Gavin WintersI like Victoria’s little trick with the “poisoned” water. Makes a change to see her get herself out of trouble for once, rather than needing rescuing. #DoctorWho
The possessed Padmasambhava makes a very sinister and creepy villain, conveyed for the most part through just his raspy disembodied voice.
And it ends with the now familiar trope of ‘Aha! You thought the creatures were all dead? But wait! There’s some signs of life…’ #DoctorWho
The Ice Warriors:
Futuristic base ☑️
Stressed-out Commander (older man) ☑️
More reasonable second-in-command (younger woman) ☑️
Lumbering monsters outside ☑️
Computer with weird modulated voice ☑️
Just needed someone traitorous/possessed to complete the set!
#DoctorWho
Also the debut of a trope that carries on into early Pertwee - the (very silly to modern audiences) idea that computers are TERRIBLE inventions that are ALWAYS wrong and it’s far better for a human to work things out using just their brain and a pencil and paper. #DoctorWho
Victoria spends most of this story in a state of constant panic and hysteria. You’d wonder why she actually wants to travel with the Doctor and Jamie when everything terrifies her.
(And lol at Jamie teasing her about wearing hotpants like the girls in the base 😄) #DoctorWho
“We must use the Ioniser to blow up the Ice Warriors’ ship!”
“We can’t! We might get killed too!”
“We must!”
“We can’t!”
“We must!”
“We can’t!”
“We must!”
“We can’t!”
(…etc, for six episodes)
*eventually uses Ioniser*
“Phew! We didn’t get killed after all! Hooray!”
#DoctorWho
The Enemy Of The World: we’re off to the far-flung space year 2018, where the world’s divided into ‘Zones’, rocket trips from Australia to Europe take two hours, and people still mostly use landline telephones. #DoctorWho
Landing on a beach, Jamie and Victoria are treated to the arresting sight of the Doctor stripping down to his underwear and splashing about in the sea… #DoctorWho
It’s a bit mad that those guys immediately believe he’s Salamander, when only seen through binoculars.
I mean, if you thought you saw Vladimir Putin at your local beach, having a paddle while wearing a pair of longjohns, you’d doubt what you were seeing, surely?! 😳 #DoctorWho
Griff the Chef: funniest one-off character ever? Should have had his own spin-off! 😀 #DoctorWho
The Enemy Of The World really stands out as being a drastically different type of story to all the surrounding monster romps.
Troughton is completely believable in the dual role. You never see him as the Doctor when he’s Salamander and vice-versa.
#DoctorWho
Some clever use of back projection (before green screen takes over in a couple of years). I like the bit where Jame is seen approaching in the background film before appearing in the studio set. #DoctorWho
Look it’s your own fault for believing his story, you gullible prats. I mean, honestly!
(Also… er, *how* exactly are they causing worldwide natural disasters using a few machines in their underground base? The script glosses over that!)
#DoctorWho
The Web Of Fear: like the Daleks before them, for the Yetis second outing they’ve wisely placed them somewhere much more relatable to the viewers, and it works a treat. Tons of atmosphere in the Underground setting. The pinnacle of the ‘base-under-siege’ stories. #DoctorWho
So the *entire* issue of ‘UNIT dating’ stems from Travers claiming the previous Yeti story was “40 years ago” and, in a separate conversation between Victoria and Ann, that it was 1935. When there’s so many ways either statement could be wrong/misremembered/etc… 🤷🏻♂️ #DoctorWho
Lethbridge-Stewart is amazingly more credulous at this point, believing in the idea of the TARDIS without even seeing it, and how it could be a means of escape. A huge contrast to his later attitude in The Three Doctors! #DoctorWho
Fury From The Deep: Bases! Monsters! Choppers! Possession! Traitors! And foam! Endless, endless foam. The ultimate Season 5 story? (Well, maybe with a more traditional lumbering two-legged monster…) #DoctorWho
The sonic! Or rather, the random bit of plastic Troughton used to represent the sonic…
The TARDIS team again comment that they keep landing on Earth. If this was today there’d be furious internet speculation that it’s a deliberate plot point leading up to something. #DoctorWho
The scene of Oak and Quill breathing gas onto Mrs Harris really is one of the strangest and creepiest horror moments in all of #DoctorWho, mainly due to the editing.
