The Tomb of the Cybermen

Dear Gary—

Hurray! Finally a real episode that I can sit back and watch. Finally a reprieve from the reconstructions. The Tomb of the Cybermen was actually a lost episode until it was found in 1991. Hurray!

This story has more going for it than just the fact that it is not reconstructed. We get some revelations about the Doctor, a well written and acted script, humor, great character chemistry, and the Cybermen.  Plus it has a small role for Clive Merrison who will go on to play one of my all time favorite Doctor Who characters—the Deputy Chief Caretaker in Paradise Towers.

A win-win throughout.

First we have some revealing and touching scenes with Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. In welcoming Victoria on board, the Doctor tells her, “It’s the TARDIS; it’s my home. At least it has been for a considerable number of years.” His affection for the TARDIS perhaps explains his continual defense of it, as he does again in this story: “A smooth take-off—what nerve,” he huffs indignantly when Jamie questions his ability.

And then for the first time he reveals his age—450 years (in Earth terms). This leads to a sweet exchange a little later in our story with the newly orphaned Victoria when the Doctor tries to comfort her for the loss of her father. Victoria asks the Doctor if he doesn’t remember his own family and he responds, “Oh, yes I can; when I want to. And that’s the point, really. I have to really want to to to bring them back in front of my eye. The rest of the time they sleep in my mind and I forget.”

Already he is a lonely Doctor. Exiled from his home planet; his granddaughter left behind on Earth to start her own life; the TARDIS the only home he has known for a ‘considerable number of years;’ his family forgotten, sleeping in his mind, only thought of when he wants to bring them forth.

Speaking of homes, Gary, we have a little confusion about the Cybermen’s true home. Back in the Tenth Planet where they were first introduced, Mondas was identified as their home planet. Now we hear that Telos is their home. However, what I gather from this is that Mondas was their original planet but since it was destroyed they turned to Telos and made it their new home.

We also learn at the start of The Tomb of the Cybermen that they have been dead for 500 years. Of course, in The Moonbase we also heard that the Cybermen had died out years ago, so this should be taken with a grain of salt.

Our action starts with a group of archeologists intent on uncovering the site where these supposedly dead Cybermen have been entombed. And just to illustrate how good a script we have in the Tomb of the Cybermen, we get this wonderfully humorous little exchange in a set-up scene with supporting cast as they explode the area in which they believe the tomb to be buried:

“Well, there you go—you blast yourself one layer of rock and all you’ve got’s another,” one says in defeat as the apparently futile explosion of rock settles.

“Man, you just blew yourself a pair of doors,” another exclaims, as indeed a pair of doors unexpectedly emerges at the last minute.

The Tomb of the Cybermen is full of great lines, great exchanges, great interchanges between characters, and these are liberally scattered to all the actors and not just to the main core. I especially enjoy when the American Captain Hopper enters the picture. He is a no-nonsense, direct, to the point, take no guff type of a guy, yet with a subtle humor that hints of an off duty persona I truly would like to know. Too bad his character is in a story so soon in Victoria’s Doctor Who experience; he would have made an ideal mate for her. I don’t know, Gary, how Victoria (or ‘Vic’ as Hopper calls her) does eventually leave the Doctor, but I hope that in her Doctorless future she somehow hooks up with him.

Captain Hopper doesn’t get much screen time; he has a sabotaged rocket ship to repair, and he makes it clear that he doesn’t need members of the expedition under foot, or as he shakes off a particularly annoying  scientist, “especially with you insisting all over the place.”

The archeologists and the Doctor are left to explore the mysteries of the uncovered tomb. There is a hatch that needs opening, a sarcophagus that swallows Victoria, and a Cyberman weapons testing room where one of the party gets himself blasted when he stands in the way of the dummy target practice. And of course, what is any good Doctor Who story without secret plots and a madman who believes he can control the Cybermen (or whatever enemy is on hand) to his own advantage.

“Some things are better left undone.” In this case, that something is the opening of the hatch leading down to where the frozen Cybermen await an awakening. But the expedition diligently works out the symbolic logic puzzle of levers to figure out the correct sequence. “Everything yields to logic.” “I think perhaps your logic is wearing a little thin,” the Doctor replies when the sequence doesn’t work. However the hatch finally does open and a party descends.

Curiously the Doctor only half heartedly tries to dissuade the resurrection of the Cybermen, responding to a chastising Jamie that he wanted to see what Klieg (the madman of our story) was up to. Meantime Klieg’s associate Kaftan, left behind with Victoria, closes the hatch thus trapping the Doctor and party below with the newly defrosted Cybermen.

