046 The Dalek Invasion of Earth Part 1: World's End

EPISODE: The Dalek Invasion of Earth Part 1: World's End
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 046
STORY NUMBER: 010
TRANSMITTED: 21 November 1964
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Dalek Invasion Of Earth

We're back on DVD as we will be for all the remaining stories this season, bar the missing 2 parts of the Crusade.

We open with a human wearing a silver helmet walking off some steps into a river. Shortly afterwards the Tardis materialises where he had been. Ian & Barbara are pleased to be back on earth. The area is deserted and overgrown: Ian wonders if it's a Sunday. Susan climbs up to get a better view, but falls and twists her ankle. She has disturbed decaying masonry which causes the bridge they're standing under to collapse, burying the Tardis. The Doctor is worried that they might not be in Ian & Barbara's time: There's no sound, birdsong, people, shipping on the river, no clock bells. Susan is struggling to walk so the Doctor & Ian leave her with Barbara while they go to visit a nearby warehouse in search of cutting gear to get through the rubble into the Tardis. Barbara finds a sign on the bridge wall: Emergency Regulations: It is forbidden to dump bodies in the river. Ian & the Doctor are being watched as they move round the musty warehouse. Looking out of the window Ian notices that Battersea Power station lies derelict and missing two of it's four chimneys. The Doctor finds a callender dated 2164. While fetching water to bathe Susan's ankle Barbara sees a body in the river. Returning quickly to Susan she finds her gone. A man is waiting for her and tells her Susan is with someone called Tyler. He tells her, over the sound of Gunfire that they must get out of there. The Doctor & Ian hear the gunfire too: they also find a body with the same strange head gear we saw earlier. The Doctor thinks the head gear is some kind of radio receiver. The dead man is carrying a whip and had been stabbed. They hear movement and investigate, but Ian is nearly killed when he steps out of a door and the stairway under him collapses. Their observer emerges from hiding. Susan, being carried, and Barbara race through London finding shelter in an old Underground station. The Doctor & Ian observe a flying saucer over London. Susan is worried about the Doctor: their rescuer, Tyler, says they will try to help them. Returning to the Tardis landing site Ian & the Doctor discover Barbara and Susan gone. Tyler's friend, David, has struggled with a Roboman at their storehouse. It was David who saw the Doctor & Ian and is going to go and help them. They meet Dortman, confined to a wheelchair, who has heard that a saucer has landed and plans to attack it. Ian finds the poster Barbara saw earlier and thinks there may have been a plague. David, returning to the waterfront, spots the Doctor & Ian but is unable to get to them as Robomen approach and surround the two men. Unable to escape they turn and prepare to dive into the water. But as they do a familiar shape slowly emerges: A Dalek!

Fantastic episode. A great atmosphere with the deserted London scenes helped no end by some location filming, this time involving the whole cast. The reproduction of the location bridge set, in reality the Underground railway bridge in Kew, is superb. I like the look of the Robomen with their helmets, featuring a silver skull cap and bars down the sides of the head being reminiscent of the Cybermen design, at this point nearly two years in the future.

This story has a great number of firsts for Doctor Who: I'm going to look at at least one per episode. Here I've chosen the end of episode 1 and the shock reveal of the Dalek. This starts a trend for Doctor Who stories where the close of the first episode of a Dalek story reveals a Dalek in some form. Here they rise up out the sea, in The Chase they emerge from the sand. The Dalek Masterplan finds them emerging from behind the Tardis, in Power of the Daleks they are found immobilised in their spaceship while in Evil one materialises in the antiques shop. Day of the Daleks features a Dalek materialising again, this time in a tunnel, while Planet has the "spray painting an invisible Dalek" sequence. In Death they emerge from their spaceship and fire their weapons (the trick here being the weapons are discovered to be useless at the start of the next episode). The end of Genesis part 1 shows Davros testing his creation while Destiny's Daleks crashing through a wall terrified me as a child. Resurrection & Revelation don't have the typical episode structure, but Revelation has a Dalek emerging out the darkness and chasing the Doctor up a staircase. Not all of these are the Daleks' introduction to the story, in several of them we or the Doctor have already seen them. But they all have a big dramatic impact in their reveal of the Daleks.

