Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (72 page)

Otherwise, we’re into Season Seven! All right, not really, but it’s become very hard to watch this story separate from the knowledge that Derrick Sherwin will model the show in future on this template – loads of hardware, epic length and an overall feel of “contemporary grittiness” included. Fortunately, it’s a hard-nosed approach that appeals, especially as the Cybermen are presented as being so powerful – grenade after grenade fails to entirely subjugate them. The effortless way that they bash manhole covers off is an economical demonstration of their strength, and that haunting image of their march down the steps of St. Paul’s is one of Doctor Who’s Great Moments. Brr again.

What we
don’t
see of this display of military might is – as you say – the big battle between the UNIT forces and Vaughn’s men, which happens off screen. However, the planned scene, which also appears in the novelisation, has Gregory (who in the book version, if I’m recalling this correctly, has dandruff – a deft character touch from Ian Marter) uncharacteristically drawing a gun. What we get instead is
so
much better: Gregory has already blotted his copy book by stepping in to stop Watkins being hurt during Vaughn’s test of his emotion-generating gun, and after his subsequent failure to stop UNIT from rescuing the professor, Vaughn genially tells his minion that has no time left... before Gregory is subjected to a brutal, perfunctory dispatch in the sewers. Brr, brr and thrice brr.

On a more comical note, did you notice how Watkins’ beard has grown? It was comparatively short and stubbly during his first appearance, but Burnham has now been on the job for a month, even though only a couple of days have passed for his character. Perhaps when the professor isn’t working on the Cerebratron Mentor, he’s been spending his hours inventing a hair-growth device, The Follicle Flourisher.

The Invasion episode seven

R:
Now, as much as I’ve been enjoying The Invasion, there has for the last few weeks been an absence at the centre of it. And that’s been the Doctor himself. If I were being harsh, I’d say that Derrick Sherwin and Douglas Camfield have got so excited at the template for this new direction of Doctor Who, they’ve rather forgotten to put Doctor Who into it. Troughton has spent the last few episodes poking about with microcircuits and neuristers, and looking pretty much like the able scientific boffin working for a military organisation – stick him in a smart uniform, and he’d look no different to anyone else buzzing around the Brigadier. And Troughton has looked none too happy about it, giving a rather subdued performance, left in the corner whilst the real action is between Kevin Stoney’s delightful villain and a lot of soldiers with guns. Wendy Padbury’s barely had a look in either, popping down into the sewers briefly just to get herself into a spot of jeopardy. And Frazer Hines has been so redundant that in the last episode he went to sleep. On two separate occasions.

It hasn’t entirely worked yet, this attempt to mesh Doctor Who as we know it with the sort of hardware tale that UNIT has to offer. It’s peculiar to see this most anti-establishment of Doctors working so benignly with the military. And it’s a lesson learned: when the Doctor returns to work for UNIT next season, it’ll be within a much more adversarial relationship. It’s the only way forward – as it is, the Doctor is in danger of disappearing into the background altogether.

And that’s why this episode comes as such a relief. The Invasion has been so skilfully handled that it’s only when that eccentric Doctor pops back into focus that I realise just how much I’ve missed him. There’s room for some character comedy at last – he tosses a coin to determine which path he should take in the sewers, and with perfect timing sets off in the opposite direction. The way in which he floors Tobias Vaughn by so politely knocking at his door, so to speak, is absolutely priceless; it’s apt that for the first time, Kevin Stoney actually looks
surprised.
And his discussion with Vaughn is perfectly handled, the Doctor looking relaxed and in control as if he’s conducting a job interview with a sloppy applicant. Troughton looks happier than he has in ages, at last having the potential to show off the charisma we know he has at his best.

Wendy Padbury’s better used too; the unflappable way in which she plots the destruction of the Cybermen warships is terrific. Frazer Hines is out of the story, though – Jamie is shot (with real bullets from a real gun!) to get him back into bed dozing where he belongs.

