Sunday 30 September 2012

The Exciting Guide to The Dalek Invasion of Earth!

So, Amy and Rory have left the TARDIS at the hands of arguably the Doctor's most prominent returning enemies. Let's look back at a similar situation in season 2, when the first ever companion departure occurred following six episodes of Dalek action.

And wow. Back in 1999, I really wasn't keen on "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" - and even less keen on Susan!

Quick reminder:
For previous posts, you can scroll around this site, or go to my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ExcitingGuide) which will link only to those parts of my blog devoted to the Exciting Guide. If you need to understand what I'm doing, there's a link to my intro here: http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/watching-every-tv-adventure-of-doctor.html



Story Ten
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Story Code
K

Title
The Dalek Invasion Of Earth

“Friends” Title
The One With Daleks In London
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Episode Titles
World’s End
The Daleks
Day Of Reckoning
The End Of Tomorrow
The Waking Ally
Flashpoint

Current availability
All six episodes exist.

Source
BBC Video release.

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Date
2167.
A calendar in the warehouse reads “2164.”  This may, of course, be an old calendar.  As the Daleks invaded Earth some ten years before this adventure, we can place the invasion anywhere between 2154 and 2164, and the events of the story about ten years afterwards - so anywhere between around 2163 and 2175.
This now enables some rough dating for The Daleks as well.  It can be placed anywhere between 2164 and 2664.  See below for explanation.

Personal Chronology
On the above theme, I am saying that The Dalek Invasion Of Earth takes place earlier in Dalek history than The Daleks.

Genre
Alien Invasion.

Plot synopsis
1.         The Ship arrives in London of the future.  Susan manages to sprain her ankle, as well as blocking the TARDIS door with fallen rubble.  The Doctor and Ian go for help, and find a dead man wearing a strange metal helmet.  They return to the Ship, but Barbara and Susan have been taken away by two men - Carl Tyler and David Campbell - to a secret hideaway, where they meet the wheelchair-bound Dortmun.  The Doctor and Ian see a spaceship overhead, which lands at a heliport.  They find themselves surrounded by helmeted zombie-men, and plan to swim for it, but are blocked as a Dalek unexpectedly rises from the Thames.
2.         The Doctor and Ian are taken into the Dalek saucer along with a man named Jack Craddock - a fourth man is killed trying to escape.  They learn that Earth has been invaded and is now under the control of the Daleks, who broadcast an ultimatum - the resistance must surrender, or London will be destroyed with firebombs.  The Doctor manages to open his cell door, but it was an intelligence test, and he is sent to be turned into one of the Robomen.  Meanwhile, the resistance, along with Barbara and Susan, launch an attack on the saucer armed with Dortmun’s new bombs, but the Doctor is already undergoing the robotising process.
3.         Most of the rebels are killed or dispersed in the attack:  the bombs were a failure.  The Dalek saucer heads for the Dalek mine in Bedfordshire - Ian stows away, although the Doctor has escaped.  Ian rescues a fellow stowaway named Larry Madison from a robotised Craddock - Larry is hoping to find his brother at the mine.  Dortmun, Barbara and another rebel called Jenny head for the Civic Transport Museum looking for survivors, while Tyler goes elsewhere on the same mission.  Dortmun makes improvements to his bomb, but is killed testing it on a pair of Daleks.  David and Susan find the Doctor, but as they are resting, the Daleks place a firebomb nearby.
4.         David manages to defuse the bomb.  The Doctor passes out, presumably from a combination of exhaustion and Dalek drugs, and Susan and David leave him in hiding while they look for a way out of London.  Barbara and Jenny flee London in a truck from the museum.  David and Susan bump into Tyler in the sewers.  Susan has a close shave with an alligator before they all return to the Doctor.  Ian and Larry reach the mine, and meet Ashton, a black marketeer.  They try to get help from him, but he is killed and they are trapped by the Slyther, a creature belonging to the Black Dalek.
5.         Ian and Larry manage to push the Slyther down the mine to its death, but are accidentally lowered down the shaft themselves.  Larry finds his brother Phil, who has been robotised - the brothers kill each other.  The Doctor and party reach Bedfordshire:  Susan and David are obviously becoming close.  Barbara and Jenny find shelter on their way to the mine in a little house with two women, who promptly betray them to the Daleks for food.  The Daleks announce their intentions on Earth - to cause an explosion in the Earth’s magnetic core, replacing it with a propulsion unit which will enable them to pilot the planet.  Ian is hiding inside the penetration explosive device, as it moves into position.
6.         Ian manages to disable the device and escapes the Daleks.  They fire it again, but this time it becomes caught on a blockage engineered by Ian, although the Daleks do not realise.  They abandon the mine.  The Doctor and Tyler rescue Barbara and Jenny, while David and Susan manage to immobilise the remaining Daleks:  Barbara uses the Dalek equipment to order the Robomen to turn against their masters.  Everyone flees the mine before it explodes, taking the hovering Dalek saucers with it.  Earth is free, and the travellers return to London.  After the debris is cleared from the Ship, the Doctor, Barbara and Ian leave:  Susan is left behind to marry David.

