The Krotons

Chapter the 268th, where brain power meets acid (it was the Sixties, after all).

Plot:

The planet of the Gonds. Generations ago, a Kroton ship crash-landed on the planet, and after a brief battle the crystalline Krotons used a weapon of mass destruction, creating a wasteland. Since then, the Gonds have avoided the wasteland and served the Krotons without question despite never seeing them again. Their culture and even part of their city is built around the Kroton ship, including a learning hall where the Krotons pass on selective knowledge to the populace remotely, but never come out. Every so often, a ceremony is held where the two brightest students go in to the inner section of the ship and are never seen again. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive in the wasteland just in time to witness one of these valedictorians ejected from the back of the ship and killed. The Krotons need brain power to launch their ship, and because two of their four-strong crew were destroyed, they are only at half strength and need two more "high brains". All the pairs of students killed over the years were not clever enough to enable the escape. In order to investigate, the Doctor and Zoe have to take a test in the learning hall, and are accepted into the Kroton ship. After many scrapes, with the Krotons even coming out of their ship and trying to destroy the TARDIS, and after some navigation through the machinations of Gond politics, the Doctor and friends with help from some Gond allies attack the Krotons with home-brewed acid and destroy them.

Context:

This is a story I've been anticipating coming up (see First Time Round section below for why). My enthusiasm wasn't shared by any of the family such that they would want to watch, though, so I viewed it on my own from the DVD, an episode a night during some time off from the day job for half term in late May and early June 2023. After the watch, I poked around on the DVD and watched a great documentary about the whole of Patrick Troughton's time, Second Time Round, that's included on there. There's no documentary about the making of The Krotons, though; the nearest is a filmed fan discussion in a strand called The Doctor's Strange Love, which appeared on a handful of stories towards the end of the range, reserved for those stories that are mostly unloved or felt to be 'so bad they're good'. My enthusiasm for The Krotons, it seems, isn't shared by many people.

First Time Round:

This story is close to my heart, as it was the first ever Doctor Who story I watched. It's my Doctor Who fan origin story. As mentioned on the blog passim, I took a while to get over my fear of the programme in my early years, though I caught the odd glimpse here and there. I then stumbled across a repeats season of vintage Who stories on BBC2 in an early evening slot during the autumn of 1981. More details of that stumbling can be found in the blog posts for An Unearthly Child (which was the first story shown, and which I joined partway through) and Carnival of Monsters (that followed The Krotons, and was the first colour story I ever saw). By the time The Three Doctors and then Logopolis rounded off the season, I was well and truly hooked. Having now blogged them all, it's a significant milestone. For me, I mean. I acknowledge it's likely not significant to anyone else! My love for Doctor Who may not have been quite at first sight, but it was definitely love at first story. 

Reaction:

The Krotons is the first of a short run of stories I like to think of as Doctor Who's 'Scooby Doo Where Are You?' period. The Doctor and friends land in a new setting, from a varied and eclectic parade of places after having been stuck mostly indoors or underground in besieged bases for all the previous year, they then sort out a mystery of some kind (they even break up a smuggling ring and reveal the unsuspected person operating it in The Space Pirates), and it ends either on a corny joke (The Space Pirates again) or else on the trio's signature move of sneaking away before anyone starts asking who they are or how they came to be there. I have written on the blog before about some of the key differences between season 5 and 6 (see The War Games post for more details), but one detail I hadn't highlighted was the more free-standing nature of the stories. For a year or more before The Invasion, stories mostly flow into one another, the end of one leading to the beginning of the next to a lesser or greater extent - a singular adventure in space and time. After The Invasion and before The War Games finale, the stories The Krotons, The Seeds of Death and The Space Pirates do not link into one another, and could be shuffled into any order without causing issues. Behind the scenes, the reason for this was that the production team had to abandon commissioned stories or scripts for different reasons, and rush to create replacements. Overarching storytelling was not a luxury they had.

Why were so many scripts falling through? It may have been the relative inexperience of producer Peter Bryant and script editor (but by this time effectively co-producer) Derrick Sherwin. From writings about that time, and from interviews with Sherwin and others since, I get the impression they didn't really want to be there, and would have been more than happy to produce a different show altogether. Also on the team, though, was someone who fit with Doctor Who much more snugly, to the extent that he would thereafter make a lifelong creative contribution to the programme in one form or another, Terrance Dicks. Dicks had started as assistant script editor, but was more and more being credited as sole script editor as Sherwin's role changed. While other scripts for season 6 were going nowhere, he'd been off to one side working up a story with a writer new to Who, who would go on himself thereafter to make a lifelong creative contribution to the programme, Robert Holmes. The Krotons came to the rescue to plug a gap. As the first collaboration between these two titans, it probably seems a bit underwhelming, but it still has a lot of great parts that make it more worth celebrating than I think most of fandom gives credit for. One thing that is great about The Krotons is that the plot isn't arbitrary and instead arises from the characters of the regulars. The story wouldn't work for any other TARDIS team, with two of them being very smart and the other (Jamie) being, erm, talented in different ways. The script uses this for drama and for comedy.

The Krotons themselves come in for some stick, but I think they're great. The great concept of a crystalline creature that can return back to a vat of liquid when not actively monstering, the designs (which are great, particularly the spinning heads, even below the waist where the skirt section wobbles a bit when they walk isn't that bad), the voices with their South African accents and little catchphrases - "This is a warning" "Direction point". On location, director David Maloney gets some impressive long shots of barren landscapes including the great initial TARDIS materialisation. The plot and characters are pretty generic - the leader, the usurper, the hothead, the romantic couple, the professor - but the cast give it their all nonetheless (with Philip Madoc particularly good as Eelek - they should definitely ask him back). Holmes might have been writing slightly down to his audience, not quite finding the right tone for a programme to which he was new; his characters would be much more interesting in his next script and would get better and better thereafter. The story includes some honest to goodness schoolroom science too, with its Tellurium compounds and their nasty smells. Add to this some witty lines, and a set of regulars absolutely at the top of their game, and you've got a very entertaining way to spend four times 25 minutes. It's one of my favourites, and I honestly can't work out why more people don't love it.

Connectivity:

Both The Krotons and The Infinite Quest involve the use of corrosive agents by the Doctor and friends in their battle against the baddies (acid in the Troughton story, a fungus stored in a spoon in the Tennant animation).

Deeper Thoughts:

The Fourteen (ish) Faces of Doctor Who. It's so close to my heart because of its involvement in making me a Doctor Who fan (see First Time Round section above for more details), so I have to step back, distance myself and concentrate on it to see how unobvious a selection of stories the Five Faces season was. Obviously certain criteria were forced upon Doctor Who's 1980s producer John Nathan-Turner in putting it together. Each story had to be four episodes long to fit the stripped across Monday to Thursday weeknights scheduling, and - of course - any story had to exist in the archives. In the early 1980s, that meant only The Krotons fit the bill for a Patrick Troughton story. In order for there to be a glimpse of the fifth titular face, the most recently broadcast story Logopolis, in which Tom Baker regenerated into Peter Davison who then appeared for the final few frames of episode four, had to be there too. As a counterpoint to the most recent story, also including the first ever story An Unearthly Child must have seemed irresistibly symmetrical. It's also an excellent story, is four episodes long, and - luckily - existed in the archives in 1981. The other no-brainer decision was to include The Three Doctors, the only anniversary story where multiple versions of the Doctor team up that had been created at that time. The only real choice left was which solo Pertwee story to choose. Here - though there were still archival challenges - there were at least a few options.

