Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day Ninety-Seven: The Nightmare Begins (The Daleks' Master Plan, Episode One)

Dear diary,

Oh, lord, that's not a promising title to start on a twelve-day 'epic', is it? I have to confess, I've been slightly dreading this. I've found something of a new love for the Daleks since the start of this marathon, to the stage that by the time The Chase rolled around, I was actually quite excited to have them back again. Now, though, I'm faced with almost two whole weeks of them. I tend to start getting bored (and running out of things to say, too!) during a six-parter! Hold tight, this one could sink the entire experiment…

As per usual, I'm listening to this story via the narrated soundtrack, which is available for download at a really reasonable price! It's one of the few that I didn't already own, and I was dreading the cost, so that was a pleasant surprise. The audio opens with a pre-titles sequence that recaps the ending of The Myth Makers - all the stuff with Steven coming round in the TARDIS and Katarina believing that she's in limbo.

It's a fascinating way to introduce a new character to the show, and very different to any of the other introductions that we've had over the last fifty years. I must confess that I've been really looking forward to her arrival, because I wanted to settle something in my own mind: is she a companion or not!?! I was rather hoping that actually hearing the introduction might clear it up once and for all, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Whereas the introductions of both Vicki and Steven were used to remind the viewer of the programme's basic premise, reintroducing us to the important aspects of the show, Katarina is just sort of treated with a sense of 'well, here she is then'. Even the Doctor, when he departs from Troy pretty rapidly, doesn't stop to panic that he's accidentally kidnapped a young handmaiden, he simply asks her to carry on looking after Steven. It's all very odd, and all a little rushed.

I don't know if it's this feeling of rushing that's making Katarina feel like a part-time companion, or if it's because I know that she'll be dead before too long. It's a shame, because there's a fair bit of scope in the idea, and the way she describes the TARDIS ('this isn't Troy. This is not even the world. This is the journey through the beyond') is wonderful. That said, she takes to the idea of how to open the TARDIS doors pretty quickly, and seems more comfortable in the ship that Bret Vyon does later on. Is this a case of Clarke's third law? To Katarina, this is all the magic of her Gods. To Brett, it's just a really really bizarre space ship.

The episode proper is a curious beast. For the first half or so, you could be forgiven to assume that it's a repeat of Mission to the Unknown, as the TARDIS doesn't appear until quite some way into the story. That's not a bad thing, though. Already, thanks to that earlier episode, we feel like we have a head start on the Doctor - we know what's going on inside the buildings he's headed for. We know that the Daleks are here on Kembel. We know that the Doctor should be avoiding the strange, spiky plants. Incidentally, the soundtrack narration makes a great point of mentioning that the Doctor doesn't know how dangerous these plants are.

The entire first section of the plot is a perfectly executed way of setting up the background for the story we're about to watch. We follow Vyon's communication from Kembel right back to the SSS central control, where it's being ignored by two people arguing over what to watch on TV. It's this simple, every day situation that makes it feel so natural when we're told of a 'Mars-Venus' game being screened (there's no need to give any more information, this paints in more than enough beautifully), and we're introduced to Mavic Chen, the 'Guardian of the Solar System'.

Sure, by the end of that section, it does feel a little like we've been given one massive info-dump, with lots and lots of information being thrown at us very quickly. Most of it can fade away into the background, though, just there to spark up if and when it's needed. We're told that it's now the year 4000, and we're given the date for the signing of a Solar System peace treaty. We're even given a date for it (was it 3975? Something like that?), and that's all I need to know. It's the 41st century. The Solar System is at peace, and Mavic Chen is the Simon Cowell of his age. Good enough.

Something that I'd been planning to bring up here - ever since the strange culture shock of going from Daleks in a jungle to the plains of ancient Troy - was that we don't need that other story between Mission to the Unknown and this. You could just as easily go from that episode into this one and it would flow just nicely. But then… what took me by surprise is that this episode picks up some time after that one, with Vyon and his comrade here out hunting for the SSS agent we saw back in Mission.

It feels like time has passed in the story, because time has passed for us watching it. That's clever. And because we know that the Daleks are around on Kembel, there's no need to make a big surprise out of it - the first time they appear, they simply turn up and kill a man. No questions asked. It's the most ruthless we've ever seen them, and it's really quite effective. It's just a shame that we spend the first few minutes being told that 'they' are out there, trying to build up at least a little suspense.

Next Episode: Day of Armageddon

Next Episode: Day of Armageddon 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day Ninety-Six: Horse of Destruction (The Myth Makers, Episode Four)

Dear diary,

Can we please have a petition to change this episode's title back to Is there a Doctor in the Horse?, as Donald Cotton originally suggested? I'm willing to mount quite an aggressive campaign in favour of this.

Do you know, I'd completely forgotten about Katarina. I knew that this was Vicki's final episode. I knew that Katarina existed. And yet I'd not managed to put two and two together to remember that she was actually going to turn up in this story.

It's odd, considering how much time I spent yesterday praising the amount of care and attention given to the departure of companions in these early days, to then be confronted with a new addition to the TARDIS who simply turns up in the last episode, and doesn't even play a vital role until the very last scene! If anything, she feels like a temporary stop-gap companion, but that's possibly because I've always known her to be just that - but there'll be plenty of time to discuss Katarina's companion status during the next story, I'm sure.

Elsewhere, the departure of Vicki is still handled magnificently, right until the end. As I've said, I know that this is Vicki's last episode, but when we hear the TARDIS dematerialise, having seen the Doctor and Vicki venture inside it towards the end… it threw me. I wondered if I'd understood the terms of Vicki's departure wrongly for all these years, and that we might be getting what you might call a Time-Flight situation developing.

But when we cut from that to Trolius injured out on the plains, calling for his newfound love as the city burns before him, and Vicki appears to him, having opted to remain behind so that he wouldn't think she'd misled him… Oh, of course it's well handled. It's actually incredibly moving in a way that I wasn't expecting it to be, and the appearance of Trolius' cousin serves to suggest that there's a real future for Vicki here, in the same way that David's outstretched hand and Ian and Barbara laughing on a bus did for them.

Elsewhere, this is quite a dark episode, especially following the humour that I'd grown used to from the last few day's entries to the diary. The latter half of the episode basically consists of the city burning while the Trojans are massacred by the Greeks. Having experienced this entire story via the narrated soundtrack, I had grown used to the feel of listening to Doctor Who as audio again, and there's not much left to the imagination in this way.

It's perhaps another reason to be pleased that I'm experiencing the story in this way - there's a moment when Peter Purves' narration describes the Greeks opening the gates of the city, and a whole army flooding in to win the war. On screen, I can imagine this being a few extras running in, swords aloft. In my mind, it could almost look like a scene from Lord of the Rings. I do usually picture things as looking more-or-less the way I think they would have done on screen (that's the result of moving through the series at this pace and in this way!), but the sound design here is too good to not suggest more.

On the whole, The Myth Makers has been an odd one. It's moved from something that didn't really appeal to me, to being funny, dramatic and moving to varying degrees throughout it's last three parts. This is the first time in the marathon that I've encountered one of those stories that I really know little about - aside from the departure of Vicki - and so it's a very interesting time for me.

Hopefully, that'll be continuing into the next story. While I know it's the single longest story from the 1960s, features the Daleks and has a Christmas episode hovering around in the middle, I don't really know all that much about The Daleks' Master Plan. And so we move into what I'm likely to be calling Dalek Fortnight…

Next Episode: The Nightmare Begins

Next Episode: The Nightmare Begins 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day Ninety-Five: Death of a Spy (The Myth Makers, Episode Three)

Dear diary,

Something that I've found a little odd so far is the way the Doctor has reacted to being forced to make plans for getting the Grecian army into Troy. Yesterday, Steven suggested the obvious one - let's build a great, big, wooden horse. You know, like it says in all the legends of this war. The Doctor's dead set against the idea, because it was all made up and probably never even happened… and then he goes an suggests that they build gliders and flying machines to sail over the walls of the city!

Still, it's really only an excuse to give the Doctor something to play around with for an episode or so, until they're ready for him to announce his plan to use the wooden horse after all part-way into today's instalment. This way, everything is in place ready for the final episode. I can't complain, though, as we do get some rather nice comedy as the suggestion is made that the Doctor be the first man to fly into Troy, and he swiftly tries to back-track!

The comedy is a bit toned down for this episode compared to the last, although there's still plenty of it in evidence. There's a lovely discussion between Vicki and Steven as they find themselves locked away in the dungeon, where he protests that he's dressed as a Greek to come and rescue Vicki, and she droles 'You've done a beautiful job'. It's nice to see the pair getting some time together again here - I'm really going to miss the pairing of Steven and Vicki.