045 Planet of Giants Part 3: Crisis

EPISODE: Planet of Giants Part 3: Crisis
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 045
STORY NUMBER: 009
TRANSMITTED: 14 November 1964
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield (and Mervyn Pinfield uncredited)
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who - Planet Of Giants

The Doctor & Susan shelter in the overflow pipe avoiding the water and climb up through the plug to be reunited with Ian & Barbara. Forrester calls the phone exchange, speaking to operator Hilda Rowse, to make a call to Whitehall. He imitates Farrow's voice and tells the Ministry that DN6 is good stuff, but Hilda is suspicious as she doesn't think it's Farrow on the phone. The travellers find the formula for DN6 and realises the dangers involved if it was used and got into the food chain. Barbara isn't feeling well. The travellers plan to make use of the phone and go to a great deal of trouble to lift the receiver. The phone rings at the exchange but Hilda can't hear them at the other end. Barbara collapses: she touched the insecticide and has been overcome, but the Doctor is confident she will recover if they return to the ship so she can be treated. Forrester is irritated the phone isn't working, Smithers thinks the one in the lab may be off the hook and leaves to reset it and look at Farrow's notes. When the receiver is replaced Hilda rings on the pretext of putting a call through. Now certain that Farrow isn't the man on the phone she sends her Husband PC Bert Rowse to investigate. The travellers decide to start a fire to attract the attention of the authorities using matches & a bunsen burner gas tap. Smithers realkises how deadly DN6 is and rebels against Forrester. The gas tap projects it's flame onto some insecticide which explodes into Forrester's face as Bert arrives to take them both in for questioning. The travellers return to the Tardis which dematerialises and they return to their correct height and Barbara recovers.

Yeah better than part 2, but oddly disjointed in places. However there's a reason for that.....

Planet of Giants 3 has a somewhat odd history. Originally Planet of Giants was meant to be a FOUR part story, with the first three episodes (Planet of Giants, Dangerous Journey & Crisis) directed by the experienced Mervyn Pinfield while the fourth (Urge to Live) was a debut for Douglas Camfield. However when Head of Drama Sydney Newman viewed them he found them too slow and ordered them spliced together to make a faster paced episode, but cutting large parts of Bert & Hilda's roles. Because this episode of Doctor Who required much editing to put it together it was transmitted from film, at the time a more easily edited media, rather than the usual videotape. As such this episode wasn't subjected to the vidfire technique when released on video. Pinfield receives no credit on the finished episode, but since the original versions no longer exist and the scripts aren't in the public domain it's hard to say what material in the broadcast version is from which of the two produced episodes. At 26m35s it's the longest episode of Doctor Who broadcast to date, just beating Marco Polo 2: The Singing Sands. I thought the early Hartnell episodes tended towards 22/23 minutes a piece but quick trawl through the timings reveals that several episodes in the first season topped the 25 minutes slot allocated for the program.

This then created a one episode gap in the number of required episodes, a problem that was solved by creating a one episode prelude to The Dalek's Masterplan, Mission to the Unknown, which was filmed without the regular cast at the end of the second recording block using the same crew as Galaxy Four.

As we've previously mentioned this episode marks the directorial debut of Douglas Camfield, previously a production assistant on An Unearthly Child & Marco Polo. He would go on to direct (deep breath) The Crusade, The Time Meddler, The Dalek Masterplan, The Web of Fear, The Invasion, Inferno (or most of it - he suffered a heart attack while working on this story), Terror of the Zygons and Seeds of Doom. He worked on many series outside of Doctor Who including The Sweeney, The Professionals & the BBC Classic series, headed by Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks. He died on 27th January 1984 from another heart attack.

And here we bid adieu to the Video recorder. It will be back before the Hartnell era is out for the Gunfighters & The Tenth Planet. But apart from 2 episodes on CD we'll be spending the rest of Season 2 on DVD.

044 Planet of Giants Part 2: Dangerous Journey

EPISODE: Planet of Giants Part 2: Dangerous Journey
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 044
STORY NUMBER: 009
TRANSMITTED: 07 November 1964
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who - Planet Of Giants

The travellers keep still and the cat looses interest and wanders off. They see a figure approaching and hide, Ian & Barbara in Farrow's brief case. Forrester lies to his colleague, the scientist Smithers, about Farrow's death: Smithers sees through the story. Forrester decides to fake an accident on Farrow's planned holiday so that Smithers' experiment can continue and Forrester can make his money. The briefcase is put in the lab where Ian & Barbara escape. They find wheat seeds in the house which Ian believes have been sprayed with insecticide. The Doctor and Susan climb up inside a drain pipe to get access to the house. While Ian tries to escape from the table top they're on Barbara is menaced by an wasp and faints. The Doctor & Susan enter the lab through the plug hole in the sink. The wasp flies away, lands on the wheat and dies instantly. Susan yells and Ian & Barbara hear them and reply. Ian & Barbara go to climb down to the sink but Forrester & Smithers come into the lab causing The Doctor & Susan to hide in the plughole. Forrester is going to amend Farrow's report. Smithers washes his hands, pulling the plug out unleashing a torrent of water....