It's intriguing that they didn't choose a Dalek story from Pertwee's time, but there may have been other restrictions. Archive repeats in those days required a lot of additional contractual paperwork; the intended inclusion of The Masque of Mandragora as a stand-alone Tom story fell through. Perhaps the Daleks were too expensive to sign off. Whatever the reason, it meant that the selection of stories contained no returning monsters, and featured only one returning villain in the Master (although in a brand new incarnation that had only just debuted the previous year). Apart from the last few minutes of Logopolis, there were no significant instances of game-changing lore (The Three Doctors doesn't qualify, as it's really just a fun runaround). The season instead showed off what the series can do in self-contained stories with interesting concepts, that feature journeys to the past, alien planets and sideways moves to weird scenarios (and that was all just in Carnival of Monsters). It did this without leaning too heavily on its greatest hits history of Daleks, Cybermen, etc. That was perfect for hooking in people like me and getting them to watch the next series when it debuted, which is all the producer must have wished. Perhaps it was more by luck than judgement though (Nathan-Turner dipped into the series history and lore more in that next series, and would increasingly thereafter).

As I'm writing this in a 60th anniversary year, I can't help but speculate on which stories I'd choose for a similar set of repeats this year, to lead into the three specials to be broadcast in November. If I follow the same restrictions, I'd only be looking at four episode stories or the equivalent. For the new series, that would mean splitting longer-length episodes or specials into 25-minute chunks and introducing unplanned cliffhangers (as has been done to the feature-length The Five Doctors, or the double-length Colin Baker stories in years gone by). That sounds like fun, to be honest, and if I check on youtube I think it's probable that someone out there has done such an editing job already. I'd also stick with the restriction of not including anything that doesn't exist in a state close to its broadcast format in the archives, which means no modern animations of stories, as fun as that might also have been. I would probably go with the same format as in 1981 for the beginning and end: start with first ever story An Unearthly Child, and finish with most recent The Power of the Doctor, split into four, to show the regeneration into the fourteenth Doctor in the final scene, and ensure the Fugitive Doctor is represented. I'd then need at least one for each remaining Doctor. For Patrick Troughton, the only new choice within the criteria that's opened up since 1981 is The Tomb of the Cybermen, and that would make a good inclusion. I'm assuming that my fantasy budget can take the inclusion of more famous monsters. For Pertwee, The Time Warrior is nice conceptually, and showcases the Sontarans.

For Tom Baker, there's an embarrassment of riches (self-contained four-parters forming the majority of his seven year run); for sheer quality alone, I'd make it City of Death, so everyone can enjoy the Parisian location footage and witty one-liners. It's just personal preference, but I'd go with Kinda for Peter Davison's pick; people love The Caves of Androzani and Earthshock, but we've already got one regeneration and one Cyberman story in the mix. For Colin Baker, it's a bit of a cheat, but I'd go with the version of Terror of the Vervoids prepared for Blu-ray that removes the overarching elements about the Doctor's trial. When made stand-alone, it's the most fun of any Colin story, and it's not bogged down in excessive lore. We haven't had a proper Dalek story as yet, so I'd select perhaps the best ever one, Remembrance of the Daleks, for Sylvester McCoy's story. The TV Movie edited into 25-minute chunks would follow for Paul McGann. Then, we're onto the new series. Assuming that we're avoiding regeneration stories, there's two choices for Christopher Eccleston. I think The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances edges it over the Slitheen two-parter. I guess an edited version would have to be called The Empty Child parts 1 - 4 rather than The Empty Child part 2 being followed by The Doctor Dances part 1, as that would just be too confusing. Tennant is another with a solid set of two-parters that work as standalone stories; the best one is probably Human Nature / Family of Blood, I think. Matt Smith had fewer two-parters, and they're all pretty lore-heavy; probably his very first one The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone is the best fit.

That just leaves Capaldi, and I think Under the Lake / Before the Flood is nice and stands alone, though the first episode's title is a little prosaic to cover the story as a whole. Throw in all the anniversary multi-Doctor meet ups too, which would ensure the War Doctor is represented, and you get the following: An Unearthly Child, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Three Doctors, The Time Warrior, City of Death, Kinda, The Five Doctors (1-4), Terror of the Vervoids (Trial-Free version), Remembrance of the Daleks, The Enemy Within (or whatever, 1-4), The Empty Child (1-4), Human Nature (1-4), The Time of Angels (1-4), The Day of the Doctor (1-4), Before the Flood (1-4), The Power of the Doctor (1-4). A nice selection; though it would take four months to get through the season. At the time of writing this in mid-June 2023, they need to get a move on and start the season on BBC4 asap, or we'll run out of time before the big anniversary (don't hold your breath!). 

 

In Summary:

Even though this is essentially my 'love at first sight' story, I still think I'm objective when I state that it is unfairly underrated.

Logopolis

Chapter The 212th, entropy, entropy, they've all got it: entropy!

Plot:

The Doctor plans to fix the TARDIS chameleon circuit, so takes Adric to early 1980s Britain to find one of the last police boxes in service to materialise around and then measure. Unfortunately, the Master is out for revenge / mischief / gain / your guess is as good as mine, and has disguised his TARDIS similarly to the Doctor's and materialised round the real police box first. One TARDIS inside another creates lots of dimensional instability, but this doesn't stop air hostess Tegan Jovanka - who, along with her Aunt Vanessa, has broken down when driving nearby - from entering the TARDISes thinking she can call for help. The Doctor and Adric eventually escape the nested TARDISes, and discover that Aunt Vanessa has been shrunk by the Master's tissue compression eliminator. The Doctor is all up for a crazy plan to flush the Master out of the TARDIS with water from the Thames, when he talks to a mysterious ghostly figure who has been popping up occasionally nearby watching. After the conversation, the Doctor programmes the TARDIS to arrive on the planet Logopolis, home of a bunch of mathematical monks that can create any space/time event out of pure mathematics. The Doctor's going to use all their awesome power just to fix a minor function of his time machine that he hasn't been bothered about not working for years. The mysterious ghostly fellow brings Nyssa, who the Doctor and Adric met on Traken, to Logopolis, her father Tremas having been taken over by the Master. 