Pitch
The Daleks.  On Earth.  A bit like Independence Day.

The Money Shot
A Dalek rises from the Thames (episode 1).

The Doctor and his kind
• As in The Sensorites, the Doctor professes a dislike of arms, and this time refuses to take a gun.
• Susan stays behind on Earth to marry David Campbell.  I’m guessing this answers the question of whether the Doctor and Cameca would have been sexually compatible!
• And how nice to know that the Doctor’s people chastise their children in the same way we do! (See Script Heaven.)

The TARDIS log
• The TARDIS again makes no sound when it lands, but the familiar wheezing, groaning sound is present when it takes off at the end of the story.  Is there any sort of pattern to this?
• Why does the scanner screen only show water?  I know it hasn’t exactly been reliable of late, but isn’t it supposed to show what’s directly outside the Ship?  Well, they weren’t actually in the Thames!  Anyway, it was broken at the end of the last episode.  Maybe they found a new tube.
• The TARDIS has an outside speaker.
• Why are we back on Earth?  Has the Doctor managed to pilot the Ship more accurately?  Possibly his hazy knowledge of their previous location was enough to make an educated guess - after all, he made it more or less exactly in Planet Of Giants, having come directly from revolutionary France.  In which case, they should be able to do just as well next time.

The history of Earth
• Around the middle of the twenty-second century, the Earth was bombarded by meteorites.  This was seen as a cosmic storm, but they were really germ bombs, spreading plague to weaken Earth.  Whole continents of people were apparently wiped out - Asia, Africa, South America.  An antidote was eventually created, but by now Earth was divided into isolated communities, enabling a Dalek invasion force to land, destroying some cities and occupying others.  The surviving leaders of the different Earth races resisted the invaders, but were all killed.  Some humans were turned into Robomen;  others serve as slaves in the great mining areas created by the Daleks - the foremost of these being in Bedfordshire, England.  Pockets of resistance continued to resist them, and eventually managed to destroy the Dalek saucers and the Bedfordshire mine.
• In 2164, Battersea Power Station still exists, but has lost two chimneys.  There is a heliport in Chelsea, and Big Ben has stopped chiming (although it is re-activated after the Daleks’ defeat).
• The old woman in the woods describes attractions in pre-Dalek London as including “moving pavements” and an “astronaut fair.”  One can only presume that only some of the pavements moved, as the ones we see look no different than they did 200 years previously.
• London (and presumably other towns and cities) is now overrun with animals escaped from zoos, and many of the country’s dog have formed wild packs which roam the woods (although this last may have been a lie).  I can only presume, however, that other animals were affected by the germ warfare, as I can think of no other explanation for the absence of birdsong noted by the Doctor on the banks of the Thames.
• Craddock asks the Doctor and Ian if they have been on a moon station, and seems to think it is a viable possibility.

Script Heaven
• The Doctor “What you need is a jolly good smacked bottom!”
• David “She says she can cook.” Dortmun “Oh, can you?” David “And what do you do?” Susan “I eat.”
• Dalek “We are the masters of Earth!  We are the masters of Earth!  We are the masters of Earth!”
• David “This is my planet!  I just can’t run off and see what it’s like on Venus!”
• The Doctor “One day I shall come back.  Yes, I shall come back.  Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties.  Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.  Goodbye, Susan.  Goodbye, my dear.”

Script Hell
• David “They dare to tamper with the forces of creation?” The Doctor “Yes!  They dare!  And we have got to dare to stop them!”
• The Doctor “x=gamma, now that means roughly two and a half per cent, so that should give us a curve of round about eighty degrees...”  Technobabble at its most supreme!

Catchphrase
Having refused to use their catchphrase all story long - and been reticent about it even in their previous adventure - the Daleks go all out with it in the final two episodes.  The first really classic version is the Black Dalek’s in episode 6.
• Dalek “Do not try to escape or you will be exterminated!  Move!”
• Black Dalek “Exterminate him!  Exterminate him!  Exterminate him!”
• Black Dalek “Arrange for the extermination of all human beings.”
• Dalek “I will arrange for their extermination.”

