Serial 13: The Web Planet

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companion: Barbara, Ian, Vicki

Written by: Bill Strutton
Directed by: Richard Martin

Background & Significance: "The Web Planet" is just one of those serials. It's oft forgotten by most fans, and, when you look for it on rankings of Doctor Who stories, it will inevitably always be incredibly low on the list. In Doctor Who Magazine's Mighty 200 Poll, it came after "The Gunfighters" in terms of Hartnell, ahead of only "The Sensorites" and "The Space Museum".

"Worse than 'The Gunfighters'", though? Personally, that says good things to me. And I rather did like "The Sensorites" when I watched it, so...

Producer Verity Lambert and script editor David Whitaker wanted to create another successful monster in the way The Daleks had been successful in the previous year. Enter Bill Strutton, who pitched an idea for (essentially) "giant ants" and Lambert and Whitaker loved the idea so much they didn't even request a storyline. They picked up six episodes, which was not a standard practice at the time. And suddenly everyone was off and running, with Strutton figuring out his scripts and Lambert working to figure out how the hell to make this thing producible.

The result is... well... for lack of better term: magic. Again it's widely panned and muchly maligned mostly due to the design and special effects used. As we've spoken of previously, special effects are the aspect of movies/TV/etc. that age worst as time goes on. Today, The Lord of the Rings trilogy still looks pretty good, but is nowhere near the quality of what's coming out today. Hell, look at Alien. Released just a year later than Star Wars and it looks that much better. And with "The Web Planet" being as ambitious as it is, it's no wonder it hasn't aged spectacularly. And yet, perhaps, maybe there's more to it than you might initially expect. I mean, after all, this is the story that Neil Gaiman (having gone back and rewatching EVERYTHING as an adult) refuses to ever rewatch because it scared the pants off of him as a wee lad. He knows it won't hold up, and yet his memory of it holds and he's still a bit scared of it to this day.

A total turkey, then? It does bring the idea into question.

So let's get to it!

Serial 18: Galaxy 4

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companions: Vicki, Steven

Written by: William Emms
Directed by: Derek Martinus & Mervyn Pinfield

Background & Significance: Season three of Doctor Who might be the most peculiar and experimental the show ever got. It featured a standalone, Doctor-less, companionless one part story, a twelve episode Dalek epic, a companion-centric, Doctor-lite story, a four-part story that jumps seven centuries into the future halfway through, and a western that's also kind of a musical. It's a weird ass season, full of experimentation for the show.

But season three started somewhat more auspiciously.

By the time "Galaxy 4" rolled around, Doctor Who producer Verity Lambert was on her way out the door. This story and "Mission to the Unknown" were produced in the same production block as season two, but held over for the start of season three as the show tended to do back in the day. We've already talked about "Mission to the Unknown" and how good that was, but this is the last time Lambert got to produce a fully actualized story in the traditional classic, Doctor Who mold. Unfortunately, because there's a transition aspect to each producer taking over the show (producers typically shadowed their predecessor before assuming the reins in full) Wiles was apparently partially responsible for the production of this episode. And apparently it was not all peaches and cream, Wiles going so far at one point that he was reportedly thinking about firing Hartnell (which set the tone for his producership more than anything, I'd say).

But yes. "Galaxy 4". Written by one-time Doctor Who writer William Emms (who had written for Z-Cars and other contemporaneous ilk) and directed by first-time Doctor Who director Derek Martinus (who directed this only because Mervyn Pinfield backed out at the last moment) who would go on to direct some terrific stories across the rest of the 60s, it really is the quiet end to the Lambert era on Doctor Who. That's not to say Lambert went out without some great hits, but honestly it feels like she was building to "The Chase" or "The Time Meddler" (take your pick) and this story becomes one of the real forgotten stories of Doctor Who. That's probably because it's shoved in an easily looked-over place in the Doctor Who canon. Or because it's got a rubbish title. Or because it's entirely missing. I mean, why talk about "Galaxy 4" being missing when you can talk about "Marco Polo" or "The Massacre" missing. Those are the bonified classics.

Now that'll change, I'm sure, once the recently recovered third episode hits mass distribution, but until then we're still relegated to a story that's largely forgotten and widely dismissed and I have to wonder if that's deserved or not. And of course, me and my wonderings is why I do this blog. Or something. I don't know. Maybe I'll figure that out some day.

So let's get to it!

Serial 14: The Crusade

Doctor: William Hartnell  (1st Doctor)

Companions: Vicki, Ian, & Barbara

Written by: David Whitaker

Directed by: Douglas Camfield

Background & Significance: Season two of Doctor Who saw the first major paradigm shift on the show. Susan left and was replaced by Vicki (which is the obvious major shift), while behind the scenes David Whitaker stepped down as script editor and was replaced by Dennis Spooner. Whitaker stuck around, though, writing a variety of different stories all the way up until the first season of Pertwee's tenure and always doing something interesting (as Philip Sandifer is always eloquently pointing out).

So this is one of the stories he writes, and it's unique because it's the only historical he wrote, so we get to see what it's like to have a David Whitaker historical.

Last week we talked a lot about Robert Holmes and how he was one of three influential writers on the show. David Whitaker's the big one in that list because of the way he shaped the show at key early moments in its history. He was the script editor who saw The Doctor through a series of "firsts" and the writer who happened to write the first post-regeneration story AND the "last Dalek story" (again, read Sandifer for more). That said, an historical from him is worth noting to say the least and interesting because this season sees one from him and one from then-script-editor Dennis Spooner, so it's interesting to see how they play off each other.

It's also interesting to really see the first story properly directed by Douglas Camfield. Camfield had previously directed one episode of "Planet of Giants" and would go on to direct a myriad of other great stories, being probably the best director of the first half of Classic Who. It's also the first appearance of Julian Glover (who would go on to eventually be the great Scarlioni) and Jean Marsh (who played both Sara Kingdom in "Daleks' Master Plan" and Morgaine Le Fey in "Battlefield"), which is rather wonderful, and one of those stories that's firmly set with this specific TARDIS crew. Ian and Barbara are not quite leaving yet (they get another story before their departure one) and Vicki has been around for two more stories before this. So this (like "The Aztecs") is something of a banner story to display how this team works together now that they're going strong but don't have the inclinations to leave yet.

So it's should be interesting.

Now let's get to it!

Serial 20: The Myth-Makers

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)

Companions: Vicki, Steven, Katarina

Written by: Donald Cotton

Directed by: Michael Leeston-Smith

Editor's Note: Hey, kids! Matt here stepping in to tell you that Cassandra's here to talk about some Donald Cotton! Wooooo! Yay Trojans! (Ruh roh that came out wrong...) Any who, I'll be back next week to talk about THE LAST DOCTOR WHO STORY EVER but for now here's Cassandra.

Background & Significance: “The Myth Makers” is an interesting story for quite a few reasons, not because of the actual story, but because of what it represents in the history of the show. 

For one thing, it was the first serial to be produced by someone other than Verity Lambert, which is a big deal.  While “Mission to the Unknown,” the previous story, served as a quiet, fascinating denouement to Lambert’s time with the show, “The Myth Makers” is a ramping up for John Wiles, steering Doctor Who into the very strange and quirky territory it would remain in until the end of the Hartnell era.  While it is a “historical” for the most part, it gets away from that original concept in that it’s also intended to be a high comedy, in the vein of “The Romans” or “The Gunfighters.”

This story is also the last story we see Vicki appear in.  Companion departures are pretty much always a sad affair for me (unless I hate their guts, but that’s another story altogether), and I genuinely enjoy Vicki as a character, and I like what Maureen O’Brien did with the part.  While she is intended to be a substitute Susan, as it were, I think she does a good job coming into her own as the series progresses.  But apparently the fact that she was trying to stick up for the integrity of the character she was portraying was too much for the new producer, who decided after the filming of “Galaxy 4” that O’Brien was complaining too much about her lines, so she should be written out in “The Myth Makers” when her contract was set to expire.  Which hardly seems fair to me.  But that’s showbiz, I suppose.

This also marks the introduction of Katarina, the one-off Trojan handmaiden Companion who (spoilers) ends up dying in the next story, so whatever.  Vicki’s cooler.

But enough of all that. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 11: The Rescue

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companion: Barbara, Ian, Vicki

Written by: David Whitaker
Directed by: Christopher Barry

Background & Significance: "The Rescue" is a bit of an odd entity. It's the second of the seven two-part-length stories in the Classic series' history. And because it doesn't really have a big giant mega monster or a big giant mega crisis for The Doctor and his crew to solve and/or experience, the story exists purely to introduce a new character into the TARDIS crew.


The serial itself starts almost immediately after "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", with everyone still kinda dealing with the loss of Susan (and oh such a tragic loss it is), so the time is ripe for the advent of the first ever "new companion" and because that's a new thing, they gave her her own story.

More than that, there's really not a lot to say. The story is written by outgoing story editor David Whitaker (who is perhaps most famous for being the first ever script editor for Doctor Who, thereby being the first person to really define the stories, characterizations, and inter-character dynamics seen on the TARDIS) and is really a whole lot more of an interlude/bridging-the-gap story than anything else. Sure, it has a really neat mystery (that is... fairly obvious, but hey. Mysteries are hard) and it goes to a pretty friggin dark place, but... Yeah. I can explain as we go.