Having hitched a ride, the Master takes over Logopolis, stopping the Logopolitans from chanting their mathematical sequences for a while. Unfortunately, their calculations were keeping the universe from dying; in normal circumstances, the universe would have already passed its point of heat death due to entropy. By opening windows - CVEs - into other dimensions (for example into Adric's universe of e-space, which the Doctor's TARDIS had passed through previously), this has been kept at bay. Alas, the Master's tampering means the CVEs are closing, and the universe is unravelling (Traken, for example, is completely destroyed - it's really not Nyssa's day). Logopolis also starts to fall apart, so the Master and the Doctor have to work together to save the universe. The Logopolitans were using a replica of the 20th Century Earth Pharos project (played by Jodrell Bank played by a model) to fire signals into space to keep the CVEs open. The Doctor and the Master travel to the real Pharos project, as do Adric, Tegan, Nyssa and the ghostly fellow - in one or other of their two TARDISes. In the control room at the top of the radio telescope, the two Time Lords fix it up to send the signal to make the CVEs stay open permanently. The Master, though, double crosses the Doctor - he intends to use this set-up to blackmail the peoples of the universe to obey him. The Doctor decides to pull out the cable to prevent this, which he does (presumably after a CVE has been permanently opened, as the universe doesn't end), but after a scuffle, he falls from the top of the telescope. The ghostly watcher figure turns out to have been the Doctor all along (somehow), and he merges with the prone Doctor (somehow) and turns him into TV's Peter Davison.

Context:

When this story came up for the blog, I remembered recently being alerted to the 40th anniversary of the Five Faces of Doctor Who repeat season on BBC2 in late 1981 (see the Deeper Thoughts section of a recent blog post for more details - there was also an interesting article about the repeat season in last month's Doctor Who Magazine if you're interested and can get a copy. Logopolis was the final one of the stories shown in that season, stripped across the week Monday to Thursday from November 30th to December 3rd of 1981. In 2021, I only had to hold off for a couple more days to mean I was able to watch each episode stripped across the week, November 30th to December 3rd of 2021, exactly 40 years later (a couple of episodes were watched pretty much to the minute of when they went out all those decades before). It was Tuesday to Friday this time, but you can't have everything. I watched the episodes from the Blu-ray (part of the season 18 box-set) but I watched the as-transmitted version rather than the special edition with improved special effects. Members of the family wandered into the living room occasionally on many of the evenings, but only fleetingly, not staying put.

First Time Round:

Logopolis was probably the only story that both my Dad and my sister (never particularly interested in Doctor Who) watched before I did. I'd caught glimpses of the odd episode in the late 1970s and early 80s, but didn't start watching until that aforementioned repeats season, eight months after Logopolis first aired on BBC1. As such, Tom Baker leaving the role after his unprecedentedly long run didn't mean much to me. I nonetheless got a hint that it was of some wider cultural significance, but not enough to make me tune in. My Dad and sister, though, must have been intrigued. When I was watching Logopolis episode 4 in early December 1981, my sister came in to the room in my grandparents' house and told me about that first watch with Dad when the story had first gone out; I'd obviously been out that Saturday evening. I was a little bit jealous on hearing this, I have to say. By then, the season of repeats had turned me into a fan (see post here for more details) and let me know what I'd been missing. I'd have loved to have been part of that family watch. Neither sibling nor parent - nor my other parent, so the full fam - ever watched Doctor Who with me again throughout my following years as a fan and to date, except on sufferance; that brief moment of interest in spring 1981 was all there was until 2005 when both Dad and Sis (but still not my Mum who's remained consistent) got interested in the new series.

Reaction:

The first post-regeneration story, The Power of the Daleks, pretty much nailed the template for future such stories. The regeneration story, though, took longer to evolve. Logopolis was only the fourth such story in Who's near twenty years of history up to that point. The initial couple of these stories, seeing out William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, didn't use the term regeneration and posited that the change of actor could be just because of old age, or could be deliberately instigated. It was only with Jon Pertwee that it was established that the Doctor's metamorphosis is brought on by an accidental near-death, and this would remain the rule forever thereafter. Logopolis refines things further putting another rule in place, that the accidental near-death happens as a result of the Doctor's heroism (Pertwee's is more a moment of self-realisation as he faces his own inner demons, apt for a Buddhist parable, but perhaps not useful longer-term). From Logopolis on, every Doctor that bows out is saving something at the cost of his own life; sometimes (as in Tom Baker's case) it's saving the entire universe, sometimes it's saving one planet, sometimes it's saving one person, and that's all established here. As such, even if Tom hadn't been in the part for such a record-breaking length of time, this would still be a significant story in Doctor Who's history. The longevity in the role of the lead actor is maybe the reason for the doom-laden atmosphere of Logopolis, something that hasn't ever been tried in quite the same way again since. There's no sense - aside from a couple of sets of flashbacks that last the briefest of moments - that this is a celebration of Baker's time in the role, that would be too soft and fluffy - Logopolis is instead ominous.

A key script decision to create the tone is the inclusion of the Watcher in the narrative. Interestingly, this is something that was done in Pertwee's finale too: a character that's a future projection of a Time Lord who's yet to regenerate. Perhaps Barry Letts, who cowrote the earlier story and was executive producer of Tom Baker's last year as Doctor, gave writer Christopher H. Bidmead the idea, or perhaps Bidmead reviewed the last regeneration story in preparation for this one. Whoever thought it up, it allows for some very doomy portents to be included in Logopolis. The mysterious figure being glimpsed in the background on location and in studio is very effective. Also intriguing are the couple of moments when characters speak directly to the Watcher. What does he say to the Doctor on the bridge, for example? We're left to speculate, but the Doctor does then immediately and knowingly deliver the Master to Logopolis, which is an action that starts the unravelling of the universe, and he seems to know for certain that he's heading toward his 'death'. Fate is just as much of a force impacting the narrative as entropy. Another interesting factor influencing tone is how lonely and empty it feels. Aside from the regular characters and the Master, there's only one speaking role in the studio (the Monitor), and the other roles on film are no more than cameos (and there's only three of them: Auntie Vanessa, the Police Inspector and a Pharos Project security guard with one line). The Master is also held back until episode three, only being heard to chuckle occasionally before that. The exteriors look cold, and Logopolis is described as cold. Chilly as well as ominous is Logopolis.

There's nothing much in the way of action until the tussle high up on the radio telescope at the end. Instead, the story is propelled by interesting concepts and a lot of talk. The concepts are cleverly designed to appeal to children of all ages. There are things featured that one wonders why they hadn't ever been done on screen before, like what would happen if one TARDIS landed inside another, or exploring how the interior TARDIS could be an infinitely big space to get lost in. The TARDIS shrinking is also fun, with the trippy interior scenes of the Doctor trapped inside. Block transfer computation is a nifty way of essentially allowing the Logopolitans to be magic wizards and create objects from thin air, but ground it in enough scientific rationalisation that it doesn't seem too out of whack with Doctor Who's principles. Entropy too is just enough of a tricky science classroom topic to make people watching feel clever when it's used as an antagonist, but not so obscure as to be alienating or just sound like gobbledegook (cf. tachyonics). The talk meanwhile includes some great lines, including at least one that's gone down in Doctor Who history "It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for." The reason I think that, despite the lack of action, it never feels too talky, is Peter Grimwade's energetic direction keeping things moving. It is well paced throughout.