It's a period in the companionship of the programme that I've never really considered before. In my mind, the Hartnell era is usually Ian/Barbara/Susan - Ian/Barbara/Vicki - Steven/Dodo - Ben/Polly, and then onto the Second Doctor. I wonder if it's because this is such a short pairing together (only 13 episodes, if we count the end of The Chase)? A real shame, though. I even spent some time wondering if I could slip in a Big Finish adventure for the pair before embarking on this story, but it didn't seem right to have a more contemporary tale thrown in. It's definitely going to the top of my list for the future, though!

One of the most interesting aspects of this episode is sadly overlooked rather early on. While the Doctor is being given just one more day to devise a plan to invade Troy, Vicki is tasked to coms up with a way to stop a potential Grecian invasion, and to bring a swift end to the war. Steven sums it up best, when he says that it's Vicki against the Doctor, and knowing the Doctor, he's probably already got a good plan.

There's something quite intriguing about having the Doctor and his companions on opposite sides of a battlefield, each working against the other without truly realising it (come to think of it, isn't there a book along those lines? Though with a different incarnation of the Doctor on each side? Or did I imagine that? If there isn't then there should be!). It's a shame, then, that this is swept under the rug so quickly, when the Doctor's actions see Vicki released from prison and praised for winning the war, without ever lifting a finger.

Before she's released, though, we get a lovely scene between her and Trolius. I commented when Ian and Barbara left that the programme at this stage was still very good at setting up a companion's departure, and it's been really well handled again, here. Little hints yesterday that the pair may be falling for each other are enough to start the ball rolling, but it's really brought to the fore here, as they talk together - ignoring Steven for the most part - and Vicki sighs that she thinks she'd be very happy here, in time. I really can't fault the work being put into this area here, and special praise must be reserved for Maureen O'Brien, who turns in one of her very best performances in the programme for the scene.

Next Episode: Horse of Destruction

Next Episode: Horse of Destruction 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day Ninety-Four: Small Prophet, Quick Return (The Myth Makers, Episode Two)

Dear diary,

Well today's episode has certainly picked things up a little for me! I still don't know enough about the events of Troy to get as much from it as I should, but with references to the wooden horse, and suggestions of things being brought into Troy with Greeks hidden inside… there's enough here for me to latch onto.

Perhaps the best thing about this episode, though, is the addition of the Troy characters. They've got a sense of humour to them that really struck a chord with me, creating a historical comedy that I'm enjoying, as opposed to something like The Romans, which didn't appeal. I wonder if it's because I knew that The Romans was supposed to be a comedy, and as such was waiting for it to make me laugh. With The Myth Makers, I was expecting a more traditional tale (and that's certainly what Episode One seemed to promise), so the comedy is an unexpected and happy addition.

I think Paris has to be my favourite of the characters on display, and he certainly gets the best of the more humorous moments from the script. The way he mocks Cassandra over her ability to tell the future ('I'm sure you don't have a monopoly on it') and his sense of pride at having captured the - unguarded - police box from the middle of the plains ('What use is it? What use is it? Well, I've not idea, really…').

It's nice to see Vicki brought back into the action again today, too, and given more of a presence in the story. The moment that she emerges from the TARDIS at just the right moment to be mistaken for a God is still fun, just as it was with the Doctor in the last episode, but it's nice to see her cutting though the pomposity almost instantly, telling the assembled crowd that she's nobody important, just a girl from the future.

All round, there seems to be a lot of open and honest talk about where our regulars have come from. Vicki tells the Trojans, while Steven explains their predicament with the Greeks (calling it a 'miscalculation' on the Doctor's part, who seems pretty pleased with himself to have managed to land on Earth at all). It's unusual to hear them talking like this - not something we're often shown. It's another (albeit minor) step down the road of this history-altering arc we've been on.

Next Episode: Death of a Spy

Next Episode: Death of a Spy 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day Ninety-Three: Temple of Secrets (The Myth Makers, Episode One)

Dear diary,

It's not a particularly original thing to say, but crikey this isn't half a tonal shift coming from Mission to the Unknown. It seems like such a culture shock to have spent an episode in an alien jungle, with Varga plants and Daleks, alongside a whole host of alien delegates… to suddenly find yourself on the plains of ancient Troy, where a couple of chaps are having at each other.

That said, it's the kind of trick I can imagine the new series pulling - two people from history engaged in battle, when one asks for a sign from the gods, and the TARDIS arrives, right in the middle of the battlefield! That's a more elaborate way of showing the events here (the narration on the soundtrack describes the pair as 'not even noticing' the blue police box. Hm, somewhat less impressive).

And then you've got the Doctor being mistaken for Zeus. It's quite fun, and I like how amused the Doctor is by this notion, especially considering the way that Barbara used a similar situation for her own ends two seasons ago. I like the way he pretends not to know Steven, but suggests that he be taken to his 'temple' (the TARDIS) for his execution, promising to show those who don't believe in him a miracle.

Otherwise, you could be forgiven for assuming that this episode was setting up a holiday for Maureen O'Brien. Having taken part in the early TARDIS scenes, Steven asks her to remain behind in the ship… and we don't hear from her again! Most unusual. I'm guessing that she'll have a bigger role to play in the next episode, though, now that the 'temple' has gone missing.

Now, I have to admit, I'm not particularly well-versed in my ancient Greek mythology, and so much of the stuff in this episode (and indeed through the rest of the story) is likely to go right over my head. I have to admit that there were parts of today's instalment that left me a little cold - longing for a Dalek, even! I dread to think how kids reacted in 1965, getting only a single week of the pepper pots before being plunged into such dense history, but I'm keeping an open mind. I've herd plenty of good stuff about this story in the past, so I'm hoping that it delivers!

Next Episode: Small Prophet, Quick Return

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Ninety-Two: Mission to the Unknown

Dear diary,

When you think about the early years of Doctor Who, the Dalek serials divide themselves up quite nicely. One in the first season, two in the second, a feature-length adventure for the third year, and then back to having two for the fourth, before they disappear from screens for a bit. Watching the marathon in order like this, though, you realise how darn quick this one comes around again - wasn't it only about a week ago that I last watched the Daleks trundling around in a jungle?

Much like the fantastic timings of The Reign of Terror and Galaxy 4 on DVD, this episode has come around just right for me, with the animated version being posted online about six weeks ago. I know there was a lot of talk about the episode at the time, but I purposely avoided it all. I wanted to wait and experience it in context with the rest of the marathon. It's also quite timely considering I realised yesterday that there's about as many missing episodes left to wade through as there are episodes that I've already experienced. That was a scary thought.

So then! This story has the infamous distinction of being the only episode of Doctor Who to feature neither the Doctor or any of his companions. Ellie found it a most bizarre concept to get her head around, and wondered why it was even considered a part of the series. In some ways, I figure that she probably has a point. I'm hoping that events of this story will prove to be integral to the upcoming Dalek epic, but I have a feeling that it could be boiled down to just a few bits of the scenes featuring the Daleks and the array of weird and wonderful alien delegates - something tells me that's all I'm going to need to know from this one.

And that's kind-of ok. Certainly the aliens turning up was one of the stronger parts of the episode. I have to confess that I found the opening to be more than little dull, and I wasn't relishing the project of a full episode of two new characters stood around repairing a spaceship. It's telling that it picks up for me once the Daleks start to pursue them through the jungle, and eventually kill them. The Daleks here are colder than we've seen them for a while, and that's an interesting development.

One of the things I did pick up on during this one, and possibly as a result of this coming so close to The Chase*… Terry Nation does *really like the idea of plants that are part vegetation, part animal, doesn't he? I know that it's something of a joke within Doctor Who fandom - one of those ideas that he reuses time and time again, but actually, it's glaringly obvious when you sit down to watch it! We had a cliffhanger built around it in The Keys of Marinus, last week the Doctor was commenting on how fascinating it was on Mechanus, and now we've got the Vaaga plants here.

Actually, though, I'm not really complaining. The idea of the Vaaga plants is by far the most interesting one that Nation has given us in this theme. I like the idea that they are part animal because they've taken over a living creature, and it does make for quite a chilling moment as several of the plants move in on the spaceship and its remaining crew, even more so when you remember that one of the plants was their former crew-mate.

It's another area where it's perhaps better than this episode exists now as animation rather than physically in the archive. The effect of the Vaaga plant shuffling toward you, or as a person transforms into it, it rather well realised, here, though I'd imagine it could look less effective in the studio in 1965. The same is true for the moment that the Daleks destroy the spaceship, and it's described as 'just falling apart' - something that would either really work, or really not in the studio.

On the whole, I think I was rather fond of the animation used here. It took me a while to get over the fact that the Daleks all seem to have the wrong dimensions (but then, I'm a Doctor Who fan. Of course that was going to irritate me!), but I think it helped this episode fare better in my estimation than just the soundtrack might have. I don't think this was as polished at The Reign of Terror or The Invasion, but it's certainly nice to have it in existence.

