The Tenth Planet
(Episode 1)
We've landed in the coldest place in the world!
We see a rocket taking off (stock footage from an Australian launch!) and the story is written by Kitt Pedler. So not only did he invent the Cyberman, and predict the internet, he was in fact also Knight Rider. No end to the man's talents.
We're in a research base, and Robert Beatty (a fairly recognisable film actor) overlooks the space launch.
CUTLER: Good morning gentlemen. You lucky devils. Have a nice trip.
SCHULTZ [OC]: Why not come up and join us?
CUTLER: The penguins might miss me!
The base is tracking the orbital patterns for this test flight.
Barclay takes over tracking, and on board the spaceship we see Alan White (a protege of Peter Finch, the Network actor) and Earl Cameron! Cameron was a gem, a man who arrived in Britain in the 1930s and found it so prejudiced he could barely find work. Trained as an actor, he was the first black British lead in a British film - Talking Pictures favourite Pool of London, which holds up fairly well. He had a reputation for refusing to take roles that he felt were stereotyped for non-white actors, and so you know three things.
1. He felt this was a solid, good role.
2. That he's appearing in The Tenth Planet is a vote of confidence in it.
3. That there's no chance he was accepting the role of Jamaica.
Stock footage of the Antarctic. Which is the South Pole, if you are like me and always mix up the two poles. It looks bloody cold though, the Doctor was right.
And then we cut to... pinups! A young soldier sings to himself, reads a comic book and has his dorm wall covered in ladies' pictures.
His boss uses a periscope to see the snowstorm above ground, and as the periscope shifts, the TARDIS lands!
All exterior shots like this one were filmed at Ealing Studios. Yes, I know it's a set. We all do. But it sounds and looks fantastic. I wonder if the singing sands of Marco Polo looked half as good as this ice ridden tundra from Derek Martinus. Probably did, Warris Hussein's great and all.
DOCTOR: Quite an arctic storm blowing out there. Come along, Polly, my child, with my cloak.
POLLY: Hey Doctor, you've got the most fantastic wardrobe.
DOCTOR: Yes, well I'm glad you approve, my child.
POLLY: These are gorgeous. Where do you shop, Carnaby Street?
They get ready to leave the TARDIS to investigate, and you wouldn't know from Hartnell's demeanour that we're in hallowed ground here.
Yes, 4 episodes left of the first doctor.
I think I've got something in my eye...
He does put on the same jacket and scarf he wore in An Unearthly Child, though. Nowadays, that would be planned foreshadowing.
It may well have worked as planned foreshadowing back then. This was shown on 8th October 1966, and it was in early August that the press had announced that William Hartnell would soon be leaving the family favourite time travel show.
"Actor William Hartnell has played the part of the grumpy professor in the B.B.C. children's series since it began. He is quitting his flying police box and the fight against the Daleks to return to the stage and films. He said last night : "I think three years in one part is a good innings. It is time I had a change.""
Daily Express, 6th August 1966
"The BBC has chosen Patrick Troughton to play the part of Dr. Who in its children's television serial, in place of William Hartnell. When Dr. Who returns on Sunday week Mr. Hartnell will still be playing this same part. The switch in actors, which will be one of the surprises of the serial story, will not take place until November. Mr. Troughton, 46, is already well known to viewers and listeners. He played the Pawnbroker in the recent "David Copperfield" serial and Quilp in "The Old Curiosity Shop." Earlier this year he appeared in "This Man Craig," "Dr. Finley's Casebook" and "Softly Softly.""
Norman Hare, Daily Telegraph, 2nd September 1966
So perhaps those who knew something was in the air would spot the links. Or perhaps its only now in the DVD era, where you can pause the old man for 5 minutes to look up the paper archives, that this sort of thing is spotted, accidentally, because no one planned it!
The soundscape is fantastic.
Ben and Polly struggle in the "snow", which is actually famously polystyrene. Michael Craze had recently had an operation to deal with a bone chip in his nose. The production assistant, unaware of this, blew the fake snow into his face, causing an allergic reaction!
This didn't put Craze off asking the production assistant out on a date, and he and Edwina Verner later married, had a son, and were married for 30 years until Michael Craze's untimely death, with Edwina tragically dying a few months afterwards.
The man on the periscope is shocked to find people outside, and he tells Tito (our singing Italian) to have a look. Tito isn't interested until he is told there's a woman and then he can't help out faster! Tito perves over Polly on the periscope.