I have to say that Victoria is not totally useless, despite the fact that she is so often left behind and does her share of screaming (“You scream real good, Vic”). For being a young innocent girl straight out of 1866, she is quick witted, sharp tongued, determined, and even defiant, all in a refined, soft spoken way.

She reluctantly obeys the Doctor when he orders her to stay above in safety, settling for the role of watchdog over Kaftan. Victoria is wonderfully stern and stubborn with the devious Kaftan. Then when Kaftan seals the hatch a determined Victoria, not knowing how to open the hatch back up, runs for Captain Hopper and Jim (AKA the Deputy Chief Caretaker). “Now hold on; I’m not pulling any levers until I know what this is all about.” But Victoria will not be dissuaded.

"Who’d be a woman?” she says in dejected disgust when rebuffed yet again from descending down into the open hatchway. “How would you know?” Captain Hopper shoots back off handedly as he disappears below. A woman born and bred in the 1800’s, but a woman getting a taste of adventure and beginning to question her designated role. I hope, Gary, that the show continues to explore this aspect of Victoria's character.

And I hope to see more of the great camaraderie developing between the Doctor and Jamie. They are turning into quite a team, at times a comic duo. After defeating an advancing army of cybermats by confusing “their tiny metal minds” with an electrical field, the Doctor turns to Jamie with “you might almost say they had a complete metal breakdown,” as Jamie groans.

Cybermats are not Cybermen, however, and the Doctor still needs to face the Cyber Controller. However these freshly unfrozen Cybermen are running sluggish and it is rather easily done. “The best thing about a machine that makes sense—you can very easily make it turn out nonsense.” But it is the human drama and comedy going on around the Cyber menace that is central to The Tomb of the Cybermen.

Kleig has gone completely off the deep end as the Doctor goads him into revealing his mad plan to gain ultimate power. “Well now I know you’re mad; I just wanted to make sure.” The Cybermen he was relying on, however, inevitably turn on Kleig and all that is left is for the Doctor to return the Cybermen to their deep freeze and seal up the tomb for good.

“That really is the end of the Cybermen, isn’t it?” asks Jamie. “Yes, Jamie,” the Doctor replies, “on the other hand, I never like to make predictions.” Good thing, because we know the Cybermen’s history.

I guess I’ve run on a bit, Gary, but it is just so refreshing to have such a great story in its entirety for a change.

I leave with just a few last observances from the Doctor. “Our lives are different to anybody else’s,” he tells Victoria. “That’s the exciting thing. Nobody in the universe can do what we’re doing.”

No, nobody can do what the Doctor does, nor can they do it in the style of the Doctor. As he eloquently says of his home the TARDIS, it “enables me to travel through the universe of time.”

I leave on that note, Gary, traveling through the universe of time with the Doctor.

The Evil of the Daleks

Dear Gary—

“Maybe I’m used to you.” And maybe I am used to Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. It is still hard to think of Patrick Troughton when thinking of the Doctor, though. So many lost stories make it difficult, and even though these stories are reconstructed, it just is not the same.

The Evil of the Daleks is yet another reconstruction. And it is another great story. A regular gothic tale spiced up with Daleks.

“There is only one form of life that matters: Dalek life.” So what are the Daleks doing in an 1866 mansion with beautiful damsels locked up in towers and fiancés who have changed overnight into slightly menacing figures and doddering father figures dabbling in dank basement laboratories in things they shouldn’t?

“All forms of life interest me.” That’s the Doctor. He is interested in these damsels and fiancés and dabbling amateur scientists.

And of course he wants to find his TARDIS. The TARDIS was lost back at Gatwick Airport at the end of The Faceless Ones. Following its trail, the Doctor ends up in an 1866 gothic castle mystery/adventure initiated by the Daleks. Frustrated by the fact that they are defeated time and again by mankind, the Daleks are intent upon discerning ‘the Human Factor’ and instilling it into their race.

It is all rather convoluted, as any good Doctor Who plot is. Our two scientists in 1866 have been dabbling in time traveling experiments with static electricity, which is what attracted the Daleks. To coerce their cooperation, the Daleks kidnap one of their daughters and promises the other the secrets of transmuting metal into gold. To lure the Doctor they kidnap the TARDIS.