Barring unforeseen miracles, this is the last time that things will fall into place just in time for the marathon. The other upcoming animations - for The Tenth Planet and The Ice Warriors - won't be available until long after I've passed those stories in the run. It's a shame, as I head deeper into the wastelands of 1960s Who, but it's been nice to have so many things arrive just in time so far.

Next Episode: Temple of Secrets

Don't forget to 'like' the 50 Year Diary Facebook page ! I'm sure I'll be using it to ask questions etc in relation to the marathon! 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Ninety-One: The Exploding Planet (Galaxy 4, Episode Four)

Dear diary,

well here's a first for the 50 Year Diary - I watched today's episode twice. No, no, not because The Exploding Planet is the best episode of Doctor Who ever made, but because having listened to the narrated soundtrack release, I really wanted to see how the new recon on The Aztecs disc two held up.

The answer? It makes things seem a little rushed. It's odd, really, as I spent the audio version of the episode thinking on how little tension there is. They spend the time with Steven constantly asking the Doctor for a time update, and then they take a stroll back to the TARDIS before the world blows up. It's all very leisurely.

The recon, though, just makes the wrong things happen very quick. The Chumblies throw an ammonia bomb into the Drahvin's spaceship, so they all hurry outside, where they spend twenty seconds saying hello to the Chumblie, before they all turn on their heel and go back inside! At lest in the full length audio, they're outside for a while, and the Chumblie tells them when the air inside the ship is safe to enter again.

The other thing lost in the cut-down version, which really is a shame, is some depth to Steven's character. Everyone knows the big twist to Galaxy 4 - the beautiful aliens are evil, while the hideous ones are the good guys. You see it coming before you're halfway into Episode One. What's nice in the full-length Episode Four, though, is that when Steven is left alone with a Rill, he asks why he should trust the creature.

He muses that they must have given the Doctor enough evidence to be working with them, but that he's less sure. How does he know they're any different to the Drahvins? This goes on for a few moment,s before he concludes that the Doctor will have made the right choice, and he agrees to help work on the power transfer. In the cut-down version, most of this exchange is cut, and he simply agrees to help out with the power transfer as soon as the Doctor leaves the room.

If anything, this makes me even more glad to have Airlock back in the archive. The story could fall very very flat: there's nothing particularly new and exciting about it, after all. One of the most interesting things in here, though, is the way that Maaga acts during the third episode. We've seen her as steely and uncaring, dishing out punishments to her crew if they fail to obey her orders. We've seen her talk down to them, and ruthlessly trap Steven in the airlock.

But then there's s moment in that third episode, when she laments being stuck on this planet with her soldiers because they are just that - soldiers. She talks of how she tried to tell her commanders that they weren't right for a mission like this, but that they sent them along anyway. The character is given in that scene far more depth than we see anywhere else in the story. It's the one moment when she's not just your cardboard cut-out villain of the week. It's something of a redeeming feature to the character, and to the story itself.

Of course, she then goes on to talk about the thrill of watching the Doctor, his friends, and the Rills as the planet explodes around them, so there's a chance that she's just plain mad, too.

And one last thing, is the serial called Galaxy 4, or Galaxy Four? I've gone with the former because it's the more common (and I seem to remember about five years ago, when they announced the episode 42, Russell T Davies described it as being the first Doctor Who story to feature a numerical character in the title since this one), but the Target book opts for the latter version. What's everyone's preference?

(You have no idea how tempted I was to give this a '10', just for April Fool's sake. But then I figured you'd all see the score, figure I was mad, and leave for ever. Come back! Come back, I cry!)

Next Episode: Mission to the Unknown

Next Episode: Mission to the Unknown 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Ninety: Airlock (Galaxy 4, Episode Three)

Dear diary,

I've been a good boy with this marathon. I told myself that I'd take it an episode a day, and stick to the era that I'm currently in. That means that since January 1st, the only episodes of Doctor Who that I've watched are the ones you've seen me write about for Doctor Who Online. I caught a 30-second clip of a Colin Baker episode the other day when a friend was watching and it completely there me. Who was this strange man? Why does he call himself 'the Doctor'? And what's with all the colour!

Something that's come along quite nicely for the pace of my marathon is the DVD releases this year. The Reign of Terror came out just about a week before I needed to watch it, and The Aztecs special edition - including today's episode of Galaxy 4 - was out just a couple of weeks ago. The problem is that because I'm being a good boy and not skipping ahead, I've not been able to watch this one! It's only been back in the archive for 18 months, and so the thought that it was sitting on the shelf while I was wading my way through The Space Museum was slowly killing me.

And then, on the day of the DVD's release, my friend Nick Mellish (who's opinion on Doctor Who I'd trust any day of the week. Even if he is wrong about Time of the Daleks. We wrote a whole book about it once) popped up on Facebook: “I've just watched Air Lock! A new-old episode of Doctor Who! Amazing. I mean, sort of: fair to say that the episode and story itself are rather patchy affairs, but it has its moments. Some brilliant stuff hidden in there. But, Will! New Who! A new episode! Let's face it, that's bloody wonderful regardless of quality.”

Now, for me, there's slightly less of a thrill about the episode. As I said the other day, Season Three is my weak area of the Hartnell-era. I've seen bits of it (The War Machines) before, and other bits (The Gunfighters) I've been holding off watching until I finally did a marathon like this. The rest of it just doesn't exist, so I've never sought to find it. That means that many of the episode this season are going to be 'new-old' episodes of Who. Heck, the last two episodes were! And the next several are!

But there's still something special about Airlock. I think it's the magic of knowing that it was sat, unknown, in a collection for years. Waiting patiently to be discovered and reappraised again. It also helps that until a few years ago, with the recovery of a single photograph, we didn't have a clue what the Rills actually looked like! There wasn't any surviving material to show us. Throughout the 80s and 90s, you could only speculate as to what these 'hideous' creatures resembled. And now we've got a whole episode which features them! Sure, they're behind a glass screen, but we get the basic idea.

And I think, on the whole, that's why I'd much rather see at least one episode from every missing story returned, rather than a single full story. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to have a full story come back to the archives, so that we can enjoy it as originally intended from start to finish, but being able to actually see this episode has helped, a bit, to raise my opinion of the story as a whole, just as the surviving Episode Three did during The Crusade.

So! Anyway! The episode itself. My first port-of-call when loading up the DVD was to take a brief look at some of the recon bits from Episodes One and Two. Not the full thing, just snippets here and there. They look great, there's some really effective stuff in there, including the CGI Chumblies which are just adorable. Actually, that's true of the live-action Chumblies in the rest of Episode Three, too. I've long thought that Chumblies are meant to be a little bit naff, this kind of rubbish monster from the start of Season Three which doesn't quite work…

But they're ace! For a start, they've got lights inside them which flash around its body! I'm fairly sure that Peter Purves didn't describe that to me on the narrated soundtrack! They make them look far better than they might have otherwise. And the way they move is smooth and fun, gliding around the Rill's spaceship as they escort Vicki and the Doctor. Of course, it's not entirely flawless - I'm not keen on the way that the top 'dome' wobbles for a while when they come to a halt - but it's better than I'd anticipated.

Really, 'better than I'd anticipated' is a pretty good way to describe many of the things we see here. Catching the tail-end of the second episode on the recon, where the Doctor and Vicki explore the Rill ship, I was thinking how great it would be if the ship could have really looked as good as the backgrounds here, with the metallic frame and the sheets between them… and it does! That's what the ship really looks like throughout Episode Three!

On the whole, there's a lot of excitement associated with this episode, but the story itself still isn't the most fascinating thing in the world. I'm going to take the fair option and ration my excitement at actually seeing some of the story against how much the story itself is grabbing me, giving this episode:

Next Episode: The Exploding Planet

Next Episode: The Exploding Planet 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-Nine: Trap of Steel (Galaxy 4, Episode Two)

Dear diary,

This isn't likely to be a particularly popular comment, but I don't think that Galaxy 4 is one of the greatest losses among Doctor Who's missing episodes. That's not to say that I'm glad it's missing - I might be enjoying it even more were I able to see it properly - or that I wouldn't want to see more of it returned to the archives, but I'm glad that we've lost this one, as opposed to, say, The Time Meddler.

Yes, yes, I'm sure you can judge from that opening paragraph my feelings towards today's episode. It's that same sense of disappointment that I found myself experiencing during Season Two - It's not that there's anything wrong with the episode, it's all just too bland. The Doctor and Steven get caught in the TARDIS, where bombs are set off outside, but there never feels like any real threat.

Then the pair wander back to the Drahvin spaceship and discuss the poor quality of its design. Then they argue with Maaga a bit, before she takes one of the Doctor's companions hostages, and he goes for another walk. Ooh, exciting.

