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

by Robert Shearman

  This episode has been such a curious and odd interlude, I’d be fascinated to actually see it – not because I really think it’d be very good, but because there are certain things you just have to witness for yourself (such as the delivery of the line, “This is a madhouse – it’s all full of Arabs”), if only to convince yourself that they actually happened. The visuals would also help us to evaluate the in-joke with Reg Pritchard – do you honestly suppose that anyone watching this would have comprehended that he played Ben Daheer in The Crusade about eight months back? But whether or not the gag worked at the time, at least it gives we fanboys something to appreciate 40 years later.

  February 19th

  Volcano (The Daleks’ Master Plan episode eight)

  R: This is absolutely bonkers – the maddest, most atonal episode of Doctor Who there’s yet been. It makes The Feast of Steven look quite restrained in contrast. We start off with a wonderful bit of Dalek callousness, as Trantis finds himself helping with the Time Destructor experiment in a manner he may not have been bargained for. The dispassion with which both Chen and Celation contemplate their ally’s fate, and then the eagerness as they wait to see how horribly he’ll die, has a sick cruelty to it. The cruellest bit, of course, being at the very end – after Trantis survives the Destructor, the Daleks coolly blast him down without even allowing him a word.

  And it’s contrasted with... what, exactly? A scene in which the TARDIS arrives during a cricket match, the whole sequence played through the reactions of two BBC commentators whose only concern is checking to see whether a test match has been similarly interrupted before, and how it’ll affect England’s chances. It’s a piece of whimsy so Douglas Adams in tone, it’s hardly surprising that Adams himself wrote the exact same scene in Life, the Universe and Everything nearly 20 years later. It’s very funny and perfectly performed, but it’s so at odds with what we’ve just seen that it leaves you flummoxed.

  And so the episode goes on. We go from scenes of the Daleks threatening the alien delegates, and assuring everyone of their future annihilation, to sequences of delightful comedy. The best joke of all is that, just as the Daleks are planning to pursue the TARDIS, the Doctor finds another old enemy is out for revenge. Against all the odds, that jolly Peter Butterworth is back as the Monk! Imagine the shock for contemporary audiences – you’re expecting the threat of a Dalek, and instead out of a rock steps this bumbling comic figure. The dialogue between Hartnell and Butterworth is delightful as always, and the echoed laughter they both share as the Monk tells the Doctor he’s getting his revenge is very funny and, somehow, rather insane at the same time. And then we’re off to the London New Year celebrations, conducted for real only hours before. The bells of Big Ben cut back and forth between the countdown of the Dalek timeship as it prepares to hunt the Doctor down and destroy him.

  This episode is so very strange and all over the place, it almost looks as if it’s been thrown together as it went along. Instead, I think it’s trying to tell the story on two different levels at the same time, and is glorying in how jarring it seems. It makes the Doctor look complacent, wasting time on jokes when he should be worried about his survival. And it makes the Daleks look as cold and as humourless and as threatening as they’ve ever been. Volcano is either dreadful, or quite quite brilliant. What do you think, Toby?

  T: With The Daleks’ Master Plan, it’s becoming more and more evident that the writers have little to no idea how they’re going to resolve the plot strands of the promising opening instalments, and so are trying to distract us with some very arbitrary murders or some romping comic experimentation. Yes, it’s true: this entire adventure is a microcosm of The X-Files.

  The cricket scene, at least, is utterly adorable. As an aficionado of Test Match Special, I can verify they get the tone of this just right. It’s a funny idea that seems to be a hangover from last week, and the characters are lovely – Trevor is all jolly and eccentric, and Scott is a slightly dull and bemused Aussie prone to repeating what’s just been said. Doctor Who does this sort of comedy scene so well.