Grimwade gets some great performances from everyone. Anthony Ainley gives one of his best (or possibly even his best ever) performance as the Master. His plan is absurd as usual, but he's at least got the excuse that he's making it up on the hoof after having been blind-sided by revelations about Logopolis's importance to the universe's survival. I often picture some civilisation on a distant planet that heard his broadcast warning that he was holding them to ransom, and are waiting, wondering if he's ever going to turn up or say anything else (Big Finish has probably done this as a story). New girl Janet Fielding is shown to be suitably resourceful and sparky, and looks to be an interesting addition to the future crew. Baker is relatively subdued, as he has been all this season, but still has enough moments of greatness that this is a fitting send-off. The music and sound design are both great, so evocative (for example, the Cloister Bell effect, which was used often thereafter and to this day - it sounded when the Doctor and friends crash-landed in the Crimean War during the latest story Flux). Of course it's got flaws and silly moments (A Take Your Litter Home sign next to a bin, a madcap scheme to flood the TARDIS, everyone taking the shrunken people that are clearly dolls very seriously, Tom Baker appearing to fall much faster for Tegan's eyeline compared to Adric's and Nyssa's), but I'm so used to them after having watched this iconic story so many times over the years, I almost welcome them as part of the fun.

Connectivity: 

Both Logopolis and The God Complex feature TARDIS trips to labyrinthine places where matter seems to be created from thin air (the rooms and objects that the Doctor and friends interact with in the Matt Smith story could be holographic hallucinations, I suppose, but they seem to be tangible in various scenes); both these places fall apart toward the end.

Deeper Thoughts:

"There'll be no question of Gallifrey." In any long-running TV series - like in any life - developments for good or bad will hinge on tiny moments and coincidences. A thread of such events running through Doctor Who, classic and present eras, relates to the Doctor's home planet Gallifrey. Its influence on the series hasn't always been 100% positive, so when in the final moments of Logopolis episode three there's a dialogue exchange which suggests that the Doctor, in allying with the Master to save the universe, is burning his bridges and will never be able to return to his home, some viewers may have been relieved. As it was, the series forgot about this soon enough and the Doctor was back on Gallifrey again a couple of years later. This is just one part of a waxing and waning interest in the planet that over the years has seen the place ignored and then featured, being bad then good then bad again, vaporised then not vaporised, missing, found, and finally reduced to ruins. Why should it be that the Doctor's home planet should be destroyed not once but twice (thrice, if you count other media, as the Doctor Who books in the early 2000s before the series came back got rid of it too)? It's partly the fluctuations of any series with longevity where many different production teams, and writers searching for new stories, are involved over the years. My theory (which is mine) is that it may not have been necessary to get rid of the planet ever, if it hadn't been for one writer's movie homage and another's slightly over-reaching ambition.

For the first six years of Doctor Who stories, things were simple: the Doctor was a mystery, and there was only the rarest and tiniest hints given about his origins. Whether this could have sustained for longer one can only debate, as the decision was taken to finally uncover some of those secrets. The Doctor, it was revealed, had got bored and run away from his powerful but stiflingly boring people, the Time Lords, in a stolen TARDIS. Despite this big revelation (in the final episode of Patrick Troughton swansong The War Games), thereafter the Doctor's planet and people still stayed unmentioned most of the time. The aimless adventuring remained, but was supplemented by the occasional Time Lord instigated mission, which the Doctor would unwillingly complete. He was still in opposition to them, a rebel. This state of affairs lasted another 10 years, more or less. It changed only when Robert Holmes was writing a Doctor Who conspiracy thriller (The Deadly Assassin) and looked for his inspiration in Hollywood movies of that type, particularly The Manchurian Candidate. That led him to include an assassination of a political figure and an election in his story. A little joke was in there too that the Doctor - who has put his hat in the ring for the presidency as a ploy to help buy him time to investigate what's going on - may end up as president.

This on its own wouldn't be too bad, if it hadn't been for a script the following year falling through. David Weir was originally commissioned to write the final 6-episode story of the 1977/1978 season, but his epic about killer cats was felt to be too expensive to realise. The script editor and producer had to bash out a replacement in short order (not the final time that would happen) and fell upon a sequel idea to The Deadly Assassin that would see the Doctor becoming the president for real. The story is savvy enough to reverse this by the end, but the damage is done, and in later stories it's picked up again, and the Doctor is president once more for a while. It's fine for the character to be shown in opposition to the Time Lords, but it becomes damaging as soon as he becomes one of the establishment, and not just any one of them but the most powerful of the powerful but stiflingly boring people (who also by now have been shown to be corrupt and hypocritical). They can't send him on covert missions anymore, he's the boss; and if they're still corrupt or boring, that's down to the Doctor - he's the one in charge. From that point on, Gallifrey's days were numbered. In the final years of the classic series, the day to day business of Time Lords and Gallifrey was ignored. Then, as soon as the series came back in 2005, it was established that the planet was gone, blown up in a time war. The Doctor himself is said to be responsible for its destruction, putting him in the ultimate position of opposition to his people, and giving him intergalactic quantities of survivor guilt to propel his character arc for a few years.

There's a seductive charm to lore, though, and even showrunner Russell T. Davies couldn't forever keep from dipping his nib back in that inkwell; to up the ante in his final story in charge, The End of Time, he brought Gallifrey and the Time Lords back with a bang, as they tried to escape from the past of the Time War. The Doctor, having spoken quite kindly of his old people all the time that they weren't around, does an immediate volte face: the Time Lords are evil (so, sets himself up in opposition to them again instantly). It was only the one story, though, and was followed by another reset. Time Lord lore was forgotten again for a while. But then the new showrunner Steven Moffat needed to up the ante again for the 50th anniversary story, so he visited the Time War again. This time, though, Moffat wants to do a story about the character of the Doctor, and how he could never have been responsible for an action like the destruction of Gallifrey, so when Gallifrey is brought back, it stays back, never having been destroyed in the first place (albeit still lost somewhere waiting to be found). That means there's tedious references to it for the next couple of years, with the Doctor actively searching for the place (rather than running away from it, as is his usual mode). By the time the Doctor makes it back there, he's become a war hero who can kick out the current president - back to being part of the establishment. It came as no surprise at all then, that as soon as someone else took over as showrunner, the place was burned to the ground again.  

Of course, another problem with too much focus on the Doctor's people is that with loads of Time Lords around our favorite Time Lord seems just a little bit less special. As such, after the pendulum has swung too much into the realms of the Gallifreyan multitude, there tends to follow a commensurate swing back into some other new idea to highlight how special and unique the Doctor is. In the late 1980s, the Doctor suddenly became more than a Time Lord and hints were dropped about his having been a pivotal figure in the dark times of Time Lord pre-history. This is very similar to what current Showrunner Chris Chibnall has been doing with the Timeless Child arc. As at the end of the Flux serial, he's hedged his bets - the Doctor is special and mysterious, but only because she was kidnapped and experimented on as a child, not because of any position of authority she was in. It's a tough balancing act, and - because of that constant requirement for ante-upping - there will be a temptation to create more definitive lore before Jodie Whittaker bows out. I hope the temptation is resisted and enough is left mysterious. Sometimes, less lore is more.

