One thing that occurs to me only now is that the last episode didn't really have anything in it to show the crew were at the "edge of destruction." Still, David Whitaker has dug out some synonyms and reused the titles for an episode where it's much more appropriate.
Let's start with the direction. Richard Martin couldn't make it this week, so newcomer Frank Cox stepped in. His direction is certainly competent (moreso than Martin's on The Rescue, for example) and he places the actors well, but after last time I just find it less interesting. Likewise, there is some good use of music and sound - I particularly noticed the foghorn, this story's version of the cloister bell - but again not so much to praise.
So far, not quite so good; but what about the dialogue and acting? Let's get the bad out of the way first: William Russell can't do falling or being helpless. I've noted this before but it's a bigger problem here. All actors have strengths and weaknesses (I don't find David Tennant convincing at "hot" anger, for example), but it is unfortunate. William Hartnell apparently compained about the number of speeches he needed to learn, and he does stumble sometimes, but the stumbling actually works well in context, making it feel more real - and when it really matters his delivery is perfect.
In fact, this episode belongs to the Doctor and Barbara. Which is not to say that the other's don't get a decent look-in. Ian "doing a Sixie" and throttling his friends, for example (though the explanation that he was trying to pull them away from the console hardly works even in such a surreal story), or Susan demonstrating that her sense of time is as good as her sense of direction. Still, their finest moments are in their interactions with the Doctor. For Ian there's the gradual peacemaking seen throughout and shown clearest when they are conniving to protect the others from the truth of their fate, as well as in the discussion of Gilbert and Sullivan's coat (and notice how the Doctor is beginning his habit of name-dropping here). For Susan it's her demonstration of loyalty to her grandfather. This is key; it was her threat to leave with Iananbarbara in An Unearthly Child that prompted the Doctor to take off, kidnapping the teachers in the process and launching the show. That tension is resolved here, just as Ian and the Doctor - who clashed straight away - become allies, even friends. If this had been the final episode the crew would have been left in a much better position, and viewers could have imagined them travelling on in (relative) harmony. Which was, after all, one of Whitaker's goals.
What of Barbara, then, who I have identified as important but mostly ignored so far? She was at the heart of the story last time, and is the other pole to the Doctor here. It was she who, unlike Ian, quickly accepted the reality of the ship and her travels in time and space when they unwillingly joined the crew; and Barbara's role here is to oppose the Doctor in a way she has not done before. It started last time with ranting at the old man, and continues here with her being the one to figure out what's going on. This is not a side of her we have seen much of before, confrontational and analytic; and it forces the Doctor to acknowledge her as he has not done so up till now. The scenes where the Doctor fails to quite apologise to her in the console room, and then when they have a quiet chat and break down the barriers between them, form the emotional heart of the episode - and complete the resolution begun above.
And, of course, there's still one character I haven't mentioned.
I'm a fan of Firefly as well as Who. In one of the DVD extras Joss Whedon talks about the tenth character of his ensemble cast, a character called Serenity; and we have someone similar here. She has a name, although at this stage she is generally referred to as "the ship," and we learn quite a bit about her in this episode. Forget the guff about the fast return switch - it's just an (admittedly unconvincing) article of technobabble which provides the excuse to throw the crew into peril, and it's not what the story is interested in. No, I'm talking about the nature of the ship as a living, thinking being, albeit one that is far more alien than Thals or Daleks (or, indeed, anything they'll meet this season). This revelation echoes down through the show, along with some of the details. The energy beneath the central column and her telepathy and intelligence, for instance, play an important part in the revived series. The events of Boom Town and The Parting of the Ways have their roots here; and there's another, more recent story that very obviously owes a lot to the groundwork laid down here, in only the third serial of the show. We can never see the ship in quite the same way again.
Oh, and we also discover that she has a very extensive wardrobe, which comes in handy in later years.
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 15th February 1964
Viewers: 9.9 million
Chart Position: 31
Appreciation Index: 60
Rating:
7/10
Next Time:
Serial C as a whole, and a quick look back on the first thirteen.
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