Villainous Plotting
• Okay.  The Daleks have invaded Earth and drilled deep into the planet’s surface, so that they can explode a device in the magnetic core, remove said core and insert a propulsion unit, allowing them to pilot the planet anywhere in the universe.  Now stop me if I’m being thick, but does that make any sense to anyone?  At all?  Why are they doing this?  What’s wrong with spaceships?  Why the Earth?  Does anyone really think this is possible?  Has everyone just gone completely mad?

The Doctor’s Achievement
He has helped to ensure the Daleks’ plan failed, and destroyed their invasion force - Earth is free to rebuild.

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It!
• Earth saved: Once.  This is arguably the first time that the Doctor has actually saved the planet Earth from destruction (I figure being turned into a glorified spaceship counts as destruction!)

Body Count
Quite high.  We see at least 4 Robomen killed (including the suicidal one at the start, the dead one in the warehouse and Phil Madison), though others probably die too.  At least 4 Daleks die on screen too (including at least one run over by a truck) plus their entire invasion force.  Dead humans include Dortmun;  Larry;  Baker;  the escaping prisoner in episode 2; Ashton; a heard-but-not-seen runaway; and “most” of the rebels who attack the saucer.  Also the entire of Asia, Africa, South America and God knows where else perished in the Dalek invasion.  So it’s impossible to calculate, then.  On screen, however, let us set the figure at:
17.

Screams / Twists Ankle
• Susan claims to be familiar with atomic devices.
• Barbara’s sweater is blue.  According to Ian, anyway.  We can’t exactly tell the difference.
• As a parting shot, Susan helpfully twists her ankle at the start of this story.  Well done.
Oh, I’ve Been Captured Tally:  3.  Barbara and Jenny survive a surprisingly long time before being, well, captured in episode 5.  Oh well.  The Doctor rescues them next episode.

Hypnotised left, right and centre (and friends)
• I shall count the Robomen as an instance of possession, especially since it’s used to dramatic effect by pitting brother against brother.
Hypnotism:  2 instances.
Possession:  1 instance.

Checkov’s Plot Device
No, but they do use the Daleks’ own weapon against them, which is symmetry of another kind.

EffectsWatch
Urgh.
• The Dalek saucer in flight is absolutely bloody awful.
• I can confidently say that man-in-unconvincing-rubber-suit Slyther is the worst monster yet to appear in Doctor Who.
• Dig the lo-tech mine plan on the Daleks’ wall.
• The mine explosion is all stock footage.
• EVERY fight sequence etc is crap!  Note especially the attack on the saucer in Chelsea, and the fight in the sewer in episode 5.  Only the chase through London in episode 3 deserves any kind of applause.
• All right, one good point.  Bonus to the designer who kept the Dalek door design from The Daleks.

The TARDIS wardrobe
• Ian seems to have split the back of his jacket.

Dalek history
• In the middle of the twenty-second century, the Daleks invaded Earth with germ warfare and a fleet of saucers with a view to transforming the planet into a moving base.  They were defeated after several years, and their invasion force destroyed.
• The Daleks have dishes - akin to twentieth century satellite TV dishes - attacked to their casing, which presumably allow them to move about without having to rely on static electricity.  This begs the question of why these dishes aren’t fitted as standard, especially “a million years” in the future.  Daleks as mobile as these would not have been stranded in their city in The Daleks.  Possibly the technology takes a lot of energy, and the Daleks of the earlier story were short on many resources.
• This story confirms that the Daleks are a space-faring race, so some may indeed have survived their apparent destruction in The Daleks.
• This is apparently the “middle history” of the Daleks - the events of The Daleks, when they were seemingly destroyed on Skaro, took place, according to the Doctor “a million years ahead of us in the future” - although this should be taken with a pinch of salt, as the Doctor had no idea where or when they were at the time.
• We may have a contradiction here.  In The Daleks, we learned that the Dal/Thal war began five hundred years prior to the events we see, and it was suggested that only then did the Dals retreat inside their machines.  So how can this be a million years before those events?
• I am going to take an executive decision here to cure these continuity problems.  The Doctor is surely only guessing with his problematic “a million years” comment - I am going to presume he is wrong.  This story makes a lot more sense if it takes place some time after the Dal/Thal war - therefore shortly before, around the time of or after the events of The Daleks.  The Daleks who invaded Earth were probably either off on their travels or already dead at the time of the events in this story.
• We can now come to a rough guess about the dating (in Earth years) of The Daleks.  If they left Skaro only after the Dal/Thal war, then the latest possible date for the Doctor’s encounter with the Thals on Skaro is 500 years after 2164 (i.e. 2664).  Let us guess that, in fact, the Dal/Thal war came to its peak around 1850, thus placing The Daleks in 2350.
• There is a Black Dalek, who seems to be in charge - he is described as the “supreme commander” and the “kommandant of the camp” - i.e. the mine in Bedfordshire.
• The Daleks have the ability to transform human beings (and other races?) into zombie-like Robomen, controlled through helmets which apparently pick up high-frequency radio waves.  When the control wears off, the Robomen go insane and die.
• Dalek technology impresses the Doctor - he calls the saucer a work of genius.
• The Slyther is presumably another example of the mutated creatures who live on Skaro.  The Black Dalek keeps it as a “pet” (according to Ashton) - it roams the mine area eating people.  Nice.  (The Slyther’s mutated state is another argument to prove that The Dalek Invasion Of Earth takes place after the Dal/Thal war).
• Dalek casing is waterproof.  The humans have named the metal from which it is made “Dalekenium.”
• One Dalek is knocked over in the attack on the saucer, and remains oddly silent and still.  What does this mean?  I thought it would have been spitting blood.
• Have Dalek IQs dropped?  When ordered to exterminate all humans, one starts randomly intoning “kill...kill...kill...”  Hardly suitable behaviour for a race of brilliant scientists.  Mind you, there’s always one, isn’t there?  On the other hand, it seems to be a general species characteristic - the wet Dalek earlier grated on about being the masters of Earth somewhat unnecessarily.
• All right, it has to be asked.  How do the Daleks get up and down stairs?  Dortmun’s difficulties only emphasise this.

