Episode #45 : The Mind Robber

"We're nowhere. It's as simple as that."

 

Episode 45:    The Mind Robber.
Companions:  The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot.
Air Date:         Five episodes. 14th September to 12th October 1968.

 

To escape from the volcanic eruption on Dulkis, the Second Doctor uses an emergency unit. It moves the TARDIS out of normal time and space. The travellers find themselves in an endless void where they are menaced by white robots.
Having regained the safety of the TARDIS, they believe they have escaped - until the ship explodes. They find themselves in a land of fiction, where they are hunted by life-size clockwork soldiers and encounter characters like Rapunzel and Swift's Lemuel Gulliver.

The Mind Robber is one of those early classic stories where after the first viewing you sit back and wonder what on earth that was all about. I certainly did. A couple more viewings and you come to see that it's not as strange or poor as you first thought. This really was what The Celestial Toymaker wanted to be. Had that story been similar to this in it's telling it may have been far better than it was.

The over all plot is a bit strange. It follows straight on from the end of the prior tale with the Doctor being forced to shunt the TARDIS into another reality to escape the encroaching lava. The companions are dropped into a strange cerebral world where anything that is fictional can exist. Throughout the story we encounter fictitious characters such as Gulliver, Rapunzel and Cyrano de Bergerac as well as robots and clockwork soldiers.These are all controlled by a figure called The Master (not to be confused with the villain to come in later stories) who is an English writer abducted from 1926 and set here to control the fictional universe. He in turn is controlled by some computer called the Master Brain whose plan is to draw all of humanity into the fictional world so that it can take over. Hopefully it isn't just me who sees plot holes in that. Who created the Master Brain in the first place?

I really enjoyed Patrick Troughton's portrayal of the Doctor in this story. I almost get a sense that he was channelling William Hartnell in places. Zoe however, just spends most of the story screaming and calling for help.
There is an odd part to Jamie's story here though. In one episode he is turned into a life size cardboard cut-out of himself but without a face. When the Doctor recreates his face wrong, he is restored to played by a different actor. It fits the story, but the truth was that Frazer Hines was ill for a few days with chicken pox.

The Mind Robber is a good story but it may take more than one watch to hook you.

Episode #44 : The Dominators

"An unintelligent enemy is far less dangerous than an intelligent one, Jamie. Just act stupid. Do you think you can manage that?"

Episode 44:   The Dominators.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot.
Air Date:       Five episodes. 10th August to 7th September 1968.

When two rogue Dominators and their robotic servant Quarks land on the peaceful planet Dulkis, planning to drop a radioactive seed into the planet's core to refuel their spaceship, the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe must attempt to inspire the pacifist Dulcians to resist.

The Dominators is an excellent example of the show from this era. Despite the length of the story the episodes are well written though the acting from the Dominators themselves is horribly over the top. My initial viewing of this story a few years ago had a not so great review from me but watching it this time around I enjoyed it much more than I did.

The Dominators are served by the robot Quarks who act as guards and soldiers with lethal energy weapons. Their appearance is fairly comical and their high pitched voices sometimes grate upon the ears.

The story itself is another fair typical one for science fiction where an aggressive alien race comes to a less developed one purely for the purpose of raping the planet for its resources. You would have thought that any significantly advanced race would have the technology to create suitable and sustainable power sources. But as such, it makes the story very familiar.

Jamie gets a lot more screen time and story focus than in the previous stories that I've been able to watch which is good. It is nice to see the companions getting the limelight every so often.

Episode #43 : The Wheel in Space

"Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority."

Episode 43:     The Wheel in Space.
Companions:   The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot.
Air Date:         Six episodes. 27th April to 1st June 1968.

The TARDIS materialises on board a spaceship, the Silver Carrier, where the Second Doctor and Jamie are attacked by a Servo Robot. Jamie contacts a nearby space station known as the Wheel and they are rescued. Meanwhile, the Silver Carrier discharges Cybermats, which also travel to and enter the station. These pave the way for the invasion of the station by Cybermen, who intend to use its direct radio link with Earth as a beacon for their invasion fleet.

Only two episodes of this story remain so again this review comes from a couple of synopses of the story.

The Wheel in Space is a fairly typical science fiction story where a remote location comes under mysterious attack with no means of escape. When done right it works and I think it does here. The mysterious attack from the returning Cybermen though oddly despite chronological events no one on the station has heard of Cybermen or Daleks. It feels very similar to the early story The Moonbase in some regards.

The story sees the introduction of a new companion, Zoe, a genius of a young woman whose intellect seems to rival if not exceed that of the Doctor himself. This seems to aggravate the Doctor somewhat giving some conflict between him and his new companion. We really haven't had that since Ian and Barbara's time on the TARDIS. It is difficult to tell how she would come across to the viewers as the role of a companion is to ask the questions that we want to ask, and she probably already has those answers.

As this story is set in the late 21st century I'm guessing that the writers assumed we would be more advanced than we are, so this is probably the first time that we can assume that the Whoniverse is not our own, allowing for certain cover ups of alien appearances in the 1960's and 70's.

All in all, it reads like an OK story.

Episode #42 : Fury From The Deep

"Every time we go anywhere, something awful happens".

 

Episode 42:    Fury From The Deep.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield.
Air Date:        Six episodes. 16th March to 20th April 1968.

