040 The Enemy of the World

Started 28 Oct

This is hokum. Glorious hokum. It is set in the future... well, specifically, about right now. And it is completely specious.

But that is beside the point of the story. It is an obvious attempt to get away from the 'monster of the week' concept and as such should be lauded.

This is a vehicle to show Patrick Troughton's range: as the Doctor, the dictator, and each of those characters pretending to be the other.

And he does not miss....

The budget is low... witness the destruction of the volcanoes in Hungary in ep2 (seen out the palace window on stock footage).

The narrative is outrageous... Rocket travel across the world in 2 hours and 200km road trips in 15 minutes... oh yeah!

The fashion victims are plentiful... nearly everyone... Jamie's rubber, Astrid's leather suit, Salamander's bullfighter costume, Benik's collar, the guards' stupid white helmets.

The acting is variable.... Helloo, Colin Douglas! And those wet under the earth people: Adam Verney as Colin, Margaret Hickey as Mary and Christopher Burgess as Swann in ep5...

The direction is occasionally a bit flat.... some of the episode endings aren't great and the budget doesn't permit... there's a few scenes which are "Look at that fleet of ships out the window (everyone reacts)" then don't even cut to stock footage....

But the pace is good and the story seems original. (No bases under siege here!) Griffin is a riot (completely side plot but worth it.).

Ep6 is a bit of a mess. It's only 21m46s running time and there's obviously some editing that has occurred between the scene of chaos under the Kanowa base (Kent has confronted Salamander, Astrid and Bruce are about to rescue the trapped under the earth people while the Doctor is still wearing his Salamander disguise) and cut to the next scene with staggering Salamander at night on the beach (200 miles away?) stumbles into the TARDIS.

Early in this serial 1968 arrived.... and Innes Lloyd departed as Producer. He was a revolutionary and effective producer. He saw off the historicals, saw in the idea of 'regeneration' and seemed to rescue the show from ratings decline.

The producer's role is very important to the state of the show. Clearly the show benefits or suffers according to the producer's effectiveness.

And Sydney Newman left the BBC around this time. In later life he was quoted as not caring too much about DW. He didn't look too happy with his life at that point.....


ABM Rating 3.00/4.00 
LJM Rating 3.50/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.00/10.00

No. 12 (out of 40)

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039 The Ice Warriors

Started 20-Oct

We watched the vidfired dvd version with animated eps 2 and 3.

This is the start of a run of 18 (!) eps in a row which all have moving pictures. The long dark night of the telesnap is drawing to a close...

The technobabble in this one is ridiculous.

I have a great deal of trouble with the Doctor's scripted lines in ep1 where he expounds on the reasons for the ice sheet advance.

He makes a very correct statement about the level of carbon dioxide in the lower atmosphere determining the retained heat at the surface of the Earth. Svarte Arrhennius published this about 1890. Even climate deniers can't argue with this idea. It's like water running downhill. It's true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect

But the next bit about lack of plant life leading to carbon dioxide starvation (and consequent failure to retain heat) is f$%#ing bonkers.

Complex ionisation technicko-flibbly wops are not even needed.

Just oxidise a load of carbon you mad retards!!!

Or to put it another way, set fire to some stuff.

Or use microbe vats to rot loads of vegetable matter and create great bubbles of methane... do you have any garbage? Bin it, warm it up a little (or just bury it in the sun) and let the bugs get to work....

Also the ice sheets are advancing, there's no populace present (they must be evacuated already) and all that's in the way is a crappy old mansion (which no one seems to care about). What (apart from the burial of old buidings) is under threat? What's the crisis again?

Clent's worldwide crisis is artificial, spurious, contrived and completely unnecessary.
The story falls apart like a climate denialist's webpage on this problem... in episode one!!!.


Who wrote this? Brian Hayles... I might have known. Mr Celestial Toymaker and The Smugglers... Currently last and second last place on our survey.

So what else have we got?
The Tardis team are decidely more light hearted and light weight in this story compared to the last one. It seems odd but I suppose that wild veering contrast is normal for DW (due to change of writers every story). Again not a thing I'd noticed so obviously before this current marathon watch-in-order project.