The Sergeant realises people on the surface will die in this weather and orders his men up to get them. Armed men take the Doctor and his companions into their base.
The Sergeant asks where they came from, so Ben and Polly tell him from their spaceship. He doesn't believe them.
The Sergeant tells them they are at the South Pole and wants to tell the General but can't raise him.
Probably because he appears right behind everywhere.
The Doctor and General Cutler meet, and it is antagonists at first sight.
DOCTOR: We don't intend you any harm, General, I can assure you of that.
CUTLER: You can assure me of what you like but whether I'll believe you or not is another question. I haven't got time to deal with these now, but when I do you'd better have a good explanation.
DOCTOR: I don't like your tone, sir.
CUTLER: And I don't like your face, nor your hair.
"Nor your hair" was an adlib by Robert Beatty that they kept! As was his quip about everyone being a bunch of frustrated penguins. The role may become a bit 2D in later episodes, but the actor wasn't going to put in a sub-standard performance.
Beatty then turns and walks out of that room and straight into the main control room. With the use of a quick cut, Derek Martinus has made the two sets seem connected immediately to each other, and successfully impressed on the small nature of the base.
Ben and Polly are delighted by the "NASA" set up but wonder why there's so few people.
The Sergeant seems confused Ben would have seen space stuff on TV and tells them to take a seat.
The real answer for the lack of people was that they used up as much money as they had for extras!
The Doctor disappoints Ben and Polly by pointing out a calendar reads December 1986.
Hey, this is a future SF story, set AFTER I was born. How timey wimey.
POLLY: 1986! Oh no, and I thought we'd be able to get home.
BEN: Yeah, we're still at sea. Here, but that'll explain the few people. Them computers must do all the work now. Here, I wonder if they got to the moon yet.
SERGEANT: Sure, don't you listen to the news?
BEN: You mean you have sent people to the moon?
SERGEANT: Yeah, an expedition just returned.
POLLY: Well, what's this flight then?
SERGEANT: Oh, this is just a normal atmosphere testing probe.
DOCTOR: Yes, I see. A rocket testing site.
But there's an error!
Earl Cameron notes they over New Zealand and off position by 100 miles.
The co-ordinates on the spaceship are all out of whack.
It turns out what they thought was Mars, to fix the co-ordinates in space, wasn't actually Mars.
SCHULTZ: No, listen, Glyn, there's something else out there.
WILLIAMS: What do you mean?
SCHULTZ: There's another planet out there!
WILLIAMS: Another planet?
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, you're right. There is something. I can't see properly but it reads as if it was in orbit between Mars and Venus.
SCHULTZ: Yeah, that's it. Funny how I can't put me finger on it but it looks kinda familiar.
DUH
DUH
DUH!!!!!!
"“I’ve had scripts like [DWM mentioned The Smugglers] sent to me, that have been racially insulting. I’ve refused to do them. I’ve turned them down. I’ve always tried to keep a certain dignity. There comes a time when one puts principles before one’s career. So, I was more than happy to do [The Tenth Planet]. Yes, especially playing a black astronaut.”
Earl Cameron, Doctor Who Magazine 520
The Doctor writes something down on a piece of paper and tells the Sergeant to give it to the General, as the Doctor "can help".
Barclay takes the piece of paper, as Cutler is sceptical the Doctor can help.
Something is draining the power.
A sudden planet appears on radar.
On the spaceship, both men feel drained of energy, and there is a power loss.
The two men on board the spaceship struggle to achieve even basic tasks.
Even a stock control room looks lively with Derek Martinus's looping camera shots, which crane in on people and swoop over the place. One shot here has a close up of one man that turns so fast, around and up, that it is actually baffling they managed it on a Dr Who set. This is, stripped of context, a basic Part One, but with such superb direction.
Earl Cameron points out the controls are damaged, and they need a controlled descent from Earth, but Barclay says it isn't possible.
"It moves at a real place" wrote Derek Martinus to William Hartnell, "and we've got a very good supporting cast for you" - according to the DVD. It's clear from his letter that Martinus was aware of the loss of the show on Hartnell, and of William Hartnell's own health issues, and intended to make filming as easy as possible.
Hartnell apparently replied to Martinus saying he was delighted Robert Beatty was on board for the show.
Barclay has a fantastic looking jumper, by the way.
DOCTOR: General, General, yes, it's just as I thought. Come and have a look at these land masses.
CUTLER: Land masses? I don't see. I see what you mean.
DOCTOR: Now, doesn't that remind you of anything?