It's also here that we see the first real paradigm shift in terms of Doctor Who stories. Because this is the last David Whitaker story under his reign (even though it is, technically, edited by new script editor David Spooner), this really becomes the last sort of legacy of the Lambert/Whitaker era, where it's a lot about the mystery and the majesty of the traveling through space crew, when it's all new and exciting and stuff. Not that the Spooner stuff isn't exciting or there isn't the presence/feeling of Verity Lambert in there, but it's VERY much more comedically driven (see "The Romans", "The Space Museum", "The Chase", or even "The Time Meddler") than the early stories, which (while still humourous) were focused a lot on the adventure and almost mythological realism of the story in question.


What I mean to say is, in a lot of ways, this story really brings the Lambert/Whitaker era full circle. They started with The Doctor getting his first ever companions and now they end it with The Doctor replacing the only family member we've [as far as we know] ever seen. Now The Doctor's journey is on for good and so begins the [seemingly endless but not unwelcome] cycle of introducing new companions who will replace those who have left The Doctor's side (even though this is just about as replacey a replacement as they come). It's kind of a gorgeeous little circle really and really helps to establish the future of the series, which is really what the David Whitaker stuff is all about.

So let's get to it!

Serial 16: The Chase

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companion: Vicki, Barbara, Ian

Written by: Terry Nation
Directed by: Richard Martin

Background & Significance: If I have a problem with Terry Nation, it's the fact that he is often very uninventive with his most-beloved creations and he rarely does anything new or interesting with them, choosing to let them become silly ineffectual things rather than the former, evil, cold-hearted, ruthless beings.

Granted, Terry Nation can make plenty of excuses this early in the game. "The Chase" is in Doctor Who's second season, in the midst of the period many people still refer to as "Dalekmania" when any appearance of The Daleks saw a surge in ratings and popularity for the show (not that that's not the case now, but people were ravenous for the Daleks back then). It's also before the geniusness of David Whittaker's Troughton Dalek stories ("Power of the Daleks" and "Evil of the Daleks") the stories which (in my honest opinion) really showed you what the Daleks were truly and honestly capable of if pushed to the limit and how effective they could be when put in the right hands.

But, again, this is before that.

"The Chase" was commissioned as the third Dalek story soon after production of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth". The premise is simple: The Daleks chase The Doctor and his companions through time and space and much fun is had and it's rompy and then Barbara and Ian leave (which, much like "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" is the hands down best part of the story). Unfortunately, you can see the effectiveness of The Daleks wearing thin because this is just a mindless runaround. The Daleks that appeared previously were various degrees of facist bastards (let's commit genocide against our blood brothers The Thals purely because we can). But here, the Daleks are morons. This only makes sense, of course. More than anything else, Nation was more interested in spinning The Daleks off into their own show and riding that gravy train into the ground. He also sought to recapture the magic of his original imagination by creating natural enemies for The Daleks (The Mechanoids) that The Daleks could find in this never-really-realized TV show, but they just come out as total hogwash and a waste of everyone's time.

The result is a jumbled bore of a story, a string of unrelated set pieces that are varying degrees of interesting in theory, but totally wasted in favour of being tremendously silly and a little ridiculous. As with Nation's other scripts, the ideas are all solid and there, but it's the executions that suffer, which tells me a lot about what kind of writer he is.

It's because of stories like this that I perpetuate the theory that Terry Nation's writing in "Genesis of The Daleks" was way punched up by then-script editor Robert Holmes, because honestly? This story is a joke, a total disservice to The Daleks, and a stark contrast to the levels of quality Dalek stories that happen throughout the rest of the show's history.

So let's get to it!

Serial 15: The Space Museum

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companion: Barbara, Ian, Vicki

Written by: Glyn Jones
Directed by: Mervyn Pinfield

Background & Significance: I find that watching these old serials can be a bit of a crap shoot at times. What's weird about it is that the mentality of "Will this one be good or will it be bad" (which is, by itself very surprising in places) is only part of the puzzle. Sometimes, a story will be really good for the first two and a half parts and then COMPLETELY jump the rails and randomly become something different. What was surprisingly good can suddenly turn awful and vice-versa. The best example of this that we've already talked about is "The Stones of Blood", which is good for the first... two and a half episodes? And then the little judgment lights come on and it becomes something different and not so interesting.

"The Space Museum" is a perfect example of such a phenomenon.