Dudley!
• The music during Barbara, Jenny and Dortmun’s flight through London avoiding Daleks is extremely distinctive.

Susan
            Susan is of the same race as the Doctor, and we must presume she is, as she appears to be, his granddaughter.  There is far more we don’t know about Susan than what we do know - her age is a mystery, for although she appears to be a teenage girl, and fits in well with other teenage girls such as Ping-Cho in Marco Polo, her wealth of experience and knowledge betrays a greater age.  Her people’s gift for telepathy is particularly strong in Susan, but it’s not a trick she can pull often - she is only able to make use of it on the Sense-Sphere because of the ultra high frequencies.  She has a thirst for knowledge, and seems quite as happy in an Aztec seminary as in an English school.  She often speaks longingly of her home planet, and yearns for somewhere to belong.  Her devotion to her grandfather is often tested, largely by his insistence on treating her like a child when she feels she is a woman, but never so much as when she is forced to choose between remaining in the TARDIS with the Doctor and leaving him to marry the human David Campbell.  Her loyalty to her grandfather wins out, but the Doctor locks her out of the Ship, making the decision for her - he knew she could never leave him.  One presumes she will now join David on the farm he intends to run, as his wife.
            On a personal note, I can’t stand the bloody woman, and I won’t miss her whining and screaming one little bit.

Whoops
• Why on Earth do the time travellers take so long to notice the poster?

Notes
• A Dalek in the background refers to exterminating all humans as “the final solution.”  Is anyone still failing to see where the imagery is coming from here?
• No-one on Earth in 2164 (especially David Campbell!) seems too worried about the Doctor and Susan’s extra-terrestrial nature, nor their amazing vanishing Police Box.  Of course, alien invasion will do that.
• How long does it take to get from London to Bedfordshire?  It seems just as quick for the Doctor to walk it as it does for Ian to fly.
• Sexism still not dead, then.  “Can you cook?”
• On the other hand, Jenny may be the first genuinely interesting female character to crop up in the series.
• It’s not a very good resistance group - it takes Barbara to come up with the old Trojan horse trick.
• Barbara continues to use her cunning in the mines later on.  Her ploy to get into the control centre is appalling, but somehow works.  The bluff involving Hannibal and the Boston Tea Party is ace, though.
• Dortmun is a chess player.  Seems appropriate.
• David defuses a bomb using acid and a big stick!  Clever chap.
• The Doctor actually passes out in episode 4 because William Hartnell was absent during recording.
• We find time for a moment of humour:  a Dalek interrogates a dummy in episode 3.  “Who-are-you?”
• Another great scene is where the Doctor chews Susan out for taking David’s advice over his, only for David himself to turn up and defer to the Doctor as the senior member of the party.  Here’s a man who knows how to get in with the in-laws.
• What fun to drive a truck through a line of Daleks!  Can I have a go?
• Almost more fun are the Doctor and Barbara’s impressions of Daleks while giving the Robomen their new orders.
• There’s some great hiding in plain sight in episode 6.
• The Doctor Who title sequence, or something very like it, is conspicuous on Dalek screens in episodes 3 and 4 - we last saw this effect being recycled in An Unearthly Child episode 1, to represent the TARDIS taking off.
• Someone is marketing very odd calendars.  Would you buy a calendar you could only tear a page off once every 365 days?
• The Doctor takes Susan’s worn out shoe.  She still has her TARDIS key, but drops it.  There are now two keys to the Doctor’s Ship on Earth - one by the banks of the Thames, and one left behind in Cathay several adventures ago.

