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

by Robert Shearman

  R: This marks the Daleks’ first appearance, so it’s clearly a very momentous episode (even if part of its charm is that there’s no way anyone making it can know that yet). But watching it back, there were two little reactions that really stood out for me, amidst the bombast and significance.

  One of them is the way that William Russell, playing Ian, reacts with such relief and delight when he begins to get feeling back in his legs. He’s paralysed by a Dalek gun at the top of the episode, and spends the majority of the next 20 minutes, in macho hero way, insisting he can walk (and then collapsing onto the floor) and beating at his thighs in anger. By the time he recovers, it’s too late to help him – Susan has already been sent out into the mutant-filled forest, and Barbara and the Doctor are nearly dead from radiation exposure. Still, there’s that moment of pride when he discovers he’s on his feet again, able to move one leg in front of the other. He takes a few steps with growing confidence – and then doubles over, clutching his stomach as the full force of his own radiation sickness hits him. If it’s not one thing, then it’s another! It’d be almost comical, were the reaction not so very human, and it only helps to reinforce the desperation of the situation.

  The other is the laugh that Susan gives when Ian and Barbara solemnly ponder whether there are any little men hiding inside the Dalek machines. It’s a real gurgle of a laugh, too, just responding to the bizarreness of it all – and although I’m sure it was scripted, it almost feels like Carole Ann Ford is corpsing. Ford has had a tough job since An Unearthly Child, simultaneously playing an ordinary teenage girl who at times screams so much, she falls over the set, and also someone alien and futuristic and unknowable. That single laugh is the most natural she’s been since her introduction, and it’s terrific – partly because the Daleks, for all the brilliance of their design, the elegance of their movements and that wonderful staccato voice, are ultimately ridiculous-looking pepperpots. And it takes that laughter, that suggestion that someone in the story also thinks they look funny, that somehow makes them more credible. They’re the first Doctor Who monsters, gawp at ‘em, have a chuckle – and now you’ve done that, look at what they’re doing and what they represent.

  And the Daleks aren’t necessarily the villains of the piece yet either. Their treatment of the TARDIS crew is unfriendly and opportunistic, but at least they can be reasoned with, unlike the cavemen of the Tribe of Gum. At this stage, they’re hardly more callous than the supposedly “good” characters we’ll meet later in the season, like Marco Polo or Arbitan, who also blackmail or imprison our heroes for their own ends. It’s clever that the cliffhanger still suggests that although her fellows are dying in a Dalek cell, it’s Susan who may be the one in greater peril, having to journey through a forest that may be home to worse monsters still. The stronger of these Hartnell episodes are the ones that focus upon a moral dilemma, just as The Forest of Fear asked us to ponder whether or not the ends justify the means in allowing a caveman to die. That Ian is here obliged to ask a terrified Susan to risk her life for the greater good is only a taste of what Nation has in store for us later in the story, but it’s very effective.

  T: It’s easy, considering everything that follows, to forget the scene before the Daleks first appear. It’s great – the lighting is much darker, with the white glare from the instruments dancing on the sweat on the actors’ faces. The camerawork here isn’t as fluid and well-framed as it was the first four episodes (that Waris Hussein went on to great success is increasingly unsurprising), but the few close-ups we get here (especially on Hartnell’s craggy and expressive face) are among memorable and powerful moments.

  And given the proportions they’ll achieve later on, don’t these Daleks seem tiny? They’re really little, but I think it works. The pull back that reveals them in their very first shot is wonderful, as is the fact that the travellers are made to get on their knees so the Daleks can be framed towering over them. Quite why the Daleks are seen watching what looks like rejected Doctor Who title sequences on their round telly is anyone’s guess, but I like the way one scene ends with them starting to talk at the same time. It’s a peculiar choice, but it oddly makes it seem more realistic to end halfway through their babble, as opposed to when the salient dialogue has run out.

  This all looks and sounds amazing, but none of the lines are vying for my attention in the way they did in the first adventure. Thus far, this story has been 50 minutes of set-up, and so I’m fascinated to see what Susan encounters on her way back to the city, and to finally meet a few more humanoid characters...

  Back in the here and now, though, I’ll know who the new Doctor is in about an hour!

