OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 012
STORY NUMBER: 003
TRANSMITTED: 08 February 1964
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD - The Beginning Boxset
Oh the Edge of Destruction is an oddity. We start with an explosion while the Tardis is in flight that knocks out the crew, and affects their memory.
"His heart seems alright" - heart, singular at this stage.
The doors of the Tardis are open, the teachers think the Tardis has crashed but Susan thinks there's an intruder in the ship as the doors open and close of their own accord. Susan touches the console and faints.
"What's going on here?" asks Ian. Yeah,I'm thinking the same thing!
He carries Susan to another room in the Tardis. When she wakes up she attacks Ian with scissors and ends up knifing the bed with them. The Doctor believes the Tardis has landed somewhere but doesn't think anything's got in. The Doctor needs help with the Fault Locator. Now Susan's threatening Barbara with scissors, Susan reckons the intruder might be hiding in one of them and goes crazy when she finds out that the Doctor wants to turn the scanner on. The scanner shows an English country scene but opening the doors reveals a weird howling noise. It then shows places the Doctor & Susan visited before coming to Earth,images pulled from the Tardis memory bank, before flaring white. The Doctor accuses the teachers of sabotage but Barbara responds by reminding the Doctor that he owes them from their previous stories and has put them in danger before being scared by the clock in the console room that's been melted. The Doctor serves drinks (!) saying they need time to think.
"Doctor, very strange things are happening" Ian again. You're not wrong, Heavens knows what 60 children would have been thinking....
Eerie music again, as the Doctor wanders the Tardis at night. I've heard this in other Doctor Who stories but can't think what it is. (I asked on the InterWeb: apparently it's Anaesthesia by Eric Siday) Pausing at the console he is seized by the throat by an unseen assailant.
No, I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue what was going on in that episode! If that episode made sense to you then let me know.
I find that both episodes of this story are best watched in what I call the "Sapphire and Steel" frame of mind - accepting that strange things are happening and that what connects them may not be logic as we know it. I sometimes think I enjoy it on a level of an acting exercise as much as anything else.
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