Thank you, over-sensitive Australian censors, that we still have it to look at! 😀
The nature and origin of the weed creature is left a bit vague. Apparently it was seen by ancient sailors as a sea-monster, but usually #DoctorWho takes mythical creatures and does the whole “it was real…but aliens!” explanation. Not this time though.
Once again a companion leaves without there being much of a sense of why they’ve chosen *this* particular time and place to stay in. At least it’s not as abrupt as some though, and Victoria gets a nice farewell scene with Jamie. #DoctorWho
Silly addendum: Victoria impersonating Scaroth over a decade early: “I’m sick of being frightened by monsters, Jamie… I WILL CHANGE IT!” #DoctorWho
The Wheel In Space: funny how David Whitaker returns and we get a story in which the TARDIS fluid link runs out of mercury and there’s a food machine dispensing square pieces of flavoured food.
The Doctor falling ill and missing an episode is very Hartnell-like too! #DoctorWho
Jamie comes up with the Doctor’s ‘John Smith’ alias after seeing it on a piece of equipment. The subsequent history of #DoctorWho could have been very different if he’d seen something like ‘Tommy Hilfiger’ on a shirt, or ‘Smeg’ on a fridge…
Completely nuts how that guy sees a Cybermat roaming around and just thinks it’s some cute little ‘space bug’ he can keep in a cupboard! Like, what the hell? 🤷🏻♂️ #DoctorWho
“I’ll put you across my knee and larrup you!” says Jamie to Zoe, not long after he’s met her in The Wheel In Space. Crikey. 😳 #DoctorWho
Victoria may have been more on his wavelength, but that means Jamie’s sparky relationship with the totally contrasting Zoe is much more fun to watch. #DoctorWho
These early Cybermen have all sorts of mind-control and telepathy powers, even the ability to read images from human minds and project them onto a screen, which were all forgotten about in later years. #DoctorWho
Look he definitely says “sectional”, but yeah, I accept it’s far funnier to hear it this way. 😁 #DoctorWho
Ah, why couldn’t it have been a clip from a missing episode that the Doctor mentally projects for Zoe to watch? #DoctorWho
The Dominators: (phew, it was exhausting mentally-projecting a “repeat” of my previous comments about Evil Of The Daleks. Hope you all received them, but anyway…)
Ah, Dulkis. Having “dull” in its name makes it the most accurately named planet since Aridius in season 2. 😐 #DoctorWho
The contrast between the studio scenes, with their photo backdrops of a quarry, and the location filming of a real quarry seems particularly pronounced here. Also very obvious that Troughton wasn’t on location, but his younger skinnier body-double was. #DoctorWho
Odd that Cully’s ship is mostly seen as a model, but when it gets blown up it’s suddenly a full-size replica with a proper, to-scale, explosion. The first time I think we’ve seen anything like that. #DoctorWho
When the fiery young rebel of this planet is actually a balding middle-aged man you know things aren’t great.
Very funny though when lead Dominator Rago angrily bursts into their council chamber to take over and someone suggests “If you could make an appointment…” 😄 #DoctorWho
Rago and Toba throughout this story. #DoctorWho
The Mind Robber: one of the best Part Ones ever, even more impressive given the last-minute circumstances in which it was cobbled together. I’m glad we lost part of The Dominators for this. This is the Alice-In-Wonderland surrealism of The Celestial Toymaker, but done right. #DoctorWho
Hamish Wilson does a commendable job as temporary-Jamie, though you’d wonder why, when he’s initially just heard calling out, that the Doctor recognises the very different voice as “Jamie”. #DoctorWho
This should have been a playable game on the BBC #DoctorWho website. 😁
Although I’m not sure Frazer Hines’ face is actually in there…
The Hand of Fear@gavinwinters It isn't. (RIGGED!) But director David Maloney's is.
@gavinwinters (Images credit to @KrynoidRoots and @spiralpolitic on Twitter)