That's not to say that the episode doesn't have its merits. Steven still proves to be a real boon to the series, and his discussion with the Drahvin soldier, as he tries to convince her to go and get the better gun is fantastic. Steven knows the way that this works, and he's able and willing to play the situation to get the result he needs. It helps to give us a glimpse at his intelligence while painting a picture of the way the Drahvin society works.

I also have to give praise for the scene in which the Doctor and Vicki observe, note, collate, conclude… and then she throws a rock at a Chumblie. It's another example of the series injecting just the right amount of comedy, and I have to admit to laughing out loud when Vicki explained her method to the Doctor. It feels as though Vicki's character has been given a bit more of a rounding out over the last couple of stories again, which is nice to see.

But tomorrow is surely the bigger excitement. An episode of Doctor Who missing from the archives for several decades, and now back in its rightful home, fully restored and out on DVD just in time for me to reach it with this marathon. And just think, it's only a single dawn away!

Next Episode: Airlock

Next Episode: Airlock 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-Eight: Four Hundred Dawns (Galaxy 4, Episode One)

Dear diary,

A nice shiny new recon of Galaxy 4 came out a couple of weeks back, as a special feature on the new release of The Aztecs DVD, as a place to house the recently-recovered third episode. Unfortunately, the recon on the DVD isn't a full length one, and the rest of the episodes have been cut down. In the interests of doing this marathon properly, I've therefore decided to stick with the audio release of the story - though I did get a nice 5-minute clip of real footage in today's episode…

One of the things I like about the narrated audios is that they allow my mind to wander a little, and take one-or-two liberties with the visual representation of the story. Having come from eighty-seven consecutive days of watching early Doctor Who evolve in its style, anything I'm imagining here isn't wildly different to what I'm used to them achieving in the studio (the planet isn't some far-flung alien visa, for example, with the suns blazing in the sky as though they were made of pure CGI), I am able to forget about any odd technical glitches, such as any damage to the set, or a snippet of boom shadow.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Peter Purves describes the world onto which the TARDIS has landed: 'the ground here is black and smooth'. I've worked in studio TC3 at the BBC Television Centre (may she rest in peace), and so the description of a studio floor was enough to pull me right out of things for a moment! I might not imagine a vast, sprawling landscape, but I might have at least imagined some sand on the ground…

In all, this first episode is something of a come-down from the highs I've had with The Time Meddler. It feels like a hangover from Season Two (which, being made at the end of that production period, I guess it is), and not one of the better examples of the run. There's some nice enough elements, but the whole thing is just a little bland.

The standout has to be the TARDIS crew, who have very quickly settled in, and who I'm liking a lot. The opening scenes here, in which Vicki cuts Steven's hair while the Doctor operates the ship are somewhat reminiscent of the first episode of The Chase, and suggest a team that are settled in with each other.

One of the complaints that I've often read about this story is that it was re-written at the last minute to incorporate Steven instead of Ian and Barbara, and that therefore, many of Babs' lines were relocated to the new arrival. While that may feel like the case in one or two places here, it helps to bed in the idea that Steven is comfortable in the TARDIS, and gives the impression that some time has passed since we left them at the end of the last season. I'd be willing to suggest that they've had one or two adventures together since then.

Steven's sense of sarcasm, which I so praised yesterday, is still in evidence, too, when he discusses Vicki's hair-cutting skills. All in all? A team I'm really enjoying, and I hope it continues through the rest of the story.

The one other thing that I wasn't expecting was a line from Maaga, when she describes her crew as 'products. Inferior products. Grown for a purpose and nothing more.' As soon as she said it, I was reminded of the Flesh from Matt Smith's second season - there's certainly something of a parallel! Are some of the Drahvins grown from the stuff? Assuming nothing comes along to contradict it further down the line, I'm going to be taking this as part of my own personal cannon from now on…

Next Episode: Trap of Steel

Next Episode: Trap of Steel 

Don't forget to 'like' the 50 Year Diary Facebook page ! I'm sure I'll be using it to ask questions etc in relation to the marathon! 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-Seven: Checkmate (The TIme Meddler, Episode Four)

Dear diary,

Ever since watching The Aztecs, I've made a lot of reference to a loose 'arc' that runs through these early stories, particularly in the historicals. For want of a better term, in my mind I've been calling it the 'altering history' arc. At various points since then, I've speculated that what we've been watching in these stories is the First Doctor learning about the way history works, shifting from a view that you cannot change it, to the dawning realisation that, actually, you can.

Where this episode is interesting, then, is in the way it gives a slightly different viewpoint to the whole thing. In The Aztecs, when Barbara tries to change sacrificial ways because she believes a more civilised society can be born, the Doctor is very blunt with her: 'You can't re-write history! Not one line!'. At the time, I said that during this stage, early on in his travels, that's what he believed. Across the following historical stories (and culminating in The Romans, in which he becomes the reason for the great fire of Rome), I've suggested that he's discovering for the first time that history is more malleable than he might have first thought.

Here, though, when talking to a member of his own race for the first time (or, at least, the first time that we have seen, and presumably the first time since he left home, Susan notwithstanding), he describes 'the golden rule of time/space travel' as being that you must 'never, never interfere with the course of history'. It would be far more in keeping with the early Doctor's personality for him to have known this all along, and to only be so blunt with Barbara because he didn't want her to mess around with established events.

Tell her that the rules say she can't alter history, and she may argue that rules are made to be broken. Tell her that she can't, or that it's impossible, and there's less of a debate to be had.

And yet, all of this still allows for a learning curve in the Doctor's case, albeit one which stretches far beyond these first two seasons of the show (but so broadly that it would be difficult to keep track of it after The Time Meddler). By the time that the Doctor reaches his Eighth incarnation in the Big Finish audios, he rips a hole in the Web of Time by saving his companion's life. By the time of The Waters of Mars and his Tenth incarnation, he's learnt that he can - or can at least try - to bend time to his own will.

Once he's regenerated into Matt Smith's incarnation, messing around with time to get the desired effect is all par-for-the-course. This little arc, which I've been following for a few months now, becomes a thread that links all of Doctor Who together, very loosely.

Quite apart from all this 'arc' stuff which I keep retro-actively shoe-horning into the early seasons, this has been another great episode. If anything, it all seemed to be over a little quick. The final confrontation between the Doctor and the Monk took place early on, and then the rest seems to fall to the Saxons and the Viking's battling it out, with the Monk caught in the middle.

That's not to say that there isn't still some good stuff involved - Steven is still proving to be a great companion, and I've taken to him in the way I loved Ian in the early days. I hope the quality of writing for the character stays this high outside of a Dennis Spooner script. He's got a thick vein of sarcasm running through him, which helps to make the character seem all the more real.

The Doctor's joy at having tricked the Monk is fab, and it's great to see the Doctor behaving in this way. Throughout the story, it's felt like the Doctor has finally struck the perfect balance between the dark, sinister character from early Season One and the giggling fool we've seen lot so f in Season Two. Crucially, we've had to say goodbye to Ian and Barbara, who the Doctor himself said were treating him like a doddery old man. Perhaps now we're back to seeing a more 'true' Doctor, though still softened by the time he spent with them?

On the whole, the second season has been a bit of a let down for me. While there were several stand-out episodes, there were far more that really didn't chime with me particularly well. I'm excited to be moving onto the show's third season, though, and seeing what it will bring. Of all the Hartnell seasons, the third is the one I have the least prior exposure to (mostly due to the high number of missing bits!), so there could be anything waiting for me just around the corner…

Next Episode: Four Hundred Dawns

Next Episode: Four Hundred Dawns 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-Six: A Battle of Wits (The Time Meddler, Episode Three)

Dear diary,

I don't know if I just didn't notice it during The Crusade and the end of Planet of Giants, or if Douglas Camfield has suddenly stepped up a gear in his direction, but this episode continues to make The Time Meddler the absolute best direction that we've had in Doctor Who to date.

The scene where the Doctor confronts the Monk, with a stick to his back, is simply gorgeous, and the close-ups of the characters feel oddly out of place - the framing of them and the way that the camera cuts from shot, to shot, to shot… it's all far better than I've grown used to. It also has an interesting effect on the Doctor - Hartnell has never looked better in the role than he does here.

There's a shot, as the Monk steps outside for the second time, having been taunted by a ghostly knock to the door, when the Doctor steps up behind him, and fixes him in the back with the end of a branch. The way the Doctor stands, the way he acts, the way he speaks to the Monk… Hartnell performs the scene in a way quite unlike any other performance he's given, and it all really works.

And then there's that final shot, as Vicki and Steven crawl through a concealed door in the crypt and emerge out into the Monk's TARDIS. The way that the camera pulls backwards, the doors opening as the pair step inside. Frankly, there's something a little bit magical about that moment.

