that.
The Chase
The Daleks are back! And this time they have time machines of their own to "chase" the Doctor throughout time and space in order to exterminate him! Seems like a good idea. The Doctor has only defeated them twice before (relative time of course, it's completely possible that these Daleks are from the future in their time frame and have had many schemes thwarted by future incarnations of the Doctor. You see, you've got to think about these things) and already the Dalek's are pretty pissed off.
The mystery of the Mary Celeste is finally answered (yes they were all frightened of their ship by a horde of Daleks!) and the Daleks make an exact replica of the Doctor (which isn't all together convincing, particularly when it's required for another actor to stand in for William Hartnell when the Doctor and his replica are required to be in the same scene)
And finally the Daleks meet one of their biggest Nemesis's (what the hell is the plural for Nemesis? .. Nemesi??) The Mechanoids! During the first few seasons of Doctor Who, many attempts were made to replicate the success of the Daleks and the Mechanoids were certainly designed along those lines. They're not fantastic...but they do have flame throwers!
The real jewel of this story comes in the final episode. With the Daleks defeated, Barbara realises that Ian and herself could use the Dalek's time machine to finally get home to their own time. The Dalek's time machine can actually be steered to the right time and place which I guess makes it superior to the TARDIS..I don't feel comfortable thinking such thoughts.
Anyway, the final scenes are heart wrenching as Ian and Barbara beg the Doctor to help them work the Dalek's ship to take them home.
IAN: "Yes, home! I want to sit in a pub and drink a pint of beer again. I want to walk in a park and watch a cricket match. Above all, I want to belong somewhere, do something, instead of this aimless drifting around in space."
The Doctor's reluctance to help them is justified by himself as being because using the Dalek ship will be incredibly risky and that it could result in the death of Ian and Barbara, but deep down I think it's because he simply does not want to say goodbye. Over the last couple of years its clear that they have become very good friends. Of course eventually, he relents and instructs them on how to pilot the ship home.
DOCTOR: "I shall miss them. Yes, I shall miss them"
So will I Doctor, so will I.
The Time Meddler
Another first for the series. We meet another member of the Doctor's own race in the form of "The Meddling Monk" He even has his own TARDIS disguised as an alter.
We also get the proper introduction of the new companion, Steven Taylor, as played by Peter Purves (yes, Blue Peter's Peter Purves!) His initial scepticism as to the time travelling capability of the TARDIS is played brilliant, especially when the Doctor presents him with a viking helmet to prove that they have travelling to the past. Steven looks at his sceptically until the Doctor exclaims "Well what do you think it is?? A space helmet for a cow!?" Haha! Brilliant
So the monk is ..well..meddling with time. He's not necessarily an evil character, more mischievous.
The Doctor's meeting with another member of his race is intriguing. We still don't know what his race is called or what the planet is called but we are being fed little tid bits every now and again to keep us guessing who the Doctor is.
Another disturbing scene occurs in this story when it is very heavily implied that one of the vikings has raped one of the villagers that the Doctor has just met. This is dark dark stuff! Which considering the rest of the story is quite amusing then it seems a little out of place. And what the hell is with rape in Doctor Who. Honestly, children's television was very different back then.
So that was another season of Doctor Who finished. Things were about to get a whole lot more difficult for me from here. The first two seasons of Doctor Who are fairly complete in the BBC archives. Season 3 through 5 are the worst hit with the wiped and deleted stories so it was going to be a lot of still pictures, audio and descriptive text from here. This was honestly one of the bigger challenges that I would face. My only hope was that the excitement of watching stories that were new to me would compensate for the lack of moving images!!
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