In Summary:

Ominous, lonely, chilly, occasionally silly, but iconic.

The Three Doctors

Chapter The 127th, where three heads prove better than none.

Plot:

A power drain affecting the Time Lord home planet coincides with some unusual emissions from a black hole that seem to be targeting the Doctor on Earth. A blobby energy thing arrives, trying to capture the Doctor but zapping away instead a professor who happened to be working in the Doctor's lab, the Doctor's car Bessie, bits of the lab furniture and the warden of a local wildlife reserve. Soon, more (and funnier) blobby creatures arrive, and surround UNIT HQ. The Time Lords - using time technology and filmed inserts - team up the current Doctor with his previous two incarnations. Between them, they work out that it's best to be zapped off to where the action is, so Doctor 3 - with Jo rushing off after him - deliberately walks into the path of the blobby energy; they both then find themselves transported to an anti-matter world within the black hole (which looks remarkably like a quarry) - the blobby stuff has somehow processed them so that matter and anti-matter can co-exist. They find various bits of the Doctor's lab, then Bessie, which allows them to drive to the only tourist attraction - Omega's palace. They pick up the professor on route (though they needn't bother - he doesn't really add anything).

Meanwhile, Doctor 2, Benton and the Brigadier are transported to the anti-matter world too, when the whole of Unit HQ is zapped there. The Brig does a recce, teaming up with the warden from the wildlife reserve (though the latter doesn't really add anything), and they witness Doctor 2 and Benton being captured, and marched off to Omega's palace too. The bemasked Omega is a pioneer of the Time Lords, and childhood hero of the Doctor(s), who ventured into the black hole to help set them all up with time travel in the early days. He's keeping his world intact only by force of will, and wants the Doctor to take his place in maintaining the world, so he can escape back to the universe of matter once more. Unfortunately, Omega's will is all that is left of him. The corrosive effect of his world has taken its toll, and under the mask there is nothing. Helped by the Brig, everyone escapes back to UNIT HQ and takes shelter in the TARDIS. Along with Doctor 1, who appears on the TARDIS monitor screen, they hatch a plan. Doctor 2's recorder had accidentally dropped into the TARDIS's force field generator before it was transported, meaning it's the only unprocessed matter in this world. They trick Omega into knocking it from its housing, and there's an almighty explosion. This frees the trapped TARDIS and lets them all go home. The Doctor says goodbye to his other selves; the Time Lords, in gratitude for their power being restored, end his exile on Earth, and give him a mended de-materialisation circuit for the TARDIS.

Context:

Even though I said I wouldn't get suckered in to buying Doctor Who all over again on another home video medium, this is becoming a ritual now. As with the first three Blu-Ray season box sets, I couldn't resist snapping this one up, pre-ordered and arriving on its day of release. As before, I have watched some of the stories on the set (Carnival of Monsters and Planet of the Daleks) for the blog already. So, I introduced a random factor by rolling a four-sided die, with 1, 2 and 3 representing the remaining stories in order, and a 4 meaning I wouldn't blog a story from the set at this time. It came up '1', so The Three Doctors it was! My youngest child (girl of 7) was super keen to watch with me. We saw the first episode mid-week after the set came out, and for the rest of that week, she was badgering me to watch the rest, but I was too busy. This shows a new enthusiasm for the show, which I haven't seen from her before. At the weekend, we were sitting down to watch episode 2, when the middle child (boy of 9) insisted that we start again; he and his brother (boy of 13) joined us, and the four of us watched thew whole thing in one go, from the top. They loved it. At the end of each episode, there was a bellowing of "Next ep!!!!". This blog post now done, I will proceed to watch the other episodes and extras from the box set slowly over the next couple of months, all the while cursing my completionist fetish. And I've paid for the privilege too. Oh well.

First-time round:

The Three Doctors was made as a celebration of Doctor Who lasting ten years on the air. Because of quirks of scheduling and season length, though, this tenth season, of which The Three Doctors was the kick-off story, started only a smidgen on from Doctor Who's ninth anniversary in November 1972, and the whole season finished before November 23rd 1973 rolled around. Even so, it must have been special at the time, as - so I've heard, this was all long before I started watching Doctor Who - it was difficult to ever see Doctor Who from previous eras back then. Affordable methods of recording the visuals of programmes were not available in the years leading up to The Three Doctors, nor quite a few years beyond. Repeats and novelisations were in their infancy, and still concentrated on stories featuring the incumbent Doctor. To get Patrick Troughton and a little (last) bit of William Hartnell back must have been a gift for longer term fans.

Around the time I did finally start watching Doctor Who, there was a similar problem for a different reason. Tom Baker's longevity in the title role meant that - although video recording and novelisations of older Doctors had come on a small bit - there was a generation of kids who had no memory of Who before Tom. To address this, the producer of the time put on a series of vintage repeats (see blog post here for more details). They played in an early evening slot on BBC2 for a few weeks leading up to the end of 1981, before Peter Davison was planned to debut in his first season in the new year. I started watching midway through the first of these, also the first ever Doctor Who story (An Unearthly Child); there was then a story each for the second and third Doctors, and later the most recent of the fourth Doctor's stories, ending with his regeneration into Davison. Before that, though, they showed the one where the first three teamed up. This time they arranged it correctly, with the first episode broadcast on the 23rd November 1981, when Doctor Who was 18 years old exactly. I, on the other hand, was only a smidgen on from my ninth anniversary, which seems apt somehow.

Reaction:

A couple of months ago, Doctor Who Magazine ran a series of twitter polls, forming overall the 'World Cup' of Jon Pertwee stories, the results of which were published in the most recent issue. I participated in each one, through group rounds, quarter finals, and so on, and at every stage the same thought was running through my head: how come so many people are voting for The Three Doctors? I mean, I know it's okay, but it's no Spearhead from Space, or Carnival of Monsters, or even The Green Death. It came second in the end, only being pipped to the top spot by Inferno. You may be reading this thinking I'm an idiot for being surprised: it after all has the first three doctors. Together. For the first time ever. In my head, though, all I saw were two strong visual images colouring my judgement: a naff coloured blob disappearing down a drain, and the mysterious, unknowable, almost mystical scientific concept of singularity represented by a pathetic wisp of studio smoke. The Three Doctors is of course much more than that, but much of what is so great about it is easy to take for granted.