CUTLER: Remind? No, I don't think so.
BEN: Yeah, it looks familiar somehow.
POLLY: Yeah. Hey, Ben, look, that bit looks just like Malaysia!
BEN: Oh, give over. No, hang on, isn't that? Well it looks like South America. But it can't be though!
It's a twin planet!
Cutler doesn't believe the evidence of his own eyes.
The Doctor tells Barclay to look at the paper he gave him, and he does, and it foretells everything they just saw.
BARCLAY: He has correctly written down what we have just seen and he did it before we saw it.
CUTLER: It's a simple confidence trick, that's all.
BARCLAY: No, I know when he gave me the paper. Now you clearly know something more about the situation. Can you be more explicit?
DOCTOR: Yes, sir, I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can. You see, millions of years ago there was a twin planet to Earth and...
Cutler yells and storms off.
And you all thought the chap from The Wheel in Space was easily grumpy!
POLLY: You're looking terribly worried, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Am I my dear? Yes, I'm afraid I am rather worried.
BEN: What is it Doctor? What's up?
DOCTOR: Well you see, Ben, I know what this planet is and what it means to Earth.
BEN: And what does it mean to Earth?
DOCTOR: Well, that pretty soon we shall be having visitors.
Ooh, I wonder what type of visitors!
(I know what type of visitors)
Wigner at Geneva tells Cutler Jodrell Bank is tracking the new planet. That'll be the late, great, Bernard Lovell, who once got into an argument on BBC Radio with our friend Duncan Lunan about the prospect of life on other planets, making this reference a bit amusing.
Cutler tells the Sergeant and Tito to go investigate the Doctor's "hut". So, they go to try and break into it.
Meanwhile, a spaceship lands nearby.
SERGEANT: It's no good, Tito, we'll need a welding torch to get inside this thing. Get back inside and bring me out one. You'll need some help, okay?
TITO: Okay.
SERGEANT: Hurry up, will you, before I freeze to death.
Tito rushes off to get the cutting device, and then the Sergeant, who has been our walking exposition man all of Episode 1, sees them in the distance.
"Tito, is that you?" he calls.
It's not Tito.
It is about to change British TV, however.
And you can hear the strands of Martin Slavin's Space Adventures, which is, to my mind, the single greatest bit of incidental music in the show's history. You hear it here, you hear it in The Moonbase, in Tomb of the Cybermen, and, in The Web of Fear. It never fails to get the hairs on the back of the neck to rise in anticipation.
We see the three mysterious figures walk across the tundra set.
The Sergeant fires two bullets into the nearest creature, which strikes him down dead.
Farewell, Basil Exposition!
Tito and his mate "Joe" get the cutting torch and go to the TARDIS, only to get chopped dead by the new creatures.
A human hand reaches for the coat from poor dead Tito, but then the camera pans upwards, revealing a robotic body, and a dead, cold face with eyes.
Junior Points of View lit up before Episode 2 could even be shown. "Can you please, please, please tell me more about these new robots?" asked one child viewer of many.
Well, I can tell you what the score is.
It's the bloody Cybermen!!!!!
All throughout the Hartnell era, they've tried to find the other great Doctor Who monster, the one that isn't Terry Nation royalties based. The Monoids. The Mechanoids. The Zarbi. The Sensorites. The War Machines. All tried and retired.
And now, just as we are about to say goodbye to William Hartnell, the shows only gone and stumbled on genius.
Cybermen were based on the greatest phobia of Kit Pedler.
Pedler was an eye expert who was wildly enthusiastic about new science and was brought in to suggest these new science ideas as potential Dr Who stories. His interests went wildly beyond his actual expertise, and he became a TV expert in stuff beyond his pay grade like carbon emissions and ghosts, but I think the science advisor tag gives his role a nit-picking aspect it doesn't deserve. He wasn't there to provide scientific accuracy; he was there to provide scientific ideas and concepts and theories. Which could be turned into stories.
And one of them turned out to be Doctor Who gold dust.
I can't stress enough how great this episode, that cliffhanger, that reveal is.
The Tenth Planet
(Episode 2)
Cybermen have shown and to be honest, they instantly look the real deal. And yes, I am biased, as they are my favourite recurring monsters, but then, they wouldn't be if this hadn't been a success!
Poor expositional Sergeant, he's gone and died and been a one-episode wonder.
CUTLER: That's the most fantastic story I've ever heard.
Astounding praise for Doctor Who by the great Robert Beatty there. Ahem.
