013 The Edge of Destruction Part 2: Brink of Disaster

EPISODE: The Edge of Destruction Part 2: Brink of Disaster
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 013
STORY NUMBER: 003
TRANSMITTED: 15 February 1964
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Frank Cox
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD - The Beginning Boxset

Turns out it's Ian trying to strangle the Doctor. Ian faints, the Doctor accuses Ian of faking and that the teachers are plotting against him. Ian yells a warning to not touch the console but the Doctor wants to throw the teachers off the ship. There's a danger signal from the fault locator saying that everything is wrong which the Doctor says means the ship is on the point of disintegration and they're all to blame.....

"we had time taken away from us but now it's given back to us because it's running out" What ????

A white flash, the central column moves and the Doctor announces they have 10 minutes to survive. Barbara thinks they've been getting clues and the Tardis has been warning them all along. More white flashes.

My head is in my hands. This is mad. Viewers must have been turning off in their millions.

Hartnell's raving to camera in a darkened room. It turns out the quick return switch is jammed on because the spring to release it is broken. (Quick return switch labelled in felt tip so Hartnell can find it!)

The Tardis lands somewhere very cold where Susan has found a HUGE footprint...


TWO EPISODES OF MADNESS BECAUSE OF A SPRING BEING STUCK ??????

"You know dear child, I think your old Grandfather is going a tiny bit round the bend!" Me too after having to watch this. Again.

I stuck the documentary on the Beginning DVD on to watch after viewing this episode and the way the people on there are talking they think it's the best thing ever and very clever. I found it a confusing mess. Surely a sensible fault locating system would have said "Stuck Quick Return Switch" instead of instigating the confusion seen here!


Written to fill the gap between the scheduled scripts and the BBC's initial order of 4 episodes this is a cost saving pair of episodes set almost entirely in the expensive Tardis set and just featuring the regular cast.

Please don't make me watch these a fourth time!

Doctor Who on DVD in 2011 - Phil's Ark worries are over!

I've had my eyes on the DVD release dates for 2011 for a bit. I've known The Ark was coming but wasn't sure if it'd be out by the time I got there - currently projected as 9th March. Well this morning the pre-orders went up and I'm safe, I won't have to watch that on VHS again :-)

Here's when the first three releases of 2011 are due:

10th Jan: Meglos

31st Jan: The Mutants

14th Feb: The Ark

Also in the works are Revisitations Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters and Resurrection of the Daleks), Mara Tales (Kinda/Snake Dance), Day of the Daleks, a new Spearhead from Space believed to be in a boxset with Terror of the Autons and the Planet of Spiders.

Revisitations Volume 3 is *believed* to contain Tomb of the Cybermen. Vengeance on Varos (mistake with the production subtitles), Three Doctors (repeated episode ending) and Robots of Death (early release, boring commentary, no documentary) are other good candidates.

012 The Edge of Destruction Part 1: The Edge of Destruction

EPISODE: The Edge of Destruction Part 1: The Edge of Destruction
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.

011 The Daleks Part 7: The Rescue

EPISODE: The Daleks Part 7: The Rescue
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 011
STORY NUMBER: 002
TRANSMITTED: 01 February 1964
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD - The Beginning Boxset


Oh the Thals is attached to Ian by a rope and he's getting pulled in too.... hadn't spotted that. The Thal slices the rope and plunges to his death saving our hero. Ian & Barbara find their way into the city from it's rear entrance while the Doctor tries to bargain the Tardis with the Daleks for not releasing the radiation. The Thals are in the city but we've got a countdown to the Daleks releasing the reactor which gives the episode a sense of tension,leading to an action sequence to save the day with minutes to spare.

"If only there had been some other way"

You feel that the Thals really would want it to be different. Both sides are interested in their survival. The Thals are willing to work with the Daleks, the Daleks don't give a stuff.

At the end of the story, Nation kills his creations off good and proper..... little imagining they'd be back again in a year!

This episode was repeated in Doctor Who night on 13th November 1999. The whole story was repeated 5 April to 9 April 2008 on BBC4 as a tribute to Verity Lambert.