The Ice Warriors are weirdly simplistic monsters. Their characters are supposed to honourable but to me they simply come across as primitive warrior types but from outer space with ray guns. Contrast this with, say, Teripleptils: aggressive and violent but at least trying to claim beauty, culture and sophisticaion or victims-of-injustice-hood. It is very telling. These 60's Ice Warriors are presented like dumb Indians from a (rascist) Western.

Peter Barkworth as Clent is trying to push all the sliders to maximum on the testy, grumpy, man-in-charge meters. Is this to mask all the now cliched "man in charge of the base" tropes that are obviously present? Compared to the pressured Cutler or the incompetent Hobson he at least manages to cope with his problems eventually. But he's a right sh*t about it... *all*the*time*.
I'm left wondering why more of his staff don't side with Penley.

The plot is pure base under siege, admittedly from dual threats (the advancing ice sheet and the aggressive Ice Warriors). The themes are either the rejection of advanced technology or the importance of individualism. Neither is fully served by the story.

So that's three more things which are wrong, boring, aggravating or all three about this story.

The costumes are very spacey... The patterns are original and asymmetric. The collars are unusual. The technicians' 'glasses' which look like a plastic shelf from the fridge stuck on their head are way out (man). The set design is trying hard for the odd but familiar by contrasting the techo stuff with the classical sculptures (boobies!) and the Rococo wall panels of the old mansion house.The techo stuff looks old fashioned analogue to me (maybe cause I recognise the equipment, I think. It must look like a loads of buttons to most people).

The episode 4 end is really poor. Apart from the plot and the acting the threat is nuts. The Doctor walks into the Ice Warrior spaceship bured in the ice and Varga threatens him with reducing the air pressure to zero since it's an 'airlock'. How? With a pump? How fast? In half an hour? An as for the Doctor's line "But I'll explode..." Well, mate, luckily you'll get the bends before that happens.

Also the Ice Warriors spend most of the next two episodes worried that the Brittanicus Ioniser is gonna melt the glacier and 'flood' their spaceship... their airtight spaceship that can withstand both glacial ice pressures and the vacuum of deep space without fracturing.... and then what... free the spacecraft to fly away? Why aren't the Ice Warriors using their 'tactics' to make the Ioniser guys do this for 'em (as either a favour or a lucky mistake)? The conflict doesn't make sense.

There is some really bad science in this Science Fiction serial but there's some really bad plotting as well. There's all sorts of terrible decision making and process control errors made by the 'scientists' of Brittanicus base in most episodes. It makes The Moonbase look ok.

The very silly, old fashioned, smartalec attitude everyone has to computers is something of an issue. It sounds like a relic of the 60's that only pensioners and morons express these days.

The writing seems to have a quite naive view of exactly what a computer does or is for. In the 60's I imagine that computers were mostly pretty mysterious to most people. There's a weird scene in ep5 where during some new crisis Clent runs around reading dials and jotting figures on a clipboard before deciding whether to 'accept' the computer's 'decision'. The 'decision' is more sensibly called a result and it depends on what it was programmed to do, buddy. And I don't understand why the system isn't designed to monitor data values on those dials. (The numbers on the clipboard thing should be completely unnecesary.)
Clearly the crisis is not a physical problem with ice sheets or evacuations but one of a fundamental inability to understand science, physics, computer engineering and apply basic crisis management.


Perhaps this is an attempt to portray the ionisation base staff as being meekly technologically dependent on their computers ? Something like Internet Addiction Disorder? Unlike the brave, independently minded (and vaguely educated) Penley? Or am I reading a 2018 social problem into basic 60's technofear?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder

Obviously computers are not gods or oracles. They are tools. The very same Doctor makes this point most eloquently in The Invasion (next series). Unbelievably the attitude to computers presented in the Ice Warriors is actually less sophisticated than in The War Machines (which was technologically primitive).... just let that sink in..

Not my favourite episode...