This is where Jamie comes into the plot. To isolate the ‘Human Factor’ the Daleks concoct a scheme to somehow distill it through observing Jamie’s attempt to rescue the kidnapped Victoria. The Doctor goes along with this preposterous plan and ultimately isolates what he considers to be the better part of the Human Factor, “courage, pity, chivalry, friendship, compassion.”

“They’ve got a sense of humor,” the Doctor exclaims as the three Daleks he has injected with this new factor playfully cavort about the lab.  Alpha, Beta, and Omega the Doctor names them. Childlike Daleks with names.

The other Daleks, however, are not amused. This whole elaborate plot, we learn, was not to isolate the Human Factor but for the Human Factor to reveal the true nature of the Dalek Factor. “You have shown the Daleks what their own strength is.”

Of course, Gary, we know that is ridiculous. The Daleks have always known their own strength. But we needed an excuse to get all our characters together and to propel our plot, and if it results in ‘Dizzy Daleks’ Alpha, Beta, and Omega questioning orders and spinning the Doctor about the room who cares. What fun.

“We have a partnership; an understanding.” So says the alchemist who has willingly cooperated with the Daleks. “You have obeyed us,” say the Daleks. That is their strength in a nutshell. They don’t make partnerships; they don’t cooperate; they don’t compromise. They destroy. They never deviate.

Well, hardly never. Their one blinding weakness. When it comes to the Doctor they deviate. They do not destroy. They plan, they scheme, they plot, they try to outsmart. They do not destroy. Not the Doctor. They deviate.

In the case of The Evil of the Daleks they deviate back to Skaro. The Black Dalek and the Emperor Dalek show up. Alpha, Beta, and Omega show up. Jamie and Victoria show up. The two dabbling scientists show up. The Doctor shows up.

The Daleks, armed with their Dalek Factor set up an archway that will turn humans mentally into Daleks (more of a Cyberman objective than a Dalek, but who cares?). What they don’t know is that the Doctor has secretly switched out the factors and sends Daleks through, giving Alpha, Beta, and Omega some company.

“Why not question?” our new Daleks ask. “I will not obey,” they state. The Doctor has instigated yet another rebellion.  Black Daleks and Emperor Dalek are destroyed.

“I think we’ve seen the end of the Daleks forever,” the Doctor rather foolishly declares. “The final end.”

Of course we know it’s not, Gary. But let the Doctor have his day.

He gets a new companion along the way, too. Victoria’s father has been killed during the action and she is left orphaned.  “We’re not going to leave her; she’s coming with us,” the Doctor tells a concerned and smitten Jamie.

I feel I should mention, Gary, something of the vaguely sinister fiancé, for I rather left him dangling out there at the beginning. That is how the story treated him as well. The fiancé of the alchemist’s daughter, he was somehow being controlled by the Daleks and was merely a plot convenience to keep the action on track during our first half of our 1866 adventure. At least we have a hurried resolution as he is freed from the Dalek’s control and escapes with his bride to be before the Daleks destroy the gothic home back during their departure to Skaro.

Just wanted to wrap up that loose end, Gary, before sending this out . . .

The Faceless Ones

Dear Gary--

"Things are not always what they seem," and in The Faceless Ones we are drawn nicely in to the mysterious happenings at Gatwick Airport where, as the Doctor advises, "You don't want to believe everything you see." Despite being 6 episodes long, with 5 of the 6 being available only in reconstructed form, The Faceless Ones holds one's interest throughout; it is a tale well told.

First Polly (whose hair has suddenly grown back from the super short sleek do she was sporting in The Macra Terror) witnesses a murder, but when the airport authorities are notified the body disappears. Next we learn that the young passengers of a charter service have been disappearing; and there are several airport personnel who aren't quite themselves. Then Polly disappears only to reappear with a new identity and no memory of the Doctor. And this is only the beginning.

The faceless ones of our title turn out to be extremely egotistical aliens ("We are the most intelligent race in the universe") who have lost their own identities and have devised a way to take over the form of a human body despite their seeming contempt for mankind ("These earth minds cannot stretch that far"; "The truth is beyond their intelligence").

It does seem as if the aliens are right about the intelligence of humans. 50,000 young people are required and plane loads of them have been taken for some time with no one seeming to notice. The young people they are stealing are not too bright either. They are all asked to write out a postcard to their loved ones stating they have arrived safely at their final destination when they haven't even boarded their flight yet. Not one of them questions this. Then there are the airport authorities who don't seem to notice any of the alien activity going on under their noses and don't bat an eye when the Doctor and Polly inform them of a murdered body on the premises.

