The Evil of the Daleks

Jamie, Doctor... friends.

This is the last of the Second Doctor stories for me to review and I was planning on holding off on it a bit longer, but with the news of Deborah Watling's passing, I couldn't think of a more apt time to revisit it. I say revisit as I have actually seen it once before. I recall it being interesting but a bit drug out, being seven parts. But perhaps that was also in how I watched it as I tend to watch recons in large chunks rather than spacing them out as I do with most classic stories. We'll see how it goes a second time around.

Plot Summary

At the airport following Ben and Polly's departure, the Doctor and Jamie see the TARDIS being hauled away on the back of a truck. They head to a hanger and talk to a man in maintenance coveralls called Hall. Hall notes the taking of the TARDIS but only comes alive when the Doctor mentions getting the police. He give them a fake delivery company name and they leave. Hall then contacts a fellow conspirator named Kennedy who was watching from a distance.

The Doctor and Jamie duck behind some pumps and watch Hall leave. The Doctor suspects something and follows Hall's car in a cab. Kennedy also leaves and meets with Hall at a prearranged meeting point. He pays Hall for his job of posing as a worker and tries to get him to knock the Doctor and Jamie out. Hall refuses so Kennedy knocks Hall out instead and then bolts out of the room when Jamie and the Doctor enter. They find a matchbook for a coffee bar with the name of The Tricolour on it. Hall wakes and runs out of the room. Jamie and the Doctor try to follow but lose him. With no other options, they head to the coffee bar. Kennedy, watching from the shadows, leaves by another route.

Kennedy reports to his employer, Professor Waterfield, who sells Victoriana. Waterfield is pleased that the Doctor is heading to the bar and opts not to worry about Hall's flight to the north of England. Waterfield calls in his shop manager, Perry, and asks him to go to the coffee bar and request that the Doctor and Jamie meet at his shop at 10pm that night, giving Perry pictures of the Doctor and Jamie. Perry agrees and sets off while Waterfield heads into a locked back room filled with futuristic equipment where he demands answers from an unseen entity.

The Doctor and Jamie arrive at the bar and ask about the man named Kennedy. They have no luck but are approached by Perry who delivers Waterfield's request. Jamie and the Doctor agree to come by that evening. Perry tells Waterfield who in turn orders Kennedy to prepare. Waterfield leaves to change his clothes as well but Kennedy slips into Waterfield's office after he leaves. Kennedy finds the key to the secret room and enters. He activates the machines before discovering the safe. While he cracks the safe, a Dalek materializes from the machine behind him and demands to know who he is.

Kennedy tries to run but the Dalek kills him just as he exits the room. Waterfield comes in and finds the body and the Dalek. He is appalled but the Dalek threatens him and orders him to continue. Waterfield then takes a picture of the Doctor and tears it in half. He puts one half in Kennedy's hand and the other sticking out of a box next to the machine with a glass vial inside.

The Doctor and Jamie sneak into Waterfield's shop at 9:30 to find extra information. They quickly deduce that Waterfield may actually be from the Victorian era as his antiques seem genuine but brand new. The hear a noise and hide as Perry enters to listen at the door. They surprise him and he tells them about taking the TARDIS. They are about to go and try to recover it when the study door opens.

Inside the study, they find Kennedy's body. Perry tries to call the police but the phone is giving off static. He heads out to find a policeman while the Doctor examines the body. He finds the picture and deduces that there must be a hidden room behind the bookcase. They search and find the keyhole. While searching for the key the door opens. They enter and Jamie sees the other half of the picture. When he pulls it, the lid of the box pops open and releases gas from the vial. The gas knocks out both of them. Waterfield emerges from his hiding spot and closes the box. He then activates the machine and all three of them disappear.

The Doctor wakes the next morning in the house of Theodore Maxtible, Waterfield's backer in his time experiments. After a maid revives the Doctor, Maxtible and Waterfield take the Doctor down to the lab where they explain that while they were experimenting, they accidently opened a doorway for the Daleks. The Daleks captured Waterfield's daughter Victoria and forced him to steal the TARDIS and kidnap the Doctor. A Dalek appears from the cabinet where Waterfield's machine is located and tells the Doctor that they will be putting Jamie through a test and extracting a human factor from the results.

Jamie wakes from the gas but before he is fully roused, a thug named Toby enters and knocks him back out. He also knocks out the maid and then takes Jamie out of the house. He takes him to a nearby barn where Toby is paid off by Arthur Terrall, fiancé to Ruth Maxtible. Arthur seems to be under some sort of mind control and has occasional fits where he is able to fight it off. Relapsing, he leaves as the Doctor enters and takes Jamie back to the house.

The Doctor allows Jamie to overhear him talking to Waterfield about the experiment the Daleks are setting up. Meanwhile, preparations are being made for the test. The Daleks move Victoria from her regular cell to a locked room in the south wing of the house. Maxtible also takes a mute strongman Turk named Kemel and sets him as a guard inside the first door of the passage, gives him a picture of Jamie and tells him to fight him off if he arrives.

Angry at what he feels is a trick by the Doctor, Jamie argues with the Doctor and Waterfield and storms off. The Doctor however, manipulated his words and is confident that Jamie will ultimately take the noble action and try to rescue Victoria. He is justified a while later when Maxtible informs the Daleks that Jamie has moved just outside the entrance to the south wing.

Jamie meets the maid, Mollie, outside the door and she gives him a plan of the house as he requested. They hear a scream (the Daleks just murdered Toby who had snuck back to the house to steal more money) and Jamie orders Molly back to her room. He opens the first door and eludes a booby trap of spikes falling from the doorway. He proceeds through where he meets Kemel at the end of the passage.

Kemel and Jamie fight but Jamie manages to stun Kemel and gets past him. Kemel follows Jamie but Jamie locks himself into a storage room looking for a weapon. Kemel rushes the door and Jamie sidesteps it, allowing Kemel to burst through. Kemel's momentum carries him out a window where he grabs the edge of a gutter. Jamie grabs a rope and hauls him back into the room. Once Kemel is safe, Jamie moves on to look for Victoria. He spies a handkerchief in Victoria's old cell and bends down to look at it. Kemel rushes in and pushes Jamie just as another booby trap falls on the spot.

The Doctor points out that Jamie's act of mercy saved his life to a skeptical Dalek. Meanwhile, Waterfield and Maxtible find Toby's body. Waterfield wants to tell the Doctor but the Daleks insist on disposing it. Waterfield admits he can't take it and will confess his crimes when Victoria is rescued. Maxtible takes a gun from a drawer and follows Waterfield. In the barn, Maxtible berates Waterfield for his weakness while Arthur listens in the shadows. As Waterfield heads back to the house, Maxtible turns to shoot him but Arthur grabs him and insists it not happen yet.

Jamie and Kemel become friendly and Kemel insists on helping Jamie to rescue her. They head down the corridors, following the occasional Dalek. Jamie sets off another booby trap, which they manage to avoid. The Doctor points out that instinct is also necessary rather than a cold reliance on logic.

A Dalek calls out and forces Victoria to state her name. Jamie and Kemel spot her and plan her rescue. While they do so, Arthur catches Mollie who had heard Victoria calling her name. Arthur angrily dismisses her when Ruth enters and stops his tirade. She tries to get him to leave but he rejects her.

Maxtible tries to get the Daleks to leave and hold up their end of the bargain. The Dalek dismisses Maxtible but does state that they will share a specific secret with him. As it leaves, Ruth enters and demands to know what is going on. Maxtible does not come clean but states that soon he will know the secret of transforming ordinary metal into gold. As he does so, he takes on the appearance of a man becoming unhinged.

A Dalek calls for Victoria to stand for inspection a second time. As that completes, Jamie and Kemel pull a rope across the room and crash it into the fireplace. They then throw the rope up to the banister allowing Jamie to climb the rope up to Jamie's room. Kemel follows him up the rope. Jamie knocks on the door but as he does so, a Dalek emerges with a second entering the area below. Jamie pulls the rope around and uses it to send the Dalek crashing to the floor below. He and Kemel then run into Victoria's room and bar themselves in.

In the kitchen, the Doctor gets himself something to drink and runs into Arthur. The Doctor talks with him but notes that he doesn't eat or drink. He also magnetizes metal objects when he holds them. The Doctor returns to the lab as Arthur struggles again with his natural mind and the programing the Daleks have placed on him. He heads into the hall where he finds Maxtible hypnotizing Mollie and urging her that all that happened was a dream. When she returns to her room, he tells Arthur to retrieve Victoria from her prison via a secret passage.

Having isolated Jamie's emotional responses, the Doctor sets about implanting them in the dormant Dalek brains brought to him. Waterfield fears that the new Daleks will become a superior race and will destroy all of humanity. He tries to stop the Doctor, but the Doctor restrains him, noting that the Daleks still have Victoria and Jamie.

The Daleks begin to melt their way through the door to Victoria's room. While Jamie and Kemel try to block the door with additional rubbish, Arthur opens a secret passage and grabs Victoria. She cries out in the passage just enough for Jamie to realize that there is a secret door. He manages to open it and he and Kemel run down the passage after her. Victoria manages to get loose from Arthur at a fork and runs down the other passage. Arthur, knowing he is pursued, runs the other way. At the fork, Jamie and Kemel split up.

Jamie emerges in the trophy room and is attacked by Arthur with a sword. He manages to duck and grabs a sword of his own. They fight in the room, their clashing blades attracting the attention of Ruth and Mollie. Ruth sends Mollie for the Doctor while imploring Arthur to stop. As the Doctor enters, Jamie catches Arthur in the back with his blade, loosening a small control box. Arthur immediately drops to the ground as the Dalek control over him is lost. The Doctor urges Ruth and Mollie to take Arthur in the carriage and get away from the house as fast as possible.

Kemel emerges in the lab and find Victoria unconscious. He bends over her as a Dalek emerges from the cabinet. The Dalek orders Kemel to take Victoria into the cabinet. He hesitates but finally does what they say. A few minutes later, Jamie, the Doctor and Maxtible enter the lab. Jamie is still angry at the Doctor and implies that he will leave due to the Doctor's callousness. The Doctor urges Jamie to have patience and see what has happened. He unveils three Daleks that have been implanted with the "human factor". They push their way towards the Doctor and take him for a ride around the lab, playing a game with him.

After finishing their games, the Daleks enter the cabinet to return to Skaro. The Doctor and Jamie leave to go find Victoria, unaware that she and Kemel have been taken to Skaro. Maxtible meanwhile tries to dismiss Waterfield's concerns about Victoria, implying that she has been freed by the Daleks and must be wandering about the house. He shoos Waterfield away but Waterfield stays near and overhears Maxtible insisting that the Daleks give him the formula to transmute metal into gold. The Daleks ignore him and insist he bring the Doctor to them while setting up a device in the lab.

After the Dalek leaves, Waterfield attacks Maxtible but Maxtible knocks him down. Realizing that the Daleks have planted a bomb, Maxtible rails against what the Daleks are doing and chases them through the cabinet. The Doctor and Jamie find Waterfield and the bomb. They grab Waterfield and the three of them also head into the cabinet to travel through the machine to Skaro, just before the bomb destroys the entire house.

The Daleks are angry with Maxtible for not bringing the Doctor with him and they imprison him with Victoria and Kemel. Shortly afterwards, an alarm is triggered when the Doctor, Jamie and Waterfield enter an access tunnel to try and sneak into the Dalek city. Discovering that the Doctor has named the three human factor Daleks, one of the Daleks attempts to pose as a human factor Dalek to trap the Doctor. The Doctor however realizes the deception and pushes it off a cliff.

The Daleks next force Maxtible to shock Victoria into screaming. The sound carries and the trio follows it to a passageway where they are intercepted by other Daleks. The Daleks take the trio into the main chamber where the Emperor Dalek is waiting. The Emperor informs the Doctor that they used his experiment to create a specific Dalek factor and they now insist that he spread it through humanity with the TARDIS, which they have also taken to Skaro.