Queries
• If the Doctor knows all about the historical events of, for example, the Reign of Terror, why does he know nothing about the Dalek Invasion?  Surely it’s as much a historical event as anything pre-1964 to a time traveller?  And why does he feel no compunction about interfering in these events, while forbidding Barbara to change one line of history in The Aztecs?
• The Daleks invaded the world, not just Britain, and not just Bedfordshire.  Do we presume that every single Dalek saucer was hovering over that mine when it exploded?  Otherwise, what happened to the rest of the occupying forces?
• What happens to the Robomen now?  Will the survivors of Earth be able to restore their personalities?  Or will they be yet more casualties of war?
• What was that Dalek doing in the Thames?
• Was Baker, perhaps, short-sighted?  I saw that Dalek way before he did!
• And why is this scene so divorced from David, Susan and the Doctor?  They’re only round the corner!
• All right, so humans are compatible with the Doctor and Susan’s race.  But where would that have left Barbara and Ganatus?  Can all races interbreed?  Or all humanoid races?  Where, exactly, do you draw the line?
• “Before you attempt to conquer the Earth, you will have to destroy all living matter!”  What does this mean, precisely?
• Why Bedfordshire?
• What do these episode titles mean?  They seem to have reached previously unscaled heights of surreality.  “The End Of Tomorrow?”  And which waking ally, exactly?
• Firebombs.  What are they, exactly?  And is the death ray working?

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On-screen Credits
CAST
Dr. Who - William Hartnell, Ian Chesterton - William Russell, Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill, Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford, David Campbell - Peter Fraser, Carl Tyler - Bernard Kay, Dortmun - Alan Judd (1-4), Jenny - Ann Davies (2-6), Larry Madison - Graham Rigby (3-5), Craddock - Michael Goldie (2-3), Thomson - Michael Davis (2), Baker - Richard McNeff (2-3), Wells - Nicholas Smith (4-6), Ashton - Patrick O’Connell (4), The Women In The Wood - Jean Conroy (5); Meriel Hobson (5), Robomen - Martyn Huntley; Peter Badger, Dalek machines operated by Robert Jewell; Gerald Taylor (2-6); Nick Evans (2-3, 5-6); Kevin Manser (2-6); Peter Murphy (2-6), Dalek Voices - Peter Hawkins (2-6); David Graham (2-6), Slyther Operator - Nick Evans (4-5).
CREW
Written by Terry Nation.  Title Music by Ron Grainer with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  Incidental Music composed and conducted by Francis Chagrin.  Fights arranged by Peter Diamond (5).  Costumes supervised by Daphne Dare (6).  Make-up supervised by Sonia Markham (6).  Film Cameraman - Peter Hamilton (1,3-4,6).  Film Editor - John Griffiths (1,3-4,6).  Lighting - Howard King (6).  Sound - Jack Brummitt (6).  Story Editor - David Whitaker.  Designer - Spencer Chapman.  Associate Producer - Mervyn Pinfield.  Producer - Verity Lambert.  Directed by Richard Martin.

Familiar Faces
Nicholas Smith (Wells) was later to become more famous as Mr Rumbold in Are You Being Served?
David Graham (Dalek Voice)         Dalek Voice in The Daleks.
Peter Hawkins (Dalek Voice)         Dalek Voice in The Daleks.
Robert Jewell (Dalek)                      Dalek in The Daleks.
Kevin Manser (Dalek)                     Dalek in The Daleks.
Gerald Taylor (Dalek)                     Dalek in The Daleks.