But you can't kidnap 50,000 young people without someone taking notice. Two investigators do show up, although one gets himself murdered and the other gets taken over by an alien; and one lone relative of a missing person begins to question her brother's disappearance. It is a delight to see Pauline Collins taking an early turn at Doctor Who as Sam the sister (she would later go on to make an excellent Queen Victoria during David Tennant's run). I understand she was offered a recurring role as the Doctor's new companion but she turned it down. What a shame. Polly and Ben are being phased out as companions during this story and Pauline Collins would have made a welcome addition to the cast. She and Jamie strike up a really nice little relationship; poor Jamie has to settle for a sweet good-bye kiss when all is said and done.

But there is quite a lot of action before all is said and done.  Jamie and Sam get acquainted while investigating the goings on at Chameleon Tours and keeping an eye on the strangely altered Polly who has taken up duties at the Chameleon kiosk. The Doctor meantime gains the trust of the airport authorities and works to uncover the sinister plot of the aliens who have been using the infirmary to take over the bodies of airport personnel. And still we’re just beginning.

Once it is established that Chameleon Tours has been whisking planes full of young passengers off to an alien satellite to be miniaturized and taken back to an alien planet for body transference, Jamie steals Sam’s plane ticket and goes himself as a passenger on the next flight (in one of his ‘flying beasties’); and the Doctor pretends to be a Chameleon who has taken over the Doctor’s body and makes his own way to the alien satellite. At the same time the airport authorities are frantically searching to find the ‘originals’ of the humans that have been copied to use as leverage against the aliens (when the ‘original’ is removed from the alien apparatus its alien counterpart is destroyed).

Once the originals are discovered the Doctor instigates an uprising amongst our faceless aliens. The Director and his inner circle have taken care to keep their originals safe on board the satellite. When the ‘unimportant’ faceless ones realize their originals have been left behind and they are now at the mercy of the humans, they side with the Doctor as their only hope. The leaders are destroyed, the miniaturized humans are normalized and the originals safely restored.

The cooperative Chameleons are given a reprieve by the Doctor. So long as they leave Earth alone, he will allow them to return to their own planet unharmed where, the Doctor speculates, their scientists “will be able to find some way out of their dilemma .” And he adds, “I may be able to . . . ah . . . give them one or two ideas of my own.”

Back at the airport things are settling back into a routine: "Flap over; let's get back to normal as quickly as we can." And Ben and Polly are reluctant to leave this normal world they now find themselves in.  Learning that they are back in their own time--July 20, 1966, back to when it all started for them--they realize they have the opportunity to return to a life with "no monsters or Cybermen." Ben reluctantly tells the Doctor they will stay if he needs them, but as Polly says, "the thing is, it . . . it tis our world."

"You're lucky," the Doctor tells them, "I never got back to mine. All right then, off you go.” And so the Doctor says goodbye to two more companions. At least he has Jamie, who can’t wait to get away from this ‘uncivilized’ world of 1966. First, the Doctor informs Jamie, they have to find the TARDIS which has disappeared.

So the adventures continue.

Until next time, Gary . . .

The Macra Terror

Dear Gary—

The Macra Terror hooks me from the start with its smiley happy people that you know underneath aren’t smiley or happy at all. The Macra Terror strikes me as an expanded version of the first Keys of Marinus storyline, and looking ahead in the Doctor’s timeline, has a bit of The Happiness Patrol about it with just a touch of The Beast Below (but don’t get me started on THAT story, not just yet at least, Gary).

After seeing a glimpse into a terrifying future on the Doctor’s newly discovered time scanner, the Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben arrive in a colony preaching the virtues of ‘healthy happiness’ and that dictates, “Everything in the colony is good and beautiful; you must accept it without question.”

But we know, Gary, that the Doctor is full of questions and will dig for the answers. He won’t accept the platitudes handed out by the Pilot and the Controller.

“Don’t just be obedient,” the Doctor advises; “always make up your own mind.”

When they first arrive in the colony our travelers are treated to the ‘Refreshing Department’ which exists to “revive the weary body.” It rather reminds me of the greeting Dorothy and her entourage receive in the Emerald City. As Polly goes off for her shampoo and the ‘young gentlemen’ are ushered off for the very latest treatment I expect to hear a chorus of ‘The Merry Old Land of Oz.’ After all as the Pilot states, “we regulate our day by music.”