Barclay and the radar team continue to try and save Earl Cameron and friend out in space. Things are going wrong. Barclay takes a quick drink and Cutler barks at him for it.
Outside, one of the Cybermen looks quite snug in the fallen soldier's fur coat, as the other two get dressed. The camera zooms in on Tito, whose dead body is already buried by snow. Nicely grim.
At International Space Command, Wigner can't reach the South Pole base, as the communication lines are down. Wigner's staff are notably multicultural, which was a request of Kit Pedler.
The TV reporter is a lift from The War Machines (which was a lift from Quatermass of course) but this actor does not have the gravitas of Kenneth Kendall. Who knew doing something for 30 years made you a pro?
REPORTER: Some observers have reported that its land masses resemble those of Earth, but this is being hotly disputed in top astronomical circles and no general agreement has yet been reached.
They are showing pictures of the planet on the TV screen! A bit of a snark at scientific opponents, perhaps? Timely in modern times.
Jodrell Bank says the mysterious new planet is approaching Earth but there is no cause for alarm. If a whopping great planet showed up unexpectedly on an approach course to Earth, I'd call that time to ¤¤¤¤ing panic, myself!
The actor playing the TV guy is Glenn Beck! No, not that guy.
Poor old Barclay is still trying to save the two astronauts through manual landing.
The Doctor says they must bring them down immediately. He goes over to the controls, then sees the three men in fur coats enter the room, and instantly rushes over to the General to warn him, but he literally can't see the danger in the very same room, and in fact, tells one of the "soldiers" to imprison The Doctor.
They take off their coats, Polly screams, and only at this moment does Cutler realise that those weren't his security team.
Not great base security, really.
The Completely Useless Encyclopaedia called this a frightening moment for geeks as it showed how easily "the Cybermen could invade a convention", which, to be honest, made me laugh then, and now.
A soldier rushes the Cybermen and one of them fires a light gun at him, leaving his dead body smoking on the ground.
Ben immediately grabs Polly away to safety.
And then we get some famous first words:
CUTLER: Now look, I don't know who you are or what you are, but we've got two men in space. If we don't act now we won't get them back alive.
CYBERMAN: They will not return.
CUTLER: Why not?
CYBERMAN: It is unimportant now.
CUTLER: But We must get them back! When
CYBERMAN: There is really no point. They could never reach Earth now.
Polly denounces this by saying that the two astronauts are people who will die.
CYBERMAN: I do not understand you. There are people dying all over your world, yet you do not care about them.
Good retort, Krail the Cyberman. (I have to check if those names actually show up in the dialogue.) What instantly makes him stand out, apart from the wonderful body performance by Reg Whitehead, is that the Cyberman's responses aren't out of malice or evil intent. It is genuinely perplexed why Polly and Cutler should care about the two astronauts.
The Cyberman immediately changes topic to talk about Mondas.
KRAIL (let's just keep his sodding name for now): You will be wondering what has happened. Your astronomers must have just discovered a new planet. Is that not so?
BARCLAY: Yes, that's right.
KRAIL: That is where we come from. It is called Mondas.
BARCLAY: Mondas? But isn't that one of the ancient names of Earth?
KRAIL: Yes. Aeons ago the planets were twins, then we drifted away from you on a journey to the edge of space. Now we have returned.
BARCLAY: But who or what are you?
KRAIL: We are called Cybermen.
BARCLAY: Cybermen?
KRAIL: Yes, Cybermen. We were exactly like you once, but our cybernetic scientists realised that our race was getting weak. Our life span was getting shorter, so our scientists and doctors devised spare parts for our bodies until we could be almost completely replaced.
POLLY: But that means you're not like us. You're robots!
KRAIL: Our brains are just like yours except that certain weaknesses have been removed.
BARCLAY: Weaknesses? What weaknesses?
KRAIL: You call them emotions, do you not?
POLLY: But that's terrible. You, you mean you wouldn't care about someone in pain?
KRAIL: There would be no need. We do not feel pain.
Cutler, in the midst of this, manages to sound the alarm to Wigner to tell them they are under attack. A Dalek would kill, a Monoid would go "errr", what the Cyberman does is simply state: "That was most unfortunate."
They really are stealing the entire show here.
The decision to make the Cybermen voices come not from the actors playing them but from elsewhere was another Derek Martinus addition. He felt the lack of obvious breath from speaking would give the lines an eerie, alien quality. The sing-song way of speaking doesn't last long, but it works better than some of the Troughton era distortion. The voices here are by Roy Skelton.