The Doctor refuses but is told that he will and they are sent to the same prison cell as Victoria, Kemel and Maxtible. The Daleks later open the door and show a machine that appears to turn iron into gold. Maxtible runs through the door towards the machine but as he does so, he is hit with a wave across the door and infused with the Dalek factor. He becomes a mindless servant of the Daleks.

Maxtible returns to the cell and encourages the Doctor to come with him as the TARDIS has been taken out of the city. Steeling himself, the Doctor walks though the doorway and is also hit with the Dalek factor. He appears to be like Maxtible but stops to examine the machines the produce the Dalek factor and will be used to spread it to Earth. Maxtible leaves and the Doctor, now acting as his normal self, switches a pod in the control panel from the Dalek factor to the human factor he developed in Maxtible's lab. He whispers to Jamie to not be afraid to walk through when he returns. A Dalek enters and he is taken to see the Emperor.

In the main chamber, the Emperor is informed that the Daleks infused with the human factor have been questioning orders. The Doctor, pretending he is under Dalek control, suggest that the Daleks pass through the doorway to overwrite the human factor and reinfuse the Dalek factor. The Emperor orders it and several Daleks pass through the corridor, becoming infused with the human factor.

The newly infused Daleks begin to question orders from a regular Dalek and it shoots one of the new Daleks. The other human infused Daleks respond and destroy the initial Dalek. The Doctor returns to the room and orders Jamie, Waterfield, Victoria and Kemel out of the city to the TARDIS. He leaves but Waterfield follows him while the others leave the city. The Doctor points out another attack by a regular Dalek and tells the human-infused Daleks that they might fight to survive.

A regular Dalek sees the Doctor and shoots at him but Waterfield steps into the beam and is killed. The Dalek is then destroyed by the other faction. The human-infused Daleks push into the main chamber where the Emperor is destroyed in the crossfire.

Maxtible runs after Jamie, Victoria and Kemel where he attacks Kemel, screaming like a Dalek about killing. He pushes Kemel off the cliff, killing him and then runs back to the city to enter the fight. He slips past the Doctor, who is hiding behind a grate. After Maxtible goes past, the Doctor runs and catches up with Jamie and Victoria. They reach the TARDIS and observe the two factions of Daleks destroying each other.

Analysis

If The Evil of the Daleks kept the pacing and mystery of the first two episodes (and kept itself to four or five parts) I have no doubt that genuine debates would be had between fans as to whether it was the best Dalek story of all time. Unfortunately, it does not and starting in Episode Three, it begins to fall off from it's gripping beginning. It does start to pick itself back up but it does have a bit of a lull in the middle. I suspect the lull wouldn't be quite as pronounced if the episodes existed but it is there.

Now, to be fair, I think the effort to infuse the middle lull with action and plot development does succeed on some level. This is the Second Doctor in a state that I really enjoy: caught flat-footed initially, but now working on a plan to escape the situation. He manipulates Jamie into carrying out the task (which is also a testament to his faith in Jamie's ability to rescue Victoria) and he has an almost smug attitude towards the Daleks as Jamie advances. He's nearly mocking the Daleks for not seeing both the admirable traits in Jamie that are allowing him to succeed and the fact that he is going to create Daleks that will upend the order of the Daleks. This is the Second Doctor at his best, not all-seeing, but quick-thinking and with the ability to create plans that require patience and will result in the total destruction of the enemy.

Although Victoria is introduced in this story, she is a prisoner during the whole and does not function in a companion role. So this is the first story of the Second Doctor run where Jamie is the only companion (The Wheel in Space being the other). Frankly, he's good enough that I think they could have had a full season with just the two of them. Their dynamic might have gotten stale towards the end, but they play so well off each other that I think it would have worked. It certainly does here as Jamie goes the whole gambit of emotions with the Doctor: loyalty, feelings of betrayal, Watsonian assistant, and dashing hero. Jamie is constantly enjoyable in what he does.

Most of the other guest cast is pretty good as well. The person the most short-changed is Kemel as he is silent and that doesn't do much in a recon. Fortunately, there are some telesnaps so you can see that he was visually expressive. Arthur and Ruth were the most superfluous as I never really understood what was going on with Arthur. He was being controlled by the Daleks but for what purpose? Waterfield was controlled via the threat to Victoria and Maxtible was deep in a belief that the Daleks would give him the ability to make gold. So why have Arthur under spell? My guess would be that the Daleks wanted a mobile spy and Arthur was convenient, but that doesn't fully explain all his actions. Why send the thug Toby to kidnap Jamie? Why prevent Maxtible for killing Waterfield once the Doctor has arrived? I have a feeling that more was intended with Arthur but that subplot was dropped in favor of more action scenes with Jamie and Kemel and then Arthur, Ruth and Mollie are drop kicked out of the story just to ensure they don't die when the Daleks destroy the house.

Despite Arthur and Ruth being a bit of a dead end, the real weakest character is actually Victoria. Victoria is not a terrible companion but this story does foreshadow her primary function and that is to be the screaming damsel in distress for most of the run. She has almost no personality development aside from being generally kind-hearted in her feeding of the birds and her treatment of Kemel. She does fight Arthur when he tries to kidnap her so she must have some spirit, but nothing else is really done for her, unlike Samantha in The Faceless Ones, who was clearly being groomed to be a companion. If you didn't already know that Victoria was going to be a companion, the viewer would likely dismiss her out of hand.

The Daleks were quite good in this story. They were not as devious as in The Power of the Daleks but they didn't need to be. They held all the cards and could impose their will as they saw fit. Yet, it was not the mindless killing that we usually get from the Daleks. They had a plan and displayed cunning, both in their trap to lure the Doctor as well as the maze they led Jamie into. Even their final plan was a bit deeper than expected. So much time is spent on the idea of infusing the Daleks with a factor of humanity that it is a bit of shock to learn that it's really a means of honing the purity of a Dalek and then conquering humanity by making them more Dalek-like. I also like to think that this infusion of humanity and it's counter for genetic purity is what starts the factional fighting that first pops up in Resurrection of the Daleks, although since I haven't seen that one yet, I can't confirm that part of my head cannon.

It is a real shame that this doesn't exist as Episode Two is nicely framed and shows some interesting directorial ideas. I was completely surprised when one transition was made using a circle wipe as that seemed rather extravagant for Doctor Who. There's also so much of this story that is clearly done with visual media that you just can't capture with pictures, computer regenerations and replacement actors with their heads not showing. It's all a noble effort but it just makes you pine for the moving images that much more. The final battle in Episode Seven would be worth watching as you get enough from the behind the scenes footage available on the Lost in Time DVD to wet your appetite that much more.

As far as the overall story, you have three phases. There is the mystery in Episodes One and Two and that is the most engaging part to me. You have the testing of Jamie and his little adventures which cover Episodes Three, Four and Five. Then you have the final confrontation on Skaro which is set up in Episode Six and carried out in Seven. Jamie's test is the most padded and where the lull really kicks in. It's not boring (or at least not to me) but you can feel the padding going on. The testing of Jamie and the development of the human factor could easily have been cut down to one or one and a half episodes. In fact, I think this would have been a really tight five-part story, especially if you drop Arthur and Ruth wholesale. Still, the two extra episodes of padding are reasonably well rounded and I think they are only a serious problem if you are watching them all back-to-back with no break. Putting a day between each, eases out the padding and makes it a bit more interesting, in my opinion.

There are recon stories out there that can feel like a real slog. To me, this is not one of them. I enjoyed this story even more the second time around and I think my spacing of the padding in Episodes Three through Five had a lot to do with it. It's not perfect and being a recon does knock it down a peg in my book, but it is a good story and will appeal to most people if they can get past the recon aspect of it. If this were animated, I think it would draw a lot of folks in. It is slightly unfortunate that Victoria is introduced so quietly, but she does come around and has some good moments in Season Five. But I think it's fair to say that I rather enjoyed this one and would revisit it. That is more than doubly so if any part of it was recovered.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5

The Seeds of Death

Your leader will be angry with you if you kill me. I can be of use to you. I'm a genius.

The Seeds of Death is one of those stories that doesn't really get talked about much. I think my only knowledge of it is that the title can sometimes be confused with the Fourth Doctor story, The Seeds of Doom, and a scene of the Second Doctor being attacked by foam is taken from this story. Other than that, I'm coming in pretty much a blank slate, which is good I think since it'll give me a fairly open viewpoint on it.

Plot Summary

In Earth's future, transport of people and equipment is done by a transport system called T-Mat. People who are working for T-Mat arrive at the beginning of their shift and set about to work. On the moonbase, as the shift begins, the base is overrun by an alien race. They kill one worker and threaten the shift commander to engage the system. The commander sabotages it instead and the aliens kill him.

On the T-Mat control station, the shift controller, Gia Kelly, observes the fault and sets the workers to determine it's nature. The overall commander, Radnor, gets after her but she is only able to tell him that the fault has occurred on the moon and they have no way to getting to the moon to help them. Radnor decides to ask the help of an old associate, Professor Eldred.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe land in a museum devoted to space travel and begin to explore. They are caught by the museum owner, Professor Eldred. Eldred initially believes them troublemakers but he get swept up in the Doctor's interest in his latest rocket design. The two talk excitedly about it until they are interrupted by Radnor and Kelly.

Radnor tells Eldred of the trouble they have with the moon and appeals to him to help them with his latest rocket design. Eldred refuses but the argument between the two is interrupted by a signal from the moon. One of the technicians has repaired the video link and sends a signal for help. But before he can complete the message, the transmission is cut off. The link is damaged by the alien commander, revealed to be an Ice Warrior, who then has the technician killed.

The other technician, Phipps, manages to run for it and hides out in a spare parts room. He manages to hide from the searching Ice Warrior and then begins to build a transmitter and an energy device to act as a booby trap. Meanwhile, the Ice Warrior commander, Slaar, forces the remaining officer, Fewsham, to repair the back-up T-Mat but only to receive.

Back on Earth, Radnor implores Eldred to finish his rocket and fly it to the Moon. Eldred refuses due to his age and the lack of time. The Doctor steps in and offers to help with the repairs and also offers to fly it to the Moon with Jamie and Zoe. Eldred reluctantly agrees and they begin work. Kelly appeals to Radnor to go in place of Jamie, but Radnor refuses as she is the only one qualified to get the T-Mat working again.

The rocket successfully launches with the Doctor and his two companions on board. However, their communications with Earth short out shortly after lift-off leaving Radnor and his team in the dark.

Fewsham finishes the repair and sends a signal received by Radnor. This time he agrees to Kelly's request and she is sent with two technicians to the Moon. The Ice Warriors hide and Fewsham claims that it was damaged by the base commander after suffering a bout of space madness. Kelly is suspicious but sets about repairing the T-Mat anyway.

Phipps finishes his radio and begins to broadcast for help just as the Doctor's rocket enters Moon orbit. They lock onto a radio guide beam to lead them down. However, Phipps is forced to switch over the power to his booby trap when an Ice Warrior enters the room. Phipps device kills the Ice Warrior but it also knocks out the homing beam. Zoe pulls the rocket back into orbit and as they do they pick up Phipps renewed signal. From him they learn of the Ice Warrior invasion and after returning from the dark side of the moon, follow the signal from his radio down to the surface.

The Doctor leaves to find Phipps and has Zoe prepare the rocket for a return flight to Earth. Zoe however discovers the engine was damaged in the landing and unfit for take off. The Doctor finds Phipps and radios back to Jamie that he intends to destroy the T-Mat and then use the rocket to return to Earth. He cuts off before Zoe can tell him of the damage and they leave the rocket to find him.