Jamie and the Doctor, however, will have none of it. Indeed, after being unwillingly combed and ‘clothes revived’ the Doctor deliberately jumps into the ‘rough and tumble machine’ and emerges his old disheveled self.  As the Doctor says, “who wants to see their face in a pair of suede shoes?”

The Doctor’s suspicions of the colony only deepen upon acquaintance with Medok, a colonist on the run who has seen the truth: “Have fun while you can . . . before they crawl all over you.” Jamie just doesn’t trust them: “They’re a weird sort of folk; I don’t know that I understand them.”  His distrust helps him to resist the hypnotic indoctrination he, Polly and Ben are subjected to as they sleep. Polly only resists with the aid of the Doctor. Ben, on the other hand, succumbs to the “You will question nothing in the colony” propaganda he has been fed.

Getting answers in the colony is tricky business. “It’s a privilege to work for the colony,” but when pressed what it is they actually do: “We work very hard here.” When pressed further, we finally learn that they tap and refine gas—the colony depends on it. But there are no clear answers as to what this gas is and what it does.

Our smiley happy people have no answers, but they also have no questions of their own.  “The colony needs you,” is all they know.  “Return to your work and play with fresh heart and renewed energy” is their canned inspiration.

The Macra Terror is rather short of answers itself, but then most Doctor Who stories are. The Macra, we come to learn, are some sort of bug creature that have somehow taken control of the colony even though no one seems to know this. They need the mysterious gas to survive, although it is deadly to humans.  No one on the colony knows they exist, except for the few like Medok who have seen the truth and therefore are branded as insane, and except for the terrorized and apparently enslaved Controller who is himself controlled by the Macra.

How did the Macra come to take control of the colony? How did they successfully brainwash everyone? What is their intent? What are they and where did they come from? Who really cares? This is Doctor Who, after all, and questions are secondary. We only get enough answers to help the action along.

Ha, ha, ha; Ho, ho, ho; And a couple of tra la las.

Of course we know that the Doctor will sort everything out as he always does. And as always, things aren’t quite crystal clear. There is some complicated formula that the Doctor works out with chalk and some mutterings about  “plus must be made minus and minus must be made plus.” (Where have I heard that before, Gary? Young Frankenstein perhaps?) In the end it all adds up to a happy ending.

 There are several menacing Macras to contend with, but they are handily dealt with by just blowing in a little fresh air. The conditioning of the brainwashed colonists is broken with a little tough talk and confrontation with the actual Macra. And finally, the ultimate Macra threat is dealt with by an infusion of combustible gas. What is a Doctor Who story without an explosion or two?

And so our smiley happy people are left truly smiley and happy, laughing the day away in the merry old land of . . . Macraland? Not really sure, Gary, what this place was called. Let’s just call it Smiley Happy Land.

A nice little story that I thoroughly enjoyed. A story that saw Polly sporting a sleek new short hairdo (courtesy of the ‘Refreshing Department’); and I have to mention, Gary, Doctor Who has a new opening title sequence.  The original opening is iconic and innovative. With a new Doctor ushering in a new era of the show, however, a little ‘refreshing’ is refreshing.

I hope, Gary, that somewhere out there you are having a little ha, ha, ha, ho, ho, ho of your own with a couple of tra la las thrown in for good measure.

The Moonbase

Dear Gary—

“There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things; things which act against everything that we believe in. They must be fought.”

In the case of The Moonbase, these things are Cybermen.

We start our story as we ended The Underwater Menace, with the Doctor making the remarkable claim that he can indeed control where the TARDIS travels; it’s just that he never wanted to do it before. Now if we believe him, we have to believe that he therefore lied to Barbara and Ian when he told them he could not return them to their own place and time. No, I can’t believe that. I prefer to think that this is merely his pride talking as he tries to impress his young companions. And in fact his attempt to land them on Mars does go awry and we have a moon landing instead.

I find it rather amusing, Gary, that as our quartet readies themselves to go out onto the moon surface the Doctor hands out space suits that turn out to be remarkably similar to those used by the inhabitants of this 2070 moonbase.

I also find it amusing that this 2070 moonbase is set up in order to control the Earth’s weather through the use of a Gravitron machine. This seems a rather foolish thing to do. Granted, a little weather control sounds like a good idea as we are in the midst of a prolonged drought and an unusual hot spell, but when you consider that “five units off center we’d lift half London into space; five more and the Atlantic water level goes up three feet,” well a couple of weeks of hot dry weather doesn’t seem so bad.