Geneva tries to get in touch with the South Pole base, so the Cybermen KO Cutler. Barclay refuses to tell Wigner that everything is actually OK, so the Cybermen prepare to destroy communication with the spaceship, and Dyson insists, and so Barclay just about gets through lying to Wigner that everything is fine, honest.
KRAIL: It is a foregone conclusion. You are wasting time. However, if you wish to contact them I have no objection. He and his colleagues may use their equipment. Any attempt at deceit however, kill them at once. Remove the soldier. I will carry on detail.
Ben suggests they can make a break for it and grabs a rifle. Krail the Cyberman grabs it off him and bends it, eliciting a "wow" from Ben. The Cyberman acted like a disappointed parent telling off a naughty child there.
Ben is imprisoned by the Cybermen. In the security projection room.
Earl Cameron and Earth make one more attempt to get the space capsule back home. The velocity is wrong, the fuel's gone, smoke is everywhere, the capsule rushes beyond escape velocity and...
explodes.
The two men are dead.
Polly and the rest of the humans are very upset. The Cyberman are not.
There's some really great touches to that scene. The way the incidental music cuts out the second the pictures from space do, it's dead. The Doctor looks worried, Barclay turns from the screens in anguish, and we're left with Polly, who can't take in what just happened. It's all wonderfully, tragically human, which works to juxtapose with the impassive inhuman thing standing in the corner watching it all.
I love it when Doctor Who has a top line director working on it. Every shot and action have thought and care behind them.
Krail tries to start taking names for his evacuation to Mondas plan, while the humans are all still processing the deaths of Williams and Shultz.
There is something grimly amusing about the Cyberman continuing to try and survey Dyson's age while everyone interrogates its plans and copes with death around it.
William Hartnell absolutely roars "How are we going to survive?" at the Cyberman, and I sense he knows he's been upstaged here in his final story. What a sad turn of events.
Ben is still in the projection room, so turns on the film facing the door so that it will blind the Cyber-guard. The guard walks in and immediately covers his eyes, which I like. Ben grabs the light gun and tries to bargain his way out, but the Cyberman goes for him and instinctively Ben fires the gun, killing the Cyberman.
BEN: You didn't give me no alternative!
He's genuinely upset by it.
KRAIL: You must come and live with us.
POLLY: But we cannot live with you. You're, you're different. You've got no feelings.
KRAIL: Feelings? I do not understand that word.
DOCTOR: Emotions. Love, pride, hate, fear. Have you no emotions, sir?
KRAIL: Come to Mondas and you will have no need of emotions. You will become like us.
POLLY: Like you?
KRAIL: We have freedom from disease, protection against heat and cold, true mastery. Do you prefer to die in misery?
And this is why the Cybermen are such a great villain. Their every action comes from what they feel is the logic good thing to do. They think they are the heroes of every story, because the emotional or ethical kickback of their actions don't even occur to them. A Dalek might sneakily call itself your servant to prepare for massive exterminations, a Cyberman wouldn't understand why you would oppose it, when all it wants to do is save your life.
It's that inhumane "kindness" which is so wonderfully creepy.
KRAIL: We are equipped to survive. We are only interested in survival. Anything else is of no importance. Your deaths will not affect us.
Cutler wakes up in the background as Ben enters the room quietly with the light gun. Ben passes Cutler the Cyber gun and Cutler shoots both Krail and his mate. They're dead. Oh well, I guess that's it for the Cybermen!
POLLY: But I can't make you understand, you're condemning us all to die. Have you no heart?
KRAIL: No, that is one of the weaknesses that we have removed.
Pretty nice final last words, tbh.
And no, he didn't go "my name is Krail" on screen.
Having killed the Cyber team, Cutler is told the astronauts are dead.
Cutler tells Wigner that the base can survive another attack, and Wigner tells Cutler that they've sent up another rocket, with Cutler's son in charge!
CUTLER: You've sent my son to his death. You realise that, I hope.
If you wanted to spot the moment that Cutler's tenuous sanity snapped for good, there you go.
And let's be honest, while the character of General Cutler is a bit two dimensional, Robert Beatty is giving the role far more than it deserves. The way his voice cracks on that line, the horror that flashes across his eyes. He's superb, an example of a fine actor lifting the material given to them. Twenty years later, his abiding memory was how warm the sets were (you can see sweat glistening off his hair!) and how badly this was hurting poor old William Hartnell's energy and health.