Kelly finishes the repairs and the Ice Warriors emerge to take them prisoner. The two technicians try to run and are gunned down. Fewsham finishes bringing all the cities back on-line and Slaar prepares a cargo for T-Mat. He orders Kelly taken away and kept under guard. She however manages to escape just as the Doctor and Philips enter the same corridor. The group breaks up and Ice Warriors pursue them. They corner the Doctor who convinces them to keep him alive and take him to their commander.

Jamie and Zoe meet up with Kelly and Phipps and the group decide to try and get into the station core and raise the overall heat to disable the Ice Warriors. Jame and Phipps begin to work a grate to allow them to go through the access ducts and avoid patrols. However, an Ice Warrior enters and they are forced to kill that one with the same booby trap device as before.

Back in the control room, the Doctor uses Fewsham to investigate the cargo that the Ice Warriors are preparing to T-Mat. Slaar sees the Doctor and forces him to examine the cargo. He picks up a pod within and it expands at his touch, bursts and then knocks him out with the vapor inside. Slaar then T-Mats pods to various stations, including where Radnor is preparing a technical crew to head to the Moon and assist Kelly. They are surprised when the pods arrive and it expands at their touch. The pod explodes, killing the technician and choking the others. They vent the smoke into the outside to clear the air.

Jamie and Phipps crawl through the access ducts and see the pods being loaded into the T-Mat. They also see the Doctor passed out. Slaar orders Fewsham to drag the Doctor into the T-Mat and transport him into space. Fewsham objects but cowers into agreement. He resets the controls to do so and as he does, Jamie and Phipps drag the Doctor into the vents. Jamie takes him back to the supply room while Phipps tries to get to the temperature controls, but can't as he is too large to fit through the access duct.

Slaar sends one of his warriors through the T-Mat to Earth to monitor the progress of the pods, which have released fungus spores that are now germinating outside. The warrior kills the guards and ignores Radnor as he tries to attack before heading outside.

Zoe convinces Phipps to take her back through the ducts as she is small enough to pass through. They are slowed by Phipps having an attack of claustrophobia and the delay causes Jamie to start worrying about their safety. Zoe pushes Phipps on and passes through the duct exit. Fewsham sees Zoe and distracts the guard while she increases the temperature. The guard however does see Phipps and shoots him before spying Zoe as well. Fewsham jumps on the warrior and distracts him before he passes out from the heat.

Another Ice Warrior enters the supply room. Jamie and Kelly try to kill it with the booby trap but find the power has failed. It hears the Doctor waking up and tries to grab him but both Jamie and Kelly attack him. The Ice Warrior is stronger than both of them but he too passes out from the heat as the Doctor come fully to.

Zoe returns to the supply room and the group heads to the control room where Fewsham has brought T-Mat back on-line. He offers to transport the group back and then follow using a time delay. Kelly is skeptical as she was under the impression that the time delay was broken. Fewsham claims to have repaired it. He ends up sending back the four of them but does not bother to try himself and Kelly confirms back on Earth that the time delay is still broken.

On Earth, the Ice Warrior who had been sent down enters a weather control station. He kills the technician on duty and then locks and destroys the controls to ensure that rain cannot be artificially produced.

The Doctor brings Radnor, Eldred and Radnor's superior, Sir James Gregson, up to speed. He collects a sample of the fungus to examine it. It absorbs oxygen, leading the Doctor to figure that the fungus will reduce the oxygen content on Earth, killing all humans and leaving it more like Mars, perfect for Ice Warrior colonization. During his experiments, he also discovers that the fungus is vulnerable to water.

The Doctor relays this information to Zoe and to have her tell Radnor. However Radnor is in a meeting so she and Jamie head over to the weather control center to tell them about needing rain as they are not answering their communicators. They discover the dead technician and the damaged controls and are forced to hide from the patrolling Ice Warrior.

Slaar manages to get to the control room and reduce the temperature of the base before he passes out. Fewsham pretends to have been knocked out and offers to continue to help the Ice Warriors. Slaar has Fewsham connect a homing signal to T-Mat while he communicates with the fleet commander. After doing so, Fewsham turns on the video link, allowing the Doctor, Radnor and Kelly to overhear the Ice Warrior plans. Slaar discovers this too late and kills Fewsham.

The Doctor has Radnor stop a satellite launch they had planned to redirect control of T-Mat to reconfigure it so they can misdirect the Ice Warrior fleet and have them crash into the sun. The Doctor also discovers that Zoe never gave Radnor the information about the rain and assumes that she and Jamie went to the weather station themselves. He heads over but cannot get in as Zoe had locked the door. He is nearly overcome by the encroaching fungus and bangs on the door. This attracts the attention of the Ice Warrior, Zoe and Jamie. Jamie runs in front of the Ice Warrior, distracting him and allowing Zoe to open the door before the Doctor is overcome.

They reunite with Jamie and barricade themselves in a power room. Inside, the Doctor builds a portable version of the solar trap used on the Moon base. The Ice Warrior is distracted by a group of guards sent by Radnor, but they are beaten back. Instead the Doctor emerges and kills the Ice Warrior with his weapon. He then hot wires the weather controls to allow the formation of rain clouds.

The trio heads back to the T-Mat station just as the rocket carrying the satellite with the mimicking homing signal is launched. Once in orbit, the Doctor is sent to the Moon base to kill the signal on the Moon. Upon arriving at the Moon, the Doctor kills one guard and cuts the power to the signaler so that it only broadcasts to the base. With the signal gone, the satellite signal is activated.

Slaar enters and captures the Doctor. He is tricked by the fact that he can see the machine still sending the signal and orders the Doctor to operate the T-Mat for invasion once the fleet has arrived. However, the Grand Marshall soon signals that they are off course and are being destroyed by the sun's heat.

On Earth, Jamie, concerned that the Doctor hasn't returned, has Zoe T-Mat him to the Moon. He arrives just as Slaar, in a fit of rage, orders the Doctor killed. Jamie's arrival distracts the guard just enough for the Doctor to grab his arm and aim the gun at Slaar who is killed. Jamie then attacks the guard allowing the Doctor to grab his portable solar device and kill that guard as well.

The two return to Earth and with Zoe sneak back to the TARDIS just as Radnor and Eldred begin to argue over whether a backup fleet of rockets should be built.

Analysis

I think overall this story gets a middling rating. At it's core, it has an interesting idea. It is reasonably well acted, the settings are interesting and most of the characters, especially the villain are at least somewhat engaging. But it also is very heavily padded and the drawing out of the story slows the action down badly. Worse, the padding points are almost painfully obvious with Phipps' random attack of claustrophobia being the most painfully obvious. They don't kill the story, but there are moments where you can find yourself distracted by something else, look up and realize that while several minutes have passed, the story has gone nowhere and you've missed nothing.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a Second Doctor story where I didn't like him so I again will say that I liked the Doctor, even though he is clearly on hiatus in Episode Four. One of the more enjoyable things about the Second Doctor is how much joy he takes in little things, such as getting into the rockets with Professor Eldred (who must live). It makes his disappointed reaction to the lack of flash with the T-Mat process rather comical. I also appreciate how he doesn't apologize for the necessity of using violence. Fans get up in arms about the idea of the Doctor using a gun or killing randomly, but here, the Doctor kills Ice Warriors with very little compunction. He doesn't even both with the idea of negotiating with Slaar and instead simply sets about destroying the fleet and killing the base invaders. Granted, Slaar had made all the aggressive moves by this point, but it's still nice to see a Doctor recognize that both negotiation and remorse are pointless and simply get on with it. In fact, the Doctor is arguably at his coldest when he delivers a point by point summation as to how Slaar has been defeated at the end, almost taking pleasure in dashing his hope as Slaar grasps at each individual straw.

Jamie and Zoe were okay in the story but they weren't used particularly well. I thought they were nearly pointless and given rather poor dialogue at the end. Zoe especially got better as she was actually utilized in the later episodes, although she had a really bad moment with the Episode Four cliffhanger. The Ice Warrior is distracted by Fewsham and still she just stands there and holds position as though frozen in place. She should have been directed to run a little further and least look like she was trying to hide from him. I also think she would have been well within her right to slap Phipps across the face to get him to snap out of his fear after having already been in the ducts once with Jamie. But it was an obvious time-killing moment so I tried to let it go as best I could.

Jamie was close to useless in this story. He had a couple of moments of lunging bravery where he would attack an Ice Warrior long enough for someone else to finish it off, but his overall performance was very limited other than expressing concern for the Doctor and Zoe. Probably his deepest moments were his scenes of exposition with Zoe where he brought her up to speed on the Ice Warriors, but even there he had to share explanation time with the Doctor. With as many characters as there were, it's not surprising that someone was going to get the short end of the stick and Jamie clearly drew that one here.

The supporting human cast was alright but not much to write home about. Both Radnor and Eldred started as though they might be a bit more developed in the later action, but their involvement died off to not much more than commentary after Episode Two so they didn't really register much. Kelly was a bit better, at least being used through the whole of the story, but she could have done with a bit more personality. She was strangely robotic through most of the story, even when people were dying around her, she had this detached quality that just made her seem out of place. Her closest moment of real emotion seemed to come when she was modifying the satellite to recreate the homing signal for the Ice Warrior fleet. That was when she actually seemed to show concern and strain at trying to beat the Ice Warriors.

The one human who did stand out was Fewsham but even his arc was a bit oddly done. In the first two episodes, he is shown to be someone not quite qualified for his job and then someone who values his life more than anything else. That's not a bad thing since many a quisling have done so out of fear of death or torture so to see that is more realistic. I wish he didn't whine quite so much and I'm a little surprised the Ice Warriors didn't kill him out of annoyance at one point. But by the middle episodes, Fewsham changes so that while he is still afraid, he seems to become more accepting of the possibility of death. To the point that he opts to sacrifice himself by not leaving the Moonbase when the others do because he knows the Ice Warriors have something else prepared that Earth needs to be warned about. That's a very sharp contrast from the Fewsham that starts the story and I think this change should have been a bit more developed. As it was, I didn't really buy his sacrifice. I bought his fear of death and going along to stay alive. I didn't see enough in the course of the story that made me think that he wouldn't be the first one to jump into the T-Mat when they prepare to evacuate the base, even if it meant spending decades in prison.

I did like the Ice Warriors in this story. Slaar especially made for a good villain. He was ruthless and actually seemed to have a fairly well developed plan for getting his objectives accomplished. I also liked that he actually had legitimate reasons for keeping certain humans alive, rather than just the standard "I'll kill you later" motivation that comes so often with entertainment villains. There were shortcomings though as I didn't really understand why Slaar didn't stay in the control room the whole time. I'm assuming he went back to the Ice Warrior ship when he wasn't in the control room, but you would think that he would want to stay at the nerve center most of the time to ensure things got done. I also don't understand why he didn't seen more warriors down to Earth to guard the weather controls. If a single warrior was strong enough to hold off the human forces, why not invade conventionally since they are so outmatched? But if they knew that the fungus must avoid rain, then why not send three or four warriors down? Multiple warriors would make the bunker unassailable and ensure plenty of time for the fungus to expand to the point of human suffocation.

Something also must be said for the peripheral vision of the Ice Warriors. Obviously this is a kids show filmed in tight sets so a certain amount of disbelief has to be suspended when it comes to hiding spots. But you help that out with good direction to make it look like the hiding spot is a bit more obscure. This story did not do that and there was more than one occasion where the Ice Warrior was practically looking at someone and yet had to pretend they didn't see them. Of all the little problems that cropped up here and there, I think it was those moments that took me out of the story the most. I will say that other than that, I thought the direction seemed pretty good for the most part. There were a couple of other scenes that did look bad (the Doctor running to the weather station was particularly janky) and there were also a couple of points where he should have reigned in the performances as they started going over-the-top, but these were more exceptions and by-products of someone trying to get more than the story was able to deliver on the surface.

