The Edge of Destruction

Dear Gary—

"As we learn about each other we learn about ourselves." That seems to sum up this short, tight little storyline. The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian are trapped in the tiny little universe of the TARDIS as they (and we) learn about themselves and each other. I remember really liking this psychological drama the first time I saw it, and I find that it still holds up after repeated viewings, even after the freshness of new discovery is ended.

Our travelers have had two solid adventures under their belt. Now they are left with nothing but their wits to untangle the threat that faces them in the claustrophobic TARDIS. Who is really the enemy? Who is good and who is evil? What is good and what is evil?  “Who are you?” “One man’s law is another man’s crime.” “Your instinct and intuition against my logic.” Snatches of lines floating through the TARDIS and defining this story as one in search of knowledge.

As the story begins the four have been knocked unconscious, and as they awaken they are disoriented and have disturbing memory lapses. They become suspicious of each other—the Doctor and Susan pitted against Barbara and Ian. The kidnappers against the kidnapped. The TARDIS inhabitants against the TARDIS interlopers.  Has the TARDIS been sabotaged? The Faultdicator (again the Faultdicator—but somewhere along the line fault must have been found with the Faultdicator for it is abandoned as a plot element early in the show’s history) can’t find anything wrong, but clearly something is not right.

It is Barbara who shines in this story. It is Barbara who awakens first; it is Barbara who begins to ask the relevant questions; it is Barbara who recognizes the clues; it is Barbara who pushes the group to work together towards a solution. Apart from a minor meltdown when she first sees the broken clock face, Barbara remains focused and proactive.

The Doctor lies cut and unconscious on the TARDIS floor and Barbara puts the wandering Susan on task to get some bandages (and quite remarkable bandages they are too, Gary—they have lines of ointment  running through them that soak into the wound; when the color is gone, Susan explains, the wound is healed).  Susan becomes irrationally suspicious and violent (I still don’t get why Susan acts so out of character here, but a scissors wielding Susan is most entertaining) and Barbara calms her down. The Doctor becomes accusatory and threatens to put Barbara and Ian off the ship and Barbara gives him a verbal slap in the face . . . “Do you realize, you stupid old man . . .” she starts and ends with “Accuse us! You ought to go down on your knees and thank us.”  Not your typical groupie of a companion.

And that is what I love about this story. Here we are, three adventures in, and the group dynamic is still being worked out. Barbara and Ian didn’t have five minutes of ‘It’s bigger on the inside than on the outside’ shock and then fall into lockstep with the Doctor. No, they are still struggling with the notion of time and space travel, grappling with the fantastic twist their lives have taken, longing to go home, and fighting for their rightful place as reluctant crewmembers of the TARDIS.

The TARDIS. Ah, the TARDIS. We must talk about the TARDIS when discussing this story. It is impossible, Susan claims, for the TARDIS doors to open on their own. Yet there they are, opening and closing at will throughout the story. The Doctor also claims, “my machine can’t think.” Yet--he qualifies--it must be able to think as a machine. And indeed, the TARDIS reveals itself to be a fifth and intriguing member of the crew as this story unravels. The ever lovable blue box so gloriously stuck in its present shape. “It’s alive!” shouted Ian upon first meeting up with this enigma.  It is more than its bank of computers, despite the Doctor’s claim, and how grand that this is so very evident from the start of Doctor Who's run—the Doctor’s ever present companion, through regeneration after regeneration, story after story, villain after villain, companion after companion—the TARDIS is the one constant and unifying force.

And it is in this, the third story of Doctor Who, that we learn that the TARDIS has a heart. Maybe not a heart like our human heart, but, as we learn, the heart of the TARDIS resides under the column. The column is what keeps this power contained, and it is the power below that moves the column.

Speaking of hearts, Gary, we do not yet learn that the Doctor has two. This is a revelation for later years. No, Ian checks for the Doctor’s heartbeat at the beginning of the story, and I’m sure if he had found two he would have remarked on the fact. But then he didn’t know to look for two, so presumably he only listened in the traditional spot and found just the one. After all, Martha Jones, a trained doctor, hears both hearts through her stethoscope and yet seems to dismiss this fact and still takes some convincing that the Doctor is an alien.

But let us return to the TARDIS. We have already seen in earlier stories that the TARDIS consists of more than the one control room, but it is in The Edge of Destruction that we see several of the rooms in use.  The room with the food machine is a bit of a lounge equipped with a sofa, and then there is the one bedroom shared by Barbara and Susan in which the rather uncomfortable looking, curvy beds come down out of the wall.  And we do hear of the extensive wardrobe of the TARDIS from which an ulster is found for Ian—an ulster, so the Doctor tells us, that he received from Gilbert and Sullivan.

The TARDIS drives the action in this psychological drama, warning our travelers of their impending doom. Barbara might put the clues together, but it is the TARDIS that first sounds the alarm (a blaring horn in contrast to the more pleasant bell knoll of later episodes). The defense mechanism of the TARDIS—self preservation—refusing to destroy itself, and our adventurers are left to assemble the pieces of the puzzle, with Barbara taking the lead.

And how silly in the end. It all boils down to a stuck switch—the fast return switch.  The first, and I venture to say, the only appearance of this switch.  The Doctor has hit the fast return switch—hoping this will take them back to their starting point on Earth—but the switch has gotten stuck and in reality they are hurtling back to the birth of a solar system. It could only take the force of a total solar system, we are told, to attract the power away from The TARDIS.

And how fortunate for us that this switch did exist to provide the impetus for our gem of a story.

And so, Gary, the Doctor, Susan, Barbara, and Ian are beginning to gel as a group, as well as the TARDIS. And they journey on through the stars, now that the problem has been resolved; and we journey on in anticipation of their next adventure.

I hope that this finds you somewhere out there in the vast swirl of time, whether present or past or future, and some echo of a reply will find its way to me, where ever I might be.