T:
That’s it for Professor Watkins and Sergeant Walters too – Edward Burnham must have been thrilled to collect an episode fee when he’s essentially just bundled out of a back door. And while Walters’ departure isn’t really explained, the production text on the DVD says that John Levene replaced an actor who was sacked for persistent lateness – and said caption appears, by an almighty coincidence, over a shot of Walters-actor James Thornhill. Given that Benton takes over Walters’ function, it’s pretty obvious to whom they’re referring. It’s a shame, as Walters looks pretty nifty with his body armour and machine gun. Who knows? If he’d been more punctual, maybe he’d have become the series regular in Levene’s stead (sliding doors and all that).

But you’re right – it’s odd how little we’ve mentioned Troughton in this story, considering he’s generally the focal point of our raving. Still, he’s not the only one who’s been pushed to one side – having only come to this party at the end of the fourth instalment, the Cybermen are, after the cliffhanger reprise, not seen again for the rest of the episode. Meanwhile, having indulged in a spot of cuticle-chewing last week, Packer is now turning into an old woman, and moans to Vaughn who – brilliantly – refuses to be fazed. Vaughn is indeed surprised when the Doctor contacts him, but it’s mildly piqued bemusement, rather than the shock of a man on the ropes. He’s smooth and assured right up until his final confrontation with the Cyber-wedding-cake-thingy, when it’s announced that the Cybermen are shifting into Plan B: the total destruction of Earth.

Tellingly,
who
gets the end-of-episode close-up? Vaughn, and it’s thoroughly deserved. This hasn’t been much of a second Doctor story, and in terms of screen time, it hasn’t been much of a Cyberman story either. No, it’s a
Tobias Vaughn
story, and he’s magnificent.

April 25th

The Invasion episode eight

R:
In a story of this length, it feels entirely right that the endgame should feel so drawn out. Other stories would have concluded much more blandly at the end of episode seven, with the Cyberships destroyed; it means that all of this week’s episode plays as a desperate epilogue, with UNIT poised to stop a new and apocalyptic counterplot, and gives the viewer a sense unusual in Doctor Who that the climax isn’t to be rushed at. In most adventures, the resolution of the crisis at best only concerns the last half of the final episode – which is why Doctor Who stories often feel rather abrupt and unsatisfying.

There are two endings here: there’s the Russian missile which takes out the Cybermen’s mothership, and there’s the death-defying attack on the Cyberman’s lair by the Doctor and a bunch of soldiers throwing grenades at everything that moves. One involves standing around waiting, with lots of furrowed brows – and one involves guns and noise and the Doctor jumping about clutching his buttocks trying to avoid explosions. It’s obvious which one should provide the final climax. And yet, bizarrely, that’s not what the story does. It looks at first like a structural mistake. But in fact, after eight full episodes about an alien invasion which feels as detailed as the show will ever manage, it seems entirely right. Had The Invasion followed the usual Doctor Who formula and reached an easy resolution with guns ablazing, it’d have been trite. What’s extraordinary is that the length gives the story a licence to play the ending more
realistically
, and show that wars end not tidily with a battle, but with people in conference rooms feeling anxious. There’s a tension to those final scenes, as we wait for the missile to hit, that is utterly palpable. And although the story has nothing else up its sleeve now – there’s no more jeopardy, the missile will strike home – it feels all the more realistic. Crises of this scale do not end with a big stand-off between one man being brave and a villain shown the error of his ways; as brilliant as the scenes between Troughton and Stoney are (Stoney so good at playing bitter disillusionment that you almost feel sorry for him), the story couldn’t end with them. The scale of the adventure has been made so credibly huge that it can no longer be resolved by the actions of one hero.