  R: And since we watched those Dalek episodes, the BBC have announced our eleventh Doctor is Matt Smith.

  I remember the days when the casting of a new Doctor was something you’d get as one of the late “fun” items on BBC News. Now, the News carries a story about how a special programme following it will reveal the new Doctor, which seems just a mite cart before the horse to me. It’s astonishing to see, as someone still a bit poleaxed by just how massive a success Doctor Who now is, how cannily the BBC have handled David Tennant’s departure. To begin with, his resignation is announced midway through an award ceremony hosted by a rival channel, in one fell swoop guaranteeing that whatever else the evening was supposed to be about, all the papers the next day will only cover the scoop from Doctor Who. (I don’t know, but if I were up as, say, best actress appearing in a soap opera, I’d be a bit miffed by that.) They then broadcast a Christmas special which deliberately plays upon the idea that a new actor is being cast for the role (they even titled it, of all things, The Next Doctor!), thus sending bookies into a frenzy. And then, as soon as the hoopla of that has died down, they announce an entire half-hour programme given over to the casting reveal, on BBC1, only a little before prime time. It’s stunning, really.

  So, of course, the announcement that the new Doctor is one Matt Smith is something of an anticlimax.

  Good.

  It’s funny, really. With all that build-up, the only way that the new Doctor wouldn’t have seemed like an anticlimax is if he’d been someone so incredibly famous, everyone had already heard of him. (And I mean, everyone. Anyone short of Tom Cruise wouldn’t have been appropriate to the fanfare.) That it’s an actor the majority of the audience would never have heard of is comically delicious. And, I think, entirely fitting to Doctor Who too. Since when should a new Doctor be someone we already know? Of the ten previous incarnations, three of the actors, four at a pinch, would have been immediately recognisable – and none of them necessarily famous enough that their names were on the lips of your everyday man on the street.

  The temptation must have been there to do it differently this time, now that Doctor Who really isn’t just seen as a funny little family show with a cult following, and has become a genuinely global concern. Now, that it’s a programme which has sold two of its Christmas specials principally upon its guest stars, and which earned its biggest ratings by featuring Kylie Minogue on a Radio Times cover. They could have reached out for the Robert Carlyles of the world, the Alan Rickmans, the names we fans have seen bandied about for well over a decade every time a tabloid story ponders a feature film. Or, failing that, they could have gone down the popular celebrity route and cast a soap star wanting a new vehicle, or a TV presenter choosing Doctor Who as a means for further exposure rather than appearing in the Big Brother house or learning how to do the cha-cha in front of Bruce Forsyth.

  Quite rightly, I think, the role of the Doctor has gone to an actor who’ll come with no baggage whatsoever. Who can make whatever he wants of the part, without any audience expectations of whatever he’s done before. Matt Smith has got everything to play for. David Tennant has cast such a huge shadow over Doctor Who, and I think any actor trying to follow him will find such resistance from the public that it needs to be someone, as a result, who has nothing to lose. Put Robert Carlyle in the part, and all he can do is not quit
e measure up to his predecessor and watch as his reputation suffers. What’s in it for him? Give it to someone who instead has everything to prove, who can use the part as a stepping stone in his career whatever happens, someone indeed who has the right to fail – and let him off his leash.

  I have no particular opinion of Matt Smith yet, and that’s precisely because I’ve never seen anything he’s done before, and I think that’s wonderful and exciting. At a time when Doctor Who could have been easily forgiven for playing it safe, for trying to follow the brilliant success of David Tennant with a name, they have gone instead for an unknown they feel is right for the job. Good for them. Good for Matt Smith. And good for us, too.

  T: I’d previously seen Matt Smith in the first episode of Party Animals, and on that occasion looked him up on IMDb because I’d been impressed with his performance. I didn’t keep up with the series, though, and promptly forgot his name. That actually causes me some disquiet – I can remember the name of every actor that’s ever been in Doctor Who, but my brain failed to retain even the most basic two-syllable nomenclature.