Review
Well, what a difference.  This six-episode epic ditches Doctor Who’s credibility in almost every aspect.  The plot is so threadbare it would embarrass a Roland Emmerich film, the effects are uniformly disastrous.  The acting is by and large good, but we rarely get a chance to enjoy this, as promising characters (e.g. Craddock, Ashton) are summarily killed off within an episode.  This leads to a lack of continuity which really makes one wonder if the story knows where it’s going.  As it happens, it’s going to Bedfordshire, which is a shame, because the London locations were the story’s one real strong point.  And then there’s the Daleks, of course, and they are as good as the last time we saw them, if a little under-used.  The Robomen were a mistake - not even slightly scary, they also take screen time away from the Daleks themselves.  As for the ridiculous Dalek invasion plan, someone was clearly asleep when that one was passed.  And the ending embraces the one-explosion-solves-it-all philosophy that Doctor Who really should be above.  I think the problem here is that the series has tried to be just too ambitious, and production costs are stretched a little too much.  It’s a shame, because on paper it looks like a corking concept.  The realisation, however, leaves much to be desired.  But I don’t want to give the impression I hated every moment of this story.  Of course not.  Each episode can be watched quite harmlessly, and the various set pieces enjoyed one by one, except for the crap ones.  It’s only when you sit back and think about it that the whole thing falls apart, and I’d really prefer this series to stand up to that kind of scrutiny.  On the whole, the Daleks are a creation with great potential, and I’d like to see writer Terry Nation do something more worthwhile with them in future.  What must be said, though, is that Susan’s departure from the Ship is well-orchestrated.  The Doctor’s parting comments to her, and his grandfatherly way of making her decision for her, are thoroughly in-keeping with the established relationship, and however much I may dislike her, I can’t help but be touched by that scene.  And I think that says it all.  A six part story full of explosions and deaths, and the best bit is a heart-to-heart scene between two of the regulars.  And that scene was written not by Terry Nation, but by story editor David Whitaker.  Learn from this.

Rating
5 / 10 


Saturday 29 September 2012

The Best Companion Departures...that weren't!

In a few hours, Amy and Rory will leave Doctor Who, apparently forever. Many blogs have taken to listing "Top 10 companion departures", that sort of thing. Mine is a bit different - ten moments which SEEM to see a companion leave...only for the opportunity to be missed as the companion survives to fight another day. It's up to you to decide, in each case, whether that was a good thing!

10. DOOMSDAY (Rose Tyler)

One of the finest departures ever and I was crying with everyone else as Rose was trapped in a parallel universe forever, never to be reunited with her beloved Doctor. Well, until she popped up again 16 episodes later, making fully-fledged appearances in three more episodes and earning herself another big farewell scene. And then a cameo in The End of Time to boot.
See also: Journey's End, which sees off Donna Noble in a similarly effective way only to bring her back four episodes later (although not as blatantly as Rose).

9. THE MIND ROBBER (Jamie)

Did anyone seriously think that when Jamie's face was removed in this story and he transformed into another actor that Fraser Hines was never going to return? Probably not - but what a daring way to get rid of a companion that would be! After so long in the series, Jamie wasn't the best character to treat this was - but imagine if they'd done this to Liz, or Nyssa, or Dodo!

8. LAST OF THE TIME LORDS (Martha Jones)

Another effective farewell, another series over. This time, it only takes 6 episodes before Martha actually rings the Doctor up and blags herself another 3 episodes. Plus two more at the end of the season. And a couple of Torchwoods too. To be honest, the most mystifying thing about this is The Doctor's Daughter. Why was she in this?

7. THE AGE OF STEEL (Mickey Smith)

Well, I was convinced. I thought they'd written him out in about the most permanent possible way save killing him off. When he then returned in Army of Ghosts, I was actually quite pleased to see him: but there's a limit to how many times you can do this before no farewells have credence any more.

6. PARTING OF THE WAYS (Captain Jack Harkness)

And this time, they actually killed him off. We'd known him for 5 episodes, so it was perfectly believable that he'd die. After all, Lynda with a Y did. So did, well, everyone else we'd met. But right at the end, Super-Rose brings him back to life. In retrospect, this gave us more than it took from us - Torchwood, Utopia, The Stolen Earth - but at the time, it seemed unnecessary and pointless.

5. THE INVASION OF TIME (K9)

Leela chooses to stay on Gallifrey - inexplicably. K9 chooses to stay with her - rather more explicably. Oh well, the robot dog was just a season 15 thing - fair enough. But inside the TARDIS, the Doctor has a new version in a box. An identical version. Why? Why did a K9 have to stay with Leela? What was the thought process here?

4. TERROR OF THE ZYGONS (Harry Sullivan)

After one extended trip in the TARDIS, Harry reveals he hasn't got the right stuff after all and elects to stay behind with UNIT. No problem here, except then he pops up again for a minor role in The Android Invasion and seems destined to be a semi-regular character like Benton from then on. Except that neither of them ever turn up again, denying both a proper final scene.

3. TIME-FLIGHT (Tegan)

Tegan gets back to Heathrow at last...but changes her mind! She comes back - and the TARDIS has left. "I thought you were going with the Doctor." "So did I." Best moment in Time-Flight, right? Oh, but two episodes later she spontaneously visits Amsterdam and guess what? Omega's there! Cue another 11 stories as a companion. Her final scene in Resurrection of the Daleks is equally good, but Time-Flight suited the character better.