In fact, what this viewing reminded me of a lot was watching The Dalek Invasion of Earth for the blog a few years back. That story was the first time Doctor Who ever did an Earth invasion plot, but because that style became so ubiquitous - to the point of becoming a template - almost immediately afterwards, it's harder to see in retrospect how big a step it was. Similarly, The Three Doctors sets up that the Doctor's old selves can pop up in his present, which becomes the standard for future anniversary years, and also creates a semi-mythological history for the Time Lords that will be a rich seam for the programme to mine in future years. It blazed a trail, for sure, but there's more to it than just pioneering spirit too. The key thing that ensures the quality of this show as well as the longevity of some of the ideas, and this is something which is also pointed out on some of the extras on the Blu-Ray, including by Steven Moffat in a interview, is the characterisation of the interactions between the Doctors. They don't get on. It may be obvious with hindsight, but it's a stroke of genius. It could easily have been decided to make their relationship much more safe and respectful, and that would have been very dull.

A lot of it comes down to the performers too. Pat Troughton, who may be the least starry of the trio of Doctors old and new collected here, is still the best actor by miles, and so is selfless in giving up a lot of the spotlight, letting Pertwee be the lead. He acts for the most part as a more comic second fiddle, but - perhaps inevitably - ends up stealing the show. He makes it look effortless too, and maybe it was - he stepped back into the role a few more times when even more years had elapsed since his tenure, and each time it was as if he'd last played the part the previous day. I'd guess, though, that the effortless feel took a lot of effort. Hartnell's Doctor is undiminished by the circumstances: very ill and having to pre-record his segments with idiot boards as he was no longer up to learning lines, he nonetheless recreates his old character as well as Troughton, and his presence still feels almost equal to the others with only a fraction of the screen time. The story as a whole lucks out here, I think. If the original plan to feature Hartnell equally in all the studio scenes had been possible, things would have got too crowded.

It's pretty crowded as it is with some later TARDIS scenes requiring a 'tight seven shot'. I don't know if it was a side effect of re-writing to allow for casting and scheduling changes (not only Hartnell's reduced role but also the non-availability of the actors that played Troughton era companion Jamie, and other UNIT regular Mike Yates, who were both intended to appear), but the show ends up with a couple of characters included in proceedings that don't really need to be there. UNIT could be called in immediately to investigate the mystery, which would remove the need for Doctor Tyler; Mr and Mrs Ollis contribute nothing apart from the unfunny tag scene at the end. If they were gone, it might be stronger - for an anniversary show - if the main team up against the antagonist were all regulars. Of those regulars, John Levene gets the biggest break, and it's probably Benton's best moments in the whole series. It's great to see Benton and the Brig finally get to see the inside of the TARDIS. Nicholas Courtney looks like he's very much enjoying playing his part for laughs; he does it very well, and it's a lot of fun, even though he's clearly not playing the same solid, efficient and open-minded character he was in previous years. I'm conflicted, to be honest: I think of the heroic Brig of the first couple of years after Lethbridge-Stewart's introduction, and I feel that's how the role should be played. But, the double take that Courtney does when he first realises the Doctor looks like Pat Troughton again is one of the best double takes ever recorded for entertainment - who am I to deprive anyone of that?

There's lots of other riches: Omega is a great villain and the scene where he removes his mask to reveal there's is literally nothing underneath is a very strong image. The sound effects and twinkly bits of score that accompany the Time Lord planet or Omega's palace are so evocative and magical. And, although it has dwelt mainly on past glories, the story still manages to propel the series in a new direction at the end, with the Doctor once again free to roam in space and time. Yes, the gell guards look crap, wobble like jelly and have blobby-blobby-blobby voices, but don't let that define the story for you: it's really very good indeed.

Connectivity: 

This story and The Tsuranga Conundrum each contain a conversation about anti-matter and matter not normally being able to co-exist without annihilating each other, but a technological solution present in both stories prevents this from happening. In both stories, the Doctor is teamed up with three regulars and lots of guest characters to save the day. And the monsters in both (the Gell Guards, the Pting) are more cute than frightening.

Deeper Thoughts:

Spiridon Mission update to Dalek Supreme: BFI Planet of the Daleks screening and Katy Manning Q&A Saturday 15th June 2019. I was never a joiner in my youth, and the idea of being part of a local group affiliated to the national Doctor Who Appreciation Society would have filled me with fear and dread. I similarly have mostly shied away from conventions and regular fan meet-ups in London pubs. So, it has been nice to attend a lot of these BFI sessions, which has given me my first real chance to attend fan gatherings.This time, I was with fan friends, oft mentioned on the blog, Trevor and Chris. David, who really wanted to come along, was double booked again, as he was for The Macra Terror in March. Next time though, he'll hopefully be able to join us (and it would have been nice for the BFI to advertise these last few a bit better and further ahead so we could plan, but they seem to be learning, with Mindwarp and a Colin and Nicola panel already announced for September).

The change from the normal order was that the presenting double act of these events, Dick Fiddy and Justin Johnson, were cast asunder. Dick did the introduction to proceedings, then shot off to another engagement, while Justin was travelling to London in time to do the later links and interview. Before he went, Dick paid tribute to Paul Condon in his intro; Paul is one of the fans of the show who've been hard-working over the years behind the scenes at events such as this, but very sadly has recently died. A warm round of applause followed for someone who I did not know, but may well have stood next to at the bar at the BFI previously. It's very very sad that he's gone at the terribly young age of 48. This follows on from Graham Strong (home recorder and therefore saviour of many 1960s episode soundtracks) being similarly commemorated after his passing the last time I was at the BFI. Longer term Doctor Who fans, including myself, are getting on a bit. It was impossible to dwell too long on this, though, as it was rapidly down to business: six episodes had to be squeezed in to a packed programme.Three episodes of the remastered Planet of the Daleks with new effects, then a brief interval, then the final three.

I have already covered Planet of the Daleks for the blog here, but there's always more to see when watching on the big screen. The most outstanding aspect of the story on this viewing was episode three. This has had its colour restored (it only existed in broadcast standard as a black and white film copy) for previous releases, but work for the Blu-Ray version has been started from scratch, as I understand it, and the quality is identical to the surrounding episodes, even on a big screen: seamless. Given the time and budget limitations, the CGI work by Rob Ritchie makes a very good alternate version. Some sequences are more effective than others - the best bits for me were use of CG models to subtly enhance sequences where the invisible Spiridons are picking up objects, removing the obvious fringing of the original CSO method used to achieve this visual. Best of all for me, though, was the cleverness and artistry of Mark Ayres' new surround sound audio mix. I got the chance later in the bar to tell him as much, like the fanboy that I am! As ever, moments of humour in the story - both intended an unintended - became obvious when watching with a large audience. The Dalek with a map on its sucker arm provoked mass hilarity, for example, though it has never stuck out to me when watching this serial so many times previously. Another source of laughs was the drippy Latep's clumsy attempts to woo Jo Grant. I'd also never noticed on a smaller screen that the Thals' rations are in fact Milky Bars without the wrappers.