But the thing that must be noted is just how slow this story can be. I learned after watching it that although Brian Hayles is credited with the story, Terrance Dicks had to do major rewrites from Episode Three onward. Given that Terrance was also desperately trying to finish The War Games with Malcolm Hulke and looking for anything to fill the episode shortfall they were experiencing, it's not surprising that this story was a drawn out as it was. It didn't help that Patrick Troughton had a vacation in Episode Four. Any time the Doctor goes on holiday, the action always stops and the wheels spin and that didn't help matters either. I think in an ideal world, this story could have been cut to four episodes with a lot tighter action. It possibly could have been stretched to five, but I think each episode would have needed to be trimmed down to closer to twenty minutes to keep the same decent pacing. But that obviously wasn't going to happen.

In the end, I think this is a decent story but it's flaws do drag it down a bit. Those flaws aren't killers but this story can easily slip away from you if not fully invested. When I was watching it, I had to take a couple of days off in the middle due to other obligations and I recall not being overly bothered. The story was entertaining but not grabbing me in a way that made me want to pop the next episode in right away to see how it progressed. Not every story can be like that, but you always wish it could be. This one is a decent exposure to the Second Doctor and a story to have in the background, but it's nowhere near the best offerings of the Second Doctor era, though it is a step up for the Ice Warriors in general.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5

The Mind Robber

Oh no, I got it all wrong!

The Mind Robber was the first Second Doctor story I ever saw and I'm not sure I could have picked an odder story to expose myself to Second Doctor. It's completely unlike any of the standard "base under siege" or monster-type stories that litter the era. In fact, the story is more reminiscent of something from either The Twilight Zone or a significant drug trip. I actually would not discount the idea that Peter Ling might have been tripping when he wrote this one, although the most out there stuff (Episode One) was actually written by script editor Derrick Sherwin. Of course, he could have been spaced out then as well.

Plot Summary

With the Dominator's bomb having just set off the volcano, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe rush back to the TARDIS to escape the lava flow. They attempt to take off but the fluid link malfunctions and the Doctor is forced to shut down to ensure the TARDIS isn't flooded with mercury vapor. Worried about the lava destroying the TARDIS, Jamie and Zoe urge the Doctor to activate the emergency relay which will displace the TARDIS out of all time and space. Reluctantly, the Doctor agrees.

The TARDIS dematerializes and then reemerges in a void of nothingness. The Doctor sets about repairing the TARDIS but Jamie and Zoe are mesmerized by images of their respective homes on the scanner. Curiosity gets the better of Zoe and she opens the doors, despite the Doctor's warnings not to and wanders into the mist. Concerned for her, Jamie runs out after her. The Doctor calls out for them to stop but is forced to focus himself on resisting a powerful mind coming against him.

In the mist, Jamie and Zoe are reunited. They wander about looking for the TARDIS but are again distracted by images of their homes. They each manage to snap the other one out of their trances and continue their search. As they do so, they are surrounded by robots who use hypnotic beams against them, forcing them to see themselves disappearing into the mist.

The Doctor manages to fight off the force and leaves the TARDIS just enough to summon Jamie and Zoe through the mist. Though they are partially under the alien force's control, the Doctor wills them along and back into the TARDIS where they snap back to their normal selves.

The Doctor tries to take off again but the alien force attacks again, forcing the Doctor to focus his mind once again. Power is drained from the TARDIS and it appears to burst apart. Jamie and Zoe cling to the console while the Doctor remains in his chair and both drift away into the misty void.
Jamie stumbles out of the mist where he runs into a redcoat. He attacks the soldier who fires at him,turning him into a paper figure. Zoe also wanders through the mist, getting hemmed in by thorn bushes. She walks through a door and falls forward into a pit.

The Doctor wakes to the sound of Jamie and Zoe's cries for help. He walks through a forest and finds Lemuel Gulliver. Gulliver briefly threatens the Doctor but walks away upon finding him of a sharp mind. The Doctor is then met with a group of children who pepper him with riddles. When he successfully solves them, they run off, leaving him with a dictionary.

The Doctor turns a corner to find the paper Jamie and several objects. The Doctor solves the message and finds Jamie's face missing. He replaces Jamie's face but gets the details wrong. Jamie returns but with a different face. He is still Jamie though and together they find Zoe trapped in a jar disguised as a door in a wall. The quickly free her and set off into the forest to find their way out.

Getting tired, they stop to rest. Jamie climbs to the top of the tree to find a way out of the forest and discovers that the tress are in fact letters. They make up common proverbs. He does spot what he thinks is the way out and climbs down. They continue their walk but run into Gulliver again. He is confused by their description of robots attacking them and cannot see a squad of tin soldiers who come and herd the trio into a cave. In the cave they see a unicorn about to charge them, much like in a dream Jamie had while they were back in the TARDIS. The Doctor urges Jamie and Zoe to declare that it doesn't exist and when they do, the unicorn freezes into a paper cutout.

They exit the cave and come across a cottage with the redcoat Jamie had met earlier. Jamie again charges him and again is turned into a paper cutout. This time, with Zoe's help, the Doctor reconstructs his face properly and Jamie is returned to normal.

They pass through the door and find themselves in another cave with a ball of twine nearby. The Doctor recognizes it as a maze and order Jamie to tie one end to the door so they can find their way out again. They continue along until the string runs out. Leaving Jamie with the string, the Doctor and Zoe walk forward into the center of the maze. In the center, the Doctor and Zoe find the Minotaur where they again stop it by denying its existence.

A tin soldier tries to capture the waiting Jamie but he escapes. He exits the maze, chased by the soldiers. He climbs partway up and reaches a ledge where a coil of hair extends down. He climbs up to meet Rapunzel on the other end. Although he is not a prince, she reluctantly agrees to let him into the palace where she promptly disappears. Jamie discovers the palace is instead a futuristic building. He discovers a ticker-tape machine printing out words describing the Doctor and Zoe's adventure.

Finding Jamie gone, the Doctor and Zoe turn back into the main part of the cave where a stone statue of Medusa appears. The statue begins to come to life and advances on them. The Doctor again tries to get Zoe to deny it's existence but she cannot. A sword appears at the Doctor's feet but rather than fighting Medusa, he pulls out a mirror. Zoe looks at Medusa in the mirror and Medusa reverts to her statue form.

They walk out and into the same valley Jamie was in earlier. There, they are confronted by the Karkus, a character from comic strips of Zoe's youth. He engages them but Zoe is able to fight him off. Beaten, the Karkus submits to their will and Zoe orders him to take them to the citadel on the hill. There, they dismiss the Karkus and the Doctor disguises his voice as the Karkus to gain entry into the castle.

Inside, they find Jamie, who had been forced to hide due to accidentally setting off an internal alarm. The Doctor notes that they will have to see the ruler of this land of fiction, whom Gulliver had referred to as the Master, in order to reclaim the TARDIS. Zoe sets off the alarm and the Doctor surrenders to the robots who take the group to see the Master.

In the control room, they find a man who had been a writer of boy's adventure stories hooked up to a central computer. The human side of the writer is friendly and jovial, inviting the Doctor to take his place as he is getting old, having been taken by the alien power in 1926. Every once in a while, the computer interposes its will and the writer becomes dark and threatening. The Doctor distracts him, though constantly refusing his offer while Jamie and Zoe try to find an escape. The writer however is aware of their escape attempt and sends several robots who encase Jamie and Zoe in a book, rendering them into works of fiction.

Unable to help Jamie and Zoe at the moment, the Doctor dashes up bookcase and up on to the roof as the robots return for him. On the roof, he spots a typewriter through a skylight, controlling the master tape. He summons the Karkus who, with the help of Rapunzel, lowers him down into the room. The Doctor starts to write a different ending but stops, realizing that it's a trap as writing anything about himself will turn him into a work of fiction. He returns to the roof where he is met by Gulliver and the children from earlier.

The writer gives Jamie and Zoe new feelings toward the Doctor and they set a trap for him. He makes what appears to be the TARDIS reappear and Jamie and Zoe step out. Happy at it's return, the Doctor steps inside, only to discover himself trapped in a glass box. The box disappears and the Doctor finds himself back in the control room, this time fully integrated with the computer.

Due to his full integration, the Doctor realizes he can now make fiction reality as well and he summons forth Jamie and Zoe, urging them to escape their book. Jamie and Zoe then manage to extricate themselves from the book and cease to be works of fiction. The writer attempts to stop the Doctor by summoning the toy soldiers to seize Jamie and Zoe as they cross the roof. The Doctor counters by summoning the Karkus to shoot them down the soldiers. The writer attempts to step in and have the Karkus shoot them but the Doctor depletes his gun, rendering him useless. The writer calls forth Cyrano de Bergerac to attack them with a sword but the Doctor counters with D'Artagnan and the two characters fight on the roof, allowing Jamie and Zoe to run past. The writer changes Cyrano to Blackbeard and the Doctor changes D'Artagnan to Lancelot, each countering the other.

Fearing that the central brain will be overloaded, the writer ceases his attacks and instead summons the robots. The Doctor realizes he can't counter about himself as it would again turn him into a work of fiction. The robots pull the Doctor out of the machine and prepare to kill him. Jamie and Zoe rush in and activate every switch on the control board. The surge of power and information begins to overwhelm the computer and the robots are momentarily distracted. The Doctor rushes to the writer and pulls his harness off, freeing him of the control of the computer. With no new input, the robots obey their final instruction and begin to destroy everything in the control room, including the central brain of the computer.

The group flees just outside the castle where the TARDIS then reforms around the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. The writer also disappears back into his own time.
Analysis

I really like this story, but I can also easily see how others would not. If The Macra Terror was a toe dip and lifting of ideas from The Prisoner, this story is a full on plunge into the world of surrealism. Of course, for all its surrealism, it still maintains a grounding in the form of a recognizable plotline and well written dialogue.

Granted you don't have a lot of choices with the Second Doctor, but I think this story could be one of the best ones to demonstrate what the Second Doctor is like. He is his usual blustery, slightly over-the-top self who is a bit back on his heels most of the time. But he is also the thinking and conniving Doctor. He understands a bit more that he ever lets on, especially after he really starts to guess the rules of the game in Episode Two. At no point when you are with the Doctor do you feel like nothing interesting is going on. He's just fun to be with on multiple levels in this story.

Jamie and Zoe are also good in this story, although I feel like Jamie stands out a bit more. This story is rather famous for having a replacement Jamie for Episode Two due to Frazer Hines contracting chicken pox from his nephews. But Hamish Wilson does a fine job as a stand-in Jamie and what's more, the mechanics of how the replacement Jamie came about is very creative and adds to the surrealistic atmosphere of the story. Jamie goes one further by getting a portion of the story to himself, climbing up Rapunzel's hair and having a few moments with Gulliver in avoiding the robots. It develops Jamie nicely in the story.

Zoe does well but does not get a stand out moment in this story like she does in say The Krotons. This sort of makes sense as Zoe is highly conditioned with logic and logic is probably the absolute last thing that is going to help in a story like this. So she ends up being more of either a comic foil or the Doctor's sounding board to explain the particulars of the plot. She also gets to scream a lot at the various traps she falls in to. She does at least get to defeat the Karkus with some nice judo moves which played nicely on screen, despite Wendy Padbury being unhappy with that take.

Of course, she also gets the take away point of the whole story as the other thing besides the replacement Jamie that people remember from this story is Zoe laying on the TARDIS console in a sparkling cat-suit with her derriere framed nicely for viewing. Apparently the zipper had busted on the front of her suit as well so she's leaning forward to make sure she didn't expose herself in the front and ruin the take.

