029 The Tenth Planet

Started 27-Aug

Welcome to the base under siege.

We have a small  cast  crew of tightly overworked nutjobs who struggle against some form of external threat which gets overcome by means of some advanced tech.

Invariably the boss man is irascible or quirky in some way (check).
And is played by some famous-ish guest star (check)
There's plenty of whacky side kicks (check)
There's a few dour, level headed side-kicks (check)
There are very few women (check)
If there are any then they're quiet, hardworking types (check)
When the Doctor and his friends turn up they are not believed/imprisoned/eventually prove themselves by valorous minor defeat of a baddie or technically generated defeat of a baddie.(check, check, check and check)

This is where this story type begins...The Tenth Planet is a' base under siege' phenotype.

The Tenth Planet is somewhat of a fave, having been watched many times over the last 30 odd years since wobbly videos first were available.

The style in this is new and sophisticated looking (for 1966.) There is plenty of tech stuff that looks dated and hokey now.  But the distance between this and Gunfighters/Celestial Toymaker/Ark is gulf-like (and very noticeable.. marathon, in order watching makes this look obvious.)

This watch I am struck by how the Snowcap base characters seem aggressive and even neurotic. Maybe I'm getting middle aged or something but these guys would be absolute hell to work with. Despite this unhealthy workplace situation the drama is heightened by pace.

The pace of the story is frenetic. Maybe we've been bored by recent Smuggles but the episodes in this fly by at rapid pace. I felt ep 1 and 2 ends came up really fast and unexpectedly as I was watching.

There's a superb moment in ep2 when General Cutler is told on the phone by Wigner that his son is the pilot astronaut on Zeus 5. Canadian movie star Robert Beatty is the guest here. He was a veteran of many, many leading roles in movies since the 1930's. His appearance is a casting coup for DW. He sells this moment with effortless and superb movie acting. He seems to go very quiet amid the chaos and the shouting. It's a little subtle but it packs a punch.


Tenth Planet is not perfect, the plot is really lacking in credibility: how do planets orbit back from 'the edge of space'? Why is Mondas geography identical to Earth's? Why isn't Mondas frozen solid? How exactly does the proximity of Mondas not affect tides and weather on the Earth? What is the process by which Mondas 'drains energy' from the Earth? Why does it suddenly fail, providing a giant deux ex machina resolution to the story?
Why are the Zeus orbiters capcommed from an isolated base at the South Pole, yet launched from somewhere else (presumably more equatorial and higher in planetary rotational speed)? This is really quite bizarre yet is central to the story and completely unaddressed in the narrative.
Most obvious of all the title should be 'The Ninth Planet' (or maybe the 14th planet?) Perhaps this reflects out of date, early 20th century notions of planet hunting. (The Kuiper belt was not discovered until 1992.) In the 21st century we are more obsessed with defined physical properties of planets rather than their mere presence or position.

The Cyber saucers are only the third flying model spaceships in DW to this point. (Dalek Invasion and Chen's Spar are the prior occasions.) They not a great effort. There's a way to go here.

The cyber costumes are creepy and the 2012 restored DVD reveals details that are fascinating to anyone who's sat through some kind of wobbly, noisy VHS in the past (like me). The suit surfaces are translucent, the hands are clearly uncovered and human (also hairless and male), there are eyes visible behind the face masks, there are wires running up the side of the head. These Cybermen are mad, hi-tech metal and plastic Frankenstein's monsters and they have an attitude to match Mary Shelley's moral-questioning 'Prometheus'...

There's a notion that these Cybermen are misguided first efforts but actually that is and has been subject to recent revision (especially since World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls.)

Hartnell seems a little subdued. He seems to spend a great deal of his time waiting around. Maybe he's not too well and taking it easy? He's missing for ep3.

The shows loses a point from me for being so incorrect scientifically. But scores high for pace and excitement and monsters. Lloyd and Davis have been faffing about a bit trying to get DW on track. With this going out they've had 9 months since Xmas of 1965 to come up with something. This is it but it's still not finished.

The regeneration (renewal? Fun Fact: it does not get called regeneration until Planet of the Spiders..) feels a bit tacked on. As if it were put there because it had to go somewhere. Unlike subsequent regeneration stories where the Doctor regenerates because of something which happens in the story.

There is a recent story about a first draft script of Tenth Planet ep 4 where the Doctor did not regenerate (see http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2013/09/original-tenth-planet-script-found.html ) This was found in Kit Pedler's papers when a biographer went through them. It agrees with the idea that Hartnell's exit was  rushed and not carefully planned at all.

The viewers' reactions, the viewers' feelings about this are largely unrecorded. I expect some fans resented the change. Some viewers welcomed it and approved. The Hartnell post DW interview (found in 2012 and on the DVD) reveals him as bitter and regretting his loss. He denies it and shoots a look to the camera that says 'bullsh*t'! Pointedly he does not discuss the show or the people in it after his exit.

Ian McLachlan's fan letter of 1968 indicates that Hartnell was 'unhappy with the direction the show was heading. He disagreed so he left.'  Can we guess what that disagreement was? Until they died in 1991 Lloyd's and Davis's position in interviews was always that 'Bill was frail, unwell, forgetting his lines".

The marathon watch indicates clearly that the Lloyd and Davis explanation IS NOT the case.
He was doddery and Doctor-ish on Doctor Who. The DVD interview and the 1965 Desert Island Discs Interview both show that he was not 'Doctor-ish' in real life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI081htoIW8

Hartnell was a smokin', drinkin' ischemic coronary artery case on legs but he wasn't debilitated beyond his means (certainly not permanently, certainly not by 1966). He might be angered and feeling betrayed and lacking motivation but he's still got his marbles.

I suspect there was a hell of a row and some horrible heart rending regret behind the scenes here. I suppose no one will ever tell the story now since the key personnel are all long gone.

What needs to be realised here is that success and fame is not permanent. The 1964/65 peak of Doctor Who with fame and high ratings (or any generally successful project) was always going to be ephemeral.  When you're riding high it's easy to forget, to be seduced into thinking, that this will last forever.

It won't. It doesn't. It never does.

When the end comes, you must take your chance to face it with dignity or else you will be forced to take it anyway. Either way the end is inevitable and unstoppable.

In fifty or a hundred or a thousand years the things that might be remembered are the good parts of the story not the worst parts. If that happens is not up to you. It's up to everyone else.

So make the end a good part.

William Hartnell (1908 - 1975), Doctor Who

ABM Rating 3.10/4.00
LJM Rating 4.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.00/10.00  

Peak Ranking No. 4 (out of 29)


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