The entertainment continued after the story was finished: Justin arrived on stage to start with the obligatory quiz. Without Dick to assist him as the roving microphone operator, he needed someone else: enter the irrepressible force of nature that is Katy Manning, who shot off in all directions into the audience, every one of which I feel certain was in awe of her. It meant there was less opportunity for double entendres, though Justin did manage to say "Who needs Dick when you have Katy in the house" at one point. After that, we were treated to some sneak peaks at some of the extras planned for the discs: the trailer (a wonderful rematch between some Jo and Clifford Jones and some giant maggots), then excerpts from a Matthew Sweet fronted documentary, the Behind the Sofa featurettes, and a doco of Jo and Clifford actors Katy and Stewart Bevan revisiting locations for The Green Death.

Finally, Katy got back on stage for a Q&A; this was even more the main event for many attending than the episodes (certainly Trevor, who has had a crush on Katy since she first appeared on Doctor Who). To sum up her appearance that day, I'd say she proves herself worthy of every bit of that mass affection. She is a superstar, the bright and warm centre of attention, owning the stage. She also performs, dropping into accents, leaping up and doing physical bits. When she managed to sit still for brief periods, there were quite a few anecdotes and fun comments that came out of the chat with Justin, and the subsequent audience questions. Katy described the Behind the Sofa commentary, where she sits between John Levene and Mike Yates actor Richard Franklin a being like a tennis match: having to look back and forth between the two of them, keeping both of them happy. She highlighted, as she consistently does, how Jon Pertwee was a team leader who made everyone - regular or guest - welcome; how they all laughed a lot, but got it all out of their systems in rehearsal, as there wasn't time during studio recording for mucking about. She and Jon did everything together, driving to set together, lunching together; she recounted the sad tale of walking downstairs from her flat above a shop, on the first working day after leaving Doctor Who, and expecting to see Jon there in his car to pick her up like every previous working day for the last three years... but he was of course not there.

An amusing theory put forward by Katy for Jon's expanding hair-do size over the years is that he was developing a bald spot, and the bouffant was an attempt to hide it. She recounted the oft occurring sight of walking in to Make-up to find him sitting with his hair in curlers. Roger Delgado is, of course, Katy's Master of Masters, but she has a lot of time for Missy too, and thinks there is a resemblance between Delgado and Michelle Rodriguez who plays Missy. She described the infamous budget-strapped finale of earlier Dalek serial Day of the Daleks as "three Daleks storming an old people's home". There was also a lot of nice memories about her return to the screen in the 2010 "Death of the Doctor" episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, including being telephoned before she knew the precise details of the gig by Gary Russell who told her she couldn't tell anyone. "But what am I not telling anyone, Gary?" she asked. This was followed by a pause of the other end of the line, before he added finally: "I can't tell you." Also, she and star of the show Liz Sladen crept out of the press screening rather than watching the episodes as "Even youngsters don't look good in HD".

It was a good four hours of entertainment all in all, which was very good value. And afterwards, Trevor and I got to drink a few beers in the BFI bar and have a great chat with Chris, plus Chris's friends Dave and Tim - a trio of Behind the Scenes royalty, each having been part of the effects team of modern era Doctor Who. Looking forward to the next one immensely. 

In Summary:

The story is like Omega: a pioneering adventurer from the distant past, that may have faded a bit from memory. Unlike Omega, it was much better than it had been remembered (at least by this viewer).

An Unearthly Child

Chapter The 78th, which - seriously - is still compelling, even today.

Plot: 
Two comprehensive school teachers in 1960s London become curious about a pupil based on odd comments she makes in class, and recent bad homework, so they stalk her mercilessly. They find out her address, stake it out, waiting for her to come back one afternoon, then follow her into her home which turns out to be a pan-dimensional craft for traversing the space-time continuum. Disguised as a Police Box. In a junkyard. The schoolkid's Grandad turns out to be a space-wizard and grumpy to boot. Threatened by the possibility of intrusion on his privacy if the teachers tell anyone about him, he starts up the ship, and whisks all four of them off to Earth circa 100,000 BC where they get involved with a tribe of cavemen trying to rediscover the secret of fire. Narrowly avoiding getting their skulls smashed in, they escape again in the ship (named the TARDIS). But it's knackered and the space-wizard (called the Doctor) doesn't know how to steer it properly, so he can't take the teachers home and they all have to go off and have adventures together. The End. The Beginning...

Context:

Some targets are so vast that the problem isn't hitting them, it's whether one's arrows are going to make any impression greater than a pinprick. The blog's random travels have landed it upon the very first story of Doctor Who, a phenomenally successful creation which has continued on from this beginning for more than 50 years giving enjoyment to millions of people across the globe: what is there that I can say about it? "There were leaders before there was fire" and "Fear makes companions of us all" are the Who equivalents of "To be or not to be" or "Is this a dagger I see before me?" - dialogue that's become a quote with its own life, and therefore that takes you out of the surrounding action just a bit. I've watched these four episodes so many times over the years that it's impossible to come to them fresh any longer. For this reason, I wanted to watch alongside at least some of the family, but throughout the half term holiday, no one was particularly interested.

I started watching an episode each evening late, and got halfway before having to start again when suddenly they changed their minds and were interested after all. In the end, we all (me, the Better Half, and the three kids, boys of 11 and 8, girl of 5) watched together; the eldest child wandered off here and there for the middle episodes, but everyone else watched silent and rapt for the duration - the more quiet it is in our house, the better something's going down, so this was a good sign. Another good sign was that everyone wanted to watch the next story the second that episode 4's cliffhanger ending faded from view. Not many comments from the assembled, but the Better Half ventured the opinion that the background hum of the TARDIS would drive her mad in a couple of hours if she had to live there.

The only annoyance with watching on DVD is that the Play All option includes the 'pilot' episode first before the four episodes of the story proper; this was a version of the episode An Unearthly Child recorded earlier, with certain differing script details and production elements, which were then tweaked for the rerecorded version that was eventually broadcast. If one were to actually sit down, hit that button and not touch the remote again, the experience would essentially be to see the same introductory episode run through twice, putting off the caveman episodes by 25 minutes - and who would want that? 

First-time round:
Beyond the odd clip I caught here and there on Swap Shop or before turning over to something else, my first sustained viewing of Doctor Who was when I tuned in partway through The Forest of Fear, episode three of An Unearthly Child. More details of the circumstances of my stumbling across the programme can be read here; it was the 4th November 1981 and this story was the first of a season of archive Doctor Who repeats stripped across weekly evenings on BBC2. Watching this time, I tried to pinpoint the moment I joined the episode; it's been a long time, but my best guess is that it was only a few minutes in, when our heroes are escaping into the eponymous forest, pursued by cave-people. I was intrigued enough to keep watching, and to tune in the following day for The Firemaker, and the following week for a Patrick Troughton story, The Krotons, and then another story, and then another two more. And then I tuned in a few weeks later when the next proper series started broadcast. The rest is history (and science): I was hooked.

I finally got to see the first two and a half episodes in early 1990, when the VHS release of the story was released. That previously un-broadcast 'pilot' version of episode 1 was released on The William Hartnell Years VHS compilation the following year, and a few months after that an alternative edit of it was shown on BBC2 as part of a day of programming dedicated to Lime Grove, the historic but rubbish studios where the story was made. 

Reaction:

For some obvious structural reasons, the first four episodes of Doctor Who are often treated as two separate entities - one part intriguing set up in a school and a junkyard, three parts caveman adventure. Years ago, fan journalism invented a separate overarching title for parts 2-4, "The Tribe of Gum", though that seems to have fallen out of fashion lately. As I'll discuss in more detail later, this is to a certain extent dictated by prejudices of taste. A lot of people don't like the caveman nonsense, and think it detracts from the justly esteemed opener - the caveman idea was done even at the time only because the production team had no other options, and with reservations. But it's not true: although a lot of series bible set-up elements, and ideas from previous drafts by other writers, are incorporated into writer Anthony Coburn's episode 1, all four episodes were commissioned and written by him, and directed by a single person, Waris Hussein. It's intended as one four episode piece. There is a through-flow both in the narrative details - An Unearthly Child subtly establishes that Ian carries no matches, which will be crucial later on - and wider themes.

The tribe is struggling to find the right leader, confused about what the right values are that would dictate the decision. They have previously assumed that it was all to do with the special Orb-given skill, making fire. When it looks like nobody possesses this skill, how and who will they choose? The familiar Za, even though he seems more prone to inaction, or the newcomer, Kal, who's bringing in more food but may also be a liar and an egotist. Mirroring this, the newly formed TARDIS tribe is struggling to find a leader, and a shared set of values. Characters have agency, including all the females (this story has four great roles for women, two regular, two guest cast, and Doctor Who and The Doctor treats them all as reasonably or unreasonably as the males - whenever, if ever, the sexism set in, it wasn't there from the beginning).

What's great is that there's no villains here, everyone is empathetic, but complex. Though efforts are made to display their primitive thinking, the two lead cavemen are still shown to be canny political operators, making the most of the twists and turns to improve their standing. Kal is not necessarily the wrong person to lead, until he murders Old Mother, stepping beyond the moral boundaries (of the audience and the tribe). This is mirrored in the Doctor's musing on similarly killing a defenceless man; Ian stops him before it can be much more than an idea, and thereby saves the Doctor who then steps up and gets to be properly Doctorish for the first time, when he tricks the murderer into revealing the murder weapon and implicating himself. Hartnell is magnetic to watch in that scene, and everywhere else. Watch his very first scene - he walks in midway, and with a few deft gestures, pulls focus and thereafter dominates. The direction is uniformly excellent: only in these early stories does the staging and performance reach this level of reality, the regulars grimy, sweaty, and in genuine panic for their lives and liberty.

I haven't even talked about the first episode's brilliance. It has its flaws (they become obvious after watching it so many times) but they're superficial, and it still is the benchmark of how to do a series opener in 25 minutes. I can't add much more to what's been said and re-said over the years. Even within the space of these few scenes, the characters are shown to have depth: Barbara and Ian both admit to themselves that their motives in checking up on Susan are not 100% pure, and so - like in the best horror stories - the trials that await them are not wholly undeserved, having been brought on by their curiosity. The moment of precognitive doubt as Barbara steps out of the car, wondering what they're getting into, is wonderfully in keeping with this. If you've never watched the pilot version, though, it's worth a go to see how much it was improved in the broadcast version. Every decision made was the right one, creating more mystery about the Doctor and Susan. One thing that rightly remained unchanged between the two versions, though, is the marvellous cliffhanger: the shadow of a caveman falls over the scene of a Police Box standing incongruously in a primitive landscape.

Connectivity: 

An Unearthly Child and Battlefield are both season opening four-part stories (the very first and very last seasons of the original run, as it happens); both contain references to school, history and science (if one counts Ace's bomb-making in Battlefield).

Deeper Thoughts:
It wos not just the Daleks wot wun it. I've read that some foreign countries picking up Doctor Who episodes for broadcast in the 1960s may have skipped the three cavemen episodes altogether. You just about could go from the cliffhanger ending of An Unearthly Child to The Dead Planet, first episode of the following Dalek story, without too much audience head-scratching: our heroes have arrived in another desolate landscape with another someone watching the TARDIS. And, nobody at the time could check the previous episode or pause the current episode to wonder too long why the regulars' clothes were suddenly in need of changing: blink and you'd miss it. For the reasons I set out above and more, though, such a decision would horrify me - whatever one thinks of the caveman story, it's a bit much to go from separating it out to excising it. It doesn't surprise me however. It was after all how the original tie-in novelisation was rewritten. Narratives are powerful things, and a narrative that's popular can be more powerful than one that's true. The overriding creation myth of Doctor Who is that it had an intriguing intro episode that was unfortunately overshadowed by a huge contemporary news item in JFK's assassination aftermath; luckily, along came the Daleks, which turned the show into a hit, and it never looked back... unlike JFK who looked back, and to the left... [sorry, Good Taste Ed.].

There's a lot of truth in this narrative, but it's not the whole story. Doctor Who was performing well for its early episodes, but the Daleks did turn it into a ratings sensation. Arguably, this was even more impressive than it seemed, as that first Dalek story was a rush commission rather than something that had months of thought and planning like the first story. And the Daleks are a great concept, visually and conceptually, for which everyone involved should be justly proud. But the best bad guys are only as good as the heroes who come up against them, and they are defined by those heroes' reactions. This is why the Daleks have never found much of a life without the Doctor. This is the disappointment of reading a comic strip in a Doctorless Dalek annual, and why Dalek author Terry Nation's Dalek-only TV show never found sufficient backing - the heroes were too clean-cut and dull; the Daleks on their own weren't enough, they're only one side of the coin. It was like Moriarty was deprived of Sherlock Holmes and was up against Dan Dare instead (in fact, scratch that - that sounds like it would be awesome!).

The three cavemen episodes set up the regulars, and flesh out their characters. The team then start the Dalek story ready to meet the big bad nemesis and take things up a level. It wasn't planned that way, it was just luck, but it worked. To recap: our heroes are an old man so desperate not to lose his granddaughter he kidnaps two teachers rather than risk her running off if he let's the two of them go, who's willing to kill a defenceless man just so he can escape quicker. Ian isn't a saint either, he's stubborn and aggressive as well as stoic and brave, and needs Barbara to remind him of basic compassion. He likens the cavemen to animals, and has just as many issues projecting his superiority as the Doctor. Barbara can't help but follow her curiosity even when she can feel its going to lead to something terrible. Susan is hyper-intelligent but young and naive. The conflict between the regulars is also very carefully calibrated - not enough to be off-putting, but enough to develop the characters and propel the action.

Step back a moment, forget about the caveman's outfits and speech patterns being a bit risible, and see the quality and depth that's been put into the script. Imagine what the first story of a teatime kids' show could have been like, if they'd underestimated the audience: a bunch of bland people, including one unreliable oldster, adrift in time and space trying to find their way home. It could have ended up like a British Lost in Space. And Lost in Space was shit.

In Summary:

The origin, you might say. And one of the best, all four parts of it. So there.