The problem is that I know it's coming! The cliffhanger to this episode is one of the more well-known from the programme's original run. It's a justly famous cliffhanger - it's fantastic! - but it means that the impact is slightly lessened for me. Imagine sitting down in 1965, having watched Doctor Who for just under two years, following it from the beginning, and then reaching this moment.

Everything you thought you knew is suddenly being re-written! I wondered just a few days ago at the Doctor's comment that he built the TARDIS. Even as late as that, there's still some indication that the ship is his, and it's the only one in the universe. Now we know otherwise.

I must admit, based on how much I'm enjoying this story so far, I was really worried about this cliffhanger. I was worried that it would just pass me by without feeling at all special, in the way that it rightly should do. Thankfully, a combination of the direction, Maureen O'Brien's performance and the way that the whole thing is handled really comes together to make give the scene a real impact, even if you do know what's coming.

Next Episode: Checkmate

Next Episode: Checkmate 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-Five: The Meddling Monk (The Time Meddler, Episode Two)

Dear diary,

I panicked, after yesterday. The pattern lately seems to be of having a very strong opening episode, and then watching as it slowly goes to pot across the rest of the story. Or, at the very least, watching it revert to just being mediocre. Having come from such a strong episode yesterday (It's not the first '9' I've given to the marathon, but I spent a while debating wether or not to give it a full-on '10'…), I really didn't want to watch this one fall from favour so quick.

Thankfully, it hasn't. Weyhey! A large portion of the credit really must be given to the style and direction of the whole thing. These are - quite simply - the very best sets we've had in the series to date. All of them look fantastic, and the whole thing still has a real filmic quality to it.

The direction is first-rate, with the sad exception of the fight sequence toward the end, which just ends up falling a little flat. The problem with it, though, is that it looks like a fight from early 1960s Doctor Who, when everything around it looks like something far more polished than that.

The thing that struck me most has to be the absence of Hartnell. Not because it's badly covered (quite the opposite, in fact. The tape player just about gets away with it), but because it's only been a few episodes since we last saw him dip out for a week - during The Space Museum. It's not often you get two weeks of in such quick succession!

Perhaps the best thing about his holiday, though, has to be the cliffhanger itself. Coming as soon as it does after his last week away, Steven peering into the cell and suggesting that he thinks the Doctor is asleep, and then Vicki simply staring off-camera while she says the Doctor's name are all very reminiscent of Ian's surprised 'Doctor!' in The Space Museum.

Whereas there, though, we don't get to see what he's looking at (until the following episode, and Hartnell's return to work), here it's revealed that the lack of reply is indeed a lack of the Doctor - he's gone missing! It's a great subversion of my expectations, which helped to really make good use of the Doctor being missing for a bit.

Another subversion of my expectations came in the form of the Saxon who doesn't trust Vicki and Steven. As soon as he started to predict that they would regret letting the pair walk free, I knew they'd end up being framed for something. It was a bit of an eye-rolling moment, then, when Vikings came to assert themselves against the woman of the group (The implication seems to be rape, though that's perhaps a little strong for a Saturday tea-time!), and we're quickly being told that it was the work of 'the travellers'.

So it's fantastic that within a few minutes, they've been cleared of the crime by the woman herself, who comes round long enough to murmur 'Vikings'. I'm never much of a fan of 'the Doctor and his friends have to prove their innocence' in these historical stories, so it's great to see that idea being given a new spin here, too…

Next Episode: A Battle of Wits

Next Episode: A Battle of Wits 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-Four: The Watcher (The Time Meddler, Episode One)

Dear diary,

For some weeks now, The Time Meddler has felt like something of a Holy Grail. As I've meandered my way through Season Two, finding it to be mostly average-to-poor stories with the odd flash of brilliance, this tale, nestled in the final slot of the series, has seemed like a beacon of shining light.

I mused a few days ago that Ian and Barbara had come to represent everything that I wasn't enjoying about the series, and now is the best time to qualify that statement so that it makes a bit more sense. Everything post-Season Two holds some kind of excitement for me. This story is another vital stage in the arc of altering history. Galaxy 4 has a recently-recovered episode, and the DVD has been sat on my shelf for weeks, now, calling out to me, while I stubbornly refuse to watch before the allotted day in the marathon.

The Myth Makers is hailed as being a rather fantastic tale, and my newfound appreciation for the Daleks means that the idea of a 'twelve-part Dalek epic' seems exciting enough. The only things that was tying me to the middle-of-the-road second season stories were… well… Ian and Barbara.

It's felt like the arrival of Steven would be exactly the thing to kick the series back into gear: a breath of fresh air, sweeping through Doctor Who like a hurricane as it moved everything into a position to be fantastic again. And we start with today's episode which is, let's face it, bloody marvelous.

Yesterday, I talked about the odd way they leave things with Steven, and hoped that they would pick them up properly here. Well the good news is that they not only pick things up properly, but they use the opportunity to create the best opening to an episode that we've had in a long time. In much the same way that The Rescue was used as a chance to re-establish the series post-Susan, the opening to this tale is used to bring us back up to speed again before we continue.

We get mention of the original TARDIS team, Vicki even gives us a recap of what the acronym stands for, and she explains to Steven that the ship can move anywhere in time and space. We're then re-introduced to the idea that it's broken, and thus we never know where we'll be next, and the reasons why it looks like a police telephone box.

And yet, while all this could be incredibly dry stuff for someone like myself, who's enough of a fan of the series as to know all of this stuff like the back of my hand, it's written so perfectly that it never gets dull. Steven is given a wonderful vein of humour to draw from as he encounters all these strange and wonderful new things. (An absolute highlight has to be the Doctor explaining that the ship can change its appearance to look like anything, and agreeing that it would turn into a large rock if it were to land on a beach. Steven then turns to Vicki and exclaims 'You know that large rock over there looks exactly like a police telephone box…').

Quite aside from this, the whole episode looks gorgeous. I spent a little while trying to figure out if it had all been shot on film or if it just looked lovely. The direction is first class and the sets are stunning. There's a moment when two Saxons look over the edge of the cliffs and we see the sky moving above them, and it's flawless. Really impressive stuff.

The only thing I regret is knowing what this story is about. I know that the Monk has lost a wrist-watch. I know that the chanting in the abandoned monastery is coming from a grammar phone. I know that there's a second TARDIS secreted away in 1066. Knowing all of this does take something away from the impact of these reveals, but having come to this story the long way (at the pace of an episode a day) it really does feel fresh, new, and different.

What a great way to start this fabled 'new era' I've been so looking forward to!

Next Episode: The Meddling Monk

Next Episode: The Meddling Monk 

 Day Eighty-Three: The Planet of Decision (The Chase, Episode Six)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-Three: The Planet of Decision (The Chase, Episode Six)

Dear diary,

The Daleks are closing in on our heroes! Trapped in a cave with no means of escape, destined to be exterminated any second! But wait! What's that? A hidden door has swished open, and a strange, huge, metallic creature beacons the time travellers toward it in a barely comprehensible computer language.

As the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki crowd in around the robot, the door closes once more as the small space starts to ascend to the city high above them. It's a lift! It's more than that - it's an escape. Freedom, if only briefly, from the Daleks below. They rise higher and higher into the sky…

And all I can think about is how much I wish my Mechanoid toy had a little top bit that went up and down like the one on the screen! I love the Mechanoid toy for the same reason I think the creatures look great on screen here - it's massive. Compared to all the other figures on the shelf, it's a great big lump, and that makes it impressive.

Ten minutes after the episode had finished, while I way laying on my bed, recreating the fight between the Daleks and the Mechanoids (Oh, shush. We all do it), I suddenly noticed that the top bit of the figure does actually lift up and down! Weyhey! I've had this thing sat on the shelf for well over a year, now, and I've never noticed that it does that. How marvellous.

Anyway. Yes. The fight between the Daleks and the Mechanoids. There's a great piece of artwork on Disc Two of the DVD release for The Chase which depicts the battle between the creatures, and it's something of a Photoshop masterpiece. Both sides engulfed in flames, attacking each other. But, actually, it's fairly spot-on for what we get on screen here in 1965!

I often tell myself that I'm not really all that bothered by Doctor Who not being shot on film. I mean, sure, the ITC serials look lovely made that way, but on the whole I've never really noticed the difference all that much. But then we get that first shot here of a Mechanoid trundling into the battle arena, shot at an off-kilter angle, and I wish, Oh, I wish, that Doctor Who always looked this good. It continues for the rest of the battle scene, with close ups of the Dalek Guns, and fast cuts as the battle rages… Frankly, it's stunning. I think I even prefer it to the revolution scene from The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Oh, but really, this episode belongs to Ian and Barbara. I commented the other day that I was starting to get a bit sick of them, and that I was about ready for them to leave. All of that's still true - I'm excited to be moving onto a new era post-schoolteachers, but that doesn't mean that I won't miss them. The latter third of this episode is a masterclass in how to handle the departure of companions from Doctor Who, and thinking it over, I'm not sure it's ever been bettered.

