Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (34 page)

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, because 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.

Please indulge me, though, if I bang on some more about which delegate is which, because – as anyone keeping score at home will know – we have another identity conundrum here. I previously stated that in Mission to the Unknown, Sentreal must be the black man with the space helmet. However, while Sentreal isn’t credited for this episode, it seems safe to assume that space-helmet man is present because he was in Day of Armageddon (albeit probably played by a different actor in both Mission and here, as all the non-speaking delegates are). Now, Gerry Videl was black, but he’s listed on the paperwork as Beaus. So we have yet another identity swapping delegate – probably the result of Douglas Camfield choosing his favourite costumes from Mission and discarding the others. After all, nobody in Mission is referred to by name apart from Malpha, just as none of the “extra” delegates are named specifically here.

Or should I just drop this, and mention that Malpha now sounds like Alf Roberts from Coronation Street? Either way, this episode is good stuff, well done.

February 21st

The Destruction of Time (The Daleks’ Master Plan episode twelve)

R:
The effect of this episode, even just with the audio soundtrack, is like being punched in the stomach. God knows what it would be like if we had Douglas Camfield’s direction to watch as well. You know, it reminds me a bit of the sort of feeling that Russell T Davies aims for in his season finales: the sensation that everything is vast and epic, but that that’s all smoke and mirrors, and what he’s
really
interested in is something much more intimate – a collection of powerful moments. And that’s what we have here. After five hours or so of drama, set on half a dozen different worlds, and boasting a
huge
supporting cast – we’re left, really, with just four characters and a bunch of Daleks on three sets. It’s a shock that the fate of the universe is as small as this – or as devastating.

And even here, the story refuses to offer us the climaxes we might be expecting. For all that he’s been the lead villain for the last three months of screen time, Mavic Chen has never squared off against the Doctor. To him, the Doctor has always been a nuisance, some strange thief who’s nicked his Taranium core – he’s never understood what the Doctor’s purpose could be, which leads to his frankly wonderful assertion here that all the time traveller could want is to be a bigger chum of the Daleks than he is. In his growing lunacy, Chen is reduced to a child in a playground, jealous that this newcomer might take away his friends. Kevin Stoney’s death scene is terrific; he parades fearlessly around the Dalek control room, refusing to believe that they will kill him, refusing to believe even that he
can
die. You know that the Dalek Supreme will take him out and shoot him sooner or later – and that the most painful thing for Chen will not be death but his humiliation. It’s not a question of whether they’re going to shoot him, just
when
they’re going to get fed up of his preening antics and squash him – and the whole sequence is a masterpiece of tension.

Ultimately, this is all wonderfully simple. The Doctor defeats the Daleks by turning their universe-destroying gizmo upon them, and Sara unwittingly gets caught in the exchange. The sound effect accompanying the Time Destructor seems amusing and chirrupy at first, and gets progressively crueller as the episode goes along and it wreaks such damage. There’s a poetic justice to this, coupled with the Doctor’s pained realisation that the greater the victory over his mortal enemies, the greater too the sacrifice that will be asked of him. (Again, very new series, that – Russell can disguise the almost arbitrary way in which he wipes out the Daleks each season finale by ensuring that the Doctor loses a companion in the process.) The Doctor is left giggling at the sight of the Dalek embryos, and is brought up short by Steven’s list of all those characters who died over the course of this adventure – it’s the starkest ending we’ve yet had in Doctor Who. It’s perhaps the series’ first attempt at doing a story which feels in some ways
definitive –
and you feel after this that it needs to take a break, just to let the audience catch its breath back, something. And yet the screen would have read, “Next Episode: War of God.” I’m telling you, Toby, I’m exhausted of war, I’m exhausted of the whole thing.

T:
Events have finally caught up with Mavic Chen, and he’s finally lost any vague tenancy agreement he had at Reality Towers – but thanks to Kevin Stoney, it’s a well-handled descent into madness that never stretches our credulity. It also gives us the added plus of the whispering Daleks that plot to double-cross him – I love it when the Daleks are cunning, and it’s great to be in on their secret while Chen is strutting about oblivious. You’ve already mentioned the increasing tension, Rob, but
here
, most of it comes from the fact that the Daleks just... stop talking to Chen, and regard him as a defeated irrelevance. There’s something genuinely creepy and unsettling about those silences, and the Daleks once again seem like alien machines. When they finally drag Chen away to kill him, the Dalek Supreme doesn’t even bother to gloat – it just doesn’t want any vital equipment to be damaged when they dispose of this pest.

But the converse is also true – with the Daleks having become so formidable and daunting, it’s fantastic that when they find the Doctor with the Time Destructor, they back off! To see them so scared and wary just confirms the device’s potential for devastation. It’s no longer a simple plot device – it’s now a harbinger of death. Although the Doctor is once again absent for loads of the episode, he’s rightly allowed to handle the brave face-off with his arch nemeses, and sends his friends packing while he remains behind to do the right thing. It’s something of a pity that Sara doesn’t achieve more when she turns back to help him (like, say, killing the Dalek Supreme, rescuing a cat or retrieving a stuffed panda) – as matters stand, she loses her life while trying to help but not actually doing so to a large degree. That her death is meaningless and avoidable is surely part of the point and makes it all the more horrifying, but one could argue that Doctor Who is supposed to have more soul than that. (Then again, the next time we see a companion die, he’ll similarly fail in his final self-appointed mission – and fandom-at-large tends to regard that story as a classic.)