We see some stock footage of Jodrell Bank scanning the skies.
DOCTOR: I think you rather underestimate the Cybermen, General.
CUTLER: Oh, that's what you reckon is it, old man? Well, you're entitled to your opinions so long as you keep them to yourself! You did well, boy, to kill that soldier.
BEN: I had no choice.
CUTLER: Oh, don't apologise. He's dead, isn't he?
POLLY: He seems to be enjoying all this.
CUTLER: What's that? What's that you said?
POLLY: I said you seem to be enjoying all this.
CUTLER: Look, missy, I've got a personal stake in this emergency. That's my son up in that capsule. And you know what happened to the last one.
POLLY: I'm sorry.
And then radar picks up... hundreds of spaceships. In formation! Heading to Earth!
That was like being in the presence of TV history. There's been better single episodes with Cybermen, but none were ever so important. That it was great too is just the icing on the cake.
The Tenth Planet
(Episode 3)
Hundreds of spaceships, coming to Earth!
And then, the Doctor faints. Cutler tells Ben to get the Doctor to a cabin and look after him.
William Hartnell wrote to Innes Lloyd on the Monday before recording, telling the producer that he had taken ill and would miss the recording. Davis rescripted it, but the show had been working on the principle that Hartnell might become too ill to keep going. He had came down with bronchitis, on top of his other health woes, but it was clear from Derek Martinus's memories that he was very worried about his lead actor, as were many of the cast and crew, as Hartnell was self-evidently not a well man anymore. And, the sad thing is, you can see it on screen, this subdued figure that was once a Titan. He's there in body, but the hmms and giggles and spirit are gone. Moving from The War Machines (where you can see him in fine form) and The Smugglers (which you can hear him in fine form) which were recorded only a few months earlier, and it's quite sobering.
It's all genuinely quite sad.
Cutler Jr jokes around to his dad's discontent.
BEN: Oh, a fine time he picks for a kip. Well, come on Polly, let's get back to the control room.
POLLY: We can't leave him.
BEN: He seems all right. His pulse and breathing are normal.
POLLY: I don't understand it. He just seems to be worn out.
Nowadays we'd see the regeneration energy and the Doctor would make a big show of fighting it off.
Cutler says he will destroy Mondas with the Z-bomb. Barclay is horrified.
BARCLAY: You can't do that!
CUTLER: I can and I will.
DYSON: What about the radiation effects on Earth?
CUTLER: That's a risk we'll have to take.
BARCLAY: But to use this bomb you'll have to get authority from Geneva.
CUTLER: I'll get authority, fella, right now. Get me Geneva.
BEN: What is the Zee-bomb?
CUTLER: What is it? It's a doomsday weapon, Mister, and rightly primed it could split that planet in half. There are two or three at strategic positions round the globe. We have one of them and the means of delivering it to Mondas.
Wigner refuses to give permission for Cutler to use the Z-bomb, but then Cutler asks if he can defend Earth by any action necessary and of course Wigner walks right into that trap.
So, Cutler prepares the countdown to launch his super big atomic bomb rocket.
POLLY: But just a minute, are you sure there's only one way of dealing with the Cybermen?
CUTLER: As they are about to attack us, yes, I am sure.
BEN: But there is another way. To wait.
BARCLAY: I don't follow.
BEN: Look, the Doctor said that it's not only Earth that's in danger, but that Mondas itself is in far greater danger. Otherwise, why have they bothered coming here?
CUTLER: And just how did he figure that out? It's draining energy from the Earth, isn't it?
BEN: Yes, but he said eventually it would absorb too much energy and burn itself out. Well, shrivel up to nothing. So all we've got to do is wait!
CUTLER: Wait? Sure, wait until these Cybermen friends of yours get here and take over this planet. Oh no, mister, we're not going to wait. We're just going to accelerate the process a little. We're going to make it disappear just a little bit sooner, that's all.
BARCLAY: But don't you see, General? A nuclear explosion on Mondas would deliver a terrific blast of radiation, enough to destroy all the life on the side of the Earth that's facing it. It might even turn into a sun, a sort of supernova. And it would certainly destroy the space capsule.
CUTLER: That's a risk we'll have to take.
Again, Beatty is doing wonders with his material. But isn't it sad that this full force denial of the facts is so common in elected officials in 2022? Cutler, the shape of the future, they weren't half right.
The bolded bit above was a Doctor line reattributed when Hartnell took ill. Shame, you can just imagine Season 2 or Season 3 Billy knocking it out of the park.