The way that the Doctor explodes at them when they suggest using the Dalek time capsule to get home is the thing that I've always remembered from watching this scene in the past, but it's so much deeper than that. When the Doctor and Vicki exit the ship, and we see it depart into time and space, Vicki turns back to watch as it goes, staring into the empty space that it's left behind.

But - and this is the best bit - the Doctor doesn't. He stops, looks away. We don't even get a close up of Hartnell here, because it's not needed. The whole point is that the Doctor is trying to not interact with the moment. To pretend it's not happening, because it's too painful to accept. The whole thing is beautiful. And then, following Ian and Barbara's return to Earth, the Doctor watches them on the Time-Space Visualiser, just to make sure that they've made it ok. I'd forgotten that bit, but it's lovely.

The one thing that I did find odd was the way that Steven was handled toward the end of the story. Having seen our heroes escape the city, we watch it destroyed as the Doctor explains that Steven likely hasn't made it out. There's no real moment to mourn him: he's just one of those casualties the TARDIS crew encounter on their travels. I thought this was an strange way to leave it, but then we see him running through the jungle looking for the Doctor - hooray! He did escape!

But that's it. I thought that we'd maybe see a shot of him discovering the TARDIS. Something, at least, to set up his return in the next episode. Ah well, I guess I'll see if it's resolved any better tomorrow…

Next Episode: The Watcher

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-Two: The Death of Doctor Who (The Chase, Episode Five)

Dear diary,

If I thought it was a shame that they ruined the reveal of Bizarro Doctor yesterday by mixing between shots of Edmund Warwick and William Hartnell, then nothing could have prepared me for today. I still maintain that even though Warwick isn't a great likeness for Hartnell, I could probably suspend my belief enough to accept him as the robot Doctor during this episode.

As it is, by swapping between the two actors for that role… I sort of lost track. Partly because there was more than one occasion when I wasn't sure if it was meant to be the Doctor or Robodoc, and partly because I wasn't trying all that hard to keep track.

Hartnell plays the role of the robot perfectly when he encounters Barbara in the cave - he's sinister and menacing, and it's genuinely un-nerving to see the Doctor being played in this manner. In some ways, it's not all that far removed from the way that he was playing the Doctor in An Unearthly Child. Having since watched him soften into the giggling chap more prominent in the second season, this is really effective.

The issue is, then, that a few moments later, when the Warwick-Doctor pins Barbara down with his cane, it would be a lot more effective to see Hartnell playing the part. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty dramatic moment as it is, but it could be so much more!

I think it;s in evidence during the confrontation between the real Doctor and his robot double - both halves of the conversation played by Hartnell himself. The effect works much better here, even if you do get the impression of Ian and Barbara watching a game of tennis…

Otherwise, this is just another fairly run-of-the-mill episode of Doctor Who. The design is quite nice (I love the mechanic city), if not outstanding, and the regulars all go about their business as usual. It's odd to see an Episode Five carried almost entirely by our four regular characters, but I think they get away with it - I didn't get the impression that the episode was lagging particularly.

It's interesting to note that the Daleks here aren't played for laughs as they have been elsewhere in the story. Once they've arrived in the jungle, they just go about there business of trying to capture the TARDIS crew (even if they're not very good at it!). In some ways, this is a bit of a shame: they're just sort of there, as opposed to being an interesting part of the narrative.

What I do love, though - and it's happened a few times in this story - is that they refer to the Doctor and his friends as 'the humans'. No attempt is made to correct them. The Daleks at this stage don't know that the Doctor is an alien, and so the programme keeps to that logic! It's a minor thing, but it really works for me. I can't remember if there's a specific point where they discover that he's not quite your average Earthman…

Next Episode: The Planet of Decision

Next Episode: The Planet of Decision 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty-One: Journey into Terror (The Chase, Episode Four)

Dear diary,

There's a point in this episode, when the Doctor and Ian have discovered the laboratory, and Ian tells the Doctor he's rather not know that's laying in wait under the sheet on the table. “Where's your sense of adventure?” the Doctor asks him. “It died a slow and painful death,” Ian replies.

I've always cited Ian and Barbara as being among my favourite companions - and some of the best examples of companions that Doctor Who has ever produced. However, as anyone who's been following the blog along will have no doubt noticed, I've been less than impressed with the state of the show in its second season that I was with the first.

Sadly, Ian and Barbara have come to represent all that I'm not liking with the programme at the moment. They're the only real thing that's still there from the beginning (the Doctor is enough of a different character now that he may as well be brand new), and the longer they stick around for, the more I'm growing tired of them.

That's not a slight against William Russell or Jacqueline Hill at all, by the way. They both continue to be fantastic, though I'm starting to notice more and more instances of them just sort of coasting through scenes (or, to use another phrase I've been saying about Who this season, they're slipping into auto pilot). I think it started somewhere around The Web Planet, and it's been becoming more and more noticeable as we've gone on.

During Episode Two of The Space Museum, when the pair spent a lot of time arguing with each other - and with Vicki - I said that it felt like a relationship on the rocks, just sticking together out of habit. We get more of that here, when they argue with the Doctor about leaving Vicki behind, and not being able to go back for her. It just feels more-and-more that the time has come for Ian and Barbara to go. By the time they do leave the series, I'll have spent eighty-three days in their company: perhaps just a little too long.

Still, it's great to see their exit already being set up. It's been a good few years since I last saw The Chase, and enough time for me to have assumed that they simply decided to hijack the Daleks' time capsule to get them home in the closing moments of Episode Six. It's nice to see that actually, using the other time machine is an idea introduced here. As with Susan's exit earlier this season, a lot of thought is being given to departures at this stage.

Elsewhere, the haunted house set looks fantastic. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that it all turns out to have been a fun house exhibit - I wonder if the Doctor's theory that it may be a product of the collective human imagination may be more interesting as a concept. Incidentally, this is the perfect type of story to utilise this setting for - it feels just right to see our regulars exploring a house like this, but I fear it would have grown tiresome after an episode. The appearance of Frankenstein's monster and Dracula are another one of those things that this story gets derided for (and another example of something I was dreading), but they're a great addition.

Plus, the Frankenstein make-up is great!

And then we're onto the robot replica of Doctor Who. You could *almost get away with the resemblance not being the best, if only they didn't cut to a close-up of Hartnell at the very end! Noooo!

Next Episode: The Death of Doctor Who

Shhh. For *this story, that's his name. 

 Day Eighty: Flight Through Eternity (The Chase, Episode Three)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Eighty: Flight Through Eternity (The Chase, Episode Three)

Dear diary,

Let me get this one off my chest before I begin. Last week, I took issue with the fact that Vicki had read about Daleks in her history books, but had never seen an image of one. Let alone the fact that she's still using history books as opposed to reading it on the iPad 9, or having it downloaded to her brain during her hour-a-week studies, it just seemed plain weird.

And yet here, as they gaze out from the top of the Empire State Building, she recognises it as 'Ancient New York'. She knows so because she's seen pictures of it in her history books from before the Daleks destroyed it during their invasion of Earth! Were they just really selective about which pictures they wanted to show in the books?

(I must point out that, while hearing both statements so close together in a marathon format like this is annoying me, there's plenty to love about this. It's great to see them continuing to remind us that Vicki is from the future. She's such a 1960s character at times, it would be very easy to simply forget that she's not contemporary. It's also a lovely touch to add reference to the Dalek invasion - it really just helps to tie things together nicely.)

So! Flight Through Eternity. I'm not gonna lie: it's episodes like this one that I was dreading when I started this story. I mused just a few days ago that after the epic scale that was The Dalek Invasion of Earth, reducing the Daleks to a comic runaround would be more than a little disappointing. Well… I was wrong!

Hah! This episode is brilliant. Say what you want about Morton Dill (and believe me, I've been active in fan circles for long enough to know what people generally say about him!), but that whole sequence is sheer greatness. It's played as comedy - and everyone knows it's played as comedy. It just works. It's also home to what might be my favourite exchange in the series so far - “You're from Earth!” / “No ma'm, I'm from Alabama!”

Plus, it's great to see Peter Purves turning up. I once cast him in a film I made at university, along with Sarah Greene. He's always been a favourite. We'll be seeing a lot more of him before long, so chances are that I'll ruminate on that at some point!

The really interesting thing about this, though, is the Doctor's comment that a piece of the TARDIS operating equipment has 'been in the ship since I constructed it'. That's my bolding on that quote, by the way. Hartnell delivers the line as completely matter-of-fact, as if it's no great surprise.