ABM Rating 1.99/4.00 
LJM Rating 1.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 4.30/10.00

No. 32 (out of 39)

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038 The Abominable Snowmen

Started 10-Oct

This is notable for its stark lack of incidental music.

And it works so well.

We're transported to a quiet and lonely desolate high mountain top. There's no traffic, no work, no industry. You're just your lonely self against the bare and savage landscape but close your eyes and you realise that you're up against your own thoughts, attitudes and feelings just as much.

Politically this is probably a little prescient for late 1967. The rise of transcendental meditation and eastern philosophy in western pop culture was topical at the time. Think of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and The Beatles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Mahesh_Yogi#Association_with_the_Beatles

The Abominable Snowmen/The Yeti/Great Intelligence is, at core, a what-if horror story about this idea gone way too many steps too far. That makes a thoughtful (sort of) sci-fi story.


A silly criticism that is often trotted out is the Yeti look too big and 'cuddly'. I'd say fierce, imposing, menacing is a better choice of description. Framed by the large boulders and steep mountain-sides their size makes them stand out. Inside the Monastery they just look huge. There's one melee scene late in ep 2 which is notable for its jostling camera shots but I imagine the little monks with sticks versus the great big Yeti is a good image on screen.


There is a probable 'yellowface' issue with this show. If it were remade in 2018 there is no way you would cast white blokes as Tibetan monks. There's also a distinct lack of female roles.

But that point may be unfair to the show given this was made 51 years ago.


Padmasambhava's creepy disembodied voice appears in ep2. It is a wowee moment. Realistically this story is 2 eps too long. The show loses focus in ep4 and 5.

Luckily ep6 is exciting. The Doctor might be said to be too willing to sacrifice Padmasambhava's life since he is almost a sympathetic villain/victim of the Great Intelligence but suitable options did not appear at the time.


This is a(nother) landmark DW serial and archetypal for Patrick Troughton. (His costume in this is the one that appears in the The Five Doctors.) The direction in this by Gerald Blake is very thoughtful and some effort has gone into telling a visual story. Consequently it suffers greatly from missing episodes which effectively suppresses many of the story's finest moments.


Meditative Sidebar about 6 parters

"om mane 6 parter om"

The Abominable Snowmen is the first in the longest consecutive run of 6 parters in DW history.

The 6 parter is both odd and seemingly ubiqitous. Either derided for being too long/boring/padded (Dinosaur Invasion/Sensorites?) or 'two stories welded together' (Invasion of Time/Seeds of Doom anyone?) or lauded for being involved and deep and considered (Planet of the Spiders/Genesis of the Daleks?)

10 out of Troughton's 21 serials are 6 parters. So are 11 out of Pertwee's 24. Just 6 of Hartnell's 29 serials and only 5 of Tom's 41.

They died out in the late 70's.

The longest run of serials without one is 13 (Time Meddler to the Tenth Planet) or maybe 55 (Destiny of the Daleks to Survival... or maybe now?)

The last one is either Armageddon Factor, Shada or maybe Two Doctors (but that argument requires some stretching of facts.. I'll ignore it.) Possibly there hasn't been a new 6 parter since 1979? (Nearly 40 years!)

So this is an imprecise and ragged analysis.



ABM Rating 3.50/4.00 
LJM Rating 3.75/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.20/10.00

No. 7 (out of 38)

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037 The Tomb of the Cybermen

Started 8-Oct

We watched the restored 2010  vidfired DVD version.


Ratings weren't great but they usually weren't for first serials broadcast in September.

This one is very well known since its miraculous recovery in 1991/92.

The very cool use of opening music over the closing credits marks this as fresh and revolutionary. This is a new high in production values.

New no.1.

But there's competition ahead. (This is going to be so good.)


ABM Rating 3.79/4.00 
LJM Rating 4.80/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.50/10.00

No. 1 (out of 37)

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Progress Report End of Series 4

Series 4 is done.

169 eps down including 72 missing ones (13 animated)

Just 84 eps till colour starts with 25 missing episodes and 5 of those are animated. Only one story with no eps at all.

It's starting to look easy. 

• Abominables - 5 missing eps
• Ice Warriors - 2 missing eps (both animated)
• Web of Fear - 1 missing ep (web animation available)
• Fury From the Deep - all 6 missing eps
• Wheel - 4 missing eps
• Invasion - 2 missings eps (both animated)
• Space Pirates - 5 missing eps

036 The Evil of the Daleks

Started 29-Sep

We watched a strange recon with slow moving recreated scenes featuring a hairy armed young man in a dress as Victoria as prisoner of the Daleks.

No, not weird at all.

Look I'm a fan. It's not a perfect DW story but it's more interesting than most. This is difficult to get into because of it's length and it's involvement and depth and missing episodes are always a major hurdle.

It's the mood and the style that makes DW good. The plots are not amazing or the spectacular-ness of the production (mixed video and 16mm film in B&W). The mood and style feeding an imagined back story is the sign that DW is going well.

This is a very slow burn story. Whole episodes are devoted to scene setting. Scientifically implausible (of course) but then it doesn't make the mistake of depending on it.

This is like a Dickens Daleks crossover story. All the lace and maids and Victorian gentlemen but also the list of the minor characters: Kemel, Terrall, Kennedy, Ruth, Molly, Perry, even Bob Hall. Each has a little bit of character and some part in the plot.

The Daleks are cyphers but they serve the story as villains. For several episodes (2-5) they seem to flit into Maxtible's laboratory through those double arched doors (and presumably are backward and forwards through a wormhole to Skaro) like a head waiter checking on customers ducking into the kitchen (or an ever present wraith like threat reinforcing Maxtible's hegemony.) As the story goes on they develop into scheming buggers and plot mavens.

Waterfield and Maxtible are scientists greedy for power and riches who sacrifice their integrity at a terrible cost. Most of the other characters are merely pawns in this game.

Troughton is fantastically cool as the Doctor now. He manages to seem both scatty and busy and calm but really in command of everything when it comes down to it. Mercurially one step ahead of  the monsters but all over the place and doesn't seem to mind. Wow, that is cool. When it comes to it he will stand up to the Daleks, the Daleks' city on their home world, the Emporer Dalek and can and will do 'em in. And he makes it seem easy.

Jamie grows as a character. He's not a simple peasant like in Underwater Menace or Moonbase. He's now a surprisingly sophisticated and resourceful Ian-type replacement. Very good for the show. Hines plays him with some understatement.and ease belying the acting skill that this actually requires to make the role work. The guy should have gone on to great things maybe.

The story seems like 19th century faffing about till the end of episode 5. Then it soars.

Not a base under siege. The early plot starts as a mystery/search for the Tardis, followed by a desperate situation that sets the Doctor and Jamie against each other. In episode 6 when Maxtible's  house is destroyed and the action moves to Skaro the Daleks take centre stage. Yes, the Daleks' plan is insane (see Antony Tomlinson's review in the comments) and Maxtible's ambition is insane. But the pace and gravity picks up and overwhelms reasoned plotting anyway.


That last episode...
The missing visuals are surely not matched by the telesnaps or the half hearted animated version we saw. A noticeable feature of recovered Troughton episodes is the visual and acting flourshes directors and actors have put into the show. I'll cite Underwater Menace ep2 as one example. Web ep 4 as another. A very different prospect to watch it rather than hear it.

So the lost episode status is crippling but what does that leave us?

Well, spoiler alert... (after 51 years, if you haven't tried to watch this yet then FFS what's wrong with you?!)