The DVD commentary also points out that "a sort of supernova" is an obvious Gerry Davis edit!
Ben is locked up with the Doctor, and immediately finds an escape via the ventilation grill.
Cutler and Dyson sort out the big bomb.
DYSON: The old man could be right. It might be better to wait.
CUTLER: Wait nothing. History is littered with guys who waited, and where did it get them? Nowhere.
DYSON: There are the radiation effects. I mean, nothing is known, the results of this bomb could be quite fantastic.
CUTLER: You've never talked so much since you came to the base, Dyson.
Any pretence this man cared about his actual team are long gone now. He's a git. On the Hobson to Robson Scale (TM Gallifrey Base poster Unknown Physician) this guy's an utter Jarvis Bennett!
Meanwhile, in the control room:
POLLY: Are you trying to get in touch with General Cutler's son?
BARCLAY: Look, you just keep your mind on making coffee, will you? I'm sorry, that was rude. You must be scared stiff with all this happening.
Barclay can't even snap at someone without feeling bad about it. The Ying to Cutler's Yang. The guy who cares about his job to the other guys who don't get lines.
He isn't happy with the Z-bomb but feels he can't go against Cutler.
13 minutes to countdown.
This entire episode is counting down to the cliffhanger, I just realised. It works in Inferno, and to be frank, it works here too.
A spaceship is about to land, so Cutler decides to ambush it with the cyber weapons captured earlier.
Polly takes Barclay to see Ben, as he now has second thoughts on the whole atomic bomb thing. Luckily, it turns out Barclay designed part of the base (!) and so knows the secret route to the Bomb disarming room through the ventilator shafts. I am not making this up.
That is, by any standards, a remarkable bit of plot convenience!
Ben then goes through the shafts to go sabotage the rocket, after a lesson in how to stop an atomic bomb by Barclay.
He's got the Doctor's lines here. We know it. We know why it's the case. But his sudden about turn from nervous second in command to do daring saboteur because he's got Hartnell's lines to deliver is really funny.
A spaceship lands in the snow!
Cybermen walk across the snow but before they can do anything, the guards wipe them out with hidden weaponry.
Where did they get 7 light guns from?
Ben is struggling through a tight passage. He finds the room needed and sneaks into it when the coast is clear.
Some nice incidental music by Robert Farnon plays during this bit. He went on to compose the iconic theme tune for Secret Army.
Cutler instantly decides as Barclay was out of the control room that he's betrayed the bomb Mondas campaign, rushes to the room in question, and throws Ben across the room, which was quite impressively violent.
CUTLER: Now, listen. I am warning you. If that rocket doesn't take off for Mondas, if my son's life is in jeopardy because of him, I'll take the law into my own hands. And that goes for you too, Doctor Barclay. You'd just better make a good job of that launch. Okay, start the countdown.
Cutler says that if the launch fails, he'll kill Ben, and Polly, and the Doctor and Barclay too. The countdown to launch carries on.
2 minutes to launch.
Ben is knocked loopy and can't remember if he successfully sabotaged the bomb. Has he saved the Earth, and can they survive this crazy general?
And then, well, this is just marvellous from Derek Martinus. Absolutely sublime.
Robert Beatty barks out orders, and the camera slowly pans over each of the crew. A worried and glancing Polly, Ben icing his head. The sweat pouring off Barclay's face. The darting eyes of Robert Beatty. The flinching of Cutler. A long continuous camera goes down the line, an entire nervous crew...
30 seconds
20 seconds
10 seconds.
The numbers flash up on the screen as we see Dyson's anxious face, and then the camera dashes back to Cutler, his countdown to death superimposed over his face, and he's smiling happily. The destroyer of worlds, he's gone completely insane.
On paper, that's just four minutes of padding.
On the screen, that is the best creation of an iconic cliffhanger from lowly material on paper until the famous Cut It Open in the Pertwee era.
That entire scene reveals so much character intent without any dialogue needed between them. It's sensational.
The Cyberman are the stars of The Tenth Planet, for sure, but our MVP is absolutely the late, great Derek Martinus.
The Tenth Planet
(Episode 4)
Only twenty-five minutes left of the William Hartnell Doctor Who era.
It feels a bit like being at a wake.
The rocket fails to take off. No Z-bombs. As you probably expected.
CUTLER: Your Cybermen friends may have a chance of life, but not you, sailor. Nor that old man. Now go get him up here.