Hmm. Great model & set work again, but a little slow moving compared to the first episode.

The "Tardis in a land of giants" idea had been thrown around since the earliest day of Doctor Who when CE Webber proposed it as an idea for the first story following on from the opening episode. The idea passed through a number of hands before it was finally written as the debut script by Louis Marks (not to be confused with Louis Marx, the manufacturer of Dalek toys in the sixties!) Marks would return to the show to write a number of stories for Jon Pertwee & Tom Baker in the Seventies. Why then team were so keen on the giants idea I don't know,perhaps one of them was a big fan of Gulliver's travels. Two of the most obvious possible influences Irwin Allen's TV show Land of the Giants (first broadcast September 1968) and the film Fantastic Voyage, released August 1966 are some way in the future at this point.

Planet of Giants was the last of the William Hartnell stories to be novelised, finally appearing in print in 1990 over 25 years since it's original transmission and was the penultimate novelisation written by Terrance Dicks.

043 Planet of Giants Part 1: Planet of Giants

EPISODE: Planet of Giants Part 1: Planet of Giants
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 043
STORY NUMBER: 009
TRANSMITTED: 31 October 1964
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who - Planet Of Giants


And welcome to Doctor Who, series 2, resuming seven weeks after the close of the first series.

The Tardis is in flight and approaching a planet when Barbara burns her hand on the console. The doors open midflight causing an alarm to sound, wrestling with the controls the Doctor lands the Tardis. The Fault Locator, always a tricky one for Hartnell to pronounce, indicates no problem, but the scanner shatters when turned on. They leave the Tardis to see what has happened. The Doctor says the space pressure was too great forcing the doors to open..... The rock formations outside are odd. Barbara encounters a huge dead snake which interests the Doctor, while Ian and Susan find giant eggs and a dead giant ant. The Doctor & Barbara note that the rock formations form a maze like the surface of a brain. Ian encounters a huge poster in English: he realises they're on Earth and wonders if they're in an exhibition of giant sized objects. The Doctor is nearly crushed by a giant match stick and realises what has happened. Ian & Susan find a giant match box,convincing him they're in an exhibition but Susan believes differently: They've been shrunk! The camera pulls back from the Tardis to reveal it in the crazy paving of a garden path! It goes black and a thunderous noise is heard. Susan runs away while Ian hides in the match box:a huge figure bends down and picks it up. The Doctor scales the wall and sees where they are. The man who owns the matchbox, Arnold Farrow, is a government scientist here to see the businessman owner of the house, Forrester, who is developing a new pesticide DN6. Farrow has come to refuse Forrester a licence to produce DN6. Forrester isn't happy, having ploughed all his money into DN6. He threatens Farrow with a gun. The Doctor, Susan & Barbara are menaced by a bee which dies, they smell something odd on the insect. There's a HUGE explosion to their ears: Farrow is dead shot by Forrester. Ian is reunited with the others and takes them to Farrow's body. The Doctor wants to return to the ship but their way is blocked by Forrester's cat, giant sized compared to them.

Good start to the season, with some great model & effects work producing the giant items and putting the minute Ian in front of Farrow's face. Mervyn Pinfield, the shows associate producer, is in the Director's chair for the first couple of episodes and he was renowned for being good with advanced technical matters.

Even though the Tardis crew are shrunken in size this is their first return to present day (for them) Earth!

This episode marks the debut of composer Dudley Simpson on Doctor Who. He would work regularly as the show's composer eventually composing most of the scores to Jon Pertwee & Tom Baker's stories to the end of Baker's penultimate season.
The VHS release of this story marks the debut of the VIDFire process. In simple terms: Video (in the UK at least) is 50 Frames Per Second (fps) and film is 25fps. When Doctor Who was transferred to film for overseas sale half the frames were lost resulting in a less fluid picture flow. VIDFire interpolates the missing film frames from the existing ones using computer software. It works something like if an object is here in this frame, and there in the next, then in an in between Frame it would have moved half the distance.