Now, I know that there's implications in the first story that the TARDIS was the Doctor's own invention (and that Susan came up with the acronym), but it's not often we get such a blatant statement about the ships origins. What's everyone's thoughts on the matter? Did the Doctor build the ship? Does he mean he built that piece of the ship? What's everyone's thoughts? Leave a comment ,or pop on over the the 50 year Diary Facebook Page to share your thoughts…

Next Episode: Journey into Terror

 Day Seventy-Nine: The Death of Time (The Chase, Episode Two)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Seventy-Nine: The Death of Time (The Chase, Episode Two)

Dear diary,

This is a tricky one. I've enjoyed today's episode, but at the same time is hasn't done much new or interesting It's the same kind of Doctor-Who-by-numbers that I've complained about a few times during this second season.

And yet, I really have enjoyed it…

The big problem here is that they're simply over stretching themselves. The Aridian costumes aren't great, and I can't even cover for them by attempting my 'squint-at-the-screen' technique. They're just not good costumes. The design is (more-or-less) sound - it's the realisation that falls down.

And speaking of which - the Dalek falling into Ian's trap. I was really looking forward to this. Right from early in the episode, there's some gorgeous shots of the Daleks taken from a low angle, which not only makes them menacing, but shows off just how beautiful the 1960s Daleks really are. The build-up to this pivotal moment, then, still being shot from below as the Doctor and Ian build the trap had me really excited to see the Dalek tumbling down into the pit…

And then it's all done with a shadow, and is over in a matter of seconds. We don't even get a shot of the Dalek shell at the bottom! It's disappointing, because it would have made for a real stand-out moment in this story; especially so soon after The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

It's not all bad, though. The shot of the city collapsing around Ian and Vicki is rather well done, and we get to see a Dalek with an unusual new arm attachment, which looks rather snazzy. While I'm at it - Oi! Character Options! Where's the release of this Dalek? Please? I'd buy one.

I also really enjoyed Ian and the Vicki teasing each other as they try to make their escape ('You fool!' 'You… nit!'), and it's lovely to see the Doctor and Barbara given some time together again. It feels like an age since we last saw them paired together (Was it The Aztecs? No wonder it feels so long…).

So, on the whole, there's a lot to love, but it's got the same problem that much of Season Two seems to have - there's just nothing all that special about it.

Next Episode: Flight Through Eternity

 Day Seventy-Eight: The Executioners (The Chase, Episode One)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Seventy-Eight: The Executioners (The Chase, Episode One)

Dear diary,

I've been dreading this story. But I've been really looking forward to this story. But, then again, I've been dreading it. But really looking forward to it. Dizzy yet? Yeah, me too.

Here's the thing: as you may have guessed from the last month or so, I've not been enjoying Season Two as much as I enjoyed Season One. Once I'd gotten The (surprisingly great) Dalek Invasion of Earth out of the way, everything's been a bit… meh. And then there's The Chase.

This is another one of those stories that's always just sort of been there. I've never loved it, but I've never disliked it. It just sort of exists, keeping the second season going for six weeks. I remember it being quite fun, so I was looking forward to watching that. And then I watched The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and it was epic, and gorgeous, and brilliant. I really loved it, and I'd loved the fact that it brought the Daleks down to real locations and made them gritty.

Suddenly, the thought of a six-week 'romp' through time and space seemed far less appealing. And thus, for a few weeks, I rather put The Chase out of my mind, figuring that I'd just deal with it when I got there and then move on. So, I made my way through The Romans and The Web Planet, and The Crusades , not really looking forward to this comedy Dalek adventure. But then I reached Episode One of The Space Museum.

The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki turn a corner and come face-to-face with… a Dalek. And you know what? I was excited. For - I think - the first time since their appearance in Bad Wolf, I was excited by the prospect of the Daleks coming back. Then I had to sit through the three remaining episodes of The Space Museum, before I got a glimpse of a Dalek in front of a rather cheap looking wall. Ooh, thrilling.

Suffice to say, when I got up this morning, I wasn't relishing the prospect of today's episode. Having enjoyed their Earth-bound exploits so much, I was about to find myself subjected to a cheap Dalek story that wouldn't be very good. Bowl of cereal at the ready, I loaded the DVD into the Mac and grudgingly chose the first episode.

And then, I spent twenty-five of the most enjoyable minutes I've ever had watching Doctor Who. I'm not being funny, but this episode is brilliant. I tried to take Rob Shearman's advice yesterday and look for the humour in The Space Museum. There's no looking for humour here - it's holding up great big signs right in front of you!

The Doctor fixes his machine and gets irritated at Vicki's whistling, while Ian reads a book about 'Monsters From Outer-Space', which he declares “a bit far fetched”. I was laughing, out loud, to myself as I watched. That doesn't happen all that often. It's so rare to see the TARDIS crew just kicking back and enjoying themselves.

They go on to watch a bit of the Time Telly, before heading out onto a desert planet, which they treat as the equivalent of a day trip to Brighton. It's all really great fun - it's almost a shame that the Daleks have to turn up and spoil it for them.

Even then, there's plenty of drama, as Ian and Vicki find themselves cornered by a monster in a secret chamber, while the Doctor and Barbara get caught out in a sand storm, losing the TARDIS under the sand itself. The cliffhanger of the Dalek rising from the sand is't as effective as the similar one from earlier in the season, where the creature glides out of the Thames, but it's still rather good - and I love the sound of it struggling to get out of the ground!

The Daleks themselves look as impressive as ever when they're stood around in their control room, and they looks genuinely scary as they pour into their time machine. It's a shame that they didn't have the timings a little more spot-on, to avoid the occasional pauses between creatures making their way inside.

Frankly, I loved it all.

Mind you, I wondered about Ian and Barbara being a couple during The Romans, but he and Vicki here are like a pair of teenagers on a first date to the beach! In some ways, it's quite endearing!

Next Episode: The Death of Time

 Day Seventy-Seven: The Final Phase (The Space Museum, Episode Four)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Seventy-Seven: The Final Phase (The Space Museum, Episode Four)

Dear diary,

I think it's pretty fair to say that The Space Museum has left me more than a little cold since the start of the second episode. In an attempt to rectify this, and give the story a chance at redemption before it draws to a close, I've not dived straight into this episode.

Instead, I spent a few minutes watching a special feature on the DVD in which Rob Shearman defends the story. If there's anyone I'm willing to listen to on the subject then it's most certainly Rob - writer of the excellent The Chimes of Midnight, one of my favourite of the Big Finish plays. The first episode of Chimes shares several similarities with the opening of The Space Museum (the Doctor and his companion Charley cannot be seen or - properly - heard by the inhabitants of a large house they;ve landed in… Charley is unable to write her name in the dust on a table without it vanishing again), but then the story continues to be strong throughout.

Rob brings up a number of points about things he loves in this story, often referring to the fact that it's got a thick vein of comedy, and that it often lampoons earlier ideas in Doctor Who. Looking back, I think he's right, but it did little to improve my opinion on the earlier episodes. In fact, I think the only thing that it did do for me was to highlight how often Tor puts his hands on his hips. That was fun, and surely a good example of a Doctor Who drinking game?

For all my complaints about The Space Museum, though, I do have to confess that the ending is rather clever. The Doctor and his companions have spent so much time trying to alter their own destiny in this story, that they're completely unaware of the effects they're having on those around them - and ultimately it's the effect they've had on others which saves the day.

This should be an interesting concept throughout the tale - another vital step in the arc of not changing history - but it ends up just feeling a bit lacking. It doesn't help that the characters remind us every five minutes that they're trying to change their future; it all gets a bit monotonous by the end.

It is nice to watch Vicki's relationship with Tor developing in this episode, though. Coming so soon after The Dalek Invasion of Earth, you could be forgiven for thinking it might be setting up for her departure, staying behind to help build this new world. She certainly shares more chemistry with the boy than many later companions will with the people they depart for!

(Oh, and while I'm - tangentially - on the subject of Daleks, I'm disappointed by how cheap the cliffhanger looks. Still, I'm quite excited to have the pepper pots back again, and that's not something I ever expected to say!)

Next Episode: The Executioners

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Seventy-Six: The Search (The Space Museum, Episode Three)

Dear diary,

There's more shots of the police box exterior to the TARDIS in whiz episode than I think we've had in any other episode to date. That makes this the perfect opportunity to mention… just how gorgeous is the Hartnell era TARDIS?

I've praised the design of the interior before now (well, at least most of the time - it never looks so good when it's been hastily assembled in a corner somewhere…), but I don't think I've ever mentioned the exterior before now. I've never really given it much thought in the past, but I think this early version is my favourite of the classic bunch.