  Nonetheless, and despite the BBC’s best efforts, Smith’s name had leaked on some forums as a possibility. So when I heard that the new Doctor would be “the youngest ever” and that “he’s only 26,” I guessed that it was him. I then cracked open my birthday bottle of Talisker to welcome in the new guy, and was delighted to finally see him as a slightly offbeat interviewee with delightfully expressive fingers. I’d anticipated that, for the first time, the Doctor would be younger than me – but Smith is nine years younger! It was enough to make me apply for my old age pension, dye my hair, and forget the names I’ve read on IMDb. After raising a glass to him, though, I logged onto the Internet to gauge fan reaction to his casting... and immediately wished I hadn’t. We’re striving to be positive in this book, so let me just sweep that bit of unpleasantness under the rug.

  It’s entertaining, though, to see some commentators criticize Smith because he’s an “unknown”, even though by “unknown”, what they really mean is “someone held in high regard within the industry with a string of leading stage and screen credits, but who has, for all these achievements, never been featured on TV Quick’s list of Best-Dressed Men”. He’ll do splendidly in the role.

  January 4th

  The Escape (The Daleks episode three)

  R: Ah. Hmm. Oh dear. I said to you that we should look for the positive in all these episodes we watched, and I knew that eventually I’d come across one that I didn’t much like. I just didn’t anticipate it happening quite so soon.

  The problem, really, is with the bloody Thals, isn’t it? Terry Nation perhaps tries too hard to characterise them too quickly, giving them all different personalities – here’s the cynical one (Ganatus), here’s the one who pontificates a lot (Temmosus), here’s the annoying one who’s a bit dim and a bit humourless and who can’t act very well (Dyoni) – and the overall effect smacks of too much effort. The problem is that they’re not very interesting; Nation’s attempts to give them moments of banter are woeful, because the rest of the dialogue they have to utter is so terribly stilted. It isn’t helped, by the way, that Susan keeps on talking of the Thals with all the dreamy, drippy enthusiasm of a schoolgirl with a crush on the latest boy band. It’s nauseating.

  Positive. Must try for the positive.

  But – and here comes the positive, can you feel it? – maybe that’s all for the best. Because the very vague emptiness of the Thals only throws the Daleks into sharp relief. They emerge now as the bad guys, of course, but they’re all the better for it – they’re sly and scheming and cunning. You don’t like the Thals. Who’d want to like the Thals? Temmosus talks of how their Thal ancestors were warriors, and now they’re farmers. Offer any child the choice between rooting for a farmer, or for your actual reconstructed warrior – preferably in a metal casing and with a grating voice and a gun that makes the screen go negative – and who do you think they’ll pick?

  As characters, the Thals are failures. And by being failures – by keeping the goodies blandly simple and positively tedious – every time they’re on the screen, you’re left hankering for another scene featuring the Daleks instead. I guarantee that if you were ambivalent about the Daleks at the end of last week’s episode, you’ll have been converted to their side after sitting through a discussion from Alan Wheatley (as Temmosus) about the causal effect of random events. The boring sod.

  I’m not saying that the reason children went crazy for the Daleks – and the reason why the production team were taken by surprise and forced to commission a new story featuring the Daleks for the following Christmas, why Doctor Who suddenly was given its first hit and why its longevity was assured – was all because Virginia Wetherell’s performance as a lisping Thal girl makes you want to exterminate everyone in sight. But it can be a contributory factor, can’t it? Doctor Who has done something unexpected – it’s produced a villain that can be more popular and loveable than its hero. That little grey area of morality that the show has been exploring has, in a trice, become all the more ambiguous – and the programme is all the richer for it.

  T: Crikey, Shearman, I thought I might have to encourage you later on, maybe through the likes of The Space Museum episode four or Underworld episode two... but you’re flagging after only seven episodes?!! Where is your backbone? If it were down to the likes of you, Dalekmania would have lasted a fortnight, maximum. We’ve got 40-odd years to get through, man, get a hold on yourself!

  Let’s start with the episode title: “The Escape”. Terry Nation hasn’t quite got the same flair for naming scripts as Anthony Coburn, has he? In fact, watching this has really put into perspective just how strong Coburn’s four-part script was. The only dialogue that sticks out here is the memorably quaint – “Yes, I was rather clumsy” says Alydon, as if he’s just spilled the Pimms on the cucumber sandwiches. Much of the remainder of the Thal-speak is, as you say, pretty rotten – it’s mannered 60s fare, much as could be found in any dated series from long ago.