Add to this the threat of the Cybermen gaining control of the Gravitron and you have a worldwide disaster served up on a silver platter.

Good thing the Doctor is there to save the day.

The Doctor and his companions. But now I have to say something about his companions in this story, Gary. Jamie is somehow knocked unconscious and spends the first half of The Moonbase passed out in the infirmary. Polly meantime swings back and forth between her two personas, one minute screaming helplessly and the next coming up with valuable ideas like the ‘Polly Cocktail’ which decommissions the Cybermen. Ben seems to be the only steady companion, always around when needed.

To be fair to Polly, half of her trouble is the way in which she is treated. When she expresses a wish to help she is told “Why not make some coffee to keep them all happy,” or “Not you, Polly; this is men’s work.” No wonder she stands around uselessly so much of the time.

The Doctor, on the other hand, never stands around. He always seems to be on the go, even in the limited space of The Moonbase. Patrick Troughton is definitely a more energetic Doctor than William Hartnell.

And now we have yet another contradiction. Back in An Unearthly Child the Doctor states that he is not a medical doctor. Later, in The Rescue, he says, “Pity I didn’t get that degree.” In The Moonbase, however, when Polly asks if he is really a doctor, the Doctor replies, “I think I was once, Polly; I think I took a degree once in Glasgow . . . 1888 . . . I think . . . Lister.” Interesting. Which, I wonder is the truth? Or are they both true? Hartnell’s Doctor made definite statements whereas Troughton’s is unsure. But are these memories that are being recovered after the trauma of regeneration? Or perhaps with the mysteries of time travel, could these memories be from a life not yet lived?

That is the beauty of Doctor Who and of the brilliant concept of ‘renewal’ (later to be termed regeneration) that can bring in a new actor with a new persona to play the same part. Even while staying true to the history and nature of the character, fresh perspectives and novel interpretations can be explored.

This brings us back to the statement I started with: “There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things; things which act against everything that we believe in. They must be fought.” The journey from An Unearthly Child to The Moonbase has brought us to this statement. It evolved slowly, but now emerges as a core principle of Doctor Who and of the Doctor. This central idea binds each Doctor through the years, from William Hartnell to Matt Smith. And each will have his own monsters; his own beliefs; his own way of fighting.

“You are known to us.” The Cybermen, like the Daleks, recognize Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, and perhaps it is this basic conviction that they recognize more than the chameleon face of the Doctor.

Of course the Doctor will win his fight with the Cybermen, even if we’re left scratching our heads when it’s over. Somehow he uses the Graviton to blast the advancing army and their ships off of the surface of the moon and congratulations are handed all around. But will that really stop the Cybermen? Can’t they regroup and come again? OK, at least the base is now warned and on guard, but really, if the Cybermen are determined I’m sure they will be back.

But that is left for future stories. For now we have our celebrations and our departures.  And speaking of future—we get a new element of the TARDIS introduced: the time scanner which gives a glimpse of the future, or as Jamie says, “second sight—very dangerous.” Apparently it isn’t very reliable (shocker there) and that is why the Doctor doesn’t use it very much. However it does give us a peak at our next story; a peak into the future.

And so I take my leave, Gary, leaving the future to the future.

The Underwater Menace

Dear Gary—

The Underwater Menace is bizarre, preposterous, and a hoot. It pulls multiple elements from bad B horror/sci fi movies of the era, complete with a mad scientist channeling Bela Lugosi circa The Devil Bat. I can almost see Joely and the bots in silhouette at the bottom of the screen.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Oh, what a question, of course I don’t. There’s no rule against trying, is there?”

No, no rule against trying; and that is exactly what they did with this story—tried. Enthusiastically and earnestly tried. And in some weird way they succeeded. I liken this back to The Web Planet, but whereas The Web Planet didn’t seem to click, The Underwater Menace does. I think the difference is in the camp. The Web Planet didn’t know it was bad; The Underwater Menace does, and it runs with it (or I should say swims).

“We never know what we’re going to find, do we?” “Ah, that’s the fun.” “What have I come upon?” All said at the start of our story, and all apropos. What we have come upon is Atlantis—and what fun it is.

Atlantis—a prehistoric lost kingdom (as most of this story is lost) that somehow survived for thousands of years without the aid of Professor Zaroff, but now somehow can’t do without it. Professor Zaroff (and his pet octopus) has discovered an endless food supply that relies on fish people to gather (the fish people being shipwrecked persons converted through a surgical procedure that implants plastic gills into them) and that can only last for a few hours before going bad.