2. THE MASSACRE (Steven)

This one really is a car crash. Firstly, Anne Chaplette, who we've all expected to become the next companion, is left behind in france. Then Steven, after six stories, has had enough of the Doctor (he's essentially Rory's antecedent) and storms out. The Doctor gives a soliloquy then prepares to leave.
BAM! Steven runs back into the TARDIS on a rubbish pretext bringing with him the new companion, Dodo. They all leave together. the scene is forgotten about. Steven leaves four stories later to rule a planet. Huh?

But the winner is...

1. THE GOD COMPLEX (Amy and Rory)

They already left! I'm totally serious about this. When the "Ponds" unexpectedly left the TARDIS at the end of this otherwise ordinary episode 11, I thought it was a great move - back to the days when you never knew if the TARDIS crew in episode 1 of a season would make it to the end. They only cameoed in the next episode and although they returned in the finale, this was, as we've seen, par for the course. People always return in the finale.
So, when the big announcement came that Amy and Rory would be leaving in tonight's episode (and this news came before The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe was screened), I was genuinely perplexed. They'd left already! They'd had 27 episodes, the same as Rose (before her return). (When they finally bow out tonight, Amy will have appeared in 33, more than any other companion in the 21st century.) I was expecting a new companion and, to be honest, I haven't felt that these last few episodes have added much to my appreciation of the Ponds.

Of course, later tonight, I may decide it was all worth it. It kinda depends what he's done with/to them. Maybe it's genius. Or maybe - maybe - they'll be back again a year from now, to take on the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Ood and the Silence alongside River Song, Captain Jack, Donna, Wilf, Steven, K9, Katarina and John & Gillian.

Saturday 22 September 2012

The Exciting Guide to Planet of Giants

Pleasingly, this is actually topical. The first story of season 2 is now being released on DVD and has been reviewed in Doctor Who Magazine this week. So here's what I made of it in 1999.


Quick reminder:
For previous posts, you can scroll around this site, or go to my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ExcitingGuide) which will link only to those parts of my blog devoted to the Exciting Guide. If you need to understand what I'm doing, there's a link to my intro here: http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/watching-every-tv-adventure-of-doctor.html



Story Nine
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Story Code
J

Title
Planet Of Giants

“Friends” Title
The One With The Giant Earthworm

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Episode Titles
Planet of Giants
Dangerous Journey
Crisis

Current availability
All three episodes exist.

Source
UK Gold omnibus repeat transmission.
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Date
1964.
None is given, but the telephone system etc are very much of the era when the story was produced.

Genre
Action Adventure.

Plot synopsis
1.         The TARDIS doors open when still in flight.  The Ship lands in a maze of stone, and they explore, coming across oversized dead insects of all kinds, as well as a giant matchbox.  They realise they are on Earth, but have been “reduced roughly to the size of an inch” - the maze is a crazy paving path.  Ian falls into the matchbox, which is picked up by a health minister called Farrow.  He has written a report condemning a new insecticide - DN6 - as it is too dangerous and kills indiscriminately.  Forester, whose money is sunk into the DN6 project, shoots Farrow.  Ian is reunited with the others, and they examine the dead man.  Suddenly, they notice a large black cat eyeing them up.
2.         The cat loses interest and goes away.  Smithers, the scientist who invented DN6, agrees to help Forester cover up the murder for the sake of the project - he believes the new, powerful insecticide will save millions from starvation.  The travellers have inexplicably split up, and Ian and Barbara are carried into the laboratory in Farrow’s briefcase.  There, they find a pile of seeds.  Ian guesses they are coated in the poison that has killed everything in the garden, but Barbara has already touched one of them.  She keeps this to herself.  The Doctor and Susan climb up a corroded drainpipe and come out in the lab sink.  Before the travellers can rejoin each other, Forester and Smithers enter the lab and wash the blood off their hands in the sink...with the Doctor and Susan still inside.
3.         The Doctor and Susan avoid the water in the overflow pipe.  Forester calls Farrow’s ministry with a false report, arousing the suspicions of the local telephone operator and her policeman husband Bert.  The Doctor finds the formula for DN6 and realises that if it enters the eco-system in sufficient quantities it could be disastrous for mankind.  After a lot of messing about with the telephone, Barbara collapses, and the others realise her condition.  In an effort to attract outside attention and thus hinder Forester, they use a match and a gas tap to explode a canister.  Smithers, meanwhile, has discovered the truth about DN6, and the explosion allows him to grab Forester’s gun, as Bert arrives to ask questions.  The travellers make it back to the Ship:  as they return to normal size, Barbara recovers.  The Ship materialises somewhere new.