  And yet, this is where Doctor Who becomes different from anything on TV – where those making the show learn what the series’ strengths are. I’m really enjoying watching these 60s Daleks freed from the shackles of received wisdom about how they should behave – this bunch is quite shifty; just notice the way they’re sneaky with Susan, are bewildered by her very name and react harshly to her innocent laugh. Such attributes would seem clichéd coming from a humanoid with a spangly hat, but they’re creepily alien when delivered by these gliding, menacing machines. I even love the way we blur from an eavesdropping camera into the earwigging Daleks in their control room.

  Back in the cell, the regulars apply a bit of nous to the situation and orchestrate a fight, providing the first look inside a Dalek. Or, rather, the first implied look inside one – we’re actually shown nothing, and it’s left to William Russell (and a bit of frantic scratching inside the Dalek shell) to sell us on the nightmare of the creature that inhabits the Dalek casing. Fortunately, he’s more than up to the task. And the cliffhanger – in which a Dalek mutant extends a clawed hand from under the cloak that’s covering it – is odd and wonderful; it’s a stolen moment that has little to do with plot or the actual danger facing our heroes. And yet, had I not experienced this episode before, I’d be waiting with baited breath to see what horror might emerge from the cloak, and what unspeakable beastliness it would bestow upon our heroes.

  And it’s not all bad with the Thals, is it? Philip Bond capers around gamely as Ganatus, clearly embracing a more modern acting style than his cohorts, and lounging insouciantly on a rock. He’s great even though he’s given so little to do, and of the cast is clearly The One To Watch. (And, interestingly, he’s got his two-year-old daughter – who in future will play Mrs Wormwood on The Sarah Jane Adventures – to kiss goodnight after he gets home from recording this episode.) Also, one of the delights of Doctor Who is observing how designers and directors choose to depict something f
rom “space” – and so here, the Thals have holes cut in their trousers. Okay, there are no beneficial or practical benefits to this that I can see, but it’s pleasingly “space”, that.

  I will grant you that the Thals have a lisping problem, though. Alethea Charlton as a cavewoman was one thing, but the three way lisp-off here between (pardon me) Temmothuth, Alydon and Dyoni gets almost comical. (Temmosus: “Yesth, but we’ve changed over the centuries... the onth famouth warrior rath of Thals...”) For all we know, some viewers watched that exchange and came away thinking that the good guys were actually called the “Sarls”, but that none of them can actually pronounce the name of their own species.

  The Ambush (The Daleks episode four)

  R: This is a much stronger episode – and not only because it’s knee-deep in Thal corpses. It shows the first really sustained piece of action in Doctor Who yet, as the TARDIS crew escape from magnetised floors and lift shafts and the like. It’s genuinely tense, and the entire sequence in which Ian is left trapped in a Dalek casing, unable to move, makes the claustrophobia of the first few episodes of the story seem positively breezy in comparison.

  At first, I’ll be honest, I was a bit bemused by the sequence in which the crew defend themselves from the Daleks by throwing a bit of modern art down upon them in the ascending elevator. Since when would Daleks bother with something as imaginative and emotional as art? And then it occurred to me that, in spite of all my attempts to free myself from prejudice, I was looking at these Daleks from the jaded perspective of someone who’s got used to all their clichés. (And no doubt, written a fair few of them into the series himself.) At this stage, Terry Nation’s canvas is still empty – why shouldn’t these new enemies of his have a culture, and a complexity indeed, that future stories make incongruous? This is the Skaro that we see in the Dalek annuals, or the pocketbook, at the height of sixties Dalekmania. Where Terry Nation and David Whitaker (rather charmingly) pretend that they’re translating chronicles of real aliens from interplanetary cubes they find in the garden, where Daleks have a fear of the letter Q and occupy a continent called Darren. If the Daleks seem slightly off-beam in this first adventure – rather given to wordy explanations, content to talk of “extermination” but never ranting the word “exterminate”, then that’s all to the good. And they’re as surprising to watch here, after 45 years of getting overused to the things, as they would have been to the first-time viewer.