The success of the Dalek story caused the BBC to commission another story, The Keys of Marinus, from Terry Nation very quickly and then a sequel the following year, The Dalek Invasion of Earth. In 1965 the TV version was adapted as a feature film, Doctor Who and the Daleks, which would be many peoples first exposure to this story. Indeed it still turns up on UK television to this day. I'll have a look at the Dalek films when I get an opportunity and do them as bonus features

010 The Daleks Part 6: The Ordeal

EPISODE: The Daleks Part 6: The Ordeal
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 010
STORY NUMBER: 002
TRANSMITTED: 25 January 1964
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD - The Beginning Boxset


The opening sets the peril of the journey quite nicely by having one of the Thals die. The Doctor plots to immobilise Dalek communication & surveillance while an early Dalek scene reminds us they want to construct a Neutron Bomb and imperil the Thals and Tardis crew. Lots of wandering through tunnels. The Doctor & Susan sneak into the city and are captured by Daleks. Oooh, a wide chasm in the floor, I wonder what will happen....The Daleks reveal their new plan to the Doctor: they will open their nuclear reactor and irradiate the atmosphere. Oh look one of the Thals has just fallen down the chasm they've spent 15 minutes trying to cross!

My memory of these last three episodes is that they were long, boring and had very little of the Daleks in it. Well there's more Daleks than I thought but still not a lot. The problem is I can't work up any enthusiasm or distinguish between these Thals. A bunch of identically dressed similar looking blondes. Apparently two of the party in the tunnel are brothers, one of whom has just fallen down the shaft.

Doctor Who & the Daleks has the distinction of being the first Doctor Who story to be novelised. It was initially released in November 1964 as Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks and was written by David Whitaker. In 1965 it was joined by Doctor Who and the Zarbi and in 1966 by Doctor Who & the Crusade. There the Doctor Who book range remained until the rights to these three books were bought by the fledgling Target Books in 1973. Doctor Who and the Daleks was reprinted as the first Target book Doctor Who & The Daleks launching a successful book range that would last over twenty years and novelise all bar five of the Doctor Who stories.

009 The Daleks Part 5: The Expedition

EPISODE: The Daleks Part 5: The Expedition
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 009
STORY NUMBER: 002
TRANSMITTED: 18 January 1964
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD - The Beginning Boxset

The Tardis crew provoke the Thals to fight the Daleks, while the Daleks discover they're allergic to the anti-radiation drugs the Thals have, conclude they need radiation and decide to explode another Neutron bomb. The Tardis crew and the Thals split into two groups to attach the city. Ian & Barbara go with the Thals attacking the Daleks back door via the lake filled with Mutations.

A very talky episode in places,especially earlier on during the debates about if the Thals should fight or not.

There's much more Daleks than I remember in this episode, lovely Dalek Point of View shot as it enters the control room. Earlier in the story they're working to reduce the radiation, have they never realised before that they're dependant on it?

The Daleks were of course a HUGE success and very soon had spawned an entire industry. To this day a significant proportion of the Doctor Who merchandising market centres around Dalek toys. Go to eBay, search on Dalek* and look in the Toys & Games category. When I was growing up in the seventies I had a Dalek toy (Red Palitoy talking Dalek). We've had Daleks that move, Daleks with a friction drive in them, Daleks with swappable parts, big Daleks, small Daleks, Dalek plasysuits and even a Dalek fairground ride!

008 The Daleks Part 4: The Ambush

EPISODE: The Daleks Part 4: The Ambush
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 008
STORY NUMBER: 002
TRANSMITTED: 11 January 1964
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD - The Beginning Boxset


The Tardis crew make their escape with Ian first operating and then trapped in a Dalek casing. Another variant Dalek appears here with a flame cutting device replacing the sucker arm. However the Thals are entering the city,lured by a note the Daleks made Susan write.

"Make no attempt to capture them. They are to be Exterminated!"

Yup, the first appearance of the Daleks catch phrase. The Thals are lured into an ambush where the Thal leader exterminated, the very first Dalek victim. Another first later in the episode: as the Thals relate the history of their war they name their planet as Skaro.

The Doctor wants to leave as soon as possible but they discover the Fluid Link, the component the Doctor removed from the Tardis, has been left in the city. They must go back for it if they want to escape.

A key part of the Daleks is the voice, easily imitated in the playground. The Dalek voice artists in this story and several of their subsequent appearances are Peter Hawkins & David Graham, both of whom you'll have heard in many other places.

Peter Hawkins was the voice artist behind Bill & Ben and Captain Pugwash. He was the first voice of Zippy from Rainbow - this isn't the last time we'll be hearing from Rainbow, and indeed Zippy. He was one of the original Cyberman voices in The Tenth Planet. He provided the voice of Frankie Mouse in the original radio series of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

David Graham is probably most famous for Thunderbirds where he provided the voices of Parker, Brains, Gordon Tracy, and Kyrano. He had voice roles in many other Gerry Anderson series. He has two on screen appearances in Doctor Who, most prominently as the scientist Kerensky in City of Death. My four year old son, however, knows him best as Grandpa Pig in Peppa Pig & The Wise Old Elf in Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom.