Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (13 page)

I love the scene, too, where Ixta decides that now that he’s proven he can defeat Ian in battle – meaning that Ian is sure to die in future – he can now be considered a friend. It’s just another example of the cultural divide played out in the story, and is a wonderful little taste of black comedy.

T:
I have a slightly different take on Barbara’s confession to Tlotoxl that she’s not a goddess. Yes, she’s telling him there’s nothing he can do about her deception, but it’s telling that she confesses her falseness when she’s outmanoeuvred his plan to poison her. He hasn’t got her in a corner and dragged a confession from her – she says it because she needs to say it to
someone
, even someone who could use the knowledge against her. She’s a woman pretending to be a god, a thing of perfection. And it’s too much, she can’t keep up the pretence. It’s a complex moment of human frailty sold fantastically by Hill. The fact that Ringham’s such a worthy opponent helps – mark how he clings to the rock, his head darting from side to side like a gecko.

The camera work continues to be brilliant here. It’s hard enough to ensure that everyone is in the right position at the right time when you do a stage play, so it’s all too easy to underestimate the skill involved in framing a decent picture while making sixties TV, in which there was only one chance to get it right. So whilst there’s the odd jarring pan or skewed moment, the fact that the director was prepared to push for interesting pictures is worthy of great praise. There’s a fantastic shot of Barbara and Tlotoxl in focus, set back from Ixta’s raised arm (as he prepares to kill Ian), that exhibits a good eye coupled with a desire to visually illustrate the story-dynamics.

And let me say that I adore the conversation between two of the gentlest characters we’ll ever see in Doctor Who: Cameca and Autloc radiate respect for each other, and their chat doesn’t explicitly give away what she’s intending (that the Doctor make her some cocoa, and thereby propose to her). It’s only on that great close-up of Hartnell almost choking (so good, I feel the hot cocoa in his mouth) that their discussion makes complete sense. Lucarotti trusts his audience, and I hope I’m returning the respect he’s given me by hanging on his every expertly crafted word. I especially love the Doctor’s observation about cocoa being a currency you can drink, and Tlotoxl’s slimy statement that “for once, the High Priest of Knowledge will be in ignorance.” There’s nothing cod about this; in dialogue terms, it’s caviar.

The Day of Darkness (The Aztecs episode four)

R:
Let’s just consider a moment. This is the final episode of The Aztecs, but the audience at the time wouldn’t necessarily have known that. Events certainly
seem
to be drawing to a conclusion; access to the TARDIS at last seems possible, so it’s only a matter of getting all the regulars into the temple at the same time so they can make good their escape. But we’ve been here before. An Unearthly Child episode three, The Daleks episode four, Marco Polo episode five... all of them suggested to the viewer that the adventure might be coming to a hasty end, but something always prevented their flight, and the TARDIS crew were forced to see out the final act of the story. The Daleks still need to be defeated, Tegana still needed to be given his comeuppance.

By the time of The Aztecs, any careful viewer will have spotted this pattern – and also that the series seems to have worked out just how long these adventures last. Discounting The Edge of Destruction (which was bonkers anyway), the typical structure of a story is that it’s told in six or seven episodes. As the Doctor and his friends begin to believe that they’ll soon be away from Mexico, as the last few minutes of episode four play out, the Careful Viewer knows differently. They can’t leave yet. Tlotoxl is not only unpunished, he’s in the ascendant. The “goodies” in this story, Cameca and Autloc, are the only characters who have suffered – the former’s heart has been broken, and the latter has miserably gone into exile to die in the wilderness. If the Doctor takes off now, the rules that Doctor Who has established about the nature of these adventures will have been broken – he’ll have escaped, but he’ll also have
lost.
So as our heroes rush towards the TARDIS, we still wait for a last-minute reversal of their fortune – a fluid link to be missing, a Tegana to emerge from the shadows and grab hold of Susan.

And yet, off the Doctor goes. Imagine the closing scenes in light of what the series has already led us to expect – think about that last image of Tlotoxl, his power at his most supreme, in delighted fervour as he begins to carve out his victim’s heart. I suggest it’s as big a dramatic shock as the end of Mindwarp, over 20 years later, where because the sixth Doctor has suddenly been removed from the story, it can only be left to play out to tragedy. Even Genesis of the Daleks, the series’ most famous example of a story in which the Doctor is seen to fail, ends upon a note of optimism – that the battle may have been lost so the war can be won. The best the Doctor can manage here, though, is to say that Barbara’s influence has led to the salvation of one man, and that’s enough – and it’s quite clear that Jacqueline Hill is as unconvinced by the success of Autloc’s redemption as we the audience must be.

I particularly like the way that, after Ian knocks out a guard whom Cameca first tried to buy off with the seal to Autloc’s property, she has enough honour to place the seal in the unconscious man’s hand. I also like the way Lucarotti doesn’t shy away from showing that Ixta subsequently kills the guard as a consequence of Ian’s impatience. There is also a beautiful scene in the tomb where Barbara leaves Yetaxa’s bracelet behind, but the Doctor can’t find it in him to abandon the brooch Cameca gave to him.

T:
They lose.

They achieve nothing. Thanks to the Doctor, Cameca is crestfallen. Because of Barbara, Autloc casts off his title and possessions, and the obsequious Tonila becomes the next High Priest of Knowledge. And owing to Susan’s choices, the Perfect Victim doesn’t get any nookie. Only Ian’s story has him triumphant, as he hurls Ixta’s stunt double off a building (in a scene made a tad more confusing on the spanking DVD print, where it’s more obvious that Ian’s double is David Anderson, who also plays the Aztec captain). It’s a glorious fight, because the filmed sequences allow the painted backdrops to convincingly suggest the scale and height of the building more effectively than the studio work did. And bringing things full circle with the resolve Ian showed in episode one, it’s shocking that he actually
waits
for his mortal showdown with Ixta. As the Doctor’s party gets busy opening the tomb, Ian stands his ground – knowing, or rather accepting, that a reckoning with Ixta is inevitable. To my lily-livered generation, it’s quite shocking.

Hartnell plays the Doctor’s guilt over Cameca very well – he doesn’t let himself off lightly. Despite all the giggles and dottiness, this weighs heavily on him, and his non-vocal acting speaks volumes. He’s helped, of course, by the graceful Margot van der Burgh – I just love how Cameca’s parting shot to the Doctor, “Think of me...”, is said twice. The first sounds a little like a (justified) dig, but she can’t bring herself to leave it like that, so the second utterance has no malice and much dignity. I find it absolutely bloody heart-rending.

So, the Doctor says that while Barbara failed to change Aztec civilization, at least she saved one man, does he? If anyone other than John Lucarotti were writing this, I’d have probably taken it on face value. But
saved
? The Doctor’s opinion seems to be that Autloc has lost everything, including his firmly held core beliefs, but at least he won’t hang around watching people getting stabbed any more. It niggles, and Jacqueline Hill is right to play it as if Barbara isn’t convinced. Part of me likes to think that if the travellers hadn’t come, Autloc would eventually have steered the Aztec civilisation on a less barbaric path, and they’d have abolished sacrifice thanks to his wise council. The Aztecs would have thus become a robust society with which Cortes wouldn’t have wanted to tangle. For all we know, Barbara
did
change history, but only in the sense that the Aztecs were wiped out because of her interference.

January 16th

Strangers in Space (The Sensorites episode one)

R:
The Doctor gets to fly a spaceship! He shouts about stabilisers and thrusts and things! I find that oddly very exciting. Considering that grabbing hold of some space-age throttle and trying to prevent something crashing into a planet becomes a staple requirement for future Doctors – it’s such a cliché, you think it’s probably written into their audition – it still seems peculiar to see this most old-fashioned of them all doing things which are so delightfully techno.