Cutler plans to shoot the Doctor and companions. Barclay refuses to fix the rocket, so he says he'll shoot him too.
The Doctor is back, sounding a bit frail.
But before Cutler can shoot anyone, Cybermen land off screen, and arrive to kill Cutler instead.
What a strangely subdued exit for the lead guest actor!
Cutler Jr is still alive in space.
KRANG: Silence. Anyone who moves will be killed instantly.
DOCTOR: We owe you our lives. That man was going to have us shot.
KRANG: Go with the others down there.
BEN: There's gratitude for you. We save their grotty planet Mondas for what.
KRANG: Saved Mondas? We do not believe you. We have seen a rocket missile aimed at Mondas.
DOCTOR: That is so. We prevented it being fired at you. We helped you. Therefore, I suggest you help us.
The Cybermen get the men to disarm the rocket instead.
This Cyberleader is a lot grumpier than the last one, more self-assured and less likely to listen to others. Like replacing Cyber-May with Cyber-Boris.
The Doctor tells everyone to play for time as Mondas will die soon. That is what Jon Arnold calls "a total lack of jeopardy", and "largely reductive in ambition".
Wigner has a Cyberman show up in his office, announcing itself as the Controller of Earth!
The Doctor decides the Cybermen plan to use the Z-bomb to destroy the Earth all of a sudden.
BEN: Well, they're also pretty advanced geezers, way ahead of us.
Quoting that line just because it made me laugh.
Ben kills his second Cyberman, a lot less angst ridden than the first time.
The Doctor and Polly have been captured and taken to the Cybership. The Doctor says Mondas is taking too much power.
Mondas is near saturation point.
Krang is actually named on screen. Krang the Cyberman. Boris Krangson.
Ben and Barclay have decided that radiation kills Cybermen. The Cybermen then plan to gas the station.
There really isn't much of William Hartnell in this one either.
Jarl the Cyberman dies, but Lenny is still there.
They attack and even Lenny the Cyberman dies. Noooo not Lenny!
With the Cybermen all killed, the team watch Mondas disintegrate. Cybermen disintegrate with their planet. Nasty.
We did get a nice blast of Space Adventures though, so everyone's a winner. Except the Mondasian Cybermen, who are all dead.
At the Cybership, Ben rescues the Doctor and Polly, and says "wakey wakey, it's all over"...
DOCTOR: What did you say, my boy? It's all over. It's all over. That's what you said. No, but it isn't all over. It's far from being all over.
It's coming.
His last words to Ben are "Keep warm", as he rushes back to the TARDIS.
Outside the TARDIS, Ben and Polly try to get into the locked TARDIS, and the last thing this Doctor ever does is open the TARDIS doors to let Ben and Polly back in.
And then, in a scene we've all probably seen hundreds of times, the lights in the TARDIS flicker badly as the Doctor stumbles at the controls, and then falls to the ground.
As the TARDIS takes off, the Doctor's face starts to blur, until William Hartnell's comfortably familiar features disappear and are replaced with a total stranger.
The Doctor has been renewed....
And that was pretty much it for William Hartnell. He appeared in one or two other TV shows (Softly Softly being the most famous) but in diminished roles. He was the one man convinced of Doctor Who's continual success. And now he's gone.
He left Doctor Who and went on stage, and promptly had an affair with a younger actress (the last in a long line, what is it with Doctor Who's all being mad shaggers?). He was ashamed of his roots, and in lieu of information about his illness (arteriosclerosis was not as well-known at the time) he dealt with it with drink. Which only made the brain issues worse. Enough co-stars from mid-1965 on have pointed out flaws in Hartnell's... diplomacy with other actors, from Anneke Wills to Earl Cameron. In time, he had a series of strokes, and if you compare Hartnell in Season 1 to Hartnell in The Three Doctors, it's like multiple decades have passed, not a mere ten years. He went from being the biggest star on TV to a dying old man so quickly, that perhaps it's not a surprise he couldn't come to terms with it and lashed out.
But over fifty years on, when the man's been dead for nigh on six decades, the flaws of William Hartnell can be taken at face value, unless you need purity from your creative talents. However deep those flaws were, though, his biggest achievement was the portrayal of Doctor Who - that champion of the vulnerable, protector of the abused, denouncer of tyranny, bigotry, prejudice and malice throughout the universe. The man who would stay to protect a village from pirates, or Daleks.
He was the man who told a generation of kids that the most important attribute was never to be cowardly or cruel towards others.
It's not a bad legacy to leave on the planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment