Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (61 page)

But I think that may be the fatal flaw in this adventure. I’ve admired it because it’s been bold, and tonally so different. But it’s rather reduced the Doctor; in the last story, he was needed because of his ingenuity and his diplomacy, and here it’s because he accidentally looks like somebody else. At the end of the day, that’s what feels wrong about that final TARDIS scene, where Salamander and the Doctor meet face to face. It ought to be a confrontation of nemeses – in fact, it’s just one famous world celebrity encountering someone who could have done a turn at parties as a lookalike. The one really dramatic moment for the Doctor is the way he fools Giles Kent – and indeed us – into thinking he’s Salamander in the research room. But once Kent has been exposed, he runs away to meet his
real
enemy in a pretty sadistic scene where Salamander delights in chasing him through tunnels and shooting him dead. It’s horrible, but strangely uninvolving – it has nothing to do with the Doctor any more.

In the final moments, then, we have a telesnap of Troughton standing over Troughton, one telling the other that he’ll make him leave the TARDIS and face the judgment of the people he’s wronged. That seems right and fitting, after a story in which the Doctor has shown so much horror towards the casual violence and the needless death... and then Salamander dies anyway, because he gets sucked out into space. The whole sequence feels odd and strangely tacked on, as if the production team realised there ought to be one moment where the two Troughtons squared off. (Even though it makes no sense – why would Salamander know about the TARDIS?) And once you’ve got them together, with all that clever split screen stuff... they’ve really nothing to say to each other.

T:
Strictly speaking, Astrid made that promise to the
dead
Swann, so that’s
two
reasons why it’d be churlish of him to be disappointed if she doesn’t succeed. It’s also quite funny that Astrid decides that Colin and Mary must be the leaders of the bunker-people now that Swann has perished, when it was previously established that they’re the youngest of those present. Perhaps by “leaders”, Astrid meant, “the only ones alive who aren’t extras”.

Even so, good for Astrid – there’s a real determination about her, and her resolute desire to do some good rubs off on Bruce. This whole story has offered a fairly grim vision of the future – complete with jack-booted guards, political machinations and kinky security chiefs – so it’s proper that the pair of them offer a glimmer of hope and humanity. This, despite Bruce displaying some of his earlier unpleasantness – but this time it’s okay, apparently, because it’s aimed at Benik. Fortunately, nothing is quite black and white in a Whitaker script, meaning that Benik gets all mimsy when asking for a fair trial, like the sulky little child he is. Good, it would have been too easy for his opponents to have just shot him, rather than going to the effort of properly bringing him to justice and watching him squirm in the witness box.

Everything is heading, though, towards an ending where Troughton has to flip between playing the Doctor, Salamander, the Doctor-as-Salamander and Salamander-as-the-Doctor. He seems deliberately off, just a bit, when the Doctor imitates Salamander (though as the real deal he’s especially grave, serious and menacing in his face-off with Giles Kent in the caves). And I really like how the Doctor uses this to expose Kent’s schemes, as well as his assertion that anyone who resorts to murder so easily is a suspect in his eyes. Yes, I do like it, even if the scripting for previous episodes doesn’t exactly sell Kent’s eventual treachery as a twist worthy of The Usual Suspects.

And it seems that, with this episode gone from the archives, we’re cursed to wonder that the Doctor-Salamander showdown – requiring two Troughtons in the same scene – would have been like. The telesnaps aren’t especially telling, but prove so tantalising that this is one of the top scenes I’d really like to turn up one day. It must have been great seeing the two characters in shot at the same time, and Salamander sucked into the void, even if it’s all so abrupt that it doesn’t really come across as a proper conclusion to the adventure at all. And isn’t it typical that, after five weeks of rather low-key cliffhangers, we finally get one involving a bit of good old-fashioned action and jeopardy – and it comes at the end of the bloody story!

The Web of Fear episode one

R:
There is, as you say, a certain frustration with the snapshot-information that the telesnaps convey. For instance, as this episode exists on video, we can see that Patrick Troughton is wearing a plaster on his face! What happened in The Enemy of the World that I missed? Did Astrid claw him with her fingernails, did Giles Kent bite him, what? I know I could look it up. But I’d much rather, Toby, if you provided the answer. (Just watch, readers – Toby will know. He knows everything.)

It’s hard to talk about this episode objectively. It’s one of my favourites. It was my very first introduction to Patrick Troughton’s Doctor, and I saw it at a small convention in 1982. I didn’t know why it opened with everyone on the floor of the TARDIS (nor, of course, about that sticking plaster), and it didn’t matter – I was mesmerised. And it made me fall utterly in love with the second Doctor (he’s
my
Doctor, I might as well admit it, can you tell?). Over the years, I’ve seen it more times than I can tell you. And just as you think of Terence de Marney from The Smugglers whenever you stand on a London underground platform, Toby, I hear Troughton’s warning to Frazer Hines about the live rails in my head. “Electrified! Braunched! Burned up!” (“Braunched”? What on earth does “braunched” mean? Like the sticking plaster, I never bothered to inquire. You can see that The Web of Fear did nothing for my curiosity.)

So I don’t want to spoil this one by analysing it too closely. There are another five episodes to go that I’m barely familiar with; I’ll put my attention onto those. I’ll just say before going that I love it in part because it’s so
funny.
We haven’t had much comedy in Doctor Who for ages, and the regular cast delight in it here – it’s not that there are many jokes in the script, but simply in the rapport between Troughton, Hines and Watling. No other Doctor can make eating a sandwich look as amusing as Patrick Troughton. It gives me pause to wonder, of course, whether they are
always
this funny, and the soundtrack alone doesn’t reveal it. That may well be true, and if so, it makes me yearn for the episodes to be returned all the more. (Maybe
that’s
how he got the sticking plaster, some hilarious bit of shtick whilst confronting Salamander.) But for the time being, I’ll always have this orphaned episode to compensate me – the weary disdain with which Jamie drops the Doctor’s gizmo when he’s told it does nothing, the delight when the Doctor thinks that he’s being teased about the flashing light, Victoria’s disappointment when Jamie doesn’t bother to tell her that her clothes look sophisticated. Three of the very best of the Doctor Who regulars having fun.

T:
I think we’re in for a bit of a love-in here, Rob – The Web of Fear was your first Troughton, but it was my first exposure to “old Doctor Who” full stop, being the first Target novel I ever read. My copy still has a yellowed page from where it was left open on the back windowsill of a family friend’s car, and wasn’t returned to me for an agonising month and a half. I was later a bit disappointed when I first
saw
this episode, as it spent the initial few minutes rounding off the previous week’s tale – “Come on!”, I thought, “There are only 25 minutes remaining of The Web of Fear! I want to watch that, especially as I’ve just seen The Enemy of the World episode three!” (Remember my first bootleg tape?) With hindsight, I realise I was wrong – if nothing else, the opening provides some excellent “tilting spaceship” acting from Frazer Hines, even if the whole “TARDIS door not automatically shutting when the Ship is in flight” business strikes me as a bit of a design flaw.

But it’s probably no exaggeration to say that this is the Doctor Who story by which I judge all Doctor Who stories, simply because the book made such an indelible impression on me, and got me started on the entire wonderful range of novelisations before I even conceived of being able to actually watch the old episodes themselves. I predominantly envisage this story as being about soldiers charging about and having pitched battles with Yeti, but this first episode is more spooky horror film than action/adventure. The scenes in Silverstein’s museum – made on film and directed by Douglas Camfield – are terrifically gloomy and shadowy. That rumbling, ominous music is incredible, and the flickering light, which gradually dissipates thanks to the candles being blown out, is very moody and evocative. It’s a bit odd that the programme-makers actually show the Yeti transform on screen – redesigns in this series are frequent and easily glossed over – and do you know, I think I actually preferred the previous Yeti; the big, glowy eyes of the new ones are a tad obvious, and the nose a wee bit beaky for my liking. Who cares, though? This is chilling, atmospheric stuff of the highest order.

And the scene where the regulars emerge from the TARDIS is very familiar to me, because not long after I got a video recorder, The South Bank Show did a film about depictions of the London Underground in popular culture. Lo and behold, the first clip featured was this sequence, and every time I’m on a Tube, I manage to banish Terence de Marney from my thoughts when we go past Covent Garden. Or, as the Doctor’s words echo around my head: “Co-vent Gaaarden – oh yes of course, it’s an Underground Station, we’re standing on the platform.” And I’m so familiar with this sequence that I take for granted David Myerscough-Jones’ absolutely astonishing set design; it’s not hyperbole to say that it looks like the real thing.

Talking of clips, I was very irritated when the Resistance is Useless documentary showed the bit of Captain Knight behaving like a prat to Professor Travers’ daughter, Anne, as proof of the programme’s sexist mores – did they not notice that the scene in full is actually a repudiation of boorish misogyny? You can prove anything if (pardon the phrasing) you doctor your evidence. And the scenes with the military, curiously enough, yield what I would judge as The Most Pointless Speaking Part in Doctor Who History – a title I bestow upon the soldier (played by Bernard G High) whose sole contribution to the illustrious history of Doctor Who is to be asked to help with some cable, and whinge “Oh, but Staff, I’m on this other job...” before being made to do it anyway. Couldn’t the producers have saved themselves a few quid, and just got an extra to nod a bit? Or re-used High as the soldier who gets killed next week?

All in all, I just love how much of this feels like real, bare bones, 100% proof Doctor Who – it’s got tooled-up soldiers, famous landmarks augmented by an alien presence, and (look!) a dead, cobweb-covered old man with a screaming, terrified newsstand headline by his corpse. And before I forget, Rob – you’ll want to know that Troughton has the sticking plaster on at the end of The Enemy of the World, so it’s probably as a result of the building collapsing after the explosion. Alas, I’ve no idea what “braunched” means either – nor does Bill Gates, if the red squiggle currently nestling underneath it on my laptop screen is anything to go by.

April 8th

The Web of Fear episode two

R:
This is ridiculous. But then it knows that. I’m not sure there’s yet been an episode of Doctor Who which so glories in the ludicrousness of its premise. Yeti in Tibet who kill their victims with sheer brute strength makes a certain kind of sense. Yeti, in the
London Underground
, killing their victims with
cobweb guns
feels like it might just be a joke. (It’s funny enough to imagine the Yeti holding any sort of gun, really – it’d be like taking a cheetah and giving it a fast car, or a wasp that doesn’t sting its victims but instead drops masonry on them... oh, hang on, they’ll do that last one, won’t they?) The episode doesn’t hide any of this, which is why there’s that wonderful scene where the two soldiers sneer at the Tibet story, and speculate that the Yeti might be some bio-weapon used by a foreign power. And it’s emphasised all the further by the way that Anne Travers mocks the idea of the TARDIS flying through time and space, or by the fact that the Doctor turning up every single time there’s trouble
must
logically make him suspicious. When you’ve got that terrific sequence where a character we only met a few months ago is back again, but this time 40 years older and made up to be an old man – and we’re invited to see it from the young companions’ perspective, that Professor Travers is the one to whom something bizarre has happened – then you know that the story is wittily turning Doctor Who conventions on its head. Yes, we had a monster called the Yeti, and they were in the Himalayas. And now for their sequel... modern-day London. Why not?

It’s all the more uneasy because the one character that glues all the silliness together and makes it always look halfway acceptable is absent. This is the very first time Patrick Troughton has taken a holiday mid-story, and you can easily appreciate it’s about time he was given a break. It has an interesting effect on the episode, though, making it seem much more uneasy and off-kilter. It’s not hard to understand why everyone is so sceptical about the Doctor, and why everyone naturally assumes he must be a saboteur – in the atmosphere of paranoia, he does seem the most obvious culprit. Over the next few episodes, everybody is going to look guilty, of course, in fine Agatha Christie-like style – and so it’s rather glorious they kick off the intrigue by having all the cast first suspect the missing Hercule Poirot. I’ve read many reviews of The Web of Fear which suggest that it’s all just another formulaic base-under-siege story, but I think that’s because it sets up a template which will become very familiar over the next few years. On its own terms, this does odd, brave things. For a start, setting a contemporary story against a recognisable London backdrop
after
the events of an invasion is something we’ve never seen before. There’s no threat to be averted at the last minute, no distant future Earth wiped out to soften the blow. And then it offers itself as a direct sequel, so that we can return to characters aged by decades – the closest we’ve ever been to this sort of thing before was in The Ark, and everybody fell over themselves congratulating it upon the twist of making the second half a future comment upon the first. But that story didn’t have the wit to use the younger Guardians now played as old men, and it didn’t dare stick a couple of different adventures in the middle to give the return greater impact.

T:
(Before people write in, I should mention that Troughton
has
taken a holiday before, in The Evil of the Daleks episode four, but that included some pre-filmed scenes with him and a Dalek, so the Doctor was still in the episode. It’s more noticeable here, when he’s totally absent. And before anyone can ask, no – source of trivia that I am, I still don’t know what “braunched” means.)

It’s interesting to hear you outline how ridiculous this seems in concept, Rob – you’re absolutely right, but it never struck me as odd before, chiefly because Yeti skulking about the Underground with web guns seemed perfectly acceptable and normal when I was young, so I never really questioned it. And the
other
reason that this still doesn’t seem all that bonkers is because Douglas Camfield depicts events as unfailingly grim and down-to-earth. No funky technological hi-jinks from him, thank you very much, it’s hard-nosed drama all the way. So, there are horrible death screams down the end of a phone line, which seem all the more terrifying because our own imagination pictures the slaughter and carnage. This adventure really has hit the ground running – I mean, we’re only in episode two, and already the soldiers are undergoing a rearguard action while engaging in pitched battles riddled with casualties.

But I can’t help but fixate on that clever moment when Sergeant Arnold says he doesn’t think the Doctor has been slain by the Yeti; when asked why he thinks that, he says it’s “a hunch”. Now, this technically this isn’t one of those daft moments where the traitor gives himself away, because the audience don’t know there
is
a traitor to identify yet. It’s just a little seed, probably one that’ll be forgotten in four weeks’ time when this character’s duplicity is revealed. Sadly, I have always known the traitor’s identity in advance – as I got near to end of the novelisation, I gave my brother (who had already read it) a rundown of where I was in the book, and he said, “Hmm, I won’t give anything away, but you know how you said Sergeant Arnold was definitely a good guy...” The fool! He just gave everything away! I was scuttled by spoilers even before the term had been coined!

The Web of Fear episode two (interlude)

T:
Stop me if I’m getting too personal here, but in-between watching these two episodes, I nipped upstairs to the loo, and – as is my wont – dug out a random old Doctor Who Magazine to have a read of whilst (ahem) I was engaged. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant were on the cover, and inside there’s an interview with... you, Rob! When I first read this piece, your Dalek episode hadn’t aired, Moths had not been written, and we’d never met. Here I am reading it again, and I can now hear your voice as – in typically self-deprecating fashion – you confess to mishearing and subsequently misquoting a line from The King’s Demons in a fanzine review. Aww, bless.

The Web of Fear episode three

R:
It’s the Brig!... except, of course, it’s not the Brig at all, he’s calling himself a Colonel, and wearing a funny hat.