Pitch
Honey, I Shrunk The Time Travellers.

The Money Shot
The camera zooms up from the TARDIS to reveal it is parked in one of the gaps in a crazy paving path leading to a little house. (Episode 1)

The TARDIS log
• Extreme pressure on the Ship has apparently caused it and its occupants to shrink to an inch in size.  Okay, but what about when they were heading into the Big Bang in The Edge Of Destruction?  Did they shrink then, and just didn’t realise it?
• The scanner has blown (Ian jokes it needs a new tube) and remains broken when the Ship lands at the end of episode 3.  Thing is, it seemed to shatter in episode 1, but is physically intact in episode 3...
• The TARDIS has a warning siren, but possibly it only comes into operation in the specific instance of the doors opening before materialisation.
• The console seems capable of overheating, as Barbara discovers.
• Two readings on the fault locator read “QR18” and “A14D”.  No idea what this means, though.
• Once again (as in The Keys Of Marinus), there is no sound as the TARDIS materialises and dematerialises.  Why?

Past Journies
• The Doctor and Susan refer to an air raid by Zeppelins they were in.

The Doctor’s Achievement
• He appears to have prevented DN6 from being produced.  Of course, he doesn’t know this as such.  And nor do we, really - Forester might have talked his way out of it.

Things I learned from Doctor Who
• The worker ant will give his life rather than abandon eggs.

Body Count
Only Farrow.  Unless you count a garden full of insects.  Therefore:
1.

EffectsWatch
Uniformly marvellous effects here, with everything from seeds to bees to sink plugs to matchboxes to briefcases blown up to giant size very convincingly.

Dudley!
Nothing special to report, just that this is the first story where incidental music is provided by the great Dudley “Blake’s Seven” Simpson, after whom this category is named.

Notes
• I’m asking for the last time...can Carole Ann Ford please stop acting so pathetic?  Only one fit of hysterics this time - when Ian is carried off in the matchbox - but it really is getting beyond a joke.

Queries
• How does Forester hope to get away with it?  The moment DN6 went into mass production, the effects would be noted and he’d be ruined.
• Come to that, why has Smithers taken so long to catch on?  Didn’t he create it?  What tests has he done up to now that have been less revealing than those carried out by Farrow?
• Why does Ian think at first that being shrunk is ridiculous?  Hasn’t he seen enough marvels by now?
• Why is it that Ian - a science teacher - can’t understand the formula for DN6?
• What was Bert going to say when he reached the house?  “My wife was just eavesdropping on your phone calls, sir...”

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On-screen Credits
Taken from The Television Companion.
CAST
Dr. Who - William Hartnell, Ian Chesterton - William Russell, Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill, Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford, Forester - Alan Tilvern, Farrow - Frank Crawshaw (1-2), Smithers - Reginald Barratt (2-3), Hilda Rowse - Rosemary Johnson (3), Bert Rowse - Fred Ferris (3).
CREW
Written by Louis Marks.  Title Music by Ron Grainer with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  Incidental Music by Dudley Simpson.  Costumes - Daphne Dare.  Make-up - Jill Summers (1); Sonia Markham (2-3).  Studio Lighting - Howard King.  Studio Sound - Alan Fogg.  Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson.  Production Assistant - Norman Stewart.  Assistant Floor Manager - Valerie McCrimmon; Dawn Robertson.  Story Editor - David Whitaker.  Designer - Raymond P Cusick.  Associate Producer - Mervyn Pinfield.  Producer - Verity Lambert.  Directed by Mervyn Pinfield (1-2); Douglas Camfield (3).

Review
A somewhat offbeat way to start the new season, Planet Of Giants is nonetheless very well executed, with plenty to keep the eyes entertained enough that it doesn’t matter that the plot is virtually non-existent.  In fact, one can’t help but wonder why the DN6 plotline between the “big people” was dreamed up at all.  Clearly someone wanted to get environmental issues into the show, which is laudable, but was this really the best vehicle for them?  Not that it matters - the success of this story is down to the effects, the first truly great ones in the show’s history.  The time travellers clamber over enormous telephones and briefcases, climb down plug chains and stare up into enormous faces.  It could so easily have gone horribly wrong, but someone put just the right amount of money into it.  It’s nice and brief, it’s action-oriented, the moving creatures are kept to a sensible minimum and large and small actors alike acquit themselves decently.  Doctor Who had to do a story like this sooner or later, so thank goodness it did it well.  It doesn’t matter that the explanation for it all, while falling short of being technobabble, makes no sense at all, along with several other elements of the plot.  The show has presumably got this out of its system now, and we can look forward to monsters next week.

Rating
7 / 10