Category: Doctor Who
Doctor Who episode 234: The Seeds of Death – Episode Three (8/2/1969)
Due to problems with Brian Hayles’ scripts, apparently script editor Terrance Dicks wrote episodes three to six of the serial. Certainly, while it’s quite entertaining this is very thin stuff, replaying a lot of the more effective moments from the first two episodes – such as the vaporisation of an attacking Ice Warrior by solar power, and lots more scenes of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe trying to fly a rocket – rather than genuinely advancing the story.
Doctor Who episode 233: The Seeds of Death – Episode Two (1/2/1969)
It’s 1969, the year of the Moon landing, so naturally this episode focuses on the process of actually getting there. It’s not exactly realistic – but there’s more focus on the dangers and technical difficulties of space travel than in any story since The Tenth Planet. No tea-trays shoring up pressure dome punctures here. Instead, a rocket launch complete with mission control countdown; the effects of G-force, and the importance of radio communication and telemetry. Arguably this just slows down the story, but I’m sure in 1969 it gave it a real contemporary buzz.
Doctor Who episode 232: The Seeds of Death – Episode One (25/1/1969)
Oh goody: just what we’ve been waiting for – a sequel to perhaps the worst Doctor Who story so far. Except The Seeds of Death is immediately much better than The Ice Warriors, despite containing very similar plot beats – a tyrannical commander, his efficient female second, a quickly-established threat, and a warning against over reliance on technology and planning over human endeavour and inspiration.
Doctor Who episode 231: “The Krotons” – Episode Four (18/1/1969)
Again, whenever Holmes focuses on the regulars the story just works. The Doctor telling Jamie, stuck under a door, that he’s getting fat, and their little comic exchange:
DOCTOR: How are you feeling?
JAMIE: Well…
DOCTOR: Good!
Is wonderful. As is the moment where Zoe asks the Doctor if she can borrow his braces to strap Thara’s Leg. As is Jamie and Beta having fun making gallons of sulfuric acid. As is the climactic confrontation with the Krotons, where the Doctor and Zoe play for time by mucking around discussing where they want to stand as the increasingly irate Kroton leader loses its patience. Continue reading
Doctor Who episode 230: “The Krotons” – Episode Three (11/1/1969)
Again, all the time spent with the regulars – which is again the bulk of the episode – is good fun. Jamie gets more action this week: trapped in the Dynatrope with the Krotons, he discovers they’re actually quite chatty. Robert Holmes writes them almost as his trademark fusty bureaucrats following the rules rather than being actively malevolent. ‘All waste matter must be dispersed. That is procedure,’ the Kroton Leader tells Jamie. Their heads also spin quite sweetly when they’re agitated.
Doctor Who episode 229: “The Krotons” – Episode Two (4/1/1969)
Again, while this is by no means a classic episode it moves faster than any of the individual episodes of the previous serial, while finding time for glorious character moments between Troughton and Padbury and revealing the monsters ready for the second half of the story. Continue reading
Doctor Who episode 228: “The Krotons” – Episode One (28/12/1968)
Terrance Dicks’ arrival in The Invasion is closely followed by the first script from Robert Holmes. Between the two of them they will have a hand in every single Doctor Who story to be broadcast during the next nine years. This first collaboration doesn’t immediately suggest itself as the shape of things to come, but what is notable about it is how swiftly it moves in comparison to pretty much every story broadcast in the last year.
Doctor Who episode 227: “The Invasion” – Episode Eight (21/12/1968)
This is a really disappointing end. A lot of the elements should work – the Doctor joining forces with Vaughn to defeat the remaining Cybermen; the UNIT attack on the Cybermen’s last outpost, and the destruction of the Cyberman fleet. But in the end, there are just too many disparate elements (and Sherwin keeps throwing in more) that means even Camfield’s attempts to make it all dynamic can’t hide the fact that this is overly busy.
Doctor Who episode 226: “The Invasion” – Episode Seven (14/12/1968)
Astonishingly, having finished the previous episode with a full scale Cyberman invasion, the Cybermen don’t appear in this at all. Instead, we get something much more surprising and interesting: the Doctor confronting the villain, while the Brigadier and Zoe destroy the invasion fleet.
Doctor Who episode 225: “The Invasion” – Episode Six (7/12/1968)
After the prolonged build-up it’s good that the serial is now delivering. This episode opens with some of director Douglas Camfield’s trademark military action, with UNIT confronting Cybermen in the sewers with grenades. And when the cowardly Perkins (channelling the spirit of Driver Evans) gets gunned down, it’s notable that there’s both an immediate effort to retrieve his body, and a later scene where Isobel expresses her regret at his death. This feels a bit more true than all those later UNIT stories where the troops are redshirt cannon fodder for the monster of the month.
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