  But, setting aside the pleasant surprise of the Meddling Monk showing up, it’s all downhill from there. Having already killed Zephon, the Daleks now pick Trantis to be part of a lethal experiment – then slaughter him anyway when the test fails. “I wonder why they chose him,” hisses Celation blithely, as if using one of your allies as an experimental guinea pig is somehow normal behaviour (if it were, surely no one would ally themselves with you). The way that the delegates are so easily dispensed with is making them seem increasingly redundant... by story’s end, it’s a miracle that the Daleks haven’t killed them all. I’m also wondering what this means for the planet(s) Trantis represents? After all, if Gordon Brown went off to ally himself with France in a war against China and Nicolas Sarkozy suddenly killed him, you might expect there to be some repercussions.

  All of my attempts at wry commentary, though, are being sabotaged because so much of this episode is little more than techno-nonsense. Let me try to summarise events: the Meddling Monk locks the Doctor’s TARDIS with a thing. The Doctor does a thing with his ring and the sun, which causes a thing to happen, and undoes the Monk’s thing. That’s about as much sense as can be derived from about ten minutes of screen time – these people may as well have been talking in Swahili. We don’t even find out what happened until everyone is back in the TARDIS – and when we finally do get an explanation, it’s a nonsensical one. Even Steven seems to realise this, forcing the Doctor to say, defensively, “I don’t want to discuss it anymore!”, which is the grumpy and less amusing equivalent of “I’ll tell you later.” We then round things off with a sequence that takes place on New Year’s Day (to coincide with when this story was broadcast), but it’s little more than an excuse for some stock footage of fireworks and an odd reference to Mafeking.

  Meanwhile, the contrived cliffhanger entails the Daleks suddenly chanting about how their time machine will bring them victory, even after it’s been around for half an episode. It’s an ersatz moment of significance/jeopardy and just underlines how bunged together this whole episode feels. The Feast of Steven got away with some of its shortcomings because it was a bit silly, but this week doesn’t, because it’s a bit stupid. And there’s a big difference between the two.

  Golden Death (The Daleks’ Master Plan episode nine)

  R: Look, Walter Randall’s turned up again – this time playing an Egyptian! It’s like the BBC keep him in a cupboard and dust him off for historical adventures.

  There’s a nice, basic idea at work here – that a rather low-key comedy menace like the Monk can accidentally become the agent of a much greater threat. The best scenes of the episode are Peter Butterworth’s – whether he’s playing for laughs (like putting on sunglasses to face the Egyptian sunshine), offering a Dalek monastic greeting or being forced to play the unwitting ally of Chen and the Daleks, you can tell he’d be much more comfortable giving up all idea of revenge and chumming up with the Doctor. Butterworth and Hartnell play off well together in their one scene, with the Doctor laughing in genuine amusement as he advances on his irritating adversary with his walking stick.

  But for the rest of the episode... oh, I don’t know. It is all very dull, really. The Doctor spends the majority of the instalment fixing the TARDIS lock, and Steven and Sara get captured and escape from a bunch of Egyptians. The locals are the most shabbily characterised historical figures in the Hartnell era; even the crew of the Mary Celeste were given a bit more life than this poor lot.

  It does feel such a pity that The Daleks’ Master Plan is now on such a treadmill. With the scope afforded by 12 episodes, there really ought to have been room for something more epic than this. But the story has abandoned any attempt at that, and instead seems more content to tell self-contained little stories. It’s ironic that there just doesn’t seem time to develop anything. All the most interesting characters, like Karlton, were forgotten a month ago – and by now, Mavic Chen only gives sporadi
c hints at being a credible politician rather than a camp cardboard cut-out. The writers seem prepared to try any trick to keep the story plodding on – the cliffhanger here tries to suggest a mummy horror movie – and in the process fail to realise that the story will sustain itself far better if it reined itself in and concentrated on what it has already established. As you watch the Doctor’s exploits in ancient Egypt, you’re left with the nagging sense that some time next week, he’ll take off in the TARDIS and land somewhere else altogether; there’s no build-up, no hint of resolution, no development. The Daleks’ Master Plan can go anywhere, do anything – it’s a microcosm of the series itself in a way – but it resists doing anything interesting with any of its new settings, or any new characters it introduces. The 12-episode length by now feels completely arbitrary; this story will end when its slot comes to an end, and for no other reason. We must be grateful, I suppose, that Huw Wheldon’s mother didn’t want it to be any longer.