All the various secondary characters did well but I think special attention to be played to the writer (or Master as he is credited). I personally try to avoid using "the Master" as it has a very different connotation now. Anyway, this part was played and written very well. You could see the glee and enthusiasm for writing that the writer had and how he was fundamentally a good person. But you could also see the dark, sinister side when the computer mind took over and the contrast portrayed between the two was quite impressive. I also loved the fact that the villain never got up but acted through surrogates to the point that it became a literal battle of the minds. It was a villain that emphasized that the Doctor had to think his way out of the problem rather than rely on some aspect of force to solve the problem.

Before going into the set and direction of the rest of the story, I think special attention must be paid to Episode One. This came about because the powers that be decided to cut down The Dominators from six to five episodes (with good reason). However, The Mind Robber as written did not lend itself to the kind of padding normally used (which is partially why the flow of the narrative is so good in my opinion). So they lifted the barest bit of the introduction and set about to expand that, while having no additional budget for sets. That forced the action to be confined to the TARDIS and a white soundstage with robots they had intended to use later in the story. It is very weird but it works in its offputting way. In many ways, it reminds me a bit of Episode One of The Edge of Destruction where you have stuff happening that makes no sense whatsoever but has a bit of an edge that is both creepy and enjoyable. It does stick out a bit because there is such a contrast of style between Episode One and the rest but at the same time, it also works within the context. It really is an excellent bit of improvisation.

If there is a complaint to be made about this story other than the "out there"-ness of the storyline, it is the limitations to the set and costumes. If you're used to that sixties, trying but still looks fake effect, this story won't bother you. But it would be remiss not to mention it. The forest of letters does look like a sound stage, Medusa is clearly a stop-motion effect and the Karkus is clearing wearing a rubber muscle suit. The robots and tin soldiers are also of the large, clunky costumed men-in-suits that are hallmarks of the Second Doctor era. Still, for me, I don't see anything that I'm not used to and some of the effects are actually pretty good with what was available at the time. I also find that for whatever reason, I have a higher tolerance and more forgiveness for these type of practical effects attempts than I do for things in the Eighties. I think that has to do with the quality of the cameras which make things too obvious in their fakery whereas the Sixties cameras hid the limitations better.

I am not an overwhelming literary personality, but I do love the intricacy of puzzles and "what is reality" stories. This storyline, whether fueled by "additional substances" or not, hits all the right spots for my enjoyment. It is weird but not so weird as to be unintelligible. It is well acted and fairly well directed. The sets and costumes, while limited, do their job well enough not to detract from the overall story. I can understand that some people wouldn't like this story and it might go over the head of younger viewers, but this is just a grand bit of entertainment for me and I'd happily pull this off the shelf to watch a third or fourth time if given the chance.

Overall personal score: 5 out of 5

The Underwater Menace

A slave, like a worm, might be turned.

I know next to nothing about The Underwater Menace except that it's generally thought of as very weird. This is also the first story with Jamie as a companion so I'm expecting either him or Ben to be flapping in the breeze with little to no lines for portions of this story as I'm sure it was written prior to the decision to keep Jamie on as a companion. I also believe this is the first of what would end up being three invokings of Atlantis. So I'm going into this story with a note of caution, despite my enjoyment of the Second Doctor.

Plot Summary

The Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie leave Culloden Moor in the TARDIS. Jamie is a bit unsettled but adapts to the surroundings as they arrive on the shore of the sea. They discover that the land is that of a volcano and the companions begin to climb the mountain while the Doctor takes readings near the TARDIS. Polly becomes winded by the climb and stops on a plateau to rest while Jamie and Ben continue to climb.

Polly becomes distracted by a set of caves nearby and goes to examine them. She discovers a stone figure and when she goes to examine it, she is attacked from behind. Jamie and Ben hear her scream and descend to go help her, discovering the cave where she disappeared.

Down near the base of the volcano, the Doctor finishes up but discovers a few shards of pottery, recently made. He pockets it and decides to find the companions and begins to climb the mountain.

Ben and Jamie continue in the caves but are grabbed from behind and thrust into a metal cage suspended over a pit. They discover Polly in the same cage. A few moments later, the Doctor is also thrust into the cage, having been captured while climbing. The cage begins to descend down into the pit and all the people begin to feel sick. The nitrogen becomes concentrated as they pass below sea level and they pass out.

At the bottom, the guards pull them out of the cage and lay them out in a compression chamber to adapt to the atmosphere. They wake up and Polly produces a bracelet she discovered earlier that was given at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic games. From this they figure that wherever they are, they are on Earth and probably around 1970.

A guard enters and motions them outward. They are taken to a room where food is laid out before them. They eat for a bit until a priest named Ramo enters and welcomes them. The priest states that their coming was predicted by the sea goddess Amdo in time for the festival. The companions are taken away but the Doctor is able to speak privately with Ramo and mentions a Professor Zaroff. This catches Ramo off guard but the Doctor states that he recognized Zaroff's work through the food. The Doctor writes a message and though Ramo refuses to take it, he slips it to a serving girl named Ara.

The companions are brought into the worship center and bound and placed on the dais platform. The platform has an opening where sharks circle in a well below. The Doctor is brought in by Ramo and placed in the fourth spot. The high priest Lolem begins the ceremony which steadily removes weight, tilting the people slowly towards the well.

Ara, unable to get in to see Zaroff, goes to see Damon, the chief surgeon. He takes the message from her and reads it. Damon takes the note to Zaroff who reads it. Zaroff heads to the temple and demands the release of the Doctor. The Doctor is loosed but he demands his companions be released as well. Zaroff agrees and has the three taken to a labor detail.

The Doctor confesses that he has no vital news for Zaroff which annoys Zaroff but he is amused by the Doctor and he brings him to his office. Meanwhile, the companions are taken to Damon who sends Ben and Jamie to the mines. Polly is shown a group of people who have been surgically modified to breath underwater to work the undersea farms. Damon reveals to Polly that he plans on modifying her as well into the same state.

Talking with Zaroff, the Doctor discovers that they are in the ancient city of Atlantis. Zaroff has promised the Atlantians to use his science to raise the island to the surface again while he continues his food research. He is distracted by a message from a guard. While distracted, Ara comes to the Doctor and informs him about Polly's impending operation. He instructs Ara to try and pull Polly away if at all possible.

The Doctor manages to cut power to the operating room, causing Damon to go and complain to Zaroff. The other surgical staff leave to go and see if they can fix the problem, leaving Polly alone. Ara sneaks in and takes Polly away, telling her to hide in the now empty temple.

After Damon is dismissed, the Doctor picks Zaroff's brain about lifting Atlantis. Zaroff admits that he can't but instead will lower the level of the ocean to put Atlantis on the land. The Doctor points out that that volume of water interacting with the molten interior of the planet will create superheated steam and potentially crack the surface of the Earth, destroying Atlantis. Zaroff agrees but says he will do it anyway to prove that it can be done.

The Doctor manages to slip away while Zaroff is distracted. He manages to find a costume and while in it, he finds Ara, bringing food and clothing to Polly. He goes with her but stops when he sees Ramo talking with Damon. He notes Ramo's dislike for Zaroff and confronts him about Zaroff. He takes him to the temple, where Polly has hidden herself, and shows what Zaroff's plan may do to a clay pot. Ramo agrees to take the Doctor to see King Thous to tell him of Zaroff's plan.

In the mines, Ben and Jamie help out two other prisoners, Sean and Jacko. In gratitude, they agree to take them along in an escape attempt through a stray tunnel they discovered while mining. When the foreman is distracted by routing workers to another project, the four of them bolt down the tunnel. They follow the passages until they find an exit that opens into the temple, just behind the idol. Polly greets them and Ara shows up a few minutes later with food. After eating, they duck back into the passage to avoid people entering, including the Doctor for his demonstration to Ramo.

Ramo takes the Doctor to Thous where the Doctor presents his case. Thous thinks for a bit, but decides that he trusts Zaroff and summons him where he collects the Doctor and Ramo. Zaroff gives them over to the priests for execution.

The Doctor and Ramo are taken to the temple and prepared for execution. Suddenly the idol begins to speak and orders the priests to bow. As they do, the door opens and Ben summons the Doctor and Ramo in. Lolem believes a miracle has taken place and reports back to Thous and Zaroff. Thous is satisfied by Zaroff suspects a trick and orders his guards to search Atlantis.

In the passageways, the Doctor devises a plan to capture Zaroff and force the king to see reason. He sends Sean and Jacko to convince the fish people to stop harvesting food for Atlantis. As the food spoils within a few hours of harvest, it will force the Atlantians to deal. The others obtain disguises from Ara and head to the marketplace.

In the market, Ben and Jamie pose as Zaroff guards while the Doctor and Polly pose as locals. Zaroff enters and gathers Ben and Jamie to him. The Doctor exposes himself to Zaroff and runs, Zaroff, Jamie, Ben and Polly all following. The Doctor runs to the temple where Ramo is waiting. Zaroff orders Ben and Jamie to arrest Ramo while he confronts the Doctor. The Doctor temporarily blinds Zaroff with powder and Ben, Jamie and Ramo grab him and take him into the temple passageways.

Zaroff tries to bluff his way out by saying the process is already started. The Doctor doesn't believe him but decides he should check to be sure. Zaroff then feigns sickness so he asks Polly and Ramo to keep an eye on him. The Doctor, Jamie and Ben exit to the temple but are forced to hide as a ceremony is about to take place.

In the passageway, Zaroff attacks Ramo when he tries to help him. He knocks Polly away as she tries to help and stabs Ramo with a spear. He then drags Polly down the passageway. As the ceremony ends, the Doctor, Jamie and Ben begin to leave but Ramo emerges from the passageway and dies. Realizing what has happened, the Doctor sends Jamie after Zaroff and Polly while he and Ben try to beat Zaroff to his lab.

Jamie catches up to Polly and tries to untie her. Zaroff attacks Jamie but they are joined by Sean and Jacko, having successfully convinced the fish people to go on strike. Outnumbered, Zaroff flees. Knowing they would get lost in the tunnels, the group heads back to the temple to find Ara and have her show them the way.

Zaroff enters Thous' throne room as he has been informed by Damon of the work stoppage by the fish people. Thous is prepared to meet with them to discuss their demands. Zaroff however says that he will threaten them with his guards. Thous realizes that Zaroff is as mad as the Doctor suggested and prepares to move against him. Seeing this, Zaroff shoots Thous and orders his guards to shoot Thous' guards.

Ben and the Doctor discover Thous still alive. They drag him back under the temple and meet Ara, Sean and Jacko. Jamie and Polly had gone on to find Zaroff's lab after Ara had described the way to them. The Doctor decides that the only way to stop Zaroff is to flood the lower levels of the city, including the lab. He tasks Ara, Jacko and Sean with warning the residents to get to the upper levels while he and Ben head to the generator room.

Zaroff continues to push things forward but is frustrated as workers are deserting their posts, most to find food as the fish people strike is taking effect. Meanwhile, Ben and the Doctor pose as a guard and prisoner to get past other guards. In the generating room, they knock out the technician and sabotage the main power source. The Doctor decides to head to Zaroff's lab next.

In the tunnels, Jamie and Polly have gotten lost. They discover they are near the lab. They also discover that the Doctor's sabotage has caused a radiation leak. The leak and the mechanical vibration has caused a crack in the walls and sea water is leaking in. They decide to abandon the quest for Zaroff's lab and get to higher ground.

Ara, Jacko, and Sean carry Thous out on a stretcher as the temple and other lower levels flood. They are met by Damon who has also fled the flooding. The group continue up the tunnels to escape. They take a brief rest on an upper level and Damon briefs Thous on the rescue efforts of the rest of the inhabitants, including the likely death of Lolem as he was last seen heading to the temple.

Jamie and Polly reach a dead end but Jamie discovers a draft and climbs up the wall to see if he can find another passage. Jamie finds a small passage and he pulls Polly up. They continue to climb up and away from the water.

The Doctor and Ben enter Zaroff's lab. The Doctor informs Zaroff's technicians of Zaroff's plans. He also tells them that the sea has broken through and will flood the lab. Panicked, the technicians flee the lab. Zaroff steps back and drops a gate down, isolating him and the lab controls from the Doctor. Ben runs off, pretending to panic. The Doctor destroys the electrical power relay, plunging the lab into darkness. Zaroff smirks and activates the back up power. He raises the grill to tie up the Doctor but as he steps forward, Ben leaps out and pulls the grill back down again, cutting off Zaroff from the lab controls. Ben and the Doctor run out as Zaroff fires his gun blindly at them.

The Doctor tries to go back, not wanting Zaroff to drown but Ben pulls him forward. They discover the water is rising faster than anticipated and continue onward. At the same time, Jamie and Polly push their way forward and emerge in a cave at the shoreline of the volcano.

Zaroff continues to struggle, refusing to give up on the switch. The water level continues to go up and he drowns in his lab.

The Atlantians check themselves in the caves, counting anyone missing. They are sure the Doctor has not survived and vow to rebuild their city in the upper levels without giving in to superstition as a legacy to him.

Ben and the Doctor emerge in the caves on the volcano, safe from the water. They see Jamie and Polly sitting dejectedly, sure they had drowned. Happy, the group of four returns to the TARDIS. Sean and Jacko also emerge from the caves, just in time to see the group enter the police box and disappear.

The Doctor decides to take them to Mars but as he sets the controls, the TARDIS lurches out of control.

Analysis

It caught me a bit by surprise when it dawned on me while watching this story that this is the last recon for me. I've not done a write up for The Evil of the Daleks yet but I have actually seen that one, meaning that I've now seen all recon stories and that feels like an odd milestone to have passed.

As for this particular story, I'm of a mixed mind on it. I think it can safely be said that this is the first story where the Second Doctor acts like himself. He was a bit off in The Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders but here he acts with the conniving false bravado that you expect. Nice as that is, the rest of the story is generic and somewhat forgettable or just downright weird at points and not in a particularly good way.

Taking an honest approach, I think it would be safe to say that the Doctor is not only the best thing about this story, he may be the only good thing about it. For the first time, we get that manic energy that has been lacking in the first two stories. He is plotting, blustery and also acting on his heels quite a bit which feeds that energy. He is planning and desperate at the same time. You also see a level of compassion that does mark the Second Doctor. He knows that Zaroff is mad, yet he wants to go back and prevent him from drowning. He is only prevented from that by the threat of his and Ben's drowning. All around, there is much to enjoy with the Doctor finally coming in to his own.

The companions didn't fare quite as well in this story. Ben and Jamie did alright as they were kept as part of the action, but Polly was about as close to useless in this story as you could imagine. Also hurting were the fact that three pseudo-companions were introduced, all with similar tropes to the regular companions. Jacko was the hot-headed man of action (Ben), Sean was a get along with an accent (Jamie) and Ara was the female resource person. Polly would have had trouble fully filling this role but Polly could have taken some of the back and forth work from Ara, which would have made her a bit less conspicuous. It also would have solved the dual problems of giving Polly something to do and explaining why Ara is helping so much. The Doctor is nice to her in one moment and now she is actively working against the leaders of her society? That makes no sense whatsoever.

An example of Polly being useless is when she and Rama stay behind to watch over Zaroff feigning illness. Zaroff springs up and attacks Rama. While they fight hand-to-hand, Polly literally stands behind them with her hands clasped as though she is terrified to move. She tries to grab the spear from Zaroff only when he is about to stab Rama. There is no reason she should not have been either scouring around to find a rock to brain Zaroff with or even to just leap on Zaroff's back and let Rama get a few stomach blows to bring Zaroff down. Instead, she stands there and lets Rama get killed and herself taken prisoner, from which Jamie rescues her a few moments later. It is just a complete waste of a companion.

Zaroff himself is also rather weak. He is portrayed in the stereotypical mad scientist fashion, yet he is supposed to have hoodwinked the king and the priests that he should be given absolute power? He runs around like a dictator, half crazed, yet neither his guards nor his fellow scientists have figured out that what he will do will destroy all of them. It feels like a lazy portrayal and without any nuance in it whatsoever. This ultimately makes it boring. Watching a man drown because he is so obsessed with destroying the world should be horrific, yet it feels so nonchalant because we simply don't care about him. Zaroff is not something worth investing any emotion in.

It is nice to have Episodes Two and Three existing, especially as Episode Two was a recent find, but it would be nice to see Episode Four especially. The direction in Episodes Two and Three is fairly non-descript as it is functional but not jumping out at you. It would be nice to see if the directing of the water rising action added anything to the grand fleeing of the sea which takes up the entire second half of the episode.

I also didn't care for the very ham-fisted "dedication" that Damon made for the Doctor at the end of the story. Not only was declaring the Doctor dead rather premature of their part, but you can't have some random doctor declare to the king that they are abandoning all of their religion and ritual and become totally devoted to science. Even a hard-core science person like Christopher Bidmede would laugh at the idea that a society can change it's views on a dime. It is exceptionally lame in concept and it is delivered in a poorly acted way as well.

One of the things that often comes under scrutiny is the "fish ballet" in Episode Three. Frankly, the fish people are incredibly weird to begin with as I openly wonder how Atlantis was feeding itself before creating human-fish hybrids to gather food but they are visually interesting. But the ballet is one of those things that is put in clearly to kill time. There is no need to show anything beyond Jacko and Sean making appeals to the fish people. Yes, the ballet gives you a visual of the people passing the word along to go on strike, but it is filler. It looks about as pretty good an underwater sequence as you could expect in 1967 so I won't knock it for that, but it does make for an odd inclusion.

Overall, I can't think of much else good to say about this one. It's greatest crime is that it's boring. There is a lot that doesn't make sense but that can often be glossed over at least in an initial watching if it's entertaining. This is not that. The peril doesn't feel real and the people in it feel clichéd at best and poorly portrayed at worst. Again, that is a great shame as this is the first time that the Second Doctor holds forth as himself. If they end up finding Episodes One and Four, or even animating it, I might go back and watch it again but other than that, leave it be and don't worry about it.

Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5

The Moonbase

Then we'll hit 'em with some of this Polly cocktail

The Moonbase marked the return of the Cybermen, their makeover into the more familiar metallic casing and the point where the Second Doctor seemed to come into his own. The Moonbase also laid out what would become the familiar format of Second Doctor stories in the form of a base under siege with the Doctor figuring out the critical weakness of the enemy to exploit. It also is half missing, but fortunately has some very nice animation to fill in with Episodes One and Three.

Plot Summary
After a bumpy ride, the Doctor manages to land the TARDIS, not on Mars as intended, but on the surface of the moon in 2070. Ben and Polly convince him to explore outside. They go out wearing spacesuits and the companions have fun bouncing around in the low gravity. Jamie over-jumps and crashes outside the moonbase, concussing himself. He is taken inside by two men working at the base and the Doctor, Ben and Polly follow.

In the base's command center, a technician falls ill, black lines developing on his skin. The base commander, Dr. Hobson, orders him taken to the infirmary although little can be done as the base doctor was the first one taken ill. The Doctor, Ben and Polly are taken to him where the Doctor is mistaken for a replacement doctor sent by Earth. Polly heads to the infirmary to check on Jamie while the Doctor and Ben learn about the Gravitron, a gravity beam used to control tides and other weather phenomena on Earth.

A fourth crew member is taken ill and the Doctor and Ben head back with him to the infirmary to study this virus. Jamie moans in a delirious state about a phantom piper who stalks the McCrimmon clan. The Doctor studies the base doctor's symptoms and then sends Ben back to the command room to help and observe.

Hobson radios Earth to request help and a new full staff doctor. Earth responds that they will accommodate him on the next supply run in a month. Hobson is unhappy about this but can do nothing. One of the technicians note that he picked up feedback during the transmission suggesting they are being monitored.

Hobson's second in command, Benoit, forces him to take a break and sends Ben down to the store room to help Ralph with preparing a resupply list. Ralph sends Ben to catalogue one end of the store room food supply while he works the other. A Cyberman appears from the shadows and kills Ralph, dragging his body away. Ben heads back to the command center to report on Ralph's disappearance, leaving both Benoit and Hobson confused and concerned.

The Doctor enters and tells Hobson that the doctor has died. They head back to the infirmary where Polly tells them she thought she saw something enter the room and then duck back out. The group pulls the sheet back to examine the dead doctor but find the doctor's body has gone. Hobson heads back to command while the Doctor and Ben follow to investigate some more, leaving Polly alone with Jamie. Jamie calls out for water and Polly leaves to get him some. As she does so, a Cyberman reenters the room with Jamie taking him for the phantom piper.

The Cyberman ignores Jamie and grabs a second patient, taking him from the room. Polly sees the back of him and screams, summoning the Doctor and Ben. Ben runs up to the command center to fetch Hobson who comes down. Polly relates her story but Hobson dismisses it saying the Cybermen disappeared after the destruction of Mondas nearly 100 years ago. Hobson is growing increasingly wary of the Doctor and his companions, desiring them to leave. The Doctor strikes a deal with him that they will leave if the Doctor hasn't figured out the cause of the illness within 24 hours. Hobson agrees.

In the command center, Hobson orders a series of tests as the Gravitron is not aligning properly and that is beginning to have serious consequences on Earth. As they are running test, the Doctor enters and collects hair, skin and soil samples from each of them. While he is away, a Cyberman enters the infirmary and takes another infected patient. It knocks out both Polly and Jamie with a bolt of energy, but the Doctor is able to revive them after it leaves.

The command crew eventually discover that one of the control arrays has parts either damaged or missing and that they began happening shortly after the Doctor and his companions arrived. Benoit also notes another in a series of momentary atmospheric pressure drops that had been happening since shortly before the virus emerged. Hobson dispatches two men to check the array while he and Benoit head down to the infirmary to confront the Doctor.

In the infirmary, the Doctor has failed to make any discoveries. When Hobson comes down to get them to leave, he fakes having made a discovery and ushers them out into the waiting room. He tells Polly to bring them some coffee as an added distraction.

Outside, the two men sent to check on the array are attacked by Cybermen. Inside, one of the crew who Polly has served falls ill with the virus. As he is carried to a bed, the Doctor realizes that the virus is in the sugar. He takes a sample and discovers a neurological virus. He informs Hobson that the Cybermen must be behind this but Hobson scoffs saying that they had searched the whole base and found nothing.

The Doctor pulls Hobson aside as whispers as to whether his men searched the infirmary. Hobson realizes that they never did as it was always occupied. As he does, a Cybermen rises from under a bed sheet and advances on them. The Cyberman orders them to surrender. One technician tries to get behind him to attack but is gunned down by a second Cyberman entering. The rest of the crew surrender.

The Cybermen take Hobson, the Doctor and the other crew back to the control room, leaving Ben and Polly in the infirmary with Jamie, having determined that the three of them are of no value but also no threat. In the control room, Hobson and the others are placed in one corner while the men infected with the neurovirus are brought in and made to work the Gravitron. The Cybermen intend to use the Gravitron to manipulate the Earth's weather to destroy all human life from the planet and eliminate any potential threat.

While the Cybermen are focused on working the Gravitron, the Doctor sneaks around, determining how to disrupt the signals to the controlled men and finding a weakness in the Cybermen. He hits on the idea that they are vulnerable to the extreme gravitational effects produced by the Gravitron.

Back in the infirmary, Jamie comes back around feeling better. Polly hits on an idea of using solvents to dissolve the plastic components of the life support systems in their chest. She and Ben blend several different solvents together from the chemical stores and pour them in spray bottles. Each companion gets one bottle and they sneak towards the control room.