Professor Zaroff has also promised the Atlantians that he can raise Atlantis once again from the bottom of the sea. Now, the Atlantians have survived for thousands of years under the sea; presumably have adapted; they even have access to the surface. Why, in all that time, did they not simply go up to dry land and start a new civilization? Why do they need to raise their underwater city? OK, maybe they didn’t have flood insurance, but they certainly have the resources to maintain their city under the sea; and the city doesn’t seem all that spectacular or special; what was keeping them there and what was compelling them to raise this unspectacular bit of real estate?

What the Atlantians don’t know, but what the Doctor realizes, is that in raising Atlantis Professor Zaroff will ultimately destroy it along with the entire Earth: “The destruction of the world; the scientist’s dream of supreme power.” Yes, definitely a B flick mad scientist speaking.

Along the way in this B fantasy we have enforced labor in mines (not sure what or where they are mining), tunnels with treacherous fall offs, temples, false gods, cheesy costumes, menacing doctors wielding scary hypodermic needles, tanks full of sharks awaiting human sacrifices, striking fish people (why they never thought of it themselves, but needed someone to come along and say, ‘hey, why don’t you go on strike—the food only lasts a few hours so they don’t have a reserve; they’ll break before you know it’ is anyone’s guess), laboratories with whirling gizmos and huge power cables, and oh yes, did I mention the pet octopus?

Through all of this unintentional madcap comedy Patrick Troughton seems to be settling nicely into the role of the Doctor.  The Doctor’s mastery, or lack thereof, of the TARDIS has been a longstanding theme since the show’s inception and an integral plot point. Now the Doctor claims that he can in fact control where the TARDIS materializes . . . “if I wanted to; it’s just I’ve never wanted to.” I can’t help but relate this back to a statement he makes in The Power of the Daleks: “I never talk nonsense; well hardly never.” Taken together, they seem to sum up the incongruous enigma that Patrick Troughton’s Doctor is turning out to be.

“Blimey, look at him; he ain’t normal, is he?” No, the Doctor definitely is not normal, and that’s what makes him the Doctor. William Hartnell; Patrick Troughton; he ain’t normal; he’s the Doctor.

A Doctor with a hat fetish apparently. Polly of the Doctor setting upon the food placed before them: “I’ve never seen him go for food like this before; it’s usually hats.” And a Doctor with compassion, endangering himself by attempting to go back to rescue the utterly mad and evil Professor Zaroff (fortunately Ben is there to drag the Doctor away from this suicidal futility).

“We will have enough left to build a new Atlantis,” the flooded out Atlantians claim as they gather at the surface (why they don’t just build this new Atlantis on dry land I don’t know, but that’s another story), and they go on . . . “without gods, and without fish people.” A fitting memorial to the Doctor, believed trapped below along with the doomed Professor. Yes, first ‘not a Doc and not a god’ and now, ‘without gods and without fish people.’ That’s my Doctor. Never nonsensical; well, hardly never.

All in all, The Underwater Menace is a winner despite itself.

The one thing I don’t like about this story (apart from the fact that the Doctor signs a note Doctor W—but I suppose that doesn’t necessarily stand for ‘Doctor Who’ or even any real initial at all but was simply a whim) is that Polly has returned to her pathetic form; she can’t even hold up a candle properly. “I can’t; I can’t; I can’t . . .” she says at one point in defeat. No, she can’t. But I have to say, the hilarious getup she is wearing somehow makes up for it.

One last word, Gary, about companions. Jamie started our story fresh from The Highlands, 1746, without a clue as to what he was stepping into.  “What’s this?” he asks as he enters the TARDIS. “You’ll find out.” “I don’t think I want to.” However, by the end of The Underwater Menace Jamie returns with the rest and states, “It’s great . . . all this. I’ll never know what makes it go, mind you, but well at least I feel safe in here; it’s only the wee things outside that are, well, alarming.”

I’m not sure what makes it go, either, Gary. What is it about Doctor Who that clicks? That keeps it flying year after year, Doctor after Doctor? Why, Gary, do we feel ‘safe’ with the Doctor? Whoever he may be.

I hope, Gary, that somewhere out there you can ponder on these things, and perhaps have even found the answer. I only await that echo . . .

The Highlanders

Dear Gary—

I always wanted to see The Highlanders, one of the many lost stories of Doctor Who. Now I have watched two reconstructed versions and I have to say I’m rather disappointed.  Maybe I built it up too much in my mind, not that I ever really knew anything about it other than it was an early Patrick Troughton story in which Jamie appears for the first time.

It is for Jamie’s sake that I wanted to like The Highlanders. In the few stories I have seen with him I have enjoyed the rapport he has with the Doctor.  And, too, I wanted to see more of Patrick Troughton.  The Highlanders doesn’t disappoint with Patrick Troughton, but there just isn’t a lot for Jamie in this story so I can’t really get a feel for his character as yet.

I did like it better upon second viewing, so perhaps in time I will come to appreciate it more as I did with The Power of the Daleks. But that is the trouble with lost episodes. If this were on a disc that I could pop in, sit back, relax, and enjoy, I probably would like it much better. While the reconstructed episodes are excellent, they just can’t touch the real thing. Combine this with the fact that The Highlanders is another historical and you have two strikes to start off the inning.

That is not to say, Gary, that I dislike the historical stories. After all, my favorite Hartnell serial The Romans is just that. No, it is only that history can be dry if not done right, and even if it is done right, when you only have the echo of its original form remaining it suffers. Combine this further with the fact that Patrick Troughton is so new to the role and therefore somewhat unfamiliar to me as the Doctor, I have to go on record as putting The Highlanders down as a disappointment.

But there is something there to latch onto. Just as with The Power of the Daleks I could latch onto the assembly line Daleks, with The Highlanders I have the Doctor and Polly to thank for helping The Highlanders stand out in my mind.

First Polly. Polly has been rather inconsistent as a companion to this point. She is strong and intelligent in one story only to be relegated to coffee making and screaming in the next. In The Highlanders she scores. She is the one element of the story that stuck with me after my first viewing.

“Didn’t the women of your age do anything but cry?” That is the Polly I like to see. The one who becomes exasperated with the helpless female; the one who plans and schemes; the one who calls to action. Polly of The Highlanders won’t sit idly by; she won’t burst into hysterics; she won’t be sidelined. Polly of The Highlanders acts.

Polly sees the Doctor, Ben, and the highland clan being readied for hanging; does she stand hopelessly by to watch the execution? No, she grabs the useless Kirsty and runs, creating a diversion. Polly falls into a pit; does she crumple in a useless heap? No, she lures the Redcoat ‘Algie’ (Lt Algernon Ffinch) into the pit, steals his money and ID tag and hoists herself out.  The Doctor and Ben plan to overthrow the slave trading ring that has a ship load of prisoners aboard the Annabelle; will Polly stay behind in safety? No, she insists on accompanying them.  The group needs safe passage back to the TARDIS through enemy territory; does Polly let the others think of a way out? No, she uses her wiles on ‘Algie’ and wins him over as an ally to escort them through to safety.

Too bad Polly of The Highlanders doesn’t stick around for subsequent stories.

Next, Gary, I turn to Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. As the story begins, the Doctor seems timid, even afraid. Ben and Polly want to explore this land they have materialized in but the Doctor is hesitant. It doesn’t take him long, however, to get into the spirit of the adventure. He’s glad they have gotten mixed up in the mess, he says . . . ”I’m just beginning to enjoy myself.”

And enjoy himself he does. This new incarnation of the Doctor, it seems, is something of a master of disguise. First he takes on the role of a German doctor, then he disguises himself as an old woman (“You made a good granny”), and finally he masquerades as a Redcoat.

He has his share of action as well, brandishing weapons about; although . . . “It’s not loaded; they’re dangerous things.” In fact there are quite a few guns displayed in The Highlanders, and at one point the Doctor, Polly, and Kirsty round up an arsenal of weapons to supply to the prisoners aboard the Annabelle. Curiously, though, when the prisoners rise up against their captors not a single shot is heard.

There is also a hilarious little bit when the Doctor, pretending to be a German doctor, queries, “You suffer from headaches?” as he bangs poor Perkins’ head against a desk, then convinces Perkins he must lie still with a bandage covering his eyes while the Doctor makes his escape.

Two last traits of this new Doctor. He seems to have a fascination with hats: “I would like a hat like this.” And he is definitely musical, playing the recorder at every opportunity and consenting to bring Jamie on board “if he teaches me to play the bagpipes.”

Yes, Gary, Polly and the Doctor are the highlights of The Highlanders.

Perhaps someday I will watch this again and gain a deeper appreciation. But for now, I press on with the reconstructed Troughton era as I dispatch this out into the Doctor’s time swirl and await any echo . . . .