And that’s still why this doesn’t feel entirely like Doctor Who – and why the series very rarely attempts anything of this size ever again. Doctor Who’s great gift is its eccentric lead character, a little man fighting against the odds. There’s only so much The Invasion can do with him – he’s a bystander for the real climax at the end, and he doesn’t even manage to destroy the radio transmitter; he needs soldiers to accomplish that for him. There’s a very funny image of Troughton sitting amongst the dead Cybermen, trying to look his best for Isobel’s photograph, as UNIT rushes into action behind him – but the image is also saying, that’s it, the Doctor’s done his part of the story now, and it’s time for the men in uniform to sort it all out. It’s a brilliant bit of television. It’s as spectacular as just about anything Doctor Who will accomplish again. But it rather overwhelms our heroes. In the final scene, as they’re left to do their comedy shtick walking around a field looking for an invisible TARDIS, only Captain Turner and Isobel are curious enough to want to see them off.

T:
Hmm, I buy your logic about the drawn-out ending, but in practice I’m not convinced. “It’s going to be a long 12 minutes,” says the Brig, and boy – he’s right. The story climaxes with the Cyberman’s mothership exploding before cutting immediately and abruptly to the coda in Isobel’s flat. I’d have preferred a few more bells and whistles (not, mind you, the ones used in the inappropriately bouncy incidental music) during the final reel.

But then, this is a very curious ending all around. Jamie isn’t present for the big finale not because of a story-development, but because of how the cast’s holidays have been allotted. (His absence, at least, has enabled Zoe to have more input into the latter episodes, which is a pleasant change for Wendy Padbury.) Peter Halliday – a wonderful guest-star up to this point – gets a grand total of one line before Packer is slaughtered; so much investment was poured into the Packer-Vaughn relationship, it’s lost a little quickly for my liking. Vaughn, at least, continues to be mesmerising up to the very end – his passing acknowledgement of UNIT’s efficiency (although part of a throwaway moment) has a great truthfulness about it, and his deflated breakdown is mesmerising. His justly celebrated speech about why he wishes to control the world, and why he turns on the Cybermen – not out of altruism towards his own kind, but out of hatred for his former allies – ensures his character stays brilliantly consistent unto death. (It’s an extremely odd juxtaposition, however, to see Vaughn’s body ominously swinging on the ladder railing behind Troughton’s lovely comedy jumping in the foreground.)

Much of the rest of this, truth to tell, seems very truncated. Once Troughton has amusingly brushed himself down for the photo opportunity amongst the strewn Cyber-bodies, it’s down to poor old Clifford Earl (as Major Branwell) and Norman Hartley (as Sergeant Peters) to provide the necessary urgency. This they do very well, but there’s no escaping that the “exciting climax” occurs with those involved stuck behind desks and on a radio link. (For that matter, I was never entirely convinced that the UNIT control room set successfully represented the interior of an aircraft – it doesn’t quite translate for me, I’m afraid.)

Fortunately, they’ve picked the best director possible to handle this material – save for Robert Sidaway’s Captain Turner, who is rather impossibly cheery, Douglas Camfield has a gift for casting believable actors as military men. In particular, Clifford Earl is something of a wonder – before he was an actor, Earl was a soldier at Porton Down who was subjected to unlawful tests involving sarin nerve gas on unsuspecting human guinea pigs. (Those involved finally got an overdue, much-deserved apology and financial settlement last year, after decades of lobbying the government for them; it makes my long “12 minutes” seem like nothing.) In the previous episode, he got to say, “No hold-ups, please,” with unflappable professionalism as the countdown reached its climax – and this week, he composes his hands after he’s placed the firing keys in a way that suggests calm, standardised army procedure.

So, to review: The Invasion has been an impressively mounted production, helmed by a hugely talented director, with a stunning guest-cast and an excitingly adult tone. Has some of the Doctor’s magic been lost in the process? Perhaps, but if the series can keep alternating between the likes of this and the inspired whimsy of The Mind Robber on a regular basis, we’re in for a treat.

The Krotons episode one

R:
This is such a contrast. We’re back into cheap Doctor Who territory with a bump: the very first image is of a sliding door that wobbles and then won’t shut properly. The Gonds are all dressed as simply as the budget will allow, and even the axes they carry have a distinctly hand-me-down whiff about them.