The three companions burst in and spray the Cybermen with the solvent mixture. It causes the plastic components to melt and the Cybermen collapse, choking on melted plastic. Hobson immediately pulls the controlled men out of the Gravitron control area, having collapsed due to the sonic strain. They are taken to the infirmary to recover.

Benoit heads outside to see if he can find the two men who were sent out earlier. He finds their suits but not the men. He is attacked by one Cyberman but the gun fails to discharge. Benoit runs back towards the base with the Cyberman chasing him. Ben meets him at the door and tosses a small glass bottle of the "Polly cocktail" into the pursing Cyberman's chest, killing him.

Hobson orders a lockdown of the base while the Cybermen land two more ships and begin marching out to take the base by force. With the doors sealed, the Cybermen are unable to break in, their previous hole having also been sealed off. The Cybermen temporarily stop their advance when a ship from Earth is observed approaching. The Cybermen increase their control signal and reanimate Dr. Evans. Evans knocks out the orderly and sneaks into the Gravitron control room. He then uses the Gravitron to knock the Earth ship out of orbit and into the sun. Evans then uses the Gravitron to continue the Cybermen's plans to attack Earth.

With the outside threat gone, the Cybermen renew their attack on the base. They fire small lasers at the base and manage to breach the dome, causing atmosphere to leak out. Hobson and Benoit manage to seal it off using a heavy plastic tray Polly had brought in to serve coffee. The loss of atmosphere knocks Evans out and he is pulled out and taken back to the infirmary.

The Doctor orders Jamie and Ben to seal off the infirmary as he expects the other controlled men to attack which they do just as Jamie and Ben arrive there. The two men barricade the door with metal benches and chairs. They then retreat and do the same for the entrance to the control room.

With additional Cybermen filing across the moon's surface, they prepare to launch heavy weapons at the base. The Doctor notes that the Gravitron is still at full power and stands his ground, offering an easy target. The Cybermen blast their heavy gun at him but the gravity output from the Gravitron deflects the beam. His theory validated, the Doctor orders the Gravitron lowered as close to the surface as possible. Benoit lowers the angle of attack and Hobson disengages the safety system to allow it to go even lower.

The gravity wave pushes the Cybermen up off the moon and into space. Their ships also are thrown backwards and off into space. The crew celebrates the defeat of the Cybermen while the Doctor and his companions slip away quietly. They make their way back to the TARDIS and take off with the Doctor activating his time scanner to give them a glimpse of what is in store next. They recoil as they see a large crab claw on the screen.

Analysis
Overall I liked The Moonbase but it is a good example that has such good build up and then peters out to an almost disappointing conclusion. So much of the story depends on atmosphere and the use of a "phantom in the shadows" motif. Once that's gone, it turns into a hold off an attack story and one that is resolved very quickly and where the Doctor is not the central focus and that is a bit disappointing.

I do like the Doctor in this one. This is the first real and true appearance of the dark and plotting Second Doctor that became more the staple. Up until now he had been a bit theatrical and this is the one where he finally settles in to a serious mode, but not losing that sense of whimsy. His extraction of samples from the crew is one of those light-hearted moments of oddity that make the Second Doctor so enjoyable.

The companions, apart from Jamie, were quite good in this story. It is fairly well known that this story was written before Innes Lloyd came down and announced that Jamie would be coming on as a companion so a hasty rewrite was given to it. Jamie was essentially put on the shelf for two and a half episodes and then given a couple of Ben's lines and substituted in where a generic member of the base team would have been in. Ben does the standard action man but it does give him a lot of interface with various people. He actually interacts with them more than the Doctor does.

Polly comes off probably best of all, even if she does slip in and out of women's stereotypes. Polly stays in the infirmary to watch Jamie but she also is the Doctor's main assistant when trying to figure out the virus. She comes up with the solvent cocktail but doesn't know what the primary ingredients of solvents are. She forces Ben and Jamie to let her fight the Cybermen along side them but she twice is relegated to coffee detail, even if one of them is a distracting maneuver for the Doctor. I think even with these up and downs, Polly proves herself quite worthy in this story and both her and Ben are given fairly meaty roles that do their characters justice.

Two of the most enjoyable characters were actually part of the guest cast. The Doctor suffered a bit from the lack of attention but that was because Hobson and Benoit were so good at taking that attention. Hobson especially was a commanding presence and had a real take charge attitude. What's more, unlike base commanders in other "base under siege" stories, he is competent and never gives in to madness or despair. Because of this, the Doctor stays in a supporting role as more of an idea man rather than rearing himself into a major leadership role as you might see in The Ice Warriors for example.

Benoit was also a place that the Doctor could have slipped in to but again, you have such a good actor and a well defined role. Benoit is a solid second-in-command who respects his superior and is always looking out for what is best for the mission and the men under them. You see genuine respect that the characters have towards each other and it both plays well and is quite engaging, even if it means that the Doctor doesn't get to step in. Benoit also does a good job of not falling into easy French stereotypes. He has a heavy accent and descends to swearing in French but the actor is French so has an easy flow. He never goes over the top, giving in to expected cheap reference as to how French he is and it is nice to see that (in contrast to the Italian stereotype in The Tenth Planet).

The Cybermen did well in their redesign. It is interesting to note that most of the design changes were made simply because the original suits were just so hard to maintain and were so hard on the actors. From an aesthetic standpoint, I think the changes worked quite well. There were traces of the humans that became the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet which seemed to make them a bit more relatable and less scary to me. Robotizing them more drained that relatability and the coldness is what makes them so frightening. I personally think the Cybermen seen in The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen were the most frightening versions. The voice helped with that, although I'm glad I've been able to have the subtitles on when watching both these stories as while it makes the Cybermen scary, it's also a devil of a time to fully understand what they are saying.

So with so many good elements, why does the story end so poorly? I think it is the way the story shifted. The first three parts were almost like a haunted house story. The enemy was within the house, moving stealthily and picking off people one at a time. In Episode Three, you have the Cybermen strike and with only three take over the whole base. That ends the secrecy but you have a prisoner tale now and our heroes triumph over their captors. That then leaves Episode Four.

Episode Four's primary problems are actually due to padding I think. The Doctor effectively figures out that the Gravitron must be used against the Cybermen in Episode Three but spends nearly 2/3's of Episode four waiting around before saying anything. There is also the inconsistency of the Cybermen attacks. One squad of Cybermen was able to dig through and into the base but three ships full are held back by secured doors? That seems odd.

I can understand falling back to deal with the ship from Earth, but once that is done the attacks should be consistent and constant. They successfully breach the dome but then stop once Hobson and Benoit plug the hole. Why not make a new hole? Why not keep firing until all atmosphere in the base is boiled away? Instead they make one hole and then call off the attack to bring in a heavy cannon, which might actually damage the Gravitron, which they seem keen on avoiding. Also, why does the heavy cannon blast get deflected by the Gravity beam when the small firing did not? The Cybermen attacks just seem almost haphazard and indifferent.

It is also a bit underwhelming to have the Gravitron simply fling the Cybermen away. It is done so easily and so quickly that it feels like flinging away a bug that has landed on your arm and undercuts the power of the Cybermen even more than the intermittent attacks did. I think a far better solution would have been to use the Gravitron to push away the Cybermen ships and most of the men at the beginning of Episode Four but then the rest of the story being to fend off the remaining ten or fifteen who managed to breach the base. Have Ben and Polly use the last of the cocktail so that the Doctor has to step forward and think of a way to defeat the last group as they try to take final control. That would have made the threat far more personal and given the Doctor more of a central focus in trying to outthink the enemy.

Although it ended somewhat poorly, this is still a good story. The animation of Episodes One and Three is done very well and actually adds to the atmosphere. I actually thought the tension was higher and better done in the animated episodes than in Episode Two, although that was still done pretty well. The characters are good and there is a fairly nice balance in how everyone works together, apart from the limitation of how the Doctor is used. I'd easily watch it again, although I still wish there could have been an ending that suited the build up better.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5

Fury From the Deep

I was fond of her too you know Jamie

A grand bit of thanks must be given to the Australian censors regarding Fury From the Deep. For whatever reason, the censors in that country cut a number of action bits involving the seaweed attacks, giving a surprising amount of recovered material for six episodes of recons. What's more, they added a nice spice to a story that would have worked fairly well as a radio play, given the amount of interactive dialogue.

Plot Summary

The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria land off the coast of England in the North Sea. They paddle to the shore and play for a moment in a large amount of foam on the shore. Jamie notices the foam appearing to come from a pipe nearby. The Doctor investigates, noticing a rather odd noise coming from the pipe. After investigating, the three are gunned down by a stun beam.

The three wake in the control room of a gas pumping station. The commander of the station, Robson, believes they were trying to sabotage the pipe, which has seen a drop in efficiency. They have also lost contact with an offshore crew, putting Robson in an even fouler mood. The three are taken to a spare room and locked in. However, they managed to escape when Victoria picks the lock.

The chief scientist, Harris, is concerned with what the Doctor told him about the noise coming from the pipe. He asks his wife Maggie, who is living on station, to recover a file for him from his office. She does so but is accidentally stung by a bit of seaweed in the file.

The Doctor and his companions overhear Robson speaking to a serviceman about a noise in the pipes. The Doctor and Jamie go to investigate but they tell Victoria to head back to the bunkroom. Victoria leaves but goes in another direction. Seeing someone in the corridor, Victoria ducks into a room and sees a man in a gas mask sabotaging the equipment. The man ducks past her and locks her in. He then opens the flow valve, causing foam to begin to seep in through the duct.

In the impeller room, the Doctor and Jamie listen to sounds in the pipe similar to what they heard earlier. They then hear Victoria screaming and rush off to free her. Her screaming also attracts Robson and others. Upon being released, Victoria tells them that she saw a creature draped in seaweed in the foam but that it swam away when the door was opened.

Jamie and Victoria are sent to the control room to be watched while the Doctor stays with Robson. Harris however comes in and asks for the Doctor as his wife has become ill and foam has appeared around the seaweed that stung her. Robson reluctantly agrees and the Doctor heads off with Harris.

In the apartment, Maggie has recovered slightly and lets in two odd maintenance workers named Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill. The two workers feed the seaweed and the foam begins to expand. The two men then release gas from their mouths, knocking Maggie unconscious. Fortunately, the Doctor, his companions and Harris arrive in time to ventilate the room before the gas kills her. Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill have already left.

Back in the control room, a spike in pipe pressure is observed and Robson orders the pipe vented while still refusing to stop the flow of gas. The pressure drops back to normal but the rate of inflow continues to decrease. Robson argues with the Dutch observer Mr. Van Lutyens but they are cut off when the impeller stops and a beating sounds is heard.

Back in the apartment, the Doctor, Jamie, Victoria and Harris observe watch over Maggie. They find the piece of seaweed from before although the foam has gone away leaving it still wet. The Doctor and Harris determine that the seaweed had been planted in the file when it was stolen from his briefcase. The seaweed trap was meant for Harris. Jamie also recalls that seaweed was covering the pipe they investigated at the start.

Van Lutyen and the chief engineer speculate on the source of the blockage and Van Lutyen wants to send a team to check. Robson still refuses to check when they hear a noise like a heartbeat coming from the pipes again. The impeller briefly starts again but once again fails.

The Doctor bags the seaweed carefully without touching it. He sends Harris off to get medical help for his wife. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria then head back to the TARDIS to do experiments in his lab. In the TARDIS, they discover the seaweed is alive. It is feeding off natural gas and expelling toxic gas. It also displays a level of sentience as it attempts to get out of the tank the Doctor has placed it in and retreats when Victoria screams in recognition of it. The Doctor and Jamie seal it in it's tank and head back to the base to tell the staff.

Harris sends for a medical team but Van Lutyens forces him to stay in the control room to take charge. They and the chief engineer try to convince Robson to allow them to check the pipes for blockage but Robson again refuses, growing increasingly hostile to the threat of his authority. He storms off to his quarters to rest.