042 The Reign of Terror Part 6: Prisoners of Conciergerie

EPISODE: The Reign of Terror Part 6: Prisoners of Conciergerie
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 042
STORY NUMBER: 008
TRANSMITTED: 12 September 1964
WRITER: Dennis Spooner
DIRECTOR: Henric Hirsch
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who - The Reign Of Terror

LeMaitre tells Jules & the Tardis travellers that he arranged Ian's release: he is James Stirling. He promises no harm will come to Susan but wants their assistance. Ian passes the message from Webster on to him and tells him to return to England. Robespierre has ordered Lemaitre/Stirling to follow a Paul Barras: Ian recognises the name: Webster had mentioned the name in conjunction with a meeting at the Sinking Ship, which is an Inn on the Calais road. Ian & Barbara, along with Jules, agree to attend the meeting for Stirling and obtain the information. They lock the Inn Keeper in the cellar and substitute for him. Barras arrives, wondering where the Inn Keeper is but Ian tells him that he's sick. He is expecting one guest for the meeting. The guest arrives after the inn empties, he and Barras meet in the back room. The guest is General Napoleon Bonaparte. They discuss arresting Robespierre at the meeting the next day and using Bonaparte as a leader. Bonaparte accepts Barras' plan. Ian & Barbara pass the information to an astonished Stirling and The Doctor & Barbara go to rescue Ian while Stirling & Ian go to warn Robespierre. Soldiers have come to arrest Robespierre who is shot & wounded trying to escape: Ian & Stirling have arrived too late and history takes its course as The Doctor & Barbara knew it would. The Doctor confronts the perpetually intoxicated jailer spinning him a story which he falls for, again, claiming that LeMaitre was shot in the removal of Robespierre and was in league with the Jailer He has the jailer seized by his own guards and coerces him into releasing Susan to him. The Doctor sees Robespierre being delivered to the prison. Ian tells Jules that Bonaparte will be the next ruler of France. The travellers escape Paris together, leaving Stirling & Jules speculating where they are bound for. They return to the TARDIS and depart Earth. The Doctor tells Ian that he feels their destiny is in the stars as the picture fades to a starry sky.

Another cracking episode this, neatly rounding off the story and resolving all the outstanding plot points. Dennis Spooner's experience & talent in writing for Television is obvious here, and Hartnell has obviously risen to the script and the opportunity for comedy presented to him with the chain gang master and the drunkard jailer. An Unearthly Child remains my favourite episode this season but I think Reign of Terror may be my favourite story.

Reign of Terror marks the close of Doctor Who's first season. 33 of it's 42 episodes still exist for us to watch. By the time the series ended it was an obvious success. But the Doctor Who team didn't stop filming here, two more stories were filmed for the start of to the next series. One was an idea that had been on the table since day 1 of the series, and indeed had originally been intended to launch Doctor Who. The other would bring back a favourite villain from the first year of Doctor Who and in the process change the show forever.

I had it in my head that the first season was the longest in Doctor Who's history: It isn't:

Series 1: 42 Episodes 9 Missing 33 remaining
Series 2: 39 Episodes 2 Missing 37 remaining
Series 3: 45 Episodes 29 Missing 16 remaining
Series 4: 43 Episodes 34 Missing 9 remaining
Series 5: 40 Episodes 27 Missing 13 remaining
Series 6: 44 Episodes 7 Missing 37 remaining

It's the fourth longest behind Series 3, 6 & 4.

Season 7 onwards has a drastic reduction in the number of episodes. It's also the point where the series starts to be made in colour and from where we have all the episodes.

On the missing episodes front, Season 1 is missing just 9 episodes, behind the 7 of Season 6 and just 2 of series 2.

Episode 6 of the Reign of Terror was missing from the archives but was recovered from a film collector by Ian Levine & collector Bruce Campbell in May 1982. Some years later a second copy of episode 6, along with the then missing episodes 1-3, was recovered from a TV station in Cyprus... following which the film collector made contact again because he was now in possession of episode three. So although six episodes of the Reign of Terror have been returned to the BBC, sadly two of these are duplicates and two episodes - four and five - remain missing to this day.

041 The Reign of Terror Part 5: A Bargain of Necessity

EPISODE: The Reign of Terror Part 5: A Bargain of Necessity
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 041
STORY NUMBER: 008
TRANSMITTED: 05 September 1964
WRITER: Dennis Spooner
DIRECTOR: Henric Hirsch
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Collection: (1964-1965) No. 1