But it’s a contrast to The Invasion in other ways too. The regular cast are right at the forefront of the action again. The Doctor looks more relaxed here than he has for ages, taking in a gravel pit smelling of wet farts with a breeziness that suggests he’s just materialised the TARDIS on a pleasure beach. And he influences events within the Gond society so swiftly that it beggars belief; a several thousand-year-old culture topples within minutes as soon as the Doctor points out that these Kroton benefactors are murdering people. It’s as if Troughton is making up for lost time, after being shunted into the background by all those UNIT soldiers over the last few weeks. We’re back on an alien planet, and the landscape looks suspiciously like Dulkis, and its inhabitants are as badly dressed as Dulcians too – and you grit your teeth expecting a story of a similarly arthritic pace. But the plot is dizzyingly fast; within 15 minutes, we’ve got rebels leading armed attacks upon the establishment – it normally takes us three episodes at least to get this far!

Jamie’s been running on empty for quite a while as well, so it’s heartening to see that the first thing he does upon meeting the first stranger who gets in his way is pick a fight with him. The duel is really well choreographed (let down only a fraction by the Doctor and Zoe ad-libbing squeaks of concern in the background).

I like this. It’s back to basics Doctor Who, but none the worse for that. And it’s great to see Robert Holmes’ name on the credits at last. With Terrance Dicks for the first time being acknowledged on the previous story (as script editor), it’s strange to think we’ve come this far through the series only now to see the work of two men we credit with being so hugely influential.

T:
Well, I never had you down as the sort of chap that would use the phrase “wet fart”. I have to say, it’s not the most edifying of images to enjoy my breakfast with.

Anyway, poor old The Krotons... I’ve never really shaken off the disappointment I felt, ages ago, because it had the indecency to not be The Tomb of the Cybermen. When The Five Faces of Doctor Who season was announced back in 1981, I was extremely excited at the prospect of watching those Target novels I’d been reading come to life. When Troughton’s turn came, and the BBC announced that they’d be showing the hitherto unheard-of (at least, in my world) The Krotons, it was my first inkling that perhaps not every story was available. Surely, after all, they’d have shown a well-known classic rather than this unknown entry into the canon? (That wasn’t the only limit to my knowledge either; believe it or not, at this point I still laboured under the misapprehension that all Doctor Who stories were four-parters.) So, this cheap and cheerful little tale had a whiff of “if only” about it, for reasons that were never its fault.

The good news is that there are only
two
actual problems here – the bad news is that said problems are the production values and the guest cast. It’s certainly not the first time that Doctor Who has been done on the cheap, but this
looks
cheap – the costumes are blander than a Hollyoaks cast list, the model shot of the Gond dwellings is dreadful and the computer banks don’t spark when they’re battered, possibly because they’re as wooden as James Copeland’s performance as Selris, the Gond leader. The rest of the one-off characters, though, aren’t much better... Gilbert Wynne gives an over-wrought turn as the young man Thara, and dear old James Cairncross, as the scientist Beta, is a tad too plummy. (He was considered the main guest star of this, would you believe, despite his having less than a dozen lines in this episode.) Maurice Selwyn and Bronson Shaw are hilariously poor as, respectively, the learning-hall custodian and an unnamed student. Only Philip Madoc, as the demagogue Eelek, is giving a top-notch performance – when he thinks a hand on his shoulder contains poison, he glowers menacingly and removes it with clinical disgust. We’re lucky to having him in such inauspicious surroundings, but it’s like watching Olivier playing Rosencrantz at your local Village Hall whilst Prentis Hancock gives his Hamlet.

And yet, for all of those troubles... I like this. The script has a laudable economy; Robert Holmes is very good at setting up relationships, customs and backstory with very little fuss. The story bounces along nicely, and if nothing else, it’s an intriguing premise (Holmes has only just left the starting gate, and already he’s shaking a society to its foundations). Troughton’s mourning over the destruction of his favourite umbrella is sweet and funny, whilst the tubular probe that emerges to seek him out is impressive in length, girth and mobility (even if it does bring Doctor Freud a’calling).

Oh, and I’m glad you liked the fight. Jamie’s opponent is Richard, my agent, so 15% of it probably used to belong to me.

April 26th

The Krotons episode two

R:
I have to agree with you, Toby, that fandom has had something of a downer on The Krotons ever since it was repeated as part of the Five Faces season. As such, it was the first Troughton story of the video age – the only one for years that was readily accessible as a recording off the telly. My God, the fans I knew were sick of it. It opened our eyes to the state of the archives – that in a series of four-part stories, The Krotons was the only Troughton story then in existence of the right length. The Tomb of the Cybermen was still a good decade from discovery.

Of course, had Tomb existed, you could have been sure that John Nathan-Turner would have chosen it over The Krotons. And yet, I think that would have been a shame. I’m not arguing that The Krotons is a particularly sophisticated bit of Doctor Who. But as a showcase for the series regulars, I don’t think there’s anything better in existence. The rapport between Troughton and Padbury is extraordinary here – as they argue over their intelligence scores in the Learning Hall, and as they nervously enter the lair of the Krotons together, determined to “continue what they’ve started”. I love Tomb, but we don’t get as clear an interpretation of the second Doctor as he faces off to the Cybermen as we do here, when he bangs against the Kroton spaceship angrily because it’s dared to call him “DoctorGond”, or when he becomes alarmed once he realises he’s begun to bask in their subliminal praise.

And Jamie is great fun too. His first instincts are to accompany the Doctor into danger, and he’s only mollified when he’s asked very particularly to look after a pretty girl. His frustration against Selris – who’s so willingly sent the Doctor and Zoe into danger – and his furious attempts to get into the Kroton spaceship are really lovely; the episode makes it clear that of the three members of the TARDIS crew at the moment, Jamie is the only one who isn’t a genius, but it’s not a source of comedy at his expense. Instead, it demonstrates all that is great about Jamie – his courage, and his loyalty to his friends. Here’s a boy who’ll enter a death machine, confidently brandishing a crowbar, because he’ll do anything in his power to rescue the Doctor.

T:
It’s interesting – we’ve both summoned up the ghost of The Five Faces of Doctor Who (my video copy of this still contains the promotional slide with said faces all together over a swirling, reddish starscape as the announcer tells us what’s coming up), and we’ve both compared The Krotons to The Tomb of the Cybermen. But do you know, I like The Krotons more. I’m not sure it’s any
better
, but where Tomb excelled was in moments of visual iconography, not the script. Here, there are plenty of decent, thoughtful ideas, all written with a certain witty flair, and all of them weighed down by a lack of money – something the makers of Tomb, fancy season-opener that it was, surely couldn’t complain about. (Incidentally, all of my books are in boxes because I’m getting ready to move house, so do feel free to wipe the egg off my face if turns out they were similarly budgeted.)

I could be wrong, but it looks like David Maloney has been given such scant resources to realise this, he’s opted to use some far-out flashing lights and distorting lenses on the Doctor and Zoe’s faces, hoping to inject some kind of abstract visual flair to proceedings. And he’s asked to pull off quite an ambitious sequence with the vats of slurry forming the crystalline Krotons (a nifty idea that pays lip service, in this case, to the science part of the fiction). It’s all a bit confusing, though, as the montage doesn’t really convey a sense of action or scale for the vats; are they big enough to create and house a Kroton?

The regulars are a mixed bag this time around... Zoe’s ill-advised zeal to have a go on the learning machine is one in a long line of examples of TV producers thinking the general public might find smug, precocious geniuses who nonetheless do stupid things as somehow endearing (answer: they aren’t). At least the Doctor tries to justify the scenario by saying that Zoe’s genius “can be very irritating at times”. He’s no fool, this Doctor, but he’s not one for exams or showing off – his intellect is served by instinct, not indoctrination.