Hartnell's era itself is pretty middling in my opinion. There are plenty of classics ("The Daleks", "The Aztecs", "The Dalek Invasion of Earth"), but none of Hartnell's stories (at least, as many as I've seen) ever strike me as sheer genius on par with the rest of the show. Even "The Daleks" has three and a half episodes of greatness (The Dalek City stuff) followed by three and a half episodes of boring mediocrity (The Wilderness stuff). It's not even that I hate the Hartnell era (I don't), I just find it insanely average with few stories I out and out despise (the only one that I can think of that was actually not good was "The Chase", which we'll talk about in a couple months) and even the ones that haven't aged well or I find tremendously below average ("The War Machines") I can excuse because they're both tremendously silly and tremendously zeitgeisty.

But what does this have to do with "The Space Museum"?

"The Space Museum" is a bit of an odd creature. It's only four parts (a blessing for Pre-Tom Baker stories) and the first part has little to nothing to do with the next three. In fact, the first part is nothing short of incredible, breath-taking, excellent science fiction and the next three episodes are nothing but a complete and total let down, especially because you're set up to expect one thing and you get something that's totally and disappointingly different. The why of all this we'll go into once we hit it (it's about five minutes in part two that the story becomes something I'm just not interested in: a standard rebel-vs-establishment runaround), but it's just terribly disappointing, and what once had nothing but promise and memorability suddenly drops away and becomes nothing but apathetic un-memorableness and a huge letdown. Ah well. Crap shoot. It happens.

So let's get to it!

Serial 12: The Romans

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companion: Barbara, Ian, Vicki

Written by: Dennis Spooner
Directed by: Christopher Barry

Editor's Note: Hey, kids! We're back again with another guest blog from friend-of-the-blog Cassandra. She's talking Hartnell this time. Next time it's Pertwee (spoilers!). Honestly, though, I just needed a break this weekend so we had to do some re-arranging. But that's all behind-the-scenes stuff and bureaucracy bureaucracy no one cares. I'll be here next week for... an interesting serial to say the least. Merits discussion. That's all I'm saying. So just sit back, relax and enjoy Cassandra talking about "The Romans".

Background & Significance: Who doesn't love Ancient Rome? No one, that's who. The history and mythology surrounding Rome, arguably one of if not the most famously recognizable ancient civilization, is vast and undeniably compelling. And when you have a show involving time travel, you'd be stupid not to cash in on that.

Fortunately, the crew over at Doctor Who was not stupid, which brings us to this week's serial "The Romans".


This serial stands out for a variety of reasons. There'd been talk of a four-part Roman adventure since the earliest days of the show. Late in Season Two this became a reality, and writing duties were handed over to Dennis Spooner, the newly appointed but not-yet-official script editor (interestingly enough, there's no onscreen script editing credit for Spooner since it was frowned upon at the time for the script editor to be writing for his or her own show). Instead of painstakingly recreating actual events (as was the norm with prior Doctor Who historical episodes), Spooner drew from both history and popular mythology; an interesting move and a break with the still-primarily educational nature of the show.

Another interesting break with the educational aspect was producer Verity Lambert's choice to try out a more comedic approach with the show and its format. Which I think works quite well here. The blending of funny happenstance (Barbara, Ian, The Doctor, and Vicki get split up at the beginning of the story and have shenanigans in Rome but never once encounter each other, for example) and drama (getting kidnapped by slave traders!) in such a familiarly foreign backdrop as Ancient Rome lends a certain charm to this serial that I found difficult to ignore.

And it's just plain fun. So let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 17: The Time Meddler

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companions: Vicki and Steven

Written by: Dennis Spooner
Directed by: Douglas Camfield

Background & Significance: William Hartnell's second season saw a series of Doctor Who firsts. It saw the first return of the Daleks, the first departure of companions, the first arrival of new companions...

And to cap it all off, they rounded out the season with the first appearance of another Time Lord.

While it is kind of a cheat (The Doctor is not revealed to be a "Time Lord" until Patrick Troughton's last episode and Gallifrey is not mentioned by name until Jon Pertwee's final season), the main villain of this story, The Meddling Monk, is revealed to be "a member of The Doctor's race", and an evil one at that.

I think it's safe to say he was created to be a sort of Proto-Master, but he doesn't quite succeed at that. There's a reason he only appears in two stories, this one and "The Dalek Invasion of Earth". He's just not that great of a villain. He's kinda goofy, kind of a waste of time, kind of ridiculous... when you get right down to it, he's just not a formidable foe. The Doctor has much more interesting Rogues in his gallery, from Daleks, to Cybermen, to The Master, to Time Lords themselves... The Monk just isn't the sort of character I'm able to take super seriously.

And that, most likely, is why this story fails.

This story takes place right after "The Chase," at the end of which Barbara and Ian (The Doctor's only two remaining original companions) find a way back home, leaving Vicki (Susan's replacement), and The Doctor alone, recovering from the epic events of The Daleks' great chase through time and space.

So let's get to it!