Category: Doctor Who
Doctor Who episode 174: The Abominable Snowmen – Episode One (30/9/1967)
This episode continues the horror movie overtones of The Tomb of the Cybermen. This time, it opens like a werewolf film, with Traver’s friend John attacked at night by something huge and hairy. The episode makes the most of this strong start by repeatedly implying the next attack is about to come: first, when Jamie glimpses a ‘great hairy beastie’ on the TARDIS scanner – which turns out to be the Doctor in his new coat; then when the Doctor is unconsciously menaced by the looming shape of a Yeti, and then, finally, when Jamie and Victoria come face to face with one in a mountain cave.
Doctor Who episode 173: The Tomb of the Cybermen – Episode 4 (23/9/1967)
It’s a bit of a mess, but the pace doesn’t let up in this final episode, and while it lacks the grandiose climax of the Dalek civil war, there’s still a lot to like about this. Not least of which is Toberman. Again, acknowledging the problematic elements of the character, his is the most prominent role for a black actor to date, and his ability to battle through Cyber control to reassert his humanity and save the day with his own ‘hold the door’ moment is rewarded by one of the more downbeat endings of the era, with Troughton playing the Doctor’s silent grief against Parry’s grim self-recrimination.
Doctor Who episode 172: The Tomb of the Cybermen – Episode 3 (16/9/1967)
Although they’ve been set up as the Doctor’s new regular adversaries, the Cybermen aren’t just a straightforward swap for the Daleks. Though they’re almost as effective at points in this episode – striding unstoppably through smoke bombs to hunt down the fleeing humans, looking just like an army of Jason Voorhees, they’re also pathetic. Their words aren’t, ‘Exterminate!’ but ‘We will survive’. They talk, without emotion, obviously, of becoming extinct. The Daleks want to conquer existence. The Cybermen just want to exist.
Doctor Who episode 171: The Tomb of the Cybermen – Episode 2 (9/9/1967)
The first half of the episode is set-up and exposition, starting with the weapons testing room which serves the purposes of reminding us what the Cybermen are (not robots, like the empty shell in the firing range, but people in metal suits: making a plot point of the fact that they’re literally men in monster costumes), explaining the Cybermats, and placing a Chekhov’s cyber-gun in plain view. It also establishes why the archaeologists don’t just leave: someone has sabotaged Captain Hopper’s rocked (Toberman smirking in the background of the scene is a lovely acting choice by Roy Stewart).
Doctor Who episode 170: The Tomb of the Cybermen – Episode 1 (2/9/1967)
After the two-month season break, Doctor Who returns with a pre-titles sequence (well, sort of: a pre-episode-title sequence anyway) that restates the basics of the show and introduces the idea of Victoria as a new companion – which was barely hinted at in The Evil of the Daleks. As well as explaining the function of all his knobs, the Doctor reveals that the TARDIS allows him to travel through the universe of time, and – after some clumsy set up – reveals he’s 450 years old. Again, there’s a greater emphasis on his alienness than has previously been the norm.
Doctor Who episode 169: The Evil of the Daleks – Episode 7 (1/7/1967)
‘The end. The final end.’ As this was conceived as a way to write the Daleks out of Doctor Who it’s fitting that they should go out with a bang, and what this episode lacks in spectacular dialogue or intricate plotting it makes up for in sheer spectacle. The dilapidation of the Emperor, gradually blown apart in the crossfire as the city erupts in flame, looks astonishing even in the fragments that have survived.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 168: The Evil of the Daleks – Episode 6 (24/6/1967)
The innocent, humanised-Daleks are a brilliantly strange creation, playing trains and chanting, ‘Dizzy Doctor’ much to his delight. It’s another new twist on the creatures, after The Power of the Daleks featured them proclaiming, ‘I am your servant’, and it opens the episode on a winningly strange note, even if the humanised-Daleks’ repetition of ‘Friend’ has been a bit ruined by The Inbetweeners.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 167: The Evil of the Daleks – Episode 5 (17/6/1967)
Troughton is back from his week’s holiday, and although he’s uncharacteristically flaky on his lines in his confrontation with Terrall, generally he’s again the strongest thing about this episode. Whitaker even gives him another of those lines that are tailor-made for guide books:
Continue readingTHE DOCTOR: I am not a student of human nature. I am a professor of a far wider academy, of which human nature is merely a part. All forms of life interest me.
Doctor Who episode 166: The Evil of the Daleks – Episode 4 (10/6/1967)
A good half of this episode focuses on Jamie and Kemel fighting their way through Maxtible’s house, avoiding traps. This includes a five-minute wrestling sequence set to some stirring Dudley Simpson music, which looks and sounds like something from Star Trek. The liberal presence of axes, ropes and other dungeon paraphernalia adds to the Kirk-in-an-arena feel.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 165: The Evil of the Daleks – Episode 3 (3/6/1967)
The first part of the episode focuses on a bizarre cul-de-sac subplot featuring Jamie being kidnapped and then rescued in short order by two minor characters – Ruth Maxtible’s fiance the foppish Arthur Terrall, and his hired stooge Toby – who looks like Bill Sykes. It adds to the sense of Victorian melodrama, but hardly helps advance the story.
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