This is a very peculiar episode. It starts off being almost determinedly reassuring. Everyone stands around the TARDIS listing all their previous adventures in order, as if they’ve been memorising some early version of the Jean-Marc Lofficier Programme Guide, and underlining the fact that they’re all by now seasoned travellers who enjoy each other’s company and the perils they face. There’s an easy affection between them all; Hartnell is tactile with Russell, while Hill and Ford relax and joke together. It’s so charming, it’s tempting to forget that as they step out of the TARDIS and confront the Mystery of the Moving Spaceship, united as four friends, they’ve never seemed quite so
efficient
before. Barbara is able to check the pulse on what she thinks is a dead body without flinching, and Susan is curious rather than distraught. They’ve never been in so much control. They analyse the situation, and conclude that they can do nothing to help the poor dead people they’ve found, and make to return to the TARDIS. Then they realise the people aren’t dead after all, revive them, listen to their story – and conclude they
still
can’t help them, and decide to leave anyway. It’s amiable and relaxed and utterly out of tune, coming as it does from a programme that’s usually pitched just beneath mild hysteria.

And then, there’s a shift. The spaceship is under attack. There’s a suggestion that strange aliens are manipulating everyone, that they’re playing a game of nerves on their human captives. And that the
other
human on board – the one stalking the corridors outside the flight deck – has been driven to violent psychopathy by the experience. The Doctor speculates it’s an exercise in fear – and that, suddenly, is what the whole episode becomes. Barbara and Susan trying to hide from a shuffling sick man given to bouts of sobbing is the eeriest thing we’ve yet seen in Doctor Who. Stephen Dartnell is terrific as the deranged crewman John; he’s sinister and touching at the same time. His promise to defend the women against the Sensorites of whom he’s obviously terrified – and, especially, the way Barbara allows him that dignity – is lovely. And the cliffhanger, as the cast wait patiently for the aliens to show their faces, is extremely tense. There’s absolute silence for over 30 seconds, and nothing to see but the anticipation and dread on everyone’s faces. What began as something rather light and affable has become genuinely frightening – Norman Kay’s music and Mervyn Pinfield’s direction make this so suspenseful, the episode sticks out as by far the scariest Doctor Who has yet produced.

This is also our first glimpse of Earth’s future – I love the way that Big Ben is used as the most identifiable and reassuring landmark we have, and everything goes all science-fictiony when the episode casually mentions that it’s been destroyed. (Russell T Davies did exactly the same thing the first time he got the chance – admittedly, in a more spectacular style.) It’s rather endearing the way that these astronauts from the twenty-eighth century accept the arrival of time travellers from the twentieth with so much ease. And, because I’m an anal-retentive fan, I also enjoyed the way that Susan and Barbara are so surprised by the way spaceship doors open, even though it’s
exactly
the same method as was used in the Dalek city, down even to the same sound effect. Pay attention, girls!

T:
Well, this is odd! I’m certain that if we took a poll of Doctor Who fans, and averaged out their viewing habits of the past ten years, The Sensorites would be a contender for the least-rewatched story of them all. But I have to say: on the evidence of this first episode, it’s difficult to see why.

The recap scene in the TARDIS is, admittedly, somewhat awkward – Barbara’s dismissal of her experiences with the Aztecs is so casual (first she says, “I’ve got over that now,” and then she again mentions the Aztecs with a bit of a smile on her face), you’d think the Doctor had hit the Continuity Reset Button while he was fiddling with the console. But otherwise, there’s something genuinely creepy about this episode. By use of sound, camera wobbles and especially Stephen Dartnell’s performance as John, this is all very atmospheric. Even though the dreaded “they” are eventually revealed at the cliffhanger to be a balding Father Christmas peeking through a spaceship window, I’m still looking forward to next time.