There's something about it that really works for me. It could be the fact that it looks a bit battered, and therefore really sells it as something that's been tumbling through the Time Vortex (or the Asteral Plane, of whatever you want to call it at this stage). The police box goes through a similar period of looking battered in the 1980s, but it's never quite as good as we see it here. And yet it's the one version of the ship that I don't own in toy form! I really must get around to fixing that.

As for the episode itself… well, it's much the same as yesterdays - nothing particularly wrong with it, but there's just nothing all that great to hook onto, either. It's great to see Ian given plenty to do, even if he's not quite in character while he's doing it. Equally, it's good to see Vicki being given a strong role in the story, too, as she starts to stir up the revolution.

I have to ask, though, since when has Vicki been able to reprogram a commuter like that? The whole scene outside the armoury put me in mind of a similar one with Zoe during The Invasion; but I had no idea something like that had occurred here, too!

What's that? What do you mean I'm struggling for things to say in relation to this episode? I resent that accusation. Although, um… er… Realistically, one of the problems with the show going into a kind of auto pilot like this is that I don't really end up with much to discuss. I could go into the suggestion that this is the only story of the early period in the show's history which hasn't seen some debate over its overall title, but that seems to be stretching it a bit.

Besides, The Dimensions of Time would be a much cooler overall title, anyway…

Next Episode: The Final Phase

Next Episode: The Final Phase 

 Day Seventy-Five: The Dimensions of Time (The Space Museum, Episode Two)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Seventy-Five: The Dimensions of Time (The Space Museum, Episode Two)

Dear diary,

Urgh. Me and my big mouth: “On the whole, though, even if the next three episodes aren't all that… this one is fantastic.” Is the way I summed up yesterday's episode. Thing is - now I've gone and jinxed it! Of course today's episode wasn't going to be as good as yesterday's. That'll be why I've got the mother of all toothaches, today. It's the universe trying to teach my mouth a lesson.

I'm usually pretty contrary when it comes to opinions on Doctor Who. I'd rather watch Twin Dilemma than Androzani, I've never really cared for Talons of Weng-Chiang (Though, having listened to series five of Jago and Litefoot this week, I can confirm it's still one of my favourite things ever), and I'm rather fond of a Sylvester McCoy story which shares a name very similar to today's episode.

Therefore, I thought this was going to be a walk in the park. I'd seen (most of) yesterday's episode before, so I knew how good that was. I'd not watched the rest of the story, but hey! If fandom-at-large dislikes it, then chances are that I'd actually enjoy it. The problem with this theory is that sometimes - just sometimes - stories get a bad reputation for a reason.

On the whole (starting positive), there's nothing wrong with this episode. It's a perfectly good twenty-five minutes of Doctor Who. My issue with it is that this is Doctor Who on auto pilot. There's nothing particularly new or interesting here.

Ian, Barbara and Vicki spend much of the episode roaming around the corridors of the space museum, and getting gradually more and more irritated with each other. It almost feels in places like the dying days of a relationship, when you're with each other out of habit rather than because there's any genuine affection. This could be a nice bit of foreshadowing - we're not all that far from our schoolteachers leaving the series now - but sadly, I think it's more just happening to fill time.

Then we've got the Doctor being interrogated by the Governor of the planet. It should be quite a good scene, as the Doctor bamboozles his questioner by displaying daft images onto the screen in an attempt to throw him off. His answer to the question of how they arrived at the museum - by flashing up a Penny Farthing - is great, as is the footage he plays of sea lions to demonstrate where he's come from and the (slightly bizarre) image of Hartnell in a bathing suit.

But it's all just a bit bland. I've grown used to the Doctor having this sense of humour across the rest of this second season, so it's just part and parcel of the series, now. It all just falls a little too flat for me.

Next Episode: The Search

 Day Seventy-Four: The Space Museum (The Space Museum, Episode One)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Seventy-Four: The Space Museum (The Space Museum, Episode One)

Dear diary,

According to fan 'wisdom', The Space Museum is similar to An Unearthly Child - a great first episode, followed by three not-very-good ones. I'll admit that I've never actually watched this one properly, so I can't really give comment on that theory for a few days, but they've got one thing right at least: this first episode is brilliant.

I've always thought of this one as being the Edge of Destruction Season Two style. There's strange things happening in the TARDIS, and our heroes don't know what's causing them. Then they venture outside, where they don't leave footprints, can't be seen, and can't hear the people they meet.

If anything, though, I think I prefer this to The Edge of Destruction. It's certainly very effective right from the off (and in answer to my musing yesterday as to how good the cliffhanger might have looked when moving: the brief clip here looks very unsettling. Great stuff!), and it builds up a certain amour of tension as the piece goes on.

When the reveal comes that our regulars can't interact with anything on the planet, and Vicki manages to put her hand right through one of the exhibits, it's very well done. Looking back, I realise that there are a few instances earlier on where the Doctor has stopped her before she can touch anything. It's a great effect, too.

It's a little sees effective when the Doctor demonstrates the same thing with the TARDIS they find. Due to the angle of the police-box and where Hartnell's stood, he seems to be both behind and inside the box all at the same time - and at moments when he's not supposed to be.

And then there's that cliffhanger! Except… it's not. I've always thought that the cliffhanger to this episode was the TARDIS crew turning around to find themselves on display in a series of glass cases. I had no idea that there's a couple of full scenes after that point, where they muse on how it might have happened, and how they might be able to escape that fate.

All the same, it's a compelling moment, and really helps to build into the spookiness of the whole episode. When the actual cliffhanger comes, it's only effective because the Doctor has just spelt it out in great detail - 'When those glass cases disappear, then we've arrived and we're in great danger!' 'Oh, look! The glass cases have gone!'.

The most effective part of the cliffhanger has to be the way that the time travellers freeze in place and the 'men-in-white-outfits' approach the TARDIS, and watch as the footprints appear in the sand.

As for the idea of the Museum itself… I like it. It's great that there's a Dalek in there, and it's fun to see the Doctor, Ian and Barbara all taken aback by it. I have to ask, though, did Vicki's history books not have pictures of the Daleks? If I were to Wiki 'Dalek' right now, there'd be plenty of images to look at alongside the descriptions!

It's a bit of a shame that we don't get more things from past adventures in the museum - it could be a fun trip down memory lane while they explore, and fitting for Ian and Barbara's penultimate story. I'd have liked to see a Key of Marinus, Perhaps, or one of the Sensorite guns. Maybe even just as a background prop?

On the whole, though, even if the next three episodes aren't all that… this one is fantastic.

Next Episode: The Dimensions of Time

I've set up a Facebook page for the 50 Year Diary. If you enjoy reading the blog, please do pop over an give it a like! I'm sure I'll be using it to ask questions etc in relation to the marathon! 

 Day Seventy-Three: The Warlords (The Crusade, Episode Four)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Seventy-Three: The Warlords (The Crusade, Episode Four)

Dear diary,

The one down side to listening to this story as a narrated soundtrack, rather than as a recon is that it's very easy to not notice that you've hit the 'shuffle' button. Ten minutes in, I thought it was all a bit muddled and over very quickly, and that's when I realised what I'd done!

A quick reset back to the start and I was off again. Know what, though? It's still a bit muddled and over very quickly! I wonder if it comes back to my complaints from earlier in the story - because I just don't know this period of history, and I don't know the real-life stories of the characters we meet, it seems as though the story just… ends?

What happens to Joanna, for example? Yesterday's plot was constructed largely around her being married off in an attempt to end the war, we get that wonderful blazing row between her and Richard, and then… she's not even in this episode! Did Richard go ahead with the plans to marry her off? Did he end them?

It almost feels as though the entire story has swung off in a different direction for this episode, without really considering what's come before. There's even a moment when Richard tells the Doctor that he's not really angry with him (which is the state we left things in yesterday, and which was a very powerful moment), because he knows that he didn't betray him.

Then the Doctor slips away to the woods, and they're on their way. It has to be said, Ian's bluffing about the Doctor having killed many of his men as a distraction to get them inside the TARDIS was a great one - I think that was probably my favourite part of the episode today.

Overall, I think The Crusade has been a bit hit-or-miss for me. On the one had, you've got some fantastic performances from the guest cast, all of whom are really going for it. The script is rich, and dripping with detail on the period, it's just a shame that it really means nothing to me.

Perhaps most successful, though, is the design of this story. Frankly, it's gorgeous. The sets used for both of the major encampments for the story are stunning, and it's a perfect example of the BBC being far more comfortable with designing sets from history, rather than far-flung alien worlds.

And then we've got that cliffhanger. I hope it looked as good on screen as it sounded, described by William Russell on the soundtrack. It's eerie, and that's always a good sign…

Next Episode: The Space Museum

I've set up a Facebook page for the 50 Year Diary. If you enjoy reading the blog, please do pop over an give it a like! I'm sure I'll be using it to ask questions etc in relation to the marathon!