Relative Dates: 28th March 2012 - 4th April 2012
It was coming up to the time when the first Doctor bowed out of the show. But before he did he still had a couple of stories left to tell.
I'm splitting this entry into two segments. This is due to the fact that the first "renewal" of the Doctor occurs mid season so it makes sense to stop at that point to comment some more on the time of the first Doctor before the season continues with the adventures of the second Doctor.
The Smugglers
Ben and Polly's first trip in the TARDIS takes them to Cornwall in the 17th century...
Again this is going to be a short entry I'm afraid as I can remember very little from this story. It doesn't help of course that yet again this is a story that is completely missing from the BBC archives. Reconstructed stories are always harder to remember.
So there is some piracy going on that the Doctor gets involved in, and there a fair few fight sequences.
Something interesting to note is that when Doctor Who was sold abroad, certain countries such as Australia would cut certain scenes out of the programme that they considered to be inappropriate. As such certain death scenes were trimmed out of the programme. Strangely these trimmed sequences were kept by the Australian television companies so quite often they serve as the only surviving footage from some stories. The reason I mention this is that I particularly remember in this story how whenever someone is about to be stabbed, the pictures suddenly start moving again so we at least get to see the characters die! Very pleasant!
The Tenth Planet
An isolated base in the Arctic detects the presence of another planet approaching the Earth and draining the world of all it's power. The planet is Mondas and the it's people - The Cybermen!
To survive the people of Mondas have been forced to upgrade and replace their body parts with machines and a true Doctor Who monster is born. The Cybermen here are truly creepy. They look very different on their first appearance in the series than they ever would again. Strange cloth faces, strange "sing song" voices, huge helmets and rather disturbingly, human hands! It's a fantastic design!
This is a four part story and all but the last episode actually still exists so it was a treat to watch. William Hartnell goes missing halfway through the story due to the fact that he had fallen ill which is a real shame considering it is his last story.
These "base under siege" stories will soon become very familiar to me as they were often used during the Patrick Troughton era and for the most part they work quite well.
And so the story ends with the Cybermen defeated (but I'm sure we've not seen the last of them!) but the Doctor is adding very odd.
THE DOCTOR "This old body of mine is waring a bit thin"
He stumbles into the TARDIS and collapses to the ground. We hear the wheezing and groaning sound of the TARDIS engines, and as Ben and Polly turn the Doctor over, we see his face change before our very eyes! The second Doctor had arrived...
Come back soon for my next entry which will be a short refelctive summary on the time of the first Doctor - William Hartnell.
No comments:
Post a Comment