  Pah. Sorry. It seems that it’s my turn to be grumpy. But I was really enjoying this story.

  T: No need to apologise; something very strange has happened here. The Daleks’ Master Plan started out brilliantly – Earth in the far future was awash with traitors and dangerous undercurrents, and the most trusted man in the Solar System was selling humanity out to the Daleks, who had also assembled an eclectic and exciting looking war force of disparate alien races. Only a few fearless Earth Agents and the TARDIS crew were aware of the conspiracy to hold the universe to ransom with a Time Destructor; bravery and cunning were the only weapons they had to expose the traitors and thwart the Dalek alliance. It was all very comic strip, sure, but in a good way. But now, we’ve left all of that behind, and Dennis Spooner – here trying to take the baton from Terry Nation, and finish the last half of the story, somehow – decided give us what no-one has ever asked for before or since: that’s right, another few episodes of The Chase. There’s no Celation, Malpha, Sentreal, Beaus or the much-missed Karlton... instead, it’s some rather dull Egyptians and another contrived cliffhanger.

  So it’s in the individual moments of this story where we have to find some greatness. Peter Butterworth continues to be brilliant as the Monk, and look how William Hartnell (who seems to have a frog in his throat for the first five minutes) perks up the minute they bump into each other; he seems so chuffed to be facing off against this fun adversary. Kevin Stoney – who has yet to put a foot wrong – also rises to the occasion, and his face-off with the Monk is beautifully done. It amounts to a charming manipulator trying to outmanoeuvre a cheeky chancer, in a jolly scene with an underlying menace. You can tell that the Monk amuses Chen, but also that he’ll happily kill him if he doesn’t deliver. The two of them get the best scene in the episode, although it’s also quite amusing later on, when the Doctor mucks about with the Monk’s chameleon circuit.

  And hooray! Sara gets to do some karate. What a shame that we can’t see it!

  February 20th

  Escape Switch (The Daleks’ Master Plan episode ten)

  R: I’m in a better mood today, and I very much enjoyed this. It’s not that it’s substantially better plotted than the last episode, actually; there’s a battle scene between Egyptians and Daleks again, and lots of weasel to-ing and fro-ing with the Monk. But this instalment exists in the archives, and watching it made me remember just how good Douglas Camfield’s direction is. He never wastes a scene, wanting to make each and every one as visually interesting as he can. The Daleks look threatening here – so much so that you wince as Mavic Chen gets above himself and slaps one about the eyestalk with impatience. And I was very unfair to Kevin Stoney too. On audio, the silkiness of his voice can sound at times a little one note – but watching him, you realise how much of this is an act. So much of his performance is in asides, showing his frustration with the Monk, or his horror at the Daleks – they may be his allies, but he fears them as much as he uses them. He seems to understand that it’s only by being the arrogant politician who demands their respect that he can keep them on his side.

  And I just want to point out: there’s a brilliant scene here, where Chen shows surprise that the Daleks so readily gave into the Doctor’s terms, and agree that only one of their number should go to the hostage-exchange. By way of justification, Chen is told, “One Dalek is capable of exterminating all!” – and it’s that single line which, all those years ago, was the inspiration for the Big Finish audio play I wrote, and which was adapted for the new series as Dalek. So there you go.

  T: Like you, I’m feeling a bit bad that I was so harsh on the last few episodes. Much of the problem continues to be the loss of the video – whatever the handy pictures, soundtrack, reconstructions and odd clip are at our disposal, there’s so much that you can only appreciate by watching the damned thing. And with Escape Switch existing in the archives... well, it’s making me question some of my previous assertions. Perhaps Galaxy Four episode two had loads of clever little visual and acting touches that lifted it out of the realms of the mundane, or perhaps The Myth Makers episode four was as shabbily staged as The Keys of Marinus, making my assessments of both episodes ill-informed and irrelevant. The simple truth is that with so many of the missing 60s episodes, we’re resorting to guesswork.