Mervyn Pinfield’s direction seems a bit old-fashioned – while the other Doctor Who directors were young mavericks anxious to do something ambitious or groundbreaking, Pinfield’s approach seems to belong to a previous decade. Ian checks a crewman’s pulse and stoically announces that the man is “dead” – and then, as if that weren’t dramatic enough, there’s a big thump of music to remind us that this is quite a bad thing! Some of Pinfield’s flourishes work well, though: the bit where the Doctor’s party walks straight out of the console room and into the spaceship is often regarded as a gaffe (because we don’t see the outer TARDIS doors open, and they seem to automatically close once the travellers exit), but I think it’s a very clever way of selling the fact that all that space inside the TARDIS can fit into anywhere.

My favourite bit in this episode: the unhinged John telling Barbara, “You look like my sister,” which is really sweetly delivered by Dartnell.

The Unwilling Warriors (The Sensorites episode two)

R:
There’s an attempt to ratchet up the tension still further in this episode, most notably in a long sequence where Ian and Barbara search the spaceship for invading monsters. But there’s only so far the story can go once you reveal that the Sensorites are really rather timid beasts, clearly as frightened by the humans as they are of them, and have a propensity to clutch their heads in pain if William Hartnell so much as raises his voice. (He didn’t raise it
that
much either, chaps – this is the new, cuddlier Doctor he’s playing. You should have seen him during The Edge of Destruction, your heads would have throbbed!) I rather like the idea that we’re encountering at last an alien race that, whilst dangerous and suspicious, are clearly not evil and are open to negotiation – it’s a step onwards for the show. But the episode then wastes too much time on playing off an atmosphere of horror that’s no longer there. The title itself is a bit of a giveaway: “The Unwilling Warriors”. Whatever next? The Well-Meaning Invaders? The Assassin Who’d Really Rather Not Shoot and Would Prefer to Talk About It?

I rather like the design of the Sensorites. They’re cheap, certainly, and the disc-shaped feet are probably a bad idea – the actors don’t seem to realise when they’re standing on each other. But the faces are lovely, and – again, rarely for a Who monster – individually distinctive. Besides, the thinner of the two Sensorites bears an uncanny similarity to a maths teacher I had when I was 14.

Stephen Dartnell continues to give a great performance as John; I love the way that he tries to resist the aliens’ mind-control, turning to camera and pleading as if the audience at home are the ones tormenting him.

T:
I’m watching this on a grotty old VHS tape (not the commercial BBC one, but a multi-generational copy). So I’m denied the crystal-clear images of The Aztecs, where I could pick up every nuance in an actor’s face, and here I’m seeing fuzzy, blobby shades of grey, populated by aliens who appear to be talking through a sock. But, I rather like it. As a kid, I was always fascinated by the 60s stories because they were on before I was born; they were ancient, fusty, awe-inspiring pieces of history. The cold light of day (and the VidFIRE restoration process) can make these episodes appear less antique, but I actually like the metaphorical cobwebs. It also makes me look forward to the eventual release of The Sensorites on DVD, as within the doubtless sharpened pictures and crystal-clear sound, I will discover this story all over again.

This time around, though, the lack of clarity in the picture makes those little Sensorite eyes look really interesting and alien. In fact, even though they’re just men in body stockings with plates on their feet, I think the design of the Sensorites is unfairly maligned. I find them convincing, and the simple trick of the actors husking their voices up a bit sells me on their alien qualities. I also like the spaceship set, and even though much of this episode consists of people just walking very slowly, the languid camerawork and Kay’s music (though basically a retread of The Keys of Marinus) make it all seem very spooky. The scene with Ian and Barbara creeping towards their confrontation with the Sensorites, in fact, has no dialogue for ages (yes, it’s true: this episode is the Doctor Who equivalent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Hush), and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

William Hartnell again proves that he’s so much better at the haughty or resigned one-liner than at giggling, as the Doctor – when Captain Maitland explains John’s condition by saying his hair tuned completely white – delivers a bluff “There’s nothing wrong with that” as a riposte. It’s worth noting too, that even though the Doctor Who Annuals of this era refer to the Doctor as an Earthman, Ian explicitly tells him that, “On Earth, we have a saying...” It’s interesting that whilst taken as read, the Doctor’s being an alien isn’t an issue.