Léon Colbert wants information on Jules' organisation. He is the traitor that Jules suspected. Barbara and the Doctor are still be eavesdropped on by Lemaitre, but he's summoned away by the jailer. Lemaitre orders Susan is kept locked in her cell, but the Doctor has a plan to rescue her. He convinces the jailer to release Barbara supposedly so that she can be followed to her friends. Jules returns home to find an empty house. Leon is searching for James Stirling and believes Ian can lead him to him. Ian tells Leon his story but he doesn't believe him. Jules arrives and rescues Ian, killing Leon Colbert. The Doctor tells Susan he is there and then blames the Jailer for Barbara's escape. Robespierre & Lemaitre discuss a forthcoming meeting: Robespierre is paranoid that people are plotting against him. Barbara & Ian are reunited at Jules house. Ian tells how Colbert betrayed him. The Doctor knocks the jailer out and free Susan but they're intercepted by Lemaitre. Susan is returned to the cell while Lemaitre is interviewed by Lemaitre who shows the Doctor his ring that he used to bargain for the clothes. Lemaitre wants the Doctor to assist him, he is trying to contact Jules Renan and in return he will arrange Susan's release. The Doctor arrives at Renan's house with Lemaitre: Jules is immediately convinced the Doctor has betrayed them!

Still good, enjoying this story.

The Doctor spends most of this story dressed up as a French Official starting a trend of the Doctor disguising himself or being mistaken for someone else that continues through the series. Other examples include Hartnell being mistaken for Zeus in the Myth Makers and Jimmy Saville in the War Machines, Troughton pretending to be the German Doctor Von Wer and an Old Crone in the Highlanders, a gypsy Sooth sayer in the Underwater Menace plus his double Salamander in Enemy of the World, Pertwee as a medical Doctor in Spearhead form Space and a cleaning lady & Milkman in the Green Death and Tom Baker as a guard in Genesis of the Daleks & Masque of Mandragora plus as a masked clone in the Leisure Hive. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

040 The Reign of Terror Part 4: The Tyrant of France

EPISODE: The Reign of Terror Part 4: The Tyrant of France
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 040
STORY NUMBER: 008
TRANSMITTED: 29 August 1964
WRITER: Dennis Spooner
DIRECTOR: Henric Hirsch
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Collection: (1964-1965) No. 1


We start the new year by switchin media mid story for the first time: Film prints of the next two episodes are still missing from the BBC archives so I'm listening on CD.

The Doctor is escorted by Citizen Lemaitre to the palace used by First Deputy Robspierre, the third actual historical figure to appear in Doctor Who after Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. He and the Doctor discuss Paris and the revolution. Susan is being looked after in Jules house, his servant Danielle brings Susan a glass of Brandy to warm her. Danielle is a little antagonistic to the visitors, but Barbara is getting on fine with Léon Colbert who goes to seek Jules & Jean. After everyone has gone to bed Jules & Jean arrive home bearing an unconscious body: they have captured someone. The Doctor & Lemaitre return to the prison where Lemaitre convinces the Doctor to stay the night and to see Robspierre again tomorrow. Lemaitre meets the tailor and is shown the ring. Trying to leave the Doctor is threatened at gunpoint by the jailer and made to stay. The tailor tells Lemaitre what has happened and how the Doctor obtained the clothes & paper. Barbara discovers the man brought to the house is Ian and is pleased to be reunited. Ian discovers Jules is Jules Renan who Webster told him to contact - he passes the message about James Stirling on but Jules doesn't know who he is. Jean will go to the house in the country to seek the Doctor. Barbara will accompany Susan to the physician while Ian meets a colleague of Jules. She is diagnosed with a feverish chill, but the physician is suspicious of her and locks them in his office while he goes to the prison and summons the jailer & his guards, who re-arrest the women. Ian worries about them so Jules goes to fetch them. At the prison Susan is flung in a cell while Barbara is taken to be interrogated by the visiting regional office - the Doctor. But their conversation is overheard by Lemaitre. Ian is ambushed at his meeting by Léon Colbert and some soldiers.

Less of the Doctor in this one and flatter as a result. I suspect it would be better with visuals.

This is the first story that the Doctor visits Paris in, but he'd be back several times making Paris the Doctor's second most visited place on Earth. He would return in The Massacre, set in 1572 as opposed to Reign of Terror's 1794, but a few years later for the Doctor. At some point he meets Napoleon, also presumably in Paris. He returns to Paris in 1979 to foil the plot of Scaroth, the last of the Jagaroth in City of Death and has various visits from 1727 onwards during the course of the new series story The Girl in the Fireplace.

As discussed under episode 1, the Cyprus copies of episodes 4 & 5, as well as their duplicate of The Aztecs 2, were destroyed when the Cypriot National Film Archive was shelled in the 1974 coup. Episodes 1-3 & 6 survived and were returned to the BBC. To bridge the missing episodes on video narration was recorded by Carol Anne Ford.