  There are some odd moments in this (particularly the big fight with the Egyptians, which doesn’t really go anywhere and seems a waste of resources), but as you say, Douglas Camfield for the most part distracts you from the shortcomings. There’s a very well focussed three-person conversation in which Steven and Sara blather to each other whilst the Monk talks to them (and us), and – better still – there’s a fantastic shot of the sun metamorphosing into a gleam of light on a Dalek’s head; it’s all very inventive and shockingly smoothly done. The last three episodes in particular need to be recovered so we can reevaluate them – Camfield is so good, and makes it all look so easy, who knows how much they might improve if we could watch them?

  Otherwise, and while I’d admit that some of this amounts to faffing about in ancient Egypt for no particular reason, the cast continues to be superb. Kevin Stoney gives a consistently elegant performance; not for nothing was he named Villain of the Year by the Daily Mail – or was it the Express? (It doesn’t make a difference; they’re both pretty nasty papers.) His relationship with the Daleks is so intriguing – as you say, there’s that great moment when he arrogantly pushes away a Dalek eyestalk when it muscles in against him, as if it’s an intimidating hard-nut in a pub altercation. And there’s some pleasant frivolity from the Monk, with Peter Butterworth treading that fine line that lets him be comical without undermining the threatening nature of the Daleks. I love how the Monk innocently asks at one point, “You mean my performance was that good?” Yes it was, Mr Butterworth, yes it was.

  But it’s William Hartnell who benefits most from this episode existing on video – the Doctor is sidelined for vast chunks of Escape Switch, then surfaces to deal with the baddies. As good as Peter Purves and Jean Marsh are when the Doctor isn’t around, he’s so commanding and wise during the confrontation with Chen and the Daleks, I realised just how much I’d missed him. Plus, he does look great in that straw hat.

  The Abandoned Planet (The Daleks’ Master Plan episode eleven)

  R: And after all the rushing around of the past few months... it stops. And it’s brilliant. Ever since the Doctor first touched down on Kembel all those many many episodes ago, there hasn’t been an instalment when he’s not been taking off in a spaceship or being transmitted across the galaxy – even the comedy instalments haven’t provided the viewer with a chance to catch their breath. It’s made the story play on a more universal scale than ever before, that’s true – but it’s also made watching it somewhat exhausting. And lately, the programme itself has been looking a mite exhausted into the bargain.

  But now... the promise of a climax! And slow-burn tension, as Sara and Steven explore the abandoned Dalek base on Kembel. It’s a reminder of what Doctor Who has always been good at, be
cause as fun and frenetic as The Daleks’ Master Plan has been, its real atmosphere comes from something a bit less driven than the Doctor having a mission. As the two companions edge ever deeper into the Dalek city, at any second expecting to be challenged, at every footfall expecting to run for their lives – we’re forcibly reminded of where all this started, with Barbara getting lost and panicked on Skaro, and the wonderful tension that produced. Now, on the eve of universal conquest, the story brilliantly goes inwards and becomes claustrophobic. It’s the most eerie the programme has been since The Sensorites, and it feels great to have this back.

  T: I wrote last time about how much I’d missed William Hartnell when the Doctor was gone for a long stretch, but here – and even though he’s out for most of the episode – his absence is less profoundly felt because Steven and Sara are made to deal with an eerie calm before the storm. Even in the Daleks’ chats with Chen (or chats about him), there are some shifty, tension building silences. Something is afoot here, and it plays to the Daleks’ strengths – they’re always scariest when they emanate guile and subterfuge, and their creepiness in this story makes some necessary villainous exposition more interesting. Meanwhile, Chen is certainly losing it – but the escalation of his arrogance as power slips through his fingers works, both for the character and the drama.