Stephen Dartnell is still the best thing on offer here, though (facially and physically, he bears a striking resemblance to David Tennant – have you noticed that?), though Carole Ann Ford gives him a run for his money when she’s allowed to channel her inner unearthly child, and delivers a moody and effective cliffhanger where Susan says she must go with the Sensorites to their homeworld or all of her friends will die.

January 17th

Hidden Danger (The Sensorites episode three)

R:
Do you know, I really love it when we stumble upon things that simply wouldn’t work the way television is made today, but can still have surprised and wrongfooted the contemporary audience. Take the cliffhanger, for example. The Doctor, Ian and Susan are having a meal with the Sensorite leader, and William Russell coughs during one of his lines. He clears his throat, throws in a “sorry”, and we think nothing of it – we’ve been watching Hartnell stumble his way through the script many a time, and we’re used to the fact that the BBC can’t afford many retakes, so seeing an actor get a fly in his throat is nothing. Then the camera gives its attention to Hartnell when he gives a speech, and we can hear Russell once again give a little cough. Then he keels over unconscious. The coughing
was
scripted. The man’s dying! Now, there’s no way that could work in the new series, or even for much of the seventies onwards. If a character starts coughing, and it’s left for broadcast, it
must
be significant. A director can’t hide surprise moments like that from the audience any more; the slickness of television nowadays would rob it of any ambiguity.

The highlight of the episode, though, comes early on. Susan’s little rebellion against her grandfather is beautifully played by Carole Ann Ford, who clearly seizes the chance to give the character a little more welly. The lines she has to say – insisting that she’s no longer a child, and has opinions of her own – could almost have been written by the actress herself. It’s a nice development from the stance she took in The Aztecs against her arranged marriage, stating boldly that she has the right to her own choice. How right it feels, then, that she reacts so strongly against the Doctor when he suggests here that she has no right to exercise her judgment around him either.

There’s a laudable attempt to give all these Sensorites individual characters – and it’s the first time in the series this has happened, as all alien races before this acted as one. The actors do their best, but they’re rather defeated by the masks and the longwinded bits of dialogue that feel more like speeches than conversation (and have wonderful bits of exposition, with the Sensorites telling each other things about their own anatomy!). That said, you get the feeling that the performers are trying to get more humanity into the parts despite the lines being a mouthful; there’s a lovely bit where the Second Elder takes the firing key from the Administrator and gives him the deathly warning, “Take care lest my doubts are become realities” – and then, as he’s leaving, he turns in the doorway and gives the Administrator an admonishing look as if to a naughty schoolboy, which makes everything light and natural again.

At least the effort is there, and I like the idea of a society that has good reason to fear and dislike the humans. The Administrator himself isn’t evil; he’s merely arguing a point of view that is opposed to the First Elder’s policy of appeasement. He’s no Tegana, and no Tlotoxl (there’s none of that depth), but in theory the character should have a dignity to him. That’s all rather threatened by the fact that John’s mania seems to have given him the ability to be moral arbiter of everyone he meets, and to categorise them as “good” and “bad”. It’s touching when, on the spaceship, he calls his fiancée “good” – which makes Carol turn away in distress, realising that that childish simplicity is all the complexity he can give her. It’s less effective on the planet when John identifies the First Elder in the same way, partly because there’s good reason to believe the Elder won’t
have
any greater character complexity for John to miss, and also because John does it straight to camera as an aside. It does feel a bit like he’s trying to help out any audience members who may have lost their way.