 

The TARDIS lands on the surface of the sea, just off the east coast of England. The time travellers use a rubber dinghy to get ashore, where they are shot with tranquilliser darts and taken prisoner by security guards as they have arrived in the restricted area of a gas refinery.

 

Fury From The Deep is another story mostly lost to time and space. It deals with a undersea gas mining facility that accidentally picks up a weed creature which feeds on gas and can dominate the minds of people it touches. As monsters go, not one of the more memorable ones and nor is it one of the interesting stories.

 

What does get introduced in this story however is the sonic screwdriver that is as much as part of Doctor Who as the TARDIS these days. No explanation as to when the Doctor made it or how/why, it's just sort of there. A good addition to the character though as throughout the run of the show it certainly serves to further the stories and prevent bogging down in pacing.

 

In this story we see the departure of Victoria from the TARDIS. She has found a foster family and decides to remain in 1968. Bad things seem to happen wherever the time travellers go and she has become fed up of by it all. Victorian sensibilities I suppose. I've not seen much of her character but for the time she seemed like a good companion though in hindsight she is another less remembered one.

 

As for the story itself, I am again having to go by a synopses and it does not seen like a well written story. Despite the show picking up somewhat at the end of the Hartnell era, there is something about the stories told in the Troughton era that don't seem to flow well reading through the plot information. Maybe it is the change of script writers every so often or budget constraints.

Episode #41 : The Web of Fear

Episode 41:   The Web of Fear.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield.
Air Date:        Six episodes. 3rd February to 9th March 1968.

The TARDIS narrowly avoids becoming engulfed in a cobwebby substance in space. It arrives in the London Underground railway system, the tunnels of which are being overrun by the web and by the Great Intelligence's robot Yeti.

At the close of The Enemy of the World, a special trailer was played to prepare viewers for the terrors that were to come with The Web of Fear. The audio remains and has been turned into an animated feature here:

 

 

The Web of Fear is a sequel of sorts to The Abominable Snowmen and continues the machinations of the Great Intelligence as it seeks physical form or whatever it's ultimate goal is at this time. This story also introduces one of the most loved characters in the show, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (though he is Colonel at the time of this story). It can well be argued that the events of this story would perhaps be the reason for the founding of U.N.I.T. later on.

 

The sets were so well done that during the showing of this story the BBC received complaints from the London Underground claiming that they had filmed down there without permission.

 

This would be the last time that we see the Great Intelligence in the classic run of the show. It does return much later on for the eleventh Doctor where we also learn how it knew to use the London Underground for its invasion.

 

Episode #40 : The Enemy of the World

"People spend all their time making nice things and then other people come along and break them!"

Episode 40:   The Enemy of the World.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield.
Air Date:       Six episodes. 23rd December 1967 to 27th January 1968.

On Earth in the near future, the Doctor and his companions are enmeshed in a deadly web of intrigue thanks to his uncanny resemblance to the scientist/policitian Salamander. He is hailed as the "shopkeeper of the world" for his efforts to relieve global famine, but why do his rivals keep disappearing? How can he predict so many natural disasters? The Doctor must expose Salamander's schemes before he takes over the world.

A very unusual tale that plays out more like a James Bond movie than an episode of Doctor Who. Since the prior story also felt slighty out of place maybe that was the plan with the current series? In this story Patrick Troughton plays both roles as the Doctor and the villain Salamander, an evil villain with schemes to rule the world.

Unfortunately we have here yet another story that is largely no longer in existence. Shame, as it does read like it could have been a real hoot of a story to watch. At six episodes though, the synopsis does feel like it was drawn out a bit too long though. Hopefully one day we'll be able to watch it and see how it plays out.

Episode #39 : The Ice Warriors

"In 2 minutes 38 seconds, you're going to have an almighty explosion!"

Episode 39:   The Ice Warriors.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield.
Air Date:       Six episodes. 11th November to 16th December 1967.

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in a new ice age and the travellers make their way into a base where scientists commanded by Leader Clent are using an ioniser device to combat the advance of a glacier.
A giant humanoid creature, called an Ice Warrior by one of the scientists, has been found buried in the nearby glacier. When thawed, it revives and is revealed to be Varga, captain of a Martian spacecraft that landed on Earth centuries ago and is still in the glacier. Varga sets about freeing his comrades and formulating a plan to conquer the Earth - Mars itself is now dead.

The Ice Warriors is a story that feels much more like it should have appeared as a Star Trek story. It just has that Trek vibe rather than what I expect from Doctor Who. It even has some odd moments with the female "oooo" sort of singing over things. Very odd. But that aside, it is a reasonable story despite there being one or two moments where I found myself distracted because the story wasn't going anywhere. In places it needed more action.

This is the introduction of the Ice Warriors race who make a handful of appearances later on in the show, mainly for the second and third Doctors. These reptilians are the inhabitants of Mars which has lost its ability to sustain life. They came to Earth thousands of years ago and got stuck in the ice. Very ironic for a race people call Ice Warriors. They are aggressive conquerors but to me they seem a tad simplistic in how they do it. One last thing... although the costumes for the Ice Warriors are suitably iconic, they do often look bloody silly waddling around in them.

A reasonable story that introduces one of the lesser but also iconic villain races.