Outside his quarters, Mr. Oak locks Robson in and engages the gas. Foam seeps in and a creature like Victoria saw tries to worm it's way in through the vent. Robson flees in terror as Harris responds to his screams and sees the creature retreating back into the vents.

The Doctor and his companions return to the Harris quarters to find it filled with foam. A creature reaches out through the foam and they retreat. The Doctor and Victoria flee to another room but Jamie is trapped in the kitchen. The Doctor and Victoria climb outside and open a skylight to pull Jamie out and away from the foam.

They return to the control room where Harris and Van Lutyens have taken over with Robson's disappearance. They informed their various governments of the situation and are anticipating inspectors to arrive. The Doctor informs them that the seaweed is sentient and attacking. The also learn that Maggie hadn't been taken by the medical staff meaning that she has disappeared as well. Maggie later appears giving instructions to Robson. She then walks into and disappears under the sea.

The control staff continues to try and reach the crews on the off-shore rigs but with no success. Harris meanwhile discovers Robson on the beach but he walks away in a dazed state. Victoria also is growing increasingly panicked over the situation and travels with the Doctor in general.

Van Lutyens decides to head down and inspect the base of the impeller against the warnings of the Doctor. At the base, the seaweed reaches out of the foam and pulls him in. Hearing his screams, the Doctor and Jamie head down after him. Harris returns and is informed of what they have done. The Doctor and Jamie find Van Lutyens' flashlight and keep exploring.

The director, Megan Jones arrives and Harris and the chief engineer go to explain the situation to her leaving control of the elevator to Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill. Ms. Jones doesn't believe Harris about the situation and orders him to send the company helicopter to the off-sea rigs to check on the men there. She is also informed of Robson's disappearance.

At the base of the shaft, the foam bubbles up and the Doctor and Jamie desperately call for the elevator but it doesn't come as Quill and Oak ignore the signal and leave the room. Hurriedly, the Doctor and Jamie climb the emergency ladder and find the impeller room empty with even Victoria gone.

The helicopter radios back that all the lost contact rigs are covered in seaweed and foam with no signs of the crews. Harris urges Ms. Jones to evacuate and destroy the rigs. Robson then bursts in, refusing to let them destroy what is his. He runs out again and the Doctor comes in, informing them that Robson is being controlled by the seaweed. He then fills in Ms. Jones with all the information he has. As he does, the control rig radios in as it is taken over by the seaweed.

Jamie searches the station for Victoria. He finds her knocked out in the pump room. As she wakes, she tells Jamie that Quill and Oak knocked her out. They then hear the weed and see it coming through the pipes. They call the Doctor who realizes that the weed is making it's move to form a full independent colony. It continues to spread, taking over all the offshore rigs.

Working through how the attacks have happened, the Doctor comes to the conclusion that pure oxygen might be fatal to the weed. This alerts Oak and Quill, who head down to the oxygen supply room to destroy the supply.

Word also is sent that Robson has been found and put into his quarters under guard. Ms. Jones heads down to speak with him, hoping to break through his control. Robson has a brief moment of lucidity but then goes catatonic. Ms. Jones leaves him and returns to the control room. Robson wakes and receives instructions from the weed. He knocks out the guard and leaves him room.

Discovering the oxygen supply destroyed, the crew realizes that there is another agent of the weed in the facility. Quill and Oak leave but are spotted by Jamie and Victoria. Oak escapes but Jamie knocks Quill down as Victoria screams.

Before they can investigate further, the weed expands and blows out the containment pipe. In the confusion, Robson grabs Victoria and drags her away. He also locks the impeller room doors but the Doctor manages to force one door open for a short time allowing himself and Jamie to escape. They run looking for Victoria.

Robson takes Victoria away in a waiting car. He drives her out to the company helicopter and places her inside. He then takes off and flies out to the control rig. The Doctor tries to talk to him but Robson sends back that Victoria will be killed unless the Doctor comes out as well. The Doctor agrees thinking that this will lead him to the nerve center of the weed.

The Doctor and Jamie follow Robson in another company helicopter. Tracking Robson on radar, the Doctor's helicopter heads to the control rig complex. They spy one tower covered in foam and realize that it is the nerve center of the weed. He and Jamie leave the helicopter via rope ladder and enter the foam covered tower.

The Doctor and Jamie hear Victoria but suspect a trap. They enter a room filled with foam to find Robson taken over and waiting for them. Robson attacks the Doctor and Jamie finds Victoria. Seeing Robson attack, she screams which drives back Robson. Recalling Victoria's scream causing the weed to recoil in the TARDIS. He tells Victoria to keep screaming. Robson retreats into the foam away from the Doctor and his companions.

The three return to the roof but their helicopter doesn't see them. They instead head to the helicopter that Robson took and take off from the rig with the Doctor flying. Their original helicopter sees them and walks the Doctor through the procedure on how to fly back to the base.

The Doctor returns with a plan. Upon arriving, the Doctor checks in on Quill and finds him nearly cured due to Victoria's screaming. He informs Harris and Ms. Jones of this and makes a plan. He has Victoria scream into a tape recorder and they create a loop of this sound. He then sets up speakers along the various pipes to transmit the sound. The foam and weed push through trying to take over the base.

The Doctor sets up a machine that will focus the sound into a beam for transmission through the base and the pipes back to the nerve center on the rig. The crew uses sound speakers to hold back the weed while the Doctor activates his machine. The beam passes through the pipes and the weed flops around and falls over dead.

They radio the rigs and find the weed dead and the crews (including Robson and Maggie) alive and safe. As they celebrate, the Doctor concludes that Victoria wants to stay behind as she has become overwrought with travelling from danger to danger. He arranges that she can stay with Mr. and Mrs. Harris. Victoria has a quiet goodbye with Jamie that night. She waves the Doctor off from the beach the following morning as he and Jamie head back to the TARDIS.

Analysis

I was a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed this story. When you see a six-episode story and it's all recon, you tend to roll your eyes and figure that you'll have to power through. But the story was fairly well developed and had a pretty good progressive flow. I don't even recall too many moments where there was clear back and forth padding, which there often is in a six-parter.

Having now seen all of Victoria's stories, I can't say that I was unhappy to see the back of her. She worked fairly well for the roll she was asked to play, but she was often written as a shriek-y, timid, damsel-in-distress. Granted, if you took a 17-year old girl from Victorian London and plopped her in the situations seen, that would be a pretty realistic development. But it doesn't make for the most enjoyable experience with a companion. She wasn't too bad in this one as she was certainly less hysterical than in The Ice Warriors and her screaming actually served a plot purpose. But it was still quite a contrast to the wit and smarm that will come with Zoe.

I don't mind that they broadcast heavily that she was leaving as it was far different than the short shrift most companions (Ben and Polly being the most recent examples) got in leaving the show. It was a little drawn out with several repeats of it. The scene Jamie had with Victoria early in Episode Four was probably all the foreshadowing that was really needed rather than the constant whimpering that she did. But, I really did like the quiet scene she had with Jamie at the end of Episode Six. It gave a nice poinency to her time and Jamie's feelings towards her, which seem tinged with a slight romance as opposed to the very brother/sister dynamic he has with Zoe.

The Doctor was quite good in this story as he took a very understated role. I got the impression that he cottoned on to the seaweed as the source of the problem very early but didn't reveal his cards until he had more evidence and it was necessary to show the full problem. Even after the problem had been diagnosed, the Doctor remained understated until the very end when the actual fight came. I like the Doctor, especially the Second Doctor, when he is more observational and only steps in to solve the problem when people are ready to listen.

The secondary cast was all pretty good to. You had a nice good cop/bad cop dynamic with Harris and Robson and some good support work from the Chief Engineer and Van Lutyens. Even the later arriving Ms. Jones was quite good. It was nice to see a professional woman who both listened to the Doctor and also stood her ground.

Going further along this, it was interesting to see how Harris and Jones each replaced the other as the voice of reason with listening to the Doctor. Harris stood up for the Doctor against Robson. However, once Robson's blustering antagonism was gone, Harris wilted into someone a bit more fearful and concerned for the crew. That's not a bad thing but his fear nearly overwhelmed him in Episode Six. Jones however steps in and becomes the rational voice, still adhering to the Doctor. Although Harris had been the Doctor's ally in the beginning, it is Jones who backs the Doctor in the final battle against the weed while Harris is all for retreat in the face of danger. It is a nice change in the dynamic and it adds an extra depth to Robson's character as well since it was his bluster that gave Harris what little spine he had.

The one principle thing I would have liked clarification on was just exactly when Robson had been taken over. After known possession, Robson becomes quite docile, even catatonic at points, suggesting that there is a part of him that is fighting the weed's control. This suggests that he is not under the weed's control until the end of Episode Three. I can only guess that he was actually stung by the weed when it burst into his room and before he was able to break the door open and flee.

This actually disappoints me a bit. A very big deal was made of how Robson worked and lived for four years out on the offshore rigs. I think it would have been a bit more interesting if he had become infected by the weed while working out there and slowly building up the weed as he gained power over the whole system. A bit of a mole used to grow the enemy, which would have explained his irrational action of refusing to shut down the flow of gas, being used to both feed and hide the weed.

Instead, the implication we get is that Oak and Quill were the first ones infected and they were assisting the weed the whole time. It still works from an overall plot, but Robson being the focal point of the weed's control would have been a touch more interesting given his screen time and presence. You can almost imagine that an infected Robson comes back and dispatches Quill and Oak to his old station to infect them while he works to feed the weed. Once they are back, he works though them to ensure the growth of the weed, to destroy any weaknesses and to infect others. Again, it still works with Oak and Quill as the quiet drones, but it's a little less satisfying given their limited screen time in the beginning.

One other little thing that is a bit odd is the casual dismissal of Mrs. Harris. She's a rather important point through the first half of this story as she is infected rather than her husband. Quill and Oak attempt to kill her and when that fails, the weed fully takes over. But at the end of Episode Three, she is unceremoniously dropped by swimming into the sea. It is even odder in the fact that she seems to be further engrained into the hive mind than Robson, giving him instructions before she swims off. Granted there was little to be done with her character at that point, especially with the more commanding Ms. Jones entering, but it still seemed like a very odd dismissal of a character who then randomly shows up at the end to give the happy ending.

As mentioned above, this story is not overly hurt by only being available as a recon as much of the story is driven though interactive dialogue like a radio play. However, the limited footage that does exist due to the Australian censors and enthusiastic fans is very helpful. It is especially nice in that portions of the battle with the weed in Episode Six can be seen. In addition to this being the action portion of the story, making it nice to see, it shows that the work they did with the special effects regarding the weed worked fairly well. The foam can look a bit silly, especially when they land on the platform at the beginning of Episode Six but the end confrontation with the weed lashing out like the squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea looked pretty good.

Another thing that would have been good to see was the full effect of the slow build. Like Jaws, the seaweed benefits from being more implied rather than seen. A small glimpse through the ductwork in Episodes One and Three work fairly well and the use of the foam to hide the weed until it lashes out like a snake makes it all the more scary. In many ways, this story borrows heavily from suspense/horror work for a nice slow building tension. The recon does a decent job of portraying that, but it would have been nice to see the full effect given that facial reaction/body language sells a good portion of that. Still, it is a format that does not suffer as greatly from being consigned to recon status.

On the whole, I'd recommend this story. It's not bad as a recon and I think it would only improve if it were ever found. It was a nice goodbye for Victoria and gave her character some dignity that it was occasionally lacking during her tenure. Being able to savor her goodbye with the quiet scene between her and Jamie in the garden was also very nice and added a nice cap to the story. Even as a recon I think I would pull this out again and watch it. Obviously I would all for seeing it again if it were ever found.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5