And if nothing else, I quite like the Kroton voices – they’re
not
Brummie, as everyone says. Roy Skelton once told me that he and Patrick Tull opted to give the Krotons a South African lilt, bringing a satirical edge to the Krotons’ methodology of enslaving and exploiting the indigenous population. I tip my hat to their intent, and also appreciate the creature design. Designer Ray London always seems to get stories involving boxes (the box-like War Machines in their warehouse full of boxes, the Keller Machine), but rubber skirts aside, these fellas don’t look half bad.

Isn’t it odd, though, that two of the central protagonists that were established last week – Eelek and Beta – don’t turn up in this episode? We’ve no idea what they’re up to, but let’s hope that next time, Madoc and the Englishman come out in the mid-day sun.

The Krotons episode three

R:
There are some interesting ideas in this episode. But unfortunately, they’re not being raised by the interesting characters. The Doctor and Zoe stroll out to the wasteland, and pick up a few sulphur rocks. Jamie spends the majority of the episode inside the Dynotrope. All three of them seem to have been elbowed out of the main action somewhat.

Which is rather a shame, because it means we spend the episode focused on all the wrong things. We give a greater importance to the Doctor and Zoe fussing about with the TARDIS than we do with the discussions about war going on between Eelek and Beta. And it’s good stuff, too – just as the last story took the time to show us the real-world military consequence to an invasion, going on after the adventure would traditionally end, so The Krotons is all about the way that opportunists and radicals take power in the wake of a cultural revolution. In most stories, the Doctor flies off in the TARDIS at the point when the enemy have been defeated, with the society left to pick up the pieces and rebuild itself anew. The Krotons haven’t been beaten yet, of course – but most often the Doctor’s battle is with convincing the populace that the status quo needs to be changed, and because that happened so quickly within episode one, there’s now time in the script to deal with the political ramifications of that.

Now, I’m aware that when I use the phrase “political ramifications”, I’m talking about the bloody Gonds. Get over yourself, Shearman. But the
intent
is there in Holmes’ script, and I love that about it. Eelek was nothing more than a jobsworth bureaucrat in episode one, following the Krotons’ wishes, and didn’t even appear in episode two. Now he emerges as a man savvy enough to seize power, because by destabilising the Gonds’ faith in the Krotons, the Doctor’s also destabilised their faith in their leaders. Beta may advise Eelek to be patient and wait until they can devise a weapon to use against their alien aggressors, but Eelek is shrewd enough a politician to realise that to keep the people happy, you feed upon their impatience for immediate change, even if it gambles with their freedom. In most stories last year, the Doctor would be advocating
any
form of action, because most of the peoples he was fighting for had retreated into timid passivity. Here, though, the opposite is the case: the Doctor has set in motion the overthrow of a tyrant, but without having had a thought of a system to replace it with. Not to sound too crass, but it’s not a million miles away from the war in Iraq nowadays. And to sound a bit
less
crass, it’s not far from the darker Doctor of The Evil of the Daleks or The Tomb of the Cybermen, who is at least in part responsible for the crisis. (Note also that if the Doctor and Zoe hadn’t been such showoffs with the learning machines, the Krotons would still be inactive in a pool of slurry. The thousand years of slavery might have continued, and the odd clever Gond might have been sacrificed, but the majority of the population would still have been happily cheering the society on in all its stability. Prior to the Doctor arriving and turning everything upside down, even the victims see their being taken away from their friends and family forever as an achievement to be celebrated.)

But all this is in a story with Krotons in it. I think you’ve pretty much got it right, Toby -their top halves aren’t bad, and I love the spinning heads! The skirts and feet are dreadful, though. David Maloney does his best with a long sequence in which one of them sets off across the rocky terrain to find the Doctor. Other directors we could mention (well, Morris Barry, at any rate) would probably depict the thing shuffling along ungainly. Maloney gives us the point of view shot of the Kroton, its gun sticking out ahead of it, making it all look a bit like the computer game Doom from the nineties.