A sample of the earthquake plot developments that go down in ep7:

• the Doctor is (definitely) not human (after all), 
• this story is big enough to contemplate escape to another universe or return to his home planet
• the Doctor will let everyone around him perish to defeat these Daleks, 
• these Daleks can do transmutation of metals (they are not bullsh*tting Maxtible) This according  to Sandifer is a metaphor for wizardry and universal magick. BTW the Doctor is not wrong to say that transmutation of iron to gold is possible... but it takes colliding black holes to do it....
• The Doctor says the point is why are the Daleks doing this? But does he answer.. no. Perhaps this is best described as sequel hunting ? 
• the Emporer Dalek reveals the plan is to discover the Dalek Factor and have the Doctor spread it among humans (really the climax to ep 6 but hey)... this is "suspension of disbelief required" time obviously but if you interpret this metaphorically and consider that the Daleks probably view the Doctor as corruptible and coerceable as any other human, I think I can understand why they would try this plan.
• The shock of seeing the destructive effects of Daleks questioning and arguing amongst each other is palpable after 4 seasons of implacable authority.
• ...and Victoria Watefield is the new companion through obvious necessity rather than the usual 'stumble into the Tardis' type reason.

Maybe it will be like the Cyberdummy/Toberman fight in Tomb... if it's ever discovered again.

But maybe that lack of discovery makes Evil ep7 the best example (of many) of living better in the imagination. (What JNT once possibly cynically called the 'memory cheating'.)


This is heady stuff and magnificent too. This is crying out for remake or animation or discovery.

Even the best modern series episodes are at best hoping to be this good.

Top 10 all time, easily. Just a matter of where. It just shades Power because of its scope but they're different sorts of stories. Power is about the misplaced mendacity of humans...In Power, the Daleks are predictable, deceptive but predictable and what they do is inevitable. Evil is about the lengths that Daleks will go to foment, well, their evil on people. The fate is inevitable only when the good guys stand up to them.

Gerry Davis ended his run as Script Editor, Peter Bryant started. He will take over from Innes Lloyd as producer during the next series. Next series features a string of Script Editors, many of whom are very, very DW famous. David Whitaker will do some more scripts over the next 3 years but usually rewrites of other people's story outlines so he's just about finished. Daleks won't be back for 4 1/2 years (Jan 1972). Thanks, Terry Nation and Lynsted Park Enterprises....

Series 4 ended in the UK on the day that colour television began in Europe (on BBC2, 1-Jul-1967). The series showed that change can be good for the show. The quality had picked up enormously. (Series 4 has gone from The Smugglers to this...) The ratings weren't soaring but they had stopped the freefall of the previous year and stabilised at a good enough medium. Overseas sales had picked up a little with NZ now regularly showing these eps and many African countries too.

Doctor Who has entered a roughly 10 year period of sustained excellence that will likely never be matched. This is where Doctor Who has become the best TV show of all time.



ABM Rating 3.81/4.00
LJM Rating 4.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 6.75/10.00  

No. 3 (out of 36)

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035 The Faceless Ones

Started 22-Sep

First 3 eps are quite engaging and the pace nips along.

Ben and Polly noticeably disappear in ep2.

Jamie and Sam Briggs make a replacement team almost effortlessly. Pauline Collins plays a very modern, cheeky Liver bird style of character that was no doubt immediately attractive to the production team. She did get asked and her answer was 'no, thanks'.

This is a 'base under siege' story with a domestic, metropolitan difference. Set in an airport no less.

The airport commandant (Colin Gordon) is vaguely special guest star-ish and absurdly grumpy from start to finish.


The last three eps seem whacky on paper but in a recon they seem surprising. There are certain weird bits in the plot. The Chameleons plan is insane. The last ep seems rushed and less than well thought out. Bodies in cars in the carpark for days even weeks without water, food or wee breaks would either leak, die or cook wouldn't they?

The taken over Jamie talks English not Scottish. Creepy.

This is just the second story wholly set in the (close) to present day and is more like a proto Pertwee story than anything. The plot is a sort of proto Auton story which in turn is based on the 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' body replacement trope.

Unlike The War Machines it centres on an alien presence rather than a man made threat (WOTAN and the machines.) That seems to work better for DW. The next one like this is Web of Fear. This concept is the chink of light at the end of the "base under siege" tunnel.


ABM Rating 3.30/4.00 
LJM Rating 3.50/5.00
SPJ Rating 6.50/10.00  

No. 13 (out of 35)

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