Episode 36 (G6): A Desperate Venture

Hooray, Barbara's back! And she's been spending some time in the spaceship's solarium to judge by her tan. Unfortunately, Jacqueline Hill looks like she wishes she were still on holiday, and isn't quite back into the swing of things. Not that she puts in a bad performance - she never does that - but whereas William Hartnell came back in Sentence of Death with all guns blazing, Hill is more tentative. And "tentative" is the word for this episode, which should have a driving sense of urgency but doesn't. The confrontation when the Doctor and Ian meet the nutty commander is fantastic, but most of the time I'm wanting less talk and more action. And that's a shame, because there's nothing very much wrong with this episode otherwise. Oh, they hold the aqueduct sound effect too long so that it plays over a change of scene and there are a couple of fluffed lines, but that's minor stuff that can easily be ignored; I could just as easily point out positive details like the visual contrast between the palace and the aqueduct, or the effective model shot of the departing spaceship. Even the collapse of the commander as he was shot - which was strange when you're used to people being thrown dramatically backwards - was, on reflection, a neat variation. No, the problem is a script that is too stretched out combined with uninspired direction. Which brings up another point: why do I hold this episode up to a different standard than the previous couple? Because it's the last of the serial, obviously, but what difference should that make in an era with no overall serial titles? I criticised John Lucarotti for holding too much back for the final episode of Marco Polo, I observed that Terry Nation gave us a fake final episode with The Ambush; what right have I to expect that this one act like a conclusion to a story? Because we're talking about drama, consarnit, and even though the show is continuing next week, this six-week 'story arc' needs to finish properly! Instead it tails off, with too much under-explained despite all the talking. I was partly right in my guesses last time - I thought there were surviving humans poisoning the water - but I also suspected that the City Administrator (sorry, new Second Elder) was using them to stir up trouble, and that the monster was a ruse to stop people investigating. That second idea might still be true, but we'll never know. Real life might be like that - with unconnected crises and unresolved matters - but it doesn't make for the best TV. Still, I do feel like I'm being overly negative, so let's talk about the best thing in this episode (and, in fact, the serial): Susan. She gets plenty to do, despite everyone's efforts to keep her out of danger, and we have that lovely scene where she is describing her planet. Boy, did I flash forward to the end of Gridlock! I hadn't realised that the final scene with Martha on New Earth was so explicit a homage, and certainly not that its roots went back so far. Anyway, we learn more about Susan than we have in all the time since the very first episode. She's growing up - not particularly physically (because it's only been a matter of months since the start of the show), nor intellectually (since she was already a genius), but socially. We've seen her make her own decisions and try to stand up to the Doctor earlier in the serial, and here she finds herself able to express the conflict in her heart - between her wanderlust and her homesickness, her love for her grandfather and her desire to be settled. This is all setting the scene for her departure, though I'm not sure how much that was the original intent. Before shooting began on serial G Carole Ann Ford had made it clear to the BBC that since Susan wasn't being allowed to develop she intended to leave when her contract period ran out, but by then Peter Newman's scripts would have been written already. Whether David Whitaker boosted this aspect or whether he just ran with it I don't know, but it is effective foreshadowing. And that, in itself, is enough. Finally, we must deal with the last minute of the TARDIS scene at the end. What was that?! The Doctor suddenly turns around and says he's going to chuck Iananbarbara off the ship, completely out of the blue?! Hill and Ford do a good job of looking shocked and then deciding that now is not the time to argue, but it doesn't really hang together. I really hope there's a good explanation coming up... Broadcast: Date: Saturday, 1st August 1964 Viewers: 6.9 million Chart Position: 39 Appreciation Index: 57 Rating: 